Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Kalbos pasaulėvaizdžiu vadinamas pasaulio suvokimas, t.y. subjektyvi objektyviosios realybės daiktų bei reiškinių samprata. Remiantis ta medžiaga, kurią pateikia kalba, galima rekonstruoti kalboje užfiksuotą pasaulio vaizdą. Kiekviena kalba turi tik jai būdingą pasaulėvaizdį, mąstymo ir kalbos strategijas, todėl šiame darbe yra bandoma plačiau panagrinėti koncepto šviesa raišką lietuvių ir anglų kalbose, atrasti panašumų ir skirtumų šių kalbų pasaulėvaizdyje. Darbo objektu pasirinkti daiktavardis šviesa, veiksmažodis šviesti ir būdvardžiai šviesus, šviesi. Išanalizavus tekstyno medžiagą nustatyta, jog prototipinės šviesos koncepto reikšmės (šviesa – dienos būvis, šviesioji paros dalis; kokio nors natūralaus ar dirbtinio šviesulio skleidžiami ar atspindimi spinduliai, veikiantys akis ir darantys pasaulį matomą; šviečiamasis prietaisas (lempa, žiburys, žibintas, žvakė, elektros lemputė ir pan.) yra panašios abiejose kalbose. Kadangi darbo tikslas buvo išskirti skirtingas ir bendras šviesos metaforines ir simbolines reikšmes, būdingas lietuvių ir anglų kalbos pasaulėvaizdžiui, tekstyno medžiagos analizė parodė, kad lietuvių kalboje koncepto šviesa metaforinės reikšmės gali būti realizuojamos kaip tikslo arba kaip ištakos sfera. Lietuvių kalboje konceptas šviesa dažniausiai realizuojamas kaip DAIKTAS YRA ŠVIESOS ŠALTINIS, VEIDAS YRA ŠVIESOS ŠALTINIS, AKYS YRA ŠVIESOS ŠALTINIS, ŠVIESA YRA VEIKLA, ŠVIESA YRA SKYSTIS, ŠVIESA YRA DAIKTAS, TIESA YRA ŠVIESA, MEILĖ YRA ŠVIESA... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The present master‘s thesis “ Light in the Lithuanian/English View of the World” focuses on the analysis of theoretical issues of the term concept, its national specifics, principles of light concept analysis in the theoretical part of the work and the empirical part focuses on the investigation of concepts of light in Lithuanian and English languages. The research materials are the Corpus of Lithuanian language – Donelaitis and the corpus of English language - British National Corpus. 1000 Lithuanian sentences and 1000 English sentences from the literature/fiction section were taken having the hypothesis that literature can reflect the pecularites of the languages the best. The data of analysis of the concept light in both languages showed that prototypically light is understood in the same way in Lithuanian and English languages. The attention was payed to some more similarities of the prototypical meaning, like the colour of the light and its positive and negative descriptions. But it also revealed a great number of cases when the term light is used metaphorically. The analysis has revealed the importance of the symbolic meaning of the concept light as well. In Lithuanian language the concept of light is usually realized as the objects of a light source: FACE IS THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, EYES ARE THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, LIGHT IS THE ACTIVITY, LIGHT IS LIQUID, LIGHT IS A THING, THE TRUTH IS LIGHT, LOVE IS LIGHT, THE DEATH IS LIGHT. In English language the concept of light can... [to full text]

<p>This dissertation examines what drives firms' divestiture activity and how it impacts their performance. Divestitures is defined here as the sale, spin-off or liquidation of assets from an ongoing organization. This dissertation seeks to understand what drives firms' reconfiguration activities via divestitures, and in turn how the divestiture activity impacts the future performance in terms of survival and growth. The dissertation identifies differences in the performance of a firm relative to their prior performance as a driver for divestitures, as well as other financial constraints. Moreover, it shows that, counter-intuitively, divestitures are a tool for growth and helps strong firms continue to grow and helps them avoid becoming a target for acquisitions; whereas in the case of weak firms, divesting does not help them avoid shutting down. This dissertation argues that divestitures are tools firms use to reconfigure and reallocate their financial and managerial resources; in the case of weak firms, divestitures are a mode used primarily to free the necessary monetary funds necessary for firms to address problems and regain competitiveness, whereas for strong firms divestitures are a tool to free scarce managerial resources that can be more efficiently allocated in areas that can provide further growth. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of what drives firms divestitures and corporate strategic decisions in general, and provides evidence that even firms coming from positions of strength can eliminate parts of the organization as a way to grow.</p> / Dissertation

Evidence suggests that action representations associated with the functional and volumetric properties of an object are part of its conceptual representation (Bub, Masson, & Cree, 2008; Jax & Buxbaum, 2010). To further examine the dynamic interplay between functional and volumetric action representations during object perception, a series of experiments was carried out in which participants made a reach and grasp response in the context of an object pictured either upright or rotated. When trained to identify a colour cue as a prompt to make a specific hand action, with the cue presented at different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA), participants showed priming effects as early as 300 ms before the presentation of an upright object prime for both functional and volumetric actions. With pictures of hand posture cues, at similar SOAs, participants showed the same pattern of consistent priming effects for both actions types. Surprisingly, a dissociation between the action types occurred when the object primes were rotated, in that only the volumetric and not the functional action representation was evoked. Furthermore, at 0 ms SOA, the primed V-action was associated with the canonical rather than the depicted view of the object. The results clarify the dynamic pattern of F- and V-grasps evoked by visual objects. For upright objects, both F- and V-grasps are strongly evoked over time. Rotated objects show a tendency to evoke only volumetric action representation. The latter result suggests that the V-grasp associated with a rotated object is based on a skeletal form of the object that does not include its functional properties. / Graduate

Dengue fever has increased to the point where it has become a major international public health and economical problem, mainly in urban and semi-urban areas in tropical and subtropical regions. Worldwide 2,5 billion people live in regions where dengue can be transmitted and approximately 100 million people get infected yearly. In 2002 there was a great outbreak in Latin America, and Costa Rica was in the top three regarding reported cases. At the time of writing, reports show that cases of dengue are currently low in Costa Rica. Although the figures vary, dengue remains a public health problem. This study aimed to describe Costa Rican registered nurses’ views and experiences of caring for patients with dengue fever. Data were collected with semi-structured interviews and conducted with eight registered nurses from Costa Rica, and analysed with qualitative content analysis method with search for similarities and differences which later were categorized. The result was divided into five categories; the conception about dengue fever, caring, patient education, prevention and the future. The result showed a similar perception of the disease and was described as terrible, causing a lot of suffering for the patient, as well as a burden on the health care, that requires large financial resources. To control dengue and suppress the proliferation it is important to have different preventive means and to educate people to achieve a change of the mindset.

In the last two decades, emotion has emerged as an important theme in discussions of design. However, there is no framework to date that encompasses both emotion and information design in a single theory. This dissertation was motivated by a lack of substantive theory that would allow design researchers and educators to model the relationships among information artifacts, audiences, and designers in specific contexts. This demand for work in this area also calls for a reconsideration of the current scholarship of information design by shifting its focus from objects to people, from technical rationality to value-laden human communication, from efficiency to holistic experience and effectiveness. Through examination of existing views about information design and the nature of information, this work advances the idea that information can be better conceptualized as a medium in which designers have the ability to influence situated and value-laden human actions, as well as a medium in which designers can be influenced by situated human actions. This conceptualization of information as twoway mediation between designer and audience allows us to reconsider information design as a meaningful social activity, of which designers are an integral part. This research consists of two parts. First, it proposes a framework called Modes of Wonder that allows designers to model an audience's emotional experience in relation to information artifacts. Through examination of four thematic variations of wonder (wonder, astonishment, amazement, and sublimity), Modes of Wonder provides a meta-language that is able to model one's emotional experience in relation to information artifacts. Furthermore, it may be used by designers in the planning process when solving a design problem, and by educators as a tool for critique. Second, this research presents a Point of View framework, which allows us to describe design strategies used for creating information artifacts. While Modes of Wonder, in Chapter 3, focuses on the relationship between information artifacts and audiences, the Point of View framework in Chapter 4 – which includes person, perspective, mode, and principle as the primary frames – illustrates the relationship between information artifacts and the designer who has created a specific response to a particular design problem. In order to demonstrate how these two frameworks can help us uncover plausible design strategies in a particular context of information ii design, I examine three cases of information artifacts that respond to specific design problems through use of the thematic variations of Point of View and Modes of Wonder as conceptual tools for analysis. This research makes the following contributions: it provides a theoretical framework that models the relationship among information artifacts, audiences, and designers in specific contexts. Specifically, Modes of Wonder allows design researchers and educators to articulate the relationships between information artifacts and audiences. In turn, the Point of View framework provides an approach for modeling design strategies that are often implicitly used by designers to create information artifacts aimed at producing a particular emotional effect for an audience.

Det är viktigt med en ständig tillförsel av mindre företag i ett land för att kunna erhålla en långsiktig ekonomisk tillväxt i landet. Många tekniska framsteg och nya uppfinningar kommer ifrån akademin, och för att detta ska nå allmänheten behöver forskarna hitta ett sätt att få ut sina idéer på marknaden. Idag är det svårt för företag skapade av forskare direkt från akademien att överleva, mycket för att de saknar den affärsmässiga kompetensen som krävs för att starta och driva ett framgångsrikt företag. Detta gjorde det intressant att undersöka vad denna typ av företag besitter för affärsmässig kompetens och hur de gör för att införskaffa sig denna.   Vi har utfört en kvalitativ fallstudie på tre högteknologiska spinoff-företag i Umeå som har tagit hjälp av företagsinkubatorn Uminova. Vi har genom intervjuer med grundare och företagsledare försökt bilda oss en uppfattning om vad för typ av affärsmässig kompetens som finns och har funnits i de tre företagen. Intervjuerna har varit semistrukturerade och baserade på teorier om viktiga kompetenser ett akademisk spinoff-företag bör inneha, samt vilka olika faser av utveckling ett sådant företag går igenom. Vi har undersökt kompetenserna genom ett resource based view, där vi sett kompetenser som immateriella resurser som skapar fördelar för företagen om de innehar dem.   De resultat vi erhöll och de slutsatser vi dragit är att som väntat fanns inom utbildningen ingen källa till affärsmässig kompetens, den kompetens som funnits hos grundaren har i så fall kommit genom erfarenheter från annat håll än genom akademien. I samband med att akademiska spinoff-företag erhåller en större mängd kapital från investerare eller finansiärer så införskaffar de ofta den stora delen av sin affärsmässiga kompetens genom rekrytering av personal. Detta görs dock ofta i för stor utsträckning eller i ett för tidigt skede och kan ha som resultat att företaget är tvungen att göra nedskärningar av den nyligen erhållna personalen.

The aim of this study is to examine ways of writing experiences of the strange and different, experiences of the other in his or her otherness and experiences of suffering. The study focuses possibilities and limits for the writing of these experiences and aims at finding a tangible way of writing literature. Part of the aim of this study is to elaborate a proposal for a way of writing experiences of the strange and different, experiences of the other in his or her otherness and experiences of suffering.     The material for the study consists of three different approaches to literature, in which theories on literature or analyses of literary works are presented. This material is initially analysed in separate analyses in which conceptions, strategies and methods for writing experiences of the strange and different, the other and suffering are identified. Secondly, the material is analysed in a comparative analysis, aimed at finding similarities and differences between the approaches but above all to let the approaches supplement and challenge each other. The second part of the study consists of the elaboration of a proposal for a way of writing based on the result of the first analyses.    The result of the study is a way of writing in which the limitations and inabilities of literature are used as critical and creative resources. These limitations and inabilities consists of the violence of the literary naming and designation, and the boundaries between identities that render a complete insight in the experiences of someone else impossible. With these limitations and inabilities as a starting point, conceptions, strategies and methods for writing literature are distinguished and developed. A movement between nearness and distance both in content and form is identified as a fruitful way of writing that can mediate experiences and avoid to arrange what is strange and unfamiliar in these experiences into the familiar, as well as and openness for a manifoldness of possibilities. As distinct way of writing is distinguished in the metaphor, a literary device in which the movement between nearness and distance is made concrete. In the elaboration of a proposal for a way of writing these conceptions, strategies and methods provided the framework for a way of writing which doesn’t reduce experiences or close the literary text for a multitude of possibilities.

This thesis explores the search for core meaning and authentic experience in the poetry of John Ashbery. Building from a close reading of A Worldly Country, it examines the way Ashbery's use of narrative fragments and shifting points of view establish poetry as an encounter with otherness that is dependent on accidents of meaning for its sense of authenticity. Comparisons with the poetry of Ashbery's most important precursor, W. H. Auden, reveal how the influence of German Romanticism emerges with different points of emphasis; Auden's richly ambiguous dualities eventually gave way to a more didactic poetry as he shifted his faith from art to religion, while Ashbery's poetry embodies the fragmented and inconclusive approach of the German poet Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), who developed, through his philosophical writings and the tales embedded in his novels, a double orientation toward the real and the ideal. Novalis confirmed the Märchen, or fairy tale, as a genre of primary importance whose capacity for imaginative excess invites accidental encounters with otherness. Analyses of fairy tales and fairy tale fragments in the work of these poets reveal how mysticism and play can inject into everyday moments feelings of self-transcendence that enable poetry to summon an authentic sense of being in the world. / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to investigate what view of humans that emerges when priests/reverends talk about man in relation to baptism. The study consists of qualitative interviews with four priests/reverends. There were two representatives from the church of Sweden, and two from the Pentecostal church. The aim and questions in the study focus on what view of humans that emerges. Will there be similarities and differences in the view of humans, and is it possible to refer the result to the respective church. The theory that is being used focusses on so called components of how humans are viewed and these components can be seen as building blocks in how a view of humans is formed. The background comes from the varying view of the baptism tradition that exists in Christianity. The church of Sweden mainly baptizes children, whereas the Pentecostal church practices believer´s baptism. The result demonstrates that the reflected view of humans in different ways can prove what each church of the interviewee represents.