This thesis provides a sociological understanding of how conventional knowledge of sexuality negates the identity formation of black gay men in contemporary South Africa. It investigates the coming out experiences of six black gay men in order to reveal the disjunctures between being black and being gay. The theoretical formation of disjuncture is pursued through examining a number of sociological, historical, psychoanalytical, and feminist approaches to identity, sexuality, and society; featuring specifically the theories of George Herbert Mead, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler. The chosen research paradigm is symbolic interactionism, postulating both „pragmatist‟ and „empiricist‟ trends that lead to both interactionist and structuralist forms of argumentation. The interactionist approach to sexuality is central to the deconstruction of sexual conventions. It involves conceptualising modern sexuality in the landscapes of African colonial history and the global gay and lesbian movement. The prescribed literature on homosexuality is thus reviewed in conjunction with the South African gay and lesbian struggle, so as to spawn themes and perspectives for conducting life story interviews. The use of the life story interview favours the participants‟ own view of the studied phenomenon, yet aims to depict the structural influence on homosexual identification. Following the qualitative research tradition, the data analysis is based on the interpretation of narratives. It illustrates interpersonal relationships and microscopic experiences that lead to the self-acceptance and self-actualisation of homosexuality. Within these processes, various disjunctures that exist between the cultural sanction of lifestyle and individual choice, between parents and children, between religious belief and personal desires, and between gender identity and sexual orientation are disclosed. The findings are associated with the historical transformation of masculinity in South Africa, sex role performance, and the heterosexualisation of desire. The solution to the proposed research problem is discussed through concepts of socialisation and gender conformity.

Tato dizertační práce se zabývá vývojem optimalizačního nástroje, který je založen na metodě Particle swarm optimization a je poté aplikován na dva typy oběžných kol radiálních čerpadel.

Despite the share of renewable energies worldwide is increasing, which can help in reducing the CO2 emissions, their unpredictability has become a problem due to the mismatch between generation and demand. Among the different alternatives to solve this problem, energy storage is a very interesting solution. Depending on the aim of the storage, there are two types: intra‑day or seasonal. The former corresponds normally to a highly efficient and high‑cost storage, such as the Li‑ion; whilst the latter is a low efficient and low‑cost storage. An example of this second type of storage is the power‑to‑heat‑to‑power storage, whose efficiency is mainly determined by the heat‑to‑power converter, and it can be increased if the waste heat produced in the converter is reused in a combined heat and power system.Given that the residential sector represents a large amount of the global energy use (both electricity and heat), this study has considered a power‑to‑heat‑to‑power storage in a fully electrified residential building with a PV installation in order to increase self‑consumption and reduce the cost. Both the heating, electricity and cooling demand are supplied by the system.As this storage technology is currently under an early stage of development, this project aims to understand the main challenges for this storage and the advantages over a very well settled technology, such as the Li-ion. In order to achieve this objective, a model has been created in Matlab. A parametric study has been conducted in which optimum sizing of the components for several scenarios have been considered, as a means to identify the most important parameters that could hinder the feasibility of the power‑to‑heat‑to‑power storage system.From the optimization it was concluded that the scenarios with a thermally driven heat pump for cooling, resulted in larger installations leading to higher cost due to the low coefficient of performance. Regarding the other scenarios which consider an electrical heat pump for cooling, this technology can surpass the Li-ion performance for heat‑to‑power efficiencies over 20 %. In these cases, the feasibility is clearly hindered by the cost per energy capacity, which must be below 5 €/kWh and could be achieved with silicon; and the cost per power capacity that must be around 300 €/kW. An example of a heat‑to‑power converter could be the TPV technology which is a solid‑state converter, whose efficiency is currently around 30 % and is expected to reduce its cost up to 300 €/kW. In smaller systems, in which the stand‑by heat losses have more impact over the system’s feasibility due to the larger surface to volume ratio, it is imperative to reduce these heat losses, as well as reduce the cost per energy and power capacities. In addition, it is remarkable that there is no significant improvement when increasing the heat‑to‑power efficiencies over certain values. To finish, as this technology increases its feasibility when implemented in large systems, further studies should be done in the industrial and tertiary sector.

G. R. S. Mead is an important but neglected historical personality of the British fin-de-siècle occult, Theosophical, and post-Theosophical milieu. While previous scholars of Theosophy have portrayed the Theosophical movement as quite cohesive in nature, I argue that it might have been a lot more pluralistic, with ostensibly key Theosophical concepts being open for debate. By a careful study of Mead’s editorial activity, his debates with other Theosophists in leading occultist journal over the period 1890s through 1910s, I illustrate that Mead held alternative views of key Theosophical concepts. This gives us a clue as to how the movement of Theosophy can be characterized differently. I suggest that we speak of many different “Theosophies” rather than one singular “Theosophy” to better capture the seemingly diverse makeup of the Theosophical movement. I look at three areas wherein Mead’s views differed from those of other important Theosophists: the concept of “the Masters” as spiritual authority, which sources to turn to and how to interpret them, and the question of whether occultism should be understood primarily in theoretical or in practical terms. I propose that by seeing Theosophy as a debating ground where many different Theosophists competed over the definition of their particular kind of Theosophy, we might also better account for why so many post-Theosophical currents emerged. Lastly, Mead’s concept of “Gnosis” might have served as a bridge between his Theosophical and post-Theosophical periods, as the concept’s meaning, along with Mead’s spiritual outlook, does not appear to have changed over time. This gives some consequences to how we conceive of post-Theosophy, since he does not fit neatly within that category.

The main goal of this disertation is to map American pespectives on the position of Central Europe in American foreign policy after the Cold War. Its ambition is to systematize the particular area of American foreign policy thought that deals with Central Europe and, more precisely, with U.S. relations with the region. The goal is to contribute to a better understanding of how have the individual camps and traditions represented in the American foreign policy debate approached this particular issue. To achieve these goals, this disertation employs two existing typologies of American foreign policy thought and, subsequently, attempts to create a new, original typology that would better suit the aim of mapping the whole spectrum of relevant American perspectives on Central Europe. This disertation does not describe what has really happened in Central European-American relations, but rather aims at understanding better the U.S. foreign policy thought or, better said, one specific part of it: Opinions on U.S.-Central European relations and the position of Central Erope in international politics. Analysing the American post-Cold War discourse on Central Europe is the instrument to achieve this goal. This disertation, however, does not pressupose a direct causal link between the discourse and the...

Le travail identitaire (TI) réfère aux actions par lesquelles des personnes (re)créent, présentent, précisent et préservent les constructions qui donnent un sens cohérent et distinct au soi. À cet égard, notre objectif de recherche était d’exposer les nuances de ce travail discursif à l’œuvre dans la conversation in situ, considérant que cela est encore aujourd’hui un des « chaînons manquants » à la littérature sur le TI. La dynamique conversationnelle qui a trop souvent été négligée lors de l’étude du TI est ici mise en exergue. Nous y portons une attention particulière grâce à notre approche basée sur la théorie sociale de George Herbert Mead et les concepts de l’analyse de conversation mobilisés pour l’observation des discussions guidées du Programme de leadership intermédiaire des Forces armées canadiennes (FAC). L’approche de recherche que nous privilégions nous a permis d’illustrer empiriquement différents aspects du TI dans la conversation in situ. Nous avons noté un TI tacite (non verbal) au fil des échanges entre leaders seniors des FAC, à savoir entre les personnes qui prenaient part aux discussions guidées que nous avons analysées. Nous avons surtout examiné leur TI verbal et explicite par l’entremise de leurs prises de parole. Notre examen montre que le conformisme du « moi » prévaut lors du TI, sans toutefois totalement éclipser la part d’individualité aussi à l’œuvre lors de ce travail. Malgré la forte identification à l’institution des FAC, nos analyses donnent à voir que ses membres profitent d’un certain espace discursif où ils peuvent mettre en valeur leurs particularités. Notre analyse le met en lumière et montre de plus qu’il y a un travail collectif qui s’opère à l’égard du TI comme leader et stagiaire. C’est à travers la convergence et la divergence des orientations que cet aspect collectif du TI a pu être observé, un travail collectif favorisant une certaine conscience de soi. / Identity work refers to actions by which people (re)create, present, specify and sustain constructions that are productive of a coherent and distinct sense of self. In this regard, our aim was to display the nuances of this discursive work within naturally occurring conversations, considering this is still one of the “blind spot” of the literature on identity work. Conversation dynamics, which have too often been overlooked in studies of identity work, were therefore closely examined. Our approach combines George Herbert Mead’s theory and conversation analysis concepts in the review of guided discussions held during the Intermediate leadership program of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This combination actually enabled us to empirically describe various aspects of identity work in exchanges between senior CAF leaders. Tacit (nonverbal) identity work, as we have coined it, was certainly occurring throughout the guided discussions we studied. However, given our approach, we mainly examined the verbal and explicit identity work, through talk-in-action. In terms of actions, including what was invoked, our analysis shows that the “Me” and its conventions, as Mead conceived it, prevailed during our participants’ identity work. It did not totally overshadow the part of individuality, or the “I”, also at play during their work. Despite their strong identification with the CAF institution, the participants negociated a discursive space where they could highlight their particularities. Our analysis underlines it and shows that there was a collective work taking place in their identity work as leaders. It is through converging and diverging orientations that the collective aspect of their work was made visible, a collective work which also promoted self-consciousness.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:31:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PSO - Renato Ferreira de Souza.pdf: 422705 bytes, checksum: 0b76aaae440c4e3112c3ecb4a276edb3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-10-06 / The developed work intends to contribute for the understanding of an author/character of the social psychology. We analyzed and we added knowledge about George Herbert Mead and the unfoldings of his psychosocial theory. For this purpose we worked in two basic pathways: first, through the social approach of the psychology s history, we confronted Mead s life with moments of constitution of the psychology at his time, placing in projection central aspects of his dialogue not always identified. We correlated the history of Mead with social subjects, politics, economical and scientific of his time; information on what happened in the plan of the interpersonal s relationships at the time he was elaborating his theory, as well as his connections with practices and specific cultural values were mediated. The second path elapses from an incursion that goes through a thematic concerning to the Meadelian s studies, for what we prioritized the sociologists Peter Berger s and Thomas Luckmann s works and of the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. It is then intended to contribute to the history of the social psychology and to diffuse the Meadelian s scientific concepts, turning them more accessible to the specialists of the social psychology / O trabalho desenvolvido pretende contribuir para a compreensão de um autor/personagem da psicologia social. Analisamos e acrescemos conhecimento sobre George Herbert Mead e os desdobramentos de sua teoria psicosocial. Para este propósito trabalhamos em duas vertentes básicas: primeiro, através da abordagem social em história da psicologia, confrontamos a vida de Mead com momentos de constituição da psicologia à sua época, colocando em relevo aspectos centrais desta interlocução nem sempre identificados. Correlacionamos a história de Mead com questões sociais, políticas, econômicas e científicas de sua época; informações sobre o que se passava no plano das relações interpessoais ao tempo em que elaborava sua teoria, assim como suas conexões com práticas e valores culturais específicos foram contemplados. A segunda vertente decorre de uma incursão na literatura que perpassa por temáticas concernentes aos estudos meadianos, para o que priorizamos os trabalhos dos sociólogos Peter Berger e Thomas Luckmann e do filósofo Jürgen Habermas. Pretende-se assim contribuir para a história da psicologia social e difundir os conceitos científicos meadianos, tornando-os mais acessíveis aos estudiosos da psicologia social

In this thesis I examine various theories of humor to establish an account of the functional roles of humor in social interaction and agentive development. These roles are integrated into a view of agency developed by G.H. Mead, and further refined by the recognition theory of Axel Honneth. The core thesis is: Humor is under-examined as an aspect of human interaction, because it plays such an integral role in individual agency and social development. Understanding how humor works helps to explain how agents are formed through the internalization of the expectations of others via processes of recognition, either positively or negatively. Through the explication of the core humor theories—superiority, relief, incongruity, and play—insight is offered into the various processes of basic human interaction, understanding, and identity. The work has theoretical application by proving Mead's and Honneth's emphasis on recognition for development is justified, while also correcting an overly positive view of recognition by outlining the social policing function of humor. But the thesis has also obvious practical value in day to day human interaction, as it shows that humor is able to address issues that are very difficult through other modes of communication and understanding. Humor’s role in agentive interaction and formation cannot be overstated, both as a mode of expression and coping, but also since the threat of embarrassment through ridicule underpins and motivates a great deal of human interaction. The negative ethical implications of the role of humor, which are often overlooked, are extensively outlined and developed through the conceptual frameworks of social power (punching-up and punching down) as well as act-centered vs. agent-centered views of discriminatory humor. The thesis offers and analyzes ready examples from the work of Chris Rock and Bill Cosby, and looks at the implications of each through the theoretical lenses fleshed out in previous chapters. Through this it is clearly demonstrated, not only how these theories interconnect, but as well how such knowledge is of obvious, and practical value in day-to-day human interaction.

This dissertation deals with the interpretation of four myths from early medieval Scandinavia, in which the main role is played by the god Óðinn. All four myths narrate how he achieved a state of permanent increase of his numinous knowledge. Based on the fact that the outcome of all of the narratives is the acquisition of the Mead of Poetry (or its equivalent), they can be percieved as "four reports on the same event". The analysis of myths itself has been executed in two steps: firstly the separate inquiry of the two more central myths and introduction of the other two followed by thorough analysis of the four together. All four myths demonstrate to a certain degree a presence of motifs and structures associated with the religious phenomena of sacrifice and initiation. By the means of said analysis the study reviews the systematic relations of the sacrificial and initiatory structures and postulates a common core which is subsequently named "monomyth".

Introduction: No Fixed-Dose Combination (FDC) formulations currently exist for pediatric tuberculosis (TB) treatment. Earlier work implemented, in the software NONMEM, a rational method for optimizing design and individualization of pediatric anti-TB FDC formulations based on patient body weight, but issues with parameter estimation, dosage strata heterogeneity and representative pharmacokinetics remained. Aim: To further develop the rational model-based methodology aiding the selection of appropriate FDC formulation designs and dosage regimens, in pediatric TB treatment. Materials and Methods: Optimization of the method with respect to the estimation of body weight breakpoints was sought. Heterogeneity of dosage groups with respect to treatment efficiency was sought to be improved. Recently published pediatric pharmacokinetic parameters were implemented and the model translated to MATLAB, where also the performance was evaluated by stochastic estimation and graphical visualization. Results: A logistic function was found better suited as an approximation of breakpoints. None of the estimation methods implemented in NONMEM were more suitable than the originally used FO method. Homogenization of dosage group treatment efficiency could not be solved. MATLAB translation was successful but required stochastic estimations and highlighted high densities of local minima. Representative pharmacokinetics were successfully implemented. Conclusions: NONMEM was found suboptimal for the task due to problems with discontinuities and heterogeneity, but a stepwise method with representative pharmacokinetics were successfully implemented. MATLAB showed more promise in the search for a method also addressing the heterogeneity issue.