Mediation has been regarded as one of the effective dispute resolving techniques. However, the issues pertaining to the development of mediation have been overlooked and are therefore less well known. There has been limited discussion about mediation and some of the theoretical explanations about its development in the construction industry were not well investigated or documented. The main purpose of this research was to investigate the development of mediation by focusing on investigating the barriers which impede the use of mediation in resolving construction industry disputes in the UK. Gaps in the literature were identified in the research but no hypothesis was generated. The interpretive research model was an ideal paradigm for this research as it assisted in structuring the whole process of the investigation. A grounded theory strategy was adopted as it helped to capture the overall mediation phenomenon in a construction environment. Semi-structured interviews, with sixteen leading mediators from around the UK, were used for this study. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The interview transcripts were analysed using grounded theory analysis, through manual coding techniques. From the findings, two categories of barriers were identified: barriers arising from the public (lack of social awareness, disputatious culture, process barrier, insufficient planning, security and the introduction of adjudication) and barriers caused by the disputants’ legal advisors (ignorance, personal agendas and the conventional method of resolution). The study also explores some information on the mediation system such as financial issue was the main dispute in construction industry; facilitative mediation is the most appropriate mediation process and in appointing the mediator, excellence in mediating skills is more important than his or her professional background; also it is inappropriate/ counterproductive to impose mandatory mediation on construction disputes. The limited amount of literature dealing with mediation in the UK construction industry is one of the limitations of the research, as it complicated the process of designing the interview questions. Some potential sources of bias for the research are identified through the areas of data presentation and data interpretation. This research has provided theoretical and practical contributions to mediation development within the context of the UK’s construction industry. Further research is suggested to validate the research findings and to evaluate the quality of the mediation process, based on the gender and professional background of the mediator.

Educational environments are unable to meet the needs of each individual child. It is believed that individual characteristics of children both limit and promote their learning experiences. Those characteristics that promote learning are essential tools that aid parents and teachers in their efforts to educate children. These characteristics need to be identified and nurtured during the learning process. It has long been suggested that curiosity is one such variable. This study wishes to determine the association between curiosity and learning potential within the dynamic assessment paradigm. A small quasi-experiment was conducted on 39 seven and eight year old children with the use of two assessment measures. The Cognitive Modifiability Battery, built on dynamic assessment theory, measures learning potential. An adapted version of the Multidimensional Curiosity Inventory, still in development, measures various types of curiosity. It was hypothesized that children with high levels of curiosity would measure high in learning potential and those with low levels of curiosity would measure low in learning potential. However, after dividing participants into four groups according to level of curiosity, a quadratic relationship was found between curiosity and learning potential. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted

This study defined family mediator effectiveness as ‘having a lasting positive impact on parties after mediation has concluded’. The purpose of this research was to uncover the nuances that give some family mediators effectiveness. This study used Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as presented in the book, Idea: General introduction to pure phenomenology (Husserl 1962/1913). Since this was a phenomenological study, advanced family mediators shared their lived experience to provide valuable information. Participants for this study were selected for their family mediation experience. A group of 18 advanced family mediators who had at least 15 years of experience and at least 75 mediated cases in the area of adult family and divorce (all issues) were selected from Mediate.com. The data analysis process for all five research questions yielded 1,750 horizons with a final 224 themes. The final outcome was an integrated phenomenological framework for understanding family mediator effectiveness.

The protracted crises of authority that characterized the 1960s and 1970s left their imprints on a number of institutions in Canadian society. The dispute resolution arena, for one, was affected by the turmoil of this age as more informal, 'empowering' alternatives were sought to replace the disempowering procedures of courtroom adjudication. The present thesis focuses on one aspect of an ensuing 'alternative dispute resolution' movement in the Canadian province of British Columbia; namely, community mediation. In particular, it begins by looking at the rhetoric and practices through which community mediation has been deployed. Advocates tout this process as an 'empowering' method of resolving disputes because it encourages individuals to work conflict out in the 'community', thus - so their reasoning goes - limiting state intrusion into people's everyday lives. By contrast, critics of the movement argue that the deployment of informal justice actually expands state control, and contend that it does so rather insidiously under the guise of 'restricting' state activities. Close scrutiny of this debate, however, reveals significant weaknesses in both positions, mainly relating to their unnecessarily narrow definition of the 'problem'; i.e., whether informal justice expands or reduces state control. This is a highly questionable formulation, for it demands a simple response from what is a much more complex and ambiguous event. Taking its cue from more recent developments in the literature, the following analysis reconceptualizes the 'problem' by asking: what is the logic of control embodied by mediation practices in a given context? It responds to the question by developing certain Foucauldian precepts into a theory that explicates the model of power through which mediation regulates action. Its implicit objective is to understand the political rationale of mediation in order to pursue how this might be used to further social justice. Various genealogical procedures are employed to formulate such a theory by responding to four central questions. What are the wider lines of descent that have helped to produce the particular version of community mediation that now colours British Columbia's landscape? What precise model of power does the rhetoric and practice of mediation reflect? How does this informal model of power link up with the formal power of the law/state? What are the implications of this for engaging politically with community mediation, if one's aim is to achieve social justice? Responding to each of these in turn supplies the basic thesis of the following text. In brief, I argue that community mediation has developed in British Columbia in tandem with a shift from Fordist to Post-Fordist modes of regulation (politics) and production (economics) that characterized the 1970s. Influenced by legal reforms and experiments with 'alternatives' to courts, community mediation has assumed an identity which incorporates a 'pastoral' model of power. This model is articulated to the state's 'law-sovereign' model as a 'complementary,' but subordinate, alternative. The association between these results in an indirect form of governance - 'government at a distance' - that may expand the state's potential to control people, but which is also considerably less predictable. This offers both opportunities and barriers to political action in the informal justice arena. Consequently, while the current deployment of community mediation in British Columbia tends to support the professionalised justice of the existing legal system, it may yet be possible to transform its identity through an 'alternative' politics of law that strives for social justice. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

The aim of thesis is to propose specifications of workshop named Profesní navigace, co se životem na prahu dospělosti?, which is organized at the Faculty of Management of University of Economics (FM VŠE) in Jindřichův Hradec. The seminar is aimed at helping students, who are looking for answers to their questions, which are connected with their entry into adulthood. Trained tutors, authors of course, help them with using the method of process-oriented work. In the theoretical part I am writing about personality development and about methods, which are using to conduct these courses. In the practical part I am applying acquired knowledge into concrete recommendations for further development this workshop.

Dans le contexte français des formations en soins infirmiers, cette thèse propose de concevoir le soin comme un processus de médiation et d’échange de significations entre les acteurs concernés, notamment soignés et soignants. Les processus communicationnels identifiés ici mettent en jeu des valeurs, des représentations et des positionnements identitaires qui concourent à l’élaboration et à l’expression d’une professionnalité soignante. Le corpus de cette recherche est organisé à partir d’images médiatiques, d’activités de soin, de récits relatifs à des situations professionnelles, d’un récit de vie et d’une monographie. Ces cinq sources de données permettent une approche compréhensive des formes communicationnelles mobilisées dans le contexte du soin, des effets de sens relatifs aux pratiques observées ainsi que des logiques d’intervention et de relation des personnels soignants. Le concept de corps-monde est proposé comme modèle intégrateur des rencontres et des distances relationnelles co-construites par les acteurs du soin. Enfin, pour répondre aux questionnements d’ordre stratégique auxquels se trouvent confrontées les organisations de santé dans le cadre des nouvelles pratiques de soin et des évolutions de la formation infirmière, la notion centrale de soin-communicant est installée afin de définir le soin comme un système complexe d’échanges signifiants. Ce concept tente de formaliser les espaces de médiation propres à la construction d’une professionnalité soignante pertinente et cohérente au regard des nouveaux enjeux de la formation en soins infirmiers. / In the french context of nursing care teaching, this thesis aims at conceiving nursing as a process of mediation and communication notably between especially patients and care givers. The identified communication process involving values, self-identification and representation help to build up and express the caring professionalism. The background documents are organized from 5 types of data which are media focuses, caring acts, professional situation reports, life stories and monographs. These data allow the comprehension of the communication items which are used in the health care context, also the effects of the observed practice meanings and finally the care giver way of acting and relating. The carers build medical encounter and distance relationships. This is presented as the “world-body” concept. As part of the new care exercises and the nurse teaching evolution, the health care organizations are faced with strategic questionings. In order to answer those interrogations, the central concept of “communicating-care” is developed. This leads to define the care act as a meaningful and complex interaction system. This concept tries to formalize mediation areas which are specific to the building of a relevant and coherent caring professionalism as regards with looking at the new challenges in nurse care teaching.

Telle la nature qui aime à se cacher, la médiation apparaît d’abord comme médiation absente ou oubliée. L’ontologie se développe spontanément comme discours qui affirme l’immédiateté de l’être. Mais si l’être est immédiateté, c’est-à-dire identité simple à soi-même, alors le discours sur l’être est impossible. Seule la médiation, qui est l’identité négative, ou encore l’identité qui se réalise par le truchement de l’altérité, de la différence permet à l’ontologie de se réaliser comme discours sur l’être. Mais non seulement le concept de médiation rend possible l’ontologie, mais elle éclaire de manière remarquable la Métaphysique d’Aristote. C’est pourquoi nous proposons une lecture de la Métaphysique qui montre son unité thématique via le concept de médiation.Ensuite, le coeur de la médiation est la logique que nous saisissons dans ces principaux moments : tout d’abord comme philosophie platonicienne du langage qui saisit la prédication comme unité du même et de l’autre, puis véritablement comme logique syllogistique fondée sur le moyen-terme, véritable médiateur des termes de la conclusion, et enfin comme logique spéculative hégélienne. Pour terminer, le concept de médiation permet de rendre raison d’une certaine cohérence de l’histoire de la philosophie, et notamment de classer les réponses types(au sens d’un idéal-type) concernant le problème central de l’ontologie à savoir le rapport entre l’être et le discours. Notamment nous étudierons deux périodes de l’histoire de la philosophie :l’antiquité de l’affirmation parménidienne de l’immédiateté de l’être à la médiation aristotélicienne conçue comme finalité ou actualisation d’une puissance, ou entéléchie, et la modernité de Descartes à Hegel qui voit un mouvement analogue s’opérer en son sein mais à partir du concept d’Infini en acte et non plus à partir de l’être. / As Nature - which loves to hide - mediation appears at first as missing or forgotten. Ontology develops spontaneously as a discourse affirming the immediacy of being. But if being is immediate, that is to say simple identity in itself, then no discourse on being is possible. Only mediation, which is negative identity, or even identity which exists through the articulation of otherness, enables ontology to exist as a discourse on being. But not only does the concept ofmediation enable ontology, but it also remarkably enlightens Aristotle’s Metaphysics. That is why we suggest an interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics which shows its thematical unity through the concept of mediation.Then, the core of mediation is logic grasped thanks through the following steps : first of all through Plato’s philosophy of language, that interprets predicating as unity of the same nessand of the difference, then through Aristotle’s syllogistic logic based on the middle term, the true mediator of the terms of the conclusion, and finally through Hegel’s speculative logic.Finally, the concept of mediation enables the reader to somewhat make sense of the Historyof Philosophy and especially to sort typical answers (that is ideal types) regarding ontology’sforemost disputed point i.e. the relationship between being and discourse. Moreover, we will study two periods in the History of Philosophy : ancient philosophy starting from Parmenides’claim that being is immediate to Aristotle’s mediation, perceived as a purpose or the actualization of a potentiality or even entelechy and modern History from Descartes to Hegel during which a similar movement occurs but with a different starting point : the concept of actual infinity vs the concept of being.

Les organisations participent à des collaborations pour faire face à un environnement en perpétuelle évolution (mondialisation, crise, etc.). Or, la nature instable de la collaboration et de son environnement peuvent compromettre la pertinence des processus définis pour atteindre les objectifs collectifs. Deux problématiques émergent alors de ce constat : comment détecter l'inadéquation des processus exécutés par rapport aux objectifs poursuivis à l'instant t ? Comment redéfinir la meilleure réponse possible à l'instant t, dans un laps de temps proche du temps réel (en fonction de la situation de collaboration, de l'avancée de l'exécution des processus, et l'état des acteurs et ressources). La problématique scientifique relève de l'apport d'agilité aux processus collaboratifs. Ces travaux de thèse ambitionnent de répondre à ces questions en proposant (i) une définition de l'agilité des processus collaboratifs, (ii) la mise en place d'une architecture orientée services dirigée par les événements (ED-SOA), afin de prendre en compte les événements émis par la collaboration et son environnement, (iii) un algorithme de mesure de distance entre le modèle de la situation collaborative telle qu'elle devrait être et le modèle de la situation telle qu'elle est réellement (détection), et enfin (iv) un algorithme de recommandation d'adaptation des processus collaboratifs. L'implémentation des mécanismes de l'agilité des processus collaboratifs a donné naissance à un prototype open-source. Les résultats de cette thèse s'inscrivent également au sein des projets ANR SocEDA et EUR FP7 PLAY qui proposent chacun une gestion des processus collaboratifs dans le contexte d'une plateforme dirigée par les événements. / It is known that organizations have to take part into collaborations to face un unstable world. But, the unstable nature of the collaboration and of its environment can threaten the accuracy of the processes. We can extract two main issues from this context : (i) How to detect the instant where the collaborative processes does not match with the current crisis situation and what are the causes; (ii) How to redefine the best possible response (i.e. at a concrete level, the best processes and their orchestration and choreography) at time t, in real time, depending of the collaborative situation, the processes execution progress, the state of the resources and collaboration's partners. The scientific problem is focused on the agility of collaborative processes. This thesis aspires to solve these issues by proposing (i) a definition for collaborative processes agility, (ii) the definition and the realization of an Event-Driven Architecture layer among the SOA architecture of the information system of the collaboration, in order to take in account the events emitted by the collaboration and its field to update the collaborative situation models. Then (iii) an algorithm to measure the distances between the model of the crisis situation at is it supposed to be when the processes are executed, and the model of the crisis situation as it really is, and (iv) a tool for decision support and a redesign of the crisis response processes and choreography. These results are in line with the ANR SocEDA project and the EUR FP7 PLAY project which aim at providing agility to collaborative processes, in an event-driven context. The mechanisms to ensure collaborative processes agility are implemented as an open-source prototype.

Les dispositifs de médiation équine dans le champ du soin, suscitent de plus en plus l’intérêt des professionnels du secteur médical, paramédical et social, bien que ces pratiques ne soient pas réglementées, et que peu de recherches rigoureuses aient été menées sur leurs applications et leur efficacité. L’objectif de ce travail de Thèse est dans un premier temps de dresser un panorama des indications, des pratiques et des perspectives de la médiation équine en se basant sur une enquête diffusée auprès de 600 établissements de psychiatrie infanto juvénile français. Une centaine d’établissements proposant ce type d’activité (N=103), ont renseigné un questionnaire permettant de déterminer d'une part, la place accordée à la médiation équine dans les prises en charge des enfants et des adolescents, d'autre part, de décrire leur conception et pratique de cette approche spécifique. Dans un second temps, nous avons observé 23 enfants présentant des troubles psychiques divers (troubles envahissants du développement, troubles des conduites et troubles émotionnels, déficience intellectuelle), lors de séances de médiation équine, sur une période de un à trois ans. Nous avons réalisé une évaluation des compétences adaptatives de chacun des enfants à l’aide de deux questionnaires spécialement conçus pour leurs parents et pour l’équipe éducative et soignante, inspirés de l’Echelle de Comportement adaptatif (ECA) de Magerotte (1978). La mise en évidence de profils d’évolutions nous permet de dégager des progrès significatifs chez la plupart des enfants dans tous les domaines et d’approfondir la réflexion sur les indications à privilégier et les spécificités du cadre d’intervention. En considérant la quantité non négligeable d’établissements proposant ce type de prise en charge et les bénéfices rapportés par les professionnels, ce travail questionne le statut de ces pratiques, leur cadre d’intervention et leur développement. / Equitherapy, or quite other activity referring to introduction of the horse in a device of care, seems to arouse more and more the interest of the professionals in medical, paramedical and social sectors, although these practices are not regulated, and although few rigorous researches are led on their efficiency. In a one step, the aim of this research is to draw-up the first overview of the indications, practices and perspectives of the equitherapy. It’s based on an investigation sent to 600 French children’s mental healthcare institutions. Institutions proposing this type of activity (N=103) were invited to inform a questionnaire to determine the emphasis on the equine mediation in the psychiatric care and to describe their conception of this specific approach. In a second step, we observed 23 children with multiple mental disorders (pervasive developmental disorders, conduct and emotional disorders, mental retardation) in sessions of equine mediation, over a period of one to three years. They was the subject of an evaluation of their adaptive skills, using two questionnaires especially designed for the parents and the educational team, inspired by the Adaptive Behavior Scale (ABS), adapted by Magerotte in 1978. The identification of patterns of change allows us to note significant progress in almost of children, in most areas. These results help us to increase our understanding of the indications and the specific focus of the frame of intervention. By considering the appreciable amount of establishments proposing this type of care, and profits reported by the professionals, this research attempts to highlight the status of these practices, and their development.

Les systèmes d’aide à la décision existants sont modélisés selon un modèle multidimensionneldédié à l’analyse. Leurs principales limitations sont leur structure statique, leur volume et lefait qu’ils ne prennent pas en compte ni l’évolution des sources de données ni celle desbesoins d’analyse. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une architecture dynamique pourl’analyse en ligne à la demande qui est différente d’un entreposage physique de données dansune base cible avec un modèle figé. Les données dans notre architecture peuvent continuer àévoluer et dans leur contenu et dans leur structure selon l’activité ou l’environnement qu’ellesdécrivent. Le recueil de données et leur structuration sous forme de contextes d’analyse se faitdonc au moment où l’on souhaite effectuer les diverses analyses envisagées. L’accès auxsources de données ne se fera alors qu’à ce moment.Pour pouvoir mettre en oeuvre cette architecture, nous envisageons une solution selon deuxgrands axes :– La construction d’un système d’intégration de données fondé sur une approche parmédiation. Afin de rendre la recherche de données pertinente, il fallait décrire defaçon plus proche de la réalité les sources de données. Pour cela, nous avons optépour l’utilisation des ontologies comme modèle de description des sources ainsique de leurs relations.– La mise en place d’un dispositif de création de contextes d’analyse à la demandesous forme de cubes de données. Ce dispositif est basé également sur l’utilisationde l’ontologie du domaine décisionnel et d’un entrepôt de cubes de données. / Current decisional systems are modelled according to a multidimensional model which, isdedicated to on-line analysis. Their principal limitations lie in their structure, their volume andthat they do not take into account data sources and analysis needs evolution. In this thesis, wepropose a dynamic architecture for on-line analysis on-the-fly which is different fromwarehousing data in a target base with a fixed model.In our architecture, data can continue to evolve in their sources according to the activity thatthey describe. Collecting and structuring data in analysis contexts is when we want to makeanalysis.To implement this architecture, we consider a solution composed of two main parts:- The construction of a data integration system by mediation based on ontologies.- The implementation of a dispositive to building analysis contexts on-the-fly which isbased on ontologies to describe the decisional domain.