Faith-based organizations contribute significantly to the human services but are relatively neglected in the academic literature. This research aims to address this gap. The field of alcohol and drug use is one in which faith-based organizations have long been involved and in which they claim to have considerable success. Therefore it was chosen as a context within which to research such organizations. The overall purpose is to describe the principal characteristics of faith-based organizations. A questionnaire was used to gather data from fifteen faith-based organizations in Aotearoa New Zealand - from about twenty that were found to provide services in this field. Despite the small sample, the key characteristics of faith-based organizations can be identified. All respondents were ministers or managers of the faith-based organizations. They provide detailed information about various aspects of the organizations. It would be insightful to gather data from clients also, but such analysis is beyond the scope of this thesis. The faith-based organizations are divided into three types: congregations, denominations and independents. The data for all three is presented and discussed in the thesis. Research questions concern mission statements, leadership, staff, clients, services, religiosity, funds, facilities and links with other organizations. In answering these, conclusions can be drawn concerning the purpose of the research – describing the main characteristics of faith-based organizations.

Within a neo-liberal world polity, the concept of autonomy is increasingly perceived as conducive to postmodern nations’ rational progress in developing knowledge societies. In accordance with global trends, the Taiwanese government implemented a policy of performance-based school management in 2005 to enhance educational accountability, efficiency, equity and quality. This autonomy-based reform perceives all educational stakeholders as self-interested, utility-maximizing market egoists who are capable of realizing their maximum potential by ceaselessly making consumer-style choices. The government assumes that the provision of choices will give everyone an equal chance of educational success. The negative socio-political consequences brought about by the adoption of neo-liberalism’s beliefs and practices have been explicitly acknowledged and illustrated in the literature. Nonetheless, the ways neo-liberalism has affected Taiwan’s socio-educational reality have scarcely been acknowledged or examined, and even on a theoretical level there has been little thought given to the provision of alternative socio-educational possibilities. Thus, this research, grounded in the context of Taiwan, analyzed neo-liberal ideologies to discover their implications for socio-educational practices. Moral and philosophical insights from various theorists were synthesized and advanced as a substitute for neo-liberalism. This research was based on the method of deconstruction and reconstruction of textual discourse. For deconstructive analysis, the aim was to investigate and problematize how certain neo-liberal values have come to be globally/nationally institutionalized, and utilized to manipulate citizens’ consciousness for the maximization of economic efficiency, productivity, and profitability in the education market. The reconstructive synthesis, then, aimed to initiate possible socio-educational changes through reconceptualising these same values in respect to Taiwan’s contextual specificity. Overlooking the need to address neo-liberalism’s belief in individualism, inequitable socio-economic structures and monistic, decontextualised and mechanistic epistemology, the Taiwanese government’s promotion of autonomy was found to perpetuate socio-economic inequalities, power imbalances, human monism and intellectual inflexibility in education. A shift in epistemology wherein autonomy was reconceptualised as “heteronomous autonomy” was found to be capable of reorienting the overall frame of democratic reference towards a communitarian paradigm that would contribute to greater social equity and solidarity. This finding is extremely important as heteronomous autonomy takes human diversity as its foundation, so the emphasis changes from the rights of the individual to the self’s unconditional responsibility to and for differences. Thus, a heteronomous-autonomy-based education would forsake neo-liberalism’s standardized pedagogical approaches in favour of a creative framework-in-context. Committing to increased democratic justice and social intellectualism, this alternative education model has more capacity to transform Taiwan into a true knowledge society, where a high level of social cohesion is an absolute precondition.

In 1999, the Chinese government launched a higher education expansion policy. Between 1998 and 1999, the number of new students enrolled in colleges increased by 40%. The expansion continued for several years. By 2006, the number of new students enrolled in colleges increased to 5.5 million, which was 5 times that in 1998. Using the 1997 and 2006 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey, the paper studies the effects of the expansion policy on labor market outcomes of young college graduates. Treating the expansion policy as a natural experiment and using a difference-in-difference strategy, my research results suggest that the expansion policy causes the unemployment of young college graduates to increase by 8.7 percent, the full-time employment rate to decrease by 21 percent, and the average monthly earnings to decrease by 104.07 Yuan, equivalent to 18.35 Canadian dollars. / n/a

Most species of reptile studied to date have polygynandrous mating systems and possess specialised sperm storage regions. Consequently, there is a high potential for sperm competition in this group. Using comparative analyses, I examined the level of sperm competition in New Zealand geckos and how this has influenced the evolution of their reproductive morphology. Across lizards and snakes, there was more than a 40-fold variation in relative testis size. New Zealand geckos fell in the middle of this range and lacked sexual dimorphism in head size, suggesting that most species have polygynandrous mating systems. I confirmed this for one species, Hoplodactylus maculatus, which is gregarious, lacks territoriality and has a courtship pattern that suggests a high level of promiscuity for both sexes. I found that hemipenis size in New Zealand geckos was positively correlated with relative testis size, suggesting that sperm competition has resulted in the evolution of larger intromittent organs. However, the surface features of the hemipenis were relatively conservative across species. Although there was no relationship between sperm length or putative sperm storage site (SST) morphology and relative testis size, species with fewer SSTs, and thus more intense sperm competition, had longer sperm. H. maculatus males produced two types of sperm which differed not only in length but also in fertilising capacity, the short morph lacking DNA. This is the first known example of such sperm polymorphism in a vertebrate and may have evolved in response to sperm competition, the non-fertilising morph potentially helping to block the sperm of rival males or filling sperm storage sites. The motility of these short sperm was positively correlated with temperature; however, at higher temperatures motility declined with time, suggesting a trade-off between motility and longevity. Such temperature influences on male reproductive physiology have important implications for males of ectothermic species under sperm competition.

There have been numerous attempts for measuring viticulture potential. In most cases, this involves the construction of a climate/viticulture based model which is then applied to a potential region. Although these climatic based models may perform well inside their original regions, they tend to fail elsewhere. Discrepancies between climatic indexes have been attributed to many factors including vineyard management, grapevine variety, phenology/climate misconceptions and regional macro/mesoclimate regimes. The aim of this study is to investigate the viticulture potential within two regions of the South Island of New Zealand, by implementing several climatic based models. These models have been designed to improve the predictive accuracy over other current climatic/viticulture models. A GIS, along with climatic data collected from over 80 stations within Canterbury and the surrounding region, are incorporated into several models which are used within this project as viticultural tools to improve the current understanding between topographic, climatic and grapevine relationships. Viticulture potential ratings are then assessed for two overlapping regions; the smaller sub-region of the lower Waipara catchment and the larger Canterbury region. Results show that many of the current vineyard plots in the Canterbury and lower Waipara regions do not fall within the optimal limits of the models, while there are large potential areas in both regions yet to be utilized for viticulture. However, not all of Canterbury and the lower Waipara catchment can be used for viticulture due to several limiting factors such as elevation, risk of frosts and low mean temperatures. Surprisingly, most of the Canterbury Plains fall within this 'no go' area. The model has proved to be a much more reliable tool than other existing climatic indexes such as the widely used degreeday and mean temperature of the warmest month indices.

The thesis examines the American career of William Duane (1760-1835) in the light of his earlier, and much less studied period in Ireland, England and India. It is the study of the development of one of America’s pre-eminent newspaper editors. Although Duane is not a first-tier figure of the Early Republican period such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton, he certainly fits comfortably within the second-tier with men such as James Thomson Callender, Tench Coxe, John Binns and William Cobbett. He is an important figure within the historiography on the Early Republican period which has come out in recent years. He has an important role in three recent and seminal works on the period by Durey, Wilson and Pasley: Transatlantic Radicals, United Irishmen, United States and “The Tyranny of Printers”. This is a study of the identity of Duane measured against his political change and shifting sense of self. It seeks to answer the question: Who was William Duane? The thesis probes the question in depth by looking at Duane’s origins and then tracing his life in 1790s Philadelphia. The portrayal of Duane found in the recent historiography and in the first academic biography of Duane, Kim T. Phillips’ William Duane: A Radical Journalist in the Age of Jefferson, lets Duane’s version of self rest too easily, without interrogating how he constructed his identity within an American political context for an American reading audience. For example, although Duane constructed himself as a citizen of the United States by birth, the thesis maintains that he was not an U.S. citizen at all but was born in Newfoundland and was by eighteenth-century definitions a British subject. The thesis offers a great deal more detailed archival research within the above framework. First, it develops Duane’s familial relationships in his early life in much more detail than before. I have uncovered more details on his life from numerous sources, particularly letters, and a careful, textual search for any information on Duane’s earlier career in Ireland and England in the 1780s which has been overlooked by previous researchers. The thesis then places this material in the context of the newspaper trade in 1780s Clonmel and London while building a narrative analysis of this period before moving on to India. Second, this thesis demonstrates Duane’s links to the East India Company army. The importance of Duane’s Indian career also lies in his being part of a wider chronology of deported editors and government suppression of the press within the period from 1780 to 1799. The place of Duane within an ignored history of radical migrations to India is also dealt with as is his emergence as a pro revolutionary editor in Calcutta after the declaration of war in 1793. Third, the thesis uncovers a great deal more archival information on the period of Duane’s membership of the London Corresponding Society and his editorship of the Telegraph – a strongly pro-French newspaper in wartime London. This period was a short but crucial one for Duane as he witnessed first-hand the last real throes of a British revolutionary movement and the enactment of two important bills which sought to smother the L.C.S. and the other plebeian radical groups. Fourth, the thesis examines Duane’s role in what has been perceived as a crucial turning point in American history – the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency in 1800. The thesis seeks to understand what Duane’s impact on American politics was and how his earlier career shaped his political outlook and his actions in America. It seeks to denativise the Early Republican Period by pointing out outside currents that Duane used in defining what Americanness was as opposed to his conceptualisation of Federalism and Britain. Finally, the thesis argues that the story of William Duane is one of an eighteenthcentury editor’s transoceanic search for a home.

Passagens se refere à transição, deslocamento, mudança, transmissão e continuidade. Percepção do corpo como um todo na ação do fazer; no movimento e suas ressonâncias, na conexão com a respiração e como isso se transmite na modelagem dos trabalhos. Se passagem implica aqui em relacionar diferenças, algo que se dá entre o ser e a matéria, estamos falando de uma matéria inerte, fria e amorfa que recebe, registra e devolve uma ação1 que se dá a partir do contato com as mãos e o corpo. No início trabalhei a partir de galhos de árvores como uma estrutura para a modelagem, determinada pelo crescimento do vegetal; matéria que se organizava movida por um princípio de energia vital, sobrepondo neles a argila que se agregava sobre os movimentos da sua forma. Num segundo momento, durante a secagem dos trabalhos, fui realizando outras intervenções, até o momento da queima, quando os galhos desapareceram deixando vazios e vestígios de seu contato com a argila. A composição de massas cerâmicas associada à queima como processo de transformação, onde o forno é construído adequando-se a cada trabalho são questões também importantes que vem sendo desenvolvidas. Iniciada através da pintura e da gravura, a presente pesquisa expandiu-se aos processos da cerâmica. Trabalhando com procedimentos de destruição e regeneração, a relação entre intenção e acaso se dá por sobreposições contínuas. Na montagem dos trabalhos, diferentes contextos trazem questões específicas ao processo de criação, envolvendo a elaboração de instalações e pensando as peças como partes de um corpo que se articula pela aproximação e combinação entre elementos diversos, incluindo as pinturas, madeiras encontradas, como pedaços de árvores e gravuras. / Passages refers to transition, displacement, change, transmission and continuity. Perception of the body as a whole in the action of making; the movement and its resonances in connection with breathing and how this is transmitted in modeling the pieces. If passages here means relating differences, something that occurs somewhere between the being and the matter, we are talking about a cold, amorphous and inert matter which absorbs, register and gives back an action1 from the contact with the hands and body. Initially I worked from tree branches as a structure determinate by the growing of the plant, matter which organizes itself moved by a principle of vital energy, superposing the clay on the movements of its forms. Afterwards, as the pieces would get dry, Ive realized other interventions on it, until the moment of the firing, when the branches disappeared, leaving voids and vestiges of its contact with clay. The blending of ceramic materials as a composed paste, associated with firing as a process of transformation, in which the kiln is build in adequacy to each work, are also important issues that are being developed in this research. Initiated through painting and engraving, this research expanded to the medium of ceramics, working with proceedings of destruction and regeneration, in the relation of intention and unpredictability a construction that comes into being by means of continuous superposition. In the assembly of the works, different contexts bring specific situations to the process of creation, involving the elaboration of installations and thinking the pieces as parts which articulate by approximation and combination between diverse elements, including the paintings, found objects, as pieces of woods and the works in engraving technique.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo um estudo do conceito de memória criadora nos procedimentos criativos do espetáculo Memória da Cana, uma releitura do texto Álbum de Família do dramaturgo Nelson Rodrigues, a partir dos estudos da família patriarcal e das memórias familiares dos artistas-pesquisadores envolvidos neste processo. Disseca também o processo criativo do espetáculo Assombrações do Recife Velho livre adaptação da obra homônima de Gilberto Freyre, na perspectiva de uma relação entre teatro de fontes populares e cena contemporânea, interfaces entre perfomer e brincante, e da solicitação de uma camada de memórias pessoais dos artistas pesquisadores. Os dois espetáculos foram desenvolvidos no grupo Os Fofos Encenam, sob minha direção artística. / This work aims to develop a study of the concept of creative memory following the creative pattern used in the play \"Memoria da Cana\" (Sugar Cane Memory), a revisit of the text \"Album de Família (Family Album) by playwright Nelson Rodrigues, and based on the studies of the patriarchal family and family memories of the artists/researchers involved in the process. It also deals with the creative process of the play Assombrações do Recife Velho (Hauntings of Old Recife), a free adaptation of Gilberto Freire´s homonym play. For that, I availed myself of the relationship between the theater of popular origins and the contemporary scene and the interface between performer and brincante (folk culture character), as well as the artists/researchers´ personal memories. The two plays were developed by the group Os Fofos Encenam, under my artistic direction.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo um estudo do conceito de memória criadora nos procedimentos criativos do espetáculo Memória da Cana, uma releitura do texto Álbum de Família do dramaturgo Nelson Rodrigues, a partir dos estudos da família patriarcal e das memórias familiares dos artistas-pesquisadores envolvidos neste processo. Disseca também o processo criativo do espetáculo Assombrações do Recife Velho livre adaptação da obra homônima de Gilberto Freyre, na perspectiva de uma relação entre teatro de fontes populares e cena contemporânea, interfaces entre perfomer e brincante, e da solicitação de uma camada de memórias pessoais dos artistas pesquisadores. Os dois espetáculos foram desenvolvidos no grupo Os Fofos Encenam, sob minha direção artística. / This work aims to develop a study of the concept of creative memory following the creative pattern used in the play \"Memoria da Cana\" (Sugar Cane Memory), a revisit of the text \"Album de Família (Family Album) by playwright Nelson Rodrigues, and based on the studies of the patriarchal family and family memories of the artists/researchers involved in the process. It also deals with the creative process of the play Assombrações do Recife Velho (Hauntings of Old Recife), a free adaptation of Gilberto Freire´s homonym play. For that, I availed myself of the relationship between the theater of popular origins and the contemporary scene and the interface between performer and brincante (folk culture character), as well as the artists/researchers´ personal memories. The two plays were developed by the group Os Fofos Encenam, under my artistic direction.

Passagens se refere à transição, deslocamento, mudança, transmissão e continuidade. Percepção do corpo como um todo na ação do fazer; no movimento e suas ressonâncias, na conexão com a respiração e como isso se transmite na modelagem dos trabalhos. Se passagem implica aqui em relacionar diferenças, algo que se dá entre o ser e a matéria, estamos falando de uma matéria inerte, fria e amorfa que recebe, registra e devolve uma ação1 que se dá a partir do contato com as mãos e o corpo. No início trabalhei a partir de galhos de árvores como uma estrutura para a modelagem, determinada pelo crescimento do vegetal; matéria que se organizava movida por um princípio de energia vital, sobrepondo neles a argila que se agregava sobre os movimentos da sua forma. Num segundo momento, durante a secagem dos trabalhos, fui realizando outras intervenções, até o momento da queima, quando os galhos desapareceram deixando vazios e vestígios de seu contato com a argila. A composição de massas cerâmicas associada à queima como processo de transformação, onde o forno é construído adequando-se a cada trabalho são questões também importantes que vem sendo desenvolvidas. Iniciada através da pintura e da gravura, a presente pesquisa expandiu-se aos processos da cerâmica. Trabalhando com procedimentos de destruição e regeneração, a relação entre intenção e acaso se dá por sobreposições contínuas. Na montagem dos trabalhos, diferentes contextos trazem questões específicas ao processo de criação, envolvendo a elaboração de instalações e pensando as peças como partes de um corpo que se articula pela aproximação e combinação entre elementos diversos, incluindo as pinturas, madeiras encontradas, como pedaços de árvores e gravuras. / Passages refers to transition, displacement, change, transmission and continuity. Perception of the body as a whole in the action of making; the movement and its resonances in connection with breathing and how this is transmitted in modeling the pieces. If passages here means relating differences, something that occurs somewhere between the being and the matter, we are talking about a cold, amorphous and inert matter which absorbs, register and gives back an action1 from the contact with the hands and body. Initially I worked from tree branches as a structure determinate by the growing of the plant, matter which organizes itself moved by a principle of vital energy, superposing the clay on the movements of its forms. Afterwards, as the pieces would get dry, Ive realized other interventions on it, until the moment of the firing, when the branches disappeared, leaving voids and vestiges of its contact with clay. The blending of ceramic materials as a composed paste, associated with firing as a process of transformation, in which the kiln is build in adequacy to each work, are also important issues that are being developed in this research. Initiated through painting and engraving, this research expanded to the medium of ceramics, working with proceedings of destruction and regeneration, in the relation of intention and unpredictability a construction that comes into being by means of continuous superposition. In the assembly of the works, different contexts bring specific situations to the process of creation, involving the elaboration of installations and thinking the pieces as parts which articulate by approximation and combination between diverse elements, including the paintings, found objects, as pieces of woods and the works in engraving technique.