The primary purpose of this study was to examine and describe, through the lens of nexus analysis, how social action impacted the compositional processes of high school string students as they engaged in collaborative composition. In this study, I examined the complex convergence of verbal and non-verbal communication while students were engaged in music co-creation and how it impacted social practices such as rules, roles, or division of labor. Specifically, this qualitative study investigated the following research questions: (1) How does social action impact the compositional processes involved in co-creation? (2) What roles, social structures, or social identities do students who are engaged in musical co-creation assume? The participants in this study included eight high school orchestra students who participated in ten after-school small group music composition sessions. Each session was 45 minutes in duration and occurred over an eight-week period. Additionally, students participated in two individual semi-structured interviews and two semi-structured focus group interviews. The participants in this study adopted an interaction order they referred to as The Circle. This global concept consisted of a set of rules for behavior, interactions, and democratic guidelines. It provided a social safety net of acceptance for each member of the group. An underlying theme of The Circle was the goal of achieving equality within the group regardless of previous musical experiences or expertise. The following data were analyzed: (a) students’ responses, processes, and behaviors (both musically and verbally) that occurred during the collaborative activities; (b) students’ verbal responses to questions in both individual and focus group interviews; and (c) field notes and artifacts that were examined to reveal any relevant data. A common theme throughout the study was the adoption of multiple roles. Participants in this study assumed four different roles: follower, advocate, tutor, and leader. Only two members retained a single role for the duration of the study while the other six girls assumed multiple roles depending on the needs of the group at a specific moment in time.

The research is a field case study deployed in Samburu County, Kenya in the villages of Baragoi. The objective is to enrich the debate about peacebuilding and in particular about the security-development nexus, its articulations and actors at local level. The theorization of the security-development nexus is part of the debate regarding the way of implementing effectively peacebuilding policies (Nilsson and Taylor, 2016). The academic debate has mainly related and investigated the nexus at its international and national sphere. Moreover, when it comes to local level, only few field studies have brought up an in depth analysis of its local articulation and local actors. Therefore, this study aims at providing new evidences in relation to three main topics; first to enrich the knowledge of how development and security are conceived at local level; then, the research intends to understand if there are actors other than the national government, able to deploy security and development programs; and finally, study how their relationship is perceived at grassroots level. By understanding firstly how development and security are conceived on the ground, observation and interviews are carried out in order to understand the perception of the security-development nexus and the actors identified as influencing security and development in Baragoi, Kenya. The findings show a definition closely related to human development and human security and especially an overlapping with security and peace. The humanized definition of security and development allows more actors to be involved and therefore several non-state actors have been identified as legitimate providers of development and security in Baragoi where state presence is minimum. Moreover, their perception of the nexus shows an interdependence where both security and development are stressing issues that influence each other, however it is also possible to identify a one-way relationship where security is perceived as vital is Baragoi and by ensuring security, development will come automatically.

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2017-03-24T11:44:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 10006758 bytes, checksum: c4170c1bdaf8a5690d1f12d19b8f7e7d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-24T11:44:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 10006758 bytes, checksum: c4170c1bdaf8a5690d1f12d19b8f7e7d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The study of the meaning of relations between sentences is a much discussed and researched field in linguistic studies. The observation of how the terms behave in the construction of meanings in texts of different genres and their interpretation effects are also widespread themes among semantic research. In this work we will discuss about the meaning of the relations of meaning and their sense of purpose in a specific genre. The relations that we will investigate are semantic nexus or semantic links, as proposed by Chierchia (2003), which are respectively: entailment, semantic equivalence, contradictoriness and contrariness. The genre we chose for our analysis is the warranty certificate and the choice of this genre was made because it is part of the injunctive or instructional texts group that, in our opinion, has characteristics that favor the sampling of semantic nexus. We will analyze how the semantic nexus are used to restrict or cover the possibilities of interpretation in the warranty certificates. The corpus of this research has 22 (twenty two) copies of warranty certificates from different segments and we decided to choose certificates from separate lines to constitute an overview of the genre. The collection of the texts took place through the internet, without using any particular methodology of choice, only we pay attention to seek warranty certificates of diverse products. We seek in this research instigate reflection on the meaning relations between sentences and observance of these in instructional texts that we have contact in daily life and that, for many times, let go unnoticed its contents. The understanding of the semantic nexus can offer us tools to better read texts of this type. / O estudo das relações de significado entre sentenças é um campo bastante discutido e pesquisado nos estudos linguísticos. A observação de como se comportam os termos na construção de significados em textos de diversos gêneros e seus efeitos de interpretação também são temas muito difundidos entre as pesquisas das semânticas. Nesta produção discutiremos sobre as relações de significado e seus efeitos de sentido em um gênero específico. As relações que investigaremos são os nexos semânticos ou nexos de significado, como proposto por Chierchia (2003) que são respectivamente: acarretamento, equivalência semântica, contraditoriedade e contrariedade. O gênero que escolhemos para nossa análise é o certificado de garantia e a escolha de tal gênero se deu pelo fato deste fazer parte do grupo de textos injuntivos ou instrucionais que, a nosso ver, possui características que favorecem a amostragem dos nexos semânticos. Iremos analisar como os nexos semânticos são utilizados para restringir ou abranger as possibilidades de interpretação nos certificados de garantia. O corpus desta pesquisa conta com 22 (vinte e dois) exemplares de certificados de garantia de produtos de diversos segmentos e decidimos escolher certificados de produtos de linhas diversas para constituirmos um panorama sobre o gênero. A coleta dos textos se deu através da internet, sem utilizar nenhuma metodologia específica, apenas atentamos para buscar certificados de produtos variados. Buscamos nessa pesquisa instigar a reflexão sobre as relações de significado entre sentenças e a observação destas nos textos instrucionais que lidamos no dia-a-dia e que, por muitas vezes, deixamos passar despercebido o seu conteúdo. O entendimento sobre os nexos de significado pode nos oferecer ferramentas para melhor leitura de textos desse tipo.

Availability of and access to water and energy are key ingredients for economic and social development. Predictions show that pressure on already limited water and energy resources is expected to increase in many parts of the world as a result of growing populations, rapid urbanization, increasing pollution and climate change impacts. The water and energy systems are highly interdependent and these interlinks provide important opportunities to improve resource security and prevent inefficient decisions which could exacerbate problems even further. This thesis explores the benefits to be gained from and the drawbacks of ignoring the various interlinks. A review of several existing water-energy integration modeling methodologies shows that the different physical, temporal and spatial characteristics of the water and energy systems present several hurdles in analyzing the two resources simultaneously. This thesis overcomes many of these issues by developing a fully integrated hard-linked water-energy linear optimization model. A case study from Spain is used to demonstrate the applications of the model for simultaneous analysis of water, energy and climate change adaptation strategies. An integrated approach is shown to have several benefits including lower total costs, better resource efficiency and improved robustness for a wide range of variations in several uncertain parameters. / <p>QC 20171106</p>

Abstract The purpose of this study is to navigate the complexity of change in the field of foreign language education. The study follows ethnographic guidelines. Thus, it aims at analysing various learning and teaching situations and, additionally, at offering possibilities for new reflections and practices. The empirical cases of the study have been analysed with nexus analysis. The multiple data include, for example, answers to online surveys, videos, various presentations, papers and learning journals by students as well as ethnographic observation. The study will map the main development of foreign language education in Finland, the major views on learning and on the related research in the field. In addition, the study presents five nexus-analytic explorations within foreign language education and discusses the findings of these cases. The five nexus-analytic cases were conducted during four years. The research participants were pupils, language students and teachers as well as education authorities of foreign language education. The research cases aimed at answering two research questions: (1) “What kinds of motives do the research participants ascribe for foreign language learning and teaching?” and (2) “What kinds of discourses, interaction order and historical bodies emerge in the research cases?” These questions provided answers to the main goal of the research; to gain understanding about factors which contribute to the complexity of change in foreign language education. The findings of the research suggest that change is challenging both in formal education and in teacher education. However, some changes are needed in order to have innovative new language teachers who can motivate young foreign language learners in the spirit of life-long learning and plurilingualism in the future, too. The study has implications for language teacher education, material and curriculum design and for language teachers’ practical work. Additionally, the study presents examples of working methods, which may be used in designing new teaching practices. Finally, the study offers insight of the use of nexus analysis as a concrete research tool. / Tiivistelmä Tämän väitöstyön tarkoitus on kartoittaa muutoksen monimutkaisuutta vieraiden kielten koulutuksessa. Työ noudattaa etnografisia suuntaviivoja. Näin ollen se pyrkii analysoimaan erilaisia oppimis- ja opetustilanteita sekä tarjoamaan mahdollisuuksia uusille reflektioille ja käytänteille. Työssä esitetyt empiiriset osatutkimukset on analysoitu neksusanalyysin avulla. Monipuolinen aineisto sisältää esimerkiksi internet-kyselyn vastauksia, videoita, erilaisia opiskelijoiden tekemiä esityksiä, tutkielmia ja oppimispäiväkirjoja sekä etnografisia havaintoja. Väitöstyössä luodaan katsaus vieraiden kielten koulutuksen kehitykseen Suomessa, kielenopetuksen taustalla vaikuttaneisiin oppimisteorioihin sekä alan tutkimukseen. Lisäksi esitellään väitöskirjan viisi neksusanalyyttistä osatutkimusta ja analyysin tuottamat johtopäätökset. Työssä esitetyt viisi neksusanalyyttistä tutkimusta suoritettiin neljän vuoden aikana. Tutkimuksiin osallistui oppilaita, kieltenopiskelijoita ja -opettajia sekä viranomaisia kielikoulutuksen alalta. Tutkimusten avulla pyrittiin vastaamaan kahteen tutkimuskysymykseen: (1) Millaisia motiiveja tutkimukseen osallistujat tuottavat vieraiden kielten oppimiselle ja opettamiselle? ja (2) Millaisia diskursseja, vuorovaikutusjärjestyksiä ja henkilöhistorioita nousee esiin osatutkimuksissa? Näiden kysymysten avulla saavutettiin tutkimuksen päätavoite eli kartutettiin ymmärrystä siitä, millaisia tekijöitä muutoksen monimutkaisuuteen liittyy vieraiden kielten koulutuksessa. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että muutos on haasteellista sekä formaalissa koulutuksessa että opettajankoulutuksessa. Muutoksia kuitenkin tarvitaan, jotta meillä olisi innovatiivisia kieltenopettajia motivoimaan nuoria kielten opiskelijoita elinikäisen oppimisen ja monikielisyyden hengessä myös tulevaisuudessa. Työn tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää kieltenopettajien koulutuksessa, oppimateriaalin sekä opetussuunnitelmien suunnittelussa. Tämän lisäksi työssä on esimerkkejä työmuodoista, joita voi soveltaa vieraiden kielten opetuksessa. Lopuksi, työssä esitetään, kuinka neksusanalyysi toimii konkreettisena tutkimustyökaluna sekä muutoksen edistäjänä.

Abstract In this thesis, I investigate pupils’, parents’, and prospective language teachers’ changing understandings of language learning and teaching. Change is considered from the ecological perspective where language learning and teaching are seen as complex, at times chaotic, and gradually emerging through collaborative action and participation. Characteristic to the strategy of nexus analysis, the author – in the dual role of an English teacher and researcher – conducted the research interviews, made observations and collected multiple data during a longer period of time. The multimodal data were acquired from school, home and university language teacher education settings. Based on the observations of pupil activity during an international, virtual language project, two Finnish 12-year-old pupils were selected as research cases due to their different coping abilities. The thesis comprises of four articles and a summary. The first article (i) describes the starting point of the research, how the observations during the school project engaged the language teacher’s further interest, especially to see more closely what was going on in the pupils’ free time in the family environment, and further how the research process developed towards nexus analysis. Article (ii) examines multimodal affordances in the home as a ‘proximal zone of development’ for family members’ language learning. Article (iii) investigates the language teacher, the pupil and her parents (re)negotiating changing understandings of language learning in the home. The fourth article (iv) explores how language students negotiated their understandings of the ecological language learning approach applied to the school project. Collectively, the thesis describes how nexus analysis can be used as a methodological tool to open up a nexus of practice of (re)negotiating changing understandings concerning language learning and teaching. The study has implications for developing language learning and teaching as well as language teacher education. / Tiivistelmä Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastelen oppilaiden, vanhempien ja tulevien kieltenopettajien muuttuvia käsityksiä kielenoppimisesta ja -opetuksesta. Tutkimuksessa muutos ymmärretään ekologisena näkökulmana, jolloin kielenoppiminen ja -opetus nähdään monimutkaisena, ajoittain kaoottisena ja vähitellen yhteisöllisen toiminnan ja osallistumisen pohjalta syntyvänä prosessina. Neksusanalyysin tutkimusstrategian mukaisesti tutkimuksen tekijä – englannin opettajan ja tutkijan kaksoisroolissa – toteutti tutkimushaastatteluja, teki havaintoja ja keräsi moninaista aineistoa pitkällä aikavälillä. Tutkimuksen multimodaalista aineistoa kerättiin koulusta, kotoa ja yliopiston kieltenopettajien koulutuksesta. Kieltenopiskelijoiden oppilaille toteuttaman kansainvälisen verkkoprojektin aikana tehtyjen havaintojen pohjalta kaksi 12-vuotiasta suomalaista oppilasta valittiin osatutkimuksiin erityyppisten toimintatapojensa vuoksi. Väitöskirja koostuu neljästä osajulkaisusta sekä yhteenveto-osasta. Ensimmäinen artikkeli kuvaa tutkimuksen alkuvaihetta, kuinka kouluprojektin aikaiset havainnot kiinnittivät opettajan huomion ja kiinnostuksen selvittää tarkemmin, mitä oppilaiden vapaa-ajalla perheympäristössä tapahtui. Ensimmäinen osatutkimus suuntasi tutkimusprosessia etenemään neksusanalyysin strategian mukaisesti. Toinen osatutkimus käsittelee kodin multimodaalisia tarjoumia, jotka muodostivat lähikehityksen vyöhykkeen perheenjäsenten kielenoppimiselle. Kolmas osatutkimus tarkastelee kotivierailun aikana kielenopettajan, oppilaan ja tämän vanhempien kesken käytyä merkitysneuvottelua kielenoppimisen muuttuvista käsityksistä. Neljäs osatutkimus havainnollistaa, kuinka kieltenopiskelijat ottivat haltuunsa ekologisen kielenoppimisnäkemyksen, jota he sovelsivat oppilaille suunnittelemassaan ja toteuttamassaan kieliprojektissa. Lopputulemana väitöskirja valottaa, kuinka neksusanalyysi menetelmällisenä työkaluna teki näkyväksi kielen oppimiseen liittyvien käytänteiden risteymän. Sen keskiössä osallistujat neuvottelivat muuttuvista kielenoppimiseen ja -opetukseen liittyvistä käsityksistään. Tutkimuksen tuloksilla on merkitystä kielenoppimisen ja -opetuksen sekä kieltenopettajien koulutuksen kehittämiselle.

Discussing, defining and engaging with ‘terrorism’ has long been limited to the narrowly framed situations in which parties to an asymmetric conflict resort to the use of force and to the legitimacy they have in doing so. The problem with the limited understanding of ‘terrorism’ and ‘counterterrorism’ as ‘facts of objective reality’ is the lack of attention to the role of the extreme asymmetry of power in conflicts involving ‘terrorism’ that does not lend itself to analysis readily. This thesis introduces a new theoretical concept, the Terrorism Complex that signifies the complexity of power/knowledge relations and the complexity of power/knowledge practices that operate on a discursive and non-discursive level through time and are affected by the mechanisms of power that stem from the asymmetry of power between the actors involved in a conflict. The research into the Terrorism Complex involves an ontological and epistemological widening of the research focus to account for these effects of the interplay between power and knowledge on the production, construction and perception of ‘terrorism’. I draw on postmodern scholarship and the Critical Terrorism Studies to present a theoretical and methodological framework that is used to examine the production of knowledge in relation to the asymmetries of power. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is used as a case study for the study of power asymmetry in the political field that determines who will be labelled a ‘terrorist’ and who will be able to claim the moral high ground. The research also reveals the surprising extent to which the power over discourse obscures the role of the systemic terrorising exercise of state power in inducing ‘terrorism’. The final chapter concentrates on the media’s role in the Terrorism Complex. It applies the findings from other chapters to observe the Terrorism Complex in action.

The relationship between the energy-food-water nexus and the climate is non-linear, multi-sectoral and time sensitive, incorporating aspects of complexity and risk in climate related decision-making. This paper seeks to explore how knowledge co-production can help identify opportunities for building more effective, sustainable, inclusive and legitimate decision making processes on climate change. This would enable more resilient responses to climate risks impacting the nexus while increasing transparency, communication and trust among key actors. We do so by proposing the operationalization of an interdisciplinary approach of analysis applying the novel methodology developed in Howarth and Monasterolo (2016). Through a bottom-up, participative approach, we present results of five themed workshops organized in the UK (focusing on: shocks and hazards, infrastructure, local economy, governance and governments, finance and insurance) featuring 78 stakeholders from academia, government and industry. We present participant's perceptions of opportunities that can emerge from climate and weather shocks across the energy-food-water nexus. We explore opportunities offered by the development and deployment of a transdisciplinary approach of analysis within the nexus boundaries and we analyse their implications. Our analysis contributes to the current debate on how to shape global and local responses to climate change by reflecting on lessons learnt and best practice from cross-stakeholder and cross-sectorial engagement. In so doing, it helps inform a new generation of complex systems models to analyse climate change impact on the food-water-energy Nexus.

The aim of this thesis is to answer the question of whether the bank nexus is one of the transmission channel of the latest financial crisis to developing countries. The global financial crisis of 2007-2009 affected the whole world, but they are countries that have been less affected than others, or vice versa they were able to respond to the crisis with better instruments of monetary and fiscal policy, such as the countries of Latin America, which had during the last crisis greater credibility than it was usual in other financial shocks before. First, the thesis illustrates the financial crisis, then the possible transmission channels. In the analytical part I will focus my attention primarily on the canal of bank bonds, which I'll explore using regression analysis to confirm or refuse whether these bank nexus influence strongly on the spread of the financial crisis in Latin America. Last but not least, I will summarize evidence of analysis and also government policy in these countries, which caused rapid economic recovery after the crisis.

Growing populations are contributing to resource scarcity, making it ever more important for governments to address resource challenges in a holistic and integrated manner. Energy, water and food are examples of these critical resources, and the province of Alberta in Canada faces an interesting opportunity to tackle all three in tandem. Alberta struggles with food insecurity, with one in ten households affected on an annual basis. The province has the additional issue of an abating fossil fuel-based energy sector. Retrofitting oil and gas wells to harness geothermal heat is a possible initiative that encourages an energy transition and boasts lesser environmental impacts. Further, combining geothermal heat with agricultural greenhouse production and thermally driven water filtration systems has the potential to reduce food insecurity and water scarcity in the province. The system thus handles all three food, energy and water security at once. As such, this report compares the overall sustainability of a conventional, natural gas-burning greenhouse against a novel, geothermally-heated greenhouse featuring thermally driven water filtration (membrane distillation) technology. The area of study is constrained to the greenhouse-rich region in Alberta between Edmonton and Red Deer that also has a high accessibility to geothermal heat. The comparison is conducted through a multi-criteria analysis following economic, social and environmental objectives, and is analyzed using quantitative data, scientific literature and surveys. The results indicate that the novel greenhouse exhibits a higher score as compared to the conventional greenhouse, implying that it is the preferred option on economic, social and environmental bases. The results are in keeping with economic and technical feasibility reports, though they shed new light on the social and environmental aspects – which were under-studied in the province. The geothermally-heated greenhouse system with membrane distillation acts as a holistic solution that targets energy, water and food issues in tandem, while contributing to Canada’s Sustainable Development Goals. The novel greenhouse is an avenue of exploration and development by policy-makers, greenhouse operators and researchers interested in attaining sustainable agriculture in Alberta, Canada.