The historical survey of social movements in the United States reveals that the movement is a rhetorical ground occupied by groups who have been marginalized by society. Today, however, the distinctions between those who are marginalized and those who are part of the establishment have become difficult to distinguish. This study considers the emergence of Promise Keepers, an all-male social movement, and the rhetorical themes that emerge from the group. This study identifies five rhetorical themes in Promise Keepers. These themes include asserting authority of men in the home and church, the creation of a new male identity, sports and war rhetoric, political rhetoric, and racial reconciliation. The implications of these themes are considered from a critical perspective and areas for future research are provided.

oday, globalization has become a phenomenon of all the industry in the world, business need to quickly response to the supply chain changes, or could obiously harm to iself. Artificial industry in Taiwan, orders from downstream members are huge and with large diversity, it Is important to build an alignment to the sales department and the production department. To decrease the information gaps between sales department and the production department, there are mechanisms whichh could be apply into this industry In Taiwan. This study shows the difference of apply two kinds of sale / production alignment machanism, and compare the performance of those two to the processes nowaday through simulation tools.

The thesis is mainly a study on the Flexible Print Circuit which was producing manufactured. The research investigates how the FPC operates based on related product capacity data in the conjunction of back end MPS system data of producing scheduling database. Due to system and relative data collocation, it helps a salesman to make a better judgment on the outcome of an order before making promises to customers. In addition, this paper is looking into how applying the related production management method increases the number of the entire production and improves the efficiency on the production line. Then it studies how using this method can temporarily meet the needs of customers¡¦ big orders & cut-in orders before promising customers the date of delivery. Regarding manufacturing procedure of FPC, the purpose for increasing actual output is achieving the maximum production capability and the best arranging procedure. All information was given by different groups of employees from FPC industry, including its Sales Department, Production Management Department, Procurement Department and Supply Department; it also derives from the interviews with station managers and high level managers. With situation simulation and case simulation will be revised on current product line¡¦s output and try to bring up production operation model of FPC Industry. Finally, changing production management and station order to achieve its maximum production on FPC.

This dissertation explores the role of masculinity as a component of social formation. Although research on masculinity has increased considerably since the early 1990s, the topic remains ill-defined and poorly explored. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have only been able to offer a limited amount of theoretical and practical insight on the subject primarily because masculinity has too often been conceptualized as a homogenous foundation that undergirds all social formation. Contrary to these perspectives, I suggest that masculine identities do not emerge from any single category, but rather, are constituted and reflected through a complex coherence of cultural and historical markers coming together to produce particular meanings. More specifically, I feature style as the most theoretically and politically useful grounding category capable of explaining these complex configurations. Style uses all the aesthetic dimensions of public presentation including dress, trappings, grooming, posture, body shape, stance, and voice and vocabulary to offer a clearer and more accurate answer to how identities come together in a struggled over, contested, and dynamic way and a more clear and accurate explanation for why reductive and overly homogeneous characterizations of identity are inaccurate and untenable. Utilizing style as a rhetoric, theory, and method, I analyze two case studies – the evangelical men’s movement Promise Keepers and the Presidential Style – to demonstrate how identity functions as a form of social style with important theoretical and political implications. Thus, this dissertation maps intersecting territories of masculinity, but also femininity, class, sexual orientation, and ethnic and racial identities in a way that illuminates how identity reinforces and coheres around particular stylistic markers. / text

A persistent gap exists between established federal, state, and local standards for housing habitability and the condition of rental housing. The condition persists despite local code enforcement mechanisms, leaving significant potential to improve housing. Such housing can have adverse impacts on people's physical and mental health, economic stability, education, crime, community development, and municipal budgets. The purpose of this case study was to identify factors that create and perpetuate the problem, make it difficult to resolve, and to identify policy actions with the potential to help mitigate it. Rational choice theory and public choice theory formed the framework to analyze motivations and behaviors of policy makers, policy enforcers, policy influencers, and renters who are affected by policy. Data were collected through 23 semi-structured interviews with city officials, property owners, local housing advocates, low-income renters, investigative reporters, and legal aid attorneys. Interview data were open coded and subjected to a thematic analysis. Themes emerging from the study include lack of accountability for owners and renters, barriers to adequate local code enforcement, financial and investment practices that place properties into the hands of owners who fail to maintain them, historical influences related to construction practices and changing ownership patterns, broader costs to families and the community, and external influences related to economic and demographic trends. The positive social change implications stemming from this study include recommendations for policy makers to address factors that create and perpetuate this type of housing, strengthen code enforcement, and ensure habitable housing for all citizens regardless of their income.

Striving for subsistence, the growing population of Caracas has radically transformed the city in the course of the past fifty years. The inability of the city to respond to the accelerated growth that resulted from mass rural migrations left millions to provide land, shelter and basic services for themselves. The barrios, once thought to be a provisional solution to the housing shortage, are now home to more than half the population of the city. The urban poor now live—out of necessity and through improvisation—on steep slopes, unstable soil and in flood plains. Overcrowded and remote, this very dense urban fabric receives sporadic or no basic services. Without land titles or addresses, and until recently omitted from most census data and official maps, the barrio’s population is excluded from the civic life of Caracas. Sitting between remediation and anticipation, three asynchronous projects elaborate pragmatic responses to the prevailing scarcity of resources while concurrently attempting to reduce the current cycle of poverty, violence and exclusion. In their ability to be informally adapted, the schemes test the capacity of popular manifestations of civic life to transform basic infrastructure into collective space. To overcome the precariousness that characterizes the barrios and incorporate them into the existing political mechanisms of the city, the projects are conceived as incremental frameworks that contribute to the physical integration of the ‘informal’ barrios to the ‘formal’ city. Working with water and waste infrastructure, I argue through these projects that architecture can build on the universal nature of necessity to frame a model of civic space­ generated out of the complexity of the barrios and on the auspice of promises.

none

This research is about liquid-liquid chromatography modelling. While the main focus was on liquid-liquid chromatography, where the stationary and mobile phases are both liquid, theory of different types of chromatography, including the currently most used techniques, were considered as well. The main goal of this research was to develop a versatile liquid-liquid separation model, able to model all potential operating scenarios and modes of operation. A second goal was to create effective and usable interfaces to such a model, implying primarily information visualisation, and secondarily educative visualisation. The first model developed was a model based on Counter-Current Distribution. Next a new more elemental model was developed, the probabilistic model, which better models continuous liquid-liquid chromatography techniques. Finally, a more traditional model was developed using transport theory. These models were used and compared to experimental data taken from literature. The models were demonstrated to model all main liquid-liquid chromatography techniques, incorporated the different modes of operation, and were able to accurately model many sample components and complex sample injections. A model interface was developed, permitting functional and effective model configuration, exploration and analysis using visualisation and interactivity. Different versions of the interface were then evaluated using questionnaires, group interviews and Insight Evaluation. The visualisation and interactivity enhancements have proven to contribute understanding and insight of the underlying chromatography process. This also proved the value of the Insight Evaluation method, providing valuable qualitative evaluation results desired for this model interface evaluation. A prototype of a new graphical user interface developed, and showed great potential for combining model parameter input and exploring the liquid-liquid chromatography processes. Additionally, a new visualisation method was developed that can accurately visualise different modes of operation. This was used to create animations, which were also evaluated. The results of this evaluation show the new visualisation helps understanding of the liquid-liquid chromatography process amongst CCC novices. The model software will be a valuable tool for industry for predicting, evaluating and validating experimental separations and production processes. While effective models already existed, the use of interactive visualisation permits users to explore the relationship between parameters and performances in a simpler yet more powerful way. It will also be a valuable tool for academia for teaching & training, both staff and students, on how to use the technology. Prior to this work no such tool existed or existing tools were limited in their accessibility and educational value.

Striving for subsistence, the growing population of Caracas has radically transformed the city in the course of the past fifty years. The inability of the city to respond to the accelerated growth that resulted from mass rural migrations left millions to provide land, shelter and basic services for themselves. The barrios, once thought to be a provisional solution to the housing shortage, are now home to more than half the population of the city. The urban poor now live—out of necessity and through improvisation—on steep slopes, unstable soil and in flood plains. Overcrowded and remote, this very dense urban fabric receives sporadic or no basic services. Without land titles or addresses, and until recently omitted from most census data and official maps, the barrio’s population is excluded from the civic life of Caracas. Sitting between remediation and anticipation, three asynchronous projects elaborate pragmatic responses to the prevailing scarcity of resources while concurrently attempting to reduce the current cycle of poverty, violence and exclusion. In their ability to be informally adapted, the schemes test the capacity of popular manifestations of civic life to transform basic infrastructure into collective space. To overcome the precariousness that characterizes the barrios and incorporate them into the existing political mechanisms of the city, the projects are conceived as incremental frameworks that contribute to the physical integration of the ‘informal’ barrios to the ‘formal’ city. Working with water and waste infrastructure, I argue through these projects that architecture can build on the universal nature of necessity to frame a model of civic space­ generated out of the complexity of the barrios and on the auspice of promises.

This thesis deal with ATP implementation issue in small to medium enterprise. The first part includes chapter about functional mechanisms of ATP and identification of key aspects that are necessary for making decision about the right variant for specific business. Real cases are described. There i salso a chapter dealing with implementation methodics of ERP systems, which are essential for using advanced fuctionality of ATP. Another chapter is dedicated to technical solution of the problém and proposes several means of realization supported by existing standardization. The second part of thesis is engaged in development of methodics, which is supposed to help specific business decide, which option of ATP implementation is the most suitable one, based on answers to defined questions. This methodics is verified on existing business already running ATP functionality, by comparing results from methodics and real situation. The results are analysed and commented.