Teachers' professional lives are situated at the intersection of local, national and global educational policy contexts. What they purposefully do (agency) and how they see themselves and their roles as teachers (identity) dynamically interact with such contexts. This study argues that in order to understand the meaningful professional development work of teachers, it is important to have an understanding of this interplay. Current dominant policy discourses concerning the 'improving teacher' and 'teaching as a craft' are examples of an over-reliant emphasis on more insular narratives of agentic teachers and teaching. As the research in this thesis shows, such narratives fail to take into account the complexities of factors and discourses that impact on the beings and doings of teachers, and are therefore inadequate. Based on an iterative dialogue between particular theoretical ideas and emerging case study data, the study proposes a multi-level integrating framework for understanding the experiences of teachers as they develop and locate a sense of their professional identity. Four teachers, from different types of English secondary schools, participated in the study. Data was generated from timelines, concept maps, lesson observations and interviews with the teacher participants. The case studies were presented as written portraits. Drawing on Archer's work (e.g. 2012) on reflexivity, the ways in which teachers' thinking mediated the links between their agency and structure were considered. The different modes of reflexivity that teachers employ and the ways in which teachers determine and facilitate personal projects of concern to them were found to be important to their professional identity and agency. The findings also suggested that the similarities and differences between the teachers were to do with how intersecting structural and cultural factors at global and local levels are mediated by individual forms of reflexivity. These forms of reflexivity are a reflection of evolving personal and social identities and an emerging social stance on society. The mediation produces particular professional concerns or projects that both suggest similarities that relate to powerful global discourses of education-such as performativity-but also particular types of agency and identity that are specific to those individual teachers' classrooms and general professional stance. The essence of the daily work of teachers appeared to reflect an intersection of personal biography and the situational structures and cultures of schools in which teachers operated, which brought about differences in professional thinking and doing. The thesis contributes to knowledge by adding to theory concerning identity and agency, as well as contributing to methodology by using portraits in understanding the nature of teacher agency and reflexivity. The factors that are identified and an insight into teachers' reflexivity contribute to the development of a toolkit for understanding teachers' identity and agency that may be useful for both teacher educators and policy makers.

My dissertation is about the moral epistemology of a theory of injustice. The orthodox paradigm maintains that we require an ideal theory of a perfectly just society in order to justify the principles for dealing with injustice. In contrast, I show that a theory of injustice is not dependent on ideal theory and develop a pragmatic realist alternative by critically engaging with the work of Elizabeth Anderson. My approach is pragmatist in stressing the importance of testing our principles against actual experience of their practical consequences, but it is realist in holding that justification must take into account the unjust motivations and actions of other agents. Whether racial integration is an imperative of justice depends on the extent to which unjust opposition to it means that conflicting courses of action have a better chance of mitigating racial injustice.

For my thesis I plan on exploring the concepts and reasons that I make my art. I will talk about how I explore the night as my subject and the emotional response I hope to evoke with my work, and my influences and inspirations while exploring this topic. I will talk about how I try to show how in the modern world we try to take that darkness and drive it back with artificial lights intending to duplicate the world of daylight, but instead we create stages of normalcy in between the depths of the night allowing the individual imaginations of the viewer to dream into the darkness bringing their own experiences and emotions to the images and making an interactive viewing experience. By trying to recreate the mental state where our minds revert to the most primal instincts of fight or flight in the face of the unknown, despite our knowledge of what exists in the daylight, I try to reach a more primal work of art that goes beyond my early influences of the western Romantic art and show how these instincts still deeply affect us in our modern world.

The crux of this investigation is the combination of realist and abstract elements in pictorial space and negotiating the various pictorial problems this sets in motion. The interaction between these elements, especially in a spatial sense, creates both a visual and conceptual ambiguity central to the meaning of the work. Multiple treatments of painted form -- realist, expressive and abstract are interleaved producing divergent visual sensations. The transition from one visual sensation to another, the way the eye traverses believable forms to suddenly collide with the canvas, forced there by raw, painted gesture, is an unpredictable journey invoking visual perplexity, thereby alerting the viewer to potential meanings; the research paintings are not just images of things, they are images of things that would not normally exist together, but do so to create a story. It is intended that the viewer be directed toward the subject of the painting as much as the qualities of the medium itself. Influences as diverse as art historical painting, photography, the motion and lighting effects of film, the qualities of surface reflections and chiaroscuro, have been sourced to facilitate a new body of work. Directing the relationship of the viewer to the paintings through format and scale, (generally life size or very small) promotes a similar kind of interaction (the need to get up close and far away) to that of the application of pictorial space. This is an important aspect of the research; the optical process of focussing in and out is a microcosm of looking at the paintings installed in physical space. The subject of the paintings is female sexuality and its connection to identity, relationships and self-expression. It is also the conceptual object of 'Multiplicity', a principal idea in the work, ambiguous pictorial situations suggesting reality is not one thing but a combination of remembered, existing and subconscious experience. In the research, this concept also pertains to the painter (using memory, experience and imagination) and the audience viewing the work at different times.

<p>Jag har i denna uppsats gjort en kvalitativ analys av strids- och våldskildringarna i Hallandsposten från första världskrigets västfront. Utgångspunkten har varit en teorimodell som delar in materialet i kategorier som spänner från de krigsromantiska skildringarna i början av kriget till det mer realistiska under krigets senare år. Resultatet av undersökningen är att det sker en förändring av det publicerade materialet under krigets lopp. Denna förändring visar sig i att det förekommer allt mindre krigsromantiska skildringar ju längre kriget fortskrider. Däremot så ökar de mer realistiska skildringarna och dessa blir allt mer närgångna i sin karaktär och kan mot slutet av kriget ses som fördömande.</p>

The thesis investigates how the notion of ‘ontology’ has been used in the field of medical informatics and knowledge representation. Partly to investigate what an ‘ontology’ can be said to represent and what requirements we can have on a good ‘ontology’. The author studies the already existing medical terminologies and ‘ontologies’ to elucidate what theories they are based on. The terminological theories of Eugen Wüster and his legacy in medical informatics are studied. It is noted that terminological theories handling linguistic entities are not suited for describing and representing medical theories, since these are assumed to refer to the real world, which consists of more than linguistics entities. In order to find a metaphysical theory in accordance with the world view that medical theories describe, the author turn to the critical realism of Karl Popper, Roy Bhaskar and Ilkka Niiniluoto. These theories, taken together with the metaphysical theories regarding universals of David M Armstrong and Ingvar Johansson, are used as a basis to find out what an ‘ontology’ can be said to represent, and what criteria and requirements we can have on a good ‘ontology’. Among the requirements presented in the thesis are stability, interoperability and the requirement that a good ‘ontology’ must be in accordance with our best available theories. Finally, it is discussed how these requirements and criteria can come into conflict with one another, and how one should reason when handling these trade-offs. The author emphasises the importance of including the medical expertise in the process of creating ‘ontologies’, in order to produce as useful and relevant ‘ontologies’ as possible. / Avhandlingen undersöker hur begreppet ’ontology’ används inom den medicinska informatiken och kunskapsrepresentation. Dels ämnar avhandlingen att utreda vad en ’ontology’ kan sägas representera och dels vilka krav man kan ställa på en god ’ontology’. Utifrån historiska studier av redan existerande medicinska terminologier och ontologier studeras vilka teorier som ligger till grund för dessa. Bland annat studeras Eugen Wüsters teorier rörande terminologi och hur dennes efterföljare inom medicinsk informatik ser ut. Författaren konstaterar att terminologiska teorier som behandlar språkliga entiteter inte är lämpliga för att beskriva och representera medicinska teorier, då dessa antas handla om en verklighet bestående av mer än språkliga entiteter. För att hitta en metafysisk teori som stämmer överens med den världsbild som de medicinska teorierna beskriver, vänder sig författaren till Karl Poppers, Ilkka Niiniluotos och Roy Bhaskars syn på kritisk realism, vad det gäller vetenskapliga teorier. Detta tillsammans David M Armstrongs och Ingvar Johanssons metafysiska teorier rörande immanent realism och universalia, används som grund för att försöka analysera vad en ’ontology’ kan sägas representera, och vilka krav vi kan ställa på en god ’ontology’. Bland de krav som presenteras i avhandlingen finns stabilitet, interoperabilitet och kravet på att en god ’ontology’ ska vara i enlighet med de bästa tillgängliga vetenskapliga teorierna. Avslutningsvis diskuteras hur dessa krav kan komma i konflikt med varandra, och hur man bör resonera när man hanterar dessa ’trade-offs’. Författaren poängterar vikten av att man tar med medicinska expertisen i skapandeprocessen av ’ontologies’, för att man ska producera så användbara och relevanta ’ontologies’ som möjligt.

Jag har i denna uppsats gjort en kvalitativ analys av strids- och våldskildringarna i Hallandsposten från första världskrigets västfront. Utgångspunkten har varit en teorimodell som delar in materialet i kategorier som spänner från de krigsromantiska skildringarna i början av kriget till det mer realistiska under krigets senare år. Resultatet av undersökningen är att det sker en förändring av det publicerade materialet under krigets lopp. Denna förändring visar sig i att det förekommer allt mindre krigsromantiska skildringar ju längre kriget fortskrider. Däremot så ökar de mer realistiska skildringarna och dessa blir allt mer närgångna i sin karaktär och kan mot slutet av kriget ses som fördömande.

Studying the last century and a half of Ukrainian linguistic history reveals relentless attempts to stifle the development of Ukrainian as well as to suppress translation activities under both the tsarist and Soviet regimes. Exploring the morphological evolution of the Ukrainian language discloses evidence of terminological inconsistencies due to the lexical russification of Ukrainian during the Soviet regime, leading to inconsistencies between the standard of Ukrainian used in the Soviet Union versus that used in the diaspora. Additional examination of Ukrainian linguistic history discloses political motives for banning translations, refusing the right to translate, censoring translations, and punishing translators who rejected the mandatory Soviet literary norm of Socialist Realism. In order to further understand the implications of translation practices in the Ukrainian SSR, it is important to examine the language policies, political agendas and translation practices prior to and throughout the Soviet regime. This thesis explores and analyses the russification of Ukrainian through translation policies designed to fulfil Soviet political and ideological agendas. It compares power differentials between Russian and Ukrainian, as well as between Russian and other minority languages in translation, and examines the resulting terminological inconsistencies. It shows unequivocally how translation, transliteration, and censorship were used to foster linguicide and assimilate Ukrainian minorities, from the late tsarist era to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The common asylum and migration policy of the European Union is a struggle between a strong belief in the protection of human rights and the need of strong and secured borders. This paper highlights the dilemma that occurs in the common asylum and migration policy of the European Union. What happens when the union have to choose between liberal standards with high priorities to human rights and a realistic focus on security? The aim is to study the asylum policy presented in the Stockholm Program, and thereafter evaluate what kind of character the union has itself. By an ideal type analysis of the Stockholm program from 2009, the common asylum policy is divided into either liberal or realistic ideas. The result of the study has shown that the realistic tendencies are stronger than the liberal, which gives the union a character of an unitary state.

Virtual worlds are online communities that enable user interaction via avatars in a computer-based simulated environment. In recent years, the fast growth of virtual worlds and their enormous potential for various applications have attracted much attention. Though the uses of virtual worlds are becoming numerous in diverse fields, the core issue for their development from the perspective of gamers is to maximize user immersion. This paper tackles the issue from the perspective of game designers and explores the immersive dimensions of users via an experiment. The experimental platform is a specific virtual world, Second Life, and a particular gaming situation, dancing. The main manipulation involves altering the graphic realism level of both the avatar¡¯s appearance and the dancing environment. The research aims to find out whether there is a correlation between graphic realism and user immersion and, if there is, what element(s) or degrees of realism will lead to different levels of user immersion.