There is widespread agreement among researchers, policy experts, and community advocates that the United States’ mass incarceration system is a policy failure. Despite bipartisan consensus and sporadic reform attempts, the policies and systems ravaging low-income families and communities of color remain largely intact. Formerly incarcerated people have been driving the social movement to dismantle mass incarceration since the movement’s inception, yet their advocacy efforts and creation of alternative programmatic and policy approaches have only recently been acknowledged and documented and have yet to be implemented widely. Through this study, I aimed to fill these gaps in knowledge about the advocacy work of women impacted by the justice system by documenting the ethos, practices, and strategies of Theater for Social Change (TSC), a performance arts-based advocacy group composed of formerly incarcerated women in service of justice system transformation. Using action research methodology, I employed dialogic and iterative processes, in partnership with TSC, to develop interview and focus group protocols and analyze data. I also undertook a thematic analysis of post-performance audience discussions, as well as the scenes and monologues created by the ensemble over the years. This research project found that the ensemble way of working—defined by Radosavljević (2013) as “collective, creative, and collaborative”—enabled TSC to develop and model the type of caring and self-organized community and capacity development, per Nixon et al. (2008), that they envision for currently and formerly incarcerated women and their families and communities to create conditions for a just and equitable society. The ensemble way of working nurtured a sisterhood and enabled the exploration of individual and shared experiences of the trauma of incarceration, as well as overcoming systemic inequalities through higher education and career success in a safe and supportive space. Performing scenes and monologues developed from personal stories allows TSC to control its advocacy messages, challenge stereotypes, and create new narratives about the worth of formerly incarcerated people. Theater and post-performance discussions also enable ensemble members to model and employ their multilevel expertise: personal experience navigating the justice system; professional expertise in reentry, mental health and human services; and advocacy leadership.

Traditionally the reactor is recognised as the `heart' of a chemical process system and hence the focus on this part of the system is usually quite detailed. Steam reforming, however, due to the `building block' nature of its reaction products is unusual and generally is perceived as a `utility' to other reaction processes and hence the focus is drawn " towards the 'main' reaction processes of the system. Additionally as a `mature' process, steam reforming is often treated as sufficiently defined for the requirements within the overall chemical process. For both primary and secondary steam reformers several models of varying complexity were developed which allowed assessment of issues raised about previous models and model improvements; drawing on the advancements in modelling that have not only allowed the possibility of increasing the scope of simulations but also increased confidence in the simulation results. Despite the complex nature of the steam reforming systems, a surprisingly simplistic model is demonstrated to perform well, however, to improve on existing designs and maximise the capability of current designs it is shown that more complex models are required. After model development the natural course is to optimisation. This is a powerful tool which must be used carefully as significant issues remain around its employment. Despite the remaining concerns, some simple optimisation cases showed the potential of the models developed in this work and although not exhaustive demonstrated the benefits of optimisation.

William Turner remains an understudied figure of Reformation scholarship. He was a dedicated doctor, scientist, and Lutheran reformer. This thesis examines Turner and his place in the history of ideas. It looks closely at his three editions of A Comparison Betweene the Olde Learnynge and the Newe (1537, 1538, 1548) and explores how these texts fit into the history of ideas and reflect the larger religious debate occurring in England in the 16th century. It also explores Turner's connection to the German reformer Urbanus Rhegius. I argue the connection between these two men and their writings function as a microcosm of the Reformation. / Master of Arts

Les manières de dire et d’accomplir les identités confessionnelles dans l’Europe chrétienne de la première modernité investissent, à la fin du XVIe siècle, un genre icono-littéraire particulier : le recueil imprimé de portraits et de vies d’hommes illustres. Ce genre humaniste à la mode n’est pas seulement adopté et adapté par les auteurs protestants (comme Bèze, Reusner, Agricola ou Boissard) pour célébrer les vertus et éterniser la mémoire des premiers grands héros de la foi rénovée. Les recueils protestants d’Illustres inventent aussi une culture spécifique du souvenir, qui se veut détachée de l’hagiographie chrétienne traditionnelle et déconnectée du culte des saints comme du culte des images. Panthéons virtuels, musées de papier et temples de la mémoire, ces collections représentent et performent la fabrique de l’identité protestante à l’ère confessionnelle. En outre, la forme même de la collection, c’est-à-dire de la configuration et co-présentation visuelle des différents acteurs de la Réformation, qu’il s’agisse de Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Bucer ou des autres « instruments de Dieu » ayant œuvré à la restauration de la «vraie doctrine», permet de proposer une représentation de l’unité protestante qui ne sacrifie en rien à la diversité des identités confessionnelles intra-protestante. / By the end of the 16th century, ways of uttering and conveying confessional identities in early modern Europe take hold of a specific genre : the collections of portraits and Lives of illustrious men. Based on both visual and literary rhetoric, these collections used by humanist authors to glorify the heroes of the past are also adopted by Protestants to celebrate the virtues and acts of the first great Reformers. Protestant collections commemorating the achievement of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and other « instruments of God », invent a specific culture of remembering, which clearly intends to withdraw from the traditional Christian hagiography as well as the cult of images and saints. In fact, these printed temples of memory reflect and embody the very fabric of Protestant identity. Moreover, the form of the collection, that is to say the configuration and visual arrangement of distinct Protestant figures, enable to suggest a representation of Protestant Unity, that at the same time loses nothing of its confessional diversity.

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Changes in American healthcare over the last half century have created social and economic crises, presenting challenges for doctors and patients. The recently-implemented Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is an incremental reform that does little to change the complex multi-payer financing characterizing American healthcare. There have been growing demands for more equitable financing arrangements, notably, a single-payer healthcare system in which medical care is financed through a single, non-profit payer and in which medical care is treated as a public good and medically-necessary care is available to everyone. Nationally-representative surveys have demonstrated widespread physician support for single-payer legislation. Yet, very little scholarship has examined physician activism and virtually no studies have examined physician activism for single-payer healthcare. It is important to examine physician activism for single-payer because their participation is considered fundamental to achieving the goals of the movement. If the movement is successful in implementing single-payer financing , more efficient use of healthcare resources will ensure that all residents have access to needed medical care without being saddled by financial burdens from their care. Oregon is one of several US states with a growing grassroots movement to enact single-payer healthcare at the state level. This study seeks to examine the determinants of collective action for physicians in the Oregon movement for single-payer healthcare by answering two research questions. First, what accounts for differences in activism among physicians who support single-payer healthcare system? And second, for those physicians who are active, what activities do they do and what shapes those choices of activities? Data includes 21 semi-structured interviews with physicians around the state of Oregon supplemented with participant observation data. The interview data was analyzed using techniques from grounded theory and thematic analysis. I find that among collective action theories, collective identity theory best accounts for whether or not a physician engages in single-payer activism. A strength of collective identity theory is that it brings to light the importance of subjective interpretations of structural conditions by movement actors. The findings suggest that differences in interpretation shape the influence of motivators for and barriers to an individual's decision to engage in activism. Physicians that become active are primed to engage in single-payer activism because of their moral value sets and frustrating work experiences. They seek out groups of like-minded physicians who then are part of the process of socially-constructing a collective identity. This collective identity is emotionally-laden, is a reaction to state policies, serves to distinguish insiders from outsiders, and facilitates activism. Activist physicians engaging in the process of collective identity come to believe that altering financing is the only way to solve healthcare system issues. The activists view the political and cultural barriers to single-payer as surmountable by their activism. In contrast, non-activists interpret structural conditions like American politics and American culture as immutable barriers that will prevent the attainment of single-payer at the national or state level. In addition, non-activists lack the collective identity activists share because their beliefs contradict key beliefs of activists. The combination of the lack of collective identity and the perception of immutable barriers results in their non-participation.