This study investigates refusals of requests and offers utilised by speakers of Iraqi Arabic and British English, as well as by Iraqi learners of English. It aims to identify the strategies of refusal employed by these three groups of speakers, as well as any differences between them. 60 subjects participated in this study. 20 Iraqi Arabic Speakers (IAs), 20 Iraqi Learners of English (ILEs), and 20 British English Speakers (BEs). The elicitation method adopted for the data collection consisted of a discourse completion test (DCT) and a series of open-ended role plays. In both cases, the scenarios employed varied systematically along the following parameters: social status, social distance, rank of imposition and gender. The data obtained by both methods were categorised into a number of strategies. An attempt was made to provide a comprehensive description of the nature of refusal strategies used by the subjects. The strategies identified were categorised following the Beebe et al (1990) scheme of refusals. In addition, they were classified according to the (im)politeness superstrategies posited by Brown and Levinson (1987) and Culpeper (1996). The results indicate that the choice of refusal strategies reflects characteristics of Iraqi versus British English culture. These results are as follows: 1. Although both groups of subjects displayed sensitivity to the social factors referred to above, the relative influence of each factor differed from one group to another. Thus, Iraqi Arabic Speakers (IAs) and Iraqi Learners of English (ILEs) varied their refusal strategies mainly according to status and distance, while British English Speakers (BEs) did so mainly according to status and gender. Besides, the responses of the three groups were influenced by the degree of imposition.2. The application of refusals employed by the three groups differed according to the eliciting method, namely, the DCT and the Role-Play. Consequently, various refusal strategies collected via the Role Play did not appear in the data collected by the DCT and vice versa. 3. Certain strategies employed by Iraqi speakers of Arabic were nonexistent in the data of British English speakers and vice versa. 4. The study of the interlanguage of Iraqi learners of English as a foreign language also confirmed the hypothesis that there is evidence for pragmatic transfer in the order, the frequency and the content of semantic formulae used.

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Maintaining current and future infrastructure will require smart practices to help better meet user needs with fewer financial resources. The recent adoption of information communication technologies, such as, 311-call centers enables city agencies to detect and more quickly respond to real-time infrastructure system service disruptions and maintenance requests. Of the 200 or more cities that use 311, New York City's system is the largest, receiving more than 19.5 million citizen requests since 2010. Current citizen service requests made through 311 range from issues about street and sidewalk conditions to problems with their water, sanitation, snow removal, and traffic congestion. In the first manuscript, service requests were compared to socio-economics within zip codes. Zip codes were clustered by four socio-economic variables including median house value, percent of the population with a bachelor's degree, unemployment rate, and percent non-white to represent socio-economic differences between zones in the city. Results show that citizens from low socio-economic areas, meaning those with low median house values, low population with a bachelor's degree, high unemployment, and high percent non-white are burdened with significantly more infrastructure maintenance requests. When controlling for physical differences such as miles of road, total frequency of calls, and the number of people per zip code, people from low socio-economic zones are more likely to call about issues related to street conditions, sanitation, and their water system. In the second manuscript, service request response time by agency were compared based on location and socio-economic variables. The location of the call based on borough and the socio-economic characteristics of the zip code do significantly influence agency response time. Citizens reporting issues in Queens can expect to wait significantly longer, about 3 days more, to receive a response for a similar request in other boroughs of New York City. This is for issues about water, sewer, traffic lights, and street condition. The Department of Transportation, Department of Sanitation, and the New York Police Department respond significantly faster to service requests in zones classified with high and middle socio-economic groups compared to zip codes with low socio-economic groups of people. These differences in geography and socio-economic characteristics suggest unequal treatment of maintenance issues. These differences in response may expose an implicit bias in maintenance response. By recognizing these differences, city engineers can begin to prioritize maintenance issues based on how communities perceive infrastructure in need of repair, and thus better meet the needs of individual citizens in the future. / Master of Science / Infrastructure includes systems including buildings, roads, water/wastewater, trash, and various other networks that facilitate citizens everyday lives. These infrastructure systems will always require maintenance in order to keep it running effectively and efficiently. Using smart and sustainable practices in this process can help better meet user needs, while saving more money. Using more technology such as 311-call centers can allow cities to detect and more quickly respond to real-time infrastructure disruptions and maintenance issues. 311 call centers receive calls about anything from street condition problems such as potholes to problems with their drinking water. Of the 200 or more cities that use 311, New York City’s system is the largest, receiving more than 20 million citizen requests since 2010. The first manuscript looks into what certain types of people call about. Using zip codes, areas of the city were grouped together based on four socio-economic variables; median house value, percent of the population with a bachelor’s degree, unemployment rate, and percent non-white. People from low socio-economic areas, meaning those with low median house values, low population with a bachelor’s degree, high unemployment, and high percent non-white call more about infrastructure maintenance requests. When controlling for physical aspects of these areas such as miles of road, total amount of calls, and the number of people per zip code, people from low socio-economic areas are more likely to call about issues related to street conditions, sanitation, and their water system. The second manuscript looks into how long it takes government agencies to respond and resolve these calls. The location of the call based on location in the city and the socio-economic characteristics of the zip codes have an effect on agency response time. People reporting issues in Queens can expect to wait much longer, about 3 days more, to receive a response for a similar issue called from another borough of New York City. The Department of Transportation, Department of Sanitation, and the New York Police Department respond significantly faster to service requests in areas with high and middle socio-economic status groups compared to zip codes with low socio-economic groups of people. By knowing that location and socio-economic status matter when citizens call 311, city engineers can begin to use this data to help prioritize maintenance issues based on specific areas and needs of individual people in the future. These differences in location and socio-economic characteristics could possibly suggest unequal treatment of maintenance issues. However, since the differences seen in this research are with only certain variables accounted for, further research will be needed to help show possible causation for these differences.

A la suite de nombreux travaux sur le genre en sociolinguistique, cette étude quantitative propose d’étudier le genre en s’intéressant à la formulation des requêtes des personnages dans les dessins animés des années 2000-2010. En effet, on retrouve bon nombre de recherches explicitant l’influence des dessins animés dans la socialisation des enfants à qui on demande d’acquérir les codes de leur société et d’apprendre à vivre avec les autres. Ainsi, les dessins animés sont en mesure de leur présenter des modèles de socialisation différents de ceux présents dans leur vie quotidienne. C’est pourquoi la réflexion de ce mémoire s’intéressera particulièrement aux stratégies de requête entre les personnages et tentera de faire le lien entre le genre des personnages-locuteurs mais aussi avec le rôle implicite de chaque locuteur au sein du groupe. La dynamique de groupe est un critère très important dans le choix du corpus de cette étude puisque nous essaierons de comprendre comment les personnages s’organisent entre eux au sein d’une dynamique sociale qui leur est propre à travers leurs différentes stratégies de requête. En s’intéressant à des dessins animés qui présentent justement des dynamiques sociales variées (groupe majoritairement féminin, majoritairement masculin et mixte), nous avons pour but de mettre en lumière les dynamiques propres à ces groupes respectifs, afin d’illustrer leurs différences et leurs similitudes. Pour ce faire, nous proposons d’élaborer une analyse synchronique et diachronique de ces dessins animés diffusés approximativement sur une même période, afin de mettre notre recherche en parallèle avec une évolution progressive de notre société. / Following many works about gender in sociolinguistics, this quantitative study proposes to study gender by focusing on the formulation of by male and female characters requests in cartoons from 2000-2010. Indeed, there is a good deal of research explaining the influence of cartoons in the socialization of children who are asked to acquire the codes of their society and learn to live with others. Thus, cartoons are able to present them socialization patterns, from those present in their daily life. This is why this dissertation will be particularly interested in query strategies between characters and will attempt to establish a link between the gender of the speaker characters but also with the implicit role of each speaker within the group. Group dynamics is a very important criterion in choosing the corpus for this study since we will try to understand how the characters organize themselves within their own social dynamics through their different query strategies. By focusing on cartoons that present varied social dynamics (predominantly female group, predominantly male and mixed), our goal is to highlight the dynamics specific to these respective groups, in order to illustrate their differences and their similarities. To do this, we propose to develop a synchronic and diachronic analysis of these cartoons broadcast over approximately the same period, in order to put our research in parallel with a progressive evolution of our society.

Using the theoretical approach of discursive psychology, this thesis examines the interactive uses of mental state talk, in particular the term want , in everyday family interaction. In mainstream cognitive psychology mental state terms are examined as words which signify internal referents. How individuals come to competently participate in social interaction is formulated as a problem of how individual, isolated minds come to understand the contents of other minds. This thesis challenges these individualistic notions and examines notions of wanting as interactionally managed participants concerns. The data are taken from two sources; a set of video recordings taken from a series of fly-on-the-wall documentary programmes which each focus on a particular family and videotapes of mealtimes recorded by three families. Recordings were initially transcribed verbatim and sections related to the emerging themes within the thesis were subsequently transcribed using the Jefferson notation system. These transcripts were then analysed, alongside repeated viewings of the video recordings. The thesis considers a range of analytic themes, which are interlinked via one of the primary research questions, which has been to examine how, and to what end, speakers routinely deploy notions of wanting in everyday talk-in-interaction. A major theme has been to highlight inherent problems with work in social cognition which uses experimental tasks to examine children s Theory of Mind and understanding of desires . I argue that the assumptions of this work are a gross simplification of the meaning wanting for both children and adults. A further theme has been to examine the sequential organisation of directives and requests in both adults and children s talk. Finally, I examine speakers practices for rejecting a proposal regarding their actions and for denying a formulation of their motivations by a co-interactant. The conclusions of the thesis show that expressions of wanting are practical expressions which work within a flow of interactional and deontic considerations and that making claims regarding one s own or others wants is entirely a social matter. I argue that rather than being examined for what they may reveal about the mind , mental state terms may be fruitfully examined as interactional matters.

This thesis investigates the issues of creating a publicly accessible Web interface to a remote autonomous robot: the Bradford Robotic Telescope. The robot is situated on Mount Teide, on the island of Tenerife, Spain. Its mission is to provide interactive access to the stars to people who would otherwise not be able to appreciate the wonders of the night sky due to light pollution. Whenever weather and darkness permits, the robot processes the observation requests submitted by users via the Internet, operating all the hardware including the dome, telescope mount and cameras. The question of how to enable a content rich high quality dialogue between one robot and thousands of users is explored and divided into seven areas of research. How to design a Web site enabling high quality interaction with the user, how to enable users to request service from a robot, how to store and manage all the user and robot generated data, how to enable communication between the Web interface and the robot, how to schedule many observation requests in the best order, how to support a constant dialogue between the robot and users to engage users in the robot's work, and how to present and display users' completed observations. These seven areas of research are investigated; solutions are presented and their implementations examined and evaluated for their suitability and performance with the Bradford Robotic Telescope, and for how they might perform for any job-based remote robot.

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A Constituição Federal estabelece, no seu Artigo 196, que a saúde é direito de todos e dever do Estado e que esse direito deve ser garantido mediante políticas sociais e econômicas que visem à redução do risco de doença e de outros agravos e ao acesso universal e igualitário às ações e serviços para sua promoção, proteção e recuperação. Esse direito constitucional foi regulamentado pela Lei nº 8.080/1990 que, dentre outras ações, estabeleceu que o Sistema Único de Saúde devesse ser estruturado de forma a garantir assistência terapêutica integral, inclusive Assistência Farmacêutica(6). No âmbito do SUS, as ações do Ministério da Saúde em relação à Assistência Farmacêutica têm sido pautadas pela Política Nacional de Assistência Farmacêutica (PNM) aprovada pelo Conselho Nacional de Saúde em 2004 (BRASIL, 2004a), objetivando promover ações, não somente para a ampliação do acesso, mas principalmente para a promoção do uso racional dos medicamentos e insumos para a saúde A judicialização da saúde é um fato que há duas décadas vem conquistando força normativa e efetividade. A jurisprudência acerca do direito a saúde e ao fornecimento de medicamentos é um exemplo emblemático do que se vem a afirmar. As normas constitucionais deixaram de ser percebidas como integrantes de um documento estritamente político, mera convocação a atuação do Legislativo e do Executivo, e passaram a desfrutar de aplicabilidade direta e imediata por juízes e tribunais. Nesse ambiente, os direitos constitucionais em geral, e os direitos sociais em particular, converteram-se em direitos subjetivos em sentido pleno, comportando tutela judicial especifica. A intervenção do Poder Judiciário, mediante determinações à Administração Pública, para que forneça gratuitamente medicamentos em uma variedade de hipóteses, procura realizar a promessa constitucional de prestação universalizada do serviço de saúde O envolvimento do Poder Judiciário na esfera política, denominado pela doutrina de judicialização, é um fenômeno observado nas democracias contemporâneas,especialmente nos países em que o Poder Judiciário realiza o controle de constitucionalidade das leio). Recentemente, as decisões judiciais nas ações para fornecimento de medicamentos também foram estudadas como uma forma de interferência do Poder Judiciário na política de saúde. Entretanto, essa forma de intervenção judicial é diferente da tradicionalmente estudada. As referidas decisões judiciais indicam um novo formato de judicialização no qual o Poder Judiciário se sobrepõe ao Poder Executivo na escolha de fornecer este ou aquele medicamento, sob o fundamento de assegurar o direito à saúde Os problemas de gestão da Assistência Farmacêutica relacionados à judicialização da saúde não se restringem à entrega de medicamentos incorporados ou não nas listas oficiais públicas. Há características específicas desta demanda, que vem exigindo um tipo de atuação do gestor, administrativa e judicial, diferenciada para responder às ordens judiciais, evitar o crescimento de novas demandas e preservar os princípios e as diretrizes do SUS Há ponderações sobre os efeitos negativos do fenômeno da judicialização da saúde sob três principais ângulos. O primeiro aponta que o deferimento absoluto de pedidos judiciais pode aprofundar as iniquidades de acesso no sistema público de saúde, infringindo princípio do SUS, uma vez que favorece aqueles que têm maior possibilidade de veicular sua demanda judicialmente, em detrimento dos que não possuem acesso à justiça; igualmente apontam para o possível comprometimento do princípio da integralidade, uma vez que ações de cunho individual não são estendidas aos demais portadores da mesma condição patológica que poderiam se beneficiar do objeto da demanda. O segundo refere-se às dificuldades na gestão da AF, propriamente dita, uma vez que a ágil resposta às demandas judiciais, não previstas no planejamento dos serviços, faz com que alguns deles criem uma estrutura \"paralela\" para seu acompanhamento, se utilizem de procedimentos de compra não usuais na administração pública e tenham maior gasto na aquisição destes medicamentos. O terceiro refere-se à segurança do paciente em razão de possíveis prescrições inadequadas, mesmo que de medicamentos já selecionados e incorporados no SUS, e, em especial, na prescrição de \"novos\" medicamentos e/ou \"novas\" indicações terapêuticas para os quais as evidências científicas ainda não se encontram bem estabelecidas. Tais fatos podem favorecer a introdução e utilização de novas tecnologias de forma acrítica, e, por vezes, sob forte influência da indústria farmacêutica(13,14,15). É importante destacarque parte dos medicamentos \"novos\" não representa real ganho em eficácia terapêutica, mas podem, inclusive, adicionar eventos adversos inesperados. O uso de medicamentos sem registro sanitário ou fora das indicações para as quais foram registrados (uso off label) pode também significar riscos à saúde(9). Dessa forma, no caso de soluções que envolvam recursos públicos e políticas sociais, torna-se necessária a adoção de critérios racionais e uma análise de cada hipótese posta, não se podendo adotar uma única solução para todas as situações nas quais se requer o fornecimento de medicamentos / The Federal Constitution stablishes in its Article 196 that it is a right of all the rights and duties of the State and that it is the right to be guaranteed by social and economic policies aimed at reducing the risk of disease and other diseases and universal access and Equality of actions and services for promotion, protection and recovery. This constitutional right was regulated by Law No. 8,080 / 1990, which, among other actions, established the Unified Health System should be structured in such a way as to guarantee comprehensive therapeutic care, including Pharmaceutical Assistance (6). The judicialization of health is a fact that for two decades has been gaining normative force and effectiveness. The case law on the right to health and the supply of medicines is an emblematic example of what is being said. The constitutional norms are no longer perceived as part of a strictly political document, merely calling the Legislative and the Executive, and enjoy direct and immediate applicability by judges and courts. In this environment, constitutional rights in general, and social rights in particular, have become subjective rights in full sense, with specific judicial protection. The intervention of the Judiciary, through determinations to the Public Administration, to provide free medication in a variety of hypotheses, seeks to realize the constitutional promise of universalized provision of the health service The involvement of the Judiciary in the political sphere, denominated by the doctrine of judicialization, is a phenomenon observed in contemporary democracies, especially in countries where the Judicial Power controls the constitutionality of the law. Recently, judicial decisions in drug supply actions have also been studied as a form of interference by the Judiciary in health policy. However, this form of judicial intervention is different from that traditionally studied. These judicial decisions indicate a new form of judicialization in which the judiciary overrides the executive branch in choosing to provide this or that medicine, on the grounds of ensuring the right to health The problems of management of the Pharmaceutical Assistance related to the judicialization of health are not restricted to the delivery of drugs incorporated or not in the public official lists. There are specific characteristics of this demand, which requiresa type of managerial, administrative and judicial action, differentiated to respond to judicial orders, avoid the growth of new demands and preserve the principles and guidelines of the SUS