Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2010. / Thesis Advisor(s): Wollman, Lauren. Second Reader: Joyce, Nola. "March 2010." Description based on title screen as viewed on April 23, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Event Planning, Super Bowl, Collaborative Process, Security in Special Events, Incident Management, Public Private Collaboration Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-87). Also available in print.

This thesis examines the political dimension of comedy in performance through a practice-as-research project incorporating elements of stand-up comedy, relational art, and participatory performance. In the wake of the depoliticisation of live performance comedy in Britain after the incorporation into the mainstream of the agit-prop driven Alternative comedy of the 1980s, I question whether stand-up in particular can have a political efficacy greater than raising awareness or representing a political struggle. Satirical comedy, comedy of Carnival, and more recently, comedies of ‘transgression,’ are held as paradigmatic of comedy’s generic political dimension, and contemporary discourse celebrates the comedian’s ability to negotiate lines of offense or taste. Opposing this view, I argue that this ‘Canivalesque logic’ is incompatible with the ideological conditions of global capitalism. A ‘radical democratic’ comedy necessitates a focus on the relational and affective dimensions of comedy performance. Following from this theoretical framework, this thesis progresses through three phases of experimental practice. I begin by interrogating and expanding my existing practice as a ‘circuit comedian.’ Next, audience-performer relationships become the site of interrogation, and I engage in two projects influenced by participatory performance and relational aesthetics. The third phase returns to stand-up comedy, coloured by my previous experiments. This project results in a model of comic performance as embodied formalist critique of ideology. The results of this project contributes to a way of reading comedy performance, as well as to discourse about the politics of theatre and performance. It is also provides an exegesis of comic techniques and a sustained analysis of my practice as a comedian and artist. Overall, this project intends to escape the false choice faced by the politically-minded comedian today: to paraphrase a well-known Marx Brothers joke, when given the choice between commenting on the world or changing it, we should answer: ‘Yes, please!’

Along with the live performance of Sissy!, the present document constitutes research centred on the figure of the ‘sissy,’ defined in relation to the effeminate homosexual. The practice-based study proposes ‘sissiography’ as an original concept, conceived of as a negotiation between the three elements of body, abuse and space. Bodily traits are investigated under the coin ‘negotiable markers’ to include mannerisms, behaviours and sartorial choices commonly regarded as characteristic of the sissy. Abuse is studied in reference to Butler’s notion of ‘words that wound’ as well as to incidents of hate crime in London. Thirdly, sissy space is analysed in relation to safe and hostile urban zones. The study concludes that the unifying principle at the heart of sissiography is the concept of failure. In examining the writing of sissiness, the thesis considers existing scholarship on sissies and positions itself against the diagnostic concept of so-called Gender Identity Disorder. The argument developed here is underpinned by autobiographical elements. Historical discourses of male effeminacy are presented to challenge the notion of fixity in perceptions of the sissy. While offering a written investigation of the concept of sissiography, the study also develops an analysis through the researcher’s body in a series of studio experimentations and live performances. Practice is the central instrument of the enquiry, facilitating the writing of new sissy discourses. A cyclical mode of research leads from practice to theory and back to practice. The sissiography is thereby shown to be a form of inscription on the body, a form of writing space, of writing movement, of reinscribing history, of describing possible sissy futures.

No description available.

The objective of this study was to provide a more complete understanding of the changing pace and nature of production and productivity growth in South African agriculture during the 20th century and the associated changes in research and development (R&D) investments and institutions that affect agricultural input, output and productivity performance. A completely new panel of data was constructed to track investments in agricultural R&D and scientific capacity that took account of the numerous structural and organizational changes that shaped public R&D since 1910. The national agricultural production accounts were also revised to address the legacy of South Africa's history of racial segregation and a multitude of problems that arose in the official time series data due to changes in the underlying statistical methods and procedures. With these new output and input data in hand the evolution of production agriculture over the past century was quantified and described. The modern indexing methodologies deployed in this study, in conjunction with new primary price and quantity data yielded new insights into the economic evolution of South African agriculture over the past century. This study analyses the changing historic patterns of public sector investment in the agricultural sector and identifies the phases in policy evolution against the trends in aggregate spending on agriculture, farmer support and R&D. Following an initial phase of scientific capacity building, the R&D system developed a measure of synergy in its activities as evident in the spending patterns of the national and regional institutes from 1926 to 1971. The concordance of policy and institutional changes with R&D investment, output and productivity trends in the funding of the various research entities came to an end in 1980, and overall public investment in agricultural R&D has stalled since 1978. Growth patterns in multi-factor productivity estimated in this study substantially differ from earlier studies, especially in terms of magnitude, and present different results on the estimates of the growth in agricultural output that is attributable to productivity growth. It was found that not only did the earlier methods yield indexes that overstate growth patterns — thus suffering from aggregation bias in their index numbers — but trended more erratically and in poor concordance to the timing of policy changes. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / PhD / Unrestricted

This study addresses two major questions of great salience in science, technology and innovation studies. What are the promoters of innovativeness in academia? Are patenting of inventions and research performance in conflict in academia or do they rather co-evolve and/or reinforce each other? Patents applications to the South African Patent Office from 1996 to 2006 are used as indicators of inventive capacity of South African universities for that period. The investigation determines, for the first time, patenting activities of local universities at the South African Patent Office and identifies the performance of faculties and departments. The assertion that previous industry working experience can affect the inventiveness of academic researchers is then investigated. No other study has investigated this issue in South Africa. The study finds that most inventors or co-inventors worked in industries before universities employed them. The study contends that employing scientists or engineers who previously worked in industry is an effective mechanism through which universities could absorb scientific and technical skills that could inform researchers on how to design patentable inventions and thus promote their inventive capacity. It is argued that this mechanism is equally valid in developed and developing countries (like South Africa) and those universities internationally wishing to improve their entrepreneurial character should aim to employ academics with previous industry work experience. The study also investigates whether patenting impedes the research performance (publication outputs, teaching, development of disciplines, etc.) of universities’ professors using the Poisson regression model. The confounding effects of other variables deemed to affect the publication productivity, such as research/faculty orientation, collaboration, etc. are taken into account. The results show that professors who are inventive: (i) outperform academically (NRF-rating) and publish more than those who do not invent at all; (ii) inventiveness and academic performance can co-exist peacefully and reinforce each other. The study finally investigates whether or not concurrent production of scientific articles and patenting of technical inventions can support each other. In an analysis of 70 patents obtained from the USPTO (United States Patent and Trade Marks Office), EPO (European Patent Office), and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) that were invented or co-invented by scientists employed in South African universities from 1994 to 2006, 58 patents (82% plus) overlapped, i.e. formed pairs with scientific articles. Authors tended to patent and publish at the same time and the same intellectual work informed both products. Extended case studies of backward and forward citation patterns of pairs pertaining to the classes of polymers (chemistry and related sciences), optoelectronics (signal processing), biotechnology and related sciences and mineral processing (separation technology) point to two important conclusions. Some technical knowledge can also flow into the public science domain via an article. Some scientific knowledge can also flow into the patent domain via a patent. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Informatics / unrestricted

Academic leadership in higher education in the 21st century is very different and more multifaceted than it was just a decade ago. Thus, given the multilayered, dynamic nature of higher education leadership at individual, group and organisational levels, a more nuanced understanding of its role in driving excellent research performance remains paramount. Hence, this study explores the professional and personal nature of research leadership that enables and stimulates high quality research performance. The research explores the research career pathways of ten researchers from various disciplinary fields who had been rated by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa and who were recommended by their education institutions as research leaders. The ten leaders were each interviewed about their research careers. Postgraduate students (47 in total) whom they had supervised were invited to answer an email questionnaire about their personal experiences of the leaders’ mentorship and leadership. In addition, information about the leaders and mentees was obtained from various documents such as curriculums vitae, research training records, institutional annual reports and web sites. The data collected and analysed in the study showed that the research career pathways of the research leaders were highly diverse and were affected in various ways by the historicalpolitical and social context of South Africa. However, across the career pathways, the research leaders had the following features in common: 1) the presence of strong research-centeredness throughout all career phases; 2) they lead by example of personal scholarship and intellectual leadership; 3) their research is locally relevant and globally competitive; and 4) their personal dynamics influence a confident and dynamic people-centred leadership approach. The most notable differences in research leadership across the sample could be traced to disciplinary contexts which ranged from distributed leadership across large teams and entrepreneurial networks to the more prevalent one-on-one mentor-mentee relationships. Leaders who were most influential in driving research performance were highly regarded scholars with extensive academic experience, had served a variety of leadership roles, confidently embraced the complexity of academic leadership and created stimulating research environments. The research also reveals a number of challenges that still remain for research leadership in addressing the human resource transformation requirements of the South African higher education research context. These include issues of 1) individualism and competition; 2) equity and excellence; 3) race and gender; and 4) research career exit and entry paths. The South African higher education system is characterised by pockets of scientific excellence in some disciplinary fields, as illustrated by the career trajectories of leaders in this study, but much work remains to be done in order to build a fully representative research-performing professoriate for South Africa. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Präambel Die Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) und die ihr angehörenden Wissenschaftler:innen werden für ihre Forschungsleistungen national wie international anerkannt. Grundlage allen erfolgreichen wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens an der TU Dresden sind die in der „Satzung zur Sicherung guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis, zur Vermeidung wissenschaftlichen Fehlverhaltens und für den Umgang mit Verstößen“ (GWP-Satzung) verankerten Prinzipien. Zu den wichtigsten Indikatoren für wissenschaftlichen Output zählen Publikationen und Zitationen, die in einschlägigen Datenbanken abgebildet werden. Es liegt daher im Interesse der Autor:innen sowie der Universität, dass Publikationen und Zitationen eindeutig zugeordnet und in einschlägigen Datenbanken referenziert werden können. Dafür ist eine eindeutige, namentlich korrekte und vollständige Zuordnung einer Publikation zum:zur jeweiligen Autor:in sowie zur TU Dresden unerlässlich. Eine fehlende oder inkorrekte Angabe der institutionellen Zugehörigkeit (Affiliation) hat zur Folge, dass die Publikation nicht zuzuordnen ist und damit auch nicht als Leistung des:der Einzelnen bzw. der Universität von der Wissenschaftscommunity wahrgenommen oder in Leistungsvergleichen berücksichtigt werden kann. Um die Sichtbarkeit des gesamtheitlichen Forschungsprofils der TU Dresden weiter zu erhöhen, wird das Gesamtpublikationsaufkommen der Universität unter Zuhilfenahme einschlägiger Datenbanken im hauseigenen Forschungsinformationssystem (FIS) erfasst und ausgewählte Inhalte über das daran angeschlossene öffentlientliche TUD Forschungsportal und durch Einbettung in die TU Dresden Webseiten gebündelt der breiten Öffentlichkeit zur Verfügung gestellt. Dadurch wird die persönliche Leistungsbilanz der Forschenden optimal dargestellt und die Reputation der Universität in institutionellen Leistungsvergleichen („Rankings“) gesteigert. Die Publikationsrichtlinie ist von allen wissenschaftlich tätigen Mitgliedern und Angehörigen der TU Dresden mit einer Erst- oder Zweitaffiliation zur TU Dresden einzuhalten. / Preamble The TUD Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden) and its researchers are recognized nationally and internationally for their research achievements. The basis of all successful scientific work at TU Dresden are the principles anchored in the „Statutes for Ensuring Good Scientific Practice, for Avoiding Scientific Misconduct and for Handling Violations“ (GWP Statutes) . Among the most important indicators of scientific output are publications and citations, which are represented in relevant databases. It is therefore in the interest of the authors as well as the university that publications and citations can be clearly assigned and referenced in relevant databases. Therefore, a clear, correct and complete assignment of a publication to the respective author and to the TU Dresden is indispensable. If the institutional affiliation is missing or incorrect, the publication cannot be assigned and thus cannot be acknowledged as an achievement of the individual or the university by the scientific community or be taken into account in benchmarking analysis. In order to further increase the visibility of the TU Dresden‘s overall research profile, the university’s overall publication output is compiled with the help of relevant databases in the in-house Research Information System (FIS) and selected content is made available to the general public in aggregated form via the connected public TUD Research Portal and by embedding it into the TU Dresden websites. Thus, the personal performance of the researchers is optimally represented and the reputation of the university in institutional benchmarkings („rankings“) is improved. The publication guideline must be applied by all academically active members and affiliates of the TU Dresden with a first or second affiliation to the TU Dresden.

In der vorliegenden Publikation wird die Entstehung der leistungsbezogenen Hochschulfinanzierung im englischen Universitätssektor untersucht. Leistungsbezogene Hochschulfinanzierung wird in vielen Ländern als geeigneter Lösungsansatz für das Problem der gerechten Verteilung von staatlichen Finanzmitteln an individuelle Hochschulen diskutiert. Das englische Beispiel zeigt sich als sehr lehrreich für die Diskussion um die Umsetzung und die Konsequenzen eines solchen Lösungsansatzes. Der größte Teil der staatlichen Finanzmittel wurde den Universitäten seit Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts als globale Zuweisung zugeteilt. Die Entscheidung über die Höhe der Summe dieses Geldes wurde ursprünglich von einem nicht-amtlichen Organ, dessen Mitglieder mehrheitlich Akademiker waren, bestimmt. Veränderungen der Mitgliedschaft und Verfahren dieses Organs und dessen Nachfolger-Organe haben wesentliche indirekte Implikationen und direkte Folgen für die Universitäten in England hervorgebracht. Die Verfahren zur Bewertung der Qualität der Leistung einer Universität sowie zur Verteilung von Finanzmitteln entsprechend dieser Leistung stellen das Instrumentarium für einen neuen steuernden Einfluss des Staates dar. Da die Höhe der staatlichen Finanzmittel für die Universitäten indessen seit Anfang der 80er Jahre stark abgenommen hat, müssen die Universitäten sich gleichzeitig erfolgreich auf dem Markt behaupten können. Die Universitäten müssen also innerhalb eines gestalterischen Raumes agieren, der zwischen Markt und Staat -- als die wesentlichen Einflussgrößen -- aufgespannt ist. Das Grundverhältnis zwischen dem Staat und den Universitäten zeigt sich entsprechend als höchst komplex. Dabei müssen die Universitäten eine Managementkompetenz entwickeln, die eine Maximierung an Finanzierung verspricht, während sie gleichzeitig die Grundaufgaben der Lehre und Forschung vor allzu negativen Konsequenzen dieser Wirtschaftsorientierung bewahren soll. Die Publikation belegt anhand einer Fallstudie, dass nicht alle Universitäten hierzu in der Lage sind und, dass die Implikationen und Folgen des sogenannten "Finanzierungsregimes" für deren Aufgabenerfüllung nachteilig sein können. Es wird deutlich, dass die konkreten Verfahren der Hochschulfinanzierung und, hier insbesondere, leistungsbezogene Ansätze nicht allein als technische Lösungen betrachtet werden können, sondern sie sollen nur im Zusammenhang mit einer Vorstellung von der idealen Universität gesehen werden, denn diese Verfahren beeinflussen die Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten einer Universität in direkter und indirekter Weise. / This publication investigates the emergence of performance-based funding in the English university sector. Performance-based funding of higher education institutions is discussed in many countries as an appropriate solution to the problem of distributing public funding to individual universities in a fair manner. The English example proves to be very instructive to the discussion with regards to the implementation, and then the implications, of such a proposal. From the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of public funding was distributed as a lump sum to individual universities in England. Decisions on the amount of funding were originally determined by a non-governmental body, whose members were mainly academics. Changes to this membership and to the procedures of this body have had a number of indirect implications for and direct effects on universities in England. Procedures for assessing the qualitative performance of universities, together with procedures which distribute funding according to this assessment provide the instruments of a new steering-influence utilised by the State, a new form of Public Management. As the amount of public state funding for universities has been reduced drastically since the beginning of the 1980's, universities have had to strive concurrently for funds on the open market. Universities are thus being forced to act within an area defined by the market and the State - the two strongest influences on the university sector. The fundamental relationship between the State and its universities has accordingly become highly complex. Universities, for their part, must develop management competencies, which promise a maximisation of funding, whilst at the same time aiming to protect a university's vital tasks of teaching and research from the more negative consequences of business-orientation. In a concluding case study, some evidence is provided which shows that not all universities are in a position to do this and that the implications and effects of the so-called "funding regime" are disadvantageous, in such cases, for their fulfilment of this entrepreneurial challenge. It becomes clear that the concrete procedures for funding higher education institutions and, in particular, performance-based models cannot been seen solely as technical solutions, but must instead be seen in combination with an idea of the ideal university, since these procedures influence the strategic options of a university both directly and indirectly.

No description available.