This dissertation examines the concept of social vulnerability through documenting the intersection of both political-economic uncertainty and climatic variability in the production decisions and livelihood strategies of peasant farm households in three communities in central Mexico. Although the research is situated within the broader literature on globalization and climatic change, the study focuses on the impacts of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation events of 1997, 1998 and 1999 and the neoliberal agricultural policy reforms of the 1990s as rough analogies of these larger-scale processes. The author uses both quantitative and qualitative methodology and a livelihoods analysis framework to document rural responses to change. The research concludes that institutional change and uncertainty are often more important than biophysical factors in structuring households' vulnerability and adaptation strategies to climatic risk. Households' adaptive capacity is more a function of the stability and flexibility of their livelihoods than of the households' agricultural income potential. Maize production continues to be central to the livelihood security for smallholders, despite the crop's sensitivity to climatic risk and lack of commercial potential. The household as a unit of labor management and allocation, and the institution of the ejido, also play important roles in risk management by enabling agricultural intensification and diversification. Small-scale commercial farmers are particularly vulnerable from the double impact of market and climatic risks the lack of flexibility in their production process. The importance of the institutional context of production in defining households' adaptive capacity suggests that one cannot assume spontaneous adaptation to climate changes. Furthermore, seasonal climate forecasts---often proposed as possible decision tools to facilitate agricultural adaptation---will have little utility for farmers whose production strategies are limited by lack of credit and insurance, poor producer prices, rising input and consumer costs and land scarcity. The dissertation concludes by arguing that vulnerability to climatic risk may be best addressed through "adaptive policies"---policies that evolve over time with the changing goals and vulnerabilities of rural populations, while aiming to expand the range of choice and flexibility of their livelihoods over the long-term.

As technology becomes more prevalent in our society, it becomes more concealed. There is danger when we no longer have the awareness to question the presence of these instruments in our lives or our cities. We are becoming cyborgs, human-like creatures plugged into a technological superorganism. The line between human and machine is becoming blurred as technology becomes integrated into our selves. The supreme danger is in becoming part of the standing-reserve of a technological commodity. The saving power lies in architecture's ability to question, and therefore to reveal. We must produce events within our cities that resonate with the vibrations that shake the foundations of the status quo. These events bore through and reveal the layers that make up our technological society. Small fragments of architecture will be installed at each event that would resonate throughout, provoking, instigating, and questioning.

An analysis of the characteristics of cross-cultural disputes leads to principles upon which the resolution of these disputes should be based. These principles are: having the primary goal of creation and maintenance of long-term working relationships, accounting for the parties affected, addressing the whole dispute, building trust, and undertaking empathic dialogue. / We can look at existing dispute resolution mechanisms and determine the extent to which the principles of cross-cultural dispute resolution can be incorporated, given the particular structure of a form of legal decision-making. Using the Yukon land claim negotiations as an example, the principles for cross-cultural dispute resolution can assist in the analysis of different processes. / By using the principles as a basis for a dispute resolution mechanism, cross-cultural disputes can be more effectively resolved. A dispute resolution mechanism that accounts for the characteristics of a culturally plural society benefits the whole society by ensuring more effective communication between cultures and communities, and better relationships over the long term.

The global telecommunications environment is undergoing rapid and radical transformation. Liberalisation in the industrialised economies, prompted by the fast pact of innovation in telecommunications technology has spilled over to developing countries, which now realise the significance of telecommunications for socio-economic development within their economies. The most significant aspect of these developments is that it has led to the liberalisation of telecommunications companies and the opening up of market access under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation. There is now open competition in a glob al telecommunications industry. Multinational companies equipped with the state-of-the-art technologies, ample experience and service skills, as well as huge economies of scale and scope are reaching out to connect isolated markets in developing nations into the global information economy. What is important now for developing countries is not to promote competition in the telecommunications market for its own sake. Rather, they should establish concrete goals in their restructuring exercise that can lead to development and improved living conditions for their people. This thesis argues that in their telecommunications privatisation programmes, developing countries must primarily consider their economic, cultural and social environment, and adopt appropriate policies and regulatory schemes geared towards realising their national development goals and aspirations.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4356. Adviser: Zsuzsa Gille. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-208) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

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This dissertation examines the processes and strategies by which individuals attempt to maintain status orders in the negotiated interactions of everyday life. My research, drawing upon eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, describes the general social process of status maintenance as a collective endeavor, using intercollegiate athletics as a case to examine this phenomenon. In particular, I focus on how athletes and their advocates are engaged in negotiating the status of athletic eligibility, a focal problem of many "big-time" athletic programs in colleges and universities. Existing approaches to the sociology of sport do not adequately account for the academic performances of student-athletes and the strategies employed by them and their support personnel to maintain their eligibility, glossing over variations among the different categories of actors involved, the ongoing interactions between them, and the role that interaction plays in determining the direction and character of student-athletes' academic experiences. The core of the dissertation is organized around the negotiations for eligibility by three different sets of actors: academic counselors, tutors, and the student athletes themselves. Counselors act as agents of the organizational system designed to support eligibility in the university, often acting as liaisons between the athletics department and the larger university community. Tutors, also agents of the organizational support system, negotiate daily with athletes over the amount of academic assistance to be given. Student athletes vary in their formal and informal statuses and develop sub-groups along social-interactional lines that serve as sources of personal identity and solidarity. The extent to which they distance themselves or embrace their role-based social identities as students in the university impacts the strategies they employ in negotiations of eligibility. My findings include typologies of the strategies of athletes and their advocates regarding eligibility as well as correlations of those strategies with athletes' attitudes towards school, educational goals, and socioeconomic and family backgrounds. Based on these findings, I present theoretical extensions for status processes, the negotiated order perspective, and the sociology of emotions.

<p> Much of the social capital literature focuses on unambiguous social situations where actors share generalized trust or interpersonal trust. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork in northwest Azerbaijan, this thesis focuses instead on distrust and the negotiation of conflicting interpretations of shared norms within moments of informal social support. In such situations, participants engage in an on-going negotiation of the situation, drawing on available cultural conventions to make sense of situations and perform relational work. They ultimately create meaning out of on-going social interaction and accomplish locally viable forms of social support.</p>