We are constantly struggling to understand how nature works, trying to identify recurrent events and looking for analogies and relations between objects or individuals. Knowing patterns of behavior is powerful and fundamental for survival of any species. In this thesis, datasets of diverse systems related to transportation, economics, sexual and social contacts, are characterized by using the formalisms of time series and network theory. Part of the results consists on the collection and analyzes of original network data, the rest focuses on the simulation of dynamical processes on these networks and to study how they are affected by the particular structures. The majority of the thesis is about temporal networks, i.e. networks whose structure changes in time. The new temporal dimension reveals structural dynamical properties that help to understand the feedback mechanisms responsible to make the network structure to adapt and to understand the emergence and inhibition of diverse phenomena in dynamic systems, as epidemics in sexual and contact networks. / Vi är ständigt kämpar för att förstå hur naturen fungerar, försöker identifier återkommande evenemang och söker analogier och relationer mellan objekt eller individer. Veta beteendemönster är kraftfull och grundläggande för överlevnad av arter. I denna avhandling, dataset av olika system i samband med transporter är ekonomi, sexuella och sociala kontakter, som kännetecknas av att använda formalismer av tidsserier och nätverk teori. En del av resultatet utgörs av insamling och analys av ursprungliga nätdata, fokuserar resten på simulering av dynamiska processer i dessa nätverk och att studera hur de påverkas av de särskilda strukturer. Huvuddelen av avhandlingen handlar om tidsmässiga nät, i.e. nät vars struktur förändringar i tid. Den nya tidsdimensionen avslöjar strukturella dynamiska egenskaper som hjälper till att förstå den feedback mekanismer som ansvarar för att göra nätverksstruktur att anpassa sig och förstå uppkomsten och hämning av olika företeelser i dynamiska system, epidemier i sexuella och kontaktnät. / Constantemente nos esforçamos para entender como a natureza funciona, tentando identificar eventos recorrentes e procurando por analogias e relações entre objetos ou indivíduos. Conhecer padrões de comportamento é algo poderoso e fundamental para a sobrevivência de qualquer espécie. Nesta tese, dados de sistemas diversos, relacionados a transporte, economia, contatos sexuais e sociais, são caracterizados usando o formalismo de séries temporais e teoria de redes. Uma parte dos resultados consiste na coleta e análise de dados de redes originais, a outra parte concentra-se na simulação de processos dinâmicos nessas redes e no estudo de como esses processos são afetados por determinadas estruturas. A maior parte da tese é sobre redes temporais, ou seja, redes cuja estrutura varia no tempo. A nova dimensão temporal revela propriedades estruturais dinâmicas que contribuem para o entendimento dos mecanismos de resposta responsáveis pela adaptação da rede, e para o entendimento da emergência e inibição de fenômenos diversos em sistemas dinâmicos, como epidemias em redes sexuais e de contato pessoal.

This thesis examines internal union and external factors affecting union relations with Aboriginal workers in the wool and cattle sectors of the South Australian and Northern Territory pastoral industries, from union formation in the nineteenth century to the cold war period in the 1950s. / PhD Doctorate

Univ., Diplomarbeit--München, 2005. / Literaturverz. S. [279] - 294.

Thesis (doctoral)--Sorbonne, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, p. 283-312).

Thesis (doctoral)--Sorbonne, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, p. 283-312).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2004. / Title from electronic document (viewed 15/6/10) Presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Western Sydney, 2004. Includes bibliography.

I argue that although the abusive conditions experienced by farmworkers have complicated causes, they have persisted and will continue to persist as long as farmworkers are stripped of virtually any political and economic power. The chapters build upon each other logically, beginning with the second chapter, which uses farmworker testimony to establish that a combination of economic and political circumstances have kept farmworkers from protesting not only methyl bromide, but every other dangerous condition they face in the fields. In the third chapter, I argue that despite commonly held assumptions, growers are virtually powerless to change the circumstances of farm workers because competition they face in the strawberry market precludes any single grower from paying their workers more than the going rate. I will conclude by arguing that to begin to improve the working conditions of farm workers, consumers will need to engage with the issue on both political and economic levels. The conclusion builds on the arguments established in the second and third chapters; namely, given that neither growers nor farmworkers will be able to leverage change within the current political and economic context, consumers are the only remaining actors with both the incentives and power to influence both the political and economic arenas. Just as scholarship that focuses on only one set of actors (i.e. only growers or only regulators) will necessarily fail to provide practical solutions because such papers tend to discount the pressures faced by and produced by other actors, so too will change be impossible without consumers who advocate that farmworkers both receive a just share of political voice and fair wages.

Organizations play key roles in modern societies. The importance of organizations for a society requires an understanding of organizations. In order to fully understand public organizations, it is necessary to recognize how organizational settings affect subjects of organizations and organizing. Although public and private organizations interrelate with each other, the two types are not identical. In this dissertation, I attempt to describe public organizations in their own setting by discussing three important topics in public organization theory: (1) innovation adoption in the public sector; (2) representative bureaucracy; and (3) decline and death of public organizations. In Chapter II, I scrutinize early adoption of innovations at the organizational level and explore which public organizations become early adopters in the diffusion process. The adoption of an innovation is directly related to the motivation to innovate. That is, organizations performing poorly will have a motivation to seek new solutions. I estimate the strength of the motivation by observing prior performance. The main finding of the second chapter is that performance-based motivation has a twofold impact on early innovation adoption: negative for organizations with low performance, but positive for those with very high performance. This study estimates top 3.8% as the turning point defining which organizations attain outstanding performance and show the positive relationship between performance and innovation adoption. In Chapter III, develop a theoretical framework for predicting and explaining active representation in bureaucracy and test two hypotheses from the framework to test its validity. First, active representation requires the loss of organizational rewards. Second, a minority group mobilizes external support to minimize the cost of active representation. These findings support that active representation is a political activity in which bargaining between formal and informal roles occurs. In addition, I add evidence to the literature demonstrating that the two prerequisites – policy discretion and a critical mass – must be satisfied for active representation to occur. In Chapter IV, I argue that organizational change is a result of a relationship between an organization and the environment. And, I suggest and advance the theory of organizational ecology for examining environment effect on organizational decline and death. The theory has been extensively studies in the business sector, so I advance the theory to be applicable to the public sector. First, I add political variables, such as change in the executive branch and the legislature, unified government, and hypothesize that (1) an organization established by a party other than the one in the executive branch in any given year will be more likely to be terminated or decline; that (2) an organization established by a party other than the one in the legislature in any given year will be more likely to be terminated or decline; and that (3) if an unfriendly party controls both the executive branch and the legislature, organizations established by other parties are more likely to be terminated or decline. Second, the effect of the economic environment on the life cycle of public organizations is not as straightforward and simple as their effect on business firms.

Comment une communauté locale chinoise, structurée à la fois par ses transmissions patrilinéaires et taoïstes, participe-t-elle à la construction de la « modernité » ? Cette thèse montre la manière dont s’articulent et se transforment ces deux structures sociales communautaires fondamentales, afin de s’élaborer, de s’adapter et de participer au changement social de leur temps. Ce travail monographique porte en outre un regard ethnologique de plus grande échelle sur la société et l’histoire du bassin de la Xiang et de la province du Hunan : des cultes confucéens et patrilignagers rendus aux ancêtres agnatiques, du Pic du Sud (Nanyue) et des anciennes traditions rituelles, martiales et médicales taoïstes (Chunyang etQuanzhen), à leur recomposition actuelle dans le « socialisme de marché à la chinoise », après avoir traverséles premiers mouvements paysans communistes asiatiques (1927) orchestrés par Mao Zedong dans sa région natale, et la Révolution culturelle (1966-76).L’étude des mutations contemporaines du patrilignage des Chen du village de Litang, autour duquel se nouent les enjeux de pouvoir et la hiérarchisation des rôles des hommes et des femmes, ainsi que le système économique et écologique local, nous conduisentà repenser les bases mêmes sur lesquelles se construisent aujourd’hui les groupes de parenté chinois. L’analyse des mutations et des métissages entre parenté et rituel, qui se sont opérés dans le cadre du sanctuaire local des Transformations croissantes (ZenghuaGuan), institution en charge de l’organisation de la vie rituelle villageoise, montre quant à elle que la communauté de culte reste l’une des structures les plus fluides et durables de la société chinoise. / How does a local Chinese community, structured on the basis of both patrilineal and Daoist transmissions, participate in the building of “modernity”? This dissertation describes the way in which these two fundamental communal social structures are articulatedwith respect to each other, and the way in which they transform themselves in order to adapt to, and participate in, the social changes of their time. This monographic work also proposes, on a larger scale, an anthropological analysis of the society and history of the Xiang basin and Hunan province: from Confucian and patrilineal cults to agnatic kinship, as well as from ancient ritual, martial and medical Daoist traditions (Chunyang and Quanzhen), to their actual rearrangements in the “Chinese market socialism”, after having undergonethe first Communist peasant movements (1927) lead by Mao Zedong in his native region, and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). The study of the contemporary mutations of the Chen lineage of Litang - an institution at the center of local power struggles, the hierarchization of sexual roles, and the village economy and ecology – leads us to reassert the very basison which Chinese parenthood groups elaborate themselves today. The analysisof the changes and the intermixturebetween parenthood and rituals, whichtake place in the local sanctuary of Increasing Transformations (Zenghua Guan) – an institution in charge of the local ritual life – shows that cult communitiesare one of the more fluid and sustainable structures of Chinese society.

No abstract available / Development Studies / D.Admin.