The neuropeptide hormone oxytocin plays an integral role in mammalian reproductive endocrinology and behaviour. It has been utilised to study the physiological factors driving maternal behaviour in both laboratory and domestic mammals, but few studies have successfully detected oxytocin in wild individuals, or linked detected concentrations to the behaviours they exhibit. Phocid seals present an excellent system in which to study oxytocin's effects on maternal behaviour in the wild. The energetic constraints placed on a phocid mother during the dependant period should cause strong selection pressure for behaviour that maximises reproductive success with the least cost to the mother. However in many phocid species, substantial variations in maternal behaviour persist. In order to investigate whether oxytocin plays a role in driving this variation, behavioural and hormonal datasets were collected from grey seal mothers and pups on two breeding colonies in Scotland. A protocol for the detection of plasma oxytocin in phocid seals was successfully developed, along with the methodology to manipulate peripheral oxytocin concentrations to directly test the hormone's impact on behaviour. Both correlatory studies on natural oxytocin concentrations and behaviour in wild mother-pup pairs and manipulation experiments on newly weaned pups show that plasma oxytocin concentrations influence behaviours that makes mother – pup separation less likely. These include increasing the time spent in close proximity to each other, increasing the number of checks performed on the pup and reducing the aggressive behaviour directed towards the other individual. Additionally, plasma oxytocin could be used as an indicator of weak maternal bonds between mother and pup, which resulted in behaviours such as abandonment and fostering. This study highlights the potential of oxytocin for studying variations in behaviours critical to an individual's reproductive success and provides the methodological framework for studies on other wild species to be conducted in the future.

Thesis advisor: Alexa H. Veenema / The poorly understood, but robust sex differences in prevalence, symptom severity, and treatment responses of many psychiatric disorders characterized by social dysfunction signifies the importance of understanding the neurobiological mechanisms underlying sex differences in the regulation of social behaviors. One potential system involved is the oxytocin (OT) system. OT is an evolutionarily conserved neuropeptide that has been implicated in the regulation of a variety of social behaviors in rodents and humans. This thesis aims to clarify the role of OT in sex-specific regulation of social behavior and brain function in rats. Study 1 characterized sex differences in the OT system in the brain, and found that males show higher OT receptor (OTR) binding densities in several forebrain regions compared to females. Studies 2 and 3 then determined the relevance of these sex differences in OTR binding densities for the sex-specific regulation of social behavior using pharmacological manipulations of the OTR and in vivo measurement of OT release. Study 2 focused on the function of the OT system in the posterior bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNSTp), because this region showed the largest sex difference in OTR binding density, and is part of the core social behavior network. Results show that endogenous OT in the BNSTp is important for social recognition in both sexes, but that exogenous OT facilitated social recognition in males only. Furthermore, social recognition in males, but not in females, was associated with higher endogenous OT release in BNSTp. This study is the first to provide a link between sex differences in OTR binding density and OT release with sex-specific regulation of social recognition by OT. Study 3 focused on amygdala subregions because these regions were found to show sex-specific correlations of OTR binding density with social interest. Results show that the OT system modulates social interest in the central amygdala (CeA), but not the medial amygdala, in sex-specific ways, with activation of the OTR in the CeA facilitating social interest in males, but not in females. These results provide evidence that the CeA is a brain region involved in the sex-specific processing of social stimuli by the OT system. Finally, Study 4 examined whether sex differences in OTR binding densities in forebrain regions lead to sex-specific brain activation in response to OT. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activation in awake male and female rats following central or peripheral administration of OT. Central OT administration induced sex differences in BOLD activation in numerous brain regions (including several regions with denser OTR binding in males), in which males showed predominantly higher activation compared to females. Peripheral OT administration also induced sex differences in BOLD activation, but in fewer brain regions and in different brain regions compared to central OT, indicating that the pattern and the magnitude of sex differences in neural activation induced by OT strongly depend on the route of administration. Together, outcomes of this thesis provide novel insight into the sexual dimorphic structure and function of the OT system in rats, and highlights the fact that research seeking a full understanding of the role of the OT system in behavioral and brain responses is incomplete without the inclusion of both sexes. These results may be informative given the increasing popularity of the use of OT as a potential therapeutic agent in the treatment of social dysfunction in sex-biased psychiatric disorders. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

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Lack of physical activity is a major problem contributing to diseases and poor health. Nowadays, mobile fitness apps serve in important roles in encouraging and facilitating people to do more physical exercise. Many apps focus primarily on individual behavioral strategies, such as displaying individual steps to encourage physical activity. Such strategies help evoke one's internal motivation such as peer recognition and competition achievement. However, such apps usually de-emphasize or ignore interpersonal behavioral strategies, such as team rank. And group-based strategies are very important in aspects such as peer recognition and can facilitate more physical activity. This research explores the design strategies of group-based dynamic approaches for encouraging physical activity in small-size groups. The development effort takes into account the different roles of mobile devices and laptops and the evaluation explored the effectiveness of the design. / Master of Science / Lack of physical activity is a major problem contributing to diseases and poor health. Nowadays, mobile fitness apps like Fitbit and Runkeeper help encourage people to exercise. Many apps focus primarily on things like steps for each person. However, this research shifts the focus to small team goals and motivations, such as team rank and team progress toward an overall goal. This research explores ways to get people motivated through showing them information on their mobile phone or a web site. Several different visual displays were created and evaluated.

L’écriture, les écritures dans les sanctuaires grecs à l’époque archaïque et au début de l’époque classique est un travail d’histoire sociale et religieuse. L’écriture dans les sanctuaires d’Attique, de Béotie, d’Eubée et des Cyclades, par sa diversité de dialectes, de supports, de formats et de contexte, permet de mettre en relation celui qui écrit, avec la divinité et les autres hommes. Cette écriture peut entrer dans le rituel de consécration d’un objet. Un objet inscrit offert à un dieu établit une relation de don et contre-don : le consécrateur de l’objet peut remercier la divinité pour un bienfait passé, ou attendre d’elle un bienfait à venir. L’écriture permet ainsi de lier plusieurs temporalités : le passé d’une action, le présent de la consécration et le futur de la lecture de l’inscription qui réactive la mémoire du passé. L’écriture constitue également un mode de reconnaissance sociale : celui qui écrit témoigne de son savoir-faire et/ou de sa richesse. L’inscription peut être le lieu d’affirmation d’une identité, par le rappel d’une parenté, d’un métier, d’un ethnique ou d’un démotique. Cette affirmation identitaire peut aussi passer par l’utilisation d’une écriture étrangère à celle de la région du sanctuaire, écriture intrusive qui permet de distinguer le dédicant des autres dédicants. Les objets inscrits entrent dans la composition du paysage du sanctuaire. Leur emplacement est important pour que l’inscription qu’ils portent soit visible et lisible, qu’il s’agisse d’une inscription dédicatoire, de l’inscription d’une loi ou de celle d’une décision officielle. L’écriture dans un sanctuaire est à la fois marque de prestige et outil de transmission qui s’adresse davantage aux hommes qu’aux dieux. / Writing and inscriptions in Greek sanctuaries in the archaic and at the beginning of the classical period is a work of social and religious history. Writing in sanctuaries, through a variety of dialects, materials, formats and contexts, establishes a relationship between the writer, the deity and other people. The writing of the object may be part of its consecration ritual. An inscribed object offered to a god builds a relationship involving both gift and counter-gift: the worshipper of the object can offer thanks the god for a blessing obtained or be in waiting for one to come. The writing links together several timelines: the past action, the present moment of consecration, and the future reading of the inscription which recalls the past. The writing also carries social recognition: the one who inscribes makes a statement about their know-how and/or their wealth. In the inscription, the dedicant may state something of their identity, a reference to family ties, an occupation, ethnicity or demotic. Identity may also be revealed through the use of a foreign language because it would be intrusive, distinguishing one dedicant from others. Inscribed objects are an integral part of the landscapes of sanctuaries. The place of the inscription is important for it to be seen and read, whether as a dedicatory inscription, one of law or formal decision. Writings in a sanctuary are both a prestigious distinction and a means of transmission which targets people more than gods.

Different kinds of cultural studies can be used in order to learn more about disability, social policies, attitudes and citizenship. The purpose of this study is to outline some aspects of disability and Swedish society during the 19th century. The ambition is to analyse the issue of the integration of the deaf-mutes and the blind. How did politicians and educators motivate the establishment of compulsory schooling? How was the issue of correction of the body treated? How did they deal with the situation on the labour market? What kind of compensation was contemporary society willing to support? Social policies in the past are likely to be described in terms of control, repression and barriers. This study looks at disability from a more anthropological view which implies the use of hermeneutics, seeking to identify the agent’s own understanding of a problem in order to learn more about how social categorisation and citizenship are integrated and how they change. The use of original sources, such as records from the Swedish parliament and conferences held by experts as well as periodicals, makes this kind of approach possible. This thesis argues that disability must be understood as something that is constantly in the arena of a more dialectical struggle where a number of visions and interests have melted together. In the course of state interventionism and growing social justice, citizenship and disability to a greater extent became a question of honour. Being granted certain rights meant that the individual had passed the test and was now sanctioned as disabled, one who deserved the right to rights. This transition promoted a growing group consciousness. A more dialectical approach perforates the border between social control and humanity since they were not always mutually exclusive.

Esta tese apresenta um estudo sobre reconhecimento social docente, cujo objetivo é analisar e colocar sob suspeita o Prêmio Professores do Brasil, organizado pelo Ministério da Educação e seus parceiros. Ao corroborar o pacto contemporâneo entre educação e mercado, esse concurso desvia o foco das experiências de reconhecimento social da visibilidade da profissão para a espetacularização da carreira. Para defender essa proposição elaboro um percurso investigativo centrado na 7ª e 8ª edições do Prêmio, realizadas, respectivamente, em 2013 e 2014. Ferramentas analíticas como governamentalidade e práticas de si, desenvolvidas por Michel Foucault, e sujeição social e servidão maquínica, tal como Maurizio Lazzarato as emprega inspirado em Deleuze e Guattari, possibilitaram-me perceber que o Prêmio, pensado e organizado no interior da economia da educação, opera por meio da tríade experiência pedagógica-premiação-espetacularização a fim de engendrar um modo de ser professor que denomino de subjetividade docente superlativa. A elaboração desse constructo subjetivo tende a produzir certos efeitos de verdade sobre a docência: a necessidade de estabelecer parcerias como negócios; atribuir tessituras competitivas às ações docentes como importante recurso pedagógico; incitar os professores a desafiarem-se, permanentemente, para ir além do que se é; visibilizar, intensamente, as atividades realizadas. Esses são alguns imperativos de verdade que deslocam as concepções, historicamente cristalizadas, de status, prestígio, honra e dignidade do magistério para uma dimensão empreendedora acerca da tarefa dos professores. De forma ambivalente, tais investimentos na carreira possibilitam novas experiências pedagógicas ao passo que restringem o fazer docente aos princípios do mercado econômico em que a espetacularização tem sido uma das principais estratégias de condução das condutas da população. / This thesis presents a study about the docent social recognition, in which the aim is to analyze and to place under suspicion the Teachers of Brazil Award, organized by the Ministry of Education and its partners. In order to corroborate the contemporary pact between education and market, this competition turn aside the focus from experiences of social recognition of the profession visibility to the career as spectacle. In defending this proposition it was elaborated an investigative trajectory centered on 7th and 8th editions of the Award, held respectively in 2013 and 2014. Analytical tools as governmentality and practices of the self, developed by Michel Foucault, and social subjection and machinic enslavement, as Maurizio Lazzarato employs inspired by Deleuze and Guattari, allowed me to realize that the Award, planned and organized within the economics of education, operates through the triad teaching experience- award- spectacularization to produce a way of being teacher that I denominate superlative docent subjectivity. The elaboration of this subjective construct tends to produce some effects of true on the teaching practice: the need to establish partnerships as business; assign competitive tessitura in the teaching actions as an important pedagogical resource; encourage teachers to be challenged permanently, to go beyond of what it is; made visible, intensely, the carried out activities. These are some imperatives of true that shift the conceptions, historically crystallized, of status, prestige, honor and dignity of the teaching profession to an entrepreneurial dimension about the teacher task. In an ambivalent way, these investments in the career enable new pedagogical experiences while restrict the teaching practice into the principles of market economy in which the spectacularization has been one of the major strategy for the driving of population conduct.

Esta tese apresenta um estudo sobre reconhecimento social docente, cujo objetivo é analisar e colocar sob suspeita o Prêmio Professores do Brasil, organizado pelo Ministério da Educação e seus parceiros. Ao corroborar o pacto contemporâneo entre educação e mercado, esse concurso desvia o foco das experiências de reconhecimento social da visibilidade da profissão para a espetacularização da carreira. Para defender essa proposição elaboro um percurso investigativo centrado na 7ª e 8ª edições do Prêmio, realizadas, respectivamente, em 2013 e 2014. Ferramentas analíticas como governamentalidade e práticas de si, desenvolvidas por Michel Foucault, e sujeição social e servidão maquínica, tal como Maurizio Lazzarato as emprega inspirado em Deleuze e Guattari, possibilitaram-me perceber que o Prêmio, pensado e organizado no interior da economia da educação, opera por meio da tríade experiência pedagógica-premiação-espetacularização a fim de engendrar um modo de ser professor que denomino de subjetividade docente superlativa. A elaboração desse constructo subjetivo tende a produzir certos efeitos de verdade sobre a docência: a necessidade de estabelecer parcerias como negócios; atribuir tessituras competitivas às ações docentes como importante recurso pedagógico; incitar os professores a desafiarem-se, permanentemente, para ir além do que se é; visibilizar, intensamente, as atividades realizadas. Esses são alguns imperativos de verdade que deslocam as concepções, historicamente cristalizadas, de status, prestígio, honra e dignidade do magistério para uma dimensão empreendedora acerca da tarefa dos professores. De forma ambivalente, tais investimentos na carreira possibilitam novas experiências pedagógicas ao passo que restringem o fazer docente aos princípios do mercado econômico em que a espetacularização tem sido uma das principais estratégias de condução das condutas da população. / This thesis presents a study about the docent social recognition, in which the aim is to analyze and to place under suspicion the Teachers of Brazil Award, organized by the Ministry of Education and its partners. In order to corroborate the contemporary pact between education and market, this competition turn aside the focus from experiences of social recognition of the profession visibility to the career as spectacle. In defending this proposition it was elaborated an investigative trajectory centered on 7th and 8th editions of the Award, held respectively in 2013 and 2014. Analytical tools as governmentality and practices of the self, developed by Michel Foucault, and social subjection and machinic enslavement, as Maurizio Lazzarato employs inspired by Deleuze and Guattari, allowed me to realize that the Award, planned and organized within the economics of education, operates through the triad teaching experience- award- spectacularization to produce a way of being teacher that I denominate superlative docent subjectivity. The elaboration of this subjective construct tends to produce some effects of true on the teaching practice: the need to establish partnerships as business; assign competitive tessitura in the teaching actions as an important pedagogical resource; encourage teachers to be challenged permanently, to go beyond of what it is; made visible, intensely, the carried out activities. These are some imperatives of true that shift the conceptions, historically crystallized, of status, prestige, honor and dignity of the teaching profession to an entrepreneurial dimension about the teacher task. In an ambivalent way, these investments in the career enable new pedagogical experiences while restrict the teaching practice into the principles of market economy in which the spectacularization has been one of the major strategy for the driving of population conduct.

Esta tese apresenta um estudo sobre reconhecimento social docente, cujo objetivo é analisar e colocar sob suspeita o Prêmio Professores do Brasil, organizado pelo Ministério da Educação e seus parceiros. Ao corroborar o pacto contemporâneo entre educação e mercado, esse concurso desvia o foco das experiências de reconhecimento social da visibilidade da profissão para a espetacularização da carreira. Para defender essa proposição elaboro um percurso investigativo centrado na 7ª e 8ª edições do Prêmio, realizadas, respectivamente, em 2013 e 2014. Ferramentas analíticas como governamentalidade e práticas de si, desenvolvidas por Michel Foucault, e sujeição social e servidão maquínica, tal como Maurizio Lazzarato as emprega inspirado em Deleuze e Guattari, possibilitaram-me perceber que o Prêmio, pensado e organizado no interior da economia da educação, opera por meio da tríade experiência pedagógica-premiação-espetacularização a fim de engendrar um modo de ser professor que denomino de subjetividade docente superlativa. A elaboração desse constructo subjetivo tende a produzir certos efeitos de verdade sobre a docência: a necessidade de estabelecer parcerias como negócios; atribuir tessituras competitivas às ações docentes como importante recurso pedagógico; incitar os professores a desafiarem-se, permanentemente, para ir além do que se é; visibilizar, intensamente, as atividades realizadas. Esses são alguns imperativos de verdade que deslocam as concepções, historicamente cristalizadas, de status, prestígio, honra e dignidade do magistério para uma dimensão empreendedora acerca da tarefa dos professores. De forma ambivalente, tais investimentos na carreira possibilitam novas experiências pedagógicas ao passo que restringem o fazer docente aos princípios do mercado econômico em que a espetacularização tem sido uma das principais estratégias de condução das condutas da população. / This thesis presents a study about the docent social recognition, in which the aim is to analyze and to place under suspicion the Teachers of Brazil Award, organized by the Ministry of Education and its partners. In order to corroborate the contemporary pact between education and market, this competition turn aside the focus from experiences of social recognition of the profession visibility to the career as spectacle. In defending this proposition it was elaborated an investigative trajectory centered on 7th and 8th editions of the Award, held respectively in 2013 and 2014. Analytical tools as governmentality and practices of the self, developed by Michel Foucault, and social subjection and machinic enslavement, as Maurizio Lazzarato employs inspired by Deleuze and Guattari, allowed me to realize that the Award, planned and organized within the economics of education, operates through the triad teaching experience- award- spectacularization to produce a way of being teacher that I denominate superlative docent subjectivity. The elaboration of this subjective construct tends to produce some effects of true on the teaching practice: the need to establish partnerships as business; assign competitive tessitura in the teaching actions as an important pedagogical resource; encourage teachers to be challenged permanently, to go beyond of what it is; made visible, intensely, the carried out activities. These are some imperatives of true that shift the conceptions, historically crystallized, of status, prestige, honor and dignity of the teaching profession to an entrepreneurial dimension about the teacher task. In an ambivalent way, these investments in the career enable new pedagogical experiences while restrict the teaching practice into the principles of market economy in which the spectacularization has been one of the major strategy for the driving of population conduct.

of doctoral thesis This thesis deals with the problem of community conceived as an important ideal in modern societies. Its departing point in understanding modernity is the concept of social imaginaries as developed by Charles Taylor. The interpretation of this concept shows, that community is always only an alternative model of social relations. Despite this situation, it is an always recurrent ideal. The question is, why it is so and in which forms it manifests itself. The first question is answered with the help of the theory of recognition of Axel Honneth, which analyzes moral development of the subject in connection with communal relations. Identity is always anchored in the experience of recognition, and this experience needs to be confirmed in human relationships. Community, then, is the place of such confirmation. The thesis then proceeds to the reconstruction of various shapes of the ideal of community. In the reconstruction of these two most important forms of community, the thesis relies on the work of communitarian theorists and of Benedict Anderson. The first one shows small, mainly local communities growing out of free will of their members. Such communities are formed for various purposes. The second important form are imagined communities, especially nations. The thesis is...