This dissertation advances our understanding of the structure of social relations between small groups and the larger organizations within which such groups are situated. Specifically, I examine structures of leadership and authority to gain an in-depth understanding of group organization in one nondenominational and one Southern Baptist megachurch. Methods include in-depth interviews with church clergy, staff, and group leaders; participant observation in groups and other church activities; and a written survey for group leaders. Using this combination of methods, I investigate how small groups are structured in terms of their connections to the megachurches within which they reside. I examine the extent to which the church staff provides oversight and exerts control over groups, and I connect variation on this dimension to how groups relate to their members and to the outside world.My findings include, first, that market metaphors permeate the organization of groups in these two megachurch organizations. The diffusion of ideas and practices from other institutional realms is notable in these two sites, and this may be true for megachurches more generally. Second, I argue that understanding strictness in religious groups is at least as much about the structure of relations between church leadership and membership as it is about beliefs. Third, small groups in megachurches look very much like small groups in American religion more generally, and church oversight may not make much difference in solving problems in small groups identified in previous research. Finally, I find that the level of oversight and control exerted by church leadership on the organization of groups may have a critical influence on the function of groups. Loose and tight connections appear to encourage a more outward and inward focus, respectively.Sociologists studying religious strictness or small groups in any setting should pay particular attention to the structure of relations connecting groups to the larger organizations within which they reside. Religious leaders interested in organizing groups of members should understand that the structure they create to connect with group leaders is at least as important as beliefs they teach leaders, in terms of influencing the focus of the groups.

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Dans cette thèse, on présente un cadre théorique général d'analyse statique pour l'inférence de propriétés `structurelles' ou d'`usage' des programmes. Le terme `structurel', emprunté à la théorie de la démonstration, suggère un rapport étroit avec la logique linéaire, où les règles structurelles de contraction et affaiblissement jouent un rôle important. Le problème de l'analyse statique consiste à trouver une traduction d'un langage source dans le style de PCF vers un langage comportant des annotations structurelles. On montre que l'on peut characteriser l'ensemble de traductions possibles comme des solutions d'un ensemble d'inequations appropriées. Plus particulièrement, on s'intéresse à la plus petite solution, qui correspond à la traduction la plus précise ou optimale. La plus grande partie de ce manuscrit de thèse est dédié à un seul cas d'étude, l'analyse linéaire, dont l'objectif est de déterminer les valeurs qui sont utilisées une seule fois. On decrit d'abord une version de l'analyse linéaire très simplifiée, en suite on introduise des extensions qui comportent des notions de sous-typage et du polymorphisme d'annotations, ce étant clé dans la pratique, car il permet à l'analyse de garder son pouvoir expressif en présence de modules compilés séparément.

We discuss the development of a number of algorithms and techniques to allow object oriented virtual machines to support many of the features needed by functional and other higher level languages. These features include non-strict evaluation, partial function application, higher ranked and higher kinded types. To test the mechanisms that we have developed we have also produced a compiler to allow the functional language Haskell to be compiled to a native executable for the Common Language Runtime. This has allowed us to demonstrate that the techniques we have developed are practically viable.

Multidatabases are being actively researched as a relatively new area in which many aspects are not yet fully understood. This area of transaction management in multidatabase systems still has many unresolved problems. The problem areas which this dissertation addresses are classification of multidatabase systems, global concurrency control, correctness criterion in a multidatabase environment, global deadlock detection, atomic commitment and crash recovery. A core group of research addressing these problems was identified and studied. The dissertation contributes to the multidatabase transaction management topic by introducing an alternative classification method for such multiple database systems; assessing existing research into transaction management schemes and based on this assessment, proposes a transaction processing model founded on the optimal properties of transaction management identified during the course of this research. / Computing / M. Sc. (Computer Science)

Multidatabases are being actively researched as a relatively new area in which many aspects are not yet fully understood. This area of transaction management in multidatabase systems still has many unresolved problems. The problem areas which this dissertation addresses are classification of multidatabase systems, global concurrency control, correctness criterion in a multidatabase environment, global deadlock detection, atomic commitment and crash recovery. A core group of research addressing these problems was identified and studied. The dissertation contributes to the multidatabase transaction management topic by introducing an alternative classification method for such multiple database systems; assessing existing research into transaction management schemes and based on this assessment, proposes a transaction processing model founded on the optimal properties of transaction management identified during the course of this research. / Computing / M. Sc. (Computer Science)