Cette recherche doctorale a pour objet la prostitution chinoise au Cameroun. L’approche anthropologique employée met en lumière les trajectoires de vie des prostituées chinoises, des clients et des prostituées camerounais, ainsi que l’organisation du marché du sexe dans les villes de Yaoundé et de Douala. À travers le prisme de ces différents acteurs, cette thèse fournit en premier lieu des éléments d’analyse sur la dette symbolique et financière des Chinoises. Ces deux formes de dette auxquelles elles sont contraintes les enferment dans le travail du sexe, présenté comme le seul moyen de remboursement par leurs créanciers. Cette étude révèle également l’influence des prostituées chinoises sur l’imaginaire de la sexualité des Camerounais, qui trouvent avec elles la possibilité de réaliser des pratiques sexuelles rejetées par les travailleuses du sexe et les femmes mariées camerounaises. / This doctoral research deals with Chinese prostitution in Cameroon. The anthropological approach used highlights life trajectories of Chinese sex workers, Cameroonian customers and prostitutes, and sex market organization in the cities of Yaoundé and Douala. Through the prism of these different actors, this thesis provides first of all analysis elements on symbolic and financial debts loads carried by Chinese women. Those both kind of debt they have to bear locks them into sex work, presented by their creditors as the only way to repayment. This study also reveals Chinese prostitutes’ influence on imaginary of sexuality of Cameroonian customers, who have the possibility to perform sexual practices usually rejected by Cameroonian sex workers.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are characterized by difficulties in social interaction and communication. Recent studies within the social sciences have espoused a need to reconceptualize autism out of the domain of the intrapersonal and into the realm of the sociocultural. Semi-structured in-depth interviewing was used to examine the selfperceptions and experiences of twelve people who identified as on the autism spectrum. Social scientists have tended to grant the topic of autism to the domain of psychology; as a result autistic perception has been stigmatized resulting in the exclusion of autistic perspectives in knowledge production on the lived experiences of autistic actors. The first-hand accounts examined in this study lend support to the idea that symbolic interactionism provides a more nuanced framework for studying how autistic perception influences autistic experience in contrast to the functionalist-reductionist approach of cognitive psychology. From this perspective we can position autistic differences in disposition and interaction as socioculturally situated rather than as solely a result of individual cognitive impairment. The application of microsociological concepts to autistic perception and interaction has the potential to expand knowledge on both autistic experience and the social construction of normative order.

Symbolic computation has been widely applied to Combinatorics, Number Theory, and also other fields. Many reliable and fast algorithms with corresponding implementations now have been established and developed. Using the tool of Experimental Mathematics, especially with the help of mathematical software, in particularly Mathematica, we could visualize the data, manipulate algorithms and implementations. The work presented here, based on symbolic computation, involves the following two parts. The first part introduces a systematic integration method, called the Method of Brackets. It only consists of a small number of simple and direct rules coming from the Schwinger parametrization of Feynman diagrams. Verification of each rule makes this method rigorous. Then it follows a necessary theorem that different series representations of the integrand, though lead to different processes of computations, do not affect the result. Examples of application lead to further discussions on analytic continuation, especially on Pochhammer symbol, divergent series and connection to Mellin transform of the Method of Brackets. In the end, comparison with other integration methods and a Mathematica package manual are presented. The second part provides a symbolic approach on the study of Bernoulli numbers and its generalizations. The Bernoulli symbol $\mathcal{B}$ originally comes from Umbral Calculus, as a formal approach to Sheffer sequences. Recently, a rigorous footing by probabilistic proof makes it also a random variable with its density function a shifted hyperbolic trigonometric function. Such an approach together with general method on random variables gives a variety of results on generalized Bernoulli polynomials, multiple zeta functions, and also other related topics. / Lin Jiu

Research in the field of music information retrieval (MIR) is concerned with methods to effectively retrieve a piece of music based on a user's query. An important goal in MIR research is the ability to successfully retrieve music stored as recorded audio using note-based queries. In this work, we consider the searching of musical audio using symbolic queries. We first examined the effectiveness of using a relative pitch approach to represent queries and pieces. Our experimental results revealed that this technique, while effective, is optimal when the whole tune is used as a query. We then suggested an algorithm involving the use of pitch classes in conjunction with the longest common subsequence algorithm between a query and target, also using the whole tune as a query. We also proposed an algorithm that works effectively when only a small part of a tune is used as a query. The algorithm makes use of a sliding window in addition to pitch classes and the longest common subsequence algorithm between a query and target. We examined the algorithm using queries based on the beginning, middle, and ending parts of pieces. We performed experiments on an audio collection and manually-constructed symbolic queries. Our experimental evaluation revealed that our techniques are highly effective, with most queries used in our experiments being able to retrieve a correct answer in the first rank position. In addition, we examined the effectiveness of duration-based features for improving retrieval effectiveness over the use of pitch only. We investigated note durations and inter-onset intervals. For this purpose, we used solely symbolic music so that we could focus on the core of the problem. A relative pitch approach alongside a relative duration representation were used in our experiments. Our experimental results showed that durations fail to significantly improve retrieval effectiveness, whereas inter-onset intervals significantly improve retrieval effectiveness.

In recent years, symbolic and constraint-solving techniques have been making major advances and are continually being deployed in new business and engineering applications. A major push behind this trend has been the development and deployment of sophisticated methods that are able to comprehend and evaluate important sub-classes of symbolic problems (such as those in polynomial, linear inequality and finite domains). However, relatively little has been explored in higher-order domains, such as equations with unknown functions. This paper proposes a new symbolic method for solving a class of higher-order equations with an unknown function over the complex domain. Our method exploits the closure property of group structure (for functions) in order to allow an equivalent system of equations to be expressed and solved in the first-order setting. Our work is an initial step towards the relatively unexplored realm of higher-order constraint-solving, in general; and higher-order equational solving, in particular. We shall provide some theoretical background for the proposed method, and also prototype an implementation under Mathematica. We hope that our foray will help open up more sophisticated applications, as well as encourage work towards new methods for solving higher-order constraints. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

A program to control a robot manipulator for industrial assembly operations must take into account possible errors in parts placement and tolerances of the parts themselves. Previous approaches to this problem have been to (1) engineer the situation so that the errors are small or (2) let the programmer analyze the errors and take explicit account of them. This paper gives the mathematical underpinnings for building programs (plan checkers) to carry out approach (2) automatically. The plan checker uses a geometric CAD-type database to infer the effects of actions and the propagation of errors. It does this symbolically rather than numerically, so that computations can be reversed and desired resultant tolerances can be used to infer required initial tolerances or the necessity for sensing. The checker modifies plans to include sensing and adds constraints to the plan which ensure that it will succeed. An implemented system is described and results of its execution are presented. The plan checker could be used as part of an automatic planning system of as an aid to a human robot programmer.

Classical mechanics is deceptively simple. It is surprisingly easy to get the right answer with fallacious reasoning or without real understanding. To address this problem we use computational techniques to communicate a deeper understanding of Classical Mechanics. Computational algorithms are used to express the methods used in the analysis of dynamical phenomena. Expressing the methods in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. The task of formulating a method as a computer-executable program and debugging that program is a powerful exercise in the learning process. Also, once formalized procedurally, a mathematical idea becomes a tool that can be used directly to compute results.

The purpose of this study is to give an insight in how home care givers with different ethnic background, other than European, experience their work as home care givers. It is a qualitative study based on interviews and observations of four different home care givers. Among the questions studied include; if ethnicity is a resource or not, how does it affect home care givers in doing their work? What importance does it have on the organisation as a home care entrepreneur? Has the home care entrepreneur a perspective of diversity? The results of the study have been analyzed with the help of symbolic interaction. The results have led us to conclude that the home care givers have a professional identity, which does not include an ethnic identity. Further more results indicate that ethnicity has a limited impact on the home care givers of non European origin that have not experienced discrimination. For the home care givers who earlier on in their carrier(s) have had experiences of discrimination, exist uncertainties, especially during their first visit in the homes. How the home care entrepreneur give guidelines to solving problems and conflicts between client and home care givers are of great significance.

In a world of development and scarce resources sustainable development has been presented as an approach of dealing with our issues of welfare. Economic, environmental and social aspects are incorporated in the approach in order to solve the problems of today. While sustainable development is pervaded in policies and planning of nations and communities, the three aspects of it have all specific definitions which are to be applied, some aspects are well defined whilst others are not yet fully determined. The purpose of this qualitative study is to highlight the social aspect of sustainable development. The social sustainability is assessed by investigating how a municipality in Sweden meets the variables of social sustainability established by the Swedish government. It investigates the structure plans of a community south of Stockholm, Haninge Municipality. It seeks to understand how the municipality implements social sustainability in practice to solve the issues of the alienated residential area Jordbro. By using a method of interpretation of texts in form of governmental documents of social sustainability, municipal structure plans together with incorporated interviews with locals and an internship at the municipality house of Haninge, the study gives a comprehensive understanding of social sustainability in Stockholm and issues which the municipality is to deal with. It indicates that social sustainability is taking a smaller role in the structure planning documents of the municipality, and it also indicates a lack of interaction and incorporation of locals. Furthermore the study suggests some solutions to the problems of social sustainability.

Alzheimer disease (AD) and related dementias affect nearly one in thirteen Canadians over the age of 65. Difficulties in communicating are frequently cited as the greatest source of stress for individuals who have a diagnosis of dementia and their families. Despite the wide recognition that the family is affected by a relative’s diagnosis of dementia, there has been little research aimed at understanding the experience of the family as a unit. The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the family experience of communicating with a relative who has dementia. This study used a qualitative single case study design, drawing on the theory of Symbolic Interactionism. Three members of one family participated in two individual interviews and a family interview. The family member who was experiencing symptoms associated with AD but whose diagnosis was referred to as “cognitive impairment” (CI), participated in one individual interview. Interviews were transcribed and the data was analyzed using constant comparative analysis. The findings that emerged from the data indicate that the participating family approached communication with the intention of achieving three particular goals in their interactions. These goals were to include, protect, and bring happiness to their afflicted family member. Three strategies were identified as the primary strategies used to achieve these goals: interpreting, scripting, and translating. Further, the family was organized in such a way that members were positioned either as part of the ‘core’ of the family or on the ‘outskirts’ of the family. Family members that pursued and achieved the three goals in their interactions with the relative who has CI were considered to be part of the core while others who were not willing or capable of interacting in this way were positioned on the outskirts of the family. Understanding the communication experience of the family as a unit offers a vital link to meet the needs of families dealing with the effects of CI. This knowledge will aid in formulating important new questions and insights for researchers and clinicians to provide the care and support necessary to promote the well-being of families affected by CI.