Body image dissatisfaction and eating disorders are more prevalent in today's society than ever. As a result, several prevention programs targeting the common eating disorder risk factors have been developed. The purpose of the current study was to investigate a new kind of prevention program that is based on the dual pathway model of eating disorders within the context of an individual?s romantic relationship. The current prevention program reduced eating disorder risk factors but failed to affect relationship satisfaction. Effect sizes were small to medium in magnitude for most of the targeted risk factors. The inclusion of men and women alike in eating disorder prevention programs appear to be a successful way of addressing the thin ideal and its detrimental effects. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Title: Women's best beautiful will never be good enough: a rethoric and semiotic analysis of four advertisements for beauty products. Because of the medias central role in peoples lives in the modern society we today live in, they have become a reference in peoples processes of making sence of their subsistences and environments. Commercial companies also want to present an as good image as possible of them towards the recipients through their marketing. Both parts can lead to a distorted picture of the real och everyday and norms and ideals easily form, for example about the correct way a woman should act and be, as the media affect which references should be made available for society. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how four advertisements for beauty products produce ideals and norms of beauty as well as construct and reconstruct femininity through the ways women are represented. The study will also contain the question about how rethoric and semiotic tools are used to strengthen the messages and sell the products. The following questions will be answered within this study: How is femininity being represented in the advertisements? How can the advertisements contribute to the creation of ideals and norms of beauty?  How do the companies use rethoric and semiotic tools in the four advertisements to sell their products and/or strengthen their brands? The study will be executed with a qualitative rethoric and semiotic analysis and the theories applied to it are Mediatization theory, Envisionment theory as well as a theory about gender and femininity.    The foremost results of this study has been that women are represented as constantly striving towards a better beauty to be able to also feel better about themselves, gain better self-esteem and to have more fulfilled and successful lives. The women in the advertisments were shown to usually be displeased with their appearances and unsure about themselves because of it before their use of the product. A maintained need for beauty and beautyproducts was also identified to be conveyed from the companies through the advertisements, towards the recipients. This could be understood as a way for them to strengthen the messages and create a constant need among women for their beautyproducts. These tendencies has also been identified to be factors which create beautyideals and norms for women to follow to be normalised and considered as feminine. Keywords: advertisments, communication, femininity, beauty, ideals, rethorics, semiotics, gender, receptiontheory

In this dissertation, I explain why scholars are unable to conclusively find evidence that divided government is the main determinant of legislative gridlock. I argue this unsettled debate is largely attributable to an imprecise conceptual view of inter-branch tensions, and that these conceptual limitations are exacerbated by unrefined measurement practices. I argue refined measures such as party polarization and gridlock intervals better explain institutional behavior than divided government. Using unique datasets estimating legislator preferences on domestic and foreign policy, findings show that when compared to more refined measures, split-party government is not the sole or even the most important source of partisan conflict. In addition, compared to other studies on divided government, I argue the reason the distinction between unified and divided government is often blurred is that a number of underlying political and institutional pressures make sweeping policy change difficult even for most unified governments. These factors contribute to the public’s growing dissatisfaction with government’s inability to solve many economic and social problems. / text

This essay, entitled Masculinities and Femininities in Vilhelm Moberg's Raskens and Mans kvinna, is about the masculinities and the femininities that are depicted in Vilhelm Moberg's two novels Raskens (1927) and Mans kvinna (1933). The theory consists of masculinity studies and femininity studies which are complemented with historical research about masculinity and femininity. In my analysis I found several motives concerning the masculinities and femininities. The motives are infidelity, possession of property and land, appearance, revenge, violence and alcohol. The ideal man in Moberg's novels is tall, strong and strong-willed. The two male main characters, Rasken and Håkan, have this in common, even though they have very different goals in their lives. One thing that is different about the masculinities portrayed in the novels is that possession of property and land is depicted as desirable in Raskens, while freedom from property is desirable in Mans kvinna. The ideal woman, at least the woman who is desired by the men in the novels, is young and beautiful, but also hardworking and industrious. At large, it is a traditional and norm based image of the woman and the man that is described in the novels. However, Moberg problematises these images by showing the women's vulnerability and how the men's "manly" behaviour leads to destructiveness.

Darbe nagrinėjami įvairūs karo tematikos aspektai Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės laikų literatūroje ir XIX a. pradžios istoriografo Simono Daukanto veikaluose. Medžiaga surinkta iš Lietuvos metraščių (XV a. – XVI a. I p.), iš penkių XVI a. – XVII a. pradžios herojinių poemų, vieno poleminio publicistinio teksto, taip pat iš žymaus baroko epochos poeto Motiejaus Kazimiero Sarbievijaus (Matthias Casimirus Sarbievius) poezijos. Darbe tiriama, kaip skirtingų laikotarpių, skirtingų pažiūrų autoriai vertina patį karo reiškinį, analizuojami mūšių aprašymai, karo atnešamos nelaimės ir baisumai, aptariamas idealaus karvedžio portretas. Renesanso poetai karą stengėsi pavaizduoti kuo tikroviškiau, meniškiau. Jie karą vaizduoja kaip stichinę nelaimę, kaip katastrofą, atnešančią vargus ir bėdas. Išskiriamas vienintelis atvejis, kai karas yra pateisinamas – valstybės gynyba. Herojinių poemų autoriai kūrė karvedžio idealą: pasakodami apie realaus valstybės veikėjo darbus, išryškindavo tik tuos asmens bruožus, kurie buvo labiausiai vertinami Renesanso epochoje. M. K. Sarbievijus karą dažnai vaizduoja tarytum spektaklį. Jo vertinimu, karas - tai išmėginimas, parodantis tikrąją asmens vertę, taip pat galimybė pelnyti nemirtingą šlovę. Poetas išryškina pozityvų karo poveikį visuomenei, - ilgalaikės taikos metu stipriausioji visuomenės dalis aptingsta, ištyžta (degradacijos motyvas). S. Daukantas apie karą kalba pasitelkdamas kuo įvairesnę medžiagą – istorinių šaltinių duomenis, žodinę... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The thesis analyzes various aspects of the theme of war in the literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the works of Simonas Daukantas, the historiographer at the beginning of the 19 century. The material used was taken from the Lithuanian Chronicles (the first half of the 15-16 centuries), five heroic poems of the beginning of 16-17 centuries, one polemic-publicistic text as well as poetry by famous Baroque poet Matthias Casimirus Sarbievius. The thesis investigates how authors from different periods and with different attitudes evaluate the same war event. Battle descriptions, distress and atrocities caused by war are analyzed, and the portrait of an ideal military leader is discussed. The Renaissance poets sought to depict war as realistically and artistically as possible. They described war as a natural disaster that brings trouble and misery. There is only one case when war is justified: defence of the State. The authors of the heroic poems were putting together an ideal of a military leader: when describing works of a real state official they highlighted only his characteristics that were valued during the Renaissance. M. C. Sarbievius often depicted war as a stage performance. He maintained that war was a challenge that revealed what a person was really worth; it was also a chance to gain immortal glory. The poet stressed the positive effects of war to society: during prolonged peace the strongest part of society slackened and became weaker (a motive of... [to full text]

I investigate aspects of fleet dynamics in a mobile gear, groundfish fishery, on the Scotian Shelf; an area subject to a seasonal area closure. Firstly, the direct impacts of the closure on the redistribution of fishing effort and the resultant catch rates of those “fishing the line” (FTL) were examined. Effort was found to concentrate within 30km of the closure boundary. Two areas of potential FTL strategy were identified, which produced variable catch rate trends. East of the closure, areas of highest catch rate corresponded to areas of greatest effort, while to the west, catch rate was often equalized throughout the region, analogous to the ideal free distribution (IFD). Secondly, two effort distributional models were compared: an IFD-based isodar model and a discrete choice model. The isodar was determined to be the preferred model because of both its consistently superior predictive performance and its greater simplicity.

A cross-sectional and longitudinal examination of thin-ideal internalization and self-objectification was conducted within the context of an eating disorder prevention program. The sample consisted of 177 undergraduate women enrolled in a sorority between the ages of 18 and 22 who participated in a dissonance-based eating disorder prevention program. Participants completed self-report assessments at baseline, post-intervention, 5-month, and 1-year follow-up. Measures included the Ideal-Body Stereotype Scale-Revised, Self-Objectification Questionnaire, Body Shape Questionnaire, and Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire. A cross-sectional path analysis indicated that thin-ideal internalization and self-objectification predict each other and both predict body dissatisfaction, which in turn, predicts eating disorder symptoms. A longitudinal examination of the prevention program indicated that participants showed significant reductions in thin-ideal internalization, self-objectification, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorder symptoms after participating in a cognitive dissonance eating disorder prevention program. Significant reductions of all symptoms were maintained at 1-year follow-up, with the exception of self-objectification, which had a significant reduction up to the 5-month assessment. A longitudinal path analysis indicated that post-intervention thin-ideal internalization and self-objectification predicted body dissatisfaction at 5-month follow-up assessments which in turn predicted eating disorder symptoms at this same time point. This model was replicated for 1-year follow-up body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptoms with the exception of the direct path from self-objectification to body dissatisfaction. Assessment of temporal sequence of change between self-objectification and thin-ideal internalization revealed that neither variable significantly predicted meaningful change in the other variable. Finally, individuals who showed meaningful change in self-objectification before showing meaningful reduction in thin-ideal internalization from baseline to post-intervention assessments had greater reductions in eating disorder symptoms 1-year following the intervention. Collectively, these results suggest that eating disorder prevention programs should focus on targeting both thin-ideal internalization and self-objectification simultaneously to increase further the reduction of eating disorder symptoms.

Martinborough, a small rural settlement renowned for its Pinot Noir wines, is a popular holiday destination for many of the new middle class resident in nearby Wellington, New Zealand's capital city. Attracted by the prospect of a rural idyll experience and conspicuous opportunities for urbane consumption, Martinborough's wine tourists also typically desired highly idealised and personalised holiday experiences. My thesis therefore examines the tourists' performative displays and public narratives of social distinction and ideal reflexive individuality. I explore the collusive framing of Martinborough as a metro-rural idyll dedicated to urbane and leisured consumption, and how within this performative setting tourists attempted to reconcile their middle class distinction (general and hierarchical) with their simultaneous pursuit of a reflexive praiseworthy self (Howland 2004). My analysis arises from participant-observation fieldwork, interviews, and surveys in a number of public tourism and wine contexts in Martinborough and elsewhere. Social distinction is marked by the competitive struggle for, and deployment of, various capitals by individuals and groups (Bourdieu 1984). Bourdieu (1984, 2002) contends that within habitus various subconscious, durable, and transposable dispositions are generated. I argue that reflexive individuality is a pervasive habitus, especially for Martinborough's middle class tourists, and that this "reflexive habitus" (Sweetman 2003: 537) generates ideal dispositions, which are mediated through other habitus (e.g. occupational, ethnic etc), and which individuals variously enact, aspire to, narrate, or performatively display. These ideals include autonomy in thought and action, and dedication to self-improvement. In post-industrial societies reflexive individuality is an influential dynamic in social connectedness, occupational pathways, political movements, consumption, and in the individualised assembly of intersubjectivities (Beck 2002; Giddens 1991). The tourists' desire for ideal reflexive individuality is, however, routinely frustrated within their everyday domestic, occupational and consumerist experiences. The stratification mechanisms of social distinction also clearly possess the capacity to disrupt or invalidate the praiseworthy self. Individuals are thus drawn to fields of action where they perceive the greatest opportunities for personal autonomy and choice. For Martinborough's tourists this included various urbane and leisured consumption activities, their reflexive sociality, and the articulation of autobiographical narratives that affirmed personal tastes and individual orientations toward social distinction. Martinborough's tourists reproduced a mythology of an enduring vernacular rural idyll. This rural idyll provided the moral foundation for an equally romanticised metro-rural idyll which, in conjunction with the tourists similarly idealised notions of 'the French tradition' of fine wine, provided a corroborating setting for their leisured consumption of urbane commodities that performatively affirmed their middle class distinction. The tourists' pursuit of social distinction was also significantly enhanced by the democraticisation of the cultural capital of wine connoisseurship, the tiered production of wine, and by the provision of conspicuous opportunities to engage in singular, episodic, and performative wine consumption. The metro-rural idyll, in combination with a pervasive New World wine ethos that promoted personalised innovation and experimentation, also provided a validating locale for the tourists' pursuit of ideal reflexive individuality. Accordingly tourists' personal wine choices were conspicuously celebrated and many aspects of wine production, producers, purchasing, and consumption were reflexively biographised. The tourists' displays of reflexive sociality and their reflexive distinction narratives were also important components in their performative assertions of ideal reflexive individuality.

This dissertation examines subfunctors of Ext relative to covering (enveloping) classes and the theory of covering (enveloping) ideals. The notion of covers and envelopes by modules was introduced independently by Auslander-Smalø and Enochs and has proven to be beneficial for module theory as well as for representation theory. The first few chapters examine the subfunctors of Ext and their properties. It is showed how the class of precoverings give us subfunctors of Ext. Furthermore, the characterization of these subfunctors and some examples are given. In the latter chapters ideals, the subfunctors of Hom, are investigated. The definition of cover and envelope carry over to the ideals naturally. Classical conditions for existence theorems for covers led to similar approaches in the ideal case. Even though some theorems such as Salce’s Lemma were proven to extend to ideals, most of the theorems do not directly apply to the new case. It is showed how Eklof & Trlifaj’s result can partially be extended to the ideals generated by a set. In that case, one also obtains a significant result about the orthogonal complement of the ideal. We relate the existence theorems for covering ideals of morphisms by identifying the morphisms with objects in A2 (which is the category of all representations of 2-quiver by R-modules) and obtain a sufficient condition for the existence of covering ideals in a more general setting. We finish with applying this result to the class of phantom morphisms.

This research develops a food demand system model based on the Linear Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS). The major contribution of this research is that the opportunity cost of time on food cooking/cleaning up is modeled in the demand system. Different from the traditional one constraint demand, this two constraints LA/AIDS model better captures consumer behavior and attitude toward food choice –food at home (FAH), sugar sweetened beverage (SSB), food away from home (FAFH). Using Statistics Canada Food Expenditure Survey (FES) and General Social Survey-time use, a two sample two stage least square (2S2SLS) is an applied in the data estimation. The empirical results show most coefficient estimates and own price elasticities are significant. FAH and FAFH are found to be more price elastic compared to a one constraint model, and SSB is found to be more price inelastic. This research provides a new perspective to estimate potential food policies, such as, a tax on SSB, or a food tax on "junk food".