Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

La thèse présente l’édition, la traduction et le commentaire de quatre testaments écrits sur papyrus, datés du VIIe siècle ap. J.-C., et émanant des supérieurs d’un monastère de Haute-Égypte, le monastère de Saint-Phoibammôn, situé sur la rive gauche de Thèbes. Utilisant la forme du testament de droit privé, les supérieurs lèguent à leur successeur la direction spirituelle du monastère en même temps que la propriété de ses biens et son administration. Les implications de ce dossier sont à la fois juridiques – dans quelle mesure ces documents sont-ils conformes au modèle offert par le droit byzantin ? –, historiques – les testaments apportent des éclairages nouveaux sur l’histoire du monastère de Saint-Phoibammôn, qui fut un important centre de vie ascétique au VIIe siècle et la résidence de l’évêque Abraham d’Hermonthis, son fondateur –, et linguistiques – il s’agit d’un dossier bilingue, le premier testament étant en grec et les trois suivants en copte, ce qui permet d’étudier les processus de traduction d’une langue à l’autre, et de s’interroger sur le statut du copte comme langue juridique. Cet ensemble est unique car il offre la possibilité d’étudier le même type de documents, provenant du même endroit, rédigés dans deux langues différentes, et condensés sur une période chronologique relativement courte (moins d’un siècle). / The dissertation contains the edition, traduction and commentary of four wills written on papyrus, dated from the 7th century CE, and drawn up by the superiors of a monastery in Upper Egypt, the monastery of Saint Phoibammon, located on the left bank in Thebes. Through the form of a private will, the superiors bequeath to their successor the spiritual direction of the monastery as well as the property of its goods and its administration. This dossier has implications of various sorts: legal – to what extent are these documents in accordance with the model of Byzantine law? –, historical – the wills bring new elements on the story of the Saint Phoibammon monastery which was an important centre of ascetic life in the 7th century and where lived bishop Abraham of Hermonthis, its founder –, linguistic – it is a bilingual dossier, as the first will is written in Greek, the three following in Coptic, allowing to study the translation process and to ponder about the legal status of the Coptic language. This group of documents is unique because it allows to study the same kind of document, coming from the same place, written in two different languages, and dating from a relatively short period of time (less than a century).

Most common law and civil law jurisdictions have laws in place to provide a safety net so that those who are unfairly disinherited will be able to claim a share in a deceased's estate. Since 1920, British Columbia has been one of those jurisdictions in which a testator's distribution scheme may be varied at the discretion of the Court. However, the absence of a stated purpose of the legislation, a broad judicial discretion to determine what is adequate provision for a spouse and children and the failure of the Supreme Court of Canada in Tataryn v. Tataryn to bring certainty and predictability to the law point to a need for reform. The goal of this thesis is to complete the sentence "the purpose of legislation restricting testamentary freedom is . . . . " and to make recommendations for legislative change to accomplish this purpose. An overview of the law in British Columbia today and the arguments for reform will be outlined in chapters 1, 2 and 3. Chapters 4 through 8 will examine a number of topics to extract policies which might assist in the formulation of a dependant's relief statute's purpose. Historical concepts, family, intestacy and wrongful death legislation as expressions of values will be reviewed. From the doctrine of unjust enrichment, a cause of action independent of a statute, a contract or a tort, but now widely used in claims between family members, will be extracted principles which recognize compensation for the contribution of services and money between family members. Empirical studies about testators' intentions, family and other private relations will be noted in chapter 9. Lastly, chapter 10 will make a number of recommendations for reform. These include: (a) A statement of the statute's purpose. Persons who have lived together in a relationship of some permanence with financial and emotional interdependence should share equally the assets acquired during their time together and the survivor's need for support should be recognized. Children's support needs should also be met but the testamentary autonomy of persons should be subject only to these two objectives. (b) The broadening of categories of claimants to include cohabitants and stepchildren with the introduction of age and dependency criteria for the latter. (c) Criteria to be used in making reasonable financial provision for spouses and children. (d) A priorities scheme. (e) The right to waive the statutory rights by agreement. No attempt is made to provide recommendations for all of the issues that would arise under a new statute.

This thesis considers the problem of the representation of individual institutional textual records in archival research tools. While document studies in academic journals point to the value of focussed consideration of various types of records, archives do not have the resources to apply such focus to every item in their holdings, even though these convey the information sought by many researchers. Over the last century, archivists have emphasized description of groups of records, because this provides insight into the context in which documents exist and immense quantities involved left little choice. Recent developments, however, suggest the individual document should be re-visited. This thesis focuses on how formal descriptive systems might be enhanced to allow closer consideration of individual institutional textual records. It reviews the history of description, explores benefits to researchers seeking information from particular documents (e.g. the will) and explores tools created in response, such as contextual authority files.

The present research concerned the exploration of the psychometric properties of a psychologically based screening measure of competency for use in civil legal proceedings. Specifically, the measure was designed to assess a person’s competency before executing a will or other important legal document. In a series of investigations, expert feedback was utilized to formulate the final version of the measure, possible scoring criteria, and overall goodness of fit to the research question. Additionally, reliability and factor structure of the competency measure were explored. In a two-part study, expert feedback was sought using the Direct Consensus Method to determine final question inclusion for the measure, as well as to create a preliminary scoring system, which could be compared against a random sampling of participants obtained in the second part of the study. The experts (N=49) were members of one of two groups (N = 22 first feedback, N = 27 second feedback). Using the expert feedback the measure was presented to a randomized sample of individuals (N=109) who were given the measure and then scored based on the experts proposed methodology. Under the proposed method of scoring none of the randomized normals would have been misidentified as incompetent. Finally, exploratory factor analysis was conducted using both a 2 and 3 factor model. Results from this analysis were inconclusive. / Department of Educational Psychology

This thesis considers the problem of the representation of individual institutional textual records in archival research tools. While document studies in academic journals point to the value of focussed consideration of various types of records, archives do not have the resources to apply such focus to every item in their holdings, even though these convey the information sought by many researchers. Over the last century, archivists have emphasized description of groups of records, because this provides insight into the context in which documents exist and immense quantities involved left little choice. Recent developments, however, suggest the individual document should be re-visited. This thesis focuses on how formal descriptive systems might be enhanced to allow closer consideration of individual institutional textual records. It reviews the history of description, explores benefits to researchers seeking information from particular documents (e.g. the will) and explores tools created in response, such as contextual authority files.

The purpose of this research is to contribute a non indigenous perspective to current discourse on sense of place in contemporary Australia. The research employs a number of strategies to investigate current responses to our geographic and historical time position. Within the exegesis there is a vers libre poem, written from the imagined viewpoint of members of the Burke and Wills’ expedition. The poem is supported by a superimposition of the Don Quixote story over that of the ill-fated inland Australian explorers. [...] / Master of Arts (Visual Arts)

The purpose of this research is to contribute a non indigenous perspective to current discourse on sense of place in contemporary Australia. The research employs a number of strategies to investigate current responses to our geographic and historical time position. Within the exegesis there is a vers libre poem, written from the imagined viewpoint of members of the Burke and Wills’ expedition. The poem is supported by a superimposition of the Don Quixote story over that of the ill-fated inland Australian explorers. [...] / Master of Arts (Visual Arts)

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Toulouse.