No / supported by Edition board of the Philosophical faculty, University of Hradec Králové

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The. thesis describes the, network of theories and practices which articulated the discourse of crime in legal and fictional writing in eighteenth-century England. Alter an Introduction which outlines the general scope of the thesis, successive chapters examine a number of issues which the representation of crime in eighteenth-century England raises. Chapter one is a study of the effects of luxury on the perception of crime in the Classical period (the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries); Chapter two is a critical approach to the English criminal law in the Classical Age. This chapter examines how legal thought was constructed and how its concepts and statements were defined within the general mode of knowledge during this period. Chapter three discusses the definitions of crime and the treatment of criminals in a world governed by a market-economy and representative authority. Chapter four describes the penal system which existed in England in the Classical period and analyses its theoretical choices, methods and practice. Chapter five which opens Part 11 is a study of the relationship between crime and narrative. The focus in this chapter is on Defoe's, Pelham's and Fielding's narratives of the life of Jonathan Wild. The chapter also studies the practices of Jonathan Wild in relation to the representation of crime in fiction. Chapter six is devoted mainly to Defoe's representation of crime in his fiction. The chapter examines a number of features in Defoe's configuration of crime in his writings: wealth, crime, masquerade, transformation, topography and geography are all important elements of his crime fiction. Chapter seven is4study of Fielding's Amelia and his magisterial activities. The aim in this chapter is to show how a magistrate sees and represents crime in fiction. Finally, the Conclusion is an assessment of the foregoing ideas.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

Base Ring Ware is one of the most distinctive and thereby important archaeological hallmarks of the Late Bronze Age in Cyprus. The technical ceramic standards achieved ·inthis ware coupled with its wide. distribution provided a valuable opportunity to study the technological skills of the ancient Cypriot craftsmen as well as to assess the degree of sophistication of their knowledge, and ability to manipulate the local ceramic material resources. By means of standardised macroscopic studies of a large sherd sample of the ware, the range and patterns of production methods were established. These data were then subjected to s ta tis tical clus tering procedures to discover any chronologi'cal, geographical or technical production patterns for the ware. In addition, geochemical analyses were performed on a representative set of sherds to provide a basis for characterising the ware's general geological composition and to determine whether any local variations in the fabric could be identified. For purposes of material comparisons, forty clay samples of various mineralogical types were collected from Cyprus from deposits near the Late Cypriot sites represented by the Base Ring sherds. These clays were also subjected to geochemical analysis and statistical procedures to determine whether any of them could provide useful compositional parallels to the materials of the archaeological samples. The sherds were then examined petrographically and by scanning electron microscopy, microprobe and X-ray diffraction analysis to provide complementary and corroborative data for the geochemical profiles. The Cypriot clay samples were used for manufacturing and firing experiments to compare with Base Ring production techniques, and were subjected to the same analytical procedures as were the sherds. The combined analytical and technical data were then considered for both sherds and clays to determine the degree to which they contributed to a consistent and overall geoiogical characterisation of Base Ring materials and fabrics, and the degree to which they provided important insights into the relative sophistication and regional nature of the Late Cypriot ceramic industry which produced .this remarkable ware

Contemporary cognitive theory recognizes several dissociable learning systems that are critical in understanding different patterns of performance. Rule Based learning is mediated predominantly by the frontal lobe and is available to conscious control. Here executive function and working memory develop verbalizable rules guided by corrective feedback. Procedural learning is based on integrating non-verbal information from multiple sources and is predominantly mediated by the striatum. Here habitual stimulus-response associations develop using corrective feedback. Perceptual Representation learning is based on passive familiarity predominantly mediated by the visual cortex. Here learning is not guided by on conscious evaluations or feedback. Age-related deficits in learning have been well documented, however dissociable learning systems approaches demonstrated the greatest declines occur in feedback-driven learning. In the face of declines, older adults maintain several well-persevered aspects of cognition. For example, older adults sometimes show enhanced processing of positive emotionally arousing stimuli, but this positivity bias reverses when cognitive control resources are limited becoming a negativity bias. Unlike previous work that explores emotional stimuli directly, the goal of Chapters 1 and 2 is to use emotional feedback to improve learning outcomes. In addition, older adults have a performance advantage over younger adults in perceptual representation learning in the absence of feedback. This suggests that the processes that underlie this mode of learning are relatively intact, however it is unclear what these processes are and how they contribute to performance. The dissociable memory systems that underlie rule based and perceptual representation learning demonstrate asymmetric age-related declines that may be driving these differences. Chapter 3 explores age-related changes processes during learning. Chapter 3 also highlights a younger adult deficit in perceptual representation learning. Generating rules depends on narrow attention to features, and perceptual representations depend on broad attention to the whole stimulus. Task-irrelevant emotional primes influence the scope of attention where negative arousal narrows and positive arousal broadens, which likely affects rule based and perceptual representation learning systems differently. Chapter 4 explores how task-irrelevant emotional primes influence attention and interact with learning system to enhance performance in younger adults. / text

This thesis contains two studies which examined the cognitive functioning of the aging brain. Specifically, age-related changes in processing speed and its remediation via cognitive training were studied. In study 1, younger adults (n = 34) and older adults (n = 39) were recruited to investigate the age-related differences in the relationships between processing speed and general cognitive status (GCS). Their performance in GCS (as measured by The Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Hong Kong Version), cognitive processing speed (as measured by Processing Speed Index, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), cognitive inhibition (as measured by Stroop Color-Word Test), and divided attention (as measured by Color Trails Test) was examined. Current findings indicated that processing speed predicted GCS in older but not younger adults. In older adults, processing speed as a predictor accounted for an additional 13% of variance in GCS. This study further verified the relationship between processing speed and prefrontal abilities, including verbal fluency, cognitive inhibition and divided attention in aging. Findings revealed that despite the abovementioned prefrontal abilities were significantly correlated with processing speed, verbal fluency had remained the strongest predictor, accounting for 21% of variance in processing speed in older adults. Based on findings in study 1, it was anticipated that training cognitive skills including processing speed and prefrontal abilities in older adults would improve cognitive functioning in general. Therefore, in study 2, elderly people at risk of progressive cognitive decline (n = 70) were recruited to investigate the training effect of computerized cognitive training programs that aimed to improve cognitive processing speed, cognitive inhibition and divided attention. Findings indicated that cognitive processing speed and divided attention improved post-training. Results obtained from the two studies implied potential intervention through training cognitive processing speed in elderly people at risk of progressive cognitive decline. Future studies should focus on training specific effect and examining the optimal effect by modification of the training paradigms, particularly the design of the contents and level of difficulty. / published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Psychology

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