The thirty years of sectarian violence between the Catholic and Protestant communities (known as the Troubles), left the Northern Ireland society deeply suspicious of the 'other'. Since the sighing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Northern Ireland has moved through a tentative peace process. At the time of writing the issues that hold the peace process in stasis include the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and policing. Similarly the release of political prisoners as part of the Good Friday Agreement has been a difficult reality to face foa significant number of victims of sectarian violence. During the Troubles two approaches prevailed in attempting to reconcile tohe two main communities iand bring an end to the conflict. These were the structural approach and the cultural approach. The structural approach saw the roots of the Northern Ireland conflict as lying within its institutional frameworksand looked for ways to address this. Alternately, the cultural approach saw hat thte conflict was sustained through the belief systems of the two main communities, with the perpetuation of thnegative myths about the 'other'. Resolution of the conflict was seen to be possible by challenging these belief systems through either cross-community work, which brought together Cathoics and Protestants in face to face meetings, or community developemtn work, which focussed on single identity work, empowering the identites of each community so that the two main communities could come together as equals,. It was generally acknowledged that the structural and cultural approaches nneded to be used in tandem, in the effort to reconcile the two main communities. The thesis focuses particularly on the cultural approach, by examining what role, if any, community arts played in reconsiling the two main communities in Norther Ireland between 2001 and 2002, four years af the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The assumptions that informed this research were: i) reconciliation, the restoration of relationships, can be facilitated through the creation of a safe environment wherein people can express their stories of living through a period of violent conflict, to and with one another, in a non-threatening space; ii) community arts can assist in the creation of these safe spaces by producing opportunities for people to create and express these stories in different and less threatening ways. In examining the role of community arts, the thesis highlights three approaches community arts organisations adopted in their work: an arts for arts sake approach, a cross-community approach and a community development approach. By using these approaches, the thesis shows that whilst community arts has helped in a significant number of ways, a large number of people in Northern Ireland have not been ready to talk about reconciliation, and significant sections of the Protestnant community have been reluctant to engage in community arts activities, both within their own community and with members of the Catholic community.

For industrial processes high availability and efficiency are important goals in plant operation. This thesis presents studies and development of tools for on-line treatment of process deterioration and model and sensor errors in order to achieve these goals. Deterioration of measurement devices, process components and process models has caused economical losses, plant failure and human losses. The development of on-line methods to prevent such losses is of special interest and has been conducted at The Department of Energy Technology, Mälardalen University. Important technological obstacles to implementing automatic on-line methods have been identified, such as data selection for adaptation and adaptation of data-driven models to new states. A new method has been developed for decision support by combining artificial intelligence methods and heat and mass balance models, and concepts are proposed for decision support in order to detect developing faults and to conduct appropriate maintenance actions. The methods have been implemented in simulation environment and evaluated on real process data when available. The results can be sumarised as successful development of a decision support method on a steam turbine by combining artificial neural networks and Bayesian networks, and identification of important obstacles for automation of methods for adaptation of heat and mass balance process models and data-driven models when they are subject to deterioration.

The results of three studies are discussed in this thesis. In the first study, possible relationships between jealousy, aggression, sexual desire and post-conflict sex were investigated in a sample of 128 students and professionals from the East Midlands area. A model was proposed which predicted that jealousy will affect aggression; aggression will affect sexual desire and sexual desire will affect the possibility of post-conflict sex. Correlational analysis revealed that jealousy was significantly correlated to aggression and sexual desire; also, a strong significant relationship was found between aggression and post-conflict sex. Correlations were also discovered between aggression and sexual desire and between sexual desire and post-conflict sex. Further analysis using Structural Equation Modelling tested and supported a model which showed that jealousy influenced aggression and sexual desire, which in turn may influence post-conflict sex. The second study explored partners' possible conciliatory acts in post-conflict situations. The aim was to gain insight in the peace-making process and identify the ways in which . partners attempt to reach closure over an argument and return to how they were before the argument occurred. Interviews with 13 males and females were conducted. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using Thematic Networks Analysis. The results revealed that participants reached 'Perceived Closure' through four possible pathways a) Avoiding further conflict, b) Gaining control of the situation, c) Providing/receiving assurances, and d) Achieving normality. The exact processes involved in these pathways were found to be defined by clusters of basic themes. The themes that emerged showed that participants used affection, sex, distancing, apology and humour in order to return to normality and reach closure. This process was shown to be gradual as participants reported adopting a step-by-step approach that involves trying to gain control of their feelings and the situation, avoiding further arguments, reinstating feelings of security and safety and attempting to reinstate a sense of normality. The third study was designed to explore post-conflict conciliatory acts and investigate possible correlations with relationship satisfaction and positive and negative conflict outcomes patterns. The sample consisted of 139 partiCipants from the East Midlands area. The main findings were that participants who adopt constructive conflict styles (as shown from positive conflict outcomes) tend experience higher relationship satisfaction. Use of post-conflict conciliatory strategies was also predictive of higher relationship satisfaction.

By means of a historical analysis of representations, this thesis argues that an increasing sexualisation of Indigenous personalities in popular culture contributes to the reconciliation of non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australia. It considers how sexualised images and narratives of Indigenous people, as they are produced across a range of film, television, advertising, sport and pornographic texts, are connected to a broader politics of liberty and justice in the present postmodern and postcolonial context. By addressing this objective the thesis will identify and evaluate the significance of 'banal' or everyday representations of Aboriginal sexuality, which may range from advertising images of kissing, television soap episodes of weddings, sultry film romances through to more evocatively oiled-up representations of the pinup- calendar variety. This project seeks to explore how such images offer possibilities for creating informal narratives of reconciliation, and engendering understandings of Aboriginality in the media beyond predominant academic concerns for exceptional or fatalistic versions.

With the dawn of the modern era and the advancement of globalization in all forms and domains, interfaith dialogue and reconciliation have become an essential enterprise in our diverse and diversifying world. In this emerging and extensive enterprise, ecumenical engagement and interdenominational reconciliation are of great importance, for they foster cross-communal tolerance and harmony, mitigate sectarian differences, curb exclusionary rhetoric and discriminatory policies, and cultivate a conciliatory and constructive religious environment. This study focuses on institutional efforts to advance Islamic ecumenism in recent decades and examines Iran’s state-backed World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought aka Tehran’s Ecumenical Society (TES). It aims to investigate the context and forces that led to the formation and evolution of this ecumenical organization, analyze its structure, methodology, strategy, and performance across the past three decades, explore its negotiation with Iranian domestic and regional policies, and discuss the array of shortcomings and proposals and possibilities to tackle them. Drawing on the vast literature of interfaith and ecumenical studies, statecraft, foreign policy, and organizational studies, and by examining TES’s available documents and publications, this dissertation conducts multidisciplinary research on the most important Islamic ecumenical institution, contributing to the fields of faith-based organizations, Middle East politics, Islamic studies, and interfaith relations. This work demonstrates the many ways a government-led ecumenical society inevitably gets instrumentalized to advance the state’s ideology and interests at home and abroad. The politicized manipulation of the ecumenical body, strategy, and initiatives by a Shi’ite theocracy equipped with an Islamic ideology and an aim for regional supremacy undermines its capacity to foster an inclusive ecology, develop critical and rigorous theoretical literature, and devise innovative and effective initiatives. / Religion

Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-99).

Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-171).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-210).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2007. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-174).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2007. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-289).