Drawing upon a series of interviews with politicians, sports administrators, coaches, journalists and academics and with analysis based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), this thesis examines elite sports development policy in Taiwan within a political context. It investigates the issues of whether or not sports development and policy-making reflect institutional features, and how sports policy has changed over time in Taiwan. It further explores the development systems of baseball, taekwondo and tennis, with a particular focus on similarities and differences between them at the elite level. Empirical data gathered from semi-structured interviews and documentary materials is analysed using an institutional approach together the ACF. The main findings suggest that, in essence, sports development and policy-making in Taiwan comply with institutional features and, during different periods from 1949 to the present day, have consistently been influenced by the political needs of the time. The analysis of the development systems of the three selected sports identified some major similarities. The government promotes them using a top-down approach and each sport relies heavily on the public funding. There sports have no national level facilities. Talent identification and development mainly occur in schools and are conducted through the competition systems. There is government financial support for elite athletes to participate in international events or for the governing bodies to host international events. The development systems for coaches share the same mechanisms. Finally, national athletes in each sport can enjoy sports science support from the government during squad training and international events. However, the case studies also reveal considerable differences. The governing bodies of taekwondo and tennis play a more dominant in elite development than that of baseball. Parents play a more significant role in the identification and development of tennis players than for the other sports. Only taekwondo national competitors train relatively frequently at the national training centre. The facilities for elite baseball players are more adequate than for the other sports. Elite baseball players enjoy the most international competition opportunities and taekwondo competitors the least. The existence of a professional baseball league and a highly professionalised international competition system for tennis serve to highlight the difference between the three sports in terms of the emergence of full-time athletes. In sum, this demonstrates quite clearly that there exists in Taiwan a single spine of sports development in general, but with variations.

Thesis (DPhil (History)—University of Stellenbosch, 2004. / Toe die onderhandeling vir ‘n nuwe demokratiese bestel in Suid-Afrika na 1990 begin is, het dit ‘n tydperk ingelei waar talle kwessies oor menseregte na vore gekom het. Ook vroue het die geleentheid aangegryp om vrouesake en gender-verhoudings op die nasionale agenda te plaas in ‘n poging om die onregverdighede van die verlede aan te spreek. Die Women’s National Coalition (WNC) is in 1992 amptelik gestig uit vrees dat vroue van die belangrike politieke prosesse wat die toekoms van Suid-Afrika sou bepaal, uitgesluit sou word. Die doelwitte van die WNC was om inligting oor vroue se behoeftes en aspirasies in te samel en dit in ‘n Vrouehandves saam te vat wat uiteindelik ‘n integrale deel van die nuwe grondwet van Suid-Afrika sou word. Die WNC was ‘n inisiatief van die African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL). Die swart vrou in Suid-Afrika se onderdrukking was drieledig: sy was onderdruk as vrou, deur patriargie en deur apartheid. Sy het polities aktief geraak toe haar familiestrukture bedreig is en het teen paswette, swak behuising, en uitsetttingsaksies van die regering, geprotesteer. Tydens die 1980’s het swart vroue wat aan die noodtoestand blootgestel is, se politieke betrokkenheid verander en sy het ‘n rewolusionêre vryheidsvegter geword. In die buiteland het die swart vrou wat in die bevrydingstryd betrokke was geleidelik erkenning in die ANC gekry. Hierdie vroue was ná 1990 gedetermineerd dat hul verwagtinge vir totale gelykberegtiging in die demokratiese Suid-Afrika sal realiseer. In hierdie proefskrif val die soeklig veral op die Afrikanervrou en -vroueorganisasies wat by die WNC aangesluit het. As Afrikanernasionalis was haar politieke betrokkenheid in die verloop van die geskiedenis marginaal. Met geïsoleerde aktivistiese optrede soos die vroue-optogte van 1915 en 1940, asook die militantheid van die vakbondvroue, het Afrikanervroue hoofsaaklik die veilige ruimte van die liefdadigheidsterrein gebruik om hul politieke voorkeure uit te leef. Afrikanervroue se betrokkenheid in die stemregbeweging was op aandrang van die mans en by insinuasie ook die optogte van 1915 en 1940. Met die magsoorname van die Nasionale Party het die Afrikanervrou polities onbetrokke geraak. Haar funksie was hoofsaaklik die van moeder en vrou en ondersteunend van die heersende ideologie. Met die aftakeling van apartheid is talle tradisionele Afrikanersimbole bevraagteken. Meer as 40% van die Afrikaner het by die meer regse partye aangesluit. Hierdie gebeure het die Afrikanervrou aan die begin van die 1990’s sonder ‘n spesifieke identiteit gelaat. Met die onderhandelings vir die toekomstige demokratiese bestel ‘n werklikheid, was die Afrikanervrou in ‘n onbenydenswaardige identiteitskrisis gedompel. Sy wou apolities bly, maar is deur Afrikanerintelligentsia en politici aangesê om die politieke wêreld te betree. Aan die anderkant wou Afrikanerkultuurorganisasies die Afrikanerkultuur inklusief beveilig. Die Afrikanervroue het moeilik by die WNC aangepas. Daar was talle praktiese probleme, maar dit was veral haar gebrek aan politieke vernuf, en die vyandigheid van swart vroue wat die vergaderings van die WNC domineer het, wat haar betrokkenheid in die wiele gery het. Die gedagte het ook by feitlik al die Afrikanervroue ontstaan dat die WNC ‘n politieke rookskerm was vir die ANC om sy magsbasis te versterk. Die spanninge van die Veelparty-onderhandelinge het ook na die WNC oorgespoel en vertragings en opskorting van lidmaatskap tot gevolg gehad. Daar was Afrikanervroue wat hul belewenis van die WNC as volkome positief ervaar het, wat dit as geleentheid gesien het om by vrouebemagtiging en politieke onderhandelinge betrokke te raak. Die meerderheid van vroue wat by hierdie ondersoek betrek is, was egter onseker en het die negatiewe aspekte van hul belewenis hulle die ondervinding laat bevraagteken. Daar was selfs vroue wat slegs die vyandigheid onthou het. Uiteindelik het Afrikanervrou nie heeltmal aangepas by die WNC nie en was ook nie werklik betrokke nie.

The community-based public health coalition has proliferated in public health practice since the 1970‘s as a favored means of achieving community participation in public health promotion. There is concern, however, that many contemporary coalitions are not particularly inclusive, and that population health indicators fail to demonstrate significant improvement in health outcomes resultant from coalition practice. This dissertation research was designed to critically examine participation and dissemination of coalition-derived ideas through ethnographic study of five community-based participatory public health coalitions in the United States. The research answers calls from public health scholars to improve upon the coalition theory base and to contribute a useful theory of dissemination of public health interventions. At the same time, the research contributes to anthropological calls for better understanding of mechanisms that discourage the participation of all stakeholders. The research uses a theoretical model – Habermas‘ Theory of Communicative Action – that sees participation and dissemination as linked phenomena. The research was designed to contribute to an existing theory of coalition function, Butterfoss and Kegler‘s Community Coalition Action Theory. Qualitative evidence of communicative action was gathered through participant observation of coalition meetings and semistructured interviews with a purposive sample of members of each study coalition. Data were compared across coalitions and across respondent categories to determine variation in diversity of coalition participation and forms of coalition-derived communicative action; as well as indicators associated with motivation for coalition participation, barriers to participation, and dissemination of ideas both in coalition meetings and to broader discourse communities outside the coalition. The results of this applied research include the creation of a typology of diversity of coalition participation, improved understanding of differences in motivation for coalition participation between members in- and outside of the social services sector, the identification of collateral idea exchange as a key coalition outcome, and means of overcoming barriers to participation and dissemination. In addition to representing contributions to theory within anthropology and public health, these results have been shared with leaders of each of the study coalitions.

This item contains the agenda, minutes, and attachments for the Faculty Senate meeting on this date. There may be additional materials from the meeting available at the Faculty Center.

Recent work has sought to explain the striking variations in municipal hospital provision in the 1930s by quantitative analysis. Such work has not so far provided a hypothesis which satisfactorily explains the range of variations found. This study, grounded in an analysis based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the results of three case studies of events in the county boroughs of Plymouth and Exeter and in Devon County Council, uses a qualitative methodology developed by iteration between a deductive approach drawing on recent work and an inductive approach using a computer-assisted analysis of primary source material and proposes a new hypothesis. The hypothesis developed is that where a local authority inherited a Poor Law workhouse as a result of the Local Government Act (1929) development would be more likely to occur in places where councillors exhibited strong progressive beliefs in accountability to the wider community and in their social responsibility towards that community; where they had successful experience of direct hospital provision in other fields; and when they had available a committed entrepreneur able to marshal support for change within the council. In addition to its empirical findings the study contributes to the development of public policy theory by suggesting improvements to the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Such improvements comprise recognition of the importance of ‘deep core’ as well as ‘policy core’ beliefs to policy change, consideration of path dependency as a significant method of policy learning, and of the roles of entrepreneurs and policy brokers. Finally the study draws attention to the relevance of the study to current practice in the implementation of public policy and proposes specifically that local NHS agencies should give greater prominence to identifying and supporting individuals with the skills of policy entrepreneurs.

In 2015, South Africa withdrew from the International Criminal Court asserting United Nation’s Security Council bias in referring only African cases (Strydom October 15, 2015; Duggard 2013) and the United Kingdom reiterated a pledge to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights, asserting that the court impinges on British sovereignty (Watt 2015). Both are examples of extraterritorial courts which are an important part of regional and global jurisprudence. To contribute to our understanding of the relationship between states and extraterritorial courts, I examine arguably the first and best example of an extraterritorial court, namely the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC). Drawing on 50 British Commonwealth states, this dissertation explores the factors influencing the decision to accede to an extraterritorial court and why some states subsequently opt to sever ties. I build on Dahl’s theory (1957) that the nation’s highest court interacts with the governing coalition and, for the most part, serves as an ally and uphold its policies. I argue that that governing coalition wants the final appellate court that they most expect to be an ally and extend this expectation to extraterritorial courts. As a result, the governing coalition looks at the court more critically. States may change or abolish the jurisdiction of the court if it undermines or seems likely to undermine state policy. Examining this phenomenon across the British Commonwealth provides comparative insights into how governing coalitions may view extraterritorial courts.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Scott A. DeLoach / Coalition formation is a key cooperative behavior of a system of multiple autonomous agents. When the capabilities of individual agents are not su fficient for the improvement of well-being of the individual agents or of the entire system, the agents can bene t by joining forces together in coalitions. Coalition formation is a technique for finding coalitions that are best fi tted to achieve individual or group goals. This is a computationally expensive task because often all combinations of agents have to be considered in order to find the best assignments of agents to coalitions. Previous research has therefore focused mainly on small-scale or otherwise restricted systems. In this thesis we study coalition formation in large-scale multi-agent systems. We propose an approach for coalition formation based on multi-agent simulation. This approach allows us to find coalitions in systems with thousands of agents. It also lets us modify behaviors of individual agents in order to better match a specific coalition formation application. Finally, our approach can consider both social welfare of the multi-agent system and well-being of individual self-interested agents. Power distribution systems are used to deliver electric energy from the transmission system to households. Because of the increased availability of distributed generation using renewable resources, push towards higher use of renewable energy, and increasing use of electric vehicles, the power distribution systems are undergoing signi ficant changes towards active consumers who participate in both supply and demand sides of the electricity market and the underlying power grid. In this thesis we address the ongoing change in power distribution systems by studying how the use of renewable energy can be increased with the help of coalition formation. We propose an approach that lets renewable generators, which face uncertainty in generation prediction, to form coalitions with energy stores, which on the other hand are always able to deliver the committed power. These coalitions help decrease the uncertainty of the power generation of renewable generators, consequently allowing the generators to increase their use of renewable energy while at the same time increasing their pro fits. Energy stores also bene t from participating in coalitions with renewable generators, because they receive payments from the generators for the availability of their power at speci fic time slots. We first study this problem assuming no physical constraints of the underlying power grid. Then we analyze how coalition formation of renewable generators and energy stores in a power grid with physical constraints impacts the state of the grid, and we propose agent behavior that leads to increase in use of renewable energy as well as maintains stability of the grid.

In the present work we study theory of cooperative games and their solution. We assume that all players may form groups and cooperate, and we will try to find a solution, a rule how to divide the profit of the group among individual players. We will focus on a core of the game, its description, theoretical results and methods for analyzing its emptiness. We also investigate core-center, which is one of the known options of choosing single profit division from the core. Then we will construct mathematical model of oligopoly together with method for counting characteristic function from real data. Finally, we apply the model on data from oil market. 1

The fashion industry is a recurring topic in the media, especially regarding the responsibility the fashion companies should take, which has created skepticism from stakeholders. This skepticism is based on that the stakeholders do not know what the companies do concerning corporate social responsibility and the companies communicate CSR with the hope of creating legitimacy on the market. How apparel and footwear communicate their CSR efforts and their performances in self-assessed tools compared to their actual efforts have not been researched before, hence the purpose of this thesis. The purpose of this research is to map and analyze how apparel and footwear companies communicate CSR efforts in comparison to their claimed CSR performance. This in order to reach a better understanding of how apparel and footwear companies communicate their CSR efforts how consistent they are with their self-assessed performance they communicate to their stakeholders. Content analyses have been conducted on the sample, which contained 59 companies in the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). First, the content analysis has been performed on communication channels used by the sample when communicating CSR and the claimed CSR performances been collected from the Higg Index. The sustainability efforts in comparison to the performances have been analyzed based on a discourse analysis on five of the chattiest companies in SAC, which was performed after the content analysis in order to create a mixed method approach. This study has presented how frequently apparel and footwear companies communicate their CSR efforts and performances. It has also shown what channels primarily used when communicating CSR and how they choose to prioritize their performances. Additionally, the result and analysis in this study have shown that the most talkative companies in SAC, namely H&M, Inditex, Patagonia, PVH and Salomon, communicate quality in their available sustainability information. The way they all incorporate CSR in their business model is also a way of showing dedication and perhaps even quality in their sustainability efforts and claimed performances.

In 2010 the municipal elections took place in the Czech Republic. In this theses there are applied some of the knowledge from the area of the public choice theory and the game theory to the results of the pre-election surveys and results of the elections. Firstly the methods for allocating seats are applied on data from the surveys and election results. The power indices are calculated for all the proportion of allocation of mandates in order to qualify the bargaining power. The results of elections are analysed and compared with two previous periods and with the pre-election surveys. The bargaining power is confronted according to the indices with the results of post-elections negotiations.