CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar, comparativamente, o uso das estratÃgias de reformulaÃÃo com funÃÃo de explicaÃÃo definidora nos discursos cientÃficos e polÃticos, considerando, de modo integrado, aspectos textual-semÃnticos e pragmÃtico-discursivos. Tal anÃlise assume uma perspectiva textual-interativa, isto Ã, busca verificar os processos reformulativos do texto em situaÃÃes concretas, observando-se o lingÃÃstico dentro do interacional. Sendo a explicaÃÃo definidora um dos recursos pelo qual o falante/autor articula seu texto, nada mais apropriado do que um exame deste recurso numa vertente funcionalista da gramÃtica. Na pesquisa aqui proposta, observamos que o emprego de tais construÃÃes nÃo està restrito à consideraÃÃo desse procedimento como estratÃgia textualizadora relacionada, em geral, ao propÃsito de garantir a compreensÃo, por parte do ouvinte, do que foi formulado, mas estabelece a relaÃÃo entre as opÃÃes lingÃÃsticas no nÃvel textual e a construÃÃo argumentativa dos discursos. / This work aims at comparatively analyzing the use of reformulation strategies which performs the function of explanation in scientific and political discourse and takes into account textual-semantic and pragmatic-discursive aspects in an integrated way. This analysis embraces a textual-interactive perspective, that is, attempts to verify the reformulation procedures in concrete situations, observing the linguistic elements within interactional activities. As defining explanation is one of the resources used by the speaker in the articulation of her or his text, analyzing this resource in a functionalist approach is adequate. In this research, we have observed that the use of such reformulative constructions is not restricted to the conception of this procedure as a textualizing strategy employed by the speaker to ensure the addresseeâs comprehension of the utterance. Actually it also establishes the relationship between linguistic options in the textual level and the argumentative construction of the discourses.

This thesis seeks to explore the points of dissonance and resonance around the understanding and deployment of the term 'religion' between Human Rights Watch, and the government of the People's Republic of China. In doing this, it is highlighted that a fundamental disjunction exists in the meaning of, and the boundaries of, the word 'religion' between these two groups. The space that this difference creates makes discussions on religion and religious freedom between these two groups extremely problematic, primarily because Human Rights Watch seeks to protect the right to religious freedom of groups and individuals that the Chinese government does not consider ‘religion’, but that Human Rights Watch demands they should. This thesis addresses the question of the role of social and cultural relativism in the defining, and the subsequent role in defending, of the term and contents of 'religion'.

Utilizing Lawrence Kohlberg's cognitive moral development theory as the guiding theory, the research undertaken sought to explore the moral decision-making process of emergency planners in the state of Florida. To assess the quantitative measurement for moral judgment, the research applied and used the Defining Issues Test (DIT) developed by James Rest (1979). The research examined the relationship between education, gender, age, and ethics training against the moral maturity of Florida emergency planners. With ethical maturity level as the dependent variable, analysis showed a significant difference between males and females, where females had higher postconventional scores than males regardless of educational levels. Also interesting was that postconventional scores for males rose as educational levels rose. However, there was no significant difference revealed between postconventional scores when age and ethics training were the independent variables. The results of this research may have significant implications for organizations before, during, and after a disaster. While empirical research has shown that higher education is positively associated with higher levels of cognitive moral development, the research has shown that it may only apply to males.

The primary purpose of this research was to review the relationship between moral cognizance, as defined by the Defining Issues Test, and the compensation plan of a healthcare executive when factors such as licensure, career stage, gender, age, and ethics training were present. The study was conducted on 142 healthcare executives from both a publically traded for-profit hospital corporation and a multi-physician private practice. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests were utilized to test the hypotheses of these moderating variables. The outcome of this study indicates that there is no difference in the relationship of moral cognizance and compensation plan of a healthcare executive when the factors of license, career stage, gender, age, or ethics training are involved. However, the analyses did find some interesting interactions of statistical significance between moral cognizance, as determined by P-score, and the individual factors of license and gender when compensation was not included. While the results of the study were inconclusive, the study extends Kohlberg's research on cognitive moral development using Rest's Defining Issues Test to healthcare executives. It also contributes to the existing body of literature by introducing the variable of compensation plan to the moral cognizance equation. Future research in the healthcare field in relation to moral cognizance and financial performance will become a necessity as the focus on healthcare as a business continues to grow and society insists the highest values from its providers.

Several significant breaches of ethics in the past few years have created renewed interest in the study of moral judgment. The examples used in this study include sub-prime lending, the Madoff investment scandal, and the torture of suspects in U.S. custody. The Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) theory was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg in 1969. Effectively, Kohlberg determined there were clearly defined stages of moral development in children--how they develop a sense of right, wrong, and justice. He expanded his research to adults and determined that human beings progressed through each of the six stages without skipping a stage and without reverting to a previous stage. James Rest later developed a survey instrument, the Defining Issues Test (DIT), designed to assess the stages of development, or moral maturity, of an individual without the lengthy interview process employed by Kohlberg in his research. Over 1,000 studies have since used the DIT. The DIT will be used in combination with a demographic survey to test the variables of educational level, age, gender, and ethical training against moral maturity. Research has provided mixed results for these variables when applied to the public sector. This study will compare the moral maturity of elected officials with that of appointed city managers who serve at the will of these elected officials. This paper will provide a discussion of the ethical concerns facing elected officials and appointed city managers as well as the potential hazards to good decision-making presented by differences in moral maturity, if they exist. The relationship of moral maturity and the other variables will also be discussed. Recommendations for public administrators and future research will be presented.

We consider ideals of minors of a matrix, ideals of minors of a symmetric matrix, and ideals of Pfaffians of an alternating matrix. Assuming these ideals are of generic height, we characterize the condition $G_{s}$ for these ideals in terms of the heights of smaller ideals of minors or Pfaffians of the same matrix. We additionally obtain bounds on the generation and concentration degrees of the defining equations of Rees rings for a subclass of such ideals via specialization of the Rees rings in the generic case. We do this by proving that, given sufficient height conditions on ideals of minors or Pfaffians of the matrix, the specialization of a resolution of a graded component of the Rees ring in the generic case is an approximate resolution of the same component of the Rees ring in question. We end the paper by giving some examples of explicit generation and concentration degree bounds.

The wind power industry is one of the fastest-growing renewable energy industries in the world. Since more energy can be extracted from wind when the density is higher, a lot of the investments made in the wind power industry are made in cold climates. But with cold climates come harsh weather conditions such as icing. The icing on wind power rotor blades causes the aerodynamic properties of the blade to shift and with further ice accretion, the wind power plant can come to a standstill causing a loss of power, until the ice is melted. How big these losses are, depend greatly on site-specific variables such as elevation, temperature, and precipitation. The literature claims these ice-related losses can correspond to 10-35% of the annual expected energy output. Some studies have been made to standardize an ice loss determining method to be used by the industry, yet a standardization of calculating these losses do not exist. It was therefore interesting for this thesis to investigate the different methods that are being used. By using historical Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) data for two different sites located in Sweden, a robust ice determining code was created to identify ice losses. Nearly 32 million data points are being analyzed, and the data itself is provided by Siemens Gamesa which is one of the biggest companies within the wind power industry. A sensitivity analysis was made, and it was shown that a reference dataset reaching from May to September for four years could be used to clearly identify ice losses. To find the ice losses, three different scenarios were tested. The three scenarios use different temperature intervals to find ice losses. For scenario 1 all data points below 0 degrees are investigated. And for scenario 2 and 3 this interval is stretching from 3 degrees and below versus 5 degrees and below. It was found that Scenario 3, was the optimal way to identify the ice losses. Scenario 3 filtered the raw data so that only data points with a temperature below five degrees was used. For the two sites investigated, the annual ice losses were found to lower the annual energy output by 5-10%. Further, the correlation between temperature, precipitation, and ice losses was investigated. It was found that low temperature and high precipitation is strongly correlated to ice losses.

In 1988, P. Scott Richard's dissertation research at the University of Minnesota asserted that the Defining Issues Test (DIT), a widely accepted paper-and-pencil test of moral reasoning, exhibited item bias against religiously orthodox persons. Since 1988 (when Richard's data were reported), new methods of differential-item functioning (DIF) have developed, a new DIT has emerged (the DIT-2), as well as a Neo-Kohlbergian framework based upon moral schemas derived from Kohlberg's Piagetian-like six stages. With new methods, new tests, and unanswered questions, this study's results imply: (1) that DIT-2 items exhibit differential item functioning for religiously orthodox persons in statistically significant but not as practically significant ways as Richards' earlier findings, (2) that religious orthodoxy does influence macromoral reasoning as measured by the DIT-2, (3) that the maintaining norms schema is insufficient to explain the variables that contribute to why religiously orthodox persons score the way they do. This study implies that the maintaining norms schema may be misnamed because it appears to be measuring a different construct than maintaining norms macromoral reasoning.

How did Philadelphia develop its first drug control strategy between 1960 and 1973? This study argues that Philadelphia's drug control strategy was part of an array of collaborative responses to the composite challenges of urban decay and was influenced by concerns for development, law enforcement, and fiscal survival. In the early 1960s, a focus on development and a combination of overt racism and the more subtle psychological process of racial othering made drug abuse a low-priority, policy issue in Philadelphia. At mid-decade, the growing institutionalization of law enforcement overshadowed additional attention drug abuse might have gained at that point. By 1970, “White involvement,” as Medical Examiner Joseph Spelman termed it, provided the impetus for a more active and institutionalized public response. As the nation progressed from a War on Poverty, to a War on Crime, and then to a War on Drugs, problems of sustainability and fiscal exhaustion became paramount. When Philadelphia’s Coordinating Office for Drug and Alcohol Abuse Programs produced its Comprehensive Plan for Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment and Prevention, 1973-1974, it codified a years-long, work-in-progress to address the complex adaptive system that substance abuse represented. Though the strategy did not rectify the larger environmental issues of race, stability, and sustainability with which Philadelphia contended, it did provide a balanced approach and a starting point for future implementation and refinement. / History

There has been a recent increase in breathing as an activity within HCI; however, breathing as the source of voice has not been explored. This thesis explores how ADA (air-driven actuator), a haptic wearable garment, may be used by singers to connect with their breath. Primarily through first-person engagement with vocal training and first-person evaluation of ADA’s capability to support vocal practice, the thesis addresses how the garment functionally and experientially supports singers’ movements. Thematic analysis results in two main lines of functional use (demonstrations, and prompts), and engagement with the garment in these two usages builds three conceptualizations of how ADA can align with a singer’s breath (through posture adjustments, inhalation as expansion, and inhalation as tension). Further thematic analysis shows how users characterize experiences with ADA as distinguished by anticipation or layering, offering insight into what experimental qualities underlie the functional use of ADA. The thesis highlights implications for future generative work in the breathing design space, offering tension-release as a breath representation, and a suggestion to explore exhalation duration as a breath parameter through the prolongations of exhalations in singing. Furthermore, it highlights layering as a quality that may be of relevance to further development of ADA, or other experience-oriented technology that aims to support movement practice.