This thesis will argue that one of the main challenges for deliberative democracy is the lack of attention paid to the different modes of deliberative practices. The theories of deliberative democracy often treat deliberation as a decision-making process. Yet, I would argue that this approach fails to appreciate the full benefits of deliberation because it ignores the fundamental role that the social learning phase of deliberation plays in reconciling differences. Hence I argue for a deliberative framework in which social learning and decision-making moments of deliberation are analytically differentiated so that the resources of social learning are freed from the pressures of decision-making procedures and are therefore no longer subordinated to the terms of decision-making.¶ This is particularly important for countries such as Turkey where divisions cut deep across society. A case study examines the discourses of the Turkish public sphere regarding Islam, democracy and secularism to identify the kinds of discourses present in relation to the topic in question. By analysing the types of discourses through Q methodology the study reveals points of convergence and divergence between discourses, hence provides significant insight into how deliberation oriented to social learning can play a substantive role in reconciling differences between sharply divided groups.

「國家統一」與「現代化」是清季以來中國人最關心的兩項議題，事實上 ，這兩項問題是互為因果。遠溯民初，國共兩黨因對中國現代化發展路線 的看法分歧，竟發展成意識型態的對立，最終且導致國家分裂迄今。國共 對峙，所付出的代價不僅是骨肉相殘，百姓流離；也阻礙了中國現代化進 一步發展的契機。由於人口、資源的對比懸殊，中共顯然是兩岸分合發展 的主導因素，故本文針對中共的統一立場與對臺策略， 行探討分析。中 共的統一策略歷經了幾個階段的演變，為因應冷戰結 國際現勢，以及追 求穩定環境發展經濟的戰略需要，現階段中共並無意急迫解決其所謂的「 臺灣問題」，而提出和平統一的口號，試圖以「一國兩制」的架構兼併臺 灣。作者首先參考了二次大戰國際現象中「分裂國家」雙方關係演變發展 的過程，以及德國和平統一的歷史經驗；觀察一九七九年以來臺海兩岸關 係的發展。諸如兩岸官方政策的互動、民間社經往來、接觸談判等各項交 流指標。其結論是：在中共採取由經濟到政治統一的迂迴策略效應下，兩 岸關係已逐漸和緩。但是，作者並不認為中共會達到其和平統一的目標， 事實上，作者認為中共一直否認臺灣為一政治實體的立場，已為中國統一 投下一個不可知的變數。

This study examines the effect that divided or unified government, in the United States of America, has on the delegation of trade authority to the President. Using a qualitative analysis approach, I examine competing views and formulate an independent opinion based on the peoples’ preferences and evaluation of the principles of America’s Constitutionalism. I conclude that overemphasis on the impact of divided government is misleading because trade issues provide the primary mechanism which determines the implementation of America’s trade policies, and the principles of Constitutionalism are valuable guidelines. Blended with the discussion is the awareness of an American ethos which challenges formulation of trade agreements in an era of increased globalization.

In this paper, the ¡§divided government¡¨ is defined as a situation in which the president and the parliament are controlled by different parties respectively. The formation of a ¡§divided government¡¨ depends on whether the president is able to control an absolutely majority of seats in the parliament through election or not. Some literature think that a divided government is easy to lead to policy gridlock or inefficiency and even causes stalemate in the legislative and executive branches. However, many scholars feel that a divided government may lead to policy gridlock or inefficiency, but it is in agreement with the principle of checks and balances in the constitutional system and is able to meet the expectation of majority voters. The eras of the Third and Fourth Republic in France had the same political situation as today¡¦s Taiwan, i.e., deadlock legislation, impeded policy implementation, unsteady political situation, and frequent changes of premiers. During the period of the Fifth Republic, the political situation became steady gradually after France went through three times of ¡§La Cohabitation¡¨ commencing from 1986. It formed a ¡§constitutional convention¡¨ and set a good model for constitutional governments in the world. The constitutional system of Taiwan has been similar to the ¡§semi-presidential system¡¨ of France during the era of the Fifth Republic since the constitution of the Republic of China was amended in 1997.However, in the opinion of Chen Shui-bian, he thought a president is elected by the people directly, and the prime premier may be nominated by the president directly without the consent of the President of Legislative Yuan, so the constitutional system of Taiwan should be ¡§presidential system¡¨ instead of the ¡§semi-presidential system.¡¨ Therefore, after Chen Shui-bian won the presidential election in 2000, he ignored the fact that Kuomingtan held a majority seats in the parliament, which constituted a ¡§divided government¡¨, and refused to hand over the right of forming a cabinet to Kuomingtan, the majority party in the parliamen, or endow the power to a majority alliance.Consequently, the regime changed from a ¡§government for all people¡¨ led by Chen Shui-bian and Tang Fei to a ¡§minority government¡¨ controlled by Chen Shui-bian and Su Chen-chang in the past 6 years. Till now, there have been five presidents of Executive Yuan changed.Owning to the long-term conflict and stalemate between the executive and legislative branches, the politics of Taiwan is in a state of chaos, leading to today¡¦s constitutional crisis. In view of the situations mentioned above, this article investigates into the system factors contributing to the formation of ¡§divided government¡¨ in Taiwan and the political operation and political influences of individual actors from the viewpoint of historical institutionalism. Also, the in-depth researches and studies were conducted to find out the reasons why the political situation of Taiwan became unsteady and the country fell into the constitutional crisis in the past 6 years after President Chen Shui-bian held the reins of government and discuss how to solve those problems. The author also compared and analyzed the ¡§minority government¡¨ of Taiwan, the alternating mechanism of the ¡§La Cohabitation¡¨ in France, and the formation of ¡§coalition cabinet¡¨ in order to draw lessons from their experiences and establish a good interaction among the president, the cabinet and the parliament.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-132).

In school today pupils come in contact with all kinds of reading books. Education of Swedish reading development sometimes contain reading books organized at different levels of difficulty, with different amount of text. The purpose of the different difficulty levels is to give the less skilled readers an easier book and stronger readers a more difficult book. The purpose with this study is to find out if the book which is classified as more difficult, in reality is the most difficult and if the book which is considered to be easier really is. To find answers to these questions I will examine previous researcher’s theories on difficulty levels in reading books. This is tested in the analytical part by counting the proportion of nouns, compound nouns, main clauses and sub-clauses. The texts are analyzed using LIX-and-OVIX to find out the level of difficulty. The books examined in this study are two reading books aimed at pupils in second year of elementary school.

A crucial aspect of attentional control is the capacity of anticipating a stimulus appearance in order to improve the speed and effectiveness of its subsequent processing. Preparatory attention (PA) is the ability to modulate (enhance) the intensity of attention directed to a selected stimulus prior to its occurrence, preventing subjects from being distracted by interfering stimuli. Some studies propose that PA is lateralized to the right hemisphere (RH) while others suggest that both the left hemisphere (LH) and the RH participate in the modulation of PA. The aim of the present thesis was to examine the role of each brain hemisphere in the modulation of PA directed to a spatial location. We developed a lateralized version of the Attentional Preparatory Test, (APT, proposed par LaBerge, Auclair & Siéroff, 2000), named the Lateralized APT or LAPT. The APT measures the ability of subjects to modulate PA directed to a target location when the probability of a distractor occurrence varies across several blocks of trials. In the APT, the response times increased as the probability of a distractor appearing in the preparatory phase preceding the target presentation increased, showing that PA is modulated by the events occurring prior to the target appearance. We developed the LAPT using the divided visual field paradigm in which stimuli can occur in the left (LVF) or the right (RVF) visual fields. The visual field differences in subjects' performance are assumed to reflect differences in the processing strategies of both hemispheres (RVF/LH vs LVF/RH). In a series of studies we showed that the modulation of PA by the expected probability of events was different in each visual field/hemisphere, depending on task configuration. In the RVF/LH, PA is modulated by the expected probability of distractor events, especially when this probability is explicit. In addition, the LH seems to play a crucial role in modulating PA when the target and the distractor are hard to discriminate. In the LVF/RH, PA is modulated by the temporal probability of events and may depend on the most probable delay in which the target is expected, but only when the discrimination between the target and the distractor is easy. Most importantly, our findings suggest that the differences between RVF/LH and LVF/RH in the modulation of PA take place at the perceptual level of processing because they are independent of the hand use in executing the response, thus also independent of the processes taking place at the motor programming level. Taken together our results, they suggest that each hemisphere uses a different strategy to modulate PA when directed to a spatial location.

A large number of studies in psychology and cognitive neuroscience suggest that the left and right cerebral hemispheres have differences in specialization of processing. The left hemisphere tends to be specialized for complex capacities such as language and numbers, whereas the right hemisphere typically shows advantages for visuospatial attention and recognition of nonverbal form. The present study was designed to investigate whether these functional cerebral asymmetries would extend to working memory tasks. It was hypothesized that the left hemisphere would have more advantage for accurate responses to a Number-based memory task, whereas the right hemisphere would be relatively advantaged for accurate responses on a Color-based memory task. For the Color-based memory task, we used a Corsi-Block memory task (4x4 grid). For the Number-based memory task, we used a string of 8 digits. In each case, to-be-remembered stimuli were constructed sequentially, such that participants (N = 39) had to form and maintain the image in working memory. Participants then compared these remembered stimuli with flashed images that appeared either on the left or right edge of the screen. We recorded the correct responses and the response time. The left hemisphere appears to be advantaged for accurate responses when the memory stimuli are numerical in nature, whereas the right hemisphere has more advantage for accurate responses on the color-memory task.

All cities set up a condition of disjunction as they are inherently manmade ‘built’ places separate from the natural wilderness they abut. The cities that emerge over time are then places held in tension between the kinetic and static forces of civilization, nature, people, ownership and infrastructure. These conflicting pieces manifest as division within the city. The division can be physically seen in specific gaps in the physical infrastructure: urban 'slips' that act as thresholds for a city by gathering and revealing the in/visible dueling qualities, and can ultimately prove to be important spaces and cultural magnets for the city. The analysis is centered on three specific 'slips' within three northern European cities: the South Bridge in Edinburgh, the Charles Bridge in Prague and the Berlin Wall. Looking from the perspective of both the physical, visible infrastructure and the unconscious, invisible cultural realm, these architectural objects are then charted through historical, literary, cartographic and urban analyses to come to an understanding of both the specific ‘characters’ or ‘spirits of place’ and the broad predisposition for division within cities.