Understanding the mechanisms of poor decision making and risk behavior in adolescence is an important goal. Two important features of adolescence relevant to these concerns are the saliency of social acceptance and increased frequency of making decisions in the company of peers. The current study examines individual differences in susceptibility to peer influence and the effect of positive and negative social contexts on adolescent decision making. Fifty-five adolescents (11.2-17.6 years of age) completed measures of social susceptibility and risk behavior and subsequently underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while completing a simulated driving game in three conditions: alone, while being watched by peers, and after an event of social exclusion. Individual differences in susceptibility to peers predicted a decrease in adaptive decision making following exclusion by peers. Adolescents with greater self-reported engagement in substance use, risky sexual behavior, and aggressive behavior performed worse on the game following social exclusion. Neuroimaging results showed relatively greater activation in the striatum during risky decisions (Go through a yellow light) in the peer condition compared to the social exclusion condition. Whole-brain and region of interest analyses revealed a significant decrease in striatal activity during Go decisions following social exclusion. Adolescents who were more susceptible to peer influence and engaged in more risk behavior evidenced the greatest decreases in striatal activity after social exclusion. Results suggest that susceptibility to peer influence interacts with the experience of social exclusion to produce maladaptive decision making in adolescents. More broadly, the results demonstrate that individual differences and social contexts are both important factors affecting adolescent decisions and that changes in momentary levels of social acceptance can influence the quality of adolescent decisions in social situations. These findings suggest that the explanatory power of existing models of adolescent decision making could be extended by exploring individual differences in decision making within and across social contexts, including peer influence and social exclusion, to provide a more comprehensive account of which adolescents are prone to making poor decisions and when.

This thesis focuses on the social exclusion of children of primary school age in India and Mozambique by examining two related aspects: the policies that have been adopted in both countries to tackle social exclusion and the indicators they have used to identify it. It is argued that existing policy indicators in both countries can provide a partial answer to the question of how far they have been able to address social exclusion but that indicators and analyses need to be more fine grained both to monitor social exclusion and provide leads as to how it can better addressed. The purpose is not to compare the two country analyses in order to evaluate how they differ in terms of magnitude or severity in the form of the exclusion. Rather, it is to understand the diverse nature of exclusion, and the different remedies and analyses that are required in the two countries. This analysis suggests that one size fits all policies, as once suggested by the World Bank, are inappropriate. The thesis develops an understanding of the concept of social exclusion and contrasts it with previous accounts of poverty in countries like India and Mozambique. It also adopts a normative Human Rights approach in viewing primary schooling as crucial to questions of social exclusion. It also shows how these key concepts can be related. Through the two country analyses offered in this thesis, it can be shown that because data collection processes are largely based on aggregate indicators, there is insufficient information to undertake an adequate analysis of social exclusion. In order to establish this point, official data sets are reanalyzed to see how far they can take us in helping to understand the complex nature of social exclusion. In particular, it will be shown that the indicators related to the education status of children are insufficiently disaggregated to enable an improved understanding of the characteristics of children that continue to be excluded. From this analysis it will be argued that a broader list of indicators needs to be developed related to the dynamics at the level of the school, community and household. However, given that social exclusion may be structured differently in various contexts it is argued that participatory research is required that facilitates the assessment and analysis of these dynamics by all the key stakeholders, including children, at the various levels. In particular, policy makers fail to involve children in the process of assessing and analyzing the reasons for exclusion, and therefore do not benefit from their perceptions and insights. Further analysis of the various dynamics which relate to exclusion provide useful insights to better understand the policy and programmatic initiatives that effectively address the social exclusion of children from primary school.

This thesis examines whether and in what ways 'terrorism' has featured in the UK's interpretation of Article 1F, the 'exclusion clause' of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and how the provision is applied to suspected terrorists in the practice of decision makers. This research draws on a number of sources, including Freedom of Information requests, questionnaires and interviews conducted with immigration judges, the Home Office's exclusion unit and legal practitioners. All reported UK cases concerning Article 1F were analysed, as were the Home Office's asylum guidance documents, primary and secondary UK legislation and international legal sources pertaining to exclusion from refugee status. This research therefore provides an unprecedented and thorough analysis of whether and how terrorism is being employed in the interpretation and application of each of the individual limbs of Article 1F. Although there has been a clear governmental and political drive to ensure that refugee status is not granted to terrorists, this research reveals that the predominant practice of both courts and tribunals in the UK and the Home Office's exclusion unit has not been to focus on whether an individual is a 'terrorist', but instead whether they have committed a serious crime within the meaning of Article 1F. Where the term 'terrorism' has been employed, courts and tribunals have looked to international rather than domestic definitions of the term in order to arrive at an 'autonomous meaning'. While there has been an increase in the application of Article 1F in the UK over the last decade, in practice the use of the provision has remained exceptional and appears to be subject to a fair degree of rigour. Nevertheless, a number of recommendations are made by which the quality of decision making could be improved and a greater degree of fairness added to the exclusion process in the UK.

abstract: Disease prevention and personalized treatment will be impacted by the continued integration of protein biomarkers into medical practice. While there are already numerous biomarkers used clinically, the detection of protein biomarkers among complex matrices remains a challenging problem. One very important strategy for improvements in clinical application of biomarkers is separation/preconcentration, impacting the reliability, efficiency and early detection. Electrophoretic exclusion can be used to separate, purify, and concentrate biomarkers. This counterflow gradient technique exploits hydrodynamic flow and electrophoretic forces to exclude, enrich, and separate analytes. The development of this technique has evolved onto an array-based microfluidic platform which offers a greater range of geometries/configurations for optimization and expanded capabilities and applications. Toward this end of expanded capabilities, fundamental studies of subtle changes to the entrance flow and electric field configurations are investigated. Three closely related microfluidic interfaces are modeled, fabricated and tested. A charged fluorescent dye is used as a sensitive and accurate probe to test the concentration variation at these interfaces. Models and experiments focus on visualizing the concentration profile in areas of high temporal dynamics, and show strong qualitative agreement, which suggests the theoretical assessment capabilities can be used to faithfully design novel and more efficient interfaces. Microfluidic electrophoretic separation technique can be combined with electron microscopy as a protein concentration/purification step aiding in sample preparation. The integrated system with grids embedded into the microdevice reduces the amount of time required for sample preparation to less than five minutes. Spatially separated and preconcentrated proteins are transferred directly from an upstream reservoir onto grids. Dilute concentration as low as 0.005 mg/mL can be manipulated to achieve meaningful results. Selective concentration of one protein from a mixture of two proteins is also demonstrated. Electrophoretic exclusion is also used for biomarker applications. Experiments using a single biomarker are conducted to assess the ability of the microdevice for enrichment in central reservoirs. A mixture of two protein biomarkers are performed to evaluate the proficiency of the device for separations capability. Moreover, a battery is able to power the microdevice, which facilitates the future application as a portable device. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Chemistry 2019

Previous reports have shown that some bacteria utilize a dissimilatory nitrate reductase enzyme (NR) in anaerobic environments. This enzyme reduces nitrate to nitrite and also has been shown to co-metabolize chlorate to cytotoxic chlorite. A commercially available competitive exclusion (CE) product was evaluated for its nitrate reductase activity and therefore its experimental chlorate product (ECP) sensitivity. Of the 29 constituent bacteria of the CE culture, 11 had slight utilization of NR, 3 had moderate utilization of NR; the remaining were NR negative (with slight and moderate utilization: >0.1 to < 1.0 mM and > 1.0 mM nitrate utilized within 6 h, respectively). In vivo studies utilizing CE and ECP showed significant reductions in Salmonella. Although some of the bacteria were affected by ECP, the combined effect of the CE culture and ECP were effective in reducing Salmonella. Clostridium perfringens (CP) is a pathogen in the commercial poultry industry, which is the etiologic agent of necrotic enteritis (NE). Day-of-hatch broilers were fed a wheat diet and assigned to the following groups: control, commercial coccidia vaccine, commercial bursal disease vaccine, or the combination of the two, and challenged with CP in order to develop a disease model. Broilers in each treatment group had significant increases (P≤ 0.05) in lesion scores, mortality, and CP incidence. As pressure mounts for discontinuing the use of antibiotics in the agriculture industry, it is important to develop new strategies to combat these costly enteric pathogens. In vitro investigations evaluated a mixed gut culture with CP and the ECP at 5 mM or a 10 mM concentrations, over time. By 3 h there was a reduction (P≤ 0.05) in the 5 mM ECP and 10 mM ECP treatment groups. In vivo studies showed significant reductions in the incidence of CP and populations of intrinsic E. coli in all of the chickens provided ECP in the drinking water. Birds administered ECP in the feed showed significant reductions in lesion scores, incidence of CP and also had reduced E. coli log10 values. These results show that an ECP could provide the industry with a new management tool for controlling NE.

An examination of the origins of the separation of boys into baseball and girls into softball due to Victorian era ideas about gender, and the current day institutional exclusion through Title IX and culturally constructed notions about the appropriate place of women in the sporting world.

On April 17, 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was proclaimed into force. By including a set of constitutionally entrenched core legal rights (i.e. ss. 8, 9, and 10(b), and a remedial mechanism designed to enforce those rights (i.e. s. 24(2)), the Charter had the potential to alter certain repressive elements of the criminal justice system that had endured in Canada for over a century. Despite this potential, both the core legal rights and s. 24(2) were drafted using vague terminology. As a result, the Charter ‘s ability to succeed where previous attempts at instituting effective due process protections for Canadians had failed would depend largely on the judiciary’s ability to satisfactorily craft such protections out of imprecise statutory language. This thesis will argue that the Supreme Court of Canada has created a test for the exclusion of unconstitutionally obtained evidence under s. 24(2) that fails to adequately protect the core legal rights of the socially, racially and economically marginalized individuals to whom the Canadian criminal justice system is disproportionately applied. In advancing this argument, the relevant jurisprudence and academic literature will be analyzed according to a methodology inspired by the Critical Legal Studies movement. The issue of exclusion will be examined in its social context, primarily by analyzing the current system of Canadian criminal justice and acknowledging its over-application to the socially disenfranchised. It will be argued that the Supreme Court’s test for exclusion has developed as it has because of the judiciary’s subconscious tendency to interpret unclear constitutional provisions in keeping with the dominant conservative ideology, a method that favours maintaining the social status quo. The purpose of this thesis is to set out a framework for a reform of the Charter ‘s exclusionary mechanism. This new approach will attempt to situate social context at the forefront of the s. 24(2) decision-making process. It will be argued that the concept of “disrepute” within s. 24(2) must be redefined so that it captures investigatory practices made possible by unjust social, racial and economic divisions that render certain groups powerless, and thus more vulnerable to police surveillance.

People who go missing are often perceived to have done so voluntarily, and yet, many missing persons in Canada are Aboriginal, visible minorities, homeless, and are fleeing from violence, abuse, and neglect. Integrating the concept of social exclusion and an intersectional perspective with a sample of 724 missing persons cases drawn from one Canadian police service, this dissertation examines the systemic issues underlying peoples’ disappearances. This dissertation also explores the role of social and economic disadvantage in the risk of a long term disappearance. A combination of univariate (descriptions), bivariate (cross-tabulations), and multivariate (logistic regression) analyses identify correlates and causes of going missing and correlates and causes of long term disappearances. The concept of social exclusion explains how structural processes prevent particular groups and individuals from gaining access to valued social relationships and economic opportunities in a particular society, resulting in considerable hardship and disadvantage. This dissertation argues that people who are marginalized and excluded have few resources to rely on to cope with stress and strain and may resort to going missing if confronted with adversity. Groups who are overrepresented among missing persons compared to the general population are identified by cross-tabulations and chi-square tests. Multivariate analysis (partial tables and logistic regression) is used to control for possible sources of spuriousness, in order to have more confidence in imputing causal relationships between membership in disadvantaged groups and going missing. Moreover, if disadvantaged groups go missing, they further sever ties with families, the labour market, and other mainstream institutions. As a result of extreme disadvantage, they may find it difficult to (re)connect with conventional social relationships and mainstream society. For example, youth who are escaping violence and abuse at home often end up on the streets and sever ties with schools, families, and other conventional support networks and become engaged in street culture. As a result of extreme disadvantage these young people are at risk of a long term disappearance. In other words, social exclusion is expected to be a risk and causal factor in long term disappearances. Groups who are overrepresented among long term disappearances compared to short term disappearances are identified by cross-tabulations and chi-square tests. Logistic regression analysis is used to draw conclusions about causal factors in long term disappearances. This research finds that excluded groups such as disadvantaged youth, Aboriginal people, women and other visible minorities, victims of violence, and youth in care are at disproportionate risk of going missing. Consistent with an intersectional perspective, this dissertation shows that certain groups who are multiply marginalized such as Aboriginal women and young women face an especially high risk of going missing. Aboriginal identity, labour force status, and homelessness are also implicated as causal factors in peoples’ disappearances. Moreover, this research finds that social exclusion is a risk and causal factor in long term disappearances as Aboriginal people, homeless people, minorities and other excluded groups face a high risk of a long term disappearance. Linking missing persons with the concept of social exclusion highlights the role of structural issues in peoples’ disappearances and refutes the common misperception that going missing is a choice. In terms of policy, the findings from this research indicate that prevention and intervention depend on targeting poverty, discrimination, gender inequality, violence, and other structural issues associated with social exclusion.

This dissertation has examined the conditions for teachers who teach Physical Education and Health (PEH) in elementary school (age 11-12) and their opportunities to pursue inclusive teaching with the aim of reaching all pupils. The compilation thesis consists of four different articles and provides knowledge from the perspectives of pupils and teachers, but it also includes teaching and learning processes that were studied in situ. The first article contributes to knowledge on how different related variables affect learning motivation and how cultural aspects influence and affect shaping patterns of attitudes, beliefs, and values shared by pupils. Based on and selected from the sample of the first study, the second article examines low-motivated pupils’ perceptions about learning in the subject and their representations of teaching, learning and participating in PEH. The third article takes the teacher’s perspective into account and examines teachers’ discursive representations of low motivated pupils and related beliefs regarding inclusive teaching and strategies for reaching all pupils. The last article presents a case study examining teaching and learning in PEH in situ and demonstrating how a teacher’s assumptions about the purpose of PEH and consequent interactions with a student assumed to be “low motivated” had effects that were detrimental to the student’s confidence and capacity to engage and learn in PEH. The general major findings and the suggested implications of the results have been discussed and organized from the two major dichotomies involved in the two fundamental inclusive perspectives: a categorical perspective (problems are sited within individuals) and a relational perspective (perceived problems occur in the interaction between an individual and the surrounding environment). Applying a categorical perspective, pupils categorized as “low motivated” toward learning in PEH experienced little opportunity to influence either content or form and also had difficulties in verbalizing the aim and purpose of the subject. Despite long-term health-related goals, they had difficulties understanding and connecting to PEH. The pupils also had difficulties connecting with their teachers, who were described as being insensitive, uncaring, or inflexible and forcing “unrealistic” goals on them when they did not feel competent at mastering the content relative to their peers. The studies confirm that learning motivation is strongly related to perceived competence, and low learning motivation is related to feelings of anxiety, especially for girls. Teachers, on the other hand, attributed motivation problems to the individual (the pupil) or the context (social background, parents, etc.) rather than the situation, their own teaching in class. Teachers had various strategies for teaching inclusively. Cooperative and collaborative methods, such as using skilled pupils or pupils with the “right” attitude as role models for behavioral transfer or “strategic grouping,” were mentioned as inclusive teaching strategies. Adapting the rules of games or traditional sports so that everyone started on the same level was another strategy. By presenting a multi-activity approach to teaching with many different sports, pupils were assumed to be able to find “their” particular sports. Results also showed that the stereotyping of “low motivated” pupils often is related to the teacher’s own perception of what is experienced as essential learning in the subject. Applying a relational perspective, focus is on the system beyond the individual. Based on the results of these studies, the subject seems to be influenced and guided by two logics or discourses: fostering to sports and related values, and health and fitness. Both logics also highlight the importance of content and form in teaching. The sport discourse seems to create a situation where normative performance-oriented components have negative consequences for certain pupils. A general use of a multi-activity approach for structuring the content with short-term units, using primarily team sports and ball games, can be argued counterproductive for pupils, especially for those pupils who start at lower skill levels. This approach with fragmentary or blurred learning objectives may then contribute to disservice in a long-term perspective. This, combined with the effect of high activity and unilateral focus on exercise risks blurring of other possible learning dimensions in the subject, and may also contribute to the alienation of pupils who lack skill, ability, or interest in the subject. With inclusive intentions abilities in the subject may need to be reconceived and alternative abilities recognized to challenge the established order and normalized ways of thinking in terms of content and form. Teaching efforts that give primary consideration to the individual needs of “marginalized” pupils may be necessary if inclusive intentions are to be met. It is therefore suggested that teachers need to look beyond the traditionally trodden paths and challenge the currently dominating discourses that influence PEH. Reinforcing other learning dimensions and reconceiving abilities to go beyond the emphasis on skill and performance may strengthen pupils in other areas they possess. Differentiated teaching must not lose sight of needs that are common to a group or a class as a whole, but rather, it must also consider the needs of each individual.

I dagens samhälle känner allt fler unga ett utanförskap och hiphopen har blivit ett viktigt medel för att illustrera detta utanförskap. Syftet med uppsatsen är att belysa hur en motståndskultur kan komma till uttryck via musik. En textanalys på gangsterrappgruppen Kartellens låttexter har utförts för att klarlägga vilken motståndskultur gruppen uttrycker i texterna, samt vilka centrala aspekter denna kultur innehåller. För att besvara studiens frågeställningar har Howard S Beckers teori om avvikande och R W Connells teori om maskulinitet använts. I rapporten har även tidigare forskning kring gatukultur, hiphop och utanförskap behandlats. De centrala aspekterna i resultatet rör gatukultur, maskulinitet, utanförskap och de fiender som gruppen anser sig ha. Det finns påtagliga kopplingar mellan dessa teman och hur de påverkar varandra. Ett av de tydligaste budskapen Kartellen förmedlar i sina texter rör den politik som förs i Sverige och gruppens polisförakt. De har både blivit hyllade och kritiserade i media för sina låttexter som ofta innehåller grova våldsskildringar men som samtidigt belyser segregation och utanförskap.