Yes / Bank branching plays a significant role in a wide range of economic activities. Existing studies on determinants of bank branching activities largely focus on developed countries, studies devoted to developing countries are scant. We present the first study that examines the determinants of bank branching activities in one of the largest developing country India. We employ a unique longitudinal data to study the determinants of bank branch location in India. This data is collected at the state level covering 25 Indian states for the period 2006 to 2017. We employ Poisson regression that are better suited for modelling counted dependent variable. First, region and bank specific factors such as size of population and bank deposits influence location of bank branches. Second, the relationship between these factors and branch locations is heterogeneous across different types of banks and across states with different business environments. First, from the view of banks, considering the factors of branch location are crucial in order to set out branching strategy. Irrespective of policy measures aimed at promoting financial inclusion in India, we show that banks consider economic activities in the region in locating their branches. Second, from the view of policy makers and regulators, such branching strategy could potentially contribute to financial exclusion. As a result, population in the less developed regions may be excluded from accessing financial services. Hence, policy makers and regulators should take into this account when formulating policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion. First, while existing studies largely focus on developed countries, studies devoted to developing countries are scant. To the best of our knowledge, we have not come across any study that investigates the determinants of bank branch location in India, so we reasonably believe that ours is a first-of-its-kind. Second, our study provides a new perspective concerning how regional and bank specific factors influence banks of different ownership in locating branches. Third, while traditional regression used to be a method of choice among early studies, we employ Poisson regression that are better suited for modelling counted dependent variable.

Russellian panpsychism is often regarded as a theory of mind that bears promise of integrating conscious experience into the physical causal order. In a recent article by Howell, this is questioned. I will argue that failure to address Howell´s challenge properly has deeper consequences than it might initially appear; epiphenomenal micro-qualia means that we have lost a unique opportunity to gain insight into necessities in nature. In order to make use of this opportunity, however, some initial assumptions commonly made must be dropped: most crucially, the assumption of mind-body distinctness. In what follows, I try to provide a sketch of how a slightly different version of Russellian panpsychism can be formulated that builds around identity instead of mind-body distinctness. This version of panpsychism can meet Howell's challenge, but what is more, it can be met in a way that fully makes use of the special place occupied by panpsychism regarding the mysterious nature of the “necessary connection” between cause and effect.

<p dir="ltr">Ostracism negatively affects wellbeing, and its effects are especially detrimental when individuals are unable to cope. A growing body of literature explores interventions that facilitate recovery from ostracism. Research indicates that the comparisons we make with others (social comparisons) or with ourselves (temporal comparisons) serve many functions, from helping us evaluate ourselves and our experiences to enhancing self-esteem. The direction of these comparisons has important implications for wellbeing: downward comparisons (with a worse comparison target) can enhance wellbeing, whereas upward comparisons (with a better comparison target) can harm wellbeing when a sense of contrast is elicited. This dissertation examined whether downward social and temporal comparisons mitigate the detrimental effects of ostracism on wellbeing and whether upward social and temporal comparisons exacerbate these effects. In three studies, participants underwent an ostracism (or control) condition, and some were randomly assigned to make social or temporal comparisons. In Studies 1 and 2, I manipulated ostracism by having participants recall an ostracism event in their lives; in Study 3, ostracism was manipulated with Cyberball. In Study 1, participants either wrote about a time things were worse (downward temporal comparison) or better for them (upward temporal comparison), whereas, in Studies 2 and 3, participants either wrote about someone else doing worse (downward social comparison) or better than them (upward social comparison). All studies measured psychological need satisfaction, positive affect, and satisfaction with life. Though Study 1 produced null results, in Studies 2 and 3, downward social comparisons increased need satisfaction compared to upward social comparisons and increased positive affect and satisfaction with life in Study 3. Results suggest downward social comparisons may have positive consequences for wellbeing.</p>

This study investigated the contributions that cognitive ability, social connectedness, and social exclusion make to employee workplace deviance. Positive correlations were predicted between social exclusion and workplace deviance. Participants with low cognitive ability were expected to respond to social exclusion with higher rates of deviance than persons with higher cognitive functioning. In addition, participants scoring high in social connectedness were expected to engage in less deviant behavior than those who generally feel disconnected from their environment. The measurements employed included the following: the Wonderlic Personnel Test, the Social Connectedness Scale, and the Bennett and Robinson (2000) Workplace Deviance Scale. Undergraduate participants were administered a series of vignettes and measures. Social condition was manipulated according to two levels (inclusion and exclusion). The results demonstrated no significant correlation between intelligence and CWB or social connectedness and CWB. Stronger correlations were observed between the social exclusion and workplace deviance. In addition, a significant interaction was detected in which persons with low cognitive ability who felt social disconnected were more likely to engage in organizational deviance under conditions of social exclusion than their socially connected counterparts with higher cognitive functioning.

The preschool is a cultural meeting place where children with different language backgrounds meet. This raises new questions, insights and challenges in the field of inclusion and exclusion. We have focused on children's free play in this study. The aim is to describe and analyse the interaction between multilingual children in free play. We have taken the sociocultural perspective as our starting point and used concepts such as mediation, language and interaction in the analysis. The data material consist s of video observations where different play sequences were recorded. The recordings took place over three days and a total of five multilingual children, between the ages two and six years participated. The video observations were transcribed and coded ba sed on an observation schedule.  The results show that verbal language skills in Swedish are crucial for inclusion in free play. The results of this study showed that the children were not affected by multilingualism at all during interaction with other children where both exclusion and inclusion occurred. However, it was age, gender and verbal ability that determined whether children were included or excluded in free play. This study shows that exclusion occurred mainly thro ugh non-verbal communication. The results of this study show the complexity of children's relationships where inclusion was situational.  This study can contribute to giving preschool teachers a deeper understanding of the importance of encouraging inclusion, cooperation and creating learning opportunities to support children in free play. By bringing awareness, this study can, with the help of a broadening perspective on free play, contribute to creating strategies on how inclusion can be promoted and exclusion can be prevented in the organization. / Förskolan är en kulturell mötesplats där barn med olika språkbakgrund möts. Detta medför nya frågor, insikter och utmaningar i verksamhetsnivå som gäller inkludering och exkludering, i denna studie har vi fokuserat på barns fria lek. Syftet är att beskriva och analysera interaktionen mellan flerspråkiga barn i fri lek. Vi har tagit utgångspunkt i det sociokulturella perspektivet och använt begrepp som mediering, språk och interaktion i analysen. Datamaterialet består av videoobservationer där olika leksekvenser spelats in. Inspelningarna skedde under tre dagar och totalt deltog fem flerspråkiga barn  mellan åldrarna två till sex år. Videoobservationerna transkriberades och kodades utifrån ett observationsschema. Resultatet visar att verbala språkkunskaper på svenska är avgörande för inklu-dering i leken. Studiens resultat visade att barnen inte alls påverkades av flerspråkigheten under interaktion med andra barn när exkludering och inkludering uppstod. Dock var det ålder, kön samt den verbala förmågan som påverkade om barnen inkluderades eller exkluderas i leken. Studien visar att exkludering främst skedde genom icke-verbal kommunikation. Resultatet i denna studie visar komplexiteten i barnens relationer där inkluderingen var situationsbunden. Studien kan bidra med att ge förskollärare en djupare förståelse i vikten av att främja inkludering, samarbete och att skapa lärandemöjligheter för att stötta barnen i den fria leken. Genom att integrera en medvetenhet kan studien, med hjälp av ett vidgande perspektiv på den fria leken, bidra med att skapa strategier för hur inkludering kan främjas och exkludering kan förebyggas i verksamheten.

We are in the midst of a major paradigm shift in how we manage the radio spectrum. This paradigm shift in spectrum management from exclusive access to shared access is necessitated by the growth of wireless services and the demand pressure imposed on limited spectrum resources under legacy management regimes. The primary constraint in any spectrum sharing regime is that the incumbent users (IUs) of the spectrum need to be protected from harmful interference caused due to transmissions from secondary users (SUs). Unfortunately, legacy techniques rely on inadequately flexible and overly conservative methods for prescribing interference protection that result in inefficient utilization of the shared spectrum. In this dissertation, we first propose an analytical approach for characterizing the aggregate interference experienced by the IU when it shares the spectrum with multiple SUs. Proper characterization of aggregate interference helps in defining incumbent protection boundaries, a.k.a. Exclusion Zones (EZs), that are neither overly aggressive to endanger the IU protection requirement, nor overly conservative to limit spectrum utilization efficiency. In particular, our proposed approach addresses the two main limitations of existing methods that use terrain based propagation models for estimating the aggregate interference. First, terrain-based propagation models are computationally intensive and data-hungry making them unsuitable for large real-time spectrum sharing applications such as the spectrum access system (SAS). Second, terrain based propagation models require accurate geo-locations of SUs which might not always be available, such as when SUs are mobile, or when their locations are obfuscated for location privacy concerns. Our second contribution in this dissertation is the novel concept of Multi-tiered Incumbent Protection Zones (MIPZ) that can be used to prescribe interference protection to the IUs. Based on the aforementioned analytical tool for characterizing the aggregate interference, we facilitate a framework that can be used to replace the legacy notion of static and overly conservative EZs with multi-tiered dynamic EZs. MIPZ is fundamentally different from legacy EZs in that it dynamically adjusts the IU's protection boundary based on the radio environment, network dynamics, and the IU interference protection requirement. Our extensive simulation results show that MIPZ can be used to improve the overall spectrum utilization while ensuring sufficient protection to the IUs. As our third contribution, we investigate the operational security (OPSEC) issue raised by the emergence of new spectrum access technologies and spectrum utilization paradigms. For instance, although the use of geolocation databases (GDB) is a practical approach for enabling efficient spectrum sharing, it raises a potentially serious OPSEC problem, especially when some of the IUs are federal government entities, including military users. We show that malicious queriers can readily infer the locations of the IUs even if the database's responses to the queries do not directly reveal such information. To address this issue, we propose a perturbation-based optimal obfuscation strategy that can be implemented by the GDB to preserve the location privacy of IUs. The proposed obfuscation strategy is optimal in the sense that it maximizes IUs' location privacy while ensuring that the expected degradation in the SUs' performance due to obfuscated responses does not exceed a threshold. In summary, this dissertation focuses on investigating techniques that improve the utilization efficiency of the shared spectrum while ensuring adequate protection to the IUs from SU induced interference as well as from potential OPSEC threats. We believe that this study facilitates the regulators and other stakeholders a better understanding of mechanisms that enable improved spectrum utilization efficiency and minimize the associated OPSEC threats, and hence, helps in wider adoption of dynamic spectrum sharing. / Ph. D. / Radio spectrum is a precious resource that enables wireless communications. On the one hand, the demand for wireless spectrum is skyrocketing due to the ever-increasing number of smartphones and other wireless devices. On the other hand, the total usable wireless spectrum is limited. As a result, we are at a stage where spectrum demand far exceeds the supply. Since spectrum is a finite resource, the only way to fulfill this demand is by sharing the spectrum dynamically among multiple users—i.e., by enabling “dynamic spectrum sharing” among different class of users and uses. In this dissertation, we seek to investigate methods and tools for improving the utilization efficiency of the shared spectrum as well as for ensuring the operational privacy and security of spectrum users in dynamic spectrum sharing. In doing so, we propose several novel approaches and demonstrate their efficacy in improving spectrum utilization efficiency and operational privacy by providing results from extensive simulations and relevant real-world case studies. We believe that studies of this kind facilitate the regulators and other stakeholders a better understanding of mechanisms that enable improved spectrum utilization efficiency and minimize the associated operational privacy and security threats—and hence, help in wider adoption of dynamic spectrum sharing.

Yes / This chapter will examine issues of social justice by focussing on social exclusion and infant mortality. Infant mortality is defined as the death of a live born child before its first birthday. Social exclusion and infant mortality are both important areas of policy debate in the UK and globally (1).We will examine how far they are linked and will focus on ethnic minority populations with higher than average rates of infant mortality. The chapter continues by considering a small group of women who have experienced the death of an infant and who have come together in a group called HOPE. We ask how their experience might inform our understanding of the needs of women at the time of childbirth and in the weeks immediately following it. Their experiences illuminate how feelings of exclusion, and injustice, can be manifest in and through the structures and processes of engaging with health care professionals. The potential to promote social justice and enhance inclusion via listening to the voices of those who have had this experience of loss is considered

Cette recherche analyse les formes de sociabilité des jeunes des classes populaires dans les différents champs de socialisation (la famille, l’école, le travail). Pas toujours dévoilée comme telle, la violence - symbolique et parfois physique - est présente dans les principales institutions définies comme champs de socialisation. Au centre de ce travail, sont analysés les modes d’organisation sociale construits par les jeunes en réaction au principe d’une triple disqualification : familiale, scolaire, professionnelle. Cette violence structurelle subie faite de multiples dominations, rejets, humiliations, exclusions, discriminations, est déterminante dans un contexte de chômage de masse, de précarité, et de désaffiliation. Cette situation est caractérisée par le développement d’un processus de plus en plus prégnant d’enclavement et de ségrégation sociale et spatiale. Ce processus, sans cesse révélé par les formes de révoltes collectives depuis trois décennies, ne trouve pas de véritable débouché politique. Face à cette désorganisation structurelle, les jeunes du quartier se sont construit, de génération en génération, un monde à la fois virtuel et réel à partir du quartier, de la rue. Cet univers fonctionne alors comme champ de socialisation avec son langage, sa culture, ses solidarités, sa hiérarchie, sesconcurrences et ses violences agies et subies. / This research analyses the different forms of sociability among the youth from popular social class into different scopes of socialization (e.g. family, school, labour). Although not always unveiled, violence – symbolical and sometimes physical – is present in these main institutions defined as fields of socialization. This research is centred on the analysis of thesocial organization modes created by youth in reaction to a triple disqualification mainly: family, educational and professional. This undergoing structural violence – made of numerous dominations, rejections, humiliations, exclusions and discriminations – is decisive in the context of massive unemployment, precariousness and disaffiliation. This situation is characterized by the development of an increasingly stressful process of enclosure and social/spatial segregation. This process, incessantly revealed by mass rebellion formed over three decades, does not find a genuine political opening.Facing this structural chaos, the youth of these projects built themselves – generation after generation – a real and virtual world, coming from the slums and the street. This world is then functioning as a scope of socialization with its language, culture, solidarities, hierarchy, competition and undergoing violence.

Au cours des dernières années, le Québec fut durement touché par des vagues massives de licenciements collectifs. Après l’industrie du textile et du vêtement, c’est maintenant au tour de l’industrie forestière de subir, de plein fouet, les contrecoups d’une économie en pleine mutation. Les résultats des entrevues réalisées au printemps 2008, auprès des travailleurs de la Louisiana-Pacific de Saint-Michel-des-Saints, attestent de l’incapacité des dispositions sur le licenciement collectif à prendre adéquatement en charge les travailleurs victimes de ces fermetures d’usines. Pour évaluer le degré d’efficacité des dispositions sur le licenciement collectif, nous partons d’une étude empirique visant le processus de restructuration d’une grande entreprise papetière, qui conduit à la fermeture de son usine de traitement du bois à St-Michel-des-Saints. Des entretiens conduits auprès des travailleurs, des acteurs locaux comme des dirigeants du syndicat et de la communauté locale, et d’autres acteurs syndicaux et gouvernementaux permettent de reconstruire les étapes conduisant aux licenciements collectifs et à leur suite. Seule la mobilisation syndicale (blocus de l’usine) a permis de bonifier les faibles mesures palliatives prévues initialement par la loi. Cette mobilisation n’a toutefois pas empêché de constater des effets négatifs marqués (appauvrissement, sentiment d’exclusion, tensions familiales, etc.) chez les travailleurs victimes de ce licenciement massif. / In recent years, Québec has severely been hit by massive waves of group terminations. After the textile and clothing industry, the forest industry is now facing the after-effects of a changing economy. The interviews obtained in spring 2008 with the Louisiana–Pacific workers in Saint-Michel-des–Saints, show that the provisions on group termination do not take appropriate measures for workers who are victims of such closing down industries. To evaluate the efficiency of group termination provisions, we have undertaken an empirical study on the operational improvement and downsizing process of a large paper company that have lead to the permanent closure of the treated lumber plant in Saint-Michel-des-Saints. Discussions with workers and local actors such as the union leaders and members of the community, other union and government leaders have helped us rebuild the steps leading to these group terminations and to the follow–up. It is only through mobilization called by the union (with a plant blockade) that gains were made in the small dismissal measures initially provided by the regulation. This mobilization, however, did not prevent other important negative effects such as impoverishment, feelings of exclusion and family tensions on workers who have had to live through this group termination of employment.

L’objet de la présente thèse est la lutte contre la pauvreté. Elle cherche à identifier les conditions favorisant la sortie de la pauvreté dans un territoire urbain, ici le quartier de la Petite-Patrie. par une approche territoriale intégrée. S’inscrivant dans la mouvance des multiples initiatives de lutte contre la pauvreté et l’exclusion au Québec, le postulat qui fonde cette recherche est le suivant : la lutte contre la pauvreté par l’approche territoriale intégrée permet : 1) d’instaurer des conditions favorisant la sortie de la pauvreté et 2) de renverser les processus qui mènent à l’appauvrissement des personnes et, du même coup, d’améliorer les conditions et la qualité de vie de celles-ci dans un territoire particulier. Les résultats de cette recherche permettent : 1) de contribuer à la compréhension des dynamiques de lutte contre la pauvreté grâce à une approche considérant les acteurs agissant dans un territoire et, 2) d’éclairer les différents niveaux de conception et de mise en œuvre des politiques et des stratégies d’action, tant au niveau de l’État que de la société civile, sachant que les dispositifs d’intervention intégrés se créent à l’interface des initiatives locales ou régionales et des nouvelles formes de politiques publiques en matière de lutte contre la pauvreté. Les grandes conclusions qui émergent de cette recherche sont au nombre de trois : 1) Si la multidimentionnalité de la pauvreté est acceptée par plusieurs auteurs, on ne peut pas parler d’une seule pauvreté, mais de diverses pauvretés. Les visages de la pauvreté dans le territoire de La Petite-Patrie témoignent de cette diversité des pauvretés, et appellent une variété de stratégies d’action ; 2) Les personnes en situation de pauvreté, en fonction de leurs capacités d’agir, peuvent être appréhendées selon un double profil qui structure de façon importante leur processus de sortie de la pauvreté : le premier groupe rassemble les personnes en situation de pauvreté qui ont des initiatives découlant de leurs capacités d’agir, et le second groupe qui réunit les personnes en situation de pauvreté dont la capacité d’initiative est altérée, apparemment de façon durable, par leurs conditions de vie. Toute stratégie publique de sortie de la pauvreté dans un espace donné devrait alors considérer cette dimension relative aux capacités de rapprochement des individus et des ressources pour soutenir le développement d’une stratégie territoriale intégrée de lutte à la pauvreté plus efficace pour les personnes dont le processus de désaffiliation est plus avancé; 3) Les acteurs de lutte contre la pauvreté dans un territoire, pour réunir les conditions d’une action intégrée et mettre en place des conditions favorables de lutte contre la pauvreté, doivent s’appuyer sur la concertation, les alliances intersectorielles, le leadership inclusif et concerté, les passerelles formelles et fonctionnelles entre acteurs institutionnels, et sur une démarche hybride (emploi et défense des droits) qui constituent des ingrédients fondamentaux pour toute action ou intervention en faveur des personnes en situation de pauvreté vivant dans un cadre territorial défini et accepté par l’ensemble des acteurs locaux. Ce caractère hybride de la démarche permet d’agir de façon différenciée sur les deux groupes de la population. L’intégration est donc avant tout stratégique, c’est-à-dire fondée sur l’articulation d’une pluralité de logique d’action. / The subject of this PhD thesis is the fight against poverty. It aims at identify the conditions that promote transitioning out of poverty within an urban environment- in this case the Petite-Patrie district of Montreal-through an integrated territorial approach (ITA). This research fits into the various initiatives of fighting against poverty and exclusion in Quebec. This research is based on the following fundamental assumption: the use of an integrated territorial approach in the fight against poverty allows: (1) to implement conditions promoting a transition out of poverty and (2) to reverse the processes that lead to poverty, and, at the same time improve standards of living and quality of life of residents of a specific territory. The findings of this research make it possible: (1) to contribute to understanding the various mechanisms of the fight against poverty by considering the various stakeholders in a specific territory, and (2) to highlight the various types of designs and implementations of policies and development strategies, both at the State and Civil society levels, while taking into account that integrated intervention mechanisms should be developed where local and regional initiatives meet /interact with new types of public policies dealing with fight against poverty. The research led to three findings: (1) while most researchers agree that poverty has many dimensions, it is impossible to refer to only one poverty; there are many aspects or types of poverty. The various types of poverty encountered in the Petite-Patrie district support this assumption. It also calls for multiple and relevant strategies; (2) people living in poverty can be assessed according to their abilities to act or react and divided in two groups: the first group cover people living in poverty who take some initiatives according to their abilities to act; the second group cover people whose abilities to act have been reduced, may be permanently, by their living conditions. People’s abilities to act or the lack thereof, will impact the strategies implemented in the fight against poverty. Any public policy dealing with transitioning out of poverty in a specific territory must make sure there are resources available close to the people targeted, in order to support the development of a more effective integrated territorial approach in the fight against poverty when targeting people who are more disenfranchised. (3) In order to promote the prerequisites for an integrated approach in the fight against poverty in a specific territory, the relevant stakeholders must rely on collaboration, on alliances between the various sectors of society, upon an inclusive leadership and upon formal and functional linkages between the various institutions involved. There is also the need to use a dual approach -promoting employment and upholding human rights- two key factors in any intervention targeting people living in poverty in a specific territory, and taken into account by the local stakeholders. This dual approach allows intervening using different ways for the two groups defined. The integrated approach is essentially a strategy for coordinating a variety of measures.