Prior research has shown that the distress associated with social exclusion (i.e., social pain) and physical pain share biological and neural substrates. This social-physical pain overlap has spawned a number of hypotheses regarding how both types of pain might interact. The dissertation research reported here employed diverse methodologies to investigate two questions stemming from these hypotheses: 1) what is the effect of social pain on physical pain sensitivity and 2) what is the effect of physical pain on social pain sensitivity? Pertaining to the first question, Study 1 showed that a socially disconnecting live interaction with a partner led to a decrease in physical pain sensitivity. This result, however, was not replicated in Study 2 using an imagination paradigm to conjure two different types of social exclusion experiences, nor did low levels of social connectedness predict subsequent physical pain levels in a sample of chronic pain patients in Study 3. Pertaining to the second question, pain levels did not predict subsequent reports of social disconnection in the diaries of chronic pain patients in Study 3, nor did participants experiencing capsaicin-induced physical pain report social judgments any different from their pain-free counterparts in Study 4. The reasons for, and meaning of, these findings are discussed in detail. Crucial questions that must be confronted to continue advancement in this area of research and recommendations for future studies are also explored.

Prior research has shown that the distress associated with social exclusion (i.e., social pain) and physical pain share biological and neural substrates. This social-physical pain overlap has spawned a number of hypotheses regarding how both types of pain might interact. The dissertation research reported here employed diverse methodologies to investigate two questions stemming from these hypotheses: 1) what is the effect of social pain on physical pain sensitivity and 2) what is the effect of physical pain on social pain sensitivity? Pertaining to the first question, Study 1 showed that a socially disconnecting live interaction with a partner led to a decrease in physical pain sensitivity. This result, however, was not replicated in Study 2 using an imagination paradigm to conjure two different types of social exclusion experiences, nor did low levels of social connectedness predict subsequent physical pain levels in a sample of chronic pain patients in Study 3. Pertaining to the second question, pain levels did not predict subsequent reports of social disconnection in the diaries of chronic pain patients in Study 3, nor did participants experiencing capsaicin-induced physical pain report social judgments any different from their pain-free counterparts in Study 4. The reasons for, and meaning of, these findings are discussed in detail. Crucial questions that must be confronted to continue advancement in this area of research and recommendations for future studies are also explored.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis discusses the notion of amicitia in early Christian literature. By examining letters and normative texts ranging from the third to the early fifth century, the study illuminates not only how contemporary authors shaped friendship conceptually but also how these concepts relate to the actual social practice. Typically, scholars confine their reading of Christian friendship to the late antique period. In so doing, they approach amicitia either as a particular kind of relationship performing crucial social functions or as a subject for theorization that followed the example of a longstanding ancient philosophical tradition. Particularly influential has been the view that links amicitia with affection and love. Hence, scholars tend to stress the inclusiveness of friendship. By contrast, my own study focuses on the aspect of exclusion as the necessary by-product of social inclusion processes. Along these lines, amicita is described as existing in a dialectical opposition with its antonym, inimicitia. This approach yielded a number of insights. First, as the study moves into uncharted territory, the examination of third century texts highlights a tradition of amicitia-related thought that reached further back than has previously been assumed. From this, a more nuanced picture of friendship emerges that is not constrained by scholarly established boundaries between different fields of study. Second, the principle of inclusion and exclusion, dividing the world into amici and inimici, has been revealed as a powerful tool in church politics and religious controversy that established sharp boundaries between competing Christian factions. This view, which posits the truth of faith as the necessary prerequisite for friendship, is set off against other contemporary voices that did not make amicitia dependent on a particular religious group affiliation. Third, while disentangling friendship from the question of love, the character of Christian amicitia is viewed against the backdrop of the divine household. Though the conceptual overlap between friendship and kinship is not unique to the Christian tradition, such thinking ties in with an idea of community that builds on the paternity of God. These findings have implications for both the study of ancient friendship and the history of the early church. They improve our understanding of the relation between the conceptualization of amicitia and the actual social practice and moreover offer a deep insight into the social dynamics of contemporary religious controversies.

This thesis examines the regulation behind exclusion clauses and their use in third party motor insurance policies. The thesis answers three key questions. First, to what extent are exclusion clauses valid in third party motor insurance policies against third parties? Second, what is the effect of the use of exclusion clauses on third party claims? Third how should the law in this area be reformed? It further examines the effect on exclusion clauses of general contractual and insurance contract regulation on third party victims. Finally, the thesis will examine the role of the MIB and whether it provides adequate protection as a ‘fund of last resort’.

“La banalité de l’exclusion. Autopsie in vivo de quelques romans d’auteures caribéennes et subsahariennes (Condé, Mukasonga, Danticat et Miano)” examines the complex logics examines the complex logics of social exclusion and connects writings from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, two sites often treated separately in the domain of Francophone studies. Precisely, this dissertation addresses how exclusion unfolds in these postcolonial societies—with migration, exile, and globalization echoed in the literary texts that I read. My argument is that our understanding of social exclusion and violence in these societies still draws solely from homogenizing development theories that originate outside of them. Re-theorizing social exclusion, I show in my work how these texts portray acts of social exclusion and violence through such insidious categories as geography, origins and lineage, as well as personal history, and local traditions and practices, that contribute to the making of misfits and outcasts, and yet remain overlooked in most attempts to address social exclusion in these specific locations. In navigating these relationships between social situations and literary form, I engage with psychology, social theory, and also physiology as I resort to autophagy (from the Greek “auto” meaning self and “phagy” meaning eating), a physiological process in the body that destroys cells to analogically demonstrate that by nurturing destructive behaviors these societies jeopardize chances to reach national cohesion and therefore contribute to their own destruction. The various chapters analyze texts by women writers: French Guadeloupian Maryse Condé, Haitian-American Edwidge Danticat, Rwandan French Scholastique Mukasonga, and Cameroonian French Léonora Miano. Self-critical agents of their communities, their act of bearing witness to these disruptions from a decentered position becomes highly problematic specifically for Danticat and Miano, as their legitimacy is challenged by resisting readers from their countries of origin who see their hyphenated selves as outsiders and traitors. But, hardly discouraged, these authors demonstrate the need for a renewed social response in writing that is provocative, with a rhetoric that resists the obsolete framing of fault and responsibility as always the Other’s.

Branching in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is produced by incorporating a pre-prepared polymeric chain transfer agent (PCTA) into a single stage radical polymerisation. Samples of PCTA having a range of transfer functionalities and molar masses were synthesised by modifying a methacrylate-based copolymer. Control of branching in PMMA has been studied as a function of transfer functionality and molar mass in the PCT A and a function of MMA and initiator concentrations in the MMA polymerisation. The branched samples of PMMA have been characterised by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) with multi-detectors to determine Mark–Houwink and other parameters to assess levels of branching. Some PCTA samples have been prepared with a UV chromophore to facilitate characterisation by SEC-UV.

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Compreendido como um fenômeno da contemporaneidade, a partir da década de 80 o movimento feminista é um exemplo do que se convencionou denominar por novos movimentos sociais. A partir desse momento, verifica-se uma tendência de as demandas dos movimentos expandirem-se para lutas estruturadas em torno de opressões sofridas, principalmente identitárias, no lugar de militâncias da esfera estritamente econômica. Neste contexto é que o presente estudo insere-se. Este trabalho tem como objetivo verificar as motivações de jovens brasileiras, de origens pobres, moradoras em áreas de favelas ou bairros populares, em movimentos feministas no Rio de Janeiro. Foram analisadas suas motivações iniciais e as que as manteriam militando, observando-se algumas tensões existentes nessas participações políticas. Visando ao mapeamento da ambientação histórica e política dos movimentos sociais que se abriam como possibilidades a estas jovens, buscamos traçar um breve histórico dos movimentos sociais na contemporaneidade e, em especial, nos contextos latino-americano e brasileiro, a partir da bibliografia disponível sobre o tema. Para o caso específico dos movimentos no Rio de Janeiro, foram realizadas entrevistas com antigas militantes. Tendo em vista que as entrevistadas advinham de famílias pobres, consideramos importante enveredar nas discussões sobre as exclusões sociais, a partir de uma literatura crítica ao conceito, e procurando verificar os rebatimentos das teorias à situação especial em estudo. A pesquisa de campo contou com entrevistas semi-estruturadas realizadas com cinco jovens, com idades entre 19 e 29 anos. Para efeitos analíticos, compreendemos suas histórias a partir da metodologia da História Oral, a qual visa evidenciar a multiplicidade de vozes outrora desprezadas pelo saber científico, sublinhando o caráter militante do entrevistador. Buscando conhecer as histórias de vida das entrevistadas, foram focalizados aspectos tais como: suas origens familiares, suas condições de jovens; situação de moradia e circulações pela cidade; percursos escolares e trajetórias de trabalho. A partir desses dados abordarmos suas trajetórias militantes. / Acknowledged as a contemporary phenomenon, starting in the 80s, the feminist movement is an example of what has been called new social movements. Starting at that moment, the trend is for the movements demands to expand for struggles around oppressions, specially those related to identity, instead of movements structured in a strictly economical sphere and it is in that context that we find the present research. The research had as its goal to investigate the motivations of young Brazilian women, from deprived backgrounds, living in favelas or impoverished neighborhoods, in feminist movements in Rio de Janeiro. Their initial motivations were analyzed as well as what would keep them militating, taking into account some existing tensions in such political participations. In order to understand the historical and political context of the social movements that have been set as opportunities to those young women, we searched to establish a brief history of the contemporary social movements, specially, in the Latin-American and Brazilian context, taking into consideration the available bibliography. In Rio de Janeiros case, in particular, old militants were interviewed. Since we established that the young women interviewed were from deprived backgrounds, we considered important to also discuss social exclusions, considering the critical theories on the concept and searching to verify how the theory applied to the situations we found in this research. Fieldwork had semi-structured interviews with five young women, aged from 19 to 29 years old. We searched to understand their stories using the Oral History methodology that tries to evidentiate the multiplicity of voices previously not taken into consideration by science, in order to highlight the militant aspect of the interviewer. In order to get to know their life stories, we focused on aspects such as their family origins, their conditions as young people, their habitational situation and trajects around the city; scholarly and word trajectories, to, later on, investigate their militant trajectories.

No description available.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2004Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:14:54Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ruiz_jam_me_prud.pdf: 4047275 bytes, checksum: 7c832e47d0c9f764fe5d01e7d96bc503 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo investigar os residentes em bairros próximos ao Prudenshopping e ao Shopping Center Americanas na cidade de Presidente Prudente, observando se têm ou não acesso a esses espaços, pois entendemos que o não acesso e/ou afastamento geram processos de segregação socioespacial e reforçam os de exclusão que foram analisados pelo não possibilidade da realização do consumo de bens e serviços em equipamentos dessa natureza. Busca-se, ainda, delinear os deslocamentos dessas pessoas para as demais áreas de comércio e serviços da cidade, uma vez que esses equipamentos propiciaram novas centralidades intraurbanas e mudaram a reestruturação interna da cidade de Presidente Prudente. Pretendeu-se, assim, avaliar se a multiplicação de áreas de concentração de atividades comerciais e de serviços tem provocado práticas socioespaciais que expressam as diferenças socioespaciais no interior das cidades médias. / The research has for objective to investigate the residents who belong to Shopping Center Americanas’ and Prudenshopping’s neighborhoods in the city of Presidente Prudente, observing whether or not they have access to those places, because it’s understood that either the lack of access and/or the distance from those generate space and social segregation as well as they reinforce the exclusion of whom has been analyzed by the impossibility of realization of consume of goods and services in equipments of that kind. It’s also intended to delineate these people’s displacements to further areas of commerce and services in the city, once those equipments have enabled new intra-urban centrality facilities as they have changes the city’s inner restructuring in Presidente Prudente. Overall, it was therefore meant to evaluate whether the multiplication and concentration of services and commerce have created space and social conditions that may display differences regarding them within medium towns.