This project explores Japan’s complex literary and cultural negotiation with China from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, focusing on the role of intermediary texts (dictionaries, encyclopedias, and commentaries) and the different modes of receiving and constructing Chinese culture depending on historical periods and scholarly lineages. As the larger process by which Chinese history and literature became part of the Japanese literary culture has long been studied on the assumption that there is direct textual continuity between Japanese texts (in literary Sinitic) and Chinese continental texts, the tracking down of citations, allusion, and references to Chinese source texts has commanded great scholarly attention. Yet this assumption obscures other, equally important histories – such as a popular understanding of Chinese culture, or a conceptual perception of Chinese culture, that was NOT based on direct textual continuity – that lies at the heart of this project. The introduction outlines three modes of receiving and constructing Chinese literary culture in pre-modern japan. One was the text-based, canonical view of Chinese history and literature, which relied almost exclusively on texts and genres that were canonized in the Nara and Heian periods state university (daigakuryō) – Confucian classics, Chinese official dynastic histories, and Chinese poetry. In contrast with it was a more popular, name-based understanding of Chinese culture that emerged from various intermediary genres (such as anecdotal literature, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and commentaries) both in China and in Japan. This mode of reception and construction was not based on texts so much as on what I call “cultural signs” (particularly Chinese names, well-known anecdotes, and visual cues) and required no knowledge of the original literary Sinitic. Third was a conceptual, term-based perception, manifested in such concepts as “loyalty” and “filial piety.” Written in the same kanji characters, these terms served as common threads linking Chinese and Japanese literary writings on the one hand, but also took on new meanings and associations in the Japanese cultural imagination. Chapter 1 outlines the importation of Chinese books and manuscripts in relation to the center of scholarship and the main intellectual groups up until the twelfth century. Drawing on evidence from commentaries on the Wakan rōeishū (The Collection of Japanese and Chinese Poems for Recitation, 1013) and from The Tales of China (Kara monogatari, late Heian period) on the themes of exile and loyalty, I discuss the rising interests in referencing anecdotal literature and compiling intermediaries (dictionaries, encyclopedias, and commentaries) in the twelfth century that eventually contributed to the formation of a more popular, name-based understanding of Chinese history and literature. Chapter 2 investigates the Japanese medieval interpretations of Chinese official histories (“Chūsei Shiki”), which features a tension and negotiation between the canonical and the non-canonical texts and gravitates towards recurring themes, character types, and core values. In particular, I look into the themes of wisdom, virtue, loyalty, and filial piety in A Miscellany of Ten Maxims (Jikkinshō, 1252) and The Tales of the Heike (Heike monogatari, ca. 1308-1311), which were largely constructed from a relatively more classical, Tang-based perspective, in despite of the fact that Chinese Song dynasty culture had already been imported to Japan along with the introduction of Chinese Chan (J. Zen) Buddhism in the thirteenth through fourteenth centuries. In Chapter 3, I examine the Taiheiki (A Chronicle of Great Peace, 1340s-1371), a unique text that acts as a nexus for many themes of this project. Analyzing the use of Chinese tales, maxims and proverbs, and poetry in relation to the themes of loyalty, wisdom, righteousness, and filial piety, I show that, unlike The Tales of the Heike, the Taiheiki revealed a thriving concern with the Song culture, which involved new editions, new commentaries, and new poetic theory. I also show that a conceptual, term-based perception of Chinese culture was taking shape. Chapter 4 explores the suddenly intensified scholarly exchange among different intellectual groups – the Zen monks, the Shintō priests, warriors, and court aristocrats – in the fifteenth through sixteenth centuries. Tracing the threads of new books and new theories in Kiyohara Nobukata’s lecture notes on the Mōgyū (Inquiry of the Youth), The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars, and the picture scroll (emaki) of the Xianyang Palace, I discuss the expansion of knowledge and audience from priests and aristocrats to influential military families and wealthy commoners in late medieval Japan, the formation of new imaginations regarding Chinese history and literature, and the final transition from a pro-Tang prospective to a Song-centered understanding of China. In conclusion, I argue for the literary and cultural reception and construction of Chinese culture as not only a large and complex source text, in a long history of Sino-Japanese intertextuality, but as a complex cultural construction that was packaged and modified, sometimes for easy consumption, to reinforce key values (such as loyalty and filial piety), and that was readily identified even by those with limited access to literary Sinitic. By illustrating the processes by which Chinese history and literature were largely filtered through and transmitted by intermediaries into medieval Japanese literary culture, this project provides a new history of the reception of Chinese culture in the Japanese literary imagination.

O presente estudo investigou o perfil comportamental de ovinos entre o parto e a primeira mamada dos neonatos e sua influência sobre a sobrevivência e peso ao desmame dos cordeiros. O experimento foi conduzido em uma criação comercial de sistema intensivo, ao longo de três estações de parição, entre junho e novembro de 2006. Foram acompanhadas 216 ovelhas gestantes da raça Santa Inês e os 306 cordeiros nascidos. As observações comportamentais de ovelhas e cordeiros foram realizadas em períodos de 12 horas, através do método direto e em amostragem focal a cada 5 minutos. Para as mães, foram analisadas as variáveis postura (PTM), atividade (ATM) e tempo para tocar a cria (TTC). Os comportamentos avaliados nos cordeiros foram postura (PTC), atividade (ATC), tempo para ficar em pé (TEP) e tempo para mamar (TPM). Foi também estudada a influência do tipo (simples, duplo ou triplo) e duração do parto (TP e DP) sobre a manifestação dos comportamentos materno-filiais e desempenho dos cordeiros. As análises foram conduzidas através do pacote estatístico SAS®. O modelo adotado para avaliar a relação entre as variáveis foi o General Linear Model, através do procedimento GLM. As ovelhas recém-paridas despendem seu tempo principalmente com comportamentos voltados à formação de um vínculo exclusivo com a cria e com cuidados importantes para a sobrevivência imediata do cordeiro. Já os cordeiros, após aptos a se levantarem e se locomoverem, priorizaram a ingestão do colostro. A rapidez das ovelhas em iniciar os cuidados maternais (TTC=1,4863±8,3587 segundos), a baixa ocorrência de comportamentos antagônicos à cria e a agilidade dos cordeiros para se levantar (TEP=20,8797±17,6991 minutos) e mamar (TPM=46,0726±27,7284 minutos) são indícios da adaptação comportamental da raça Santa Inês a condições extensivas de criação. Os cuidados maternais realizados entre o nascimento e a primeira mamada do cordeiro influenciaram em sua agilidade, medida através do tempo para ficar em pé (P<0,01) e para mamar (P<0,01). A atividade da mãe interferiu no peso do cordeiro ao desmame (P<0,05), tendo os que receberam cuidados mais adequados apresentado um melhor desempenho. Sob as condições deste estudo, a agilidade do neonato não interferiu no peso ao desmame. Também não foram verificados efeitos do comportamento materno ou neonatal sobre a sobrevivência dos cordeiros até o desmame. Cordeiros nascidos de partos múltiplos ou longos apresentaram menor agilidade neonatal (P<0,05). O peso ao nascer sofreu forte influência do tipo de parto (P<0,01), sendo maior para filhotes nascidos de partos simples. Da mesma forma, o tipo do parto influenciou também o peso ao desmame dos cordeiros (P<0,01). / The present study investigated sheep maternal-offspring behavior from birth to first suck and its influence on lamb survival and weight at weaning. The experiment was conducted on a commercial intensive system flock, from June to November, 2006. Data were collected on 216 Santa Inês ewes and their 306 newly-born lambs. Focal animal observations were carried out every 5 minutes, in 12-hour periods. For the ewes, the variables analyzed consisted on posture (PTM), activity (ATM) and time to touch the lamb (TTC). The behaviors analyzed for the lambs were posture (PTC), time to stand up (TEP) and time to suck (TPM). The influence of birth type (simple, double or triple) and labor length, litter size and weight at weaning were also considered. The analyses were conducted through the SAS® statistical package. The model adopted to evaluate the relation between variables was the General Linear Model through the GLM procedure. Immediately after parturition, ewes spent their time mostly with behaviors directed to bonding with the neonates. Newly-born lambs, soon after succeeding in standing up and walking, prioritized colostrum ingestion. The short time required to start maternal care (TTC=1.4863±8.3587 seconds), the low incidence of negative behaviors against the lambs and the neonatal agility to stand (TEP=20.8797±17.6991 minutes) and suck (TPM=46.0726±27.7284 minutes) are indicatives of behavioral adaptations to extensive conditions. Maternal behaviors influenced neonatal agility, measured through time to stand (P<0.01) and to suck (P<0.01). Maternal activity influenced lamb weight at weaning (P<0.05), so lambs that received more adequate care were heavier. Under this study conditions, neonatal agility did not interfere on lamb weight at weaning. Effects of maternal and neonatal posture or activity on lamb survival up to weaning were not verified either. Lambs born from multiple or long births showed less neonatal agility (P<0.05). Lamb birth weights were influenced by the litter size, being singles born heavier (P<0.01). Labor conditions also influenced lamb weight at weaning (P<0.01).

Les enseignements du bouddhisme theravāda, tels qu’ils sont consignés dans le Canon pāli (Tipiṭaka), font peu de cas de la piété filiale et du culte aux ancêtres. Cela n’est guère surprenant pour une religion qui repose sur l’éthique du kamma (selon laquelle la destinée d’un individu, strictement individuelle, résulte de ses actions dans cette vie ou dans une vie antérieure) et qui préconise, dans ses textes fondateurs, le renoncement aux liens filiaux et familiaux, souvent considérés comme une entrave sur la voie de la délivrance. Pour les bouddhistes lao en revanche, la dévotion à l’égard des parents, aïeuls et ancêtres est au centre de la vie religieuse et relève sans conteste de l’Enseignement du Buddha. L’aumône matinale, l’édification d’un bâtiment monastique, la consécration d’une statue du Maître ou d’une figure sainte, la commande d’un manuscrit, l’organisation d’une cérémonie d’ordination, l’exercice de la méditation, la participation à des cérémonies calendaires – à dire vrai, tout acte pieux – sont autant d’occasions de rendre hommage ou de porter assistance aux parents et aux esprits lignagers avec lesquels sont partagés les fruits de ces entreprises. L’objectif de cette étude est d’appréhender la place qu’occupent les ascendants familiaux dans le bouddhisme des Lao et de comprendre comment, et dans quelle mesure, ces derniers ont pu harmoniser des considérations sociales et familiales qui leur sont propres avec la doctrine du theravāda sur laquelle repose formellement leur spiritualité. / The Buddhist teachings of the Theravāda, as they are recorded in the Pāli canon (Tipiṭaka), demonstrate little concern for filial piety or ancestor cults. This is hardly surprising for a religion that rests on the ethic of kamma (according to which the fate of a being remains strictly individual, resulting only from his actions in this or previous existences) and recommends, at least in its founding texts, the renunciation of filial and familial ties, often regarded as an obstacle on the path to liberation. In contrast, Lao Buddhists consider that devotion towards parents, forebears and ancestors is at the core of religious life and undoubtedly belongs within the teaching of the Buddha. Giving alms, building a monastery, casting an image of the Master or a saint, commissioning a copy of a manuscript, receiving ordination, practising meditation, participating in annual festivals—more broadly, all kinds of pious deeds—are opportunities to pay homage or provide assistance to parents and lineage spirits, with whom the fruits of these actions will be shared. The purpose of this study is to consider the place occupied by parents and ancestors in Lao Buddhism and to understand how, and to what extent, the Lao have been able to harmonise their own social and familial accounts with the doctrine of the Theravāda, on which their spirituality is understood to rest.

The fast growth of the Chinese oldest old population indicates higher demand for long-term care. In China, families assume the primary responsibility of caring for older adults. Since the oldest elders are more likely to be widowed, their adult children usually become their caregivers. Focusing on the Chinese adult children who provide care for their oldest-old parents, this study documented and helped to explain Chinese adult children's caregiving strain. A conceptual framework was developed based on Pearlin's stress process theory, Higgins' framework of self-concept discrepancy, and previous studies on family caregivers of elders. Using an existing dataset from the 2005 Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey of 895 caregivers and their care recipients, the researcher tested whether and how caregiving context (caregiver's structured context and care recipients' needs for care), caregiving performance, and sibling support were related to five types of caregiving strain including sacrifice strain, exhaustion strain, capability strain, expectation strain, and dependency strain. The results indicate that caregiving context and caregiving performance are statistically related to different types of caregiver strain. Three independent variables in the set of caregiving context, self-evaluation of living standard, education, and cultural identity, were related to two types of caregiver strain in different directions. The caregivers who were the eldest sons, who were females caring for female elders, who had a close relationship with their care recipients, who lived with the care recipients, who provided care for the elders with more needs for care in ADL (Activities of Daily Living), or whose care recipients had health insurance reported higher levels of at least one type of caregiver strain. Care recipients' cognitive status and entitlement to pension were negatively related to at least one type of caregiver strain. Caregivers' rural residence, having a job outside the family, having a child under age 16, and care recipient's needs for care in IADL (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living) were not found to be related to any type of caregiver strain. Monetary assistance, which was indicated by the proportion of their annual household per capita income that the caregivers provided to care recipients, was found to be positively related to caregivers' capability strain. The amount of time spent in caregiving (time assistance) was positively related to three types of caregiver strain: exhaustion, expectation, and dependency strain. Time assistance was also found to mediate the relationship between care recipients' needs for care in ADL and caregivers' exhaustion strain and the relationship between dependency strain and three caregiving context variables: closeness between caregivers and care recipients, co-residence with care recipients, and care recipients' needs for care in ADL. The results revealed the importance of caregiving context and caregiving performance in explaining Chinese adult-child caregivers' experience and the necessity of investigating caregiver strain in different dimensions. This study contributes to understanding caregiver strain from a filial perspective. The results imply directions for future research, social work practice and education, and policy legislation in addressing Chinese adult children's strain in caring for their oldest-old parents.

Orientador: Sergio Antonio De Bortoli / Resumo: No controle biológico, além dos microrganismos benéficos, devem ser também destacados parasitoides e predadores, sendo um bom exemplo deste último grupo, os crisopídeos (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). O controle biológico aplicado, com a utilização de insetos predadores, como é o caso dos crisopídeos, está na dependência de alguns fatores, destacando-se dentre eles o conhecimento da biologia do inseto e a necessidade do domínio de uma técnica de criação eficiente e econômica em laboratório, que permita sua produção massal para subsequentes liberações em áreas de exploração agrícola. Já é de conhecimento que larvas de alguns crisopídeos são mantidas em laboratório, com boa eficiência, alimentadas com fontes de alimento obtidas de outras criações de insetos também mantidas em laboratório, dentre os quais podem ser destacados ovos de alguns lepidópteros. Ovos de Corcyra cephalonica (Stainton, 1866) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) são benéficos ao desenvolvimento de crisopídeos, produzindo adultos com alta viabilidade, porém há poucos relatos que estabelecem relação entre a espécie com Ceraeochrysa cincta (Schneider, 1851). Assim, este estudo teve por objetivo analisar o desempenho biológico de Ce. cincta alimentada com ovos de C. cephalonica, por três gerações, bem como fatores relacionados a técnicas de manipulação das diferentes fases deste predador na sua criação. Os ovos para os bioensaios com Ce. cincta foram coletados nas gaiolas de adultos com o auxílio de três instrumentos de corte,... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In biological control, in addition to beneficial microorganisms, parasitoids and predators should also be highlighted. A good example of this latter group is the crisopids (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). The biological control applied, with the use of predatory insects, as in the case of the crisopids, is dependent on some factors, especially the knowledge of insect biology and the need to master an efficient and economical breeding technique in the laboratory, allowing its mass production for subsequent releases in farm areas. It is known that larvae of some chrysopids are maintained, with good efficiency, with food sources obtained from other insect creations also kept in the laboratory, among which lepidopteran eggs can be highlighted. Corcyra cephalonica (Stainton, 1866) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) has also been shown to favor the development of chrysopids, producing adults with high viability, not being many reports relating this species to Ceraeochrysa cincta (Schneider, 1851). Thus, this study aimed to analyze the biological performance of Ce. cincta being fed with eggs of C. cephalonica, per three generations as well as factors related to phase manipulation techniques of this predator in its rearing. The eggs of Ce. cincta were collected from adult cages with the aid of three cutting instruments, two types of scissors, one long and one conventional, with a thin tip, and an apparatus made from a stylus blade adapted to a shaver. Ten samples were collected for each of the three... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

The quest for an autonomous and authentic self is the founding theme of the narrative of Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid. In our study, we analyse the mother-daughter relationship, which is the focus of Kincaid's plots and which, as we argue, functions as a methaphor for the dialectic of power and powerlessness governing nature and history. On one level, we observe that the narrative articulates universal paradigms, such as the passage from a paradisiacal pre-oedipal union between mother and child to a painful but necessary breach for the affirmation of the child as a separate individual. On the other hand, placed in the specific context of the Caribbean in colonial times, the mother-daughter plot not only acquires a particular sociological interest, being explored in a set of interlocking relationships of race, class and gender, but it is one that can also read as an allegory of the conflict between the mother-country and the daughter-colony.Both maternal power and imperial power are narcissistic since they demand acquiescence and imitation, while, in both cases, conflict arises at the first signs of emerging maturity. Mothering seems to be seen as a process of othering which produces alienation, and as the child has to negotiate a separation from the mother to become an autonomous individual, so the colony has to break free from the oppressive power of the mother country. In any event the process is a painful one and the final achievement of the goal is always imbued with the tremendous sense of loss that comes with freedom.Thus, because Kincaid's understanding of the world passes through personal experience and is articulated in domestic terms, the autobiographical love-hate relationship between mother and daughter becomes the primal paradigm of life, whereby a politics of resistance to all forms of domination is envisaged as the basis of freedom at multiple levels, and alienation is used as a means of liberation.The mother/motherland metaphor is played out at two levels. At one level, the nurturing and loving mother of childhood may represent the African-rooted Caribbean world, a world made of beauty and innocence where Kincaid's dramatis persona feels protected and happy. At the other level, in striking resemblance to Mother England, when the daughter starts to show signs of autonomy, the mother abandons praise and approval for scorn and begins a violent struggle to keep the daughter under her subjection. It seems, then, that two conflicting worlds, the African and the European, meet in the two-faced figure of the mother. In her quest for freedom, the daughter must fight against the overwhelming and oppressive power of the mother (biological and colonial), but in the end it is the mother (the nurturing mother of childhood / the African-rooted world) that provides her with the means for survival and self-affirmation.NOTE: This doctoral thesis is also published on book. It will be avalaible on the Peter Lang Press before October 2005.

Filial responsibility and familism were examined among a sample of Latino youth through a number of diverse methods that included variable centered and person centered analyses. Effects of gender, birth order, and immigration age were examined. An exploratory principal components analysis of the Adolescent Filial Responsibility Questionnaire-Revised revealed that the most interpretable solution included five factors: fairness, chores, culture brokering, emotional tasks, and overburden. ANOVA analyses found significant main effects of birth order on culture brokering and chores, of gender on emotional tasks, and of immigration age on culture brokering. Cluster analysis identified five groups based on adolescents’ responses: traditional overburden, traditional balanced, non-traditional culturebrokers, traditional low, and non-traditional overburden. Chi-square analyses found significant birth order and gender differences within the traditional low cluster and immigration age differences within the traditional overburden, non-traditional culturebrokers, traditional low, and traditional balanced clusters.

Filial responsibility was examined among a sample of Latino adolescents using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data in order to understand both the positive and negative impact different patterns of responsibilities may have on psychological adjustment and interpersonal competence. This study attempted to move beyond a deficit-based approach to also understanding the mechanisms that allow youth to thrive despite exposure to difficult situations. Furthermore, birth order, gender, and immigration age were examined as potential moderators. Cluster analysis identified four groups based on adolescents’ self-reported levels of responsibility, including, fair balanced, unfair overwhelmed, fair low, and unfair low. Results found that adolescents who perceived their responsibilities as fair reported better levels of psychological adjustment. In addition, adolescents in the fair low cluster reported lower levels of interpersonal competence than all other cluster groups. Lastly, birth order was found to moderate the relation between cluster group and positive psychological adjustment. Specifically, oldest children in the unfair overwhelmed cluster reported higher levels of positive psychological adjustment than oldest children in the unfair low cluster.

Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur ett företag på ett framgångsrikt sätt kan ha ett fungerande system för kunskapsöverföring genom en stark kontroll från huvudkontoret. Detta är en fallstudie på ett företags kunskapsöverföring mellan huvudkontor och filialer, där den traditionella agencyteorin och den moderna resursbaserade forskningen testas. Fallföretagets styrka i kunskapsöverföringen är social kontroll som leder till en stark sammanhållning och öppenhet i kommunikationen samt låg förekomst av hierarkiska hinder. Studien är begränsad till ett företags kunskapsöverföring mellan huvudkontor och filial och kan därför inte helt generaliseras. I studien framkommer att kombinationen av finansiell- och social kontroll är ett bra verktyg för en framgångsrik kunskapsöverföring mellan huvudkontor och filial.

Within the context of ongoing social and demographic transformation, including the trend towards globalization, changing patterns of longevity and increasing ethnic diversity, this thesis examines the lives older Asian-Indian immigrants in the United States. To date, much of what little research exists on this group of elders focuses on acculturation and related stress, but there is limited research on the daily life experiences of these older adults, particularly as they pertain to family life, the practice of filial piety, and informal support exchange within their households, as well as their social lives more generally. Informed by two theoretical approaches, Life Course and Symbolic Interactionism, this research examines older immigrants’ social and family lives. The study employs a qualitative approach and involves in-depth semi-structured interviews with 10 older Asian-Indians living in the Atlanta area. To varying degrees, their lives are family-centered. Traditional Indian practices such as filial piety are individualized according to the intersection of American and Indian cultures and family (e.g., structure and history) and personal (e.g., personal resources) influences. Similar influences operate to shape their family and social lives more generally. These findings enhance existing understandings of older immigrants’ lives and illustrate similarities and differences. In doing so, the research provides valuable information that can promote cultural competence for those working with and designing policies and programs for adults in a rapidly aging and increasingly diverse society.