Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Record linkage is the task of identifying records within one or multiple databases that refer to the same entity. Currently, there exist many different approaches for record linkage. Some approaches incorporate the use of heuristic rules, mathematical models, Markov models, or machine learning. This thesis focuses on the application of record linkage to genealogical records within family trees. Today, large collections of genealogical records are stored in databases, which may contain multiple records that refer to a single individual. Resolving duplicate genealogical records can extend our knowledge on who has lived and more complete information can be constructed by combining all information referring to an individual. Simple string matching is not a feasible option for identifying duplicate records due to inconsistencies such as typographical errors, data entry errors, and missing data. Record linkage algorithms can be classified under two broad categories, a rule-based or heuristic approach, or a probabilistic-based approach. The Cocktail Approach, presented by Shirley Ong Ai Pei, combines a probabilistic-based approach with a rule-based approach for record linkage. This thesis discusses a re-implementation and adoption of the Cocktail Approach to genealogical records.

The Canterbury Roll is a fifteenth-century genealogical chronicle roll that traces the succession of English kings from Noah until the Wars of the Roses. Created in a period when genealogy and ancestry had practical and ideological meaning in society, the Canterbury Roll is symbolic of the ideas of dynasty, myth and heritage that its original creators and readers valued. This thesis departs from previous historiographical approaches to genealogical rolls by treating the Canterbury Roll as a document that reflects the political culture in which it was produced. By examining the image, text and materiality of the manuscript, the thesis develops on existing scholarship and offers insights into the depiction of political prophecies, political theories of effective kingship, the justification of royal deposition and English perceptions towards foreign kingdoms and dominions. Political prophecies on the roll reveal how genealogy and prophecy contribute to a broader sense of history and prestige that the Lancastrian kings claimed to inherit. By using mythical royal depositions, the roll justifies the removal of Richard II and the Lancastrian dynasty’s legitimacy through not only hereditary right, but also contemporary political theory that validated the ousting of ineffective kings. The thesis also establishes that the roll reveals contemporary English attitudes towards other territories such as Scotland, Wales and France, which reflect the political and diplomatic context of the period. These themes demonstrate the capacity of genealogical manuscripts to present a nuanced view of contemporary political concepts. In doing so, this thesis both provides an in-depth textual analysis of the Canterbury Roll, and contributes to the historiography of medieval genealogical literature and political thought by approaching the manuscript as a source for the political culture of early fifteenth-century England.

Genealogical Family Historians conduct research in order to reconstruct genealogical families, through the application of a rigorous methodology: weighing the evidence for placing each individual in a family group, linking family groups of the past and making contact with kin of the present. Genealogical Family Historians trace the movements and migrations of identified individuals and family groups; and study the local, national and international social settings of lives lived in families and households in different times and places, over many generations. A large worldwide Community of Practice with many constituent groups, including the New Zealand Society of Genealogists Incorporated, has formed itself around this research activity. In this transdisciplinary study focused on social learning, I have explored and analysed the domain, the practice and the community of Genealogical Family Historians researching in and from Aotearoa-New Zealand during the past 50 years. Genealogical Family Historians meet formally and informally, in small groups or at large conferences to pursue their self-directed learning. The collaborative practice includes publishing and teaching; and the locating, preserving and indexing of records. Many conduct research and communicate with others in the new world of cyberspace. My overarching research question has been: where is the future place for this scholarly discourse? My approach to this study is transdisciplinary: my point-of-view is above and across departments and disciplines. The ethos and vision of transdisciplinarity is attained only through existing disciplines, and transdisciplinary research has the potential to contribute to those disciplines, as I demonstrate in this thesis. The transdisciplinary scholarly discourse of Genealogical Family History owes much to the disciplines of history, geography and sociology; and draws on biology, law, religious studies, linguistics, demography, computer science and information technology. I have also drawn on understandings from my own prior and concurrent disciplinary knowledge and experience for this study. Other Genealogical Family Historians bring different disciplinary understandings to the discourse that is Genealogical Family History. My positionality is that of an insider, an involved member of the Community of Practice for many years. In this study, I have allowed my key informants to speak with their own voices; and I have sought illustration and evidence from documentation and observation in the wider Genealogical Family History Community, past and present. I have used enhanced reflection on my own practice in my analysis and in case studies. This study demonstrates how the Community of Practice has played an important role in developing a transdisciplinary mode of inquiry and suggests that there are some generic features of the field and practice of Genealogical Family History that form the substance of a transdisciplinary discourse ready to take its place in academia.

<p>Michel Foucault's philosophy took the form of a series of historicallygrounded "genealogical" studies of the interconnections between knowledge and various social practices in contemporary society. This work is a reading of "the good11-to use Charles Taylor's term-in Foucault's genealogies.</p> <p> According to the American social-historian David Rothman, "history is a liberating discipline for it reminds us that there is nothing inevitable about the institutions and procedures that surround us. In developing my reading of "the good" in Foucault's genealogies I have endeavoured to translate the spirit of this claim into the proposition that Foucault's genealogies were an expression of his desire to increase human freedom through historical critique; i.e., that Foucault's ethics were embodied in his philosophy which constitutes "a practice of freedom".</p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Several large-scale projects including FamilySearch, Ancestry, BALSAC (University of Quebec), and others have gathered incredible amounts of genealogical data ranging from millions to billions of individuals. To study the structure of this data, we propose a model that generates a genealogical network based on real-world genealogical data using two key features: (i) geodesic distance between couples prior to union and (ii) the number of children per couple. The distribution of the distance to a couples' nearest common ancestor in an observed community captures the global scale at which biological cycles form in the underlying genealogical network. Similarly, the number of children per couple captures the local structure given by the degree distribution in the genealogical network. Constructing imitation data which approximates a real-world network's structure and growth rate is desirable for use in generalizable machine learning models. This model, which we refer to as the Target Model, provides a foundation for further work in predicting family network growth and structure.

Les forces de sélection sont un des moteurs de l’évolution de la diversité phénotypique et de la diversité génétique neutre et des zones codantes du génome. Cette sélection peut s’appliquer sur des caractères transmis génétiquement ou culturellement. Le travail effectué s’intéresse à ces deux processus de sélection. Nous avons étudié dans un premier temps les effets de la transmission intergénérationnelle de la fécondité sur la diversité génétique neutre puis dans un deuxième temps l’impact de la sélection sur des phénotypes codés par des réseaux de gènes sur le polymorphisme de ces gènes.La transmission de la fécondité est un phénomène culturel ou génétique qui se caractérise par une corrélation positive entre la taille de fratrie d’un individu et la taille de fratrie de ses enfants. Il a été observé tant dans des populations humaines qu’animales. Nous montrons, par l’outil de la modélisation, que ses effets et la possibilité de le détecter dépendent autant du type de données étudiées (génétiques ou généalogiques), que des différents types de transmission (uniparentale, biparentale). Nous montrons que d’autres phénomènes, tels que l’hétérogénéité du succès reproducteur des individus, peuvent fortement moduler son impact. Nous développons un certain nombre d’outils permettant de détecter ce phénomène de transmission de la fécondité tant sur des données généalogiques que sur des données génétiques relevant de différents modèles mutationnels (microsatellite, séquences, SNPs) et de différents types de transmission (haploïde ou diploïde, lié au sexe ou non). Nous avons appliqué ces outils notamment à trois populations humaines du Cilento en Italie (généalogies et ADN mitochondrial), des données d’Asie Centrale (chromosome Y) et des données HapMap (autosomes).La seconde partie de la thèse porte sur la modélisation de l’action de la sélection naturelle sur des caractères codés par des réseaux de régulation et décrit l’impact de ce type de sélection sur l’évolution du phénotype et sur la diversité des gènes sous-jacents. Un phénotype est le résultat des interactions entre différents gènes et leurs produits. Nous montrons que la sélection sur ce phénotype va modifier l’organisation du réseau de gènes ainsi que le niveau de polymorphisme des gènes du réseau. Par exemple, lorsque le phénotype optimal correspond à une expression médiane des gènes, les gènes les plus régulateurs vont être soumis à une plus forte perte de diversité. En revanche, si le phénotype optimal correspond à une expression très forte, ce sont les gènes les plus régulés qui vont être les plus contraints. Cette analyse a permis de montrer la complexité des relations entre sélection, réseaux de régulation, phénotypes et environnement. / Selective forces are one of the major determinants of the evolution of phenotypic diversity and genetic diversity, in neutral and coding zones of the genome. Selection can occur on genetically - or culturally - transmitted traits. This thesis considers these two selective processes. First, we studied the effects of intergenerational fertility transmission on neutral genetic diversity. Second, we considered the impact of selection on phenotypes coded by a gene network and on the polymorphism of genes within the network.Fertility transmission is a cultural or genetic phenomenon, which is characterised by a positive correlation between the sibship size of an individual and that of its children. It was observed both in human and animal populations. Using a modelling approach, we show that its effects and the possibility to detect it depend both on the kind of studied data (genetic or genealogical data) and on the different kind of transmission (uniparental, biparental). We show that other phenomena, such as the heterogeneity of reproductive success between individuals, can affect its effects. We develop several tools allowing to infer this phenomenon of fertility transmission on genealogical data, as well as on genetic polymorphism data that follows different mutational models (microsatellites, sequences, SNPs) and different transmission modes (haploid or diploid, sex-linked or not). We applied in particular these tools to three human populations of the Cilento area in Italy (genealogical and mitochondrial DNA data), to Central Asian data (Y chromosome) and to HapMap data (autosomes).The second part of this thesis deals with the modelling of the action of natural selection on traits coded by regulation networks and describes the impact of such selection on the evolution of the phenotype and of the underlying genes. A given phenotype is the result of the interaction between different genes and their products. We show that phenotypic selection will modify the gene network organisation, as well as the level of polymorphism of the genes involved in the network. For example, when the optimal phenotype corresponds to an intermediate level of gene expression, the most regulatory genes will lose much of their diversity. Conversely, if the optimal phenotype corresponds to a very strong expression of the genes, it will be the most regulated genes that will be the most constrained. This analysis allowed us to show the complexity of the relations between selection, regulation networks, phenotypes and the environment.

The diversification of eutherian mammals following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction was a critical period in evolutionary history. The Palaeocene is marked by the proliferation of archaic mammals which exhibit a mosaic of primitive and derived anatomies and whose phylogenetic affinities with extant mammals remain contentious. Consequently, macroevolutionary studies assessing the timing and recovery of eutherian mammals following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction are inhibited by our relatively poor knowledge of the mammals which thrived during the Palaeocene. One group of Palaeocene mammals in particular, the ‘Condylarthra’ have proven especially enigmatic and, as historically conceived, includes families of ungulate-grade mammals some of which are considered the ancestral stock from which modern perissodactyls and artiodactyls arose. The Periptychidae are a distinctive ‘condylarth’ family and were among the first mammals to appear after the extinction. As such they constitute an excellent empirical case study towards resolving the evolutionary relationships and understanding the palaeobiology of Palaeocene mammals. The overarching aim of this thesis has been to generate a comprehensive higher-level phylogenetic hypothesis of Periptychidae and shed light on the species-level interrelationships of taxa historically identified as periptychids and other ‘condylarth’ exemplars. This aim has been achieved by the undertaking a comprehensive anatomical re-description of the archetypal periptychid, Periptychus carinidens, based on a wealth of new fossils recovered from the San Juan Basin in New Mexico, USA. The anatomical information described in this thesis has also facilitated a greater understanding of ecology and functional morphology of Periptychus and its kin. Periptychus carinidens was a medium-sized, robust, stout-limbed animal that was mediportal and adopted a plantigrade mode of locomotion. The cranial and dental anatomy of Periptychus is broadly concurrent with the inferred plesiomorphic eutherian condition albeit more robust in its overall construction. The broad facial region, tall sagittal and nuchal crests and distinctive dentition with strong enamel crenulations and compressive wear are likely indicative of durophagous diet made up of dense, fibrous, plant-based food stuffs. The postcranial skeleton of Periptychus is a miscellany of morphologies with often paradoxical functional implications. Despite its robustness, Periptychus retained a moderately high degree of multiaxial movement and dexterity in its limbs with prominent muscle attachment sites indicative of powerful, non-rapid limb movements. Well-developed manual and digital flexors and extensors are further indicative of some scansorial and fossorial capability. Periptychus and other Palaeocene mammals are characterised by their robust anatomy and tend to lack any obvious extant analogues impeding our understanding of eutherian ecological diversity during the Palaeocene and the roles of many so-called ‘archaic’ mammals. Multivariate analyses on a dataset of functionally significant limb measurements show that Palaeocene mammals exhibit a distinct and more constrained range of locomotor ability defined by their prevalent robust morphology. However, there are subtle distinctions between archaic taxa indicating ecomorphical diversity possibly due to niche partitioning, that are not easily comparable to extant mammals. This suggests that, far from being generalized ancestral stock, Palaeocene taxa were experimenting with their own unique locomotor styles. The extinction of many archaic groups at the end of the Palaeogene is associated with a trend towards increasingly open habitats, which was less conducive to the survivorship of robust, ambulatory mammals. The anatomy of Periptychus combines a basic early placental body plan with numerous unique specialisations in its dental, cranial and postcranial anatomy that not only exemplify the ability of mammals to adapt and evolve following catastrophic environmental upheaval but provide a prime exemplar by which to tackle the taxonomic and systematic conundrum that is ‘Condylarthra’. A cladistic analysis was conducted to determine the phylogenetic affinities of Periptychidae within Placentalia. 141 taxa were scored for 503 characters including 40 periptychid species and 63 novel characters. The dataset was analysed under parsimony optimality criteria and the resulting phylogeny shows a well resolved strict consensus topology with numerous well-supported relationships which help elucidate periptychid phylogeny. The analysis presented here finds Periptychidae as a monophyletic group to the exclusion of several purported periptychid taxa which are recovered with the ‘arctocyonid’, Baioconodon nordicum. The in-group relationships of Periptychidae are resolved to broadly support the subfamilial arrangement proposed by previous workers. Alticonus is recovered the most basal, unambiguous periptychid taxon. Ampliconus forms a paraphyletic stem from Alticonus to all other unequivocal periptychid taxa. Conacodontinae forms a clade which includes Auraria as the most basal taxon relative to Oxyacodon, which forms a paraphyletic stem to Conacodon. The hypsodont periptychids, Haploconus + Goleroconus form a clade, separate from both ‘Anisonchinae’ and Conacodontinae, both of which they have previously been affiliated to. ‘Anisonchinae’ forms a paraphyletic stem relative to Periptychinae. Mithrandir oligustus is the most basal ‘anisonchine’. Gillisonchus is generically distinct from both Mithrandir and ‘Anisonchus’ due to morphological similarities with Hemithlaeus and the Periptychinae. Periptychinae forms a well-supported clade with Hemithlaeus and Tinuviel resolved to be more closely related to Ectoconus than Periptychus + Carsioptychus. Periptychus is a member of Periptychinae and most closely related to Carsioptychus within Periptychini. The phylogeny reported here indicates that Periptychidae were an incredibly successful family during much of their early history and were particularly prolific during the middle Puercan. Most species were small to medium sized animals; however, members of Periptychinae attained large body sizes within less than half a million years of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Periptychids were prolific during early Puercan, but spent the majority of their evolutionary history exhibiting high turnover, with many short-lived species, with the notable exception of three genera: Anisonchus, Haploconus and Periptychus, which prevailed through the Torrejonian. These periptychids are among the most enduring Palaeocene taxa known and reiterate the importance of the Periptychidae in understanding the recovering and radiation of Placentalia following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

Doctor of Philosophy / There is a current debate in schools of social work in Taiwan about whether they should provide specific HIV/AIDS courses or integrate HIV/AIDS issues into the curriculum. However, an argument that draws on the understandings of curriculum development in social work has not emerged. This project not only explores why this is the case but also aims to resolve the debate. This research is based on two methodologies, the development of a genealogy and content analysis of data collected to build the genealogy. Foucaultian conceptualisation of using a genealogy to explain the relationship between power and knowledge has been utilised as a primary theoretical framework. The texts analysed included social work documents as well as social documents. The research objectives were an exploration of what discourses related to HIV/AIDS were constructed in broader Taiwanese society and within social work; and what forces and stakeholders outside and within social work formed HIV/AIDS curricula in social work in Taiwan. The first PLWHA case in Taiwan was reported in 1984, and four key discourses about HIV/AIDS were gradually constructed. They are individual pathological, programmatic, governmental, and socio-cultural discourses. The individual pathological discourse became dominant in Taiwan. Taiwanese social work did not consider HIV/AIDS as an issue until 1992, nearly ten years after it was recognised as a serious medical and social problem in the West. This genealogical research shows that, over time, four key discourses about HIV/AIDS were also represented in Taiwanese social work texts. The programmatic discourse emerged as more popular in social work documents. The genealogy also showed that four identified subgroups within social work in Taiwan were more able to express their views about HIV/AIDS issues. They were social work scholars, practitioners, students and translated social work documents. Reflecting dominant wider social prejudices the genealogy revealed that Taiwanese social work scholars were likely to adhere to the individual pathological discourse, the discourse that blamed those with HIV/AIDS for their own predicament. The other three groups were likely to express a programmatic discourse, which often reflected the changing governmental response over time. The genealogy also showed that influential forces outside social work included international responses on HIV/AIDS, the Taiwanese central governmental responses, social norms regarding sex, sexuality and homosexuality in Taiwan, and the status of social work in society. The key findings of this research lay in the revelation of the power of the four key discourses, the four visible subgroups within social work and the influential forces outside social work in Taiwan that emerged as dominant throughout the genealogical study. These forces formed and shaped the development of HIV/AIDS curricula in a complex way. What these findings provide is a pathway for the development of a responsive curriculum for the education of future social workers in Taiwan.

This study is focusing of the Swedish public library as an institution for general education during the period of 1910 to 1990. The aim is to enhance the knowledge of the construction of the Swedish citizen during the organized modernity.  What were the functions of the educational efforts characterizing public library, what procedures, technologies and techniques were in use´, how did they govern and what was the inherent impact of the citizen? With inspiration from the work of Michel Foucault the library discourse have been examined from a genealogical perspective illuminating discursive and non-discursive apparatuses, technologies and relations of power within the public library practices. The public library activities were organized hierarchic, giving the national library the overall responsibility for strategic activities, thus governing regional and local libraries to form localities, book collections, methods for studies considered appropriate for people. The local libraries´ responsibility was to offer the citizens appropriate books and methods for general studies. Bio-power technologies and disciplinary techniques, such as panoptical, expert strategies and central governing are in use. Limited selections, exclusions, rating based on hierarchical principles, governing on distance, self-regulation are the most important and common not only within the field of public library but in society as a whole.  Thus, forming an active and accountable citizen that is capable of making choices, recurrently willing to reconstruct herself by studies and consumption of books. The conclusion is that this citizen, consuming knowledge and high culture, corresponds well to the requirements of the modern society. / Staten, subjektet och pedagogisk teknologi. En nutidshistorisk studie av politiska epistemologier och styrningsmentaliteter i det tidiga 2000-talet