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The purpose of this thesis is to provide a detailed study of the texts and manuscripts of the Middle English Guy of Warwick, such as is not presently available. The agenda of this investigation is essentially interdisciplinary. Each chapter considers a different set of evidence (literary, historical, manuscript and linguistic). In addition to which, this study benefits from the opportunities offered by new media, incorporating the results of exhaustive and highly accurate computer-enabled searches of a range of late medieval texts. Through this approach it has been possible to integrate and identify links between different areas of research in a way which has been crucial to dispelling various myths and misconceptions which have, in the past, dominated the critical perception of Guy of Warwick. This thesis encourages a view which emphasises the complexity of the textual tradition of Guy of Warwick and rejects past assumptions which over simplify the circumstances of its production and circulation. Chapter 1 considers the place of Guy of Warwick in late medieval literature and culture, assembling the evidence for sources, relations, transmission and reception. This chapter emphasises the protean nature of the romance, its adaptation and regeneration for different contexts and the evidence for a range of responses. Chapter 2 provides, for the first time, a comprehensive account of all of the Guy of Warwick manuscripts, including full codicological descriptions and giving special consideration to the presentation of Guy of Warwick in each. By combining this codicological data with the linguistic findings of Chapter 3, it has here been possible to review and reject a number of theories, most notably concerning the Auchinleck MS, which misinterpret the significance of the manuscript presentation of Guy of Warwick. Chapter 3 uses linguistic data to clarify the relationship between the manuscript texts and the different versions of Guy of Warwick. Traditional dialect analysis is combined with computer-enabled searches to provide detailed information which establishes the origin and circulation of the texts and their literary and stylistic affiliations, including evidence which rejects the traditional Warwickshire origin for the A-version. The thesis is supplemented on CD ROM by new, accurate transcriptions of all the complete texts of Guy of Warwick and a review of Zupitza's 1875-91 edition, including a list of errors.

The ultimate test of the success of a housing development is the level of satisfaction that it engenders for its residents. It has been found, in much research carried out in the developed countries that the lack of detailed knowledge about users' needs and the failure to predict user behaviour were mainly unsatisfactory housing environments. Housing the external open spaces around dwellings were shown to be crucial satisfaction to blame for in multi-family and between the overall user. This study based In Iraq investigates users' satisfaction with the environment of recently constructed multi-family housing. It aims to identify the elements of the external environment associated with the residents' overall satisfaction in relation to these new environments. This study uses a range of factors which have been identified in many studies elsewhere in the world as having a bearing on users' satisfaction with their housing environment to examine people's reaction to their housing environment. It considers how such factors influence users' satisfaction in Iraq, and also identifies the Iraqi housing designers' intentions in relation to the external environment and examines their success in meeting user requirements. Various were used to systematic obtain information-gathering the information needed techniques for the evaluation. These included structured interviews of 183 households in three new housing projects, general observations as well as unstructured interviews with the designers and planners. The results of this study has shown to a large extent that the application of Western research in Iraq is valid. It is suggested that if Iraq used the knowledge available 1n the Western studies, it could avoid repeating the mistakes made in Western Europe and the U.S.A., during its transition from a rural to a more urban society. In particular this study has highlighted some essential social and cultural differences which indicate that Iraq must develop its own special approach to housing. It is hoped that this study may be used both to influence the drawing up of future housing policies in Iraq and the planning of new housing estates. In addition to providing the basis for rearranging the external environment of existing housing estates to meet more closely the needs of the residents.

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This thesis is basically concerned with the status of the 'regional development processes' under the system of 'medium-term national socio-economic development planning'. The evaluation of the regional dimension of the sectoralised approach to elaboration of the national plan in a centralised system of planning is the core of the concern. It represents both the explicit contribution of 'reflective practice' and of a systematic survey of 'room for manoeuvre' experienced by a professional planner working in a planning agency - the Plan and Budget Organisation of the Islamic Republic of Iran - at the national level in the field of regional planning. The thesis provides the reader with an original exposure detailed mechanism of 'doing planning' ' from the inside of planning process', discusses the normative and positive ingredients of planning practice - theoretical, technical, procedural, instrumental, and organisational - and examines the following hypotheses: -the conventional approach of elaboration of the national plan neglects the regional dimension and spatial analysis of its choices; -the conventional system of planning prevents both implementation of the deliberate regional policies and incorporation of the results of the independent regional development studies into the national planning process; This dissertation introduces the planning system in Iran, reviews ten efforts at medium-term socio-economic development plans, analyses the regional policies of these plans, and classifies various schools of thought in Iranian regional planning. It concludes that the national planning process would have a haphazard and chaotic contribution in the processes of regional development . Finally recommends an alternative approach to elaboration of the national plan with more satisfactory consideration of both sectoral and regional development' criteria. Finally the dissertation offers a proposal for a sectoral-regional approach of elaboration of a national plan, on the basis of empirical and theoretical analysis of the regional efficiencies of the Iranian national plans and planning procedure.

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<p> The Medina of Tripoli, Libya, is a very ancient walled city that has a history of change, development, deterioration, conservation, and preservation to its fabric. Influenced by various foreign groups (Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Spanish, Ottomans, Karamanlis), its architectural styles include ancient and traditional structures, as well as modern Western style or acculturation architecture. The purpose of the Medina as a place of habitation has changed over the years because of many factors including residents moving out of the Medina, fluctuating preservation, the changes in government policy when each new ruling entity had its particular laws and regulations, and some distortion of the economy due to the oil revenues. The place has no long-term plan or vision applied to it&mdash;either from within or from without. This study, the first of its kind in North Africa to collect information by using surveys and mental maps, convert the information into geographic information system (GIS) data, and come to definite conclusions about the Medina's situation. The entire research focused on four areas (the Islamic buildings, common routes of transportation, areas of deterioration, and population densities within Tripoli's Medina), but this document focused on the deterioration in the city while analyzing its urban informality, the residents' rights to live in the city, and property categories. This study helped to clarify the current situation and provide input to planners in post-uprising Libya. </p><p> Key words: Medina, geographic information system (GIS), urban informality, conservation, urban planning.</p>

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of searching for identity in the house form in the city of Hofuf. Studies so far carried out into material culture in general and into the development of the house, specifically the use and meaning of space, in Saudi Arabia have not dealt with the matter of identity and how it relates, in its various manifestations, to house form. The main question to be considered is whether the house form in Hofuf responded to the need to express individual and collective identity. The assumptions behind this study were firstly that people's actions in relation to the home environment have been influenced in some way by continued traditions, secondly that these actions have been the expressions or attempted expressions of people's identity whether individual or collective, and thirdly that the exisiting identity of the contemporary home is a mix of of continued, developed and new traditions, meanings and experiences. This study has adopted the ethnographic approach because it is difficult to understand the relationship between people and their physical environment without going deep into their everyday lives. The interaction between people and physical form required from the researcher a study of the physical home environment in Hofuf as it has been in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moreover not only the physical environment had to be investigated, but also how people understood and interpreted the meanings of physical forms. It was these considerations which led the researcher to measure many houses, to take many phtographs, to collect many floor plans, and to conduct many interviews with residents in Hofuf. The development of private home in the the city of Hofuf shows that there have been strong traditions and experiences which have maintained the significance of the home environment in general and the private home in particular over a period of time and through a series of changes in the its perceptual and associational aspects. In particular the contemporary private house in Hofuf shows, despite changes in layout and perceptual aspects, the enduring associational meaning and use of space within the home environment. The desire to express personal identity in the features of the house combined with the need to maintain privacy requirements, and other factors such as a greater demand for individualised sleeping spaces, has led, in the contemporary Hofuf house, to a potential crisis, where the increasing size of houses threatens to make them economically unviable. This situation has to be dealt with, perhaps through quantitative studies using the findings of this present investigation. In this way it may be possible for future planners and designers to retain the enduring and essential symbolic meanings of the private home while adapting and restructuring the physical home environment.