This thesis analyzes how the interests of minority and majority groups in state-led development practices can be bridged, with the Indian tribals affected by the Sardar Sarovar Dam Project (SSP) serving as a context for my analysis. The SSP threatens the livelihoods of approximately 100,000 people with displacement, who are primarily comprised of Indian tribal minorities. The construction of the SSP makes tribals more vulnerable to the risks associated with development-induced displacement, such as landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, and food insecurity. When analyzing the SSP, a lack of adequate compensation, resettlement, and legal protection for the tribals becomes apparent. This has led to discussions of human rights violations among the national and international community, raising concerns regarding the protection of minority groups affected by state-led development. Attention is placed on what it means to be a citizen of a country in terms of legal representation and state protection, and how the under-representation of societal groups can lead to the creation of second-class citizens. The objective is to go beyond current discussions of human rights neglect in the context of the SSP by analyzing the position of minority rights in state-led development practices.

In this study I analyse the performance of a democratic decision-making rule: the weighted majority rule. It assigns to each voter a number of votes that is proportional to her stakes in the decision. It has been shown that, for collective decisions with two options, the weighted majority rule in combination with self-interested voters maximises the common good when the latter is understood in terms of either the sum-total or prioritarian sum of the voters’ well-being. The main result of my study is that this argument for the weighted majority rule — that it maximises the common good — can be improved along the following three main lines. (1) The argument can be adapted to other criteria of the common good, such as sufficientarian, maximin, leximin or non-welfarist criteria. I propose a generic argument for the collective optimality of the weighted majority rule that works for all of these criteria. (2) The assumption of self-interested voters can be relaxed. First, common-interest voters can be accommodated. Second, even if voters are less than fully competent in judging their self-interest or the common interest, the weighted majority rule is weakly collectively optimal, that is, it almost certainly maximises the common good given a large numbers of voters. Third, even for smaller groups of voters, the weighted majority rule still has some attractive features. (3) The scope of the argument can be extended to decisions with more than two options. I state the conditions under which the weighted majority rule maximises the common good even in multi-option contexts. I also analyse the possibility and the detrimental effects of strategic voting. Furthermore, I argue that self-interested voters have reason to accept the weighted majority rule.

De troende i USA tycks öka i antal efter den 11 september 2001 och det har fått mig att fundera över varför befolkningen i landet är så beroende av att tro på Gud. För att finna svaret på dessa funderingar presenteras i detta arbete en del av den amerikanska religionshistoriken. Redan när emigranterna kom till det nya landet förde de med sig flera olika trosinriktningar och de ansåg att de fått i uppgift av Gud att bebygga det nya landet. Ett flertal olika församlingar bildades varav några var mer strikta än andra och ur dessa striktare grupper ”föddes” fundamentalismen och den religiösa högern. Än idag är dessa grupper starka och påverkar varje amerikans liv på ett eller annat sätt eftersom de har stark inverkan på den politik som förs i landet. I Sverige minskar antalet kyrkomedlemmar samtidigt som förbund som Humanisterna märker av en ökning av medlemmar, därför har jag nu tittat lite närmare på vad de sekulära humanisterna i Sverige tror på. För att kunna göra det har jag bland annat intervjuat en tjej som arbetar för förbundet via e-post. Det visade sig att dessa medlemmar inte tror på någon Gud eller något högre väsen utan lever för att förverkliga tron på människan och att alla människor själva bör ta ansvar för sitt eget liv. De arbetar också för att förverkliga demokrati och värna om vår jord till kommande generationer. Slutligen har en liten jämförelse mellan de sekulära humanisterna och den religiösa högern gjorts. Frågan är om det finns något som förenar dessa två olika inriktningar. Svaret på det blev att jag inte hittade något som förenar dem. Möjligtvis kan det finnas någon fråga som de kan ha en likartad syn på men inte i någon av de frågor som har tagits upp i detta arbete.

En imposant une obligation constitutionnelle de négocier aux autres parties de la fédération, les juges de la Cour suprême dans le Renvoi sur la sécession rendent légitimes les aspirations des souverainistes québécois. Le processus menant à l'obligation constitutionnelle de négocier souffre toutefois d'imprécision et est à l'origine de la situation juridique contradictoire actuelle. La doctrine est divisée sur la signification des expressions «acteurs politiques», «question claire» et «majorité claire» et l'ambiguïté de ces expressions a permis aux partis politiques au pouvoir de justifier leur loi respective portant sur la sécession du Québec. Les deux lois en vigueur, la Loi sur les droits fondamentaux et la Loi sur la clarté, sont à des pôles opposés sur des sujets aussi importants que la formulation de la question et la majorité requise. Chacune des législatures a procédé unilatéralement sans se soucier de créer un cadre juridique cohérent. Les représentants élus devraient envisager la constitutionnalisation des règles menant à la sécession d'une province comme voie de solution pour régler l'impasse juridique actuelle. Le Canada ne serait pas le premier pays à prévoir de telles règles dans sa Constitution. / By imposing a constitutional obligation to negotiate to aIl parties of the federation, the Supreme Court of Canada in the Secession Reference legitimizes the aspirations of Quebec's sovereignist movement. However, the Supreme Court's ambiguity, in regards to the process leading up to the constitutional obligation to negotiate, is the cause of the current juridical debate. The doctrine is divided on the meaning of the expressions "political actors", "clear question" and "clear majority" and the lack of precision of these expressions allows the political parties in power to justify their respective laws on Quebec secession. The two laws in force, an Act respecting the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Quebec people and the Quebec State and the Clarity Act, are at polar opposites on issues as important as the formulation of the question and the required majority. Both legislatures have proceeded unilaterally without any concem in creating a coherent juridical framework. Elected representatives should consider the constitutionalisation of the mIes leading to secession as a solution to solve the current juridical deadlock. Canada would not be the first country to provide such provisions in its Constitution. / "Mémoire présenté à la Faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de maîtrise en droit, option recherche (LL.M.)"

Tidigare forskning visar att hedersrelaterat förtryck och våld försätter individer i extremt utsatta positioner. Det finns även en komplexitet i att bekämpa hedersrelaterat förtryck och våld i moderna och sekulariserade samhällen som bottnar i värde- och normkonflikter. Kvinnor i hedersrelaterade kontexter är isolerade från omvärlden och förnekas möjligheten till att socialiseras, vilket är en viktig och nödvändig beståndsdel för att integreras i ett modernt, individualistiskt samhälle. Syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att undersöka deltagare i Tjejers rätt i samhällets(TRIS) simverksamhet och studera deltagarnas upplevelser kring möjligheter att delta på samhällets olika forum samt hur simverksamheten påverkar deras självförtroende. TRIS är en organisation som arbetar mot hedersrelaterat förtryck och våld. Med hjälp av intervjuer undersöktes fem deltagares upplevelser. Resultaten visar att simverksamheten är ett effektivt sätt för att engagera unga kvinnor till att bli mer aktiva inom idrott i skolan samt bidrar till en ökning av de unga kvinnornas självförtroende. Simverksamheten ger även ett antal fördelar kring möjligheter att delta på olika forum i samhället, bland annat bildandet av nya vänskapsband samt den fysiska aspekten av att förbättra den allmänna hälsan och välbefinnande. / Previous research shows that honor-related oppression and violence puts individuals in extremely vulnerable positions. It is also suggested that there is a complexity when combating this issue in late modern and secular societies. Women in honor-related contexts are isolated from the world and lack the opportunity to socialize, an important and integral aspect when integrating into the community. The intention of this paper is to investigate participants in TRIS, swimming lessons possibilities to access different forums in the community and the swimming lessons affect on their self-confidence. TRIS is an organization that works against honor-related oppression and violence. The method used to explore the experience in TRIS swimming lessons of five participants was qualitative interviews. The interviews investigated participants’ opportunity to take part in various forums within the community and how their self-confidence directly related to their integration into the community. This study’s revealed that the swimming activities shows an effective way to involve and persuade young women to become more active in physical education in school. There was also an increase in the young women’s self-confidence and their belief in regards to their own abilities when coping with life on a broader level. Swimming activities also provided a number of benefits in many areas of socialization namely the formation of new friendships and also the physical aspect of improving general health and well-being.

Image segmentation is important with applications to several problems in biology and medicine. While extensively researched, generally, current segmentation methods perform adequately in the applications for which they were designed, but often require extensive modifications or calibrations before used in a different application. We describe a system that, with few modifications, can be used in a variety of image segmentation problems. The system is based on a supervised learning strategy that utilizes intensity neighborhoods to assign each pixel in a test image its correct class based on training data. In summary, we have several innovations: (1) A general framework for such a system is proposed, where rotations and variations of intensity neighborhoods in scales are modeled, and a multi-scale classification framework is utilized to segment unknown images; (2) A fast algorithm for training data selection and pixel classification is presented, where a majority voting based criterion is proposed for selecting a small subset from raw training set. When combined with 1-nearest neighbor (1-NN) classifier, such an algorithm is able to provide descent classification accuracy within reasonable computational complexity. (3) A general deformable model for optimization of segmented regions is proposed, which takes the decision values from previous pixel classification process as input, and optimize the segmented regions in a partial differential equation (PDE) framework. We show that the performance of this system in several different biomedical applications, such as tissue segmentation tasks in magnetic resonance and histopathology microscopy images, as well as nuclei segmentation from fluorescence microscopy images, is similar or better than several algorithms specifically designed for each of these applications. In addition, we describe another general segmentation system for biomedical applications where a strong prior on shape is available (e.g. cells, nuclei). The idea is based on template matching and supervised learning, and we show the examples of segmenting cells and nuclei from microscopy images. The method uses examples selected by a user for building a statistical model which captures the texture and shape variations of the nuclear structures from a given data set to be segmented. Segmentation of subsequent, unlabeled, images is then performed by finding the model instance that best matches (in the normalized cross correlation sense) local neighborhood in the input image. We demonstrate the application of our method to segmenting cells and nuclei from a variety of imaging modalities, and quantitatively compare our results to several other methods. Quantitative results using both simulated and real image data show that, while certain methods may work well for certain imaging modalities, our software is able to obtain high accuracy across several imaging modalities studied. Results also demonstrate that, relative to several existing methods, the template based method we propose presents increased robustness in the sense of better handling variations in illumination, variations in texture from different imaging modalities, providing more smooth and accurate segmentation borders, as well as handling better cluttered cells and nuclei.

Despite their prevalence, the study of Canadian minority governments has been the object of few published studies. In particular, the issue of how governments that must rely on the support of one or more opposition parties in Parliament manage to remain in power (viability) and pass their legislative proposals (effectiveness) has not been thoroughly investigated. This study examines the parliamentary dynamics at play in these situations by applying a majority building framework grounded in and supported by three theoretical perspectives, namely the rational choice tradition, new institutionalism, and the role of party politics and party systems, to four minority governments that have occurred in the last 50 years or so: 1- Diefenbaker (1957-1958), 2- Pearson (1963-1965); 3- Clark (1979-1980); and, 4- Harper (2006-2008). The data on the specific circumstances that held during these minority governments has been gathered from archival records, from the recorded debates and votes in the House of Commons, from previous Canadian studies on minority government, from political autobiographies, and from third party accounts of the events at the time. The study finds that majority building is a function of primarily two interrelated variables: 1- bargaining power (interparty dynamics and intra-party cohesion) and 2- agenda control (House business, confidence tests, other institutional features). It also stresses the importance of government concessions as an effective means of achieving desired goals and outcomes. Furthermore, this study highlights the capacity and skill of individual parliamentary actors in the exercise of legislative politics generally and in manipulating institutional and party system levers specifically, as a contributing factor to their government’s duration and legislative output. This study adds to the empirical knowledge of the minority experience in Canada and provides a conceptual framework to better understand legislative politics and its impact on the success of minority governments in Canada and elsewhere. / Malgré leur fréquence, les gouvernements minoritaires au Canada n’ont pas souvent fait l’objet d’études. En particulier, peu d’attention a été portée à la question de comment un gouvernement minoritaire réussi à obtenir l’appui d’un ou de plusieurs partis d’opposition dans le but de rester au pouvoir (viabilité) et de faire passer ses propositions législatives (efficacité). Notre étude examine les dynamiques parlementaires qui se déploient dans ses situations. Plus précisément, elle cherche à les comprendre à la lumière d’un modèle de stratégies menant au consensus sur un vote parlementaire. Ce modèle est fondé sur trois perspectives théoriques, soit la tradition du choix rationnel, le nouvel institutionnalisme et le rôle de la politique partisane et du système de partis. Nous étudions quatre gouvernements minoritaires des cinquante dernières années : 1- Diefenbaker (1957-1958), 2- Pearson (1963-1965), 3- Clark (1979-1980) et Harper (2006-2008). Nous avons accumulé nos données sur ces gouvernements minoritaires à partir de documents d’archives, de la transcription des débats et des votes à la Chambre des communes, d’études canadiennes sur les gouvernements minoritaires, d’autobiographies politiques et des souvenirs de tierces parties présentes lors du déroulement des événements que nous étudions. Notre étude identifie deux variables liées à la création de majorités législatives au Parlement, soit : 1- le pouvoir de négociation (la dynamique entre les partis et la cohésion à l’intérieur des partis) et, 2- le contrôle de l’agenda parlementaire (affaires découlant de la Chambre, les motions de confiance et d’autres facteurs institutionnels). De plus, elle identifie l’importance des concessions gouvernementales dans l’atteinte de ses objectifs. Notre étude souligne l’importance de la capacité et du doigté des joueurs parlementaires particuliers dans l’exercice de la politique législative en général et dans la manipulation des composantes institutionnelles et partisanes en particulier pour garantir la longévité et l’efficacité de leur gouvernement. Notre étude contribue à ajouter à notre connaissance de l’expérience minoritaire au Canada et nous offre un modèle nous permettant de mieux comprendre la politique législative et sa contribution au succès des gouvernements minoritaires au Canada et ailleurs.

This thesis analyzes how the interests of minority and majority groups in state-led development practices can be bridged, with the Indian tribals affected by the Sardar Sarovar Dam Project (SSP) serving as a context for my analysis. The SSP threatens the livelihoods of approximately 100,000 people with displacement, who are primarily comprised of Indian tribal minorities. The construction of the SSP makes tribals more vulnerable to the risks associated with development-induced displacement, such as landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, and food insecurity. When analyzing the SSP, a lack of adequate compensation, resettlement, and legal protection for the tribals becomes apparent. This has led to discussions of human rights violations among the national and international community, raising concerns regarding the protection of minority groups affected by state-led development. Attention is placed on what it means to be a citizen of a country in terms of legal representation and state protection, and how the under-representation of societal groups can lead to the creation of second-class citizens. The objective is to go beyond current discussions of human rights neglect in the context of the SSP by analyzing the position of minority rights in state-led development practices.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 alves_dc_me_bauru.pdf: 2247322 bytes, checksum: dccc26170477dd1c37cd97aa7b7d53c0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-02 / O objetivo deste trabalho foi compreender de que maneira dois importantes programas televisivos de um grande canal, como o Cidade Alerta e Jornal da Record, constroem Representações Sociais sobre o adolescente em conflito com a lei, além de identificar características ideológicas presentes nessas representações, que são compartilhadas por parte da opinião pública sobre aquele que é alvo da campanha em favor da redução da maioridade penal. Para isso, foi traçado um caminho teórico que se preocupou, primeiramente, em trazer uma definição de Representações Sociais; compreendendo que elas podem assumir uma faceta ideológica, principalmente quando apadrinham a construção de discursos e imagens que favorecem relações de poder prescritas em nossa sociedade. Essas relações são permeadas de poder simbólico e nesse sentido, a grande mídia cumpre um papel fundamental. Em uma segunda etapa do desenvolvimento teórico, foi abordada especificamente a questão da redução da maioridade penal, identificando as forças políticas conservadoras que estão por trás dessa defesa – não por acaso setores que compõem a grande mídia brasileira. Foram analisadas reportagens do Cidade Alerta e do Jornal da Record no período entre 12 de junho de 2015 e 26 de agosto do mesmo ano. As reportagens foram transcritas integralmente e foram observados os recursos de edição utilizados, compondo um banco de dados. Como metodologia, foi empregada a análise de enquadramento. Os resultados alcançados demonstraram três aspectos fundamentais: (1) a confirmação de que o jovem em conflito com a lei é retratado de maneira pejorativa e descontextualizada, de maneira a criminaliza-lo e culpabilizá-lo pelo contexto estrutural de violência da sociedade brasileira; (2) as Representações Sociais ideológicas sobre o jovem em conflito com a lei estão vinculadas à defesa do projeto de redução da maioridade; (3) os recursos de edição, principalmente no Cidade Alerta, contribuem para alarmar a população e trazer um clima de pânico, acalorado pelo sensacionalismo, reforçando as Representações Sociais ideológicas sobre o jovem infrator. Por último, é importante destacar que houve diferenças entre um jornal e outro, já que no Cidade Alerta tanto a caracterização negativa do adolescente em conflito com a lei como a defesa da redução da maioridade penal são mais explícitas do que no Jornal da Record. Por fim, destacamos que os resultados apontam para a necessidade de seguir com as pesquisas sobre essa temática, estendendo, por exemplo, o estudo para outras mídias. / The objective of this study was to understand how two important television programs of a major channel, such as Cidade Alerta and Jornal da Record, construct Social Representations about adolescents in conflict with the law, as well as to identify the ideological characteristics present in these representations, which are shared by public opinion about the one who is the campaign’s to reduce the age of criminality target. For this, a theoretical path was drawn which was firstly concerned with bringing a definition of Social Representations; understanding that they can assume an ideological facet, especially when they sponsor the construction of discourses and images that favor relations of power prescribed in our society. These relations are permeated with symbolic power and in this sense, the mainstream media plays a fundamental role. In a second stage of theoretical development, the issue of reducing the age of criminality was specifically addressed, identifying the conservative political forces behind this defense - not by chance sectors that make up the great Brazilian media. We analyzed reports from Cidade Alerta and Jornal da Record in the period between June 12, 2015 and August 26 of the same year. The reports were transcribed in full, as well as the editing resources used, composing a database. Framework analysis methodology was used in the study. The results showed three fundamental aspects: (1) the confirmation that adolescent in conflict with the law is portrayed in a pejorative and decontextualized way, in order to criminalize and blame him for the structural context of violence in Brazilian society; (2) the ideological Social Representations on the young in conflict with the law are linked to the defense of the project of reducing the majority; (3) the editing features, especially in Cidade Alerta, contribute to alarm the population and bring a panic climate, fueled by sensationalism, reinforcing the ideological Social Representations about the young offender. Finally, it is important to note that there were differences between the two programs: in Cidade Alerta, the negative characterization of the adolescent in conflict with the law and the defense of the reduction of the penal age are more explicit than in Jornal da Record. Finally, we highlight that the results point to the need to continue with the research on this subject, extending, for example, the study for other media.

This study critically and systematically analyses the purported democratic values of freedom and equality with a view to clarifying the meaning of the concepts of democracy, freedom and equality; and examining the nature of the relations between kinds of freedom and kinds of equality, their association with democracy, and assessing their reconcilability within the two broad schools of democratic theory, namely, Anglo American democratic theory and Continental democratic theory. Put slightly differently, the issue is whether freedom and equality are mutually compatible or incompatible within democratic contexts. The analysis necessitates exploring the possible reason or reasons for the reconcilability or incompatibility of freedom and equality. Hence, the arguments in democratic literature relevant to the meanings of freedom and equality, and the relations between them will be examined. The first set of arguments concern the question of whether kinds of freedom endanger kinds of equality, and conversely, whether kinds of equality erode or hamper kinds of freedom. The relation existing between freedom and equality, and equality and freedom, in both instances purport to demonstrate the tension existing between them in theory as well as in practice. The second set of arguments concern the question of whether kinds of freedom promote kinds of equality, and conversely, whether kinds of equality further kinds of freedom. The relation in both instances is deemed to demonstrate the affinity between freedom and equality, and equality and freedom. An attempt will thus be made to address the issue of the seemingly confusing array of meanings of democracy, freedom and equality, and the potentially problematic relations between them, and particularly those between freedom and equality as represented by the two sets of arguments within appropriate democratic contexts. The study will endeavour to examine the analytic and synthetic interplay of meanings and relations, their nature and compatibility or incompatibility, and the possible reasons for this state of affairs, in an attempt to identify and address the perceived misapprehensions concerning their meanings and relations in democratic literature. / Political Sciences / D. Litt. et Phil. (Politics)