No description available.

Select members of the Congressional Black Caucus through their votes, speeches, arrests and nonviolent forms of protest practice a renewed kind of nonviolent resistance against a neoconservative political agenda advanced by the executive branch of the U.S. government in the past six years. Their practices are nonviolent according to the definition of nonviolence discussed by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his 1962 New York Times Magazine article: "we will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act...We will try to persuade with our words---but if our words fail we will try to persuade with our acts." Nonviolent resistance according to this quote means first trying to persuade with words then trying to persuade with direct action. This study will compare nonviolent methods of direct action between 2001 and 2007 and those between 1955 and 1963. The nonviolent methods between 2001 and 2007 resist the neoconservative policies that are based on the same assumptions as those in the civil rights movements between 1955 and 1963. The identification of five comparisons in particular proves a continuing tradition of nonviolent protest identified as a 'surviving legacy' of resistance against neoconservative policies. First, Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat on a city bus is comparable to U.S. Representative Barbara Lee's refusal to support the military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Second, Daisy Bates's commitment to ensuring a quality public education for the Little Rock Nine is comparable to U.S. Representative Chaka Fattah's efforts to improve the Philadelphia public school system. Third, the organizing work of Ella Baker in creating the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960 is comparable to the organizing work of Maxine Waters in creating the Out of Iraq caucus in 2005. Fourth, the appeals to the U.S. Constitution of James Farmer and the Freedom Riders serves as a foundation for John Conyers' appeal to the U.S. Constitution in his lawsuit against George W. Bush. Fifth, the strategy of getting arrested to call attention to unjust foreign policies within the past five years is comparable to the "jail, no bail" strategy during 1962 and 1963. The major point of this thesis is to argue the existence of a concerted strategy of nonviolent resistance practiced by specific Congressional Black Caucus members. The thesis will compare nonviolent resistance in the 21st century to that of the early 1960s.

<p>The aim of this study has been to investigate why we saw the formation of the green party and junilistan in Swedish politics. The questions being asked is why the individuals behind the party decided to take the step towards forming a new party as well as why they felt it worth forming it.</p><p>The theories being used is the sequential model created by Gissur Ó Erlingsson, which is complemented with theoretical assumptions by Paul Lucardie. The sequential model illustrates the party forming processes in three steps, which then through process-tracing allows for the identification of events that have exerted an influence on the entrepreneur to decide taking the step towards forming a new party. With the help of Lucardie I presented assumptions which gave me possibility to investigate why they then felt it worth forming the new party.</p><p>The conclusion showed that the step toward party formation in both cases occurred when the entrepreneurs experienced that their demands where not met. The second question was divided in to two sub questions which showed that the entrepreneurs in both cases made the calculation that a new party would find support amongst the electorate but regarding the ability to finance and attach competence the result was more diverging.</p>

The democratic deficit in the U.S. becomes strikingly evident as statistics show that only half of the population actually votes in elections. Seeing that many who do not participate in the electoral processes are also generally members of socially marginalized groups then this is an increasing social issue. The effects of this become deepening socio-economic inequalities, greater marginalization and a weakened democracy. This study argues that social workers can contribute to solve this democratic deficit by using social work to reach and include socially marginalized groups in the democratic process of electoral participation. Focusing specifically on San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, I have used qualitative method to interview representatives from non-profit organizations that provide different kind of social service and academic professors from the disciplines of Social Work and Political Science in order to investigate how social work can include marginalized non-voting groups in the electoral process. The result is analyzed together with a theoretical framework built from research on democracy, welfare research, empowerment theory and theories on community practice. The findings show that social work has an important role in creating belonging among these marginalized groups and to bring them into the political process by using social mobilizing and advocacy social work with an empowerment perspective.

With emerging content forums blurring the distinctions between journalistic paradigms, this study helps illuminate those which best promote alternative practice. A content analysis of Deepwater Horizon oil spill coverage compared three platforms for online citizen journalism: corporate (CNN iReport), alternative (Indymedia), and independent blogs. News stories were coded for sources, links, author-reader interaction, mobilizing information, tone for the liable parties' ability and intent in handling the disaster, and contestation of official information. Results show that Indymedia was the most alternative in inclusion of mobilizing information, critical tone, contestation of mainstream versions, ratio of alternative links to mainstream, and total usage of alternative sources. iReport engendered the greatest rates of community via interaction, while also averaging the highest ratio of alternative sources. The blogs split on nearly all metrics, as one rated highly in every category and the other near last. This analysis determines which platforms are most likely to cultivate disaster news that stands as alternative to, and not extension of, the mainstream. This study makes a contribution to the theory of alternative media and is the first to compare citizen journalism sites against one another in measuring their adherence to the alternative paradigm, and its examination of CNN's citizen-report model also represents a novel contribution. The findings discussed may help direct citizens as they reach out to online communities in times of disaster.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of ubiquitous environmental contaminants with two or more aromatic rings and originating from different emission sources. They are extremely toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic to human, animals and plants. Consequently, the need to expand economical and practical remediation technologies for PAH contaminated sites is evident. In this study, the effect of biotic and abiotic factors on degradation of PAH was studied. The degradation was studied on the key model PAH (phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene and pyrene) in J. Arthur Bower’s top soil. The hypothesis for this study was that roadside soil would contain PAH degrading bacteria; pH would influence the microbial degradation of PAH, chemical oxidation of PAH would be as efficient as microbial breakdown of PAH and mobilising agents, would move PAH throughout soil, potentially making the PAH more available for biodegradation. The greatest degradations were found for the lowest molecular weight PAH, phenanthrene and anthracene; whilst lowest degradation was observed for higher molecular weight PAH, fluoranthene and pyrene. Twelve bacteria genera were isolated and identified by biochemical and molecular techniques from the roadside soil with the four PAHs as the sole carbon source. However, potentially new PAH biodegrader bacteria species and a novel were found in this study, which was not reported in the literature. The effect of pH between 5.0 and 8.0 at half pH intervals on biodegradation of the four PAHs and on bacterial populations in the soil over 32 days was monitored. The greatest population of bacteria and greatest biodegradation for the four PAHs was found at pH of 7.5. It is likely that the general increase in population was also linked with greater metabolic activities of bacteria at basic pHs which assists pollutant biodegradation. Although there is high pollutant mobility at low pHs, the biodegradation was limited due to reduced microbial activity. High pHs resulted in greater PAH biodegradation suggesting that pH manipulation by liming may be an effective way of stimulating biodegradation of PAH. The effect of potassium permanganate on oxidation of the four PAHs in the soil was examined. Studies in this thesis, indicated that potassium permanganate had a significant (p<0.05) effect on oxidation of the four PAHs at pH 7.5 over 35 days. However in comparison to biodegradation, chemical oxidation has significantly (p<0.05) less effect. Finally, the effect of Tween 20 only on translocation and biodegradation of the four PAHs at pH 7.5 over 35 days was examined. Studies indicated that Tween 20 had significantly (p<0.05) enhanced translocation of the four PAHs in the sterile soil. Moreover, the greatest biodegradation was found in the soil inoculated with only the roadside soil microorganisms but without Tween 20. This suggested that Tween 20 had a significant (p<0.05) inhibitory effect on the roadside soil microorganisms and therefore less microorganism were grown in the soil containing Tween 20. This indicated that Tween 20 was translocated PAH, but inhibited breakdown. This study indicated microbial biodegradation was the most effective technique for removing of the PAH from contaminated soil, which was cost effective and easier to perform in comparison to the other two techniques. Microbial biodegradation could be improved by adjusting pH through liming if soil was acid.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-09-01T13:42:22Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação - Completa.pdf3.pdf: 3195019 bytes, checksum: 47f738ab396c75bbeda6e2356f1e9a58 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-01T13:42:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação - Completa.pdf3.pdf: 3195019 bytes, checksum: 47f738ab396c75bbeda6e2356f1e9a58 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-26 / CAPEs / Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar um grupo brasileiro presente nas redes sociais virtuais como organizador de mobilizações políticas. A principal pergunta a ser esclarecida aqui é: de que maneira os internautas são mobilizados pelos líderes de um grupo virtual para reivindicar o direito à cidade e para discutir política? Para a realização da pesquisa foi feito um estudo de caso do grupo Direitos Urbanos/Recife (DU) no Facebook, o qual conta com mais de 31 mil membros e é responsável por discutir e articular várias mobilizações no Recife, a exemplo do #OcupeEstelita 2014, que ocupou uma área do centro da cidade por cerca de 50 dias. A análise se utiliza de teorias dos novos movimentos sociais e de redes, aliadas a abordagens qualitativas, como a Teoria do Discurso proposta por Laclau e Mouffe. Entre os resultados obtidos destacam-se duas principais contribuições. A primeira é a tendência a qual os membros do DU têm de se relacionar com pessoas de círculos sociais parecidos, enquanto a segunda é a identificação de algumas ações dos líderes para mobilizar internautas, tais como chats internos para discutir ações estratégicas, filtragem do conteúdo publicado na página do DU no Facebook, boa relação com outros coletivos e, principalmente, a busca por um discurso único que aglomere os mais diversos atores/grupos sociais. A temática é relevante por abordar desafios contemporâneos da internet e dos novos movimentos sociais, como a Primavera Árabe, o Indignados, o Occupy Wall Street, os Ocupas, as manifestações de junho de 2013 no Brasil e os movimentos anti e pró-impeachment nacionais de 2015/2016. / This work aims to analyze a brazilian group present in virtual social networks as organizer of politicals mobilizations. The main question to be answered here is: how netizens are mobilized by the leaders of a virtual group to claim the right to the city and to discuss politics? For the research was done a case study with Direitos Urbanos/Recife (DU) on Facebook, group that has over 31.000 members and is responsible for discussing and articulating various mobilizations in Recife, like the #OcupeEstelita 2014, which occupied an area of the city center for about 50 days. In the analysis, are used theories of new social movements and of networks, combined with qualitative approaches, such as the Discourse Theory proposed by Laclau and Mouffe. Among others results, it highlights two main contributions. The first is the tendency to which the members of DU have to relate with people of similar social circles. The second is the identification of some actions of leaders to mobilize internet users, such as internal chats to discuss strategic actions, filtering content published on DU’s Facebook page, good relationship with others groups, and especially the search for a single speech that can gather several actors or socials groups. The theme is relevant for addressing contemporary challenges of the Internet and new social movements, like the Arab Spring, the Indignados, the Occupy Wall Street, the Occupies, the demonstrations of june from 2013 in Brazil and the movements against and pro impeachment from 2015/2016.

Résumé français manquant / Scientific background: GAGs mimetics properties on regenerative process.Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are sulfated polysaccharides actually considered as major structural components of the extracellular matrix as well as regulators of cells functions during homeostatic and pathological processes. These GAGs activities are based on their ability to interact with heparin binding growth-factors (HBGF), chemokines and enzymes, to protect them from proteolytic degradation and to potentialyze their interaction with cell surface specific receptors and/or other components of the ECM. GAGs are characterized by their extensive structural diversity, based on the number and location of sulfate or acetylate groups, that would determine specific biological interactions.As comparative tool to study the relationship between the complexity of GAGs chemical structures and their biological functions, we used synthetic GAGs mimetics, derivate from a polymer of dextran and functionalized with carboxylate, sulfate and/or acetate groups. They are structurally and functionally related to natural heparan sulfates. These compounds improved both the rate and quality of regenerative process in numerous animal models of injury after topical treatment.Our hypothesize is that specific HS cooperative interactions with HBGF and ECM compounds could influence both therapeutic progenitors and stem cells properties by compartmentalizing them to specific microenvironment niches, and protecting them against deleterious signals. Such abilities to modulate stem cell biology could be a new way to explain and to take advantage of regenerative properties of these compounds. The principal aim of this work was to demonstrate the effects of GAGs mimetics on Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC) properties for application in bone repair. GAGs mimetics as new potentializing agents of mesenchymal stem cells propertiesDuring osteogenesis, a controlled expression of functional HS is required to interact and regulate the activity of growth promoting and osteogenic differentiation factors. However effects of GAGs on MSC properties remain to be analyzed. We focus on two GAGs mimetics leader molecules [OTR4131] and [OTR4120], with distinct chemical characteristics, since sulfated mimetic [OTR4120] was previously shown to stimulate bone repair in vivo. We demonstrate that its acetylated and sulfated counterpart [OTR4131] enhances proliferation, whereas [OTR4120] clearly stimulates migration and osteogenic differentiation properties of rat MSC in vitro, that could explain its bone regenerative effect in vivo. This indicates that GAGs mimetics would be of great interest for potential application in therapy, since according to their structural signature they could modulate specific activities of progenitors and stem cells, and represent an alternative to exogenous growth factor treatments. New matricial strategy for bone repair associating GAGs mimetics to biomaterials and human MSCCell based therapy associated to biomaterials for repair of bone defects are promising but not enough efficient. We proposed to develop matricial strategy, associating efficient micro-environment molecules such as GAGs mimetics, to optimize cell therapeutic approaches. First we validated that GAGs mimetics are effective on human MSC proliferation, migration and differentiation properties in vitro. We demonstrated that colonization efficiency of hydroxyapatite/β-tricalcium phosphate biomaterial scaffolds by human MSC was improved when scaffolds are functionalized with GAGs mimetics in vitro. Finally osteoformation in vivo was evaluated after ectopic transplantation of functionalized and/or cellularized biomaterials in nude mice: few effects were observed on bone formation, whereas osteoclastogenesis and vascularization were clearly modulated by GAGs mimetics immobilized. GAGs mimetics as new mobilizing agents of stem cells...

Este trabalho está centrado na Arte de Contar Histórias e o sopro do narrador, fundamento da vocalidade poética. Ao pensar nos diversos caminhos possíveis para a sua composição, foi aprofundada uma visão direcionada para o entrelaçamento das experiências subjetivas com a própria narrativa. Essa é uma vereda que tem como base a Palavra Viva, proveniente dos narradores tradicionais, onde é ressaltado o seu aspecto artesanal. Paralelos com a contemporaneidade foram cercados, assim como imagens e metáforas, dentre os quais se destacam a criança, o peregrino e o selvagem, que permeiam a reflexão sob ângulos diversos. Para abordá-los é sugerida a ideia de despreparo que se contrapõe a uma ideia de formação mais linear e acentua o chamado à experiência. / This work is centered on the Art of Storytelling and the breath of the narrator, the foundation of the poetic vocality. In thinking about the different possible paths for its composition, a vision was focused on the intertwining of subjective experiences with the narrative itself. This is a path based on the Living Word, from the traditional narrators, where their artisan aspect is emphasized. Parallels with contemporaneity have been surrounded, as well as images and metaphors, among which the child, the pilgrim and the savage stand out, which permeate the reflection under different angles. To address them is suggested the idea of unpreparedness that opposes a more linear idea of formation and accentuates the call to experience.

The paper examines the quality of domiciliary services as seen by their recipients - senior citizens. The paper consists of two parts. The first one defines the main notions {--} old age and ageing, demographic changes in society, social services goals, domiciliary services, importace of ethical norms for social workers and people in direct contact with elderly people, vulnerability of people doing some auxiliary jobs and mobilizing activities for senior citizens. The second part consists of the research carried out among the recepients of domiciliary services, its analysis, data evaluation and comparison of senior citizen´s and their home nurses´ view.