This thesis examines the genesis of the derogative emo kid representation and considers the latent functions it initially served in being applied to visible categories of adolescent subculturalists on the behalf of participants within the wider punk subculture. Pulling from the work of Stanley Cohen in arguing that the emo kid representation be conceptualized as a subcultural folk-devil, this thesis argues for the applicability of a Bourdieuian theoretical framework in understanding the means in which subcultural authenticity is not only distributed throughout fields of subcultural participation, but within those spheres of communicative entertainment media in which subcultural knowledge is created, legitimized and disseminated. In offering a Foucaultian genealogy of the niche-mediated emo pseudo-genre, and highlighting its correlation with concurrent movements perceived as facilitating the mainstream colonization of the punk subculture, this thesis argues that the emo kid folk-devil was constructed and reified by virtue of an array of discursive measures based largely in online, micro-mediated forums - through which punk subculturalists vied to marginalize those emo kids so perceived as threatening the exclusivity of the punk subculture and the long-established symbolic economies contained therein. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the process through which this subcultural folk-devil was annexed into a wider socio-discourse concerning dangerous youth populations and, thus, came to be utilized in collusion with mass-mediated campaigns meant to perpetuate the political disempowerment of adolescent populations through the endorsement of representational politics.

This thesis examines the genesis of the derogative emo kid representation and considers the latent functions it initially served in being applied to visible categories of adolescent subculturalists on the behalf of participants within the wider punk subculture. Pulling from the work of Stanley Cohen in arguing that the emo kid representation be conceptualized as a subcultural folk-devil, this thesis argues for the applicability of a Bourdieuian theoretical framework in understanding the means in which subcultural authenticity is not only distributed throughout fields of subcultural participation, but within those spheres of communicative entertainment media in which subcultural knowledge is created, legitimized and disseminated. In offering a Foucaultian genealogy of the niche-mediated emo pseudo-genre, and highlighting its correlation with concurrent movements perceived as facilitating the mainstream colonization of the punk subculture, this thesis argues that the emo kid folk-devil was constructed and reified by virtue of an array of discursive measures based largely in online, micro-mediated forums - through which punk subculturalists vied to marginalize those emo kids so perceived as threatening the exclusivity of the punk subculture and the long-established symbolic economies contained therein. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the process through which this subcultural folk-devil was annexed into a wider socio-discourse concerning dangerous youth populations and, thus, came to be utilized in collusion with mass-mediated campaigns meant to perpetuate the political disempowerment of adolescent populations through the endorsement of representational politics.

There are two main portions to this study. In the first portion (Chapters I-III) we identify policies, procedures, programs, and pedagogical practices in public school districts in Texas that increase levels of college preparation among black and Hispanic students across a range of educational settings (rural, suburban, and urban). We identify these practices by interviewing school administrators at twenty-two school districts throughout the state. The school districts were selected by using education production function models to identify the highest and lowest performing school districts on a variety of college preparation measures. The first portion of the study is largely descriptive and qualitative in orientation. In the second portion of the study we identify high college preparation levels among minority students as a positive externality. Because college attendance benefits students as individuals, regardless of the beneficial aspects of college attendance for society at large, students, parents, and others will request that school districts increase college preparation levels to some degree. However, given the nature of positive externalities, we explore the possibility that the reason why some school districts have higher college preparation levels among minority students than others is that they are led by an official policy-maker (the superintendent) who is committed to acting in the long-term interests of society (in other words, whose representational style is to act as a trustee). The second portion attempts to extend the causal chain back one link by exploring the possibility that superintendent representational style affects the types of policies, procedures, programs and pedagogical practices adopted and the district’s commitment to implementing them, which in turn affects college preparation levels among minority students. The relationship between superintendent representational style and minority student preparation for college is tested using two data sources: a survey of public school superintendents throughout Texas gathered by the Texas Educational Excellence Project and college preparation measures gathered by the Texas Education Agency for all public schools in Texas.

<p>Today’s rapid development of powerful tools for geneexpression analysis provides unprecedented resources forelucidating complex molecular events.</p><p>The objective of this workhas been to apply, combine andevaluate tools for analysis of differential gene expressionusing atherosclerosis as a model system. First, an optimisedsolid-phase protocol for representational difference analysis(RDA) was applied to two<i>in vitro</i>model systems. Initially, The RDA enrichmentprocedure was investigated by shotgun cloning and sequencing ofsuccessive difference products. In the subsequent steps,combinations of RDA and microarray analysis were used tocombine the selectivity and sensitivity of RDA with thehigh-throughput nature of microarrays. This was achieved byimmobilization of RDA clones onto microarrays dedicated forgene expression analysis in atherosclerosis as well ashybridisation of labelled RDA products onto global microarrayscontaining more than 32,000 human clones. Finally, RDA wasapplied for the investigation of the focal localisation ofatherosclerotic plaques in mice using<i>in vivo</i>tissue samples as starting material.</p><p>A large number of differentially expressed clones wereisolated and confirmed by real time PCR. A very diverse rangeof gene fragments was identified in the RDA products especiallywhen they were screened with global microarrays. However, themicroarray data also seem to contain some noise which is ageneral problem using microarrays and should be compensated forby careful verification of the results.</p><p>Quite a large number of candidate genes related to theatherosclerotic process were found by these studies. Inparticular several nuclear receptors with altered expression inresponse to oxidized LDL were identified and deserve furtherinvestigation. Extended functional annotation does not liewithin the scope of this thesis but raw data in the form ofnovel sequences and accession numbers of known sequences havebeen made publicly available in GenBank. Parts of the data arealso available for interactive exploration on-line through aninteractive software tool. The data generated thus constitute abase for new hypotheses to be tested in the field ofatherosclerosis.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>representational difference analysis, geneexpression profiling, microarray analysis, atherosclerosis,foam cell formation</p>

Goodbye Brigadoon examines the shifting role media production plays in the economic and cultural strategies of global cities in small market nations, specifically Glasgow, Scotland. In particular, this project focuses on the formation of a digital media village along the banks of the River Clyde to argue the site constitutes a logical component to Glasgow’s ongoing transformation into a cosmopolitan center. Yet, as the regional government’s economic strategies and policy directives work to transform the abandoned waterfront into a center of cultural activity, this project also underscores the contradictory cultural dynamics to emerge from media production’s new role in the post-industrial city. At its core, the media hub reveals a regional government more interested in the technology used to deliver “national” stories than the manner of the stories themselves or the cultural practices responsible for creating them. Indeed, Goodbye Brigadoon is most interested in how media professionals based at the emergent cluster negotiate a sense of cultural identity and creative license against the institutional constraints, policy matters, and commercial logic they also must navigate in their workaday rituals. Ultimately, the conclusions offered in this project argue for a more complicated conception of the global-local location where these professionals work. Glasgow’s digital media village, in other words, is much more than an innocuous site of competitive advantage, urban regeneration, and job growth. It is best understood as a site of intense social struggle and unequal power relations where local mediamakers often find the site’s impetus for multiplatform media production an institutionally enforced false promise at odds with the realities of creative labor in the city. / text

This dissertation is a historical- anthropological account of political cartooning in colonial and postcolonial India. Through a focus on representational politics and biography I have situated the history and practice of cartooning in India to unfold the link between politics, the making of a moral aesthetic and modernity. I am attentive to the shifts in this link by tracing the movement in three historical phases: colonial, nationalist, and postcolonial. These three interconnected parts of my dissertation span a period from the 1870s when vernacular versions of the British Punch began to be produced in colonial India and contemporary neo- liberal India that is seeing a profusion of pocket cartoons in local newspaper editions. In organizing the narrative in three political frameworks - the colonial, nationalist, and postcolonial I discuss the circuits of global interconnectedness through which a shifting moral aesthetic of the cartoon came to be formulated at different times and places in Indian politics. As an everyday cultural production, a focus on the cartoon in terms of "what the cultural consumer makes" as "a production of poiesis - but a hidden one" (de Certeau 1984) illuminates the liminal (Turner) dimension of the cartoon. Additionally, by situating the cartoon as a discursive site (Terdiman 1985) I want to draw attention to new analytical spaces it generates for the discussion and construction of democracy, secularism, minority rights and the modern state. In order to grasp the generative and interpretive dimension of the cartoon I point to three concepts: liminal form, moral aesthetic, and tactical modernity. These concepts open a space to think through the hegemonic processes that come into play at the cultural site of the cartoon and enable and analysis of the cartoon as a site generative of hegemonic processes. This attention to the cartoon as a discursive site in the public sphere highlights the transformative circuit from laughter to debate, from visual to written, and a moral aesthetic that gets switched on through the interpretive dilemmas and representational practices of the cartoon. / text

This project provides a detailed examination and critique of current philosophical, linguistic, and cognitive accounts of first language acquisition. In particular, I focus on the concept of "innate" and how it is embraced, marginally utilized, or abandoned altogether in efforts to describe the way that a child comes to be a competent user of a language. A central question that naturally falls out of this general inquiry is therefore what exactly is supposed to be "innate," according to various theories? Philosophically, the theory of innate ideas put forth to explain human learning has existed for centuries and hence, this thesis as it relates to language is discussed. The revival of nativism by linguists like Chomsky is thus a central theme of the first chapter. Universal Grammar and the various arguments for it are closely scrutinized, and I close this chapter with what I take to be the commitments of linguistic nativism, how its proponents conceive of "innate," and several possible objections to the arguments they put forth. Just as the theory of innate ideas has had its contesters throughout the history of philosophy, so too have linguists and cognitive scientists rejected Universal Grammar and other forms of linguistic nativism. Thus, the second chapter presents several of these alternative explanations of language acquisition. Namely, I divide the chapter into three sections, Usage-Based Linguistics, Emergentism, and Sociolinguistic Acquisition, as it is my suggestion that most of the anti-UG attacks are levied from one of these three fields. In discussing the details of each, two distinctions become of particular concern: first, a large part of the differing conceptions of "innate" seem to hinge on what is meant by "learning" and "acquiring," and therefore second, a fine line between UBL and Emergentism can be drawn, a relationship that is otherwise conflated in the literature. Because chapter two involves a brief account of the way in which connectionist simulations are often utilized to model or represent language acquisition, particularly from an Emergentist perspective, chapter three begins by examining this feature of Emergentism in more detail. Due to its explanatory power, ability to be effectively modeled, and the evidentiary support found in neuroscience, Emergentism would appear to be the most tenable position to maintain regarding language acquisition. This possibility seems further strengthened when we take into account the neuroscientific data often used to bolster anti-nativist claims. Nevertheless, reflecting on the overarching concern of the project, regarding what is really meant by "innate," it is shown that this attack on nativism might stand on shakier ground than was originally assumed. Finally, based on these considerations, a case is made for an intermediary position, a theory of "Minimally Innate Ideas."

This visual ethnography is an interactive, online, multimedia project that explores female funeral celebrant perspectives on communicating with members of the general public who are immersed in liminal states of consciousness during the process of bereavement. Non-representational theory is incorporated to afford better understanding of female funeral celebrant communication practices. The multimedia project is made up of select video and audio clips taken from in-depth interviews completed with four female funeral celebrants in British Columbia, Canada about their specialized communication work. Favourite poetry and quotes from celebrants are included. Three main themes emerge as central to funeral celebrant work: witnessing, following and engaging with the process; the limen as creative source --- companioning mourners at the threshold; and the art of (irretrievable) performance through facilitating affective, participatory ritual. These same themes are reflected in the interactive, multimedia visual ethnography, which may be engaged with here: http://prezi.com/w85_hps4acf1/between-worlds-communication-perspectives-of-female-funeral-celebrants-in-british-columbia/?auth_key=7536c83649629fcf0547168f04462c8f089a6179

Flood literature presents an inconsistent account of post-disaster distress; debating whether distress is pathological or normal and attempting to understand distress in terms of disaster variables. The literature therefore provides little guidance as to how to formulate difficulties in a clinically meaningful way reflective of individual’s experiences. The SPAARS model is presented as a model by which to reconcile these differences and quantitative support for its concepts were studied within two flooded samples. Participants who were flooded in Carlisle in 2005 (n=32) and participants flooded in Morpeth in 2008 (n=29) provided two samples at different stages in flood recovery and facilitated a quasi-longitudinal sample for comparison of flood-related distress over time. Participants were asked to complete a survey pertaining to: basic emotions experienced during the flood event, basic emotions experienced after the flood, Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R), Regulation of Emotions Questionnaire (REQ) and the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI). Findings suggest that a third of participants who were flooded experienced clinically significant levels of distress, even after four years. Both samples showed higher levels of impact symptoms on the IES compared to symptoms on the TSI. Anxiety and anger were significant in reported flood experiences both during and after the flooding. Flood-related variables and previous experiences had no effect on increased distress but greater use of internal-dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies was related to increased impact and distress symptoms. Study findings and the SPAARS model are discussed in relation to previous flooding and PTSD literature, as well as clinical implications for the treatment of post-disaster distress and for the future management of flood-affected populations.

Children with autism spectrum disorder show imaginative and representational drawing deficits, despite reports of a “visual thinking style”. I examined whether these two drawing characteristics could be explained by the unique cognitive style of children with autism (specifically, executive dysfunction and a local processing bias). I administered a cognitive/drawing task battery to a group of 24 school-age children with autism and 29 mental age-matched neurotypically developing controls. I expected that better executive function ability would be associated with better imaginative and representational drawing, and that a local processing bias (weak central coherence) would be associated with better representational drawing but worse imaginative drawing. In children with autism, better executive function was associated with better imaginative drawing. Greater central coherence was associated with better representational drawing, but executive function was associated with worse representational drawing. Underlying cognitive components of imaginative and representational drawing were different for the neurotypically developing children. Overall, findings were unexpected, leading to novel theoretical suggestions for the field of autism cognition and drawing research. / Graduate / 0620 / 0623 / kd.teneycke@gmail.com