This is a study at the interface of self, craft, and sustainability. It is a small part of a wider personal and social conjecture on the subject of ‘change ’ involving these three domains.This research develops the proposal that the success of a profound social change, which in our time pertains to the change towards sustainable societies, lies in the likeliness of self-transformation in individuals. Here the craft perspective is taken in order to link it to a large body of research in response to environmental and ethical concerns. However, unlike other object-oriented approaches with a similar purpose, the purpose of this research is to seek a greater contribution from craft practice when it is viewed as a transformation of the craftsperson. By referring to this human capacity, it argues, not only is crafting an inducement to self-transformation but also self-transformation can be regarded as a craft. To support this argument, material is drawn from the literature on craft, sustainability, philosophy of the self and social and developmental psychology. The historical and developmental formations of the key areas of the research are explored and psychological factors that motivate desirable ‘changes’ are identified. This exploration is then supported by interviews, personal narratives and the active participation of the researcher in the actual practice of craft. The research suggests that the state of self-actualization, where humanity reaches its fullness, is the destination to which the self needs to transform. It then traces elements involved in such a transformation back to their origin. This includes meanings and values leading to transformation, knowledge leading to meanings, experience leading to knowledge and the embodied connection between the self and the environment leading to experience. At the deepest level, it proposes a particular mode of relationship which is best described as craftsmanship or ‘the craft way of being.’ This process is also traced in the personal experience of the researcher.This thesis concludes with an explanation of the concept of ‘deep craft’. It proposes that the outcome of a deeper understanding of craft, which in effect widens the territory of craft activities, becomes manifest in the world in the form of ‘care taking’, essential for the ‘change’ towards more sustainable societies.

This thesis aim to theoretically and empirically cover the theme of self-sufficient way of living in full spectrum from local economy supporting associations to clear pictures of live of the people who are trying to live self-sufficient. The work deals with many forms of self-sufficiency: energetic self-support, home schooling and sharing. In theoretical part of the work author specifies research questions whose are used for expanding and verifying conclusions or data from another researches. In the empirical part author analyse data collected during an ethnographic research (participant observation and semi-structured interviews in three households.

Por causa da presença de informações assimétricas e de problemas como seleção adversa e moral hazard, o meio rural é pouco atrativo para o sistema financeiro vigente. Os mecanismos de seleção e monitoramento de clientes exibem custos altos, e, podem interferir no desempenho econômico de instituições financeiras. As instituições devem ser eficientes, e, trabalhar com baixas taxas de juros, de inadimplência, e de custos de transação, para serem auto-sustentáveis. As cooperativas de crédito rural, que não visam lucros, exercem taxas de juros e tarifas inferiores às cobradas pelo mercado. Foi objetivo dessa pesquisa analisar a sustentabilidade financeira das cooperativas de crédito rural. Por meio da revisão bibliográfica de teorias econômicas, de trabalhos científicos sobre custos de transação e capital social, verificou-se que alguns custos de transação são menores para as cooperativas, se comparadas com outras instituições financeiras, já que são formadas por produtores rurais de certa região, amenizando os riscos de suas transações. Além disso, certas peculiaridades das cooperativas são minimizadoras de dispêndios operacionais. Foi proposto um modelo, adaptado da análise de desempenho econômico de instituições financeiras, para análises verticais e horizontais de contas dos Balanços Patrimoniais e de Demonstrações de Perdas e Sobras das cooperativas de crédito rural. No estudo de caso da Credicitrus, a sua aplicação foi eficaz e permitiu o diagnóstico detalhado da situação financeira da cooperativa, em estudo, identificando indicadores importantes para sua auto-suficiência. Concluiu-se que as cooperativas de crédito rural devem apresentar taxas de inadimplência baixas, evolução positiva nas captações de recursos junto aos associados e, sobras, para futuros investimentos. Notou-se que o indicador de rentabilidade sobre o patrimônio líquido deve ser adaptado para as cooperativas de crédito rural, pois essas organizações não visam o lucro. Por fim, a partir do indicador break ? even self sufficiency, que deve se situar acima de um, é possível verificar se a cooperativa é capaz de arcar com os seus dispêndios, a partir de seus ingressos, caracterizando-a como uma organização auto-sustentável, o que foi verificado no estudo de caso. Foi um estudo específico, porém, o método adaptado e utilizado é perfeitamente aplicável para as demais cooperativas de crédito rural. Assim, pode ser utilizado por outras organizações, pelas Centrais e pelo Sistema Cooperativo como um método padrão para analisar a sustentabilidade financeira das cooperativas. Como sugestão ainda, seriam interessantes estudos de sustentabilidade das cooperativas de crédito rural em um cenário macroeconômico com diminuição de taxas de juros, o que, geraria maior competição dessas organizações com as demais instituições financeiras no país. / Due to the presence of asymmetric information and problems such as adverse selection and moral hazard, the rural area is rather unattractive to the current financial system. The selection mechanisms and customers\' monitoring present high costs and they can interfere in the economic performance of financial institutions. With low transaction and operational costs, the institutions should be efficient and work with low interest rates and default, being selfsufficient. The cooperatives of rural credit which don\'t seek profits collect interest rates and inferior tariffs compared to those collected by the market. It was the objective of this research to analyze the financial sufficiency of the rural credit cooperatives. Through the bibliographical revision of economic theories, scientific papers on transaction costs and social capital, it was verified that some transaction costs are smaller for the cooperatives, if compared to other financial institutions, since they are formed by rural producers of a certain region, minimizing their risks of transactions. Besides, certain peculiarities of the cooperatives are minimizers of operational expenditures. A model was proposed, used in the economical performance analysis of financial institutions, for a case study of vertical and horizontal analyses of accounts of the Estate Balances and Demonstrations of Losses and Surpluses, which was adapted to the cooperatives of rural credit. Its applicability was effective since it allowed the detailed diagnosis of the Credicitrus case study, identifying important indicators for its self-sufficiency. It was concluded that the cooperatives of rural credit should present rates of low default, positive evolution in the receptions of resources from the associates and surpluses for futures investments. It was noticed that the profitability indicator on the net worth should be adapted to the cooperatives of rural credit, for they are not-for-profit organizations. Finally, based from the break-even self-sufficiency indicator that should be rated above one, it is possible to verify whether cooperative is capable of handling their expenditures with their own earnings, characterizing it as a self-sufficient organization, which was verified in the case study. However, It was a specific study, the adapted and used method is perfectly applicable for the other cooperatives of rural credit. Thus, it could be used by other organizations, by the Headquarters and by the Cooperative System as a standard method to analyze the financial sufficiency of the cooperatives. Still as a suggestion, studies of sufficiency of the cooperatives of rural credit in macroeconomic scenery with decrease of interest rates would be interesting, which would generate larger competition of those organizations with the other financial institutions in the country.

Por causa da presença de informações assimétricas e de problemas como seleção adversa e moral hazard, o meio rural é pouco atrativo para o sistema financeiro vigente. Os mecanismos de seleção e monitoramento de clientes exibem custos altos, e, podem interferir no desempenho econômico de instituições financeiras. As instituições devem ser eficientes, e, trabalhar com baixas taxas de juros, de inadimplência, e de custos de transação, para serem auto-sustentáveis. As cooperativas de crédito rural, que não visam lucros, exercem taxas de juros e tarifas inferiores às cobradas pelo mercado. Foi objetivo dessa pesquisa analisar a sustentabilidade financeira das cooperativas de crédito rural. Por meio da revisão bibliográfica de teorias econômicas, de trabalhos científicos sobre custos de transação e capital social, verificou-se que alguns custos de transação são menores para as cooperativas, se comparadas com outras instituições financeiras, já que são formadas por produtores rurais de certa região, amenizando os riscos de suas transações. Além disso, certas peculiaridades das cooperativas são minimizadoras de dispêndios operacionais. Foi proposto um modelo, adaptado da análise de desempenho econômico de instituições financeiras, para análises verticais e horizontais de contas dos Balanços Patrimoniais e de Demonstrações de Perdas e Sobras das cooperativas de crédito rural. No estudo de caso da Credicitrus, a sua aplicação foi eficaz e permitiu o diagnóstico detalhado da situação financeira da cooperativa, em estudo, identificando indicadores importantes para sua auto-suficiência. Concluiu-se que as cooperativas de crédito rural devem apresentar taxas de inadimplência baixas, evolução positiva nas captações de recursos junto aos associados e, sobras, para futuros investimentos. Notou-se que o indicador de rentabilidade sobre o patrimônio líquido deve ser adaptado para as cooperativas de crédito rural, pois essas organizações não visam o lucro. Por fim, a partir do indicador break ? even self sufficiency, que deve se situar acima de um, é possível verificar se a cooperativa é capaz de arcar com os seus dispêndios, a partir de seus ingressos, caracterizando-a como uma organização auto-sustentável, o que foi verificado no estudo de caso. Foi um estudo específico, porém, o método adaptado e utilizado é perfeitamente aplicável para as demais cooperativas de crédito rural. Assim, pode ser utilizado por outras organizações, pelas Centrais e pelo Sistema Cooperativo como um método padrão para analisar a sustentabilidade financeira das cooperativas. Como sugestão ainda, seriam interessantes estudos de sustentabilidade das cooperativas de crédito rural em um cenário macroeconômico com diminuição de taxas de juros, o que, geraria maior competição dessas organizações com as demais instituições financeiras no país. / Due to the presence of asymmetric information and problems such as adverse selection and moral hazard, the rural area is rather unattractive to the current financial system. The selection mechanisms and customers\' monitoring present high costs and they can interfere in the economic performance of financial institutions. With low transaction and operational costs, the institutions should be efficient and work with low interest rates and default, being selfsufficient. The cooperatives of rural credit which don\'t seek profits collect interest rates and inferior tariffs compared to those collected by the market. It was the objective of this research to analyze the financial sufficiency of the rural credit cooperatives. Through the bibliographical revision of economic theories, scientific papers on transaction costs and social capital, it was verified that some transaction costs are smaller for the cooperatives, if compared to other financial institutions, since they are formed by rural producers of a certain region, minimizing their risks of transactions. Besides, certain peculiarities of the cooperatives are minimizers of operational expenditures. A model was proposed, used in the economical performance analysis of financial institutions, for a case study of vertical and horizontal analyses of accounts of the Estate Balances and Demonstrations of Losses and Surpluses, which was adapted to the cooperatives of rural credit. Its applicability was effective since it allowed the detailed diagnosis of the Credicitrus case study, identifying important indicators for its self-sufficiency. It was concluded that the cooperatives of rural credit should present rates of low default, positive evolution in the receptions of resources from the associates and surpluses for futures investments. It was noticed that the profitability indicator on the net worth should be adapted to the cooperatives of rural credit, for they are not-for-profit organizations. Finally, based from the break-even self-sufficiency indicator that should be rated above one, it is possible to verify whether cooperative is capable of handling their expenditures with their own earnings, characterizing it as a self-sufficient organization, which was verified in the case study. However, It was a specific study, the adapted and used method is perfectly applicable for the other cooperatives of rural credit. Thus, it could be used by other organizations, by the Headquarters and by the Cooperative System as a standard method to analyze the financial sufficiency of the cooperatives. Still as a suggestion, studies of sufficiency of the cooperatives of rural credit in macroeconomic scenery with decrease of interest rates would be interesting, which would generate larger competition of those organizations with the other financial institutions in the country.

No description available.

Peer-to-peer swarming, as used by BitTorrent, is one of the de facto solutions for content dissemination in today’s Internet. By leveraging resources provided by users, peer-to-peer swarming is a simple, scalable and efficient mechanism for content distribution. Although peer-to-peer swarming has been widely studied for a decade, prior work has focused on the dissemination of one commodity (a single file). This thesis focuses on the multi-commodity case. We have discovered through measurements that a vast number of publishers currently disseminate multiple files in a single swarm (bundle). The first contribution of this thesis is a model for content availability. We use the model to show that, when publishers are intermittent, bundling K files increases content availability exponentially as function of K. When there is a stable publisher, we consider content availability among peers (excluding the publisher). Our second contribution is the estimate of the dependency of peers on the stable publisher, which is useful for provisioning purposes as well as in deciding how to bundle. To this goal, we propose a new metric, swarm self-sustainability, and present a model that yields swarm self-sustainability as a function of the file size, popularity and service capacity of peers. Then, we investigate reciprocity and the use of barter that occurs among peers. As our third contribution, we prove that the loss of efficiency due to the download of unrequested content to enforce direct reciprocity, as opposed to indirect reciprocity, is at most two in a class of networks without relays. Finally, we study algorithmic and economic problems faced by enterprises who leverage swarming systems and who control prices and bundling strategies. As our fourth contribution, we present two formulations of the optimal bundling problem, and prove that one is NP hard whereas the other is solvable by a greedy strategy. From an economic standpoint, we present conditions for the existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium between publishers and peers.

Food insecurity in Africa is a threat to future generations because many countries rely on potentially unsustainable food policies. Eritrea's indigenous food sustainability policy has not been explored or analyzed in a scholarly manner. This qualitative case study analyzed the effectiveness of the current policy of food sustainability without relying on foreign food aid in Eritrea. The main research question addressed relates to how Eritrean irrigation farmers understand and implement the Eritrean government's food sustainability policy. The theoretical framework for this study, Kingdon's policy stream, set the agenda for a policy of sustainable indigenous Eritrean agricultural development without food aid. I have collected data by conducting semistructured interviews with 15 farmers who each have at least 7 years' experience providing food for their own families. Data from the interviews was audio recorded, transcribed, reviewed by the interviewees for increased credibility and reliability, translated in to English, and emergently coded and categorized for theme and pattern analysis. This study`s findings contain important lessons relative to advancing food self-sufficiency in Eritrea. The implications for social change across Africa may include informing practitioners and policymakers of the importance of applying appropriate policies to encourage food self-sufficiency.

The concept of community is receiving increasing attentionacross organizations and throughout the entire society.Voluntary association, creation of value, and solidarity incommunity contexts get more and more appreciated and nurturedwithin companies and other organizations. At the same time,lack of community is raised lately by Western sociologists as amajor source of alarm while the large participationpossibilities provided by the Internet are seen as a hope forremedy. This thesis aims to contribute in the area of technologydesign for communities by seeking to gain understanding ofvoluntary community work and to design artefacts in support forsuch work. Community work is studied through anethnographically-inspired approach for empirical observation ofcommunity activity and the artefacts that support it. Fieldstudy of‘voluntary working order’was conducted inseveral voluntary communities: amateur radio and three studentorganisations. In studying such working order, one mustrenounce a set of assumptions that are commonly made aboutwork, starting with the very idea of remuneration as a basicmotivation. Instead, challenge as a major motivation isproposed for work in voluntary communities. To draw inspirationfor future design, an examination is made of the way thismotivation is reflected in the features of technology createdby the communities for their own use, in the working contextsof the field settings. Lessons learned about amateur work are then used and refinedwhile reflecting on amateur-work-oriented design of ITartefacts conducted within a student organisation, with aparticular interest in self-sustainability of participatorydesign practices in such settings. Practices of participatorydesign are re-considered in the context of voluntary work, theabsence of the employer-employee conflict, the challenges andlearning trajectories of the members. As development is done bymembers of the student community, design interventions forself-sustainability of amateur software development aredescribed and reflected upon. A generic approach is proposedfor action aimed at self-sustainability in amateur settings.The socio-technical features that resemble across thecommunities studied and practices experienced are then groupedunder the generic name of the perspective developed in thisthesis:“Amateur Community”. The perspective isproposed as a point of departure for further study and designintervention in similar communities. Comparisons are madebetween Amateur Community and other approaches such asCommunity of Practice. Keywords:amateur, volunteer, community, work, amateurwork, participatory design, software development, challenge,contingency, pioneering, public, personal development,learning, hands-on learning, selfsustainability / QC 20100420

This thesis departs from an understanding that humanity stands on the cusp of a global crisis, caused to a large degree by the lifestyle choices of humans. Therefore, posing the argument that it is changes in human action, behaviour and lifestyles that are needed to ensure that the development doesn’t continue on its current path. This thesis therefore aimed to explore the new green wave lifestyle, which pertains to people who are choosing to face these challenges head on by actively changing and adopting a self-sustainable lifestyle. To explore this aim, the study utilised a theoretical framework consisting of two main concepts, social practice theory and the concept of lifestyles. The thesis used semi-structured interviews to gather data from individuals who actively made the active choice to change their way of living and adopt a self- sustainable lifestyle. The results show that the new green wavers rely heavily on inspiration from others to make their lifestyle change. This meant that being able to see and be inspired by other people’s alternative ways of living was integral for them to even comprehend the possibility of living a different lifestyle. The results also show that in enacting their new green wave lifestyle the participants chose to partake in alternative practices or enacting practices in a different way compared to how they conventionally might be enacted. Additionally, the results show that the new green wavers encounter challenges in enacting their lifestyle, which relates to a lack of available knowledge of how alternative practices are to be enacted but also the challenges posed by society in terms of legislation and bureaucracy.