The aim of this two years master thesis is to explore the relationship between public libraries and deaf adults. I want to know if deaf adults are a prioritized group in Swedish public libraries. Deaf adults use Swedish sign language witch is a visual language and differs from Swedish. I discuss the difference in Swedish Sign Language and Swedish and the importance of Sign Language literature. I also explore what methods can be used for mak-ing the library service towards the deaf group more customer centered and service oriented.The lack of sign language knowledge among the library personnel can lead to communication barriers. I want to illustrate these communication barriers, both psychological and semantic barriers, with Richard Dimble-by and Graeme Burton´s interpersonal communication theory. The psychological barriers consist of negative attitudes and prejudices. In this case these psychological barriers prevent the libraries from further proceedings with the marketing of their service, all based on the notion of deaf being uninterested in library service. This, on the other hand, leads to deaf people not knowing what public libraries can offer and therefor has become some-what of an invisible group in the libraries today.I performed ten surveys on ten public libraries in Sweden and a more detailed questioner to Teckenhörnan in Örebro public library. Thees surveys was done based on the IFLA Guidelines for Service for Deaf People. The result of this survey shows that deaf adults are not a prioritized group in public libraries. The lack of knowledge among library personnel about deafness, sign language and an understanding of the situation of deaf people is an obstacle. It is important to separate deaf from other disabled groups since deaf is more a linguistic minority then a disabled group.

Over the past few years, manufacturing companies have had to deal with an increasing demand for feature-rich products at low costs. The pressures exerted on their existing manufacturing processes have lead manufacturers to investigate internet-based solutions, in order to cope with growing competition. Today, the availability of powerful and low cost 3D tools, along with web-based technologies, provides interesting opportunities to the manufacturing community, with solutions directly implementable at the core of their businesses and organizations. The wooden sign is custom i.e. each sign is completely different from each other. Mass Customization is a paradigm that produces custom products in masses. A wooden sign is custom in nature, and each sign must be completely different from another. Although process planning for mass customized products is same, the tool path required to CNC machine the custom feature varies from part to part. If the tool path is created manually the economics of mass production are challenged. The only viable option is to generate the tool path automatically; furthermore, any time savings in the tool path lead to better profit margins. This thesis presents the automatic web-based tool path planning method for machining sculptured wooden sign on 3 axis Computer Numerical Controlling (CNC) Machines using optimal and cost-effective milling cutters. The web-based tool path planning strategy is integrate with web-based CAD system to automatically generate tool paths for the CAD model using optimal cutter within desired tolerances. The tool path planning method is divided into two parts: foot print (path along which cutter moves) and cutter positioning. The tool path foot print is developed during design stage from the CAD model based on the type of surface to be machined. The foot print varies from part to part which facilitates the mass customization of wooden sign. After designing foot print, the foot print is discretized into points and the gouge-free cutter position at each of these points is found using "Dropping Method". The Dropping Method where cutter is dropped over the work piece surface, and the highest depth at which cutter can go without gouging the surface is calculated. This is repeated for all the position along the foot print. This tool path planning strategy is developed for ball nose, flat-end and radiused end milling cutter for machining wooden sign. The tool path generated using this method is optimized for machining time, tool path generation time and final surface finish. The bucketing technique is developed to optimize tool path generation time, by isolating the triangles which has possibility of intersection at particular position. The bucketing Technique reduced the tool path computation by 75 %, and made tool path generation faster. The optimal cutter selection algorithm is developed which selects best cutter for machining the surface based on the scallop height and volume removal results. The radiused end milling cutter results in highest volume removal which results in lower machining time compared to ball nose end milling cutters, but the scallop heights is higher. However, the scallop height in the radiused end milling cutter is higher only in few regions which reduces the final surface finish. For a sign, it was found around the boundary of logo, outline of lettering, interface of border and background. Thus, in order to achieve higher surface finish and lower machining time, a separate tool path is developed using "Pencil Milling Technique" which will remove the scallops from the regions that was inaccessible by radiused end mills. This tool path with the smaller cutter will move around the boundary of logo and lettering, and clean-up all the scallops left on the surface. The designed tool path for all the three cutters were tested on maple wood and verified against the actual Computer Aided Design model for scallop height and surface finish. The numerical testing of tool path was carried out on a Custom Simulator, ToolSim and was later confirmed by actually machining on a 3 axis CNC machine. The same sign was machined with variety of milling cutters and the best cutter was selected based on the minimum scallop and maximum volume removal. The results of the experimental verification show the method to be accurate for machining sculptured sign. The average scallop height in a machined using 1/8 th inch radiused end milling cuter and using Pencil tool path on the machined surface is found to be 0.03989 mm (1.5708 thou).

My thesis aims to show that Wittgensteins view of rule-following involves a misleading picture of the rule. Since he saw the rule as something fundamentally independent of the rule-follower and something with which the rule-follower must comply, he inevitably became entangled in the paradox of compliance: that is, the idea that there must be something other than the rule-follower for rule-following to exist, even though he knew that there was really nothing there to guide the rule-follower or to measure his action. This paradox, dimly expressed within key Wittgensteinian problems relating to how one is able to follow a rule and whether one can follow a rule privately, eventually gave rise to the question over the social nature of rules. In that debate, Wittgensteins commentators vigorously argued, and continue to argue, whether the concept of rule-following presupposes a community of practitioners or not. I argue that this debate itself is misguided, since both sides in this debate take as their starting point a picture of compliance which sees rule and rule-follower as essentially different. In contrast to a compliant picture, I offer a different picture of the rule, which I will call the pliant picture of the rule. I will show that rule and rule-follower are fundamentally the same, and are related to one another, not socially or grammatically, but genealogically. This relationship of identity is in fact exhibited in the relationship between teacher and pupil, when the pupil becomes what his teacher already is through following his teacher. Although compliance can be said to define this relationship initially, it ends with the pupil learning, or becoming, the rule. To conceive of the rule in this way is to avoid the paradox of compliance; that is, it is to go beyond Wittgensteins picture of a paradox.

This thesis aims at investigating the grammatical relations in Turkish Sign Language (TiD). For this aim, word order, nominal morphology, and agreement morphology of verbs are examined. TiD lacks morphological case, but it has a very rich pronominal system like other sign languages. Verbs are classified according to their morphosyntactic features. With this classification, we can observe the effect of word order and agreement morphology on the grammatical relations. Combinatory Categorial Grammar as a lexicalized grammar encodes word order, morphological case, and agreement features in the lexicon. Hence, it has the tools for testing any lexicalized basic word order hypothesis for a language based on the gapping data. Gapping data based on grammatical judgments of native signers indicate that TiD is a verb final language. Syntactic ergativity seems to be prevailing in coordination of a transitive sentence and an intransitive sentence where the single argument of the intransitive clause or one of the arguments of the transitive clause is missing. TiD also shows a tendency for ergativity in lexical properties such as agreement and pro-drop.

This thesis examines the phonology and morphology of Turkish Sign Language (TiD). TiD, being considered a full-fledged language, has a rich phonological and morphological system, as other sign and spoken languages do. For the purpose of this thesis / empirical data have been collected by means of a corpus study and various data elicitation tasks. As a main result of my study of TiD phonology, I propose a complete inventory of handshapes as well as a set of unmarked handshapes which are unique to TiD. I discuss the interaction between TiD finger-spelling and TiD phonology showing that well-formedness conditions constrain the use of finger-spelled letters in lexical signs I also discuss psycholinguistic evidence that sign languages have phonological systems, among them phonological effects on working memory and slips of the hand In the domain of TiD morphology, I investigate the three main morphological processes: inflection, derivation and compounding. Verb classification, plural properties, compounding, and reciprocals in TiD are investigated in detail. I argue that some TiD reciprocals use &ldquo / reciprocal neutral signing space&rdquo / whereby agreement becomes neutralized. TiD makes wide use of classifier constructions as for plural marking and for expressing movements of various human and non-human agents. The thesis indicates that TiD has its own grammar, including rich and diverse systems of phonology, morphology, and classification. Thus, TiD may have had a long historical development. The comparison between TiD and other sign languages shows that TiD has exclusive linguistic properties. The comparison of TiD as a visual-gestural system and Turkish as an auditory-vocal system helps to better understand the impact of modality on language phonology and morphology.

The aim of this study is to question the relationality between conception of image, social condition of an era and architecture. With acceptance of a transition to a new kind of relationality in contemporary era, a trialectical analysis is carried on, in order to understand changes in this relationality and its effects on contemporary architecture. Image, mainly depicted as the tool for communication, loses its transcendental and ideal status and degrades to an artificial and tricky state under the contemporary social condition. Likewise, current state of both image and social condition manipulates architecture, architectural production and the position of architect. Therefore, in this study, for understanding the new social condition, it is referred to the world constituted as a system of sign in philosophy of French thinker, Jean Baudrillard which originates from new status of image. For comprehension of contemporary architecture, it is referred to the practice of French architect, Jean Nouvel who features special value to image in his architecture. Finally, for consequences of this collision and effects on architecture, it is referred to the analysis of the book of &ldquo / The Singular Objects of Architecture&rdquo / which is composed of dialogues between Jean Baudrillard and Jean Nouvel.

After two world wars, the West European Economy goes through serious recession. Through the cold war, the representatives of west European countries, German and France, feel that they must cooperate. Hence, by the bases of economic co-operations, the West Europe starts to integrate their resources and political alliances. From the ¡§Economic Community (EC)¡¨ to ¡§Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)¡¨, most West European countries go through several obstacles, like the Collapse of Bretton Woods System in 1971 and the European Crisis in 1992,¡K¡K, etc. Finally, in 1th, Jan., 1999, 11 countries of European Union establish EMU and expect to take Euro as their single currency formally in 2002. They also establish European Central Bank (ECB) to execute the Euro zone¡¦s single monetary policy. The status of Euro after 1th Jan., 1999 is the purpose of this study. This article tries to use the Exchange Rate decision theories, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and Interest Rate parity (IRP), to investigate the relationship between Euro and USD. From several statistical empirical tests, it reveals that the trends of Euro couldn¡¦t correspond with the theoretical wants, ie PPP and IRP can¡¦t catch the trends of Euro. By the outcome of ¡§Sign Test¡¨ and ¡§Wilcoxon Sign-Rank Test¡¨, it can be found obviously that the Euro indeed is undervalued from the establishment to Apr., 2000 if we don¡¦t take the transaction costs into account. As a result of the outcome of empirical finds, the article starts to investigate the reasons why the theoretical values from exchange rate decision theories are not equal with real ones. One is that if the empirical models ignore some important factors which lead to the biases of models¡Fthe other is if Euro is undervalued during this observation periods. From the economic macro-environmental analyses, the article can infer that because of the Kosov Wars, Russian economic reform problems, the increase of short interest rate gap between USD and Euro, the different economic reform paces among member countries of EMU,¡K¡K, etc. result in the main factors of the weak currency - Euro.

在知識經濟時代，知識成為傳統土地、勞力、資金之外的另一項生產元素。其次，媒體社會形成，符號的力量和價值提高，有時甚至超越真實。最後，市場導向的資本主義經營方式，使得媒體走向絕對的商業化：以上三點讓包括媒體在內的各行各業出現轉變。身為知識／資訊工作者的記者，其工作性質讓賦予他公眾知識份子的角色，讓他除了在所屬的媒體上生產訊息換取薪資之外，還能夠佔用社會中其他發言管道，將他自己變成具有使用、交換價值的商品。本文亦以台灣電視新聞性談話節目中的記者來賓為例，體現記者運用他本身的附加價值，使得自身成為可被消費的商品。 本文回顧了記者的發展史，歸納出記者在商業化媒體下的變化。然後本文整理知識經濟、知識政治、知識社會的相關文獻，加上符號學的分析，重新討論傳播商品化理論，提出記者（過度）商品化的模式。為了驗證此一模式的有效性，本文分析談話節目的來賓身份和出息次數、談話節目的內容言說及訪談閱聽人，一方面指出上節目記者的商業屬性，另一方面從閱聽人角度點出記者特殊社會地位權力。綜合理論分析和實際觀察資料，本文提出記者商品化的論述，也期待未來能有更多相關的研究。 / In an era of knowledge economy, knowledge, aside from land, labor and money, has become another productive element. Moreover, with the establishment of media society, the power and value of signs sometimes even surpass those of the reality. Finally, market-driven capitalism transforms the media into commercial-oriented companies. The above three phenomena change all walks of life. As an information worker, reporters are granted the role of public intellectual. They not only earn money by producing reports for its newspaper, they also make use of their use and exchange value by presenting themselves on other media channels. The dissertation takes the reporter guests in Taiwan’s TV news talk shows as example. Reporters make themselves commodities by the surplus value they carry. This dissertation reviews reporters’ history and the changes that industry has gone through. The dissertation then deals with theories such as knowledge economy, knowledge politics, knowledge society and semiology in order to re-discuss the commodity theory in communication studies. The result is a model of reporter’s “(hyper-) commodification.” The dissertation applies theories to analyze the background of talk show’s guests, and the discourse on the show. Interviews of the audience were conducted to further discuss the social power of reporters. The above analysis and theories finally give birth to a theory of the “hyper-commodification of reporter.”

The attribution of incentive salience to cues that become associated with drugs of abuse is a critical characteristic of individuals who may be vulnerable to drug addiction. Rodents with the propensity to sign track are thought to be vulnerable to drug abuse. The goal of the current work was to investigate whether sign trackers (STs) would acquire cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) to a discrete cue using an avian species. In Experiment 1, sign and goal trackers (GTs) were first identified using a one third rank order split. Following identification, cocaine-CPP was conducted with a discrete cue in each end chamber. Contrary to previous research, results showed that GTs showed a CPP to the discrete cue but STs did not. Experiment 2 was conducted to determine whether sign and GTs had been misclassified with the rank order split. Experiment 2 compared the rank order method with a t-test method (absolute criterion). Misclassification of both sign and GTs occurred using the rank order split. The findings indicated that use of a more accurate method to identify sign and GTs may have led to different results for Experiment 1. The t-test method may be useful for models that require identification of STs.

本研究旨在重構胡塞爾的意義發生理論與德希達對其的詮釋與批評。首先，透過對胡塞爾文本的考察，架構出其意義理論的三個層次──意義、表達與指號，指出晚期胡塞爾的意義理論不但承繼了此三個層次，更更進一步於歷史性的角度下，一方面探討意義流傳問題所彰顯出的語言與書寫之重要性，另一方面則討論意義發生的起源中，作為形式來源的內時間意識作用與作為質料內容的前述謂經驗。其次，重構德希達對於胡塞爾的詮釋與批評，其詮釋在於利用上述意義理論的三個層次作為進路，闡明現象學如何在此現前域的核心中保有一純粹內在的意義核心；其批評則藉由想像詞語、語言的歧義性與內時間意識的自觸發作用等概念而展開，一方面指出意義結構中各環節之不可分性，另一方面則批評非現前者早已經於現前的核心中運作。除了重構胡塞爾與德希達的理論內容之外，我們將試圖一方面從胡塞爾的角度評估德希達之解讀的有效性，另一方面，從德希達的角度出發，藉著探究其概念操作，試圖指出其批評得以開展的關鍵之處，以及此一批評所引入的新的符號概念。 / This thesis is to reconstruct the theory of genesis of sense in the thinking of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and the interpretation and criticism of this theory by Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Firstly, through the study of Husserl’s texts, we construct the three-level structure of its meaning theory: sense-expression-indication. We claim that the theory of sense in Husserl’s late thinking also inherits the same structure, but his late thinking in advanced discussed, on one hand, the sense-transmission problem, which demonstrate the importance of language and writing, under the scope of historicity; on the other hand, Husserl investigated the origin of the genesis of sense, including the internal time consciousness as the source of form and the pre-predicative experience as the content of matter. Secondly, we reconstruct Derrida’s interpretation and criticism of Husserl’s thinking. By interpreting Husserl’s theoretical moments such as monologue and the core of pre-expressive sense, Derrida reveals how phenomenology has secured a pure internal core of sense in the field of presence. His criticism is unfolded through the concepts of imaginary words, equivocality of language and the auto-affection of the internal time consciousness, claiming on one hand, the indivisibility of the moments in the structure of sense and that the non-present has already worked in the core of presence. Besides the reconstruction of the theory of Husserl and Derrida, we also intend to evaluate the validity of Derrida’s criticism and explore his operation of concepts in order to explicate the critical point which permits his criticism in which a new concept of sign is introduced.