It is now over twenty years since the criminal trials of two women caught the attention of the British media. Sandra Craddock (later Smith) and Christine English both raised a successful defence of diminished responsibility based on premenstrual syndrome to a murder charge. In these cases the Court of Appeal apparently determined that PMS is a factor that can limit criminal responsibility. Although this thesis concentrates on the situation as it exists in English law, many of its conclusions are equally relevant to other legal systems, particularly those in common law jurisdictions. / The issues that are likely to arise in a criminal trial in which a defendant wishes to base a substantive defence on premenstrual syndrome can be condensed into five central questions: (i) Does premenstrual syndrome exist at all? (ii) If so, does the defendant suffer from the condition? (iii) Did PMS cause or contribute to the defendant's actions? (iv) If the answer to (iii) is yes, should the act be excused? (v) If so, under what category of excuse? This thesis will discuss the way in which these questions might best be approached. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This study used combined methods of observations, interviews and document analysis to understand issues related to aging in Indonesia. The study describes relevant policy and practices for older persons in Indonesia, and discusses major social issues of poverty, the need for social security, and ambivalent views of older people in Indonesian society. While the Social Department Affair (Depsos) has pioneered in providing initiatives for older persons, the benefits of these supports are often limited (e.g., formal sector, urban areas). Complexities of the emphasis on family caregiving, constrained government budgets, and social stigma (e.g., "the last priority") mean that older people do not necessarily receive appropriate support from government and society. The role of religion, culture and gender in shaping aging issues are specifically discussed. It would seem that improving the lives of older people in Indonesia requires a social work approach drawing on outside examples while maintaining local tradition.

Five studies examined the possible influence of the sexual double standard on women's contraceptive behavior via sexual attitudes and social norms. In Study 1, longitudinal diary data from a community sample of 62 women showed that women's contraceptive behavior in ongoing sexual relationships was quadratically associated with sexual attitude. Study 2 showed that contraceptive behavior in initial and ongoing sexual encounters differed significantly in a sample of 52 university women. In initial encounters there was a greater reliance on condoms and a greater risk of unprotected intercourse. Studies 3, 4 and 5 used a person perception paradigm to examine women's perceptions of a female contraceptive provider in an initial sexual encounter. In Study 3, 57 women rated a female condom provider in a casual encounter as less nice, less socially acceptable, and her behavior as less appropriate than when her partner provided a condom. However, the target was rated as less wise if she had unprotected intercourse. In Study 4 (N = 249), a pill condition was added and the influence of sexual attitudes was assessed. Relative to when her partner provided a condom, women rated the target as less wise and less nice if she was on the pill, but they rated her as more wise when she provided a condom. Negative sexual attitudes were associated with more negative reactions but generally did not interact with contraceptive condition. In Study 5, 96 women rated the target as a function of who provided a condom (her vs. him) and four properties of the romantic relationship. Providing a condom did not result in negative evaluations in a committed relationship. In a non-committed relationship, when the woman provided a condom she was perceived as less nice but more wise. Furthermore, women used intimacy as a cue for commitment, but did not perceive intimacy alone as adequate justification for intercourse. The results of these five studies suggest that social norms may exist which discourag

Conceptualizing the locality today in the global context means to be able to consider a level of denationalisation of the actor (of a locality) participating in a networked situation with actors from other localities. This thesis introduces a new conceptualization of the locality participating in a transnational network. The network, CEARENAD, involved six localities (Brazil, Chili, Costa-Rica, Senegal, Mauritius and Canada) who co-constructed contents for five years. This research is about presenting not a "mode d'emploi" about whether this particular network was successful or not. What truly motivated me, during and about this research, was to reflect on my observations of this network to build a new conceptualisation about the intertwinments of a locality and another space. This is what this thesis is about. "La sedimentation du passage" renders a rigorous description of the numerous processes which bring the locality to the front line. / This study shows the description (Latour: 1987, 1999) of the participative actions of the actors involved in the network. The sedimentation of the passage reveals the repercussions of the mediations between the localities. This theorization activates, in other ways, the denationalization of actors, and, adds to the cultural construct of the network as well as to the possibilities of the Politic (Sassen: 2006). / This is an example of a networked knowledge production while, at the same time, and this may be of most importance, it is also an example of how today's reading of the locality deepens the necessity of participative actions in the mediations and mediatizations (Darbellay: 2006) of materialities in the contemporary globalization. The sedimentation of the passage allows one to read what circulation(s) are actually chosen to be materialized in and for the locality.

Transition to motherhood is an on-going developmental process that requires adaptation or change in restructuring behavior and role identity. When living in a foreign culture, women's challenges are increased exponentially because of bi-cultural conflicts and the presence of limited support. The purpose of this study was to describe the essential structure of the lived experience of the childbirth experience in Hawaii for expatriate Japanese women who were transitioning to motherhood. The research design was descriptive, using a phenomenological approach reflected in Colaizzi's method. A sample consisted of 10 Japanese expatriate women. Major findings of this study consisted of four Theme Categories: Challenges Living Overseas, Challenges of Motherhood, Reaching the Goal of Motherhood, and Relationship with Others. In the essential structure of the lived experience ofthe childbirth in Hawaii, the expatriate Japanese women experienced difficulties in their childbirth process, but as a result they understood their parents' values and also identified themselves as worthwhile individuals through the separation from family during the childbearing process. The new contribution of this study to nursing knowledge was the importance of family for women giving birth in a foreign country. The results of this study reflected the conceptual orientation, transition: a middle-range theory. The experience provided an opportunity for them to reflect their lives and to find the direction needed for their growth and transformation to successful parents. The women rebuilt the relationships with their husbands and further deepened their marital bonds.

<p>The aim of the present study was to explore the subjective experiences and perceptions of mothers diagnosed with depression. The study investigated mothers' understandings of the extent to which their illness had impacted on their appraisal of their mothering and associated roles within the family. Furthermore, it investigated mothers' coping skills with regard to their illness.</p>

The purpose of this research is to create a method and measure the influence of fictional film media in potential tourists� destination decision-making, using a quasi-experimental method. Film tourism researchers have implied that film plays a direct role in generating tourism. In this research, however, it is proposed that film plays an indirect role through the construction of meaning of place, and therefore destination awareness, availability and evaluation. A two-part multiphase quasi-experimental method was created and implemented to identify change in a destination�s image due to watching a film. Part One. was qualitative in nature and implemented to discover destination image attributes (evaluative components and decision-making factors) used in destination selection (survey n=202, in-depth interviews n=10). Part One concluded with the compilation of a list of relevant, clear and efficient attributes for Part Two. The list maintained sufficient diversity to define destination image, and was composed of 21 decision-making factors and 40 evaluative components. Part Two then measured the destination�s image, and change in that image due to watching a feature film (pre and post survey n=67). Change in this quasi-experimental method was assessed by the importance of the attributes being measured, the influence of the film on these attributes and most importantly the combined effect of the film on these attributes. The Vertical Ray of the Sun, a film set in Vietnam, was used to apply and test this innovative quasi-experimental method. The application assessed not only the effect of the film on Vietnam�s image, but also the applicability of the method. The film positively influenced the respondents� image of Vietnam. The film had a measured effect on more than half of the attributes. That noted, the actual number of attributes affected to the marked level were 17 out of 61 for the difference in means and only 11 for the eta� value. Consequently, whilst the film positively affected the image of Vietnam, most of the attributes still needed significant change to modify tourism demand. The thesis importantly contributed to the study of destination image methodologically by asserting the need to assess the importance, influence and effect. This new method can and should be implemented to assess and monitor the effects of many events. This research also contributed by introducing a quasi-experimental cumulative importance-influence measure of effect. The contribution was highlighted in that those attributes with a large influence did not always have a large effect on the destination�s image. Neither performance by itself, nor importance by itself, can be used as a final effect measure. Finally, this research supports other film-induced tourism studies: film does influence destination image. As presented in more recent studies film-tourism is more likely to be an incidental experience than a reason to visit a place. These more recent studies too may underplay the role of film by focusing on film as an attraction or activity, rather than its role in the actual decision to visit. This research has contributed to film tourism research by highlighting that film can still play a role in the decision-making process, even though it may not be an attraction or a desired experience in itself.

Aristotle's metaphor for economic relations was the household. Although the household is engaged in the material activities of internal production, consumption and exchange which are economic, its fundamental connections are social. Social dynamics, including care, respect, authority, loyalty, charity and self-restraint are the motivations within the household. These are all virtues in Aristotelian terms and can be grouped under the more general social virtue of solidarity which is the intention to act in support and draw closer to the other in relationship in such a way as to become more perfectly human. An economics based on this family metaphor will be socially grounded, it is social economics. A key identifier of social economics is its capacity to realise the common good. This thesis is an examination of the contribution of property in land to the common good leading to the identification of the location of land within social economics. An Aristotelian methodology has been adopted for this thesis, following an examination of its component parts and comparison with alternative methodologies. While the defense of the methodology is not exhaustive, it is sufficient to provide reasonable justification of Aristotelian realism and point out some of the shortcomings of competing approaches. Aristotelian realism is accepted as employing an acceptance of essences, the validity of abstraction, and the importance of observation. Contrasted to positivism, Aristotelian realism accepts knowledge that is not simply observation-based, especially the possibility of the knowledge of essences. Property theory has been reviewed. This includes ancient positions on property as well as modern. Islamic property theory has been included in the review in order to broaden the cultural base. Ancient Western property theories have been been shown to be divided between simple acceptance of the fact of private ownership, especially evident in Roman law and early modern practice, and a more complex theory of ownership first articulated by Aristotle. Aristotle's theory of ownership was a dual principle of private ownership but common use. The Aristotelian position was developed by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Medieval period. St. Thomas recognised that property in external property was naturally for common use but privately owned by convention. John Locke attempted a labour based theory of absolute private property and Adam Smith returned to the positive fact of possession. The Islamic position straddled the Lockean and Thomistic. Modern property theory is a development of the Smithian identification property as a fact of society. Apart from the institution of individual private property in land, several other economic institutions mark modern Western economics. The most important of these is the free market. The theoretical foundations of the free market have been examined and have been found to be based on moral foundations. The components of market theory have been reviewed and significant shortcomings have been revealed. The theory of supply has been found to contradict practice and the commonly portrayed market functions that are asserted to depict market behaviour in efficient circumstances have been shown be in error. Capitalisation has also been reviewed and its dependence on the risk-free real rate of return on money loans has been explored. The moral problem of usury has been introduced and linked to capitalisation, but not taken beyond recognition and defense of the fact that it is a social artifact rather than a product of economic forces. The critical factor in the operation of the market was shown to be its inclusion of demand in the development of prices. In the absence of theoretical support, the acceptability of the market was tested empirically by surveying attitudes to demand based pricing. Three hundred and forty Sydney home-owners were asked ten questions regarding situations where prices and profits were linked to demand or price. The data was analysed and found to lend support to the hypothesis that demand-based pricing did not have community support. A general theory of property was constructed from human nature and the nature of land. It was then used to develop an ethical structure for the pricing of wages, land and products. It was argued that property rights in labour were fundamentally different to property rights in land, the former being natural and the latter being conventional. It was also evident that the market was an inappropriate instrument for the determination of wages, but appropriate for the determination of commodity prices. Land was recognised to be the gap between wage price and commodity price. Ricardo's rent theory was reviewed as a mechanism for pricing land income. Various aspects and implications were considered and it was recognised that in a closed land market the returns to land competed with the return to labour in a manner that was better explained in political terms than economic. Despite its importance in social economy, the operation of Ricardian rent theory is obscured other mediating factors. It has also been used as the central theory in a protracted political debate over the taxation of land. Both of these issues have contributed to the the marginalisation of interest in rent theory and a degree of suspicion as to its validity. A behavioural experiment was run to examine the validity of Ricardian rent theory within the confines of its own assumptions, which are basically those of an efficient market and the recognition that land has varying productivity. The results of the experiment lent strong support to the theory but highlighted the conventional nature of the return to labour. One of the shortcomings of Ricardian rent theory is its assertions regarding subsistence wages, and there was evidence in the experiment that did not support this aspect of the theory. The significance and construction of subsistence wages were specifically reviewed and also other sources of economic rents. An analysis of non-land economic rents revealed that they were either land-like, transient or politically maintained. A theory of supply was developed from a rent base that was argued to be causally accurate and returned a monotonic upward curve consistent with practical observation. The implications of the political economy of the findings were reviewed. Some major traditions in economics interpreted in terms of the ethical issues revealed. The thesis concluded that many cultural resolutions of the property problem are possible, however they must conform to ethical fundamentals that may be paraphrased in the notion of solidarity. Suggestions for possible corrections or improvements to specific existing practices and policies were developed.

The principal critical theme of Lost Causes is that the cultural realm of a society is imbued with ideological connotations. This is not to argue that a cultural field like Australian cinema, which is the ground from which I draw my principal examples, is an extension of the socio-political viewpoint of whatever government or class interests are in power. Rather, I distinguish such hegemonic practice from the presence of ideological causality in cinema in order to emphasize the hidden, because subliminal, nature of ideology. Thus ideology is a kinetic function of any society. It provides a framework within which citizens define their relationships to the social reality within which they live. The subject does not exist outside of ideology.

Circus is increasingly being used as a developmental and remedial activity for children. However, it is in the paradoxical nature of circus that it operates in a way both mysterious and easily accessible. This thesis proposes that circus as education is more effective when both teacher and student have a better understanding of circus as an art form. To explain this I first introduce six 'elements' of childhood, whose absence often seems to result in an incomplete personal maturity. Ith en conduct a wide exploration of both the real and the imagined circus, showing how these elements occur or are evoked there, and I establish a correspondence or 'homology' between the two entities - childhood and circus. The discoveries shed light on the aesthetic code of circus itself, leading to the conclusion that circus works as an artform because its essentialcomposition recalls profound experiences of childhood. I argue that contemporary Western childhood presents unexpected hazards, mostly involving passivity and over-protection. I n other parts of the world, and in some Western populations, childhood has other problems, linked to deprivation, exploitation and physical danger. I n either case, a child involved in circus activities has a chance to make good some deficits, by experiencing constructive physical risk, aspiration, trust, fun, self-individuation and hard work. My hope is that this dissertation will contribute some strength to the case for well-designed programmes of circus activities for young people,in both formal and informal settings.