The presence of both narcissism and social capital in the digital social networking site Facebook is altering the dynamic of relationship development. Therefore, the central research question directing this study is as follows: What role do narcissistic personality traits play in bridging social capital on Facebook? From this, two sub-questions are raised: 1) What are the motives for users to express narcissistic traits through Facebook? 2) How is narcissistic-motivated activity influencing social capital development through Facebook? Guiding this thesis are concepts of social tie relationships (as they apply to narcissism), and digital social networks. An exploratory study of in-depth interviews was utilized to conduct such research. A key objective in this thesis is understanding motive and purpose for generating social capital in an online environment. The findings from this study suggest Facebook is a facilitator for the expression of narcissistic traits. As a result, this is influencing the disconnected and questionable value of digital social capital.

Ce mémoire s’inscrit dans un contexte où les inégalités sociales ne cessent d’augmenter. Dans les sociétés occidentales, le fossé entre les riches et les pauvres se creuse de plus en plus et celui-ci influence les inégalités de santé. À Montréal, il existe un écart d’espérance de vie de plus de dix ans entre les résidents des quartiers les plus riches et ceux des plus pauvres. Ce mémoire se penche sur ce phénomène en s’attardant aux liens entre les inégalités de santé et le sentiment d’appartenance des résidentes d’Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. À travers l’analyse d’un corpus de données recueillies par une recension des écrits, par des entretiens semi-dirigés ainsi que par des séances d’observations participantes, des pistes de réflexion à ce sujet s’en dégagent. Après avoir exposé une recension des écrits brossant les principaux concepts utilisés dans ce mémoire, ainsi qu’un cadre méthodologique décrivant la cueillette de données et le contexte de l’étude, la perception qu’ont les répondantes de leur santé, ainsi que les facteurs y contribuant sont adressés. Les inégalités de santé étant comprises au-delà de leur aspect individuel, ce projet met de l’avant l’importance des environnements physique et social ainsi que des dynamiques d’inclusion et d’exclusion sur la création de celles-ci. / This thesis was conducted amidst a context of growing social inequalities. In our western societies the gap between rich and poor is widening which influence health inequalities. In Montreal, there is a ten year gap in life expectancy between rich and poor. This thesis is linking health inequalities with a sense of belonging of women living in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, an area of Montreal. Through datas, gathered by litterature review, interviews and participant observation, we opened up areas to think about our theme. First of all, we write a literature review which describes the basic concepts as health, sense of belongings and social inclusion or exclusion, of this project. The methodology is explained through data collection and the context of the study. After, health is studied through women’s perception and factors which are contributing to it. The fourth chapter is studying the impact of physical and social environment on health. Finally, social exclusions are linked with health inequalities. Consequently, this project is not only understanding health inequalities by their individual aspects.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-27T13:47:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Pinheiro.pdf: 439290 bytes, checksum: 18a6495b703c7e2e818ba94df16529dc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-08-19 / This dissertation is a bibliographic and empirical study which intends to aunch in the academic milieu not only the gift-giving analysis but its role in production and reproduction of social ties as well as its place and importance in the different forms of societies. Based on Mauss theory, gift-giving is in all societies, be modern, be traditional. This theory comprises of a genuine social system, with its own specificities and differences. The present study contains a discussion based on those authors who were inspired by Maussian literature. Mauss argues that the gift-giving is a paradigm which is peculiar to social sciences and he suggests that a societys formed by a primary social rule, that is, the process of gift-exchange for giving, receiving and rewarding. All of them create the cement bonds of social solidarity which are more important than the output of goods. In the light of Mauss theory, this research aims to link his ideas and Procissão do Fogaréu da Cidade de Goiás Cresset Procession in Goiás Town -. It presupposes that the procession is seen as an event which dramatizes the major gift-giving act in the Christian imaginary, that is, Jesus Christ donation to save the world. The procession is a dramatic representation whose ritual reports the bible text, and at same time, the local tradition which is experienced and defined by the people who live in Goiás Town. / O presente trabalho é um estudo bibliográfico e empírico que busca colocar no meio acadêmico, a análise da dádiva e seu papel na produção e reprodução do laço social, bem como seu lugar e importância nas diversas formas de sociedade que coexistem nos dias de hoje. Segundo essa teoria, a dádiva está presente em todas as partes da sociedade, tanto nas modernas, como nas mais tradicionais. Desta forma, ela constitui um sistema social genuíno, com especificidades próprias e diferentes dos outros sistemas existentes na sociedade. Todo o trabalho demonstra uma maior afinidade por aqueles autores inspirados por leituras maussianas. Para Mauss, a dádiva é um paradigma próprio das ciências sociais e sugere que a sociedade se forma a partir de uma regra social primeira, a obrigação de dar, receber, retribuir e que a constituição do vínculo social é mais importante do que a produção de bens. A proposta da dissertação objetiva estabelecer uma conexão entre os estudos de Mauss e a Procissão do Fogaréu da Cidade De Goiás, partindo do pressuposto de que o evento teatraliza o maior ato de gratuidade do imaginário cristão: a entrega de Jesus Cristo para a salvação do mundo. A procissão é um ritual que, narrando um texto bíblico, superpõe, através de sua representação dramática, uma tradição vivida e definida localmente.

A presente dissertação de mestrado é um estudo a respeito das práticas que engendram políticas públicas de desenvolvimento no estado do Rio Grande do Sul. A partir da investigação de um movimento criado pelos empresários, tratase de desvendar a complexa trama que vincula as principais lideranças empresariais entre si, e, essas a autoridades governamentais. Examina-se o caminho percorrido desde a construção, elaboração de demandas, até o encaminhamento ao setor público das políticas do setor. Objetiva-se, por fim, analisar as concepções específicas de desenvolvimento que estão associadas ao processo de construção das referidas políticas. / The present master thesis is a study of the practices which engender public development policies in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Through the investigation of a movement formed by entrepreneurs, this work tries to unravel a complex business affair which ties the main business leadership among them and those governmental authorities. This work also examines the procedure from the construction and elaboration of demands, to the guiding to the public sector, as well as the policies of this sector. We aim to analyze the specific conceptions of development which are associated to the process of construction of the referred policies.

This thesis investigates sociolinguistic variation among highly fluent Slovak-English bilingual women and also long-term immigrants residing in Edinburgh, Scotland. The present study adds to existing literature on urban migratory experiences (Block, 2008; Forsberg, Lundell and Bartning, 2015; Howley, 2015), comparing cross-cultural variation of immigrants' speech with their local peers (Drummond, 2010, 2012; Meyerhoff et al., 2009), by exploring linguistic and social constraints on language attitudes and accent acquisition among bilingual Slovak immigrants. Sociolinguistic interview data were obtained from 32 women, ages 22-46: 20 Slovak immigrants, 8 Edinburgh Scottish participants, and 6 bilingual Slovak teachers of English in Slovakia. By considering linguistic and social factors that influence Slovak immigrants' variation, in this thesis I ask not just whether and to what extent do local language communities shape immigrants' identity, but also how their identity affects their language attitudes and pronunciation. The thesis pays particular attention to how implicit and explicit language attitudes combine to establish what Block (2008) called a "multidimensional" identity in immigrants. Further investigation establishes a link between identity and production (Redinger and Llamas, 2014; Podesva et al., 2015) by drawing on the variationist sociolinguistic methodologies set out by Labov (1966, 2001, 2006). Implicit language attitudes were collected via a Verbal Guise Task (VGT), during which participants evaluated speakers of foreign and native English accents (Campbell- Kibler, 2006; McKenzie, 2015; McKenzie and Carrie, 2018). Explicit attitudes were collected via a questionnaire designed to elicit attitudes in a casual setting (Dörnyei and Csizér, 2012). The combination of methodologies revealed that immigrant participants in the study held complex attitudes and motivations in relation to their host country. The results for language attitudes suggested that long-term Slovak immigrants experienced shifts to their identity while residing in Scotland, with most adopting a transnational identity that made them amenable to local language communities while maintaining connections with their home country. Their identity represented a degree of integration with Scottish communities, but transnational immigrants often felt separate from both home and host countries as a result. The present study also explores connection between identity and production which is now well recognised (Kobiałka, 2016; Regan, 2016; Regan and Ni Chasaide, 2010; Bucholtz, 2011). Immigrant participants' pronunciations of FACE and GOAT vowel lexical sets (Wells, 1982) were evaluated in comparison to two language groups that represented different standards of pronunciation: native Scottish participants in Edinburgh, with more monophthongal pronunciations (Schützler, 2015); and English-Slovak bilinguals residing in Trnava, Slovakia, whose vowel productions were highly diphthongal and similar to Received Pronunciation (RP) constructions. Comparative study of pronunciations revealed that the immigrants' FACE and GOAT realisations were relatively more monophthongal than the non-immigrant Slovak group, yet more diphthongal than the native Scottish group - effectively making immigrant Slovaks' mean pronunciations separate and distinct from both native standard varieties. However, the immigrant's pronunciations varied widely, and data modelling revealed associations between key social factors and pronunciation. Settings of high formality, strong European and Slovak identities, and intentions to return to Slovakia were associated with relatively more diphthongal pronunciations. Decreased formality, strong Scottish identities, and lack of formal education before immigration were associated with relatively more monophthongal pronunciations. Key findings in the study reinforce observations of multi-cultural identities in longterm Slovak immigrants. Drawing on work that explores variation in language attitudes (Clark and Schleef, 2010) and production in migratory settings (Meyerhoff and Schleef, 2014), I argue that there is a tendency for immigrants to shape their multi-cultural identities in response to linguistic and social contexts. However, internal contexts such as self-definition were equally important in shaping identities, which in turn affected language attitudes and pronunciation.

The presence of both narcissism and social capital in the digital social networking site Facebook is altering the dynamic of relationship development. Therefore, the central research question directing this study is as follows: What role do narcissistic personality traits play in bridging social capital on Facebook? From this, two sub-questions are raised: 1) What are the motives for users to express narcissistic traits through Facebook? 2) How is narcissistic-motivated activity influencing social capital development through Facebook? Guiding this thesis are concepts of social tie relationships (as they apply to narcissism), and digital social networks. An exploratory study of in-depth interviews was utilized to conduct such research. A key objective in this thesis is understanding motive and purpose for generating social capital in an online environment. The findings from this study suggest Facebook is a facilitator for the expression of narcissistic traits. As a result, this is influencing the disconnected and questionable value of digital social capital.

Undersökningsområdet är äldre hemtjänsttagare som bor ensamma, där vi har studerat hur hemtjänsttagare blir påverkade av den så kallade upplevda ensamheten. Som teoretiska utgångspunkter används socialgerontologi och gerotranscendens då begreppen vi använder i studien återfinns i dessa båda teorier, samt att vi kopplar dessa till ett socialpedagogiskt perspektiv. Avsikten är att finna en brygga mellan de nämnda teoribildningarna.Syftet med studien är att synliggöra och analysera ensamhet som socialt fenomen för äldre hemtjänsttagare i relation till social identitet och olika sociala nätverksband. Den första frågeställningen som studien vill besvara är hur äldre upplever att vara hemtjänsttagare och den andra frågan är vilka sociala nätverksband som blir synliga och hur det påverkar hemtjänsttagarens känsla av ensamhet. Den slutliga frågan är hur hemtjänsttagarens känsla av ensamhet kan förstås genom social identitet. Studien har genomförts kvalitativt med fyra halvstrukturerade livsvärldsintervjuer. Studiens undersökningspersoner valdes utifrån kriterier såsom att de skulle bo själva och ha daglig hemtjänsthjälp. Ett andra kriterium var att de skulle kunna uttrycka sig muntligt. Utifrån studiens tre begrepp ensamhet, social identitet och sociala nätverksband görs en första analys av det empiriska materialet. I ett andra steg görs analys med hjälp av gerotranscendensens dimensioner och dess innebörder. Resultatet visar att de äldre uppskattar besöken de får av hemtjänstpersonalen samt att det påverkar deras upplevda känsla av ensamhet. Resultatet visar också på ett samband mellan ensamhet, social identitet och social nätverksband. Analysen av empirin utifrån gerotranscendensen visar på en positivt upplevd ensamhet och inte enbart negativ ensamhet. / The field of study is elderly home care recipient who live alone, where a study was made in how these recipients are influenced by the so-called perceived loneliness. The theoretical frameworks used in this study are social gerontology and gerotranscendence since the terminology used in the study occur in both theories, as well as we connect the theories to a social pedagogical perspective. The intention is to find a bridge between the mentioned theories. The aim of the study is to reveal and analyze loneliness as a social phenomenon for elderly recipient of home care in relation to social identity and various social ties. The first issue which the study tries to answer is how the elderly perceive to be home care recipient and a second issue is which social ties become visible and how does that affect the home care recipient´s feeling of loneliness. The final issue is how the home care recipient´s feeling of loneliness can be understood by social identity. The study has been done qualitatively with four semi-structured life-world interviews. The examined persons in the study were chosen by the criterion of that the persons should live alone and have daily home care. A second criterion was that they should be able to express themselves verbally. By the three terminologies of the study such as loneliness, social identity and social ties, an initial analysis is made of the empirical data. Furthermore, a second analysis is made with the gerotranscendence´s dimensions and its signification. The result shows that the elderly appreciate their visits by the home care staff and that it affects their perceived feeling of loneliness. The result also shows a relation between loneliness, social identity and social ties. The analysis of the empirical data by the gerotranscendence shows a positive perceived loneliness and not only negative loneliness.

Network approach is more appropriate measure to describe the early internationalization of born global firms. The focus of our research is to investigate the origin, structure and role of social networks in the early internationalization of born global firms. We intend to investigate the structure of networks which is considered pre-requisite to study the other dimensions of network ties. Many researchers directly jump to study the role networks play without paying any attention from where these ties originate. Furthermore, much of the literature has connected the born global firms with high technology sector however, there are many examples of born global firms in traditional sectors. Similarly, very little is known about how various national context influence the internationalization process of firms. Therefore, we also intend to investigate network ties in the context of different industrial sectors and different level of country's institutional development by comparing born global firms from France and Pakistan.Our results reveal that these small born global firms use their networks to overcome the constraints to rapid internationalization which has been supported by previous empirical findings. The results also reveal that origin of ties is in both business-social or non-business social settings. Both weak and strong ties are found to have positive impact on the early internationalization; however composition of ties is different in low-tech and high-tech firms. We also argue that instead of country's level of institutional development, composition of ties is moderated by the industrial sector in which firm is operating.

During the last years, we have observed a progressive and continuous expansion of human-centered mobile wireless networks. The advent of these networks has encouraged the researchers to think about new solutions in order to ensure efficient evaluation and design of communication protocols. In fact, these networks are faced to several constraints as the lack of infrastructure, the dynamic topology, the limited resources and the deficient quality of service and security. We have been interested in the dynamicity of the network and in particular in human mobility. The human mobility has been widely studied in order to extract its intrinsic properties and to harness them to propose more accurate approaches. Among the prominent properties depicted in the literature, we have been specially attracted by the impact of the social interactions on the human mobility and consequently on the structure of the network. To grasp structural information of such networks, many metrics and techniques have been borrowed from the Social Network Analysis (SNA). The SNA can be seen as another network measurement task which extracts structural information of the network and provides useful feedback for communication protocols. In this context, the SNA has been extensively used to perform link prediction in social networks relying on their structural properties. Motivated by the importance of social ties in human-centered mobile wireless networks and by the possibilities that are brought by SNA to perform link prediction, we are interested by designing the first link prediction framework adapted for mobile wireless networks as Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) and Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTN). Our proposal tracks the evolution of the network through a third-order tensor over T periods and computes the sociometric Katz measure for each pair of nodes to quantify the strength of the social ties between the network entities. Such quantification gives insights about the links that are expected to occur in the period T+1 and the new links that are created in the future without being observed during the tracking time. To attest the efficiency of our framework, we apply our link prediction technique on three real traces and we compare its performance to the ones of other well-known link prediction approaches. The results prove that our method reaches the highest level of accuracy and outperforms the other techniques. One of the major contributions behind our proposal highlights that the link prediction in such networks can be made in a distributed way. In other words, the nodes can predict their future links relying on the local information (one-hop and two-hop neighbors) instead of a full knowledge about the topology of the network. Furthermore, we are keen to improve the link prediction performance of our tensor-based framework. To quantify the social closeness between the users, we take into consideration two aspects of the relationships: the recentness of the interactions and their frequency. From this perspective, we wonder if we can consider a third criterion to improve the link prediction precision. Asserting the heuristic that stipulates that persistent links are highly predictable, we take into account the stability of the relationships (link and proximity stabilities). To measure it, we opt for the entropy estimation of a time series proposed in the Lempel-Ziv data compression algorithm. As we think that our framework measurements and the stability estimations complement each other, we combine them in order to provide new link prediction metrics. The simulation results emphasize the pertinence of our intuition. Providing a tensor-based link prediction framework and proposing relative enhancements tied to stability considerations represent the main contributions of this thesis. Along the thesis, our concern was also focused on mechanisms and metrics that contribute towards improving communication protocols in these mobile networks [...]

Disertantė: Rasa Savičiūtė Mokslinis vadovas: Prof. Habil. Dr. Algirdas Juozulynas (Vilniaus universitetas, biomedicinos mokslai, visuomenės sveikata – 09 B) Lietuvoje tik labai neseniai buvo pradėta analizuoti sveikatos santykis su sociologija, socialiniais santykiais ir pan. Pastaruoju metu visuomenės sveikatos tyrimai orientuojasi į tokias inovatyvias sritis kaip sveikatos kokybė, sveikatos paslaugų efektyvumas, veiklos solidarumas, integralumas, sveikatos politikos elementų diegimas visose socialinės ir ekonominės veiklos srityse. Visuomenės senėjimas, socialiniai, ekonominiai pokyčiai, rinkos elementų skverbimasis į sveikatos paslaugų sferą keičia visuomenės sveikatos būklės ir integralios aplinkos sąveikos pobūdį. Šios aplinkybės keičia ir sveikatos politikos veiksmingumo prielaidas. Jos turi remtis mokslinių tyrimų informacija. Deja, Lietuvoje nėra daug atlikta panašios krypties mokslinių tyrimų. Šiuo tyrimu mes siekiame sistematiškai ištirti ir įvertinti svarbiausių sveikatos ir socialinių veiksnių bei jų tarpusavio sąveikų poveikio visuomenės sveikatos būklei skirtumus ir tuo pagrindu besiformuojančias sveikatos socialines struktūras. Tyrimo metu analizuota subjektyviai vertinama sveikatos būklė, sergamumas, vyraujančios sveikatos problemos ir psichikos sveikatos būklės. Visa tai buvo nagrinėta skirtingose socialinių veiksnių, bei jų integralios tarpusavio sąveikos įtakos srityse. / Author: Rasa Savičiūtė Scientific supervisors: Prof. habil. dr. Algirdas Juozulynas (Vilnius University, biomedical sciences, public health – 09B) In fact, the relationship of health and sociology, social relations, etc., has been started to be analyzed recently in Lithuania. Recently, public health research is focused on innovative fields as health quality, efficiency of health services, solidarity and integrity of activity, introduction of health policy elements in all fields of social and economic activity. Aging society, social, economic changes, penetration of market elements in the sphere of health services change the nature of interaction between public health condition and integral environment that influences it. These circumstances also alter the assumptions of health policy effectiveness. The latter must be based on information of scientific research. Unfortunately, there has been carried out small number of research of similar direction in Lithuania. Hereby, we seek to explore systematically and assess the differences of the main health and social factors, and the impact of their interactions on public health condition and the emerging social structures of health. The research analyzed the subjectively assessed health condition, morbidity, prevailing health problems and mental health conditions. These aspects were examined in different fields of influence of social factors as well as in their integral interaction.