Interorganizational arrangements, such as partnerships between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental organizations (GOs), are increasingly regarded by policymakers as critical to effective social sector development. This is particularly true in the arena of housing provision for residents of slums and squatter settlements. The recent pursuit of collaboration between NGOs and government housing agencies in large urban agglomerations such as Mumbai, India marks a significant shift from the adversarial climate that previously characterized NGO-GO interactions. In other words, NGOs engaged in housing issues appear to be evolving from ''housing rights advocates'' to ''housing developers''. However, very little research has examined the struggles and pressures facing organizations as they travel from confrontational to collaborative relationships. This dissertation provides an empirical and theoretical basis for examining the evolution of NGO-GO relationships over time and, in doing so, links research on urban political economy of housing to research on organizational life cycles and strategic institutional change. Two questions are central to the dissertation: 1) How do shifts in state housing policies influence the strategies pursued by advocacy NGOs in housing the poor? 2) What are the factors that influence the emergence and sustenance of NGO-government housing partnerships? To address these, I use a multiple-case study analysis of critical incidents in the history (from 1981 to 2003) of three NGOs in Mumbai: Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti, Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action, and Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres. In addition, I examine five state and city level housing authorities. The dissertation's findings address three broad themes of literature: i) NGO-GO Interaction Styles; ii) Institutional Isomorphism; and, iii) NGO Development Continuum. Findings related to these broad streams of literature suggest that NGO behavior is shaped both by public policy orientation and by internal strategies and decisions. In efforts to gain and retain legitimacy, NGOs will likely use multiple interaction styles both simultaneously and sequentially. Analysis of internal institutional processes in NGOs suggests that organizational responses to isomorphic demands are circumscribed by path-dependent factors and the variability in NGO resource environments. NGO development strategies have evolved towards greater complexity and sophistication. / Ph. D.

Fighting videogames (also known as fighting games) are ever growing in popularity and accessibility. The isolated console experiences of 20th century gaming has been replaced by online gaming services that allow gamers to play from almost anywhere in the world with one another. This gives rise to competitive gaming on a global scale enabling them to experience fresh play styles and challenges by playing someone new. Fighting games can typically be played either as a single player experience, or against another human player, whether it is via a network or a traditional multiplayer experience. However, there are two issues with these approaches. First, the single player offering in many fighting games is regarded as being simplistic in design, making the moves by the computer predictable. Secondly, while playing against other human players can be more varied and challenging, this may not always be achievable due to the logistics involved in setting up such a bout. Game Artificial Intelligence could provide a solution to both of these issues, allowing a human player s strategy to be learned and then mimicked by the AI fighter. In this thesis, game AI techniques have been researched to provide a means of mimicking human player strategies in strategic fighting games with multiple parameters. Various techniques and their current usages are surveyed, informing the design of two separate solutions to this problem. The first solution relies solely on leveraging k nearest neighbour classification to identify which move should be executed based on the in-game parameters, resulting in decisions being made at the operational level and being fed from the bottom-up to the strategic level. The second solution utilises a number of existing Artificial Intelligence techniques, including data driven finite state machines, hierarchical clustering and k nearest neighbour classification, in an architecture that makes decisions at the strategic level and feeds them from the top-down to the operational level, resulting in the execution of moves. This design is underpinned by a novel algorithm to aid the mimicking process, which is used to identify patterns and strategies within data collated during bouts between two human players. Both solutions are evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively. A conclusion summarising the findings, as well as future work, is provided. The conclusions highlight the fact that both solutions are proficient in mimicking human strategies, but each has its own strengths depending on the type of strategy played out by the human. More structured, methodical strategies are better mimicked by the data driven finite state machine hybrid architecture, whereas the k nearest neighbour approach is better suited to tactical approaches, or even random button bashing that does not always conform to a pre-defined strategy.

This dissertation examines streaming media both as a technological innovation and cultural practice that co-configures audience and industry. Strategies and tactics provide a theoretical framework for understanding streaming media. Streaming is theorized as a tactic; wherein audiences momentarily buck against the strategic logic of media conglomerates and copyright regimes. However, streaming, concomitantly, is an audience tactic and a strategic logic of an emergent streaming industry. This results in the blurring between first and third party and sanctioned and unsanctioned streaming. In this dissertation, I parse out what are the nascent streaming logics within this burgeoning industry and how they constitutively shape and re-shape audiences and traditional broadcasting logics. Five typologies of streaming serve as conceptual tools for deepening our understanding of streaming media and technology. The first is streaming as a recent technological advancement, divided into software and hardware categories. The second conceptual framework is a typology of streaming that divides streaming into first and third party sanctioned and unsanctioned streaming. The third is streaming as an emergent industry. The fourth is streaming as a discourse, and the final typology divides streaming based on geography as transnational streaming, national streaming, and diasporic streaming. All of these classifications lay the groundwork for the further conceptualization of this important and emergent socio-technical practice.

Game balance can be considerd complex - there are many factors that play a role in the perception of balance. This thesis examines complexity, game theory and intution in an effort to disconver more about the perception of balance. The findings are that tactical and strategical choices that are presented for a player need to be interesting, not to complex and not to obvious. The importance lies in the estimation of the result that the player does when making a choice. / Spelbalansering är komplext – det finns många faktorer som påverkar det som uppfattas som balans. I mitt verk undersöks speciellt komplexitet, spelteori och intuition i jakten på att gräva fram mer ut ämnet. Denna reflexiva rapport tar upp metod och arbetsprocessen runt verket och mitt arbete på ability-systemet på Lockpick Entertainment. Om de taktiska och strategiska val som presenteras för en spelare anses som intressanta beror både på spelaren och svårigheten i valet. Är valet komplext är det svårare att avgöra korrekt, och taktiska och strategiska avvägningar måste göras. Detta är grunden i spelbalansering, att spelaren har flera vettiga, men inte uppenbara, val att välja bland.

<p>Game balance can be considerd complex - there are many factors that play a role in the perception of balance. This thesis examines complexity, game theory and intution in an effort to disconver more about the perception of balance. The findings are that tactical and strategical choices that are presented for a player need to be interesting, not to complex and not to obvious. The importance lies in the estimation of the result that the player does when making a choice.</p> / <p>Spelbalansering är komplext – det finns många faktorer som påverkar det som uppfattas som balans. I mitt verk undersöks speciellt komplexitet, spelteori och intuition i jakten på att gräva fram mer ut ämnet. Denna reflexiva rapport tar upp metod och arbetsprocessen runt verket och mitt arbete på ability-systemet på Lockpick Entertainment. Om de taktiska och strategiska val som presenteras för en spelare anses som intressanta beror både på spelaren och svårigheten i valet. Är valet komplext är det svårare att avgöra korrekt, och taktiska och strategiska avvägningar måste göras. Detta är grunden i spelbalansering, att spelaren har flera vettiga, men inte uppenbara, val att välja bland.</p>

School consolidation, which involves closing one or more schools and combining them into a single school, is a common phenomenon in rural Appalachian communities due to out-migration and lack of funding for public schools. When school consolidation occurs, the local school may be closed, or students from other communities may be bused to the school. Community residents, however, do not always agree with the decision to consolidate their local schools. When this disagreement occurs, residents may choose to participate in organized resistance activities to show their opposition, make their voices heard to local politicians and the media, and seek an alternative to the proposed consolidation. This case study of school consolidation in one rural Appalachian county seeks to document and analyze the struggle in which community residents engaged in an effort to prevent local schools from being consolidated. Data was collected in the form of semi-structured interviews conducted with members and sympathizers of a resistance organization called TOPS. TOPS was formed in 2001 to oppose school consolidation, but its members were not successful in keeping their local schools open. Many schools in McDowell County have been consolidated or are scheduled to be consolidated in the near future. For example, Big Creek High School, which was at the center of many consolidation debates, will be closed in 2010. Its students will be bused to a new, consolidated high school. I conducted interviews during fall 2006 and spring 2007 to determine community members' grievances concerning consolidation, to establish a narrative of their struggle against state government officials, and to provide a basis for analyzing the movement's failure to achieve its goals. I used these interviews, along with TOPS' documents, local newspaper articles, and literature from other anti-consolidation efforts, to examine possible reasons why TOPS was not successful. Social movements literature, particularly the concepts of framing and repertoires of contention, formed the theoretical basis of this analysis. / Master of Science

Диссертационное исследование обращено к проблеме изучения языковой личности. В работе реализована концепция описания языковой личности как лингвокультурного типажа. Объект исследования – языковая личность шоумена Сергея Светлакова. На первом этапе исследования на основе текстового материала, выбранного из Национального корпуса русского языка, проведен анализ лингвокультурных типажей простака и шутника, лежащих в основе речевых масок С.Светлакова, выявлены понятийные, образные и оценочные характеристики типажей. На втором этапе исследования описаны речевые маски простака и шутника С. Светлакова в коммуникативно-прагматическом аспекте. В работе были проанализированы коммуникативные стратегии и тактики речевой маски весельчака, которую «надевает» С. Светлаков в программе «Прожекторперисхилтон», а также типичного просторечника в скетч-шоу «Наша Russia». / This dissertation considers the problem of studying a linguistic personality. The work describes the concept of linguistic personality as a linguistic-cultural type. The object of research is the linguistic personality of a showman Sergei Svetlakov. The first phase of the work bases on « Russian National corpus» texts. We analyze linguistic-cultural types of the simpleton and the joker underlying Sergei Svetlakov’s speech masks. We also identified conceptual, imaginative and evaluative characteristics of the types. The second chapter describes speech masks of Sergei Svetlakov in the communicative-pragmatic aspect. The work analyzes the communication strategies and tactics of speech mask humorist, which «wears» Sergei Svetlakov in the TV program «Prozhektorperishilton», and typical of the representative of the vernacular type of culture in the sketch show «Our Russia».

The master thesis is devoted to the linguopragmatic description of speech behavior of one of the most authoritative TV hosts of the Russian media space - Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner. The research is based on the concept of confrontational communication, connected with the idea of speech conflict, and the concept of cooperative communication, connected with the idea of harmonization. Two key strategies were singled out in speech behavior of V.V. Posner in the framework of the portrait interview: presentation strategy of the program's guest and self-presentation strategy of the host. A registry of basic tactics were compiled and they implement these strategies in a conflict or cooperative dialogue. Typical speech moves manifesting tactics were described. / Магистерская диссертация посвящена лингвопрагматическому описанию речевого поведения одного из самых авторитетных телеведущих российского медийного пространства – Владимира Владимировича Познера. Исследование опирается на понятие конфронтационного общения, связанное с идеей речевого конфликта, и понятие кооперативного общения, связанное с идеей гармонизации. В речевом поведении В.В. Познера в рамках портретное интервью были выделены две ключевые стратегии: стратегия презентация героя программы и стратегия самопрезентации ведущего. Составлен реестр базовых тактик, реализующих данные стратегии в рамках конфликтного или кооперативного диалога, описаны типичные речевые ходы, манифестирующие тактики.

В диссертации проводится анализ основных приемов актуализации прагматического потенциала при переводе названий фильмов на примере англоязычных художественных кинолент, вышедших в российский прокат. Описываются основные стратегии перевода, анализируется их целесообразность и прагматическая направленность. Анализ позволяет выявить факты непосредственного воздействия названия киноленты на восприятие зрителя, его эмоции и чувства. Отмечается появление различных прагматических эффектов, в частности эффектов оправданного или обманутого ожидания, в результате взаимодействия фильмонима и текста. / In the dissertation the author analyses the main methods for actualization of the pragmatic potential of film titles by the example of English language feature films, released in Russia. It considers the main translation strategies, and analyzes their advisability and pragmatic orientation. The analysis reveals the fact of the direct impact of the film title on the perception of a viewer, his emotions and feelings. The appearance of various pragmatic effects, in particular the effects of legitimate or defeated expectancies, as a result of the interaction of the film name and the text, is also noted.

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