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Yes / Blogs have proven to be a useful tool for academics as a tool for education and outreach in the Digital Age, with much written about their effectiveness in the classroom and as alternative means of publishing research. However, less consideration has been given to utilising the blog format for developing theory, particularly for graduate students and early career researchers. This paper will draw on both recent literature and personal experience to explore the potential of blogging as a means of introducing and developing unconventional and radical theory and research prior to more "formal" publication.

This article presents a theory of empathy discovered through rational hermeneutic interpretation within King's personal system. Personal system concepts from King's general systems framework include perception, self, growth and development, body image, space, time, and learning. Propositions for each concept in the personal system were explicated and a theory of nursing empathy was developed. This nursing theory proposes that empathy organizes perceptions; facilitates awareness of self and others; increases sensitivity; promotes shared respect, mutual goals, and social awareness; cultivates understanding of individuals within a historical and social context; and affects learning.

The purpose is to analyze and describe Israel's psychological warfare facing Hezbollah in the years between 2017-2019. The question at issue is: How has Israel used Psychological Warfare against Hezbollah between 2017-2019? This is revised through a theory development using the work of Martin C. Libicki (1995), Ron Schleifer (2009), Paul Linebarger (2015), and Irwin J. Mansdorf (2015), along with the use of the previous historical practice of psychological warfare by Israel. The material is acquired from Israel's different types of social media platforms along with key articles on the subject. This aiming to determine the psychological warfare done by Israel. The theoretical development does create valuable and at most necessary aspects of psychological warfare that would if unnoticed give an insufficient analysis and description of the psychological warfare for this case. The research uses theory application to generate the conclusion and to describe the PSYOP. The result of this work shows the extensive use of psychological warfare by Israel. Between the years of 2017-2019, a massive social media presence from Israel is noted and one can locate a psychological warfare message in nearly everything. Israel put in great effort to influence Hezbollah and the fight for media coverage and news influence is the big focus for Israel.

Building a large library of mathematical knowledge is a complex and labour-intensive task. By examining current libraries of mathematics, we see that the human effort put in building them is not entirely directed towards tasks that need human creativity. Instead, a non-trivial amount of work is spent on providing definitions that could have been mechanically derived. In this work, we propose a generative approach to library building, so definitions that can be automatically derived are computed by meta-programs. We focus our attention on libraries of algebraic structures, like monoids, groups, and rings. These structures are highly inter-related and their commonalities have been well-studied in universal algebra. We use theory presentation combinators to build a library of algebraic structures. Definitions from universal algebra and programming languages meta-theory are used to derive library definitions of constructions, like homomorphisms and term languages, from algebraic theory presentations. The result is an interpreter that, given 227 theory expressions, builds a library of over 5000 definitions. This library is, then, exported to Agda and Lean. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Context: Requirements Engineering (RE) research has established a common agreement on the impact that the quality of requirements has on subsequent software development activities and artifacts. Furthermore, empirical investigations suppose that RE quality defects tend to scale in cost for remediation when left unattended. This motivates the need for requirements quality assurance. Problem: This need has been met with requirements quality research, which abounds with publications proposing writing rules and guidelines that are meant to ensure requirements of high quality. However, recent studies have questioned the rigor and relevance of these publications, which would undermine the practical applicability of requirements quality research: requirements quality is a means to an end and serves a specific purpose (i.e., minimizing the emitted risk on downstream activities), but when this purpose is not met due to lack of a rigor and practical relevance, the approach to researching requirements quality needs to be rethought. Aim: The notion of good-enough requirements engineering constitutes a context-sensitive, activity-based perspective on requirements quality. In this thesis, we aim at both (1) understanding and (2) exploring possibilities of operationalizing this notion. Methods: We employ a mixed-methods approach to achieve our aim. We use theory adoption in order to provide a theoretical foundation for requirements quality research, conduct a survey to understand the level of theory adherence in the requirements quality literature, and perform subject-based classification to generate an overview of theory-related elements proposed in literature.  Results: Through theory adoption we derive a harmonized, activity-based requirements quality theory that frames requirements quality according to its impact on subsequent activities and hence ensures its relevance. The subsequent survey confirms that there is a lack of rigor and relevance in previous requirements quality publications, which likely explains the lack of adoption of the research in practice. The overview of quality factors in a subject-based classification is a first step to centralize requirements quality research for visibility and effective reuse. Conclusion: The notion of good-enough requirements engineering has the potential to re-focus requirements quality research on a more profound notion of rigor and relevance. In this thesis, we report on a first requirements quality theory. Through adherence to this requirements quality theory and contribution to the central repository of subject-based classification, the operationalization of the concept of good-enough requirements engineering can effectively support predicting the impact that requirements quality has on subsequent software development activities in the future.

Many nation-states have their potential for growth hindered by the involvement of developed nations. These low-income nation-states are primarily located on the continent of Africa. There are three parts to this phenomenon of neocolonialism which is the process of continuing involvement of developed nations in developing nations that creates a negative growth in those nations. The research I've conducted is in three parts. The first consists of analyzing the social construction of neocolonialism, how the phenomenon occurs, and where it stems from. The second part is to show how this involvement is damaging to the developing nations. I will use examples such as the multinational corporation profit recycling, the life of foreign aid, and unwise economic deals. As it turns out the phenomena brings on the hindrance of developing in the low-income nation. The last part of my research is to come up with an economic improvement plan. For instance, rather than country A trading money (or some monetary value) for a resource in country B, "A" would build a school, hospital, or infrastructure in "B" to improve the conditions in the low-income nation. It is hypothesized that will leave room for growth in both nations without creating harmful economic repercussions because money would be taken out of the equation.

The purpose of this study was to trace the history of theory development in educational administration in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. While this study deals with the history of theory development in educational administration in the United States, it should not be seen as an attempt to deny or minimize the developments in educational administration that were occurring in other countries. Each successive decade since the 1950s has witnessed an influx of new generations of theorists who have had a significant influence upon theory development in educational administration. During the past two decades especially, the introduction of alternative approaches to theory development and an unwillingness by some theorists to accept what they perceive to be a provincial definition of theory have contributed to the current state of theory development while raising questions about the direction of future theory development in educational administration. A central thesis of this study is that forty years after the adoption of a theoretical foundation (which was intended to eliminate confusion and achieve agreement among professors, practitioners, and theorists), there is as much confusion and lack of agreement surrounding theory development in educational administration as there was at the inception of the Theory Movement. The author of this study has concluded that the history of theory development in educational administration supports that thesis. A second thesis of this study is that theory development in educational administration could be enhanced by taking advantage of what Laudan (1977) referred to as a research tradition, which was imported into educational administration from the social sciences. In the author's opinion, the study provides sufficient support for this thesis. The third thesis of this study is that scientific inquiry does not exist in isolation from cultural influences. While the study seemed to confirm the thesis, the author has acknowledged that much more research would need to be done before this thesis could be accepted. / Ph. D.

This work sought to explore, evaluate and then improve the process of development for personal Military Load Carriage Equipment (MLCE), such as rucksacks. It was suspected that current MLCE had a number of user interaction deficiencies which should have been addressed during development. Three research questions were posed to determine: the influences on MLCE development, what needed improvement in MLCE development and how MLCE development could be improved. The work was based on eight studies conducted in three phases: the first to explore MLCE development and the observed deficiencies, the second to evaluate MLCE development, and the third to improve it. The chosen research strategy was henomenological, using a grounded theory methodology within which phenomena could emerge. Grounded theory approaches were adopted for this research because they were the best way in which to access the design domain. The research was framed within cycles of reflective action research to enable the researcher to re-orientate the enquiry to make the best use of the research opportunities that arose from the organisational context in which the research was sited. An initial investigation into the development of in-service equipment was done via a comparative case study, using documentary analysis and interviews with authorities in the field. Through this investigation it became clear that MLCE development was based on heuristics and tacit knowledge of manufacturing techniques, and collaboration between professional groups, including: materials / manufacturing, human systems, project management and military personnel. Deficiencies within MLCE development, determined through the comparative study, were validated against current practice through a further case study and additional evaluations. A comparison of outputs from these studies was then reviewed in a grounded manner to gain a holistic understanding of MLCE development. The interaction and importance of the various influences on MLCE development was then better understood, in particular the inadequate understanding of MLCE user needs, and requirement specification. To refine the possible avenues and target audience for an improvement of MLCE development stakeholder interviews were undertaken to develop a better understanding of how military user needs were gathered and applied. Following the interview survey, a tool was developed to analyse video and audio data of soldiers operating with MLCE on current operations. The tool was then reviewed by a panel of MLCE developers and stakeholders. The panel thought that the tool had a number of benefits to MLCE development: improving understanding of soldier environments, improved quality and reliability of information used in development, and as a conduit for concept evaluation. The research has provided a novel perspective on MLCE development, and provided a number of avenues upon which subsequent research could focus. The research has been able to make original contributions to understanding, albeit in a manner limited by the methodologies used.

This dissertation analyses the contribution that Amartya Sen’s idea of justice can make to inform development policies. Particularly, it examines to what extent Sen succeeds in presenting a useful theoretical framework for orienting political action towards justice-enhancing change. In The Idea of Justice (2009), Sen argues that ideal theories of justice which aim at identifying the nature of a perfectly just society—what he calls ‘transcendental’ theories—are not appropriate either for examining prevalent injustices or for rectifying them. Sen therefore proposes a ‘comparative framework’ of justice capable of providing useful practical guidance to advance justice or reduce injustice, a task for which ‘transcendental’ Rawlsian-like theories are redundant. This dissertation critically assesses these two claims advanced by Sen. Taking John Rawls’ Theory of Justice as an illustration, it argues that ideal theories are indeed essential, even if not sufficient, for the reduction of injustice. Therefore, it advances that it is necessary to complement ideal and nonideal approaches to justice. It then advocates for a ‘dual Rawlsian/Senian framework’. Yet this dissertation argues that, even if coupled with an ideal theory, Sen’s nonideal theory remains insufficient to orient injustice-reduction actions because it fails to take into account the overarching social nature of injustice and its perpetuation. In the light of this shortcoming, this dissertation stresses the need to conceptualise injustice as something different from simply the lack of justice and to understand it in a more dynamic and relational way. Ultimately, this implies further complementing a dual framework with a broader conceptualisation of injustice. The dissertation illustrates this argument with the social policy of Oportunidades in Mexico. It concludes that, in order to create a more just society, injustice-reduction policies need to go beyond the removal of capability-deprivations and address the ways in which injustice is reproduced through social interactions.