La questione portante della mia ricerca è la verifica dell'eventuale appartenenza dei think tank a modelli di Comunità Epistemiche o Advocacy Coalition. La struttura della tesi rispecchia quindi parte del percorso che ho sviluppato, partendo da una analisi della definizione dell'oggetto di ricerca Think Tank, della sua struttura ed azione, con la finalità di influenzare il processo di policy making. La seconda sezione analizza gli approcci metodologici principali all'analisi del processo di formazione delle politiche pubbliche, mentre il terzo capitolo affronta la ricerca sui casi di studio selezionati: l'Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), l'Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI) e lo European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). / The fundamental question supporting my research is to verify the membership of the think tank to the Epistemic Communities or Advocacy Coalition model. The structure of the thesis, therefore, reflects the path that I developed, starting from an analysis of the definition of the research think tank, its structure and action, with the objective of influencing the policy making process. The second section discusses the main methodological approaches to the analysis of the formation of public policy, while the third chapter discusses research on selected case studies: the Institute of International Affairs (IAI), the Institute for the Study of International Politics (ISPI) and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

The process that consumers go through while buying something is called consumer buying process and has been studied for a long time. Three stages of the Five-Stage Model (Kotler, 2006) provide a starting point for analysis in this paper and the reason of using this model is to make collected data more structured and easier for understanding. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze costumer buying process online.The method for data collection applied in this study is called “think-aloud” that means participants are verbalizing their screen activity and thoughts during the process of observation. The results of this research show that consumer buying process online is a complex process that is influenced by the amount and intensity of information received during the process as well as consumer knowledge and experience on the area of problem. The sequence of the stages proposed by the research model can vary depending on the preferences of consumer and readiness to make a decision.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines the growing debate around the concept of social capital. The concept has been heralded by many as a means of uniting the social sciences, particularly economics and sociology, and of overcoming ideological divisions between left and right. However, critics argue that the concept is poorly theorised and provides little insight. More radical critics have claimed the concept may be a neo-liberal ‘Trojan horse’, a mechanism by which the atomistic thinking of neoclassical economics colonises social theory. I examine these more radical claims by exploring the origins of the concept of social capital within rational choice economics. I argue that we should differentiate between two types of potential colonisation. The first is a form of methodological colonisation, whereby overly abstract, reductionist and rationalist approaches (which I term modernist) are extended into social theory. The second is a form of ideological colonisation, whereby a normative commitment to individualism and the market is extended into social theory. I argue that the concept of social capital has been the product of a trend within rational choice economics away from the extremes of modernism. In this sense the concept represents an attempt to bring economics and social theory closer together, and a willingness on the part of rational choice theorists to take more seriously the techniques and insights of the other social sciences. However, I argue that this trend away from modernism has often been associated with a reaffirmation of rational choice theorists’ normative commitment to individualism and the market. In particular, I argue the concept of social capital has been strongly influenced by elements of the Austrian economic tradition, and forms part of a spontaneous order explanation of economic and social systems. I then apply these insights to the Australian social capital debate. I argue that initially the Australian social capital debate continued an earlier debate over economic rationalism and the merits of market-orientated economic reform. I argue that participants from both sides of the economic rationalism debate used the concept of social capital to move away from modernism, but continued to disagree over the role of individualism. Finally, I argue that confusion between moving away from modernism, and moving away from market ideology, has led some Third Way theorists to misconstrue the concept as a means to overcome ideology.

169 f. / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2012-12-17T20:44:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 5757575757.pdf: 2911611 bytes, checksum: c8e2a74e66ebbe487551d547a0a46a12 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-12-17T20:44:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5757575757.pdf: 2911611 bytes, checksum: c8e2a74e66ebbe487551d547a0a46a12 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / A temática da segurança tem ganhado cada vez mais importância no cenário global diante dos crescentes desafios abarcados pelas transformações econômicas, políticas, ambientais, humanitárias e culturais contemporâneas. Estes desafios contribuíram para alimentar o debate em torno de uma concepção mais ampla de segurança internacional, tensionando perspectivas mais tradicionais das relações internacionais juntamente com novas abordagens que priorizam os indivíduos como centro da análise e ampliam os estudos de segurança para áreas até então desconsideradas pelo viés mais estrutural e geopolítico. Paralelo a essa tensão, encontram-se os Estados Unidos e seu posicionamento na ordem internacional pós-1989, que apresentou e apresenta, por meio de sua estratégia de segurança nacional, uma política externa que tem fortes impactos no cenário internacional, destacando a contínua relevância deste país para o mundo em constante transformação. De modo a colocar essas diversas questões em diálogo, tanto no que diz respeito às muitas dimensões da segurança internacional como a posição dos Estados Unidos para uma arquitetura mundial (tendo em mente que sua posição é efeito de um aparato complexo que envolve não somente os EUA, mas sua interação com os demais atores no cenário global), este trabalho resgata a concepção foucaultiana de governamentalidade, extrapolando este conceito para a esfera internacional através das análises das relações entre saber/poder e discurso. A governamentalidade é definida por Michel Foucault como o “conjunto constituído pelas instituições, procedimentos, análises e reflexões, cálculos e táticas que permitem exercer esta forma bastante específica e complexa de poder, que tem por alvo a população, por forma principal de saber a economia política e por instrumentos técnicos essenciais os dispositivos de segurança”, tendo como fundamento de sua existência um regime de verdade que consiste basicamente no livre mercado. A ideia de governamentalidade da ordem internacional consiste essencialmente na percepção de que o regime de verdade em torno dos mercados aponta para uma série de práticas organizadas, as quais podem ser provenientes da ação de um ou mais atores internacionais, individualmente ou em conjunto, tendo como objeto de atuação as populações e repercutindo internacionalmente. Os Estados Unidos se encontram no cerne da discussão uma vez que suas estratégias de segurança internacional refletem uma razão de Estado que tem no regime liberal sua premissa maior, constituindo dispositivos de segurança em defesa de uma ordem internacional liberal. Esta relação não é construída unicamente pelo governo norte-americano, mas conta com o suporte de importantes atores de política externa nos Estados Unidos, as think tanks, organizações de pesquisa e advocacy promotoras e propagadoras de ideias. Estas possuem um importante papel na governamentalidade da ordem internacional não apenas pela influência que exercem junto ao governo na formulação de estratégias políticas e à opinião pública norte-americana, mas também porque compartilham do regime de verdade defendido pelo Estado norte-americano. Este trabalho traz o exemplo de três importantes think tanks norte-americanas (The Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations e American Enterprise Institute) a fim de mostrar o papel que elas desempenharam na governamentalidade da ordem internacional pós-1989, tendo como foco o próprio campo da segurança internacional. / Salvador

Critical thinking ability is imperative for nurse practitioners in the multidimensional unfolding health care arena. Consensus as to what critical thinking entails has yet to be articulated. This non-empirical study thus set out to clarify the concept "critical thinking. Walker and Avant's (1995) proposal for conducting a concept analysis was used within the qualitative research paradigm. Literature selected from the fields of education, philosophy, nursing and psychology was consulted as the main source of data. Thematic and theoretical sampling of literature were also embarked upon during the later stage of the research to add density to emergent categories and themes. Categories were organised according to the Strauss and Corbin (1995) paradigmatic model; indicating the antecedents, disposition of the thinker, attributes and critical attributes, and outcomes of critical thinking. The findings indicate that critical thinking is a complex, multidimensional, dynamic, existential and context dependent mental operation. The essence of critical thinking is further illuminated by the construction of a model case and additional cases. The concept critical thinking is finally succinctly defined. The implications that critical thinking holds for nursing education and practice are spelled out. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

O Projeto Antimanicomial, com sua intenção de ressocializar o usuário de serviços de saúde mental, enfrenta todo o compartilhamento de sociabilidades que, no pensamento contemporâneo, fundamenta se prevalentemente na cultura científica. Esses símbolos produzidos por sistemas de interpretação do mundo se propagam para o social e acabam por se expressar no cotidiano existencial dos homens. A presente pesquisa intenciona analisar a capacidade da convivência com o usuário de serviços de saúde mental, atuar como transformadora do imaginário social da loucura, defendida por Franco Basaglia precursor da Psiquiatria Democrática Italiana. Para este autor, a reinserção do \"louco\" na sociedade que o excluiu pode se tornar um emulador da tomada de consciência política do social. Para tal, realizou-se um estudo de caso de uma Residência Terapêutica ligada à uma Institutição de Saúde Mental Antimanicomial, em que foram entrevistados a coordenadora do Serviço de Residências Terapêuticas e entes da comunidade que receberam antigos internos de manicômios em sua vizinhança, levantando as narrativas e imagens que constroem juizos e avaliam a loucura. Visa contribuir com o processo de transformação do sistema de saúde mental que, supostamente deveria funcionar como o estopim de uma reflexividade sobre a socialização, subsidiando, através de reflexões, acerca das possibilidades políticopedagógicas das intervenções antimanicomiais. / The Anti-Manicomial Project, with its intention of re-socialize the mental health user, deals with the sociability sharing which, in a contemporary thought, based mainly on the scientific culture. These symbols, created by a world interpretation system spread themselves to the social and turn to be expressed in daily men existence. The current research intends to analyze the acquaintanceship capacity with the mental health user, act as a madness social imaginary changer, defended by Franco Basaglia - precursor of the Italian Democratic Psychiatry. To this author, the re-insertion of the madman in the society that excluded him, can become a social conscious start emulousness. Therefore, a research of a therapeutic residence case, related to an Anti-manicomial Mental Health Institution, which the Therapeutic Residence Service Coordinator and community members that welcomed old mental hospital residents, were interviewed, pointing the narratives and images which build up sense and evaluate madness. It intends to contribute to a mental health system change which supposely, should work as a fuse of a socialization reflexivity, subsidizing, through reflections, the pedagogic- political possibilities of anti-manicomial interventions.

This study reexamines Lakoff’s (1973) claim that women use more hedges than men is true. Because of the vast number of hedges, this study focuses on two hedges: I think and I’m sure. It also investigates how the included hedges are used by men and women to express belief and opinion. The study has been carried out with the help of a corpus called British National Corpus 2014 (BNC2014). From this database, authentic conversations that include these hedges in clause-final position have been extracted. By using the extracted and processed data, a conclusion can be drawn regarding similarities and differences in how often men and women use these hedges and in what context they are used. The results show that Lakoff’s (1973) claim has a certain truth to it, since 63.0% of the valid I think tokens and 67.6% of the valid I’m sure tokens were produced by women. As for the expression of belief or opinion, the results points towards I think and I’m sure upholding traditional gender traits.

An effective health portal should be easy to use and understandable. A number of research studies have been taken in order to evaluate different health portals but there is no such study for ltblekeinge health portal. A multi-phased research approach is adopted to evaluate the usability of ltblekeinge health portal. Authors conducted a usability test of the system where citizens from the county of Blekinge are taken as subjects. They evaluated the health portal on the basis of usability test and a questionnaire is prepared to know the different perspectives of citizens. The authors validated the result with the help of interviews with a number of individual. The authors find it is very important that a health web portal should contain sufficient amount of relevant and useful health related contents. Moreover, there is need to improve ltblekeinge portal in terms of interface, contents and set of tools for accessing the ehealth services and health related information. / En effektiv hälso-portal bör vara lätt att använda och förstå. En antal forskningsstudier har vidtagits för att utvärdera olika hälsoportaler men det finns ingen sådan studie för ltblekeinge hälsoportal. En flera faser forskningsansats antas att utvärdera användbarheten av ltblekeinge hälsoportal. Författarna genomförde en användbarhet test av systemet där medborgare från Blekinge tas som subjekt. De utvärderas hälsoportalen på grundval av användbarhet test och Frågeformuläret är beredd att känna till olika perspektiv för medborgarna. Författarna validerade resultatet med hjälp av intervjuer med ett antal enskilda. Författarna tycker att det är mycket viktigt att en hälso webbportal ska innehålla tillräcklig mängd relevanta och användbara hälsorelaterade innehåll. Dessutom finns det behov av att förbättra ltblekeinge portalen i termer av gränssnitt, innehåll och uppsättning verktyg för åtkomst till e-hälsovård tjänster och hälsorelaterad information.

In this study, the usability of smart phone application store app is evaluated. The study was performed on different smart phone operating systems. Data about usability was gathered through surveys and think aloud based experiment. Anova analysis was also performed on data to identify significant issues. A lot of smartphone users reported issues with installing, locating and searching about apps. Many users had issues with uninstalling of apps and navigating the search results when looking for apps. The smartphone operating system and the app store does not provide seamless navigation and alot of content is not tailored for smart phone users.

V práci jsou analyzovány kořeny, vývoj, současné postavení, hrozby a výzvy think-tanků v České a Slovenské republice. Srovnání s jejich tradicí ve Spojených státech zkoumá přenositelnost amerického "modelu" think-tanků do střední a východní Evropy. Tento přenos je značně omezený a krátkodobě nerealizovatelný vzhledem k rozdílným legislativním podmínkám a nerozvinuté filantropii. Zvláštní pozornost je věnována motivům k vytváření regionálních i mezinárodních sítí think-tanků. Práce vychází jednak z dosavadní literatury na toto téma, jednak z dotazníkového šetření.