The use of the Internet for civic engagement by the general public is becoming increasingly prevalent, yet research in this area is still sparse. More studies are particularly needed in the area of cross-cultural comparisons of online social movements or online peace movement organizations (PMOs). While it is possible that PMOs in diverse cultures differ in their collective action frames, it is unclear whether PMOs use collective action frames and, if so, how differently they are used. This paper describes a comparative study that examined websites of PMOs in Japan and Israel. Collective action frame is used as a theoretical framework to analyze seventeen websites, identifying the similarities and differences in the ways that online PMOs frame their activities. The findings indicate that these organizations employed various strategies to develop resonance, highlighting the importance of cultural resonance in framing online PMOs in different countries.

This thesis deals with the issues concerning the World Heritage industry. One of the major topics is the international documents that the organisation of UNSECO and their predecessors have been referring to since 1931 in the Athens Charter. The documents are described along with terms like place identity, place branding, historicism, and place construction and analysed in a case study. The case study is the World Heritage site of Mantua in the east part of Lombardy, Italy. Within the frames of these terms and documents the historical route ‘The Prince’s path’ is analysed trough the perspective of uninformed visitors. In the case study the information given in the urban space will be presented along with the changes that have been made in the past century. This presentation intend to relate to the criticality's that the Outstanding Universal Value may cause in terms of how the site may be affected to effects linked to the heritage brand like cultural tourism and knowledge of the specific site. Questions like what kind of information the spectator is given in the urban room are analysed and answered with help of the available information for tourists. One of the problems in this sense is the chosen selection of information that is given, could this selection in any sense be connectable with the World Heritage nomination and is there a conscious mediated image coherent throughout the sources of information?

Education decentralization is sweeping many developing countries, creating massive regional disparities in education access and quality. Fiji provides education through the Community Based Approach, and although it is never referred to as being decentralized, it has all the same disparities occurring. A case study was conducted in the Yasawa Islands, Fiji, to evaluate the impact on surrounding communities of a newly opened (and privately funded) Secondary school. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-14 15:02:00.304

The following thesis is concerned with the way we think of particular objects. More specifically, it is concerned with de re thoughts and beliefs, which are parasitic upon the objects they are about. In ascribing and expressing de re thoughts and beliefs, we employ de re expressions, such as demonstratives and names. There is a pervasive view in the philosophy of language, known as the direct-reference view, that claims that these expressions contribute to thoughts nothing over and above objects themselves. I argue that not only is this view of de re expressions untenable upon reflection on its repercussions for cognitive significance and judgement, but also that the considerations that motivate its genesis rest on a mistaken understanding of the alternative, viz a Fregean understanding of thought that employs a notion of sense. In the first chapter, I present logical difficulties that face accounts of de re belief and a quasi-Fregean response to them. In the second chapter, I focus on two exhaustive interpretations of the cognitive significance of de re expressions on the direct-reference view, and I argue that both interpretations are untenable either because they cannot account for propositional unity, or because they isolate experience from judgement. In the third chapter, I present a holistic interpretation of sense, and argue that it is neither faced by critiques presented by proponents of direct-reference, nor by the difficulties I articulate in the first two chapters. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-21 10:53:33.232

No description available.

The goal of the thesis presented herein is to provide an overview of current issues in auditory display design and to suggest how these issues may be applied to the development of applications for the World Wide Web (WWW). The software developed as part of this thesis, the SprocketPlug plug-in for Netscape Navigator, provides a tool for exploring various auditory display techniques at three levels of WWW development: HTML, Javascript, and Java. / The strength of SprocketPlug is that it enables WWW developers to incorporate interactive spatialized sound as an integrated component of WWW documents and applications. The implementation of SprocketPlug is based on currently available technology: the Netscape plug-in architecture, Netscape LiveConnect, and the Apple SoundSprocket.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This is a case study of peasant farming in Maridi District, Western Equatoria Province, Southern Sudan. The object is to explore the impact and inter-relationship of economic, environmental and ecological factors on the changes that have occurred in 'traditional' farming in the study area. Special attention is paid to internal as well as external forces leading to changes, and peasant farmers' own understanding of the change processes, as well as the externally-induced explanations of change. It is hypothesised that agricultural development in Third World countries cannot be fully appraised without an understanding of the farming knowledge and attitudes of farmers whom it is supposed to benefit. Some basic concepts are reviewed and the hypotheses and methods of data collection and problems encountered are presented, A background survey of the nature of the physical and human environments in which farmers base their decisions is provided. The spatial organisation and nature of 'traditional' agricultural changes and their importance to households' sustenance is noted. Farmers' environmental and agricultural knowledge, and some of the hazards and pressures of agricultural change from the farmers' viewpoint, and how they interpret and respond to these constraints are outlined. The socio-economic characteristics of farmers and the current farming activities and the nature of change taking place, including farmers' involvement in a cash economy, are examined. Emphasis is laid on the adaptive rationality/of existing modes of production and the importance of the web of social and economic networks surrounding the individual farmer and influencing his activities. Changes in the pattern of 'traditional' agriculture in an historical and regional perspective are elucidated. A discussion of the existing patterns and processes of agricultural change, and the diffusion of innovations through the formal and informal channels, and farmers' attitudes and response demonstrating their rationality is shown. In a broad analysis of farmers' world-view, the individual's attitude to farming is studied including the extent of his farming knowledge, his degree of interest in this activity, his needs and problems, land-use trends, and desired changes. A case study of coffee as a cash crop innovation and its socio-economic impact on 'traditional' land-use systems now and in the .future is considered. A brief concluding section summarises research findings and some of the practical and theoretical implications for policy consideration. This study mainly concludes that only by identifying farmers' management strategies, circumstances and their analysis of problems on their own behalf can a development programme and research be formulated which has technologies appropriate to them.