Utah School Counselors: Present Status

This study presented data gathered from Utah school counselors about demographic information, counseling and guidance programs in Utah, certification requirements, future personnel needs, quality and appropriateness of training programs, philosophy of public schools, and needs and/or concerns. A questionnaire was used to collect data from ~50 school counselors employed in the State of Utah. Utah school counselors were found to be primarily Caucasians over the age of 36 years. The majority of counselors in Utah were employed in secondary schools. Caseloads for secondary school counselors ranged from 300 to 600 students per counselor, and caseloads for elementary school counselors ranged from 900 to in excess of 1200 students per counselor. The critical shortage of counselors has justified the employment of noncertified counselors in the elementary schools. On a scale from excellent to poor the majority of school counselors described their school counselor preparation programs as adequate to good. Counselors would like to see the adoption of a comprehensive school counseling and guidance program with the complete support of administrators and school district personnel. Secondary and elementary school counselors were concerned with the community\u27s perception of their duties as clerical and administrative. Young people and minorities should be encouraged to enter the school counseling field, filling the critical shortage need. School counselor preparation programs should be flexible enough to work with teachers and/or interested parties who currently work full time but would like to enter counselor training programs

The Concept of the Populus Romanus in the Late Republic and Augustan Period

This study was undertaken to explore how the concept of the definition of Roman identity changed over the course of the late Roman Republic and into the early Empire culminating with the death of Augustus in 14 AD. Since the 1970\u27s the historiography surrounding the late Roman Republic and early Empire has had to contend with what exactly the populus Romanus and its power basis was. From these questions concepts of power, gender, group formation, and even nationalism have emerged. However, few academics have targeted the nucleus that all of these questions revolve around, how did the identity of the people of Rome, the populus Romanus, change over the shift from Republic to Empire. To highlight this shift in identity I first studied the public orations of Cicero and how he identifies his populus Romanus. After I progressed to studying this expanded populus Romanus within the written Latin works of Ovid, Horace, Virgil, and Livy to demonstrate that the identity of the populus Romanus is not static but rather continues to evolve along with the transition from Republic to Empire. This study is important to the historiography of the late Roman Republic and early Empire because it demonstrates that during the late Roman Republic Roman identity was shifting to incorporate several outside groups of people, effectively leading to the creation of an empire before Empire

The world is established through the work of existence : the performance of Gham-Khadi among Pukhtun Bibiane in Northern Pakistan.

This thesis explores the social lives of elite Pukhtun women or Bibiane in northern Pakistan, with an ethnographic focus on the enactment of particular life-cycle or gham-khadi ceremonies (funerals and weddings). The widely used Pukhto term ghamkhadi both refers to specific segregated gatherings and designates the emotions of sorrow (gham) and joy (khada) which they elicit. In the local understanding, gham-khadi comprises a system of life, in which happiness and sadness are understood as indissoluble, and are celebrated communally within networks of reciprocal social obligations. Bibiane's social role entails preparation for and attendance at gham-khadi, according to a stylized set of performances thought integral to Pukhtun identity or Pukhtunwali (ideal Pukhtun practices). In this sense, the "women's work" of gham-khadi links with another indigenous term, tieest-roý.g ar, which I translate as the "work of existence", and through which Bibiane maintain the fabric of life by sustaining social inter- and intra-family relationships. Ethnographic fieldwork, conducted in Islamabad and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP or "Frontier") regions of Swat and Mardan between 1996-1998 and 1999-2001, suggests the extent to which Bibiane's sense of their gham-khadi obligations underpins their understanding of their personhood. In the process, the thesis unfolds a Pukhtun construction of work divergent from professionalism or physical labour, in which work produces not things, but social relations and transactions. This thesis, therefore, seeks to contribute to anthropological debate on a number of issues. First, it seeks to establish the distinctive sociality of Pukhtun Bibiane in terms of their participation, within and beyond the household, in gham-khadi festivities, joining them with hundreds of individuals from different families and social backgrounds. Second, the thesis makes a case for documenting the lives of a grouping of elite South Asian women, contesting their conventional representation as "idle" by illustrating their commitment to various forms of work within familial and social contexts. Third, it describes the segregated zones of gham-khadi as a space of female agency. Reconstructing the terms of this agency helps us to revise previous anthropological accounts of Pukhtun society, which project Pukhlunwali in predominantly masculine terms, while depicting gham-khadi as an entirely feminine category. Bibiane's gham-khadi performances allow a reflection upon Pukhtunwali and wider Pukhtun society as currently undergoing transformation. Fourth, as a contribution to Frontier ethnography, the thesis lays especial emphasis on gham-khadi as a transregional phenomenon, given the relocation of most Pukhtun families to the cosmopolitan capital Islamabad. Since gham-khadi is held at families' ancestral homes (kille-koroona), new variations and interpretations of conventional practices penetrate to the village context of Swat and Mardan. Ceremonies are especially subject to negotiation as relatively young convent-educated married Bibiane take issue with their "customs" (rewaý) from a scriptural Islamic perspective. More broadly, the dissertation contributes to various anthropological topics, notably the nature and expression of elite cultures and issues of sociality, funerals and marriage, custom and religion, space and gender, morality and reason, and social role and personhood within the contexts of Middle- Eastern and South Asian Islam

Software defined virtualized cloud radio access network (SD-vCRAN) and programmable EPC for 5G

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThis thesis focuses on proposing a Software Defined Network (SDN) based programmable and capacity optimized backhaul and core network which is critical for 5G network design. Cloud Radio Access networks (CRAN) which is key enabler of 5G networks can address a number of challenges that mobile operators face while trying to support ever-growing end-users’ needs towards 5th generation of mobile networks (5G). A novel layered and modular programmable CRAN architecture called Software Defined Virtualised Cloud Radio Access Network (SD-vCRAN) is introduced with Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Network (SDN) capabilities. The SDN-Base Band Unit (BBU) pool is shifted to the programmable core network site, where a centralised SDN controller manages the network servers and virtualised network function entities – Mobile Management Entity (MME), Serving/Packet Data Network Data plane (S/PGW-D), Serving/Packet Data Network Control plane (S/PGW-C), Software Network Defined Baseband Unit (SDN-BBU) and Local controllers (LC) via OpenFlow (OF) protocol. This approach simplifies network operations, improve traffic management, enable system-wide optimisation of Quality of Service (QoS) and network-aware application development. The control plane (excluding the preserved 3GPP standard interfaces: S1-MME, S6a, Gx) managed by the network servers provides load balancing, traffic management and optimisation tools for the data plane. The proposed work starts by reviewing the requirements of 5G networks, followed by discussion on 5G backhaul and core challenge. Then, an overview of CRAN, Evolved Programmable Core (EPC), SDN, NFV and related works. The simulation details of the proposed architecture are discussed along with the challenges faced by adopting SDN and NFV in mobile core. A thorough assessment of the interfaces and protocols that should be conserved or enhanced on both data and control plane is conducted. The result enables an architecture where the SDN-BBU pool shares a single cloud with the programmable EPC and the control plane is migrated from the network elements to a centralized controller, running on a virtual machine in the mobile core. The data and control plane separation removes overlaps and provides better signalling, as well as efficient network functioning to comply with latency demands. The proposed system performance is validated in terms of throughput, datagram loss, and packet delay variation under three scenarios: 1. single policy installation, 2. multiple policy installation and 3. load balancing. The load balancing performance of proposed system is validated comparing the performance of two different SDN controllers: Floodlight and OpenDaylight, where the later performs better in terms of throughput (no bandwidth restriction), packet loss (below 0.3%) and jitter (below 0.2ms). Furthermore, a detailed comparison of two SDN controller’s – Floodlight and OpenDaylight performances is presented, which shows that OpenDaylight performs better only for less dense networks which needs less processing of messages without being blocked, and the Floodlight performs better in ultra-dense network. Some directions and preliminary thoughts for future work and necessary information to operators for building their roadmap to the upcoming technologies is presented

Comparaisons entre groupes, anonymat, et performances cognitives : expérimentations dans les environnements numériques et en coprésence

The aim of this thesis is to study how group identification may lead to better cognitive performance, based on social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). This theory states that the social identity of individuals is partly based on comparison of their group with another group. The search for a positive social identity should drive individuals to act on behalf of their own group, putting them in an advantageous position compared to another group. The SIDE Model (Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects, Reicher, Spears & Postmes, 1995) extends this theory by postulating that anonymity could facilitate the transition from personal to social identity, which is reinforced in the process. Our study was organized along three lines of research. The first two examined how anonymity and intergroup comparison affects performance on computer quizzes and statistics exercises in a web-based learning environment. The third studied the effects of anonymity and intergroup comparison on the generation of creative ideas in the presence of others. Consistent with the SIDE Model, we found that intergroup comparison under anonymity conditions activated group members’ social identity, leading to better performance on cognitive tasks. We also found that individual differences, such as prior knowledge, may moderate the effects of the SIDE model. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier comment l’identification à un groupe peut conduire à de meilleures performances cognitives en s’appuyant sur la théorie de l’identité sociale (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Cette théorie avance que l’identité sociale d’un individu repose en partie sur la comparaison entre son groupe d’appartenance et un autre groupe. La quête d’une identité sociale positive pousserait l’individu à agir pour le bien de son groupe afin de se placer dans une position avantageuse par rapport à un autre groupe. Le modèle SIDE (Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects, Reicher, Spears & Postmes, 1995) a étendu cette théorie en considérant que l’anonymat facilite le passage de l’identité personnelle à l’identité sociale et la renforce. Notre recherche a été déclinée en trois axes. Les deux premiers ont examiné l’effet de l’anonymat et de la comparaison entre groupes sur les performances à des exercices d’informatique et de statistiques réalisés en environnements numériques. Le dernier axe a étudié les effets de l’anonymat et de la comparaison entre groupes à une tâche de production d’idées créatives en situation de coprésence. Conformément aux prédictions du modèle SIDE, les résultats ont montré que la comparaison intergroupe en situation d’anonymat active l’identité sociale des membres d’un groupe et les conduits à avoir de meilleures performances à des tâches cognitives. De plus, nous avons mis en évidence que des différences individuelles, comme le niveau de connaissances antérieures, viennent modérer les effets du modèle SIDE. Les implications pratiques et théoriques de ces résultats sont discutées, et des pistes de recherches futures sont proposées

Metaphors in spoken academic discourse in german and english

Metaphors have been increasingly associated with cognitive functions, which means that metaphors structure how we think and express ourselves. Metaphors are embodied in our basic physical experience, which is one reason why certain abstract concepts are expressed in more concrete terms, such as visible entities, journeys, and other types of movement, spaces etc. This communicative relevance also applies to specialised, institutionalised settings and genres, such as those produced in or related to higher education institutions, among which is spoken academic discourse. A significant research gap has been identified regarding spoken academic discourse and metaphors therein, but also given the fact that with increasing numbers of students in higher education and international research and cooperation e.g. in the form of invited lectures, spoken academic discourse can be seen as nearly omnipresent. In this context, research talks are a key research genre. A mixed methods study has been conducted, which investigates metaphors in a corpus of eight fully transcribed German and English L1 speaker conference talks and invited lectures, totalling to 440 minutes. A wide range of categories and functions were identified in the corpus. Abstract research concepts, such as results or theories are expressed in terms of concrete visual entities that can be seen or shown, but also in terms of journeys or other forms of movement. The functions of these metaphors are simplification, rhetorical emphasis, theory-construction, or pedagogic illustration. For both the speaker and the audience or discussants, anthropomorphism causes abstract and complex ideas to become concretely imaginable and at the same time more interesting because the contents of the talk appear to be livelier and hence closer to their own experience, which ensures the audience’s attention. These metaphor categories are present in both the English and the German sub corpus of this study with similar functions