The Master Thesis of Mosh\'e Flato

The genesis and impact of the M.Sc. thesis by Mosh\'e Flato is analysed. In this connection, the fruitful passage of Mosh\'e in Lyon, capitale mondiale de la gastronomie, is evoked. Finally, some basic elements for a model in crystal- field theory are given as a important step on the way opened by Mosh\'e.Comment: 10 pages, Tex file. Contributed paper submitted for the proceedings of the `Conf\'erence Mosh\'e Flato 1999' held in Dijon (France), 5 - 8 September 1999. The proceedings will be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in the series `Mathematical Physics Studies', eds. G. Dito and D. Sternheimer, founded by the late Professor Mosh\'e Flat

Endovascular Treatment of Ischemic Stroke: Treat the right patient, at the right time, in the right place

The effect of endovascular treatment for ischemic stroke varies between individual patients and is highly time-dependent. The overall aim of this thesis was to increase the benefit of endovascular treatment by optimizing prediction of outcome and treatment effect (Part I), reducing treatment delay (Part II), and improving prehospital triage strategies (Part III)

Uniform rationality of Poincar\'e series of p-adic equivalence relations and Igusa's conjecture on exponential sums

This thesis contains some new results on the uniform rationality of Poincar\'e series of p-adic equivalence relations and Igusa's conjecture on exponential sumsComment: Doctoral thesis, University of Lill

Synthesis and Characterization of Oxomolybdenum and Oxovanadium Complexes

Synthesis and characterization of two different O-N donor hydrazide ligands and their corresponding dioxomolybdenum(VI) and oxovanadium(V) complexes have been reported. The hydrazides synthesized, are characterized by IR spectroscopy and by C, H, N, analysis. The ligands were directly used for metallation with metal precursors having acetyl acetonate groups. One of the acetyl acetonate groups get separated from the metal precursor and carbonyl group of that acetyl acetonate group undergoes condensation with hydrazide forming insitu hydrazone ligand. The complexes formed are also successfully characterized by IR, UV-Vis, C, H, N analysis and cyclic voltammetry

Günther Anders’ Theory of Media and Communication: Developing a Conception of Technological Domination, Alienation and Ideology with Marx beyond Marx

In this thesis, I contribute to the emergent English-language scholarship on little-known 20th century German-Austrian philosopher Günther Anders (1902-1992), whose work is unique for its critical focus on technology. Anders studied under Husserl and Heidegger and was Hannah Arendt’s first husband. He also knew members of the Frankfurt School such as Marcuse and Adorno. However, he gained little notoriety during most of his life and has been described as an outsider of philosophy. In 1936, Anders fled Europe for the United States to escape Nazi persecution owing to his Jewish heritage. He returned to Vienna in the 1950s and dedicated the second half of his life to the struggle against nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War. In this thesis I argue that, despite often being associated with Heidegger, Anders’ experience of the Second World War led him to undergo an epistemological break. He turned away from Heidegger and towards Marx. Anders can therefore be viewed as a humanist-Marxist. His work updates Marx’s view of domination, alienation and ideology, applying it to the question of industrial warfare, nuclear annihilation and post-war consumer technologies. I show how aspects of contemporary digital societies illustrate Anders’ critical theory of technology. I choose two case studies: military drones and dating apps. I show that Anders’ theory can help us understand how these technologies are involved in modern forms of domination, alienation and ideology. I do this by using critical discourse analysis (CDA) to evaluate the written and spoken accounts of military drone operators. I moreover conduct 18 semi-structured interviews with dating app users, which I equally analyse using CDA. According to Anders, modern technologies allowed humans to act absent-mindedly without identifying with the consequences of these actions. This meant that terrible atrocities could be committed without the accompanying moral feelings of empathy and regret. I show how military drone operators and dating app users equally convey the sense of a conflicted identification with their own actions. However, I derive the concept of technological splitting to update Anders’ concept of Promethean shame. With technological splitting affects are not absent but expressed in a raw, overtly direct fashion. They can consequently be compartmentalised and split off from operators' and users' sense of self

EThOS: progress towards an electronic thesis service for the UK.

The EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service) project is building on previous e-thesis (or EDT) initiatives, and co-ordinating the work of some of the key players in the UK to develop a service for finding, accessing and archiving digital copies of Doctoral theses produced in UK higher education institutions. Key issues for the project are the development of a sound financial basis for a successful service, the provision of advice needed by authors and university staff on handling intellectual property rights, and protecting legitimate needs for confidentiality. EThOS will also establish workable and standards-based procedures for populating e-thesis repositories with current and retrospectively-acquired digital versions of theses and associated metadata. These developments must also fit with universities’ own internal administrative arrangements and regulations. The project aims to deliver an e-thesis infrastructure that is both technically and financially sustainable, together with a full supporting toolkit of guidance, standards and procedures

Developing Children's Cognitive Functions and Increasing Learning Effectiveness: An Intervention Using the Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum for Young Children

To prepare the young generation for the challenges of a competitive and rapidly changing world, the education systems of Singapore and in many countries in East Asia are focusing on developing children's thinking and learning skills. This research study examines the effects of a cognitive programme, the Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum for young children, on kindergarten children's cognitive functions and their learning effectiveness. The study adopted an experimental, pretest posttest design with an experimental group of 43 children and a control group of 37 children. The Bright Start Cognitive Curriculum was systematically implemented over a period of six months with the children from the experimental group. The children from the control group had their regular integrated thematic curriculum. The study used a combination of methods to collect data, involving measurements of children's pre and post tests performances on cognitive tasks, analyses of video recordings of teaching observations and teachers‟ feedback of children‟s performances in class. The findings of the research study suggest that children from the experimental group showed greater improvement in all the cognitive tasks from pre to post testing than the children in the control group. The children‟s response to mediation scores in the experimental group were positively correlated with their post test scores. The experimental teachers scored higher in all three essential components of Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) than the control teachers; with marked difference between the two groups in the criteria of transcendence. However, the control teachers scored better in affective involvement, which is not one of the essential qualifying components of MLE

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) for climate regulation in UK farmlands

This thesis aims to investigate the design of payments for ecosystem services (PES) for climate regulation service provided by agriculture. The research provides a better understanding of how agroecosystems can contribute towards meeting the UK’s targets to reduce GHG emissions. The research comprised of three main stages. Stage 1 explicitly models the effect of climate change on land use change decisions and its subsequent effect on climate regulatory service provided by agriculture, under high and low emission scenarios defined by the UK Climate Impacts Programme for the period 2004-2060. This includes a comprehensive study of the contribution of the UK farmlands towards GHG emissions, from both changes in carbon stocks and changes in annual flows as a result of predicted land use change due to climate change. Stage 2 evaluates PES scheme design for farmers’ willingness to contribute towards enhancing the climate regulation as an environmental service. This stage employed Choice Experiment to elicit farmers’ choices for two potential payment scenarios, designed for both arable and livestock farmers. It was found, in general, that farmers have a strong aversion to drastic changes in land use management; however, flexibility in certain scheme attributes and appropriate compensations can help to attract farmers. Stage 3 includes a carbon abatement cost analysis for the two potential schemes and provides spatial pattern of the carbon costs through PES schemes across UK. Marginal Abatement Carbon Costs were estimated by calculating the price of reductions in carbon emissions as a result of the adoption of alternative payment schemes. Furthermore, spatial analysis was conducted to provide a linkage between the cost of carbon mitigation and spatial attributes to identify the most cost-effective areas that can be preferentially targeted through the implementation of PES schemes. Overall the thesis confirms that although the agriculture sector contributes to the annual emissions of the UK, it has the potential to contribute towards the mitigation of these emissions as well and highlights the scope of PES schemes for achieving emission reductions. Overall, it assesses the effect of scheme design and socioeconomic characteristics on the effectiveness of a scheme, in terms of its uptake by land managers. It also informs the policy makers about the abatement potential and cost-effectiveness of schemes specifically targeting arable and livestock farms