Citizenship learning and management in the participatory budget of brazilian municipalities

L'interès actual per temes relacionats amb l'aprenentatge i el desenvolupament ciutadà no és accidental. El baix nivell d'"implicació" dels ciutadans fa tremolar les bases del sistema democràtic, i això és objecte de preocupació en diversos camps del coneixement. L'aprenentatge a través de la participació ciutadana està relacionat amb les ciències de l'Administració en diferents aspectes. L'aspecte de gestió es pot identificar en l'administració del propi govern; l'aspecte de l'aprenentatge organitzacional es troba en els estudis sobre les característiques dels contextos que creen un clima d'aprenentatge, cosa que promou el desenvolupament. La comprensió d'aquests aspectes a través de l'epistemologia proposada, la teoria crítica, aporta nous coneixements a la ciència administrativa. La teoria crítica assumeix l'interès de l'emancipació de la ciència, és a dir, l'acció humana i social hauria de ser orientada per la bondat, la humanitat i la racionalitat. En coherència amb aquesta orientació i amb el nivell individual d'anàlisi, la tesi considera dos marcs teòrics: les psicologies humanista i existencialista. En conseqüència, la recerca fenomenològica és el mètode de recerca. Aquest mètode permet respondre a les preguntes de recerca: "si" s'aprèn, "què" s'aprèn, "quines" eines de gestió s'utilitzen, "com" s'utilitzen i "per què" el que s'aprèn s'aprèn. Aquesta particular comprensió epistemològica i el mètode que en resulta suggereixen utilitzar eines metodològiques convergents o de bricolatge. Les eines metodològiques que suporten el bricolatge són: observacions, entrevistes i focus groups com a font de dades primàries, i la revisió de la documentació com a dades secundàries. S'analitza que els pressupòsits participatius són subaccions de l'acció democràtica formats per intencions, plans i actes representats per diverses pràctiques de recursos humans. A més, s'entén que les característiques participatives del diàleg entre iguals, del respecte envers opinions divergents, de presa de decisions per consens en les reunions de grup successives, entre d'altres, fomenten l'autoreflexió sobre les lleis del funcionament social i individual, la qual canvia l'estat de no-reflexió de la consciència cap a un nou estat i, d'aquesta manera, s'esdevé l'aprenentatge ciutadà.El presente interés por temas relacionados con aprendizaje y desarrollo ciudadano no es accidental. El bajo "involucrarse" por parte de los ciudadanos hace temblar las bases del sistema democrático lo que conlleva a una preocupación en distintos campos del conocimiento. Aprendizaje a través de la participación ciudadana está relacionado con las Ciencias de la Administración en diferentes aspectos. El aspecto de gestión puede ser identificado en la administración del propio gobierno, el aspecto de aprendizaje organizacional se encuentra en los estudios sobre las características de los contextos que crean un clima de aprendizaje lo cual promueve desarrollo. La comprensión de estos aspectos a través de la epistemología propuesta, la teoría crítica, añade nuevo conocimiento a la Ciencia Administrativa. La teoría crítica asume el interés de emancipación de la ciencia, es decir, la acción humana y social debería de estar orientada por la bondad, la humanidad y la racionalidad. En coherencia con esa orientación y con el nivel individual de análisis, la tesis considera dos marcos teóricos: las psicologías humanista y existencialista. En consecuencia, la investigación fenomenológica es el método de investigación. El método posibilita la contestación de las preguntas de investigación: "si" se aprende, "qué" se aprende, "cuáles" herramientas de gestión son utilizadas, "cómo" son utilizadas, y "porqué" lo que se aprende se aprende. Esa particular comprensión epistemológica y resultante método sugiere el uso de herramientas metodológicas convergentes o bricolage. Las herramientas metodológicas que soportan el bricolage son: observaciones, entrevistas y grupos focales como fuente de datos primarios; y, revisión de documentación como datos secundarios. Se analiza que los presupuestos participativos son sub-acciones de la acción democrática compuestos por intenciones, planes y actos representados por distintas prácticas de recursos humanos. Además se entiende que las características participativas del diálogo entre iguales, del respeto hacia opiniones divergentes, de la toma de decisión por consenso en las sucesivas reuniones grupales, entre otras, fomentan la auto-reflexión sobre las leyes del funcionamiento social e individual la cual cambia el estado de no-reflexión de la conciencia hacia un nuevo estado, ocurriendo, de esa manera, el aprendizaje ciudadano.The thesis is concerned with the declining tendency of citizenship participation which threatens the democratic system. For that reason it studies successful participatory situations in which citizens learn and develop citizenship. Citizenship learning and development, as a phenomenon, are analysed from a Critical view of science and derivate existential and humanistic framework to learning and organizational. A democratic, participatory and deliberative situation that reflects the emancipatory interest of a good, humane and rational social action is the participatory budget of Brazilian municipalities. Learning, Organizational Learning and Human Resources Management are disciplines elected to set the theoretical framework to analyse the problem. From this epistemological view, research setting and scope, a methodological bricolage is built. The methodology follows the procedures of the phenomenological research which is supported by the triangulation of the methodological tools of in-depth interviews, focus groups, observations and documentation reviews. As a result the research presents findings that describe, comprehend and interpret the phenomenon of citizenship learning. Human resources management, as an emergent practice, is a key issue in this democratic action. The participatory budget, as a democratic action, is divided into sub-actions composed by intentions, plans and acts each one of them represented by specific human resources practices. Such procedure of deconstruction of actions into their constitutive parts brings better comprehension of their functioning. To understand the characteristics of the participatory context is also key because they foster self-reflection about the social and individual legalities which change the state of a non-reflected conscious, thus, citizenship learning occurs. The focus proposed and the evidences analysed and interpreted provides a definition for existential-humanistic citizenship learning which hopefully can bring some light to the declining tendencies in participation. Citizenship learning, thus, is a never-ending process in which individuals decide freely and responsibly to actualize their potential as citizens. Moreover, the process is existential and humanistic if it has humanity in general as its goal, if it is as aware as possible of the dialectics between humans' subjectivity and objectivity and if it gives rise to a system of values which takes into account this goal and these dialectics

Covering Radius 1985-1994

We survey important developments in the theory of covering radius during the period 1985-1994. We present lower bounds, constructions and upper bounds, the linear and nonlinear cases, density and asymptotic results, normality, specific classes of codes, covering radius and dual distance, tables, and open problems

Extremal problems on graphs, directed graphs and hypergraphs

This thesis is concerned with extremal problems on graphs and similar structures. We first study degree conditions in uniform hypergraphs that force matchings of various sizes. Our main result in this area improves bounds of Markstrom and Rucinski on the minimum d-degree which forces a perfect matching in a k-uniform hypergraph on n vertices. We then study connectivity conditions in tournaments that ensure the existence of partitions of the vertex set that satisfy various properties. In 1982 Thomassen asked whether every sufficiently strongly connected tournament T admits a partition of its vertex set into t vertex classes such that the subtournament induced on T by each class is strongly k-connected. Our main result in this area implies an affirmative answer to this question. Finally we investigate the typical structure of graphs and directed graphs with some forbidden subgraphs. We answer a question of Cherlin by finding the typical structure of triangle-free oriented graphs. Moreover, our results generalise to forbidden transitive tournaments and forbidden oriented cycles of any order, and also apply to digraphs. We also determine, for all k>5, the typical structure of graphs that do not contain an induced 2k-cycle. This verifies a conjecture of Balogh and Butterfield

Extremal results in hypergraph theory via the absorption method

The so-called "absorbing method" was first introduced in a systematic way by Rödl, Ruciński and Szemerédi in 2006, and has found many uses ever since. Speaking in a general sense, it is useful for finding spanning substructures of combinatorial structures. We establish various results of different natures, in both graph and hypergraph theory, most of them using the absorbing method: 1. We prove an asymptotically best-possible bound on the strong chromatic number with respect to the maximum degree of the graph. This establishes a weak version of a conjecture of Aharoni, Berger and Ziv. 2. We determine asymptotic minimum codegree thresholds which ensure the existence of tilings with tight cycles (of a given size) in uniform hypergraphs. Moreover, we prove results on coverings with tight cycles. 3. We show that every 2-coloured complete graph on the integers contains a monochromatic infinite path whose vertex set is sufficiently "dense" in the natural numbers. This improves results of Galvin and Erdős and of DeBiasio and McKenney

Two rival programmes in 19th. century classical electrodynamics action-at-a-distance versus field theories

The thesis is a historical case-study in which I.Lakatos's Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes is applied to 19th. Century classical electrodynamics. Two research programmes are appraised. One, the Action-at-a-distance programme, had as its hard core the theory that electromagnetic phenomena were the outcome of sources acting at a distance across empty space on each other. Its rival, the Field programme, had the hard core that electromagnetic phenomena were the outcome of behaviour by the space between the apparent sources. It is argued that the Action-at-a-distance programme was always the superior one of the two. This revision in the standard historical appraisal results from the use of Lakatos's methodology. The Action-at-a-distance programme developed progressively, through the theories of Ampere, Weber, and their successors, to a satisfactory and fairly complete account of the phenomena of electrodynamics. In contrast, the Field programme degenerated as it consisted of a sequence of ad hoc or heuristically ad hoc theories. Faraday, Maxwell, and Helmholtz vigorously criticised the Action-at-a-distance programme. These criticisms were extremely influential and some historians regard them as persuasive today. It is shown that these criticisms are entirely without merit and further that they could easily have been seen to be without merit at the time of their proposal. Finally, many subsidiary theses, advocated by writers in the history and philosophy of the development of classical electrodynamics, are critically assessed