Women of Maghrebi Origins’ Constructions of Well-Being in France: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

The aim of the study is to explore how women of Maghrebi origins construct well-being in France, by adopting a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA). In the first chapter, a critical review of the literature is offered, which highlights how ethnic minorities’ well-being is produced. Constructions of Muslim/Maghrebi women as depicted in society and literature and analysed through a poststructuralist perspective. To understand the conditions of possibility out of which these constructions have emerged, the social, cultural and political context is presented. A brief historicity of migration from the Maghreb is outlined. A moderate social constructionist epistemological position was adopted throughout this thesis in order to allow for the exploration of the constructed nature of well-being. In line with FDA, discourses and subject positions taken up and resisted by women of Maghrebi origins are identified and described. Implications for subjectivity and practices are presented. Processes of subjectification and technologies of the self are attended to. The study then presents the analysis which made use of semi-structured interviews to explore how eight women of Maghrebi origins construct well-being. The transcripts were analysed using FDA. This research identified that women of Maghrebi origins construct well-being in three main ways. They produced well-being by positioning themselves within western knowledges. Simultaneously, they made sense of well-being by drawing upon Maghrebi/Islamic traditions. And lastly, well-being was generated by amalgamating both western and Maghrebi/Western discourses. Women of Maghrebi origins equally created coping strategies to enhance well-being. In this sense, multifaceted ways of constructing well-being co-exist. This research recommends that counselling psychology should be exported to France in order to encourage the development of more pluralistic and intercultural approaches

Rethinking Law and Gospel in the Way We Do Preaching

This paper evaluates the impact of C. F. W. Walther’s Law and Gospel and Richard Caemmerer’s goal, malady, means approach to homiletics, also discussing the potential trap of law-gospel reductionism. A suggested pathway forward is a reemphasis on a creedal approach to Lutheran theology and preaching as well as a renewal of rhetoric as foundational to ultimately restoring a positive view of the third use or function of the law in Lutheran preaching. Having done so, the reader may certainly apply this positive view of the law as it relates to preaching on other topics related to the Christian Life including justice, compassion, and race relations

Plenary Panel on New Priorities, Familiar Challenges: Defense Trends in Budgets, Appropriations, & Contract Obligations

Symposium PresentationApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Modeling biophysical and neural circuit bases for core cognitive abilities evident in neuroimaging patterns: hippocampal mismatch, mismatch negativity, repetition positivity, and alpha suppression of distractors

This dissertation develops computational models to address outstanding problems in the domain of expectation-related cognitive processes and their neuroimaging markers in functional MRI or EEG. The new models reveal a way to unite diverse phenomena within a common framework focused on dynamic neural encoding shifts, which can arise from robust interactive effects of M-currents and chloride currents in pyramidal neurons. By specifying efficient, biologically realistic circuits that achieve predictive coding (e.g., Friston, 2005), these models bridge among neuronal biophysics, systems neuroscience, and theories of cognition. Chapter one surveys data types and neural processes to be examined, and outlines the Dynamically Labeled Predictive Coding (DLPC) framework developed during the research. Chapter two models hippocampal prediction and mismatch, using the DLPC framework. Chapter three presents extensions to the model that allow its application for modeling neocortical EEG genesis. Simulations of this extended model illustrate how dynamic encoding shifts can produce Mismatch Negativity (MMN) phenomena, including pharmacological effects on MMN reported for humans or animals. Chapters four and five describe new modeling studies of possible neural bases for alpha-induced information suppression, a phenomenon associated with active ignoring of stimuli. Two models explore the hypothesis that in simple rate-based circuits, information suppression might be a robust effect of neural saturation states arising near peaks of resonant alpha oscillations. A new proposal is also introduced for how the basal ganglia may control onset and offset of alpha-induced information suppression. Although these rate models could reproduce many experimental findings, they fell short of reproducing a key electrophysiological finding: phase-dependent reduction in spiking activity correlated with power in the alpha frequency band. Therefore, chapter five also specifies how a DLPC model, adapted from the neocortical model developed in chapter three, can provide an expectation-based model of alpha-induced information suppression that exhibits phase-dependent spike reduction during alpha-band oscillations. The model thus can explain experimental findings that were not reproduced by the rate models. The final chapter summarizes main theses, results, and basic research implications, then suggests future directions, including expanded models of neocortical mismatch, applications to artificial neural networks, and the introduction of reward circuitry

Emerging Policy and Practice Issues

This paper, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2013), attempts to identify the key trends and issues in U.S. federal procurement for 2013. Consistent with prior practice, this chapter offers extensive coverage of the federal procurement spending trend and attempts to predict what lies ahead. Budgetary and financial insecurity were less significant last year, but there is no question that the spending reduction represents a meaningful change in the long-term trend. More broadly, the paper discusses agency purchasing data (particularly at the Defense Department), grants spending and major changes in uniform guidance, the continued Defense Department Better Buying Power Initiative (now in version 2.0) and acquisition performance measurement (or metrics), the acquisition workforce, cyber-security, scandals and the toxic contracting environment, and contractor fatalities

Emerging Policy and Practice Issues

This paper, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2013), attempts to identify the key trends and issues in U.S. federal procurement for 2013. Consistent with prior practice, this chapter offers extensive coverage of the federal procurement spending trend and attempts to predict what lies ahead. Budgetary and financial insecurity were less significant last year, but there is no question that the spending reduction represents a meaningful change in the long-term trend. More broadly, the paper discusses agency purchasing data (particularly at the Defense Department), grants spending and major changes in uniform guidance, the continued Defense Department Better Buying Power Initiative (now in version 2.0) and acquisition performance measurement (or metrics), the acquisition workforce, cyber-security, scandals and the toxic contracting environment, and contractor fatalities