Resurgence and convergence : religion and development, with a focus on social capital among Akha in North Thailand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North Campus, New Zealand

This Masters thesis research aims to contribute to the fledgling body of development industry literature that seriously considers the intersect of science, religion, and development. Religion is gaining recognition as an important aspect of development processes; previous neglect of it has been cited as one reason for the failure of many development efforts. An evolutionary framework would suggest the interaction of the large human movements of religion and the development industry would inevitably include resurgence of religion, sometimes in unfamiliar forms, along with religion's convergence with development, both among societies generally as they evolve into multiple modernities, and through interactions specific to the development industry and religion. This thesis identifies and discusses these trends and interactions with reference to improving development research and practice. Having demonstrated that religion does matter for development, I go on to show how it matters in one instance. This thesis assesses the potentials and limitations of one indigenous religion's ritual practices for creating and maintaining social capital among an indicative sample group of people who have experienced dislocation resulting from development. Fieldwork using primarily qualitative methods was among Akha hilltribe people living in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, with a focus, though not exclusively, on those living in slums. Findings indicate that among city Akha. their religious ritual has lost the primary role it previously occupied in Akha villages as a social capital generator. However, further analysis suggests Akhas' religious experience predisposes them to conversion to access the social capital evident among Christian Akha in Chiang Mai, and that through this process is occurring a negotiation of convergence between Akha religion and modernising forces which will affect all Akha. I conclude that both the identified wider trends and context-specific example of religion- development interaction demonstrate the value in development practitioners and theorists moving towards understanding and applying a non-instrumental valuing of religion

The quality of life of elderly Japanese residents of Chiang Mai: a case study of members of Japanese associations in Chiang Mai

This study aims to investigate the quality of life of the elderly Japanese living in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is known as a city where many elderly foreigners live. Among them, the ratio of Japanese elderly is very high. Many previous studies have described the reasons for choosing Japanese aged people living in Chiang Mai mainly from the viewpoint of long-stayers. Whereas, the quality of life of the elderly Japanese who living in Chiang Mai did not reveal. The data were collected by using WHOQOL26. By survey method, conducted form 94 Japanese who joined the Japanese organization in Chiang Mai. As a result, in terms of “physical health” was in the range of 27-35, which was considered to be quite “good.” Followed by “psychological health” was in the range of 23-30, which was considered to be quite “good.” Despite, “social relationships” was in the range of 8-11, which was considered as “moderate.” In the other hand, “environment” was in the range of 30-40, which is considered to be quite “good.” Lastly, the overall was in the range of 96-130, which is considered to be “good.” Therefore, the survey confirmed that the quality of life of the elderly Japanese living in Chiang Mai was generally good

How much hybridisation does machine translation need?

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [Costa-jussà, M. R. (2015), How much hybridization does machine translation Need?. J Assn Inf Sci Tec, 66: 2160–2165. doi:10.1002/asi.23517], which has been published in final form at [10.1002/asi.23517]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Rule-based and corpus-based machine translation (MT)have coexisted for more than 20 years. Recently, bound-aries between the two paradigms have narrowed andhybrid approaches are gaining interest from bothacademia and businesses. However, since hybridapproaches involve the multidisciplinary interaction oflinguists, computer scientists, engineers, and informa-tion specialists, understandably a number of issuesexist.While statistical methods currently dominate researchwork in MT, most commercial MT systems are techni-cally hybrid systems. The research community shouldinvestigate the bene¿ts and questions surrounding thehybridization of MT systems more actively. This paperdiscusses various issues related to hybrid MT includingits origins, architectures, achievements, and frustra-tions experienced in the community. It can be said thatboth rule-based and corpus- based MT systems havebene¿ted from hybridization when effectively integrated.In fact, many of the current rule/corpus-based MTapproaches are already hybridized since they do includestatistics/rules at some point.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

J Adolesc Health

001/WHO_/World Health OrganizationInternational/CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/2022-03-16T00:00:00Z33183925PMC89248421109

The Dixie Mission, Patrick J. Hurley, and America\u27s Diplomatic Failure in China, 1944-45

This paper examines the American diplomatic effort in China in 1944-45 including the attempts at military coordination with Chiang Kai-shek\u27s Nationalist government as well as the Dixie Mission, which was the first official American contact with the Chinese Communist Party. I argue that the personalities of the American diplomats, the structural issues endemic to the China-Burma-India Theater, the fractured and complex Chinese political situation, and the lack of clear and rational foreign policy on China all culminated in the diplomatic efforts failing. While acknowledging the numerous contributing factors that led to diplomatic failure, this paper also suggests ways in which negotiations could have been more productive

LABOUR MARKET AND CORRUPTION ISSUES IN CHIANG RAI, THAILAND

Lack of application of the rule of law in Thailand has various negative impacts on labour market and business environment. Lax policing of minimum wage legislation and unknown numbers of migrant workers contribute to depression of wages as whole and reduced incentives to add value to production. Instead, short-term competitiveness through low labour-cost manufacturing is prioritized. Although individual transactions which may be deemed corrupt are small scale in nature, they appear to be repeated very regularly and therefore have a significant impact upon the income generating possibilities for local workers and for their future prospects, not to mention the overall competitiveness of the country. The corrupt activities also lead to lower levels of safety in the workplace and for such issues as collective bargaining and freedom of association. The paper attempts to identify the major issues involved and some possible solutions.Labour market, Corruption, Thailand

Magnetohydrodynamic simulations of black hole accretion

We discuss the results of three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations, using a pseudo-Newtonian potential, of thin disk (h/r ~ 0.1) accretion onto black holes. We find (i) that magnetic stresses persist within the marginally stable orbit, and (ii) that the importance of those stresses for the dynamics of the flow depends upon the strength of magnetic fields in the disk outside the last stable orbit. Strong disk magnetic fields (alpha > 0.1) lead to a gross violation of the zero-torque boundary condition at the last stable orbit, while weaker fields (alpha ~ 0.01) produce results more akin to traditional models for thin disk accretion onto black holes. Fluctuations in the magnetic field strength in the disk could lead to changes in the radiative efficiency of the flow on short timescales.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in proceedings, 20th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, eds J.C. Wheeler and H. Marte