Building future societies? A brief analysis of Braga’s school bus project

This paper seeks to demonstrate the importance of implementing trans- port policies that meet home to school (and vice versa) mobility needs of children and young people. Over the last few years families’ mobility has been given increasing attention. One of the most investigated aspects is home to work mobil- ity. Nowadays there is an urgent need to study and propose intervention measures regarding children’s mobility to school. In fact, studies show that the car is the preferred mode of transportation in Portugal. This trend has undoubtedly negative social, environmental and health consequences. Based on an evaluation study on the School Bus project in Braga (a research- intervention activity of BUILD-Braga Urban Innovation Laboratory Demonstrator), this paper discusses the difficulties in implementing sustainable mobility initiatives, pointing out anticipatory mea- sures that can be taken in medium-sized cities in order to stop the expansion of children’s transportation by car, and give them back spaces in the cities.UIDB/00736/202

Building Irish families through surrogacy: medical and judicial issues for the advanced reproductive technologies

Surrogacy involves one woman (surrogate mother) carrying a child for another person/s (commissioning person/couple), based on a mutual agreement requiring the child to be handed over to the commissioning person/couple following birth. Reasons for seeking surrogacy include situations where a woman has non-functional or absent reproductive organs, or as a remedy for recurrent pregnancy loss. Additionally, surrogacy may find application in any medical context where pregnancy is contraindicated, or where a couple consisting of two males seek to become parents through oocyte donation. Gestational surrogacy is one of the main issues at the forefront of bioethics and the advanced reproductive technologies, representing an important challenge to medical law. This analysis reviews the history of surrogacy and clinical and legal issues pertaining to this branch of reproductive medicine. Interestingly, the Medical Council of Ireland does not acknowledge surrogacy in its current practice guidelines, nor is there specific legislation addressing surrogacy in Ireland at present. We therefore have developed a contract-based model for surrogacy in which, courts in Ireland may consider when confronted with a surrogacy dispute, and formulated a system to resolve any potential dispute arising from a surrogacy arrangement. While the 2005 report by the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR) is an expert opinion guiding the Oireachtas' development of specific legislation governing assisted human reproduction and surrogacy, our report represents independent scholarship on the contractual elements of surrogacy with particular focus on how Irish courts might decide on surrogacy matters in a modern day Ireland. This joint medico-legal collaborative also reviews the contract for services arrangement between the commissioning person/s and the surrogate, and the extent to which the contract may be enforced

Reading the Victorian and Modern Female Homosexual in Radcllyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness and Edith Johnstone’s A Sunless Heart

Denne masteroppgaven utforsker representasjonen og fremstillingen av kvinnelig homoseksualitet i litteratur fra sent 1800-tall og tidlig 1900-tall. Ved å analysere og diskutere Radclyffe Halls The Well of Loneliness og Edith Johnstones A Sunless Heart i lys av bokanmeldelser fra samtiden, forsøker oppgaven å forstå hvordan kvinnelige homofile bånd er konstruert, og videre oppfattet av samtidslesere. Oppgaven vil først gi en kort historisk innføring for å forstå de sosiale og kulturelle holdningene til kvinnelig homofili og kvinners rolle i samfunnet generelt. Videre vil oppgaven etablere et rammeverk gjennom Wolfgang Isers teori om «tomme plasser» og leserens betydning i aktualiseringen av teksten i tilknytning til Eve Kosofsky Sedgwicks «episemologi av skapet,» for å forstå hvordan kvinnelige homofile bånd er konstruert i romanene. Deretter vil oppgaven analysere og diskutere The Well of Loneliness (1928) i lys av det etablerte rammeverket for å forstå hvordan lesere kan tolke naturen av romanens kvinnelige homofile bånd ulikt. Fordi romanen illustrerer kvinnelig homoseksualitet på en eksplisitt måte er formålet her å forstå hvordan samfunnets uvitenhet om romantiske og intime forhold mellom kvinner kan påvirke hvordan ulike lesere oppfatter dem. Ideen er her at en heterofil leser vil danne ulike bilder av disse forholdene enn en homofil leser vil, basert på lesernes tidligere erfaringer og kunnskap om temaet. Til slutt vil oppgaven gi en lignende analyse og diskusjon av A Sunless Heart (1894). Denne romanen illustrerer kvinnelig homofili på en mer implisitt måte enn den andre, og formålet er derfor å utforske hvordan vennskap brukes som en metafor eller som et «skap» for å skjule den intime siden av kvinnelige homofile bånd