A POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT

The Indian Chipko movement is analyzed as a case study employing a geographically-informed political ecology approach. Political ecology as a framework for the study of environmental movements provides insight into the complex issues surrounding the structure of Indian society, with particular attention to its ecological and political dimensions. This framework, with its focus on social structure and ecology, is distinct from the more traditional approaches to the study of social movements, which tend to essentialize their purpose and membership, often by focusing on a single dimension of the movement and its context. Using Chipko as a case-study, the author demonstrates how a geographical approach to political ecology avoids some of this essentialization by encouraging a holistic analysis of environmental movements that is characterized by a bottom-up analysis, grounded at the local level, which also considers the wider context of the movements growth by synthesizing socio-political and ecological analyses. Also explored are questions on the importance of gender-informed approaches to the study of environmental activism and participation in environmental movements in India

Self-Reported Multicultural Teaching Knowledge and Skills of School Professionals

Diverse learners face a variety of challenges, such as achievement gaps, behavior problems, and absenteeism. Therefore, it is important for their educators to have both multicultural teaching knowledge and skills to address these challenges and work towards a successful school experience for all students. Although research has sought to measure the cultural competence of teachers, not many studies have examined cultural competence in other school professionals (administrators, school psychologists, social workers, interventionists, instructional assistants, and other individuals who directly work with students in the school environment). In the current study, 185 teachers and other school professionals completed an adapted version of the Multicultural Teaching Competency Scale (MTCS). The MTCS includes a total score as well as two sub-scores (multicultural teaching knowledge and multicultural teaching skills). The average total MTCS score was 73.2 out of 96 for teachers and 72 out of 96 for other school professionals, indicating that most participants surveyed reported having adequate multicultural teaching knowledge and skills. There was no significant difference between the scores of teachers and other school professionals. However, results suggested that participants who completed their training 0-5 years ago scored significantly higher on the total MTCS and the multicultural teaching knowledge sub-score than those who completed their training 11 or more years ago. Implications and future directions are discussed

POLLUTION KNOWLEDGE AND URBAN WATER POLITICS IN THE GANGES RIVER BASIN (INDIA)

Millions of people rely upon the Ganges River as a source of water provision and a site of disposal for sewage, solid waste, agricultural runoff and industrial effluent. The river is also a goddess in the Hindu pantheon who is worshipped for her purificatory powers, despite water quality levels that fall far short of standards for use in bathing, washing, and drinking. In recent years, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have formed to oppose both pollution of the river and the failure of state-run pollution abatement programs. They are joined by an increasingly frequent number of seemingly spontaneous protests held during the large Kumbh Mela festival gatherings at Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. Led by priests, sadhus and religious leaders, these protestors refuse to participate in the ritual bathing that is central to river worship until local and state officials take action to improve water quality at the site. These events indicate that the politics surrounding pollution abatement in the Ganges River Basin (GRB) are changing and that civil society organizations are struggling to gain greater representation and influence in the processes that shape pollution abatement and water use management in the GRB. This dissertation investigates the growing debate around pollution and pollution abatement in the Ganges River Basin and interprets the struggle over pollution abatement and river water management as a struggle over meaning in which various groups attempt to influence the context and context of local environmental knowledge(s). The research compares abatement efforts, civil society activity, and the pollution knowledge and water use practices of water users in three urban centers in the central GRB. An analysis of archival data, policy documents, a survey of water users, and interviews with government officials, NGO leaders and members, and other local scientists and activists conducted during fieldwork in 2008 and 2009. Discussion centers on the meta-discursive productions surrounding public participation and popular awareness as precursors to public participation in decisionmaking and policy-making processes. Findings indicate that water users in the GRB are well aware of pollution in the river and that many users exhibit a degree of cognitive dissonance in their pollution knowledge, indicating that a disconnection may exist between the knowledge that guides opinion and the knowledge that guides water use activity. Anti-pollution social movement organizations are found to employ methods and tactics that reflect local contexts of environmental degradation and pollution production, but which ultimately aim to reproduce broads shifts in the ideas, values, and power relations associated with water quality and water use in the Basin. Discussion considers the politics of upstream/downstream relations in shaping pollution abatement measures and the occurrence of missing movements , or the absence of anti-pollution civil society activity. Research findings contribute to literature on the role of environmental knowledge in shaping the “politics of meaning” around which ideological struggles over natural resource use, access, and conservation are waged

ISOTONIC MEASUREMENT OF 3D MUSCLE ACTIVATION SURFACE TORQUE/POWER BY ANGULAR POSITION BY ANGULAR VELOCITY

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An Ecological Understanding of Digital Environments

Digital environments are emerging as quasi-public spaces, but they are heavily programmed spaces and a part of a long history of enclosing the commons with psychic and social consequences. In Pacifism as a Map Dr. Ursula Franklin’s piece “Silence and the Notion of the Commons” guides us through the way Quaker meetings and other forms of silence allow the unprogrammed and unprogrammable to emerge, as a pre‐requisite for public space and civil society (Franklin, 2006, p. 157-168). Visual and acoustic silence here is a space of resistance, a space to think, an assertion of an interior introspective space that cannot be privatized. In this way, silence is a pre-requisite for civil society. What follows is a text by Marcin Kedzior and a series of drawings by Will Fu. These visual representations imagine Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) as architectural spaces. Drawing and mapping social media platforms as architectural spaces creates new perspectives on them, and allows us to see them as part of a larger historical process of enclosed and controlled public spaces, private dreams, and the historical

Shape optimization of pressurized air bearings

Use of externally pressurized air bearings allows for the design of mechanical systems requiring extreme precision in positioning. One application is the fine control for the positioning of mirrors in large-scale optical telescopes. Other examples come from applications in robotics and computer hard-drive manufacturing. Pressurized bearings maintain a finite separation between mechanical components by virtue of the presence of a pressurized flow of air through the gap between the components. An everyday example is an air hockey table, where a puck is levitated above the table by an array of vertical jets of air. Using pressurized bearings there is no contact between “moving parts” and hence there is no friction and no wear of sensitive components. This workshop project is focused on the problem of designing optimal static air bearings subject to given engineering constraints. Recent numerical computations of this problem, done at IBM by Robert and Hendriks, suggest that near-optimal designs can have unexpected complicated and intricate structures. We will use analytical approaches to shed some light on this situation and to offer some guides for the design process. In Section 2 the design problem is stated and formulated as an optimization problem for an elliptic boundary value problem. In Section 3 the general problem is specialized to bearings with rectangular bases. Section 4 addresses the solutions of this problem that can be obtained using variational formulations of the problem. Analysis showing the sensitive dependence to perturbations (in numerical computations or manufacturing constraints) of near-optimal designs is given in Section 5. In Section 6, a restricted class of “groove network” designs motivated by the original results of Robert and Hendriks is examined. Finally, in Section 7, we consider the design problem for circular axisymmetric air bearings

Beyond risk and restraint: promoting positive interpersonal relationships to support adolescent sexual health and wellbeing

Relationships across different contexts (family, peers, romantic, and sexual) contribute to adolescent development and an individual’s sexual health and wellbeing. In particular, social connectedness, which highlights the importance of feeling care for and having a sense of belonging, provides further context to these relationships’ significance. The social world in which adolescents reside is continuously evolving, and alongside this, the challenges and opportunities for adolescent sexuality. Earlier research has demonstrated the importance of comprehensive sexuality education in supporting positive adolescent sexual health, however, young people’s perspectives on the content of their education regarding relationships and consent is limited. Additionally, whether school-based programmes can support the development of positive interpersonal relationships to support adolescent sexual and reproductive health, and the degree of young people’s understanding of relationships are areas that require further investigation. Young people’s perspectives and experiences are essential to ensure programmes and interventions aimed at supporting their sexual health and wellbeing reflect their needs. Overarching aim: To describe the perspectives of young people on the importance of interpersonal relationships and social connectedness for their sexual health. The aims of this thesis are: 1. To systematically review the evidence from high-income settings about the impact of school-based interventions to promote connectedness to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing. 2. To describe student perspectives of a sexuality education programme in South Australian schools between 2006 and 2017, drawing particular attention to changing topics of importance. 3. To describe teacher experiences of sexuality education training provided by South Australia’s major sexual and reproductive health organisation. 4. To explore adolescents’ understanding and conceptualisation of healthy relationships, including peer, family and intimate relationships. 5. To explore adolescents’ understanding of consent and how different contextual factors contribute to navigating and identify consent. Methods 1. A systematic review was conducted capturing school-based interventions and programmes that involved a component of social connectedness to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health. 2. Student perspectives were captured from an annual survey conducted by SHINE SA. Descriptive statistics and regression analyses were undertaken to investigate student perspectives of a sexuality education programme, including an investigation of student ratings of the programme, and topics considered most useful and important. 3. A qualitative exploration was undertaken to explore teacher perspectives on a sexuality education training course. Changes in teachers’ confidence and competencies were explored through descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon signed rank tests. Content analyses was selected to investigate free-text responses to the usefulness of training sections on sexual health topics. 4. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with diverse young people aged 14-20 years residing in South Australia. The interview guide comprised of the following topics: healthy relationships (Aim 4), consent (Aim 5), and sexuality education (Aim 4 and 5). Inductive thematic analysis was undertaken for both the healthy relationships and consent analyses. The interview guide and consent scenarios referred to for this research is available in Appendix 1 and 2, respectively. a. Positive Youth Development framework informed the analysis on healthy relationships (Aim 4). b. The conceptual framework on reproductive autonomy and sexual script theory informed the analysis on consent (Aim 5). Results 1. The systematic review identified 18 studies that comprised 10 individual programmes. Programmes that were most effective included multiple constructs of social connectedness, social skill building and had sufficient intensity. Improvements were identified for condom use, delayed initiation of sex and reduced pregnancy rates, with differences between ethnicity and gender. 2. The student feedback on a sexuality education programme captured the perspectives of over 20,000 secondary students. There was a positive association between the survey year and providing a ‘good/excellent’ rating for safe and supportive classroom environment. Socio-emotional topics, including consent and gender stereotypes, were increasingly selected over a 5-year period. Contrastingly, there was a decrease in selecting more traditional sexual health topics, such as contraception, during this period. 3. The qualitative exploration of teacher perspectives on their sexuality education training identified gender and power, same-sex attraction, and violence in relationships as areas that teachers’ appreciated guidance on. Ongoing and targeted professional development is needed to support the complex skill set needed to teach sexuality education. 4. Eighteen diverse young people (61% self-identified as female, 50% Caucasian, 41% public school education) participated in semi-structured interviews. Findings demonstrated that young people could articulate which qualities indicated a healthy relationship but this rarely reflected lived experiences, and that peer pressure and social norms are pervasive regarding expectations to date and engage in sex. Participants relied on personal experience to learn about healthy relationships, and had discrepant experiences on relationship content within their sexuality education. 5. The same eighteen young people who participated in the semi-structured interviews provided insights on consent. All participants were able to provide a definition of consent, with those with more relationship or sexual experience providing definitions reflective of the affirmative model of consent; however, there was a gap between theory and practice when discussing real life situations. In real life, the presence of sexual scripts were prevalent and the mutable nature of consent became apparent in young people’s accounts. The depth and content of consent was variable in young people’s sexuality education, young people made several recommendations to improve education including greater engagement in discussions of the reality of consent and moving away from a binary understanding typically taught in school. Conclusion To support adolescent sexuality development, sexuality education should continue to have a broad scope to include socio-emotional topics and continue moving away from traditional approaches focusing on risk. This thesis has demonstrated strong interest from young people on these topics, including relationships and consent, but sexuality education requires further refinement in the depth and content of these topics and the training teachers receive. Young people demonstrated comprehensive understanding of relationships and consent, though within both instances, there was a greater reliance on personal experience and observation for learning over formal education. Implementing skill-based learning, deconstructing social and gender norms, and discussing the realities of relationships and consent within sexuality education are suggested as relevant approaches to supporting young people achieve healthy relationships, and subsequently, positive sexual health.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Adelaide Medical School, 202

Selection of Suitable Long-range Aircraft Type

Cílem mé práce je určit, na základě dostupných informací od leteckých společností a výrobců, vhodný typ dálkového letadla. Jako hlavní podklady při zpracování této práce mi sloužily knihy o letectví, letadlech, letecké časopisy a internetové odkazy.The objectiv of my work is determined on the basis accessible information from airline and producers acceptable long-range aircreft type. The book of aeronautics, aircraft, aeronautice magazíne and internet webside helped me to write this thesis.