Exploring the Mechanisms and Dynamics of Politically-Motivated Youth Movements in Palestine: A Bourdieusian Perspective

This thesis draws on a Bourdieusian perspective to explore the organisational mechanisms and dynamics in Palestinian politically motivated social movement. The consequent body of literature often lacks an integrated comprehension of Bourdieusian theory, and his three main concepts: field, habitus, and capital. Little has been understood about Bourdieu’s concepts in social movement context to understand the activists’ behaviours, practices, and practical reasoning in structuring their choices and practices. Being inspired by Bourdieu, the researcher relationally analyses and bridges between different subjectivist and objectivist perspectives on social structures and agents’ practices through employing the relational tool-kit of Bourdieu. To further understand the dynamics, mechanisms, and interorganisational and intraorganisational relations in social movements, an interpretive approach was used to gather context-rich data from ordinary activists, core activists and organisers. Findings showed that fields of practices, both external and internal, have specific doxa and species of capital, which shape the rules of the game inside this field, and its relationship with other fields. Data collected found that the ‘state field’ enjoys the most dominant doxa in the Palestinian context, which is deployed to legitimise the oppression of the politically-motivated youth movements that were studied. The external and internal fields’ doxa have a crucial influence on agents’ early socialisation, forms of capital, and field’s positioning. This variation and difference between the activists’ habitus caused multiple modes of domination and conflictual dynamics inside the movement itself in relation to features such as political credibility, recruiting parochialism, ideological conflicts, and repertoires of contention. This study contributes to a more dynamic understanding of the habitus as an open mediating concept and a reflexive space which transforms the activists’ behaviours and actions in some incidents. The findings have implications for social movement practitioners, and other relevant stakeholders such as activism groups and bodies, pressure groups, unions, and human rights and civil society associations. It is suggested that future research examining politically-motivated social movements should consider ethnographic methods to capture multiple observational data and contextual findings. In addition, it is suggested further examine habitus mechanisms in reproduction, change and transformation times.University of Exete

TSSA Report_Winter 2020

In this report, I share the main Teaching Skills Practices I learned during presentations I attended at the Mathematics Joint Meetings (Denver, January 15 - 18, 2020). It was a great opportunity to attend presentations on best practices and considerations in designing and developing math courses, ideas and innovations in teaching, and inquiry-based learning and teaching. Attending these presentations is helping me keep improving my teaching practices to better improve the learning experiences of my students, and is helping me (as the coordinator of college algebra/precalculus courses) to further improve our College Algebra Stretch Courses and Support Labs

Telecommunications (Interception and Access) and Its Regulation in Arab Countries

Telecommunication has been a necessity in all countries this century. Communication has always been an essential part of our lives, education, family relations, business, government and other organizational activities. As telecommunication technology has advanced, so has the need for the interception of telecommunications and access by law enforcement authorities. In addition, lawful interception and the way it is performed have played an important role in the effectiveness of the monitoring of communications. Telecommunications interception and access law should also place a great deal of importance on the privacy of the individual as well as the needs of national security, crime investigation, counter terrorism efforts and economic growth. This paper looks at the applicability of regulations aimed at controlling telecommunications interception and access law in Arab countries. The Australian telecommunications interception and access law is taken as a relevant template that can be examined in light of Arab countries needs and requirements. Various issues unique to Arab countries need to be examined prior to adopting the Australian framework wholesale.

Do informal groups threaten organizations? Comparing group conflict management styles with supervisors

This research aims to identify the role played by informal groups in organizational conflict. The existing literature mainly focuses on the effects of informal groups on the behaviors of employees, such as resisting management and disobeying instructions. However, studies that specifically measure how informal groups affect the behaviors of their members in handling conflicts with supervisors are lacking. This research uses quantitative methodology. Data were collected using the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II survey. The participants were 316 workers in various American organizations. The results were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and the two-samples z-test. The results show that employees who belong to informal groups use the dominating style more frequently than do employees who do not belong to informal groups. However, they do not always use dominating styles; occasionally, they tend to use compromising and integrating styles as well. Age has a significant impact on the relationship between informal groups and integrating and dominating styles. There is also a relationship between gender and avoiding style among employees who belong to informal groups. However, there is no preference for a certain conflict style among the three types of informal groups. The results have implications for management science, including human resources and organizational behavior. However, the research applications may be limited for employees in collectivist societies that are different from American (an individualistic society). The relationship between informal groups and conflict style with supervisors has not been studied before. Thus, this research focuses on not only the five conflict styles but also the influence of demographic variables to comprehensively understand this relationship

Homomorphic images of semi-direct products

The main purpose of this thesis is to describe methods of constructing computer-free proofs of existence of finite groups and give useful techniques to perform double coset enumeration of groups with symmetric presentations over their control groups

Effect of Dampers on Seismic Demand of Short Period Structures in Rock Sites

Seismic behavior of short period structures with dampers founded on rock is investigated. A single bay frame with diagonal damper that represents short period structures is evaluated in response to the excitation of a set of earthquake records. The frame system is modeled as a generalized single degree of freedom system, and is subjected to five earthquake records representative of rock site conditions. The relationship between the force modification factor and the global ductility demand for short period structures founded on rock, in the presence of dampers, tends to approach those of long period ones. Compared with seismic demand under general site conditions, short period structures founded on rock show less seismic demand and less sensitivity to earthquake excitations. Similar to seismic demand in general site conditions, dampers with high damping ratios for short period structures in rock sites tend to keep the structural response in the elastic range even for high values of force reductions. Seismic code provisions should be revised to account for short period effect under seismic excitation

Field evaluation of in-situ test technology for QC/QA during construction of pavement layers and embankments

With the coming changes from an empirical to mechanistic-empirical pavement design, it becomes essential to move towards changing the quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) procedures of compacted materials from a unit weight-based criterion to a stiffness/strength based criterion. The non-destructive in-situ tests such as Geogauge, Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP), and Light Falling Weight Deflectometer (LFWD) can be used as effective tools in the assessment of subsurface conditions and in evaluating the stiffness of pavement materials and embankment. This thesis evaluates the potential use of these three devices to reliably measure the stiffness characteristics of highway materials for possible application in the QC/QA procedures during and after the construction of pavement layers and embankments. To achieve this, field tests were conducted on highway sections selected from different projects in Louisiana State. In addition, six test sections and three trench sections were constructed and tested at the LTRC Accelerated Load Facility (ALF) site for testing. The field tests included conducting Geogauge, LFWD, DCP tests and standard tests such as the Plate Load Test (PLT) and Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) test. The California Bearing Ratio (CBR) laboratory tests were also conducted on samples collected during field tests. Statistical analysis was conducted to correlate the measurements obtained from the three investigated devices and those obtained from the standard tests. Good correlations were obtained between the measurements of the investigated devices and the standard tests. Laboratory tests were also conducted to evaluate the influence depth of the Geogauge and LFWD devices. The results of laboratory tests indicated that the average influence depth for the Geogauge and LFWD devices are about 200 mm and 280 mm, respectively

Effect of Dampers on Seismic Demand of Short Period Structures

Seismic behavior of a single bay frame with diagonal damper that represents short period structures is evaluated in response to the excitation of a set of earthquake records. The frame system is modeled as a Generalized Single Degree of Freedom (GSDOF) system, and is subjected to nine earthquake records representative of the range of dominant site conditions. The relationship between the force modification factor and the global ductility demand for short period structures, in the presence of dampers, tends to approach those of long period ones. Dampers with high damping ratios tend to keep the structural response in the elastic range even for high values of force reductions. Seismic code provisions should be revised to account for short period effect under seismic excitation

Laboratory Characterization and Numerical Modeling of Geogrid Reinforced Bases in Flexible Pavements

This dissertation documents the results of an extensive research study that was conducted to characterize the behavior of geogrid reinforced base course materials. The research was conducted through an experimental testing and numerical modeling programs. The experimental testing program included performing different laboratory tests to evaluate the effect of various factors on the performance geogrid reinforced base course materials. Finite element models were also developed to investigate the benefits of placing geogrids within the base course layer in a flexible pavement structure. The results of the experimental testing demonstrated that the inclusion of the geogrid reinforcement layer(s) improved the compressive strength and stiffness of base course materials under static loading. This improvement was more pronounced at higher strain levels. Furthermore, the results showed that the geogrid significantly reduced the base course material permanent deformation under cyclic loading, but it did not show appreciable effect on their resilient deformation. The results also showed that for stress levels less than the plastic shakedown stress limit, the geogrid had a minimum contribution to the permanent deformation resistance during primary post-compaction stage; however, it significantly increased this resistance during the secondary stage. The results also showed that the change in the moisture content of the base material altered its state of stress; this significantly affected the geogrid improvement. The finite modeling program showed that the geogrid reinforcement reduced the lateral, vertical, and shear strains within the base course and subgrade layers. Furthermore, the geogrid had appreciable reduction in permanent deformation for pavement sections built on top of weak subgrade soils with medium to thin base layer thickness; with the thin base layer thickness showing greater values of improvement. However, negligible to modest reinforcement effect on permanent deformation was obtained for sections having a firm subgrade or thick base layer thickness. The geogrid reinforcement had modest to high values of improvement in fatigue life of pavement structure. Finally, regression models that can be readily used in the design of geogrid reinforced pavements were developed. In addition, an approach for the implementation of the shakedown concept in the design of unreinforced and geogrid reinforced pavement sections was recommended