George William Curtis as literary critic.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Instigating change in a globalised social environment : the impact of globalisation upon the promotion of vegetarianism in the United Kingdom

In this thesis I examine globalisation as an ongoing social change to understand how it is routinely reproduced by social actors. To do this I consider the impacts of globalisation in an existing social setting and use a conceptual framework from the sociological literature to interpret and explain the evidence. The empirical materials were gathered during an ethnographic case study of The Vegetarian Society - an interest group that actively promoted social change by presenting everyday individual food consumption in the manner of reflexive 'life politics'. I use the concepts of 'interpenetration', 'relativisation', 'detraditionalisation' and 'institutional reflexivity' to indicate that processes of globalisation were routinely reproduced as contexts and consequences of the organisation's motivated social activity. I define globalisation as a change evident in individual consciousness, social systems and in the reflexive relation between them and accordingly, the findings centre on three issues. The first is the use of global images and language in the promotional literature (instrumentally recontextualised to promote vegetarianism) and its relation to global consciousness. The second is the relations between The Vegetarian Society and other agents within globalised social systems (where negotiations to initiate change often required compromise and pragmatism) and the contribution to systemic reproduction. The third is The Vegetarian Society's changing role (as vegetarianism entered the 'mainstream`) where it was reflexively repositioning to continue achieving its aims in a 'post-traditional' (global) social order. The Vegetarian Society was enabled and constrained by these intersecting processes of globalisation as it continued to instigate change within globalised social structures (evident in changing opportunities and emerging dilemmas). In this case study, ongoing globalisation was produced and reproduced as an unintended consequence of a social actor's purposeful, localised activity

AN APPROACH FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER BASED BEST PRACTICE DELIVERY MECHANISMS FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES

Changes in the competitive environment have strongly influenced manufacturing companies to adopt and develop best practice. Best practice is usually imported into companies using the services of consultancy organisations. The use of consultancy services does not guarantee success however, and inadequate results have been obtained by practitioners who have engaged in client-consultant relationships. The inadequacy of these results may be explained by the installation of pre-defined solutions by consultants as opposed to the adaptation and implementation of solutions to meet the specific requirements of practitioners. Tills may in part be explained by a lack of understanding of 'best practice'. Tills work presented in this thesis investigated the feasibility of computer based mechanisms for intervention in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) for the delivery of best practice. The research was undertaken using a prototyping approach. Three prototype computer based tools (CBTs) were developed by the author and tested by practitioners. The prototypes were designed based on a set of objectives and a framework of features which was developed. These frameworks were constructed from a synthesis of the research findings which included a study of best practice, the identification of characteristics of types of intervention, the identification of SME characteristics, and inhibitors of change in SMEs. The research has indicated that an approach using computer based tools is appropriate for intervention in SMEs and for adapting best practice to meet specific requirements. A structured project management approach is required with identifiable goals and benefits. An exploratory learning environment should be used to deliver complex best practice concepts and to support the goal oriented approach. Tools and techniques provided by the CBT enable the achievement of methodological tasks and facilitate experimentation and learning. The approach should not prescribe solutions, but should provide information through computer generated analyses to support decision making. The research suggests that the proposed approach may support a workbook based methodology, or may encapsulate a process methodology. The originality of this work is in the provision of a definition of best practice, an explanation of the deficiencies of existing mechanisms for the transfer of best practice to SMEs, and the specification of the features required by a new computer-based approach. Tills provides new knowledge for the field of production and operations management

HOW IMPORTANT ARE DIFFICULT ENVIRONMENTS TO ACHIEVING THE MDGS?

Food Security and Poverty,

Tax Policy and Tax Research in Canada

In a survey of tax reform in recent years, Richard Bird and Michael Smart explore the relationship between tax policy and tax research. They conclude that there have been important examples of apparent influences of research on policy. For instance, they are encouraged that the downward pressure on personal and corporate taxes has certainly been supported, if not initiated, by the increasing evidence of distortions caused by high marginal tax rates. In their view, the adoption of the GST can be explained by the acceptance of the federal government of the economic argument that Canada had to switch to a value-added tax to reduce economic distortions. On the other hand, they are disappointed that the equally convincing economic studies of the damage done by poorly-designed excise, property and payroll taxes do not seem to have had any effect. Consequently, they believe that political economy factors were probably the more dominant explanation of the tax reforms than the simple acceptance of advice from economists. Their conclusion is that if economists want to have a greater influence on policy, they need to pay more attention to the issues that motivate policymakers, including, most notably, distributional issues, and they need to write in a way, and in a forum, that will most likely come to the notice of the policy-makers.Canada, Taxation, Income Tax, Value-Added Tax, Value Added Tax, VAT

Making Dance: Learning & Designing Issues in Biotechnology Networks

https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/aesthesis/1029/thumbnail.jp

Optical Characterisation of Dry Etched II-VI Semiconductors

The topic of this thesis is the characterisation of dry etched II-VI semiconductors. After a brief introduction to the thesis there follows a review of the literature on the subjects encompassed by the thesis. The subjects covered include the development of the growth process and fabrication techniques. Also included is a summary of the theoretical aspects which have driven experimental research into nanotechnology. There is a fairly rigorous description of the experimental apparatus used during the project which is split into spectroscopy equipment and fabrication equipment for reasons of clarity. The samples used in the course of the project are also described. This is followed by an intensive explanation of the theory behind the experimental techniques used in the assessment of the materials, specifically Raman scattering and photoluminescence spectroscopy. There is also a brief account of some crystallographic information concerning tellurium which is of relevance to this work. The results are presented for each material considered, namely zinc selenide and zinc telluride. For each material the results are presented first for photoluminescence and then for Raman scattering. Each of these techniques was used to examine the samples as-grown and after a uniform etch was performed on the unpatterned samples using the technique of dry etching. The etch gas chemistry used was methane and hydrogen, the use of which to etch II-VI semiconductors was pioneered at Glasgow University. The experimental procedure is reported which was developed to fabricate wires and dots with dimensions down to 20 nm in zinc telluride. Use was made of electron-beam lithography to pattern a bilayer of positive electron-beam resist spun on the sample. The nanostructures were then characterised using the above optical spectroscopic techniques. The effect on the Raman scattering process of varying numerous parameters was investigated, these being excitation frequency and power, sample temperature and excitation polarisation. The difference between the region patterned with nanostructures and the region away from the pattern was explored, as was the orientation of the wires with respect to the incoming laser radiation in the near back scattering configuration used. The results of the experiments are discussed, paying particular consideration to the theoretical aspects discussed earlier concerning the confinement of phonons and crystalline damage. The subject of hydrogen incorporation and subsequent passivation of luminescence centres is broached. Relevant conclusions are then drawn from the results and discussion. Suggestions for extending the work covered in this thesis and any other work considered to be of interest concerning this project are then put forward

Transcriptional regulators of arteriovenous identity in the developing mammalian embryo

The complex and hierarchical vascular network of arteries, veins, and capillaries features considerable endothelial heterogeneity, yet the regulatory pathways directing arteriovenous specification, differentiation, and identity are still not fully understood. Recent advances in analysis of endothelial-specific gene-regulatory elements, single-cell RNA sequencing, and cell lineage tracing have both emphasized the importance of transcriptional regulation in this process and shed considerable light on the mechanism and regulation of specification within the endothelium. In this review, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of how endothelial cells acquire arterial and venous identity and the role different transcription factors play in this process