Turkish-American relations in the post-Cold War era, 1990-2005

This study examines the contours of Turkish-American foreign relations in the post-Cold War era from 1990 to 2005. While providing an interpretive analysis, the study highlights elements of continuity and change and of convergence and divergence in the relationship between Ankara and Washington. Turkey’s encounter with its Kurdish problem at home intertwined with the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish authority in northern Iraq after the Gulf War that left a political vacuum in the region. The main argument of this dissertation is that the Kurdish question has been the central element in shaping and redefining the nature and scope of Turkish-American relations since 1991. This study finds that systemic factors primarily prevail in the early years of the post-Cold War Turkish-American relations, as had been the case during the Cold War era. However, the Turkish parliament’s rejection of the deployment of the U.S. troops in Turkey for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 could not be explained by the primacy of distribution of capabilities in the system. Instead, the role of identity, ideology, norms, and the socialization of agency through interaction and language must be considered. The Justice and Development Party’s ascension to power in 2002 magnified a wider transformation in domestic and foreign politics and reflected changes in Turkey’s own self-perception and the definition of its core interests towards the United States.

Empire's children: Soviet childhood in the age of revolution

Ideas of childhood and citizenship stood at the center of the Soviet Union's empire-building project during the 1920s and 1930s. After the 1917 Revolution the Bolsheviks were faced with the challenge of establishing a new state structure and governing a vast territory inherited from its tsarist predecessor. In the early years of the Soviet project, new leaders enlisted a cadre of professionals tasked with not only creating the norms of childhood and the everyday, but also implementing policies to modernize habits and values of the empire's younger citizens. ^ To understand how children became a prime focus of Soviet imperial and ethno-cultural politics, my dissertation employs discourse analysis and compares the ways in which Soviet imperial policies were implemented in two ethnically different regions: the Buddhist Republic of Kalmykia as the colonial case study and Moscow as the Metropole. The current project examines newspapers, treatises, and inspectors' reports over the span of twenty years. It finds that the Bolsheviks' initial values and discourses in the realm of children's education, health, leisure and nutrition, all which were scientifically designed to transform children into ideal Soviet and modern citizens, changed over time as a result of the competing ideologies among local elites and the challenges they faced while intervening in children's everyday lives. ^ The most significant conclusion in this dissertation reveals that, contrary to previous scholarly arguments, the modernization projects that took place in Moscow and Kalmykia were more similar in the challenges and outcomes that local officials faced when implementing state policies.^

The relationship between the use of Academic Text Talk and the comprehension of scientific academic language for diverse second graders

Changing demographics impact our schools as children come from more linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. The various social, cultural, and economic backgrounds of the students affect their early language learning experiences which expose them to the academic language needed to succeed in school. Teachers can help students acquire academic language by introducing words that are within their Zone of Proximal Development and increasing exposure to and use of academic language. This study investigated the effects of increasing structured activities for students to orally interact with informational text on their scientific academic language development and comprehension of expository text. ^ The Academic Text Talk activities, designed to scaffold verbalization of new words and ideas, included discussion, retelling, games, and sentence walls. This study also evaluated if there were differences in scientific language proficiency and comprehension between boys and girls, and between English language learners and native English speakers. ^ A quasi-experimental design was used to determine the relationship between increasing students' oral practice with academic language and their academic language proficiency. Second graders (n = 91) from an urban public school participated in two science units over an 8 week period and were pre and post tested using the Woodcock Muñoz Language Survey-Revised and vocabulary tests from the National Energy Education Project. Analysis of covariance was performed on the pre to post scores by treatment group to determine differences in academic language proficiency for students taught using Academic Text Talk compared to students taught using a text-centered method, using the initial Florida Assessment for Instruction in Reading test as a covariate. Students taught using Academic Text Talk multimodal strategies showed significantly greater increases in their pre to posttest means on the Woodcock Muñoz Language Survey-Revised Oral Language Totals and National Energy Education Development Project Vocabulary tests than students taught using the text-centered method, ps < .05. Boys did not show significantly greater increases than girls, nor did English language learners show significantly greater increases than the native English speakers. ^ This study informs the field of reading research by evaluating the effectiveness of a multimodal combination of strategies emphasizing discourse to build academic language.^

Hispanic orientalism: The literary development of a cultural paradigm, from medieval Spain to modern Latin America

This dissertation offers a novel approach to Hispanic Orientalism, developing a dynamic paradigm from its origins in medieval and Renaissance Iberia during the process of the Christian Reconquest, to its transatlantic migration and establishment in the early years of the Colony, from where it changed in late colonial and post-Independence Latin America, and onto modernity. ^ The study argues that Hispanic Orientalism does not necessarily imply a negative depiction of the Other, a quality associated with the traditional critique of Saidian Orientalism. Neither, does it entirely comply with the positivist approach suggested in the theoretical research of Said’s opponents, like Julia Kushigian. This dissertation also argues that sociopolitical changes and the shift in the discourse of powers, from imperial to non-imperial, had a significant impact of the development of Hispanic Orientalism, shaping the relationship with the Other. The methodology involves close reading of representative texts depicting the interactions of the dominant and dominated societies from each of the four historic periods that coincided with significant sociopolitical transformations in Hispanic society. Through an intercultural approach to literary studies, social history, and religious studies, this project develops an original paradigm of Hispanic Orientalism, derived from the image of the reinvented Semitic Other portrayed in the literary works depicting the relationship between the hegemonic and the subaltern cultures during the Reconquest period in Spain. Then, it traces the turn of the original paradigm towards reinterpretation during its transatlantic migration to Latin America through the analysis of the chronicles and travelogs of the first colonizers and explorers. During the transitional late colonial and early Independence periods Latin America sees a significant change in the discourse of powers, and Hispanic Orientalism reflects this oscillation between the past and the present therough the works of the Latin American authors from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Finally, once the non-imperial discourse of power established itself in the former Colony, a new modern stage in the development of Hispanic Orientalist paradigm takes place. It is marked by the desire to differentiate itself from the O(o)thers, as manifested in the works of the representatives of Modernism and the Boom.^

A céu aberto: garimpando a memória e a identidade dos mineradores de Brejuí

The Brejuí Mine, situated in the municipality of Currais Novos (RN), was responsible for the local economy growth between the years of 1943 and 1990, causing the interest of miner's working class to its urban center. After the end of scheelita extraction, the mine became a "theme park", in 2004. The company left its mark on the city by building several monuments in reference to the mining activity and the company's founder, Tomaz Salustino. However, there are no written records that describe such activities on its early years, nor their pioneers in the mining subject. Therefore, it is important to investigate the miner’s memories and ask if, along the more than five decades that lasted the heyday of mining, an identity linked to the profession was built; the extent to which workers make reference to this history as membersand what are the symbols that are being triggered in the development of a working class identity. Further, I investigate what memory was mad concerning the pioneers, mostly farmers attracted by miner work. To do so, I make use of audiovisual archival resources and oral records of the interlocutors that were filmed in the preparations of the documentary “Lembranças de velhos garimpeiros". We have noticed that, in the script of the official history of the Brejuí Mine, the "boss" figure overlaps the workers and that the forms patronage, originated from the rural world, followed punctuating the social relations in the mine. Today, with the resumption of the mining activity, it is possible that the strengthening of the working class and the Seridó miner identity desire reborn.

Making Memorial Student-Ready: Reflections on the First Year Success Experience

In eleven short chapters faculty, academic advising staff and student union representatives discuss aspects of Memorial’s First Year Success Program (piloted as a Teaching Learning Framework initiative 2012-2017). Teaching approaches, curriculum content and policy rationales are covered in a broad view of how and why students identified as least likely to succeed at university can be academically supported. Contributors identify the singular importance of the community that First Year Success provided them and its student participants.

Necessidades formativas em Matemática representadas nas vozes de um grupo de professoras dos anos iniciais da rede pública de ensino

Teacher training processes, initial and continuing, and professional practice of teachers who teach Mathematics in the early years are highlighted in the literature as complex, but also are regarded as the way to overcome many difficulties in teaching this component curriculum in the school stage in question. The aim of the study was to investigate how the training needs in Mathematics are represented by a group of teachers in the early years of elementary school of public health system of the city of Uberlândia, State of Minas Gerais. The research, qualitative approach, had as object of study the training needs, in Mathematics, of teachers in the early years. The research involved 16 teachers from two schools in the municipal public schools of that city. Data were collected through questionnaires, non-participant observations, semi-structured interviews followed by group and individual. Analyses were performed by means of thematic categories, founded by content analysis. Data interpretation allowed to understand training needs in mathematics that are presented to the collaborating group from their professional practice, considering the knowledge and skills necessary to teaching. It is understood that the teachers of the study group have major limitations in relation to the specific content and didactic knowledge of Mathematics content, however, the concern is that demonstrated not always being aware of it. Moreover, the difficulties experienced in teaching practice proven to be overcome by sources and non-formal training activities, primarily through more experienced colleagues in the profession. Thus, it becomes difficult to think the initial and continuing training courses for teachers without the training needs of the teaching practice is appreciated as an object of study.

Predicting Transcript Production Rates in Yeast With Sparse Linear Models

To provide biological insights into transcriptional regulation, a couple of groups have recently presented models relating the promoter DNA-bound transcription factors (TFs) to downstream gene’s mean transcript level or transcript production rates over time. However, transcript production is dynamic in response to changes of TF concentrations over time. Also, TFs are not the only factors binding to promoters; other DNA binding factors (DBFs) bind as well, especially nucleosomes, resulting in competition between DBFs for binding at same genomic location. Additionally, not only TFs, but also some other elements regulate transcription. Within core promoter, various regulatory elements influence RNAPII recruitment, PIC formation, RNAPII searching for TSS, and RNAPII initiating transcription. Moreover, it is proposed that downstream from TSS, nucleosomes resist RNAPII elongation.

Here, we provide a machine learning framework to predict transcript production rates from DNA sequences. We applied this framework in the S. cerevisiae yeast for two scenarios: a) to predict the dynamic transcript production rate during the cell cycle for native promoters; b) to predict the mean transcript production rate over time for synthetic promoters. As far as we know, our framework is the first successful attempt to have a model that can predict dynamic transcript production rates from DNA sequences only: with cell cycle data set, we got Pearson correlation coefficient Cp = 0.751 and coefficient of determination r2 = 0.564 on test set for predicting dynamic transcript production rate over time. Also, for DREAM6 Gene Promoter Expression Prediction challenge, our fitted model outperformed all participant teams, best of all teams, and a model combining best team’s k-mer based sequence features and another paper’s biologically mechanistic features, in terms of all scoring metrics.

Moreover, our framework shows its capability of identifying generalizable fea- tures by interpreting the highly predictive models, and thereby provide support for associated hypothesized mechanisms about transcriptional regulation. With the learned sparse linear models, we got results supporting the following biological insights: a) TFs govern the probability of RNAPII recruitment and initiation possibly through interactions with PIC components and transcription cofactors; b) the core promoter amplifies the transcript production probably by influencing PIC formation, RNAPII recruitment, DNA melting, RNAPII searching for and selecting TSS, releasing RNAPII from general transcription factors, and thereby initiation; c) there is strong transcriptional synergy between TFs and core promoter elements; d) the regulatory elements within core promoter region are more than TATA box and nucleosome free region, suggesting the existence of still unidentified TAF-dependent and cofactor-dependent core promoter elements in yeast S. cerevisiae; e) nucleosome occupancy is helpful for representing +1 and -1 nucleosomes’ regulatory roles on transcription.

Hispanic Orientalism: The Literary Development of a Cultural Paradigm, from Medieval Spain to Modern Latin America

This dissertation offers a novel approach to Hispanic Orientalism, developing a dynamic paradigm from its origins in medieval and Renaissance Iberia during the process of the Christian Reconquest, to its transatlantic migration and establishment in the early years of the Colony, from where it changed in late colonial and post-Independence Latin America, and onto modernity. The study argues that Hispanic Orientalism does not necessarily imply a negative depiction of the Other, a quality associated with the traditional critique of Saidian Orientalism. Neither, does it entirely comply with the positivist approach suggested in the theoretical research of Said’s opponents, like Julia Kushigian. This dissertation also argues that sociopolitical changes and the shift in the discourse of powers, from imperial to non-imperial, had a significant impact of the development of Hispanic Orientalism, shaping the relationship with the Other. The methodology involves close reading of representative texts depicting the interactions of the dominant and dominated societies from each of the four historic periods that coincided with significant sociopolitical transformations in Hispanic society. Through an intercultural approach to literary studies, social history, and religious studies, this project develops an original paradigm of Hispanic Orientalism, derived from the image of the reinvented Semitic Other portrayed in the literary works depicting the relationship between the hegemonic and the subaltern cultures during the Reconquest period in Spain. Then, it traces the turn of the original paradigm towards reinterpretation during its transatlantic migration to Latin America through the analysis of the chronicles and travelogs of the first colonizers and explorers. During the transitional late colonial and early Independence periods Latin America sees a significant change in the discourse of powers, and Hispanic Orientalism reflects this oscillation between the past and the present therough the works of the Latin American authors from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Finally, once the non-imperial discourse of power established itself in the former Colony, a new modern stage in the development of Hispanic Orientalist paradigm takes place. It is marked by the desire to differentiate itself from the O(o)thers, as manifested in the works of the representatives of Modernism and the Boom.

Understanding and Developing Parental Involvement In My School

In the early years of the current decade, I spearheaded my school's and school board's participation in a research program on parental involvement led by Kenneth Leithwood from the Ontario Institute for Students in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. Despite all the extensive work I did as part of this research program and the ongoing professional reading I have done with respect to parental involvement and engagement, I have yet to share fully the knowledge gained with my staff or our parent community. Therefore, this purpose of this master's project is to provide a means for such dissemination. To do so, I have created two parallel presentations/workshops: one for staff during out first professional development day in September and one for parents at their second Parent Council meeting in October. The final chapter moves beyond these workshops to allow me to reflect on the progress made to date with parental engagement in my school and to look forward toward where I as Principal hope to lead my school community in the future.

Low cost carriers and the changing fortunes of airports in the UK

This paper investigates how low cost carrier (LCC) developments have affected the traffic and financial performance of UK airports from 2002 to 2014. Considerable growth in traffic was experienced from 2002 to 2007, especially at regional airports as a result of LCC expansion. This was replaced with a more volatile period from 2008 to 2014 where many of the regional airports that experienced the greatest increases in traffic during the early years, then experienced the largest reductions. This has clearly had an impact on their financial well-being, resulting in reduced profits for many airports. It has also meant that many regional airports that seemed like attractive investments as a result of LCC expansion are now less financially appealing, especially given that the LCC sector in the UK appears to be shifting capacity to larger regional airports, and in some cases, London airports.

El Instituto antes de Salamanca. Los primeros años del Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (1947-1955)

El presente texto analiza la función del Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas (IIEC) como punto de encuentro de la cultura cinematográfica nacional entre 1947 y 1955 —los años de Victoriano López— y dirige el foco analítico a los discursos, debates e intereses que marcaron la labor del instituto en estos primeros años. Para ello, este artículo fija su atención en uno de los pocos docu­mentos originales conservados de esa época, un boletín publicado por los alumnos en 1951, material que será aquí completado con entrevistas y los escasos documentos referentes al instituto conservados en el Archivo General de la Administración. La piedra de toque del análisis la constituyen por un lado las ac­tividades del cineclub, organizado por los alumnos de la clase de Historia del Cine en 1951, y, en el plano discursivo, los debates en torno a la Filmología, doctrina con la que desde 1947 se intenta dotar a las acti­vidades del Instituto de una base teórica con desiguales resultados. Se consigue así un acercamiento a las prácticas y discursos esenciales para comprender la importancia del instituto como punto central dentro de una naciente cultura cinematográfica nacional.

Entre lo público y lo privado: empleadores y trabajadoras domésticas frente al Tribunal del Trabajo Doméstico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires

El servicio doméstico ocupa un lugar ambiguo entre los mundos público y privado. Desarrollado en el interior de los hogares de los empleadores, da lugar a relaciones en las que lo laboral y lo afectivo están imbricados. Los juicios laborales entre empleadores y trabajadoras domésticas constituyen un escenario privilegiado para observar el solapamiento de estas dimensiones. Si las demandas de las trabajadoras frente a las instituciones de justicia sitúan esta relación en el mundo público, las respuestas de los empleadores muchas veces buscan resituarlas en el orden privado. Por otra parte, en algunos escenarios, las demandas de las trabajadoras son también expresadas en un lenguaje que remite a lo privado. En este artículo analizamos las lógicas de la confl ictividad judicial establecidas en las estrategias de empleadores y trabajadoras frente al Tribunal del Trabajo Doméstico (TTD), un organismo creado en 1956 para atender los confl ictos individuales que derivan de las relaciones de trabajo de este sector en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Tomamos dos horizontes temporales caracterizados por cambios en la regulación del trabajo, en general, y del servicio doméstico, en particular: el de los primeros años de funcionamiento del TTD y el cambio de siglo.

El acercamiento de la monarquía castellana a la Orden de los Predicadores durante el reinado de Juan II de Castilla (1406-1454)

Desde la llegada al trono de la dinastía Trastámara los diferentes monarcas castellanos llevaron a cabo una serie de actuaciones respecto a las órdenes religiosas. Durante los primeros años, éstas estuvieron dirigidas, en su mayoría, a la orden franciscana, a lo que habría que sumar la introducción en Castilla de la orden de la Cartuja y las primeras fundaciones jerónimas. Sin embargo, las reinas Beatriz de Portugal y Catalina de Lancaster, junto al infante Fernando de Antequera, fueron los protagonistas del cambio devocional que se produjo en Castilla y que alcanzó su cénit al alcanzar la mayoría de edad Juan II. Desde finales del siglo XIV vieron la luz una serie de fundaciones dominicas y se reformaron algunos conventos por parte de estos personajes; de manera progresiva, comenzaron a confiar en los frailes de esta orden diferentes cometidos espirituales, sociales y políticos.

Modelos de modernización para el desarrollismo: el influjo de las propuestas estadounidenses en el Servicio de Extensión Agraria (1955-1975)

Con este trabajo nos proponemos estudiar las políticas agrarias del franquismo y particularmente la creación y actuación del Servicio de Extensión Agraria (1955) en el contexto de la difusión de la Teoría de la Modernización. Comenzaremos con una contextualización de las relaciones culturales entre España y los EE.UU. y su potencial proyección sobre el ámbito rural. A continuación, prestaremos atención a la impronta del modelo extensionista norteamericano en la organización y metodología del Servicio de Extensión Agraria. Sin perder de vista la importancia de la escala estatal para la implementación y adaptación de las distintas políticas agrarias, atenderemos al contexto político e ideológico internacional como elemento que permite ampliar la comprensión y estudio de dichas políticas. En ese sentido, propondremos finalmente una primera aproximación comparativa al estudio del SEA en relación con diferentes experiencias de extensionismo agrario en Latinoamérica.