Climate change adaptation through coastal and use management: The context of environmental justice

Despite an increasing literary focus on climate change adaptation, the facilitation of this adaptation is occurring on a limited basis (Adger et al. 2007) .This limited basis is not necessarily due to inability; rather, a lack of comprehensive cost estimates of all options specifically hinders adaptation in vulnerable communities (Adger et al. 2007). Specifically the estimated cost of the climate change impact of sea-level rise is continually increasing due to both increasing rates and the resulting multiplicative impact of coastal erosion (Karl et al., 2009, Zhang et al., 2004) Based on the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, minority groups and small island nations have been identified within these vulnerable communities. Therefore the development of adaptation policies requires the engagement of these communities. State examples of sea-level rise adaptation through land use planning mechanisms such as land acquisition programs (New Jersey) and the establishment of rolling easements (Texas) are evidence that although obscured, adaptation opportunities are being acted upon (Easterling et al., 2004, Adger et al.2007). (PDF contains 4 pages)

Modeling the Links between Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing in the Context of Climate Change: Results from an Econometric Analysis on the European Forest Ecosystems

25 p.

The Voting Rights Act, Shelby County, and Redistricting: Improving Estimates of Racially Polarized Voting in a Multiple-Election Context

The Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County has severely limited the power of the Voting Rights Act. I argue that Congressional attempts to pass a new coverage formula are unlikely to gain the necessary Republican support. Instead, I propose a new strategy that takes a “carrot and stick” approach. As the stick, I suggest amending Section 3 to eliminate the need to prove that discrimination was intentional. For the carrot, I envision a competitive grant program similar to the highly successful Race to the Top education grants. I argue that this plan could pass the currently divided Congress.

Without Congressional action, Section 2 is more important than ever before. A successful Section 2 suit requires evidence that voting in the jurisdiction is racially polarized. Accurately and objectively assessing the level of polarization has been and continues to be a challenge for experts. Existing ecological inference methods require estimating polarization levels in individual elections. This is a problem because the Courts want to see a history of polarization across elections.

I propose a new 2-step method to estimate racially polarized voting in a multi-election context. The procedure builds upon the Rosen, Jiang, King, and Tanner (2001) multinomial-Dirichlet model. After obtaining election-specific estimates, I suggest regressing those results on election-specific variables, namely candidate quality, incumbency, and ethnicity of the minority candidate of choice. This allows researchers to estimate the baseline level of support for candidates of choice and test whether the ethnicity of the candidates affected how voters cast their ballots.

Real-World Social Cognition: Context Effects in Face and Threat Processing

As borne out by everyday social experience, social cognition is highly dependent on context, modulated by a host of factors that arise from the social environment in which we live. While streamlined laboratory research provides excellent experimental control, it can be limited to telling us about the capabilities of the brain under artificial conditions, rather than elucidating the processes that come into play in the real world. Consideration of the impact of ecologically valid contextual cues on social cognition will improve the generalizability of social neuroscience findings also to pathology, e.g., to psychiatric illnesses. To help bridge between laboratory research and social cognition as we experience it in the real world, this thesis investigates three themes: (1) increasing the naturalness of stimuli with richer contextual cues, (2) the potentially special contextual case of social cognition when two people interact directly, and (3) a third theme of experimental believability, which runs in parallel to the first two themes. Focusing on the first two themes, in work with two patient populations, we explore neural contributions to two topics in social cognition. First, we document a basic approach bias in rare patients with bilateral lesions of the amygdala. This finding is then related to the contextual factor of ambiguity, and further investigated together with other contextual cues in a sample of healthy individuals tested over the internet, finally yielding a hierarchical decision tree for social threat evaluation. Second, we demonstrate that neural processing of eye gaze in brain structures related to face, gaze, and social processing is differently modulated by the direct presence of another live person. This question is investigated using fMRI in people with autism and controls. Across a range of topics, we demonstrate that two themes of ecological validity — integration of naturalistic contextual cues, and social interaction — influence social cognition, that particular brain structures mediate this processing, and that it will be crucial to study interaction in order to understand disorders of social interaction such as autism.

Monica Alis Brick Lane: A tale of two cities or How Nazneen left her fate

O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar o romance Brick Lane (2003), da escritora Monica Ali, focalizando o processo de empoderamento da protagonista Nazneen. Usando os conceitos de lugar e não-lugar propostos por Marc Augé, pretendo examinar passagens do romance que caracterizem a sensação de não-pertencimento vivida pela personagem. Nazneen recorre às memórias de sua infância com a irmã Hasina em Bangladesh para tentar se distanciar do espaço físico de Brick Lane (a comunidade onde reside em Londres), que se constitui em um não-lugar, pois ali não é possível reconstruir sua identidade fragmentada pelo deslocamento de uma cultura para outra. Considerando aspectos históricos e culturais de Bangladesh, terra natal de Nazneen, este trabalho pretende discutir as experiências da protagonista e de outros sujeitos diaspóricos do romance, além de analisar o papel crucial que Hasina (e suas cartas) desempenham na narrativa. O atual contexto multicultural e cosmopolita da cidade de Londres também será investigado, com a discussão de situações que afetam os imigrantes e suas representações no romance. Esta dissertação também considera o caráter gendrado dos movimentos migratórios contemporâneos que possibilitam novas perspectivas acerca das consequências da diáspora. A análise de passagens selecionadas do romance ratifica o processo gradual de autonomia de Nazneen que, por fim, consegue se sentir em casa novamente

A multimodalidade no livro didático de inglês como língua estrangeira: padrões de representação narrativa e de interação

O presente trabalho visa a contribuir com o avanço das pesquisas na área de multimodalidade, mais especificamente na área aplicada ao contexto de ensino de língua estrangeira. Analisa-se uma amostra de textos multimodais em um livro didático produzido e utilizado no Brasil como ferramenta para o ensino de inglês como língua estrangeira para alunos adultos iniciantes em um curso livre. Tendo em vista a preocupação, apontada no próprio material didático, em atender às necessidades e expectativas desses alunos, objetiva-se, através desta investigação: verificar como se dá a interação entre o verbal e o visual no livro didático selecionado; verificar como essa interação contribui para atingir os objetivos pedagógicos propostos pelo material; e, por fim, contribuir, de alguma maneira, para o letramento multimodal de alunos em língua estrangeira. Tais objetivos determinam a natureza híbrida desta pesquisa que, além da sua dimensão analítico-descritiva, apresenta também uma dimensão pedagógica, que visa a apresentar propostas de trabalho multimodal com algumas das atividades selecionadas para análise. A seleção dos textos multimodais para a composição do corpus desta pesquisa foi baseada na observação da recorrência de imagens com determinados personagens ao longo do livro. Tal recorrência provocou questionamentos que só poderiam ser respondidos a partir da análise desses personagens representados em situações de (inter)ação, o que deu lugar à seleção das representações narrativas que os incluíssem. Os personagens em questão são desenhos criados para os fins pedagógicos do material e são representados em situações sociais muito limitadas: a maior parte dessas representações parece formar uma sequência narrativa cuja interação acontece em uma festa; entre as outras representações, que não representam a referida festa como contexto, incluem-se interações no escritório, no restaurante, no parque e ao telefone. Uma análise da representação visual desses atores sociais revelou que, apesar da inclusão de uma negra entre os personagens, e a consequente suposta visão multicultural transmitida com essa inclusão, os participantes representam um grupo homogêneo, pertencentes ao mesmo segmento social, que só interagem entre eles mesmos em situações sociais limitadas, não sendo, portanto, representativos da diversidade étnica, social e cultural do Brasil, ou dos países em que o inglês é falado. Após a análise da representação dos atores sociais, analisam-se, com vistas a atingir os objetivos deste trabalho, os padrões de representação e de interação nos textos multimodais selecionados, segundo categorias do quadro da multimodalidade de van Leeuwen (1996). Verifica-se, a partir de tais análises, que o verbal e o visual nem sempre apresentam uma relação direta, e que, quando apresentam, tal relação não é explorada pelo material, tornando o visual um elemento meramente decorativo que, na maioria das vezes, em nada contribui para o desenvolvimento das unidades. Por essa razão, e por se tratar de uma pesquisa centrada no contexto pedagógico, propõem-se, ao final das análises, atividades de exploração de alguns dos textos multimodais analisados, visando à formação multimodal do aluno em língua estrangeira

Could innovative teams provide the necessary flexibility to compete in the current context?

[EN] In the modern era firms should look for a sustainable and profitable business model. They operate in highly volatile and competitive markets. Innovation is a key element that allows firms to survive in these complex environments. Accordingly, some companies are developing human resource models that align to the actual competitive context. For instance, they establish democratic systems, flexible work practices, they focus on responsibility and initiative and increase the self-control of team members. In this framework, firms tend to use resources such as creativity, capacity for innovation or development of human talent. Therefore, innovative teams are able to adapt and react to turbulent, complex and dynamic environments, which allow them to handle in a more efficient way several subtasks. This fact gives rise to a higher effectiveness in the activities of firms. This paper analyze the characteristics and performance of multifunctional teams, virtual teams, open-innovation teams and self-managing teams. It also study the case of Semco, a company that is characterized by its innovative practices in human resources management and focus on responsibility and initiative and increase the self-control of team members.

Combination of web usage, content and structure information for diverse web mining applications in the tourism context and the context of users with disabilities

188 p.

Incidental Memory of Younger and Older Adults for Objects Encountered in a Real World Context

Effects of context on the perception of, and incidental memory for, real-world objects have predominantly been investigated in younger individuals, under conditions involving a single static viewpoint. We examined the effects of prior object context and object familiarity on both older and younger adults' incidental memory for real objects encountered while they traversed a conference room. Recognition memory for context-typical and context-atypical objects was compared with a third group of unfamiliar objects that were not readily named and that had no strongly associated context. Both older and younger adults demonstrated a typicality effect, showing significantly lower 2-alternative-forced-choice recognition of context-typical than context-atypical objects; for these objects, the recognition of older adults either significantly exceeded, or numerically surpassed, that of younger adults. Testing-awareness elevated recognition but did not interact with age or with object type. Older adults showed significantly higher recognition for context-atypical objects than for unfamiliar objects that had no prior strongly associated context. The observation of a typicality effect in both age groups is consistent with preserved semantic schemata processing in aging. The incidental recognition advantage of older over younger adults for the context-typical and context-atypical objects may reflect aging-related differences in goal-related processing, with older adults under comparatively more novel circumstances being more likely to direct their attention to the external environment, or age-related differences in top-down effortful distraction regulation, with older individuals' attention more readily captured by salient objects in the environment. Older adults' reduced recognition of unfamiliar objects compared to context-atypical objects may reflect possible age differences in contextually driven expectancy violations. The latter finding underscores the theoretical and methodological value of including a third type of objects-that are comparatively neutral with respect to their contextual associations-to help differentiate between contextual integration effects (for schema-consistent objects) and expectancy violations (for schema-inconsistent objects).