Sex Offending and Situational Motivation: Findings from a Qualitative Analysis of Desistance from Sexual Offending

Sex offending is typically understood from a pathology perspective with the origin of the behavior thought to be within the offending individual. Such a perspective may not be beneficial for those seeking to desist from sexual offending and reintegrate into mainstream society. A thematic analysis of 32 self-narratives of men convicted of sexual offences against children suggests that such individuals typically explain their pasts utilizing a script consistent with routine activity theory, emphasizing the role of circumstantial changes in both the onset of and desistance from sexual offending. It is argued that the self-framing of serious offending in this way might be understood as a form of ‘shame management’, a protective cognition that enables desistance by shielding individuals from internalizing stigma for past violence.

Digital Figurations : The Human Figure as Cinematic Concept

Mainstream cinema is to an ever-increasing degree deploying digital imaging technologies to work with the human form; expanding on it, morphing its features, or providing new ways of presenting it. This has prompted theories of simulation and virtualisation to explore the cultural and aesthetic implications, anxieties, and possibilities of a loss of the ‘real’ – in turn often defined in terms of the photographic trace. This thesis wants to provide another perspective. Following instead some recent imperatives in art-theory, this study looks to introduce and expand on the notion of the human figure, as pertaining to processes of figuration rather than (only) representation. The notion of the figure and figuration have an extended history in the fields of hermeneutics, aesthetics, and philosophy, through which they have come to stand for particular theories and methodologies with regards to images and their communication of meaning. This objective of this study is to appropriate these for film-theory, culminating in two case-studies to demonstrate how formal parameters present and organise ideas of the body and the human. The aim is to develop a material approach to contemporary digital practices, where bodies have not ceased to matter but are framed in new ways by new technologies.

Nya utmanare – nya strategier? : Etablerade partier bemöter ny konkurrens

The purpose of this study is to examine the strategic choice of mainstream parties in relation to the competition of voters posed by a niche party and their most important issue, in this case radicalist rightwing populists and the migration issue. The study uses a comparative approach to examine the mainstream parties Social Democrats and Moderates reaction to the niche parties New Democracy 1991-1994 and Sweden Democrats 2010-2015. Using Meguid´s PSO-theory and by performing an qualitative analyse of the parties rhetoric and political suggestions in the parliamentary debates as well as in government bills and reservations in committee reports, the study aims to describe mainstream parties position on the issue and if and how they change position and strategy. The results of the study shows that both mainstream parties over all applies an adversarial strategy, aiming to maintain distance to the niche party and its position but with time and due to changes in the political environment, changes in position and strategy takes place and the mainstream parties applies a slightly more accommodative strategy.

Nya utmanare – nya strategier? : Etablerade partier bemöter ny konkurrens

The purpose of this study is to examine the strategic choice of mainstream parties in relation to the competition of voters posed by a niche party and their most important issue, in this case radicalist rightwing populists and the migration issue. The study uses a comparative approach to examine the mainstream parties Social Democrats and Moderates reaction to the niche parties New Democracy 1991-1994 and Sweden Democrats 2010-2015. Using Meguid´s PSO-theory and by performing an qualitative analyse of the parties rhetoric and political suggestions in the parliamentary debates as well as in government bills and reservations in committee reports, the study aims to describe mainstream parties position on the issue and if and how they change position and strategy. The results of the study shows that both mainstream parties over all applies an adversarial strategy, aiming to maintain distance to the niche party and its position but with time and due to changes in the political environment, changes in position and strategy takes place and the mainstream parties applies a slightly more accommodative strategy.

Faulkner revisited : narrating property, race, gender and history in William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Gloria Naylor's Mama Day

My thesis explores the formation of the subject in the novels of Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day. I attach the concept of property in terms of how male protagonists are obsessed with materialistic ownership and with the subordination of women who, as properties, consolidate their manhood. The three novelists despite their racial, gendered, and literary differences share the view that identity and truth are mere social and cultural constructs. I incorporate the work of Judith Butler and other poststructuralist figures, who see identity as a matter of performance rather than a natural entity. My thesis explores the theme of freedom, which I attached to the ways characters use their bodies either to confine or to emancipate themselves from the restricting world of race, class, and gender. The three novelists deconstruct any system of belief that promulgates the objectivity of truth in historical documents. History in the three novels, as with the protagonists, perception of identity, remains a social construct laden with distortions to serve particular political or ideological agendas. My thesis gives voice to African American female characters who are associated with love and racial and gender resistance. They become the reservoirs of the African American legacy in terms of their association with the oral and intuitionist mode of knowing, which subverts the male characters’ obsession with property and with the mainstream empiricist world. In this dissertation, I use the concept of hybridity as a literary and theoretical devise that African-American writers employ. In effect, I embark on the postcolonial studies of Henry Louise Gates, Paul Gilroy, W. E. B Du Bois, James Clifford, and Arjun Appadurai in order to reflect upon the fluidity of Morrison’s and Naylor’s works. I show how these two novelists subvert Faulkner’s essentialist perception of truth, and of racial and gendered identity. They associate the myth of the Flying African with the notion of hybridity by making their male protagonists criss-cross Northern and Southern regions. I refer to Mae Gwendolyn Henderson’s article on “Speaking in Tongues” in my analysis of how Naylor subverts the patriarchal text of both Faulkner and Morrison in embarking on a more feminine version of the flying African, which she relates to an ex-slave, Sapphira Wade, a volatile female character who resists fixed claim over her story and identity. In dealing with the concept of hybridity, I show that Naylor rewrites both authors’ South by making Willow Springs a more fluid space, an assumption that unsettles the scores of critics who associate the island with authenticity and exclusive rootedness.

La compétence sociale des enfants et des adolescents atteints de déficience motrice cérébrale

Les enfants atteints de déficience motrice cérébrale (DMC) intégrés en milieu scolaire ordinaire vivent davantage de difficultés relatives à la compétence sociale que les autres enfants. En lien avec le modèle SOCIAL de Beauchamp et Anderson (2010) (The socio-cognitive integration of abilities model), deux questions sont abordées afin de comprendre ces difficultés. Dans le premier article, les attributions d’intentions (AI) hostiles sont mesurées par le Home Interview with Child (HIWC), un ensemble de vignettes représentants des situations sociales ambigües. Les résultats montrent que l’acceptation sociale, plus que le statut de naissance, est associé à l’hostilité des AI à 15 ans. Les enfants rejetés et populaires ont un niveau d’AI hostiles supérieur aux enfants de la catégorie d’acceptation sociale moyenne. Il est proposé que l’acceptation sociale soit un médiateur important à considérer dans le développement d’un biais d’AI hostile chez les enfants atteints de DMC. Dans le deuxième article, la dominance sociale (i.e., une forme de leadership) est évaluée dans une situation de résolution de problème en équipe. Les comportements relatifs à la dominance sociale (i.e., les comportements prosociaux et coercitifs) sont codifiés à l’aide d’une grille créée et validée pour cette étude. Les résultats révèlent que, sans égard au score d’acceptation sociale, les enfants atteints de DMC effectuent significativement moins de comportements prosociaux et coercitifs que les enfants sans DMC au cours de la résolution de problème. De plus, leur équipe de travail émet un nombre de comportements prosociaux et coercitifs inférieur à celui observé dans l’équipe des deux enfants témoins. Les difficultés de compétence sociale observées chez les jeunes atteints de DMC pourraient être en partie expliquées par une faible dominance sociale lors d’activités sollicitant les fonctions exécutives. Enfin, les deux articles présentés permettent d’explorer de nouvelles avenues pour comprendre et soutenir le développement de la compétence sociale chez les enfants et les adolescents atteints de DMC. Les interventions auprès de cette clientèle devraient avoir lieu tôt et devraient cibler autant les habiletés motrices de ces jeunes que leur compétence sociale, avant que des signaux clairs ne compromettent déjà leur expérience sociale globale en milieu scolaire ordinaire.

Thermobonded Fabrics

In 2009 Avella created a series of innovative fabrics for the Yves St Laurent (YSL) collection, deploying techniques from vehicle engineering to generate new materials for a range of garments. Studying the bonding of layers of material in ceramic plate thermobonding technology, Avella conducted a series of experiments with textiles such as flannel, silk and synthetics, and material such as leather, layered with polyamide foam and textile substrate to create new, textured and insulating fabrics with beautiful surfaces and interesting forms. The lightweight properties of the foam enabled the maximum insulation/weight ratio, and the panel moulding technology brought new forms of draping prêt-a-porter fashion design. Exclusive to YSL, this technique was patented and then shown at the Premiere Vision textiles trade fair in 2010. Much documented in specialist journals this innovation also breached the trade-culture barrier and was reported and documented in mainstream newspapers (New York Herald Tribune). Avella’s background in textile workshop studio experimentation at the RCA brought to YSL textiles research for manufacture, the innovative collaboration between fashion couture and engineering laboratory experiments from vehicle design.

Análise da eficiência de contratos de serviços de elevada especificidade terceirizados pela petrobras

The definition of the boundaries of the firms is subject that has occupied the organizational theorists long ago, being the seminal work of Coase (1937) indicated as the trigger for one theoretical evolution, with emphasis on governance structures, which led to a modern theory of incomplete contracts. The Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Agency Theory arise within this evolution, being widely used in studies related to the theme. Empirically, data envelopment analysis (DEA) has established itself as a suitable tool for analysis of efficiency. Although TCE argues that specific assets must be internalized, recent studies outside the mainstream of theory show that, often, firms may decide, for various reasons, hire them on the market. Researches on transaction costs face with the unavailability of information and methodological difficulties in measuring their critical variables. There`s still the need for further methodological deepening. The theoretical framework includes classic works of TCE and Agency Theory, but also more recent works, outside the mainstream of TCE, which warn about the existence of strategies in use of specific assets that aren`t necessarily aligned with the classical ideas of TCE. The Brazilian oil industry is the focus of this thesis, that aimed to evaluate the efficiency of contracts involving high specificity service outsourced by Petrobras. In order to this, we made the categorization of outsourced services in terms of specificity, as well the description of services with higher specificity. Then, we verified the existence of relationship between the specificity of services and a number of variables, being found divergent results than those that are preached by the mainstream of TCE. Then, we designed a DEA model to analyze the efficiency in the use of onshore drilling rigs, identified among the services of highest specificity. The next step was the application of the model to evaluate the performance of drilling rigs contracts. Finally, we verified the existence of relationship between the efficiency of contracts and a number of variables, being found, again, results not consistent with the theory mainstream. Regarding to analyze of efficiency of drilling rigs contracts, the model developed is compatible with what is found in academic productions in efficiency of drilling rigs. The results on efficiency show a wide range of scores, with efficiencies ranging from 31.79% to 100%, being low the sample efficiency average. There is consonance between the model results and the practices adopted by Petrobras. The results strengthen the DEA as an important tool in studies of efficiency with possibility to use for analysis other types of contracts. In terms of theoretical findings, the results reinforce the arguments that there are situations in which the strategies of the organizations, in terms of use of assets and services of high specificity, do not necessarily follow what is recommended by the mainstream of TCE

Positive psychology – The second wave

It is nearly twenty years since Martin Seligman used his 1998 American Psychological Association presidential address to inaugurate the notion of ‘positive psychology.’ The rationale for its creation was Seligman’s contention that psychology had hitherto tended to focus mainly on what is wrong with people, on dysfunction, disorder and distress. There were of course pockets of scholarship that held a candle for human potential and excellence, like humanistic psychology. Nevertheless, on the whole, he argued that concepts such as happiness did not attract much attention or credibility in mainstream psychology. Emerging to redress this lacuna, positive psychology soon became a fertile new paradigm, encompassing research into a panoply of processes and qualities that could be deemed ‘positive,’ from overarching constructs such as flourishing, to more specific concepts like hope.

Shakespeare and the Re/Vision of Indian Heritage in the Postcolonial British Context

As part of the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company staged a production of Much Ado About Nothing set in India. Shakespeare’s Messina in sixteenth century Italy was transposed to twenty-first century Delhi and with a company of actors who were all of Indian heritage. The casting of individual British Asian actors in mainstream UK productions of Shakespeare is no longer unusual. What was unprecedented here, however, was that not only was the entire cast ‘Asian’ but the director was not, as is standard practice, a leading member of the white British theatrical establishment. Instead the director, Iqbal Khan, is the son of a Pakistani father who migrated to England in the 1960s. I use the term ‘Indian heritage’ with great caution conscious that what began under the British Raj in nineteenth century India led through subsequent economic imperatives and exigencies, and political schism to a history of migratory patterns which means that today’s British Asian population is a complex demographic construct representing numerous different languages and cultural and religious affiliations. The routes which brought those actors to play imagined Indian Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon in July 2012 were many and various. I explore in this chapter the way in which that complexity of heritage has been brought to bear on the revisioning of Shakespeare by British Asian theatre makers operating outside the theatrical mainstream. In general because of the social, economic and institutional challenges facing British Asian theatre artists, the number of independent professional companies is comparatively small and for the most part, their work has focused on creating drama which interrogates thorny questions of identity formation and contemporary cultural practices within the ‘new’ British Asian communities. Nevertheless for artists born and/or educated in the UK the Western classical canon, including of course Shakespeare, is as much part of their heritage as the classical Indian narratives and performance traditions which so powerfully evoke collective memories of the lost ‘home’ of their elders. By far the most consistent engagement with Shakespeare has been seen in the work of Tara Arts which was the first British Asian theatre company set up in 1977. The artistic director Jatinder Verma brings his own ‘transformed and translated’ heritage as an East African-born, Punjabi-speaking, English-educated, Indian migrant to the UK to plays as diverse as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Troilus and Cressida , The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice. I discuss examples of Tara productions in the light of the way Shakespeare’s plays have been used to forge both creative synergies between parallel cultures and provide a means of addressing the ontological ruptures and dislocations associated with the colonial past.

Reflections on inclusion: how far have we come since Warnock and Salamanca?

In England, inclusion has once again become a much discussed topic following the publication of the 2015 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice. There have been successes and improvements in inclusion since the Warnock Committee first published its findings on special educational needs in 1978, but many argue that these improvements are not enough. When the state of inclusion today is compared to the ideals advocated by both the Warnock Report and the Salamanca Statement it is clear that the education system has fallen short of the expectations outlined in these documents. There have been efforts to reduce the level of segregation between special schools and mainstream schools such as the establishment of resourced provisions, but these settings often have their own difficulties when considering inclusion.

“Refugee Voices,” New Social Media and Politics of Representation: Young Congolese in the Diaspora and Beyond

This article examines the role of new social media in the articulation and representation of the refugee and diasporic “voice.” The article problematizes the individualist, de-politicized, de-contextualized, and aestheticized representation of refugee/diasporic voices. It argues that new social media enable refugees and diaspora members to exercise agency in managing the creation, production, and dissemination of their voices and to engage in hybrid (on- and offline) activism. These new territories for self-representation challenge our conventional understanding of refugee/diaspora voices. The article is based on research with young Congolese living in the diaspora, and it describes the Geno-cost project created by the Congolese Action Youth Platform (CAYP) and JJ Bola’s spoken-word piece, “Refuge.” The first shows agency in the creation of analytical and activist voices that promote counter-hegemonic narratives of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, while the second is an example of aesthetic expressions performed online and offline that reveal agency through authorship and ownership of one’s voice. The examples highlight the role that new social media play in challenging mainstream politics of representation of refugee/diaspora voices.

Innovating at the margins: the System of Rice Intensification in India and transformative social innovation

I explore transformative social innovation in agriculture through a particular case of agroecological innovation, the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in India. Insights from social innovation theory that emphasize the roles of social movements and the reengagement of vulnerable populations in societal transformation can help reinstate the missing “social” dimension in current discourses on innovation in India. India has a rich and vibrant tradition of social innovation wherein vulnerable communities have engaged in collective experimentation. This is often missed in official or formal accounts. Social innovations such as SRI can help recreate these possibilities for change from outside the mainstream due to newer opportunities that networks present in the twenty-first century. I show how local and international networks led by Civil Society Organizations have reinterpreted and reconstructed game-changing macrotrends in agriculture. This has enabled the articulation and translation of an alternative paradigm for sustainable transitions within agriculture from outside formal research channels. These social innovations, however, encounter stiff opposition from established actors in agricultural research systems. Newer heterogeneous networks, as witnessed in SRI, provide opportunities for researchers within hierarchical research systems to explore, experiment, and create newer norms of engagement with Civil Society Organizations and farmers. I emphasize valuing and embedding diversity of practices and institutions at an early stage to enable systems to be more resilient and adaptable in sustainable transitions.

Values and Beliefs Held About Parenting and Education by School Staff and Parents of Pupils with Special Educational Needs in the Context of Home- School Collaboration

Effective collaboration between school staff and parents of children identified as having special educational needs is considered to be an essential component of the child’s successful education. Differences in beliefs and perspectives adopted by the school staff and parents play an important role in the process of collaboration. However, little is known about the precise relationship between the beliefs and the process of collaboration. The purpose of this study was to explore the values and beliefs held by the school staff and parents in the areas of parenting and education. The study also explored the link between these beliefs and the process of collaboration within four parent-teacher dyads from mainstream primary schools. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews based on repertory grid technique were used. The findings highlighted an overall similarity in the participants’ views on collaboration and in their important beliefs about parenting and education. At the same time, differences in perspectives adopted by parents and teachers were also identified. The author discusses how these differences in perspectives are manifested in the process of collaboration from the point of Cultural Capital Theory. The factors such as power differentials, trust between parents and teachers, and limited resources and constraints of educational system are highlighted. Implication for practice for teachers and educational psychologists are discussed.

Parallelisation of ESAUNA within EUROPORT-1: A structured/unstructured aeronautical CFD flow code

General-purpose parallel processing for solving day-to-day industrial problems has been slow to develop, partly because of the lack of suitable hardware from well-established, mainstream computer manufacturers and suitably parallelized application software. The parallelization of a CFD-(computational fluid dynamics) flow solution code is known as ESAUNA. This code is part of SAUNA, a large CFD suite aimed at computing the flow around very complex aircraft configurations including complete aircraft. A novel feature of the SAUNA suite is that it is designed to use either block-structured hexahedral grids, unstructured tetrahedral grids, or a hybrid combination of both grid types. ESAUNA is designed to solve the Euler equations or the Navier-Stokes equations, the latter in conjunction with various turbulence models. Two fundamental parallelization concepts are used—namely, grid partitioning and encapsulation of communications. Grid partitioning is applied to both block-structured grid modules and unstructured grid modules. ESAUNA can also be coupled with other simulation codes for multidisciplinary computations such as flow simulations around an aircraft coupled with flutter prediction for transient flight simulations.