VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The power of religion/the religion of power, religious activities as Upaya for women of the Edo period. the case of Mantokuji

Mantokuji, the ancestral temple of the Tokugawa shogunal line, and the imperially-connected Tokeiji were highly specialized Buddhist convents famous for operating as "divorce temples" (enkiridera, lit. "Temples for Severing the Karmic 'Ties that Bind' thinspace") during the Edo/Tokugawa period (1603-1868). By examination of Mantokuji, I argue that these temples' significance extends beyond this singular legal function. In the eyes of the Tokugawa bakufu, enkiridera were first and foremost religio-political organizations whose primary role was to support Tokugawa rule, either by validating claims of a shogunal lineage (Mantokuji) or providing an Imperial cachet (Tokeiji). These temples' ability to operate as "governmentally-sanctioned" divorce brokers for a specific segment of non-elite women (i.e., those of the gocho or gono "class") was in fact an unintended by-product of these temples' official function. Moreover, elite (predominantly buke) female members of the shogunal "Women's Quarters"--the Ooku--also funded independent religious activities at Mantokuji in particular as a medium for both generating and legitimizing political power, their own as well as that of the State. Ooku members' co-option of this "State" institution was, in fact, an upaya, or "expedient tool", of personal advancement in this world as well as the next. When the relationships between enkiridera and women of both the buke and "upper-commoner" classes are examined in detail, it becomes clear that these convents were hardly remote, other-worldly-oriented religious retreats; they were in fact important social institutions intimately involved with the secular society around them. Mantokuji in particular responded to the Edo period's rapidly changing socio-economic realities by offering a "window of opportunity" for women who could afford its services, regardless of their class-of-origin. Ultimately, it is clear that, at least in the case of Mantokuji, there was a direct connection between the convent's enkiridera function and its economic resources, religio-political activities, and use by both elite and non-elite women of the Edo period.
Chaotic advection in the stratosphere

The relevance of chaotic advection to stratospheric mixing and transport is addressed in the context of (i) a simple Hamiltonian model (referred to as the two-wave model); and (ii) a numerical model of forced shallow-water flow on the sphere. As chaotic advection has traditionally been associated with time-periodic kinematic models, its relevance to the dynamically-evolving flows of geophysical fluid dynamics, and to the stratosphere in particular, is unclear. In the first half of this thesis chaotic advection in the two-wave model is analysed in great detail. A large number of diagnostics are considered--transport fluxes, dispersion statistics, tracer spectra, Liapunov exponents, and correlation times. The main objective is to delineate the characteristics of chaotic advection in a physically plausible model of stratospheric mixing and transport; the two-wave model, which is obtained from Rossby-wave critical-layer theory, is dynamically consistent to leading order in the wave amplitude, thus partially circumventing the dynamical consistency problem that has vexed previous geophysical applications of chaotic advection. A secondary objective is to describe the parameter dependence of mixing and transport, notably with respect to stochasticity (multiplicative and additive). In the second half of this thesis a similar analysis is undertaken for the shallow-water model, a system of a type which has been used to successfully simulate the dynamics of a perturbed polar vortex. By comparison with the two-wave results (and with predictions for random-strain turbulence), it is shown that chaotic advection occurs in the shallow-water system if there is sufficient spatial structure in the velocity field--namely the formation of cat's eyes in the surf zone, such as are commonly seen in numerical simulations of Rossby-wave critical layers. The cat's eyes may be thought of as an "organizing structure" which acts in a manner akin to the heteroclinic structure of a chaotic system. These results appear to be in agreement with the central result of contour advection calculations, that the development of small-scale tracer structure in the lower stratosphere is determined by the large-scale flow.
Appointment in Samarra, studies in self-deception

The philosophical issues raised by the phenomenon of self-deception fall into either of two groups. Insofar as self-deception raises questions about belief (e.g., how is it possible to hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously?), self-deception may be understood to pose an epistemic problem, one with implications for the philosophy of mind. Alternatively, insofar as self-deception is something which by all reports one ought to avoid, and indeed, we have a moral obligation to avoid, self-deception may be understood to be a problem in ethics. My primary concern is with the moral status of self-deception. In particular I consider the following questions: What sort of moral problem does self-deception pose? and, does self-deception pose a special problem for ethics? To the end of sorting through these questions I consider Augustine's and Rousseau's respective Confessions, relevant elements of Freud's psychoanalytic theory, and Kant's brief but compelling account of self-deception. I suggest that it is helpful to think of self-deception as an unintentional consequence of coming to hold a belief, and so we may think of the moral problem of self-deception as an instance of the more general question of under what conditions may we hold people responsible for unintended consequences of their actions. Answering this question in the context of the problem of self-deception shows us the sense in which the phenomenon poses a special problem for ethics. The injunction "avoid self deception" and its correlate "know thyself" (or, in Kant's formulation "know the motives under which you act") are perfectly intelligible. However, unlike rules such as "act so as to maximize happiness," we cannot conceive of the conditions under which we can verify whether in fact we have followed them.
Governing forestry, environmental group influence in British Columbia and the US Pacific Northwest

Increased societal pressures over the last thirty years for greater eco-forest protection in British Columbia and the US Pacific Northwest appear to be forces for (upward) policy convergence. However, choices regarding forest land use (what to protect; where to log) and forest practices (how to log) have been a tale of policy divergence. The relative power of the state, industry, environmental groups, and other organized interests have also responded to societal pressures in distinct ways. The dissertation seeks to explain these divergent policy responses and the differing influence of environmental groups. Employing a policy community/network approach and drawing from historical institutionalist theory, the dissertation tests the argument that macro-institutional structures, statutory regimes, and level of public land ownership appear to be key explanatory factors for understanding the nature of forest policy and network change. The dissertation finds that the conjunction of these three variables largely explains the high level of state autonomy in British Columbia, where forest policy and network change is strongly influenced by the actions of the governing party. In contrast, significant changes in the PNW have been primarily the product of organized non-governmental interests (the forest industry in the case of Oregon and Washington State regulations and environmental group litigation in the case of US PNW federal lands policy). At the same time the research finds that this institutional explanation must be accompanied by an understanding of the role and place of each region's forest economy within the North American and international economies. These factors help account for the internationalization of BC's forest policy community in the early 1990s, and the paucity of attention US environmental groups give to private land forest regulations in the Pacific Northwest.
A fatherly eye, two Indian agents on Georgian Bay, 1918-1939

This thesis examines the implementation of federal Indian policy on the local level and the control exercised by officials of the Indian Department over Native individuals and communities. It does so by analyzing the activities and approaches of two Indian agents in the Georgian Bay area between 1918 and 1939: Robert J. Lewis of the Manitowaning agency on Manitoulin Island, and John M. Daly of the Parry Sound agency on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay. By comparing and contrasting the activities of these two men, the dissertation reveals the ways in which policies were applied and enforced. The overriding theme is the contest for power which dominated the interaction between Native people and field officials. Drawing on Michel Foucault's insights into power relations, the dissertation explores the strategic manoeuvring in which agents and their aboriginal clients engaged in order to exercise power. Many Native people challenged the authority of the agents, asserting their own vision of individual and community autonomy. They also addressed issues of treaty rights, aboriginal fishing and hunting rights, and control over band funds and resources. Field officials were often able to block aboriginal attempts to assert greater autonomy and to organize politically against the Department of Indian Affairs. On the other hand, the agents were limited in their capacity to act when they lacked the backing of headquarters. The dissertation also examines the role of Indian agents in providing assistance to their clients and mediating between reserve communities and the outside world. Agents sometimes acted as advocates of Native interests, both in interpersonal disputes and through efforts to ensure limited Native access to fish and game. In addition, Indian agents dispensed social services, largely in the form of financial assistance. The advocacy and assistance which the agents could provide were the object of power negotiations with Native people, in which the latter sought to derive benefit from the power of the field officials. At the same time, the authority of field officials was enhanced by their power to supply aid and intervene on their clients' behalf.

Keywords: Indians of North America
Government relations
Indian agents
Biography
Indians of North America
History
Indiens d'Amérique
Relations avec l'État
Agents des Affaires indiennes
Biographies
Indiens d'Amérique
Histoire
The effect of chronic environmental and pharmacological stress on ethanol consumption in male Wistar rats

Epidemiological studies often show a direct relationship between stressful life events, stress related mental disorders and alcohol abuse. The nature of this association is not understood. The animal research which examines this interaction presents conflicting results. The aim of the present study was to develop a new model of chronic environmental stress (CES) which can be used to examine the relationship between stress and ethanol intake in rats. In this paradigm, male Wistar rats were exposed to a variety of mild, unpredictable stressors before and/or after access to ethanol. The animals were given limited access to ethanol for 30 min daily. In order to elucidate the possible mechanisms which could underlie the effect of stress on ethanol consumption, the stressed animals were characterized in terms of their behaviour, baseline corticosterone levels and ethanol pharmacokinetics. The results showed that pre-exposure to CES enhanced acquisition of ethanol drinking behaviour in naive rats, however, during the maintenance phase application of CES to experienced ethanol drinkers resulted in a decrease in ethanol consumption. Rats' concomitant water intake was not affected by the CES. The stressed rats exhibited increased activity in a novel environment, increased sensitivity to the stimulant effects of d-amphetamine, higher levels of anxiety in the social interaction test and lower baseline corticosterone levels. These animals showed normal body weight gain, normal preference for a non-drug reinforcer (sucrose), a typical behavioural response in the Porsolt's forced swim test and an unaltered ethanol pharmacokinetic profile. In order to assess the generality of the effect of CES on ethanol consumption, the effects of the anxiogenic agent Ro 15-4513 (Ro; 0.1-3.0 mg/kg) were also examined. Similarly to CES, chronic treatment with Ro facilitated ethanol intake during acquisition phase and temporarily suppressed it during the maintenance phase. Ro exhibited an anxiogenic profile in the social interaction test and had no effect on ethanol pharmacokinetics. Using a comprehensive research strategy, the present study demonstrates that exposure to stressful perturbations (environmental or pharmacological) leads to an increase in ethanol consumption during the acquisition phase and a suppression during the maintenance phase. Possible mechanisms are discussed.
A person-situation study of coping with a life-threatening illness, qualitative analysis of cognitions and behaviours in gay men with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome

Set within the professional context of social work in health care, this study examines the nature and characteristics of coping in a purposive sample of six gay men with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Based on the illness-related cognitions and behaviours reported by the subjects, the study develops a process model of coping in order to identify a knowledge base for social work in health care. As a specialized field of practice, social work in health care is primarily concerned with the facilitation of coping with illness and health-related issues with individuals, groups, and communities. Consistent with social work's historic practice focus on the person and situation, the study conceives coping with AIDS as a function of a stressful transactional relationship mediated by cognitive appraisal processes. Using a qualitative research method, the study identities 11 interrelated person-situation transactions that depict coping with AIDS as a process of adaptive compromise in relation to three cumulative phases in the illness continuum. Body vigilance, fatalistic preoccupation, and reconstructed autonomy were the characteristic features of coping portrayed by the subjects. The study concludes that personal autonomy is intrinsic to coping in situations that impose a process of adaptive compromise. Adherence to the principle of personal autonomy in the facilitation of coping with AIDS is articulated in guidelines for social workers in health care.
Pre-Theodosian ascetic piety in fourth-century Egypt, a study of the ascetical letters of bishops and monks

Traditionally, our depiction of fourth-century desert ascetic practice has been constructed almost entirely from hagiogaphic sources, including the Lives and the Apophthegmata Patrum. In recent decades, studies of individual ascetic letters, and of collections of ascetic letters, have shown that this neglected body of evidence deserves to be regarded as the authentic work of fourth century ascetics. This study seeks to integrate these individual studies by assessing the historical value of the ascetical letters of prominent fourth-century Egyptian bishops and ascetic masters, principally, Ammonas, Antony, Athanasius, Horsisios, Pachomius, Serapion of Thmuis, and Theodore. The first chapter examines the current state of scholarship on the letters in an effort to establish their status as historical evidence. Subsequent chapters analyze the content of individual groups of letters: chapter two discusses the problem of succession in the Antonian movement; chapter three considers two group rituals in the early Pachomian movement; chapter four discusses the authorship of the Life of Antony. The final chapter compares the intent and content of the ascetical letters with traditional, contemporary, hagiographic desert ascetic sources.
A communicative approach to the epistolary form in letters of Victorian women writers

Although the letter has long been valued as an object of material culture, as an autobiographical text, and as a means of communication, literary critics have paid the epistolary form itself little attention. My study, therefore, describes the form as it is found in letters by Victorian women writers. It is based on an extensive collection of unpublished letters, supplemented by published editions, of approximately thirty-five British and American women writers during the 1820s-1870s. In formulating my approach, I have drawn on sociological, psychological, linguistic, and literary theory, particularly rhetoric, formalism, literary stylistics, and discourse analysis. My study demonstrates how careful analysis of the epistolary components leads to more accurate interpretations of letters and hence to an increased understanding of the lives and contexts of their authors. The study begins by examining how critical assumptions derive from epistolography with its emphasis on taxonomy and rhetoric. Although the basis for these assumptions is often sound, categorical statements obscure rather than clarify the paradoxical characteristics that delineate the form's parameters. Next, the specifically epistolary components of a letter text are examined; then the epistolary "body" is discussed in its physical aspects and in its construction by the topics. The letter's specific components, its physicality, and the topics are linked as structural components and they influence, and are influenced by, the responsive process of recognition, recollection, and requital. Epistolary discourse is constructed both as a response to an interactional situation and as an invitation to future interaction. In the final chapter, the role of friendship in synthesizing the discourse's pragmatic and creative aims is examined. With an increased understanding of the form's structure, aims, and rhetorical strategies, the letter emerges as a highly complex text. The letter cannot be adequately understood as a closed text without a complete text because the parts function together to construct its meaning. As an open text, a unit of a correspondence, the letter needs to be viewed intertextually because epistolary meaning is dialogical. Though the study is not primarily biographical or sociological, its material provides evidence pertinent to such studies of Victorian women authors.
Modes of emplacement and deformation of Late Archean leucogranites in the High Lake greenstone belt, northern Slave province, Canada

The N-S trending, 120 km long, 2.7-2.6 Ga High Lake greenstone belt is located in the northern part of the Slave structural province. It consists of a central domain of mixed volcanic and sedimentary rocks (ca. 2616-2605 Ma), with volcanic rocks (ca. 2705-2671 Ma) to the east and west. The nature of the domain boundaries is enigmatic; they appear conformable, but generally are loci of intense flattening, which obscures primary contact relationships. The belt is surrounded by ca. 2605 Ma granitoid rocks. Variations in the trend of the main cleavage throughout the belt reveal a pattern controlled by these surrounding granitoid batholiths, suggesting that they acted as rigid blocks during regional deformation. The Ulu pluton, in the southwestern part of the belt, was emplaced at 2588 $\pm$ 4 Ma. Three-dimensional gravity modelling shows that the pluton was emplaced along a major NNE trending fracture, and two smaller NNW trending fractures. The elongate Sneezy pluton, emplaced at 2580 $\pm$ 8 Ma in the northern part of the belt, trends NNE, also consistent with emplacement along a NNE trending fracture set. Thus, a conjugate set of fractures, formed during an earlier period of deformation, provided planes of weakness for magma ascent. Both plutons were previously considered to be undeformed, providing a minimum age of the main cleavage in the belt. However, microstructural observations, and magnetic fabric studies show that during their emplacement and cooling, continued regional deformation produced variable, but significant NNE trending magmatic and solid-state fabrics, parallel to the main cleavage in the belt. The late tectonic evolution of the northern Slave province is more complicated than previously thought. A period of basin formation, accompanied by volcanism and sedimentation from ca. 2616-2605 Ma, was followed by voluminous plutonism from ca. 2605-2600 Ma, accompanied and/or followed by E-W horizontal compression, which resulted in steeply plunging, NNE trending folds. Later deformation, possibly but not likely extensional, resulted in brittle faults, which were utilized for emplacement of leucocratic plutons at ca. 2588-2580 Ma, during a period of renewed E-W compression. This compression continued after the cooling of these plutons, producing a belt-scale NNE trending cleavage, and local wrapping of bedding planes around the margins of the plutons.
Phylogenetic analysis of breeding-system evolution in heterostylous monocotyledons

The evolutionary histories of various stylar conditions (heterostyly, enantiostyly, stylar dimorphism and monomorphism) were examined in two groups of monocotyledons, Pontederiaceae and Narcissus, using several sources of phylogenetic information and several different weighting schemes for reconstructions of character evolution. The monophyly of Pontederiaceae is strongly supported by phylogenetic evidence from rbcL, but its local position in the monocotyledons is unclear. Several tests were used to assess the congruence of four phylogenetic data sets for the family: two chloroplast genes (ndhF and rbcL); a restriction-site survey of the plastome; and a revised morphology-based data set. Despite different "rules" of evolution for the three chloroplast sources of data, these data sets provided highly congruent, well resolved and well supported phylogenetic estimates of the family's history. The morphological data provided a poorly supported phylogenetic estimate that showed both congruence and incongruence with the chloroplast evidence. A combined analysis of ndhF and rbcL genes from taxa in five superorders of monocotyledons added support to the view that three families containing enantiostylous taxa, Commelinaceae, Haemodoraceae and Philydraceae, are the nearest living relatives of Pontederiaceae. Several lines of evidence indicate that despite the evolutionary distance between Pontederiaceae and these families, they contain useful historical information concerning the position of the family's root. Trees derived from the combined chloroplast evidence were used to reconstruct breeding-system evolution in Pontederiaceae. Moderately weighted optimization schemes indicate that tristyly arose once only in the family, while predominantly-selfing, florally-monomorphic lineages of Eickhornia arose on multiple occasions. Self-incompatibility arose after the origin of the floral trimorphism, a scenario incompatible with some evolutionary models. Enantiostyly arose twice, with its occurrence in Heteranthdera (sensu lato) possibly homologous with that in related families. Reconstructions of breeding-system evolution in Narcissus are impeded by the partial lack of resolution of an ndhF-based tree of the genus and the probable role played by undetected hybridization events in the genus' phylogenetic history. A preliminary reconstruction of breeding-system evolution in Narcissus suggests that stigma-height dimorphism may have arisen on multiple occasions, and that tristyly in Narcissus triandrus may have evolved directly from floral monomorphism.