The aim of this thesis is to interpret Jan Zahradnicek's spacious poem The Sign of Power. The interpretation crystallizes around the motifs of dehumanisation (connected with Nietzsche's motif of nihilism and of the last man) of a man, the loss of a word, discontinuity, the loss of time, the human face, nothingness (specific Nothingness) and the possibility of salvation, connected with an awakening of the sight. There are two semantic lines essential for enlightening these motifs: Dante's Divine Comedy and Picard's works of the late 40s. Zahradnicek wrote The Sign of Power during 1950-1951, at the time of his intense work on the translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. The purpose of the first part of this thesis is to illustrate how strongly the Divine Comedy influenced the key motifs of The Sign of Power. The purpose of the second part of the thesis is to uncover a new semantic context for the interpretation of Zahradnicek's poem; the works of Swiss essayist, philosopher and poet Max Picard, which were of great importance for Zahradnicek's poem. I see the exposition of Picard's specific grasp of the key modern phenomena, which penetrated to Zahradnicek's poem, as the further objective of the work. The thesis is guided by the fundamental question of The Sign of Power - "what happened with a man" -,...

The doctoral thesis deals with the analysis of the dapped-end beam detail, in terms of theoretical modelling and practical design using the strut-and-tie method as well as experimental verification of the bearing capacity and the behaviour of the detail under load by means of load tests and subsequent numerical nonlinear analysis. A summary of known structural and static designs explored in the literature has been presented. In addition, the strut-and-tie method has been introduced as an appropriate tool for a consistent design of the detail, element or the whole structure. The theoretical basis for the method has been described, including the general methodology for design and analysis. Practical problems have been discussed, specifically those resulting from the known design of the analysed detail based on the German approach; its modification has been processed theoretically taking into account the practical mode of reinforcement. An experiment has been suggested with a view to verify the presented calculation procedure and the influence of the used ratio of vertical to inclined hanger reinforcement on the bearing capacity and behaviour of the detail under load. The experiment also included accompanying material tests of the concrete which were used along with the inspection certificates issued for the used reinforcement as a basis for the nonlinear finite element analysis. Based on the results, the presented design procedure can be considered safe. These results also imply that the chosen ratio of vertical and inclined hanger reinforcements has no influence on the ultimate bearing capacity within practical reinforcement, as it only influences the formation, development and final width of cracks. With the growing ratio of the inclined hanger reinforcement, the width and density of cracks decreases at all stages of loading. Owing to their limitations, primarily during the service state, it is recommended that the minimal inclined reinforcement should be used.

An 18-month study (July 2009 – December 2010) was conducted to determine the influence of four dams located in series along the Perak River, in Malaysia: Temengor, Bersia, Kenering and Chenderoh dams. The framework for investigation centered around the Serial Discontinuity Concept (SDC) and the Cascading Reservoir Continuum Concept (CRCC). In addition to reservoir, tailwater and riverine reach characteristics, the interacting influences of tributary streams and watersheds were addressed. Variables included in-situ environmental physical parameters, nutrients, seston concentration and transport, and fish assemblage characteristics. In-situ variables, water and seston samples, were recorded/collected monthly from all four reservoirs, their associated riverine sections, and their primary tributaries. Fish samples were collected by using experimental gill nets in reservoirs. Fish were enumerated taxonomically and total length and weight were measured for the bony-lipped barb, Osteochilus hasselti (Valenciennes, 1842). Hypotheses were tested using analyses of variance with permutations. Relationships were determined using correlation, and multivariate and regression analyses. The integrated influences of discontinuity and cascading on nutrient and seston transport dynamics and fish assemblages (except for relative condition and biomass of O. hasselti) were operative in dynamic juxtaposition along the river’s continuum, and depended on distance between dams and presence and size of tributary streams. However, principal tributaries along the four serial dams in the Perak River appeared to have little spatial influence on their respective system’s nutrient and seston dynamics due to dilution effects of mainstem discharges. Among all tributaries, only the Rui River depicted reversal of the serial discontinuity trend in its system. Even so, its influence on its system was limited. Effects of ecosystem fragmentation along the river’s continuum on in-situ, nutrients and seston transport dynamics, and fish assemblages existed, but not necessarily in line with the SDC nor in line with the CRCC. The dynamics of in-situ, nutrient, seston and fish assemblage parameters were more associated with land use, reservoir surface area and dam discharge. Results from this study generated a hypothesis that submerged woody vegetation in the reservoirs may augment and compensate lost nutrients, thereby minimizing functional impacts of serially-arranged dams.

This thesis identifies the effect of traditional political coalitions on the left-right spectrum in Swedish municipal politics on economic outcomes such as Municipal Revenues, Expenditures, Net-expenditures, Municipal Tax-rates, Unemployment, and the share of Municipal Employment. To do so, varying time spans of Swedish municipal data from 1994-2017 are used in a regression discontinuity design, basing its identification on quasi-random variation created by close municipal elections. The results indicate that the left-leaning Red-Green coalition has no isolated impact on economic variables when considering the entire sample, but seems to have a significant impact on some economic variables compared to others when the sample is restricted to decrease the number of mixed coalitions in the sample. These results indicate that the increase in mixed governing coalitions in recent years could have watered down the clear left-right dimension in Swedish politics found in previous research.

L’objectif de ce mémoire est de réfléchir aux différentes implications du récit de soi lorsqu’il nous parvient de façon fragmentée. J’ai souhaité penser la création de liens et de relations à travers la mise en distance, la discontinuité et le détour et j’ai proposé pour cette raison que ces aspects sont centraux à l’économie du récit et à l’établissement d’un rapport à soi. J’ai donc privilégié l’étude de deux livres, Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975) et The Argonauts (2015) par Maggie Nelson, qui offrent un portrait éclaté du sujet. Ces ouvrages sont liés l’un l’autre par une image que Maggie Nelson emprunte à Barthes, soit le vaisseau Argo. Métaphore de la métaphore pour George Kliebenstein, l’image de l’Argo permet de naviguer à travers ces récits dont les fragments se superposent plutôt qu’ils ne s’enchaînent. Cette métaphore offre une compréhension des textes dans un hors temps, au contact d’une destination à définir. Des liens s’établissent néanmoins au fil de la lecture entre l’auteur.ice et soi-mêmes. Ce dispositif littéraire constitue le projet d’étude du mémoire que j’associe à l’incarnation. Ainsi, l’écriture de soi peut être entrevue comme un acte qui permet la construction d’un rapport à soi. Le mémoire est divisé en trois sections. Dans un premier temps, les récits sont interrogés afin d’en comprendre la composante biographique tout en explorant la discontinuité de leurs présentations. Par la suite, le corps et ses représentations sont examinés dans les deux récits, ce qui permet une première apparition de l’incarnation dans ce mémoire. Enfin, la troisième section établit le rôle de la langue et de ses marges. / This study aims to examine the many implications of self-writing when it comes in a fragmented form. My intention was to consider the creation of links and relationships through distancing, discontinuity and digressions and I suggested those aspects are crucial to the narrative and giving an account of oneself. I therefore chose to focus on the study of two books, Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975) and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts (2015), which offer a fragmented portrayal of the subject. These works are linked to each other by an image that Nelson borrows from Barthes, the Argo ship. A metaphor’s metaphor for George Kliebenstein, the image of the Argo allows a navigation between those narratives in which fragments overlap rather than following each other. This metaphor offers an out of time understanding of the texts heading to an undefined destination. Links are nonetheless established throughout the reading between the authors and themselves. This literary device constitutes the core of this study which I link to embodiment. Thus, self-writing can be seen as an act allowing the building of a relationship with oneself. The study is divided in three sections. Firstly, narratives are looked into in order to understand their biographical foundation while also exploring their discontinuous form. Secondly, the body and its representations are examined, enabling a first understanding of embodiment. Finally, the third section establishes the function of language and its margins.

Conner and Spencer used ultrafilters to construct homomorphisms between fundamental groups that could not be induced by continuous functions between the underlying spaces. We use methods from Shelah and Pawlikowski to prove that Conner and Spencer could not have constructed these homomorphisms with a weak version of the Axiom of Choice. This led us to define and examine a class of pathological objects that cannot be constructed without a strong version of the Axiom of Choice, which we call the class of inscrutable objects. Objects that do not need a strong version of the Axiom of Choice are scrutable. We show that the scrutable homomorphisms from the fundamental group of a Peano continuum are exactly the homomorphisms induced by a continuous function.We suspect that any proposed theorem whose proof does not use a strong Axiom of Choice cannot have an inscrutable counterexample.

At what age people ought to be given the right to vote has become a salient issue in both contemporary Western politics and political science. A prevalent argument opposing lowering the voting age to 16 asserts that 16- and 17-year-olds lack the necessary political competence required of voters. However, the validity of this argument rests upon the assumption that adolescents do not attain the required competence upon enfranchisement. While the idea that political competence improves when given the vote can be traced back to 19th century political theory, empirical investigations of this claim remain scarce. In this thesis, I address this gap in the literature by applying a regression discontinuity (RD) design using eligibility to vote as the cut-off. By surveying the political theory regarding requirements for voting rights, I identify political knowledge and communicative skills as the most relevant competencies. No effect of being eligible to vote can be found on the former, while the results concerning communicative skills are inconclusive and sensitive to model specifications. These findings are consistent with previous RD-studies within this field: gaining the right to vote does not seem to have a significant effect on political knowledge. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the age of enfranchisement.

No description available.

In recent years there have been a major developments in the computational mechanics community when it comes to modelling of fracture mechanics. There are now several well established numerical methods that are implemented in commercial programs such as: Phase Field Modelling, Enhanced Assumed Strain (EAS), Smeared Crack Methods, Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) and Partition of Unity Finite Element Method (PUFEM). This work has been based on PUFEM and it has been of interest to investigate if this numerical method can be combined with plastic deformation. The reason for this is that it has been known that complex structural and material phenomenon such as embrittlement of steels or composites show a variation of fracture toughness. Thus more advanced approaches are required to capture the response of such structures and materials. The analysis was split in to three parts. First, a benchmark analysis was done with linear tetrahedral elements and, which has been implemented in previous applications. Thereafter the same analysis was done for quadratic tetrahedral elements. Finally, the interface between plasticity and PUFEM was implemented and was analysed with the same geometries as in the benchmark case. The analysis show that it is possible to combine plasticity in PUFEM setting and that it has a possibility to be used in future applications. / Under dem senaste åren har det skett en massiv utveckling inom beräkningsmekaniken när det kommer till att modellera brottmekaniska fenomen. Det finns nu ett flertal väletablerade numeriska metoder som är implementerade i kommersiella program såsom: Phase Field Modelling, Enhanced Assumed Strain (EAS), Smeared Crack Methods, Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) and Partition of Unity Finite Element Method (PUFEM). Detta arbete har fokuserat på (PUFEM) och det har varit av intresse att se om denna metod kan kombineras tillsammans med plastisk deformation. Anledningen till att detta har varit av intresse är på grund av att det finns ett flertal komplexa struktur - och materialfenomen såsom försprödning av stål och kompositer som uppvisar en variation i sin duktilitet. Detta medför att mer avancerade metoder behöver tillämpas för att fånga responsen av dessa strukturer och material. Analysen som har genomförts var uppdelad i tre delar. Först analyserades ett problem med linjär tetrahedriska element som ett riktmärke, detta har implementerats i tidigare applikationer. Därefter analyserades samma problem fast med tethraderiska element med kvadratisk interpolation. Slutligen så integrerades plasticitet med PUFEM, där samma geometrier analyserades som riktmärke. Den analysen som har genomfört visar att det går att kombinera plastiska deformation tillsammans med PUFEM och att denna metod har potentialen att användas i framtida applikationer.

[pt] Do crescente uso da bicicleta em grandes cidades emerge a necessidade de projetos urbanísticos que promovam a integração entre o modal cicloviário e os demais meios de transporte urbano, enquanto processos mais eficientes de manutenção dos caminhos cicláveis enfrentam a descontinuidade na administração pública com suas mazelas como a interrupção de projetos e a ausência de dados históricos. Este trabalho apresenta o conceito de Ciclovia Viável para áreas urbanas de metrópoles considerando o uso de indicadores modelados nas dimensões social, técnica e ambiental. O indicador proposto pode mitigar a ausência de dados estruturados servindo como ferramenta para planos de integração entre os modais e de conservação dos caminhos cicláveis. O quadro teórico revisado aponta para quatorze critérios voltados à avaliação de níveis mínimos de serviços no atendimento a demandas de ciclistas e orientados ao monitoramento da qualidade de ciclovias. O modelo do Índice da Ciclovia Viável é testado empiricamente por meio de levantamentos de campo em três ciclovias mantidas pela gestão pública municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Os seguintes indicadores são registrados: Ciclovia do Flamengo (Índice da Dimensão Social = 0,31, Índice da Dimensão Técnica= 0,88, Índice da Dimensão Ambiental= 0,82); Leme-Copacabana (IDS= 0,30, IDT= 0,82, IDA= 0,88) e Barra da Tijuca (IDS= 0,16, IDT= 0,78, IDA= 0,88). Percebe-se que a dimensão social figura como a menos favorecida nas três avaliações, significando um alerta de insuficiência de ciclovias com acessibilidade às pessoas que residem em áreas subnormais. / [en] The practice of cycling has been following our civilization for over a century. In recent decades, the so-called developed or developing countries have come to consider the cycling mode in their public policies, especially in urban mobility plans. In recent decades, the application of urban mobility policies by bicycles has gained prominence in the Brazilian scenario, especially in Rio de Janeiro. The history of Rio s bicycle lanes began in 1991, when the first bicycle lanes were built from a program for the redevelopment of the city s waterfront known as the Rio Orla. The program built 23 km of cycle paths intended primarily for leisure. From 1993, after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - ECO92, based in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the Municipal Secretariat of Environment of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall was created. In 2010, the city incorporated the Rio - Urban Capital of Bicycle Mobility project into the Urban Mobility Plan - PMU as a transportation alternative and as a modal element for short distances and for the purpose of integrating Bus Rapid Transport - BRT systems. trains and subway. In 2008, the Rio de Janeiro city cycling plan had the goal of expanding its 150 km network in 2009 to 450 km by the end of 2016. However, a cycling infrastructure is not only sustained by its length, but a set of socio-spatial criteria is required for its effectiveness. The Ministry of Cities, in its Bicycle Mobility Plan in Cities (Ministério das Cidades, 2007), states that linking with different transport systems is a key factor for bicycles to be adopted by the population while traveling and that urban infrastructure in cities must adapt to this mode. The observation of the use of bicycles in large cities, with varied and constantly changing technologies and organizations, was the starting point of the research that used a bibliographic review in search of concepts and methods of evaluation of the service level and the quality of the bicycle lanes and cycle tracks. There are several bicycle lane settings, depending on their applications. Similarly, the concepts of service level and the qualitative evaluation applied to these infrastructures also vary. For this research, these concepts follow those of large metropolises around the world with characteristics of planned cities and contribute to a new concept, built here, called Viable Bicycle Path Index (VBI). Once the new concept is defined, it is now feasible to develop a model capable of aggregating relevant information for the assessment of bicycle paths. Therefore, after surveying studies on national and international bicycle-related indexes, Brazilian technical standards and norms and urban elements necessary for the formation of a viable bicycle path, this research presents a methodological design with several elements (dependent and independent variables) that represent the landscape around bicycle paths in neighborhoods of the city capital.