Rooted in legal theory and environmental studies, this thesis aims to (re)define the ‘population problem’ and related regulatory resolutions in constructive and clear terms, within a broad concept of 'law’. Green legal theory, wicked problem theory, and legal pluralism viewed from a wide-angle, first-person perspective, are applied together. To control birth rates and consumption demands in Canada/America, state-made laws are not central. We are ruled by rules: Certain law-like non-state rules aim to prod procreation and consumption ever-upward. Materially speaking, Can-American population numbers and consumption/waste form one inseparable factor relevant to global ecological degradation, and ‘legally’ speaking, specific religious doctrine amounts to 'population-UP control' and specific economic dogma 'consumption-UP control'. Together, these material and ‘legal’ factors form a wicked problem called ‘population demands.’ This problem formulation points away from state-made resolutions. Instead, the author recommends deconstructing degrading rules from the bottom-up and, in relation to consumption-UP control, reforming social norms. / Graduate / 0398 / 0768 / 0938

[pt] Este trabalho emprega conceitos e ferramentas de Teoria das Categorias e Teoria de Topoi para construir um modelo matemático de problemas, reduções entre problemas, espaços e estratégias de busca heurística. Mais precisamente, uma estratégia de construção de espaços de busca é representada por um funtor de uma certa categoria de problemas para uma certa categoria de florestas. A coleção de todos estes funtores forma um topos, um modelo específico equipado com uma lógica interna própria. Esta lógica interna é usada, então, para definir estratégias de busca e heurísticas em Teoria Local dos Conjuntos. Possíveis aplicações do trabalho incluem (1) a especificação lógica e a classificação de heurísticas e meta-heurísticas usadas na prática e (2) uma versão mais abstrata e geral de resultados específicos relacionando a estrutura de problemas com métodos de resolução adequados. / [en] This work employs concepts and tools from Category Theory and Topos Theory to construct a mathematical model for problems, reductions between problems, heuristic search spaces and strategies. More precisely, a search space construction strategy is represented by a functor from a certain category of problems to a certain category of forests. The collection of all such functors forms a topos, a specific model equipped with its own internal logic. This internal logic is then used to define search satrategies and heuristics in Local Set Theory. Possible applications of this work include (1) the logical specification and classification of heuristics and metaheuristics used in pratice and (2) a more abstract and general rendering of specific results relating the structure of problems to adequate problem-solving methods.

Le véhicule électrique rassemble beaucoup d'équipements électrotechniques. Tous sont potentiellement source de champ magnétique dans l'habitacle : zone confinée où se trouvent les passagers. Il est illusoire de réaliser un modèle numérique complet tant le nombre de paramètres est important. Il est également impossible de placer des capteurs de champ partout à l'intérieur de l'habitacle. Après une étude approfondie des caractéristiques du champ magnétique mesuré dans l'habitacle, nous proposons d'allier modèle a priori et mesure de champ dans une approche Bayésienne du problème inverse. Basée sur le développement en harmonique sphérique du champ, l'apport d'information a priori oriente la solution et permet l'identification de nombreux paramètres avec très peu de mesure. / Electric vehicles have a lot of electrical devices onboard. All of them may generate electromagnetic field inside the car: a quite small space containing the passengers. A complete modeling of the vehicle can hardly be done because of the parameters number. The magnetic field measurement everywhere inside the car is also impossible. We first measure the magnetic field inside the car to study its characteristics. Then we propose to merge together a priori modeling with measurements into a Bayesian approach of the inverse problem. Based on spherical harmonic decomposition of the magnetic field, a priori information helps the resolution and gives the identified parameters with a very few measurements.