En utilisant les méthodes analytiques et numériques de la Physique Statistique bidimensionnelle (matrice de transfert, invariance conforme, gaz de Coulomb, équations de Yang-Baxter, Ansatz de Bethe, Monte-Carlo), nous abordons des problèmes qui n'entrent pas dans le cadre du modèle gaussien compact : modèle de Potts antiferromagnétique critique, modèle de boucles de Brauer. Ces modèles présentent des propriétés critiques originales, comme l'apparition de degrés de liberté non-compacts. Ces propriétés apparaissent quand on introduit, dans le modèle de boucles sur réseau, des intersections entre les boucles ou une alternance des poids de Boltzmann entre les sous-réseaux. Dans le cas du modèle de Potts antiferromagnétique, nous développons l'étude de la structure issue des équations de Yang-Baxter, et nous identifions une famille d'états de Bethe associés aux degrés de liberté non-compacts. Les calculs numériques sur de grandes tailles de système permettent de conjecturer la loi d'échelle du rayon de compactification effectif. Dans le cas du modèle de Brauer avec une fugacité de boucles n = 0, nous proposons un modèle de chemin d'échappement invariant d'échelle, et nous déterminons ses propriétés critiques par des méthodes numériques. En tant qu'observable (non-locale), le chemin d'échappement caractérise les points communs et différences avec les marches aléatoires.

The use of Private Military Companies (PMCs) has become an increasingly common feature of contemporary armed conflict. Because of their autonomous contractual status, PMCs have presented governments with problems of accountability on several levels, including violations of international human rights and humanitarian law (IHL) standards. This thesis argues that PMCs should be considered to be non-state actors (NSAs), subject to international law from both an International Relations Theory and a Legal Theory perspective. This conclusion is linked to the issue of whether individual PMC employees can be treated as legitimate combatants according to IHL. State practice has not led to a clear understanding of the definition of combatant, a problem which has been compounded by a lack of government policy on the use of PMCs. Using Canadian experience as a case study, the thesis concludes that IHL suggests two options for regularizing the status of PMCs which would both strengthen accountability and uphold the rule of law.

The use of Private Military Companies (PMCs) has become an increasingly common feature of contemporary armed conflict. Because of their autonomous contractual status, PMCs have presented governments with problems of accountability on several levels, including violations of international human rights and humanitarian law (IHL) standards. This thesis argues that PMCs should be considered to be non-state actors (NSAs), subject to international law from both an International Relations Theory and a Legal Theory perspective. This conclusion is linked to the issue of whether individual PMC employees can be treated as legitimate combatants according to IHL. State practice has not led to a clear understanding of the definition of combatant, a problem which has been compounded by a lack of government policy on the use of PMCs. Using Canadian experience as a case study, the thesis concludes that IHL suggests two options for regularizing the status of PMCs which would both strengthen accountability and uphold the rule of law.

Un défi toujours actuel dans le domaine des systèmes intégrables quantiques est le calcul exact et explicite des fonctions de corrélation. Dans le cas de modèles simples tels que la chaîne de Heisenberg XXZ de spins 1/2, des progrès significatifs ont été réalisés ces dernières années. Les méthodes développées utilisent les symétries des modèles en volume infini (algèbre quantique affine) ou fini (algèbre de Yang-Baxter). L'objet de cette thèse est d'étendre le champ d'application de ce dernier type d'approche dans le cas où l'algèbre de Yang-Baxter sous-jacente est de type dynamique. C'est typiquement le cas du modèle de physique statistique solid-on-solid (SOS) qui décrit les interactions d'un paramètre de hauteur autour des faces d'un réseau bidimensionnel, avec des poids statistiques donnés par une matrice R elliptique solution de l'équation de Yang-Baxter dynamique.L'étude des fonctions de corrélation du modèle SOS est abordée dans le cadre de l'ansatz de Bethe algébrique et de la méthode de séparation des variables. Des représentations en termes de déterminants de fonctions usuelles sont obtenues par les deux méthodes pour les produits scalaires entre états et pour les facteurs de forme des opérateurs locaux en volume fini. Les formules obtenues dans le cadre de l'ansatz de Bethe algébrique sont ensuite utilisées pour représenter la fonction de corrélation à deux points sous la forme d'intégrales multiples, ainsi que pour le calcul de diverses quantités physiques à la limite thermodynamique, telles que les polarisations spontanées ou les probabilités de hauteurs locales. Ces dernières s'expriment sous forme d'intégrales multiples similaires à celles du modèle XXZ.

This thesis will investigate the fictional discourse that has developed around academia and how this discourse has manifested itself in the New Zealand literary tradition, primarily in the works of M.K. Joseph, Dan Davin and James K. Baxter. These three writers have been selected because of their status within Kai Jensen's conception of “a literary tradition of excitement about masculinity”; in other words, the masculine tradition in New Zealand literature which provides fictional representations of factual events and tensions. This literary approach is also utilised in the tradition of British university fiction, in which the behaviour of students and faculty are often deliberately exaggerated in order to provide a representation of campus life that captures the essence of the reality without being wholly factual. The fact that these three writers attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to combine the two traditions is a matter of great literary interest: Joseph's A Pound of Saffron (1962) appropriates tropes of the British university novel while extending them to include concerns specific to New Zealand; Davin's Cliffs of Fall (1945), Not Here, Not Now (1970) and Brides of Price (1972) attempt to blend traditions of university fiction with the masculine realist tradition in New Zealand literature, though, as we will see, with limited success; Baxter's station as the maternal grandson of a noted professor allows him to criticise the elitist New Zealand university system in Horse (1985) from a unique position, for he was more sympathetic towards what he considered the working class “peasant wisdom” of his father, Archie, than the “professorial knowledge” of Archie's father-in-law. These three authors have been chosen also because of the way they explore attitudes towards universities amongst mainstream New Zealand society in their writing, for while most novels in the British tradition demonstrate little tension between those within the university walls and those without, in New Zealand fiction the tension is palpable. The motivations for this tension will also be explored in due course, but before we can grapple with how the tradition of British university fiction has impacted New Zealand literature, we must first examine the tradition itself.

The use of Private Military Companies (PMCs) has become an increasingly common feature of contemporary armed conflict. Because of their autonomous contractual status, PMCs have presented governments with problems of accountability on several levels, including violations of international human rights and humanitarian law (IHL) standards. This thesis argues that PMCs should be considered to be non-state actors (NSAs), subject to international law from both an International Relations Theory and a Legal Theory perspective. This conclusion is linked to the issue of whether individual PMC employees can be treated as legitimate combatants according to IHL. State practice has not led to a clear understanding of the definition of combatant, a problem which has been compounded by a lack of government policy on the use of PMCs. Using Canadian experience as a case study, the thesis concludes that IHL suggests two options for regularizing the status of PMCs which would both strengthen accountability and uphold the rule of law.

In this thesis we improve and extend an algebraic technique pioneered by M. Gaudin. The technique is based on an infinite dimensional Lie algebra and a related family of mutually commuting Hamiltonians. In order to find energy eigenvalues of such Hamiltonians one has to solve the equations of Bethe ansatz. However, in most cases analytical solutions are not available. In this study we examine a special case for which analytical solutions of Bethe ansatz equations are not needed. Instead, some special properties of these equations are utilized to evaluate the energy eigenvalues. We use this method to find exact expressions for the energy eigenvalues of a class of interacting boson models. In addition to that, we also introduce a q-deformation of the algebra of Gaudin. This deformation leads us to another family of mutually commuting Hamiltonians which we diagonalize using algebraic Bethe ansatz technique. The motivation for this deformation comes from a relationship between Gaudin algebra and a spin extension of the integrable model of F. Calogero. Observing this relation, we then consider a well known periodic version of Calogero&#039 / s model which is due to B. Sutherland. The search for a Gaudin-like algebraic structure which is in a similar relationship with the spin extension of Sutherland&#039 / s model naturally leads to the above mentioned q-deformation of Gaudin algebra. The deformation parameter q and the periodicity d of the Sutherland model are related by the formula q=i{pi}/d.

A ideia de usar redes neurais biologicamente inspiradas na computação tem sido amplamente utilizada nas últimas décadas. O fato essencial neste paradigma é que um neurônio pode integrar e processar informações, e esta informação pode ser revelada por sua atividade de pulsos. Ao descrever a dinâmica de um único neurônio usando um modelo matemático, uma rede pode ser implementada utilizando um conjunto desses neurônios, onde a atividade pulsante de cada neurônio irá conter contribuições, ou informações, da atividade pulsante da rede em que está inserido. Neste trabalho é apresentado um controlador de posição no eixo Z utilizando fusão de sensores baseado no paradigma de Redes Neurais Recorrentes. O sistema proposto utiliza uma Máquina de Estado Líquido (LSM) para controlar o robô colaborativo BAXTER. O framework foi projetado para trabalhar em paralelo com as LSMs que executam trajetórias em formas fechadas de duas dimensões, com o objetivo de manter uma caneta de feltro em contato com a superfície de desenho, dados de sensores de força e distância são alimentados ao controlador. O sistema foi treinado utilizando dados de um controlador Proporcional Integral Derivativo (PID), fundindo dados de ambos sensores. Resultados mostram que a LSM foi capaz de aprender o comportamento do controlador PID em diferentes situações. / The idea of employing biologically inspired neural networks to perform computation has been widely used over the last decades. The essential fact in this paradigm is that a neuron can integrate and process information, and this information can be revealed by its spiking activity. By describing the dynamics of a single neuron using a mathematical model, a network in which the spiking activity of every single neuron will get contributions, or information, from the spiking activity of the embedded network. A positioning controller based on Spiking Neural Networks for sensor fusion suitable to run on a neuromorphic computer is presented in this work. The proposed framework uses the paradigm of reservoir computing to control the collaborative robot BAXTER. The system was designed to work in parallel with Liquid State Machines that performs trajectories in 2D closed shapes. In order to keep a felt pen touching a drawing surface, data from sensors of force and distance are fed to the controller. The system was trained using data from a Proportional Integral Derivative controller, merging the data from both sensors. The results show that the LSM can learn the behavior of a PID controller on di erent situations.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:14:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FranciscoAPP.pdf: 1034371 bytes, checksum: b3ff17842c3ee8ab8282b0e829786698 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-12-14 / The usual Ashkin-Teller (AT) model is obtained as a superposition of two Ising models coupled through a four-spin interaction term. In two dimension the AT model displays a line of fixed points along which the exponents vary continuously. On this line the model becomes soluble via a mapping onto the Baxter model. Such richness of multicritical behavior led Grest and Widom to introduce the N-color Ashkin-Teller model (N-AT). Those authors made an extensive analysis of the model thus introduced both in the isotropic as well as in the anisotropic cases by several analytical and computational methods. In the present work we define a more general version of the 3-color Ashkin-Teller model by introducing a 6-spin interaction term. We investigate the corresponding symmetry structure presented by our model in conjunction with an analysis of possible phase diagrams obtained by real space renormalization group techniques. The phase diagram are obtained at finite temperature in the region where the ferromagnetic behavior is predominant. Through the use of the transmissivities concepts we obtain the recursion relations in some periodical as well as aperiodic hierarchical lattices. In a first analysis we initially consider the two-color Ashkin-Teller model in order to obtain some results with could be used as a guide to our main purpose. In the anisotropic case the model was previously studied on the Wheatstone bridge by Claudionor Bezerra in his Master Degree dissertation. By using more appropriated computational resources we obtained isomorphic critical surfaces described in Bezerra's work but not properly identified. Besides, we also analyzed the isotropic version in an aperiodic hierarchical lattice, and we showed how the geometric fluctuations are affected by such aperiodicity and its consequences in the corresponding critical behavior. Those analysis were carried out by the use of appropriated definitions of transmissivities. Finally, we considered the modified 3-AT model with a 6-spin couplings. With the inclusion of such term the model becomes more attractive from the symmetry point of view. For some hierarchical lattices we derived general recursion relations in the anisotropic version of the model (3-AAT), from which case we can obtain the corresponding equations for the isotropic version (3-IAT). The 3-IAT was studied extensively in the whole region where the ferromagnetic couplings are dominant. The fixed points and the respective critical exponents were determined. By analyzing the attraction basins of such fixed points we were able to find the three-parameter phase diagram (temperature ? 4-spin coupling ? 6-spin coupling). We could identify fixed points corresponding to the universality class of Ising and 4- and 8-state Potts model. We also obtained a fixed point which seems to be a sort of reminiscence of a 6-state Potts fixed point as well as a possible indication of the existence of a Baxter line. Some unstable fixed points which do not belong to any aforementioned q-state Potts universality class was also found / O modelo Ashkin-Teller (AT) usual consiste na superposi??o de dois modelos de Ising acoplados por um termo de intera??o de quatro spins. Em duas dimens?es o modelo AT apresenta uma linha de pontos fixos com expoentes cr?ticos variando continuamente, sobre a qual ele se torna sol?vel atrav?s de um mapeamento no modelo Baxter. Motivado por esta riqueza de comportamento multicr?tico em duas dimens?es, Grest e Widom introduziram e estudaram o modelo Ashkin-Teller de N cores (AT-N), nas vers?es anisotr?pica (AAT-N) e isotr?pica (IAT-N), atrav?s de v?rios m?todos anal?ticos e computacionais. Neste trabalho apresentamos uma vers?o mais geral do modelo Ashkin-Teller de 3 cores (AT-3) onde e introduzido um acoplamento de 6 spins. Estudamos o modelo atrav?s da an?lise da estrutura de suas simetrias, seguido de an?lises de poss?veis diagramas de fases determinados por t?cnicas de grupo de renormaliza??o no espa?o real. Esses diagramas s?o obtidos em temperatura finita na regi?o onde predomina o comportamento ferromagn?tico. Com o aux?lio do conceito de transmissividade obtemos as rela??es de recorr?ncia em redes hier?rquicas com liga??es peri?dicas e quasi-peri?dicas. Numa an?lise preliminar, consideramos inicialmente o modelo Ashkin-Teller de duas cores, a fim de obter resultados que possam servir de guia ao nosso objetivo principal. No caso anisotr?pico (AAT-2), o modelo foi tratado na Ponte de Wheatstone, conforme j? havia sido estudado por Claudionor Bezerra na sua disserta??o de mestrado. Usando ferramentas computacionais mais adequadas, encontramos superf?cies cr?ticas isomorfas previstas no trabalho citado, mas ainda n?o identificadas explicitamente. Al?m disso, analisamos a vers?o isotr?pica (IAT-2), em uma rede hier?rquica aperi?dica. Mostramos,neste caso, como a aperiodicidade da rede afeta as flutua??es geom?tricas, causando mudan?as no comportamento cr?tico do modelo. Essas an?lises foram feitas utilizando defini??es apropriadas de transmissividade. Em seguida passamos ao estudo do modelo Ashkin-Teller de 3 cores onde, al?m do acoplamento de 4 spins, introduzimos um acoplamento de 6 spins, que torna o modelo mais atraente do ponto de vista das simetrias que ele passa a apresentar. Calculamos rela??es de recorr?ncias gerais para o modelo na vers?o anisotr?pica (AAT-3), de onde podemos obter o caso particular do sistema isotr?pico (IAT-3), em certas redes hier?rquicas. A vers?o IAT-3 do modelo foi estudada detalhadamente na regi?o onde predominam as intera??es ferromagn?ticas. Determinamos os pontos fixos e respectivos expoentes cr?ticos. Analisando as bacias de atra??o desses pontos fixos, conseguimos obter o diagrama de fases tri-dimensional (temperatura ? acoplamento de quatro spins ? acoplamento de seis spins). Identificamos pontos fixos do tipo Ising e de Potts de 4 e de 8 estados, al?m de ind?cios de um ponto fixo reminiscente do Potts de 6 estados e uma possibilidade de uma linha de Baxter. Identificamos tamb?m pontos fixos cr?ticos inst?veis que n?o pertencem a nenhuma classe de universalidade identificada com o modelo de Potts q estados

A ideia de usar redes neurais biologicamente inspiradas na computação tem sido amplamente utilizada nas últimas décadas. O fato essencial neste paradigma é que um neurônio pode integrar e processar informações, e esta informação pode ser revelada por sua atividade de pulsos. Ao descrever a dinâmica de um único neurônio usando um modelo matemático, uma rede pode ser implementada utilizando um conjunto desses neurônios, onde a atividade pulsante de cada neurônio irá conter contribuições, ou informações, da atividade pulsante da rede em que está inserido. Neste trabalho é apresentado um controlador de posição no eixo Z utilizando fusão de sensores baseado no paradigma de Redes Neurais Recorrentes. O sistema proposto utiliza uma Máquina de Estado Líquido (LSM) para controlar o robô colaborativo BAXTER. O framework foi projetado para trabalhar em paralelo com as LSMs que executam trajetórias em formas fechadas de duas dimensões, com o objetivo de manter uma caneta de feltro em contato com a superfície de desenho, dados de sensores de força e distância são alimentados ao controlador. O sistema foi treinado utilizando dados de um controlador Proporcional Integral Derivativo (PID), fundindo dados de ambos sensores. Resultados mostram que a LSM foi capaz de aprender o comportamento do controlador PID em diferentes situações. / The idea of employing biologically inspired neural networks to perform computation has been widely used over the last decades. The essential fact in this paradigm is that a neuron can integrate and process information, and this information can be revealed by its spiking activity. By describing the dynamics of a single neuron using a mathematical model, a network in which the spiking activity of every single neuron will get contributions, or information, from the spiking activity of the embedded network. A positioning controller based on Spiking Neural Networks for sensor fusion suitable to run on a neuromorphic computer is presented in this work. The proposed framework uses the paradigm of reservoir computing to control the collaborative robot BAXTER. The system was designed to work in parallel with Liquid State Machines that performs trajectories in 2D closed shapes. In order to keep a felt pen touching a drawing surface, data from sensors of force and distance are fed to the controller. The system was trained using data from a Proportional Integral Derivative controller, merging the data from both sensors. The results show that the LSM can learn the behavior of a PID controller on di erent situations.