My research has been on the development of concurrent algorithms for shared memory systems that provide guarantees of progress. Research into such algorithms is important to developers implementing applications on mission critical and time sensitive systems. These guarantees of progress provide safety properties and freedom from many hazards, such as dead-lock, live-lock, and thread starvation. In addition to the safety concerns, the fine-grained synchronization used in implementing these algorithms promises to provide scalable performance in massively parallel systems. My research has resulted in the development of wait-free versions of the stack, hash map, ring buffer, vector, and a multi-word compare-and-swap algorithms. Through this experience, I have learned and developed new techniques and methodologies for implementing non-blocking and wait-free algorithms. I have worked with and refined existing techniques to improve their practicality and applicability. In the creation of the aforementioned algorithms, I have developed an association model for use with descriptor-based operations. This model, originally developed for the multi-word compare-and-swap algorithm, has been applied to the design of the vector and ring buffer algorithms. To unify these algorithms and techniques, I have released Tervel, a wait-free library of common algorithms and containers. This library includes a framework that simplifies and improves the design of non-blocking algorithms. I have reimplemented several algorithms using this framework and the resulting implementation exhibits less code duplication and fewer perceivable states. When reimplementing algorithms, I have adapted their Application Programming Interface (API) specification to remove ambiguity and non-deterministic behavior found when using a sequential API in a concurrent environment. To improve the performance of my algorithm implementations, I extended OVIS's Lightweight Distributed Metric Service (LDMS)'s data collection and transport system to support performance monitoring using perf_event and PAPI libraries. These libraries have provided me with deeper insights into the behavior of my algorithms, and I was able to use these insights to improve the design and performance of my algorithms.

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This paper deals with the relatively new business model for digital games called Free toPlay and how aspects of that business model can affect the players gaming experience. Thestudy is done through user studies with the use of interviews, observations and diaries. Forour analysis of the data we’ve looked for themes and then categorized the data intoelements from the CEGE Model by E.H Cavillo-Gámez et al. that we use to measure howFree to Play affects the Core Elements of the Gaming Experience. The paper concludes thatwhen measuring gaming experience and business model together one might have to add asub-element that represents the business model, which can affect the elements all togetheror one by one.

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This is a essay about the abortions debate in the Swedish parliament in 1974. This paper sought to find out how the Swedish parliament talks about abortion and about the women that wanted one, by using the idea analysis and the analytical instrument subject positions. The result is that the Swedish parliament debate about the abortion talks about abortion i four different ways. First as a murder, secondly as a emergency measure, thirdly as a free right during the first 18 weeks of the pregnancy and lastly as something that should be completely up to the women. Were the second and third way is the biggest. The way the members of the parliament sees abortion influences the way they se the women and the roll of the society in the abortion situation. One side means that it is a to big burden for the women to carry on there own and that decisions about abortion should be taken in consultation with a welfare officer and a doctor. The other side means that women should have the same rights as men, that they are capable to take decisions about there possibility to take care of the babies.

How should we contemplate spiritual freedom in modern liberal societies? This dissertation explores spiritual freedom by presenting the figure of the free spirit, a figure modeled after Nietzsche's description of one. The free spirit exemplifies the possibilities for spiritual freedom, and his relation to political order uncovers important implications for our understanding of political freedom. The free spirit affirms life--he finds meaning and value in life--apart from politics and community. He does so by taking an aesthetic perspective. A certain type of spirit is necessary for such aesthetic perspective: a free spirit, a skeptic who liberates oneself from political community, religious traditions, and common values of his time. A deeper understanding of the free spirit also reveals a deeper understanding of individual autonomy. Individual autonomy is one of the bedrocks of liberal political order, a foundation that is threatened by criticisms from progressives and communitarians. Progressives attack the very possibility of employing individual autonomy as a justification for the founding of liberal government. In a similar vein, communitarians attack the possibility and the desirability of treating individuals as autonomous units, highlighting the social and communal basis of personhood and the dangers of individual "atomism". The attacks aimed at individual autonomy are simultaneously attacks on liberal political order. The explication of the free spirit in this dissertation is an attempt to combat these critiques of liberal political order on the basis of individual autonomy. The free spirit presented here reminds us that a wholly liberal defense of individual rights must include the political space for aesthetic perspective. For a society to be truly free it must respect and protect each individual's liberty to treat existence as a spectacle, to detach themselves from popular worldly concerns, whether political, cultural, or social. / text

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