In airline industry scheduling problems, the aircraft routing and the aircrew pairing problems are highly related to fueling and personnel costs. When performing aircraft routing and aircrew pairing, several objectives, such as the ground-turn around time, flow balance, transition time, number of deadheads, number of layovers, flying time, and flight duty period should be considered. It is difficult to optimize these conflicting objectives simultaneously. Many issues are yet to be solved as follows. 1. Most researches related to the aircraft routing and aircrew pairing problems use set partitioning or set covering models. Planners must (1) enumerate several possible subsets of flights, (2) assign costs, and (3) check feasibilities simultaneously. This is time-consuming since the numbers of whole subsets are exponential values to the problem size. 2. The number of enumerated subsets is usually too small to cover the whole solution space. Therefore, even if the optimal solution is found, it is just a local optimal solution of the enumerated subsets. 3. When using traditional optimization algorithms to find a combination of these subsets with minimal cost, it should be ensured that all flights should be covered exactly once. This causes the overheads of checking the number of coverage. 4. In traditional solution methods, the number of required aircrafts and crewmembers cannot be pre-specified since these numbers can only be obtained when the optimization algorithm is completed. 5. All enumerated subsets should be assigned cost values according to various objectives, such as transition time, number of deadheads, number of layovers, flying time, and flight duty period. The cost values are difficult to assign since it is highly dependent on domain knowledge, and usually nonlinear. Also, inappropriate cost values will cause bias in optimization, and ambiguity among all factors due to single objective formulation. Hence, to overcome these problems, we propose several enhancements in both formulation and the solution stages. In the formulation stage, we propose a novel permutation-based model with multiple objectives, which has the following features. 1. The proposed permutation-based model can save the overheads of pre-enumerating possible sub-solutions 2. The permutation-based model can cover the whole solution space. Hence, it has more chance to find out the global optimal solution. 3. The proposed permutation-based model can ensure that each flight can be covered exactly once to save the overheads of checking the number of coverage. 4. The proposed permutation-based model can provide a new way to pre-specify the number of aircrafts or group number of crewmembers. 5. Taking the advantage of multiobjective formulation, various objectives are considered separatively instead of assigning cost values. All objective can be considered individually even if they have different definitions of optimality or scales. In the solution stage, we apply the MOI-based MGA (MMGA) to solve the problems of aircraft routing and crew pairing. MMGA is originally proposed to solve numerical controller design problem. By using MMGA, designers can configure the ranges of solutions via adjusting an auxiliary vector of performance indices. To make MMGA more suitable for solving the aircraft routing and aircrew pairing problems, some enhancements are added, such as chromosome encoding scheme, repairing strategy, crossover, and mutation operations. This approach has following features. 1. In both aircraft routing and aircrew pairing problems, the permutation-based encoding scheme, which is the same as the formulation model, can ensure all flights be covered once. 2. Moreover, in the crew pairing problem, the sectional permutation-based encoding scheme, which divides the flights into three sections, such as earlier flights, later flights, and floating flights, can enhance MMGA to find out optimal solutions which satisfy the flight duty period objective. 3. Also, to overcome the large violations caused by random generation of candidate solutions, we use a repairing strategy, which repairs all generated solutions by reordering the sequences of flights according to departure times. 4. The sectional order-based crossover can have a more stable evolution than the widely-used partial mapped crossover. Also, it can make the newborn offspring keep the features of three sections defined in the encoding scheme. 5. Also, the sectional mutation can inherit the advantages of the widely-used reciprocal mutation and keep the features of three sections defined in the encoding scheme. In the aircraft routing problem, experiments show that MMGA can find out optimal flight schedules under the condition of sufficient aircrafts. On the other aspect, when the number of aircrafts is insufficient, planners can modify the obtained solutions by a little retiming process when the number of violations is small. In the aircrew pairing problem, experiments indicate the proposed approach can solve the aircrew pairing problem with minimal group number of crewmembers which is verified by a branch-and-bound approach. By using MMGA, the problems of aircraft routing and aircrew pairing can be solved efficiently and effectively. In other words, planners can solve these problems in a short time period instead of enumeration and feasibility checking by traditional methods. Via the proposed approach, planners can further consider more important issues, such as to suggest better schedules with lower cost and higher benefit.

Beschäftigt sich die Erziehungswissenschaft mit dem Thema Ungleichheiten, stehen meist die ungleich verteilten Bildungschancen von Schülern im Mittelpunkt. Seit dem Erscheinen der ersten PISA-Studie [1] geht es hierbei wieder verstärkt um den Zusammenhang zwischen sozialer Herkunft und den in der Schule erworbenen Kompetenzen und Abschlüssen. Diesem Diskurs haftet jedoch ein Bild vom Schüler an, das ausschließlich auf die fachlichen Kompetenzen ausgerichtet ist. Ausgehend von einem breiteren Verständnis der Schülerpersönlichkeit richtet dieser Beitrag den Blick auch auf die sozialen und die Selbstkompetenzen der Schüler. Wie kommen Jugendliche in der Schule mit sich selbst, ihrem Körper und mit ihren Mitschülern zurecht? Lassen sich jenseits der fachlichen Kompetenzen soziale Ungleichheiten auch in diesen Kompetenzbereichen verzeichnen? / Researchers in educational science focus on social inequalities predominantly in connection with pupils’ academic achievement. Since the publication of the PISA study [1], there has been intensified discussion of the correlations between socioeconomic status and educational participation. This scientific discourse, however, views the pupils solely in the context of their knowledge expertise. In this paper, we take a broader view on the pupils’ personality and include social and self-competencies. How do adolescents in schools get on with themselves and with their classmates, and how do they come to terms with their changing body? Are there social inequalities in these spheres of competence beyond bare knowledge?

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-53). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-53). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. Directed by George L. Nemhauser. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-94).

published_or_final_version / Mathematics / Master / Master of Philosophy

Symmetrical multilevel diversity coding (SMDC) is a classical model for coding over distributed storage. In this setting, a simple separate encoding strategy known as superposition coding was shown to be optimal in terms of achieving the minimum sum rate and the entire admissible rate region of the problem in the literature. The proofs utilized carefully constructed induction arguments, for which the classical subset entropy inequality of Han played a key role. This thesis includes two parts. In the first part the existing optimality proofs for classical SMDC are revisited, with a focus on their connections to subset entropy inequalities. First, a new sliding-window subset entropy inequality is introduced and then used to establish the optimality of superposition coding for achieving the minimum sum rate under a weaker source-reconstruction requirement. Second, a subset entropy inequality recently proved by Madiman and Tetali is used to develop a new structural understanding to the proof of Yeung and Zhang on the optimality of superposition coding for achieving the entire admissible rate region. Building on the connections between classical SMDC and the subset entropy inequalities developed in the first part, in the second part the optimality of superposition coding is further extended to the cases where there is an additional all-access encoder, an additional secrecy constraint or an encoder hierarchy.

Non-local forces exist in nature for two reasons. First that the recent experiments on locality are supposed to be accurate enough. Second that there is no local theory that can reproduce all the predictions of orthodox quantum theory which, almost for about a century, have been proved to be correct experimentally again and again. This thesis concerns both of these. A brief discussion of the measurement in quantum theory is followed by two comments which show that the quantum description is frame dependent and that the collapse of the wave-function of a system may occur without the relevant measurement being performed. After this the Bohm model and a modified version of the Bohm model are described. Next we introduce a new method for obtaining the Bell-type inequalities which can be used for testing locality. We derive more inequalities by this method than obtained by other existing procedures. Using Projection Valued(PV) and Positive Operator Valued Measures(POVM) measurements we have designed experiments which violates one of the Bell inequalities by a larger factor than existing violations which in turn could increase the accuracy of experiments to test for non-locality. This is our first result. After discussing the non-locality and non-Lorentz invariant features of the Bohm model, its retarded version, namely Squires' model - which is local and Lorentz invariant - is introduced. A problem with this model, that is the ambiguity in the cases where the wave-function depends on time, is removed by using the multiple-time wave-function. Finally, we apply the model to one of the experiments of locality and prove that it is in good agreement with the orthodox quantum theory.

In this thesis we revisit two classical definitions of angle in an inner product space: real-part angle and Hermitian angle. Special attention is paid to Krein’s inequality and its analogue. Some applications are given, leading to a simple proof of a basic lemma for a trace inequality of unitary matrices and also its extension. A brief survey on recent results of angles between subspaces is presented. This naturally brings us to the world of majorization. After introducing the notion of majorization, we present some classical as well as recent results on eigenvalue majorization. Several new norm inequalities are derived by making use of a powerful decomposition lemma for positive semidefinite matrices. We also consider coneigenvalue majorization. Some discussion on the possible generalization of the majorization bounds for Ritz values is presented. We then turn to a basic notion in convex analysis, the Legendre-Fenchel conjugate. The convexity of a function is important in finding the explicit expression of the transform for certain functions. A sufficient convexity condition is given for the product of positive definite quadratic forms. When the number of quadratic forms is two, the condition is also necessary. The condition is in terms of the condition number of the underlying matrices. The key lemma in our derivation is found to have some connection with the generalized Wielandt inequality. A new inequality between angles in inner product spaces is formulated and proved. This leads directly to a concise statement and proof of the generalized Wielandt inequality, including a simple description of all cases of equality. As a consequence, several recent results in matrix analysis and inner product spaces are improved.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Gendered labour market inequalities are a key area of feminist enquiry. Current approaches to theorising labour market inequalities usually conceive agentic social action and existing social structures as opposing forces, rather than as highly complex interwoven levels of social reality, which together constitute and reconstitute labour market inequalities over time. Further, these analyses tend to privilege either the social construction of gender or the different material circumstances of women’s lives in their accounts, inadequately addressing interfaces between ‘gender’ and the ‘material’. This study attempts to integrate these facets and levels of social reality more closely, offering an alternative account of how gendered labour market inequalities may be shored up or destablised over time. It builds on innovative work outside the field of labour market studies to do so. While the key existing accounts of labour market inequalities offer quite diverse explanations for these inequalities, gendered marital power relations and child-raising responsibilities, along with gendered patterns of participation in, and outcomes from, education and paid work are prominent features of them all. To acknowledge this prior research and some of its insights, analysis of the ‘transitions’ young women are currently making in these domains is a central feature of this study. In doing so, I acknowledge the wealth of research and debate on the late modern fracturing of youth to ‘adult’ transitions, and the future social changes these imply. I further suggest that disruptions and continuities in the forms of education, work, parenting and relationships that young Australian women aspire to, along with shifts in the timing and form of these transitions, have important potential implications for the maintenance or destabilisation of existing broader labour market inequalities over time. The alternative account offered here is developed by drawing on data gathered through a mixed methods study design, incorporating qualitative interviews and survey responses from groups of high SES and low SES young Australian women. Young women’s accounts of their aspirations for parenting, partnering, education and work, are treated using discursive analysis of the interview texts and comparison of these findings with descriptive statistics generated from the survey results. Theoretically, this analysis is guided by feminist poststructuralist notions of discourse, subject positioning and subjectivity. However, these poststructuralist concepts are reconciled with a notion of socio-cultural capital as a resource, developed to allow a ‘materialist’ edge in the empirical analyses. Additionally, insights from complexity thought provide a means for this study to conceive of the relationships between macro social structures and micro social processes as co-producing the labour market inequalities that the study addresses. The thesis of this study is that the social construction of gender, the material circumstances of women’s lives, and their agentic negotiations with these, are critical and interactive features of an adequate account of the processes through which labour market inequalities are shored up or destabilised over time. I suggest that the synthesised theoretical framework developed and presented here may be highly effective for this task. The contribution of the study is therefore fourfold. Firstly, it provides a snapshot of the transitions young Australian women with different material circumstances are making into relationships and parenting, education and work. Secondly, it offers novel insights into the processes through which labour market inequalities may be maintained or not. Thirdly, it offers an integrated account of the interplay between discursive/cultural and material/economic social forces in producing these inequalities. Finally, it augments existing scholarship by introducing an innovative theoretical synthesis to the study of labour market inequalities.