Majority of electricity networks have growing number of ageing elements. Critical network components, such as ageing underground cables, are very expensive to install and disruptive to replace. On the other hand, global climate changes have made connection of new low carbon technologies (LCT) into the grids increasingly necessary. These factors are contributing to the increasing complexity of the planning and management of power systems. Numerous techniques published on this subject tend to ignore the impact of LCT integration and the anchoring ꞌSmartꞌ solutions on ageing network assets, such as underground cables and transformers. This thesis presents the development procedures of an ageing underground cable reliability model (IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull model) and cable ranking models for replacement based on system wide effects and thermal loss-of-life metrics. In addition, a new concept of LCT integration and distribution network management was proposed using two optimization models. The first optimizes connection of new wind sources by minimizing the connection cost and the cost of cable thermal loss-of-lives in the planning period. In the second stage, the network is optimally reconfigured in such a way to minimize thermal-loss-of-life of ageing cable. Both optimization models are formulated as mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problems applicable to radially operated medium voltage networks. To quantify the reliability benefits of the proposed approach, Sequential Monte Carlo Simulation (SMCS) procedure was formulated. Some of the main features of the SMCS procedure are the IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull model for ageing cable, optimal network reconfiguration, wind generation modelling using ARMA models and real time thermal ratings. The final outputs are reliability metrics, cable ranking lists for replacement, savings due to 'non-spend' cable thermal lives, etc. These studies have proven to be important in formulating an effective strategy for extending the lives of network cables, managing overall network reliability and planning cables replacement in power distribution networks.

Traditionally Latin prose letters have been classified in one of two ways: often they are seen as historical documents to be mined for political, historical and social information; otherwise they are viewed as literature, to be read with a consideration of the role of rhetoric and persuasion. These letters are only rarely approached as letters, and classical scholars have only just begun to discover the benefits of applying epistolary theory to these texts. My thesis examines epistolary exchange within the context of Roman power relations, offering a new interpretation of the correspondences between the most powerful political figure in a given period and one from among the senatorial class. Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Fronto and Symmachus each conducted an epistolary exchange with a powerful figure with whom he hoped to gain influence, and despite the significant differences between them in terms of political and social circumstances, each uses his letters in similar ways to that end. I approach these texts, never before treated together in a comparative study, with a consideration of epistolarity, ‘the use of the letter’s formal properties to create meaning’, a concept developed by J. G. Altman (1982). These properties are identified and examined by means of detailed stylistic analysis of the Latin text. The act of writing a letter is an act of self-definition; the sender constructs a self defined necessarily in relation to a particular addressee. Thus the letter also affords a sender the opportunity to define the You, to whom he addresses himself. In the context of power relations in Roman politics, the letter then becomes a flexible tool of self-fashioning, by which a senator may attempt to influence the emperor.

L'intérêt d'une étude sur la mort découle des contradictions qui l'affectent car seuls les vivants pouvant être créateurs de normes et titulaires de droit, la mort en droit public est par définition un droit des vivants. La mort, prise en considération par le droit public, est un prisme sous lequel se dévoile la construction de l'Etat tout en révélant les lacunes et les fragilités du droit face au mystère de la condition humaine. Oscillant entre une conception de la mort perçue comme un néant et des projections individuelles et collectives conférant, malgré tout, une valeur à la personne et à la vie humaine avant et par-delà le décès, le droit tout en s'émancipant de la religion ne s'est pas déparé complètement de toute dimension "sacrée" et l'Etat doit se confronter à ces projections individuelles et collectives face à la mort. Si l'on a assisté en l'espace de moins d'un siècle à un basculement d'un devoir de ne pas tuer à une obligation de protéger la vie à laquelle la norme juridique fait très largement écho, la nouvelle maîtrise de la vie humaine permise par les avancées scientifiques et médicales transforme également l'expression souveraine de l'Etat. Se voyant reconnaître un pouvoir de protection de la vie, c'est désormais sur la condition biologique des individus elle-même que le droit public étend ses ramifications. / The interest of a study about death comes from the contradictions that affect it. Only the living can create laws and regulations: by definition, death in public law is the law of the living. Death, as managed by public law, is a prism which reveals the construction of the State but also uncovers gaps and weaknesses in the law to deal with the mystery of human condition. The law swings back and forth between a conception of death seen as nothingness and individual and collective beliefs giving nevertheless value to the person and human life before and beyond death. While freeing itself from religion, the law has not completely lost any"sacred" dimension and the State must face these individual and collective beliefs about death. In less than a century, there has been a shift from “do not kill” to an obligation to “protect life”; this shift is now widely integrated in modern law. Scientific and medical advances allow a new control of human life and also change the sovereign expression of the state. Public law is now in charge of a life protection duty and starts to integrate rules about the biological condition of human people itself.