This thesis investigates the formation of national identity in South Korea regarding Japan through the perception of Japan in the eyes of the South Korean people. Despite Korea’s independence from Japan in 1945, the complex relationship resulting from the historical events seems continual, blocking their further cooperation. The ethnic relation between these two countries has been revolving around socio-political issues. In this sense, this thesis focuses on the micro-level to understand the ethnic relationship, which is visible through the formation of national identity. By adopting the constructivist point of view, this research identifies the core elements of national identity in the case of South Korean people through the application of national identity theories. This research employs semi-structured interviews to attain primary data from the Korean interviewees. Secondary sources are complemented from the presidential speech to provide an insight into the constitution of South Koreans’ national identity in parallel. Thematic analysis is utilized from these two data sets to explore the national identities by generating the themes of history, Japanese goods, and imagery. The perception of South Korean people toward Japan has revealed that they take the colonial history into account the most in their constitution of national identity.

Post-dictatorship reconstruction is a recurrent research topic in peace and development. Memories and the remembrance of the past, at the collective or family level can impact populations years after the beginning of their democratisation processes. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of intergenerational transmission of memories about communism within the family on the ethnic identity of younger generations born after it. It focuses on the generation of Hungarians living in Transylvania, born after the fall of communism in 1989, which parents grew up in the same region and experienced Ceausescu’s communist dictatorship.  This paper relies on the concepts of intergenerational narratives, symbolic ethnic boundaries, and psychology theories about their effect on identity, and data from qualitative interviews and focus groups. Through a thematic analysis and a narrative discourse analysis from discursive psychology, the results show that to a certain extent, memories can be used to strengthen the ethnic identity and ethnic boundaries of the younger generations. It has also concluded that it could amplify their segregation in the future, although discriminations based on the proficiency in the Romanian language seem to be its main driver.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・論文博士 / 博士(工学) / 乙第13015号 / 論工博第4140号 / 新制||工||1650(附属図書館) / 32943 / (主査)教授 斧 髙一, 教授 木村 健二, 教授 立花 明知 / 学位規則第4条第2項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

[pt] O presente trabalho investiga preditores clínicos de incapacidade e especificidade episódica da memória autobiográfica no Transtorno Bipolar (TB). Além disso, investiga a relação entre incapacidade e insight nesses indivíduos. Os resultados destacam o impacto da depressão e o papel generalizado da perda de insight no TB, indicando que o insight pode levar ao aumento da incapacidade e reforça a associação entre sintomas depressivos e incapacidade, o que tem sido consistentemente relatado na literatura. Além disso, os resultados deste estudo indicam que sintomas mais graves de depressão, maior nível de ideação suicida e menor gravidade da doença atuam como preditores de prejuízos na habilidade de recordação de detalhes autobiográficos no TB. Preditores clínicos são frequentemente usados na prática clínica para identificar pacientes em risco de resultados adversos. Portanto, esta pesquisa visa contribuir para o avanço da compreensão da doença com relevância direta para avaliação clínica e possíveis intervenções. / [en] The current work explores clinical predictors of disability and autobiographical memory episodic specificity in bipolar disorder (BD). In addition, it investigates the relationship between disability and insight in this disease The results highlight the impact of depression and pervasive role of loss of insight in BD, indicating that it may also lead to increased disability and reinforces the association between depressive symptoms and disability, which has been consistently reported in literature. Additionally, the results of this study indicate that more severe symptoms of depression, higher level of suicidal ideation and lower illness severity act as predictors of impaired recall of specific autobiographical details in BD. Clinical predictors are frequently used in clinical practice to identify patients at risk of adverse outcomes. Therefore, this research aimed at contributing to advance the understanding of the disease with direct relevance for clinical assessment and possible interventions.

This paper presents how I came to create this collection of jewellery that is intimately tied to memories and fragments. How I have conducted my research about collections, museums, jewellery, and artists. Incorporating those findings into the workshop and the way the pieces came to be. Made in silver, zinc and iron, and with use of the techniques casting and etching.  And conclusively how a collection took form with this idea to give a sense of treasures or a language from an unknown world or place. Somewhere where time has passed and the individual pieces convey the notion that they are fragments of a greater whole, part of a story or memory that we can sense but not quite reckon, not to be fully understood.

This dissertation is the collection of a progressive research on the topic of topological quantum computation and information with the focus on the error threshold of the well-known models such as the unpaired Majorana, the toric code, and the planar code. We study the basics of quantum computation and quantum information, and in particular quantum error correction. Quantum error correction provides a tool for enhancing the quantum computation fidelity in the noisy environment of a real world. We begin with a brief introduction to stabilizer codes. The stabilizer formalism of the theory of quantum error correction gives a well-defined description of quantum codes that is used throughout this dissertation. Then, we turn our attention to a quite new subject, namely, topological quantum codes. Topological quantum codes take advantage of the topological characteristics of a physical many-body system. The physical many-body systems studied in the context of topological quantum codes are of two essential natures: they either have intrinsic interaction that self-corrects errors, or are actively corrected to be maintained in a desired quantum state. Examples of the former are the toric code and the unpaired Majorana, while an example for the latter is the surface code. A brief introduction and history of topological phenomena in condensed matter is provided. The unpaired Majorana and the Kitaev toy model are briefly explained. Later we introduce a spin model that maps onto the Kitaev toy model through a sequence of transformations. We show how this model is robust and tolerates local perturbations. The research on this topic, at the time of writing this dissertation, is still incomplete and only preliminary results are represented. As another example of passive error correcting codes with intrinsic Hamiltonian, the toric code is introduced. We also analyze the dynamics of the errors in the toric code known as anyons. We show numerically how the addition of disorder to the physical system underlying the toric code slows down the dynamics of the anyons. We go further and numerically analyze the presence of time-dependent noise and the consequent delocalization of localized errors. The main portion of this dissertation is dedicated to the surface code. We study the surface code coupled to a non-interacting bosonic bath. We show how the interaction between the code and the bosonic bath can effectively induce correlated errors. These correlated errors may be corrected up to some extend. The extension beyond which quantum error correction seems impossible is the error threshold of the code. This threshold is analyzed by mapping the effective correlated error model onto a statistical model. We then study the phase transition in the statistical model. The analysis is in two parts. First, we carry out derivation of the effective correlated model, its mapping onto a statistical model, and perform an exact numerical analysis. Second, we employ a Monte Carlo method to extend the numerical analysis to large system size. We also tackle the problem of surface code with correlated and single-qubit errors by an exact mapping onto a two-dimensional Ising model with boundary fields. We show how the phase transition point in one model, the Ising model, coincides with the intrinsic error threshold of the other model, the surface code.

No description available.

This study explores how Chinese ancient cultural memory is constructed, and specifically how it is reconstructed through Chinese Xianxia TV dramas during the past five years. Ancient Chinese culture has become a hit in Chinese popular culture today, in which Xianxia TV dramas draw the biggest audiences. This study focuses on the ways, namely the transformations between cultural memory as storage memory to cultural memory as living functional memory, in which the Xianxia genre reconstructs the past. Bringing together a ritual view of communication, cultural memory and participatory culture, it applies a cultural approach to communication, which refers to the production and the fandom reception of Xianxia TV drama. Meanwhile, the perspective of culture industry provides a critical dimension to look into this highly commercial genre. This study is based on the analysis of content and representations of the theme song lyrics, posters and the general narratives of six selected Xianxia TV dramas, as well as a virtual ethnography of fan-generated videos and their comments. The findings suggest that, the reconstruction of ancient Chinese cultural memory in Xianxia TV dramas is a complex interplay between the culture industry logics of Xianxia production and the passionate participatory fan culture. The limited representations of the past in the series are absorbed and practiced by the fan audiences. Through fan practices, the fans extend the media text with their passion and knowledge of ancient culture, attaching the cultural memory into their present real-life cultural identity and hence vigorously transforming cultural memory from storage memory into functional memory.  This study speaks to the lack of bottom-up perspectives in the studies of the ancient culture revival trend in China, and it contributes to a deeper scholarly understanding of the Xianxia genre.

The project ‘There is a place - Forever seeking’ addresses immigration, identity transitions, change and the yearning to belong. I grew up in Lebanon and moved to Sweden nine years ago, in 2014. During my three years at Konstfack I have developed my artistic expression and have come to realise that it is heavily influenced by styles expressed in the Middle East - something I originally didn’t relate to or found especially alluring. It is not strange that one gets inspired by their surroundings but what I found interesting is that I have been unknowingly and subconsciously recreating places, objects, shapes and contours from my past. This raised many questions regarding my artistic identity and artistic expression: In which category does it fall in? Have I tried to recreate places and objects because I miss them? Is it because the contours I've used seem familiar? Have I been looking for these contours even here in Sweden as way to feel at home? Or feel like I belong? At the end of my third year of the bachelor's program Interior Architecture and Furniture Design (in 2024), I've decided to tackle these questions as part of my thesis. By using my memories and the contours of the places that have had an impact on me I’ve created a mobile, using spatial design to create my own world made of ever-changing landscapes that feel familiar, places and contours that I have searched for, the home I’ve been seeking.

In her book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens Alice Walker addresses black American women's lack of opportunities to write their experiences for later generations. Walker points out that because black women historically were not allowed to write and often were unable to share their creative thoughts or experiences, black women's literary history has been less available. Walker suggests that women of color look back to their mothers and the oral traditions of their ancestors to recreate that lost history and thus create a more complete historical account that has been absent from white canonical representations of African American history. This undergraduate thesis examines three contemporary African American women's novels and demonstrates that they employ maternal genealogical experiences to reclaim and retell Afro-American women's history. Toni Morrison's Beloved, Octavia Butler's Kindred, and Gayl Jones' Corregidora are postmodern, postcolonial slave narratives ( often called "neo-slave narratives") that trace a broad historical memory of slavery through maternal genealogy. While scholars have addressed the presence of the mother in these texts, they have overlooked the importance of the matrilineal tradition of inherited memory as a tool to revisit and reclaim history.