As there seem to be a relationship between child soldiering and increased fighting capacity, there appears to be logical advantages of using child soldiers. However, research suggest that children ought to be inferior soldiers than adults. This pinpoints the need for clarifications regarding what disadvantages are associated with the benefits of using child soldiers. As child soldiering has mainly been investigated out of a perspective of systemic influences, there is a need to better understand the recruitment decision side; why rebel leaders prefer to recruit children. While the quantitative research on civil conflicts has tried to identify what ingredients that make conflict severe, the presence of child soldiers has been suggested to be, perhaps not such an ingredient, but at least an exacerbating one. By conducting a quantitative analysis of data on civil conflicts between 1989 and 2010, this study asks how the use of child soldiers affects the severity of the conflict, in terms of rebel losses. As the hypothesis suggests that rebel groups that are using child soldiers have a higher number of rebel losses, the results of this study indicate that the hypothesis is supported. Based on the results of this study, it can be argued that there are costs associated with the benefits of increased fighting capacity, and that these costs are high, when measured in rebel losses.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第21412号 / 理博第4432号 / 京都大学大学院理学研究科数学・数理解析専攻 / (主査)教授 堤 誉志雄, 教授 泉 正己, 教授 上 正明 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

The electrochemical behavior of nickel (Ni) in different concentrations of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) was studied via cyclic voltammetry (CV) over a range of potentials (0.0 V– 3.0 V) at room temperature. The presented work displays novel experiments where external forcing by a platinum (Pt) electrode changed the proton concentration at a Ni electrode surface in order to control the frequency and magnitude of periodic oscillations produced. When studying unique phenomena such as the Ni phenomena in this thesis, efficient, durable, and inexpensive technology is always beneficial. A coupled microelectrode array sensor or CMAS which has been used for over four decades to study pitting corrosion, crevice corrosion, intergranular corrosion, galvanic corrosion, and other heterogeneous electrochemical processes were fabricated in a novel, systematic, inexpensive, and time efficient process. The presented work shows how to make the CMAS and proved that they functioned properly.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is an interstitial lung disease with no known cause or cure. IPF has an incidence of 75/1,000,000 of the population, predominately in men over the age of 60. This relatively rare disease develops in a chronic and progressive way, ultimately leading to death within two to five years of diagnosis. Our use of translatable methodologies in the bleomycin mouse model of IPF led to the novel identification of the similarities between the average percent loss of lung function in previous human clinical trials to that of our mouse model data. There is no treatment for IPF outside of lung transplantation, therefore our goal is to develop a protein therapy to halt the progression of IPF. B6_BP_dslf is a small, 93.36 kDa minibinder protein with a nanomolar affinity to αvβ6, an integrin of therapeutic potential for IPF when inhibited by halting αvβ6/TGF-β signaling. Our hypothesis is that B6_BP_dslf will halt the progression of pulmonary fibrosis induced in a mouse model of IPF. To test this hypothesis, a de novo design method was used resulting in the B6_BP_dslf minibinder having high β unit selectivity and nanomolar affinity for αvβ6, and maintenance of its secondary structure after aerosolization. These attributes led to testing in the bleomycin mouse model for IPF as an inhaled therapy. We found that B6_BP_dslf inhalation by mice with induced pulmonary fibrosis had reduced pathogenesis through the quantification of biomarkers for αvβ6/TGF-β mediated fibrosis, lowered histopathological scores, and improved lung function. These positive results from standard biochemical analysis and clinically translatable methods show that BP_B6_dslf has clinical potential as an inhaled therapy for IPF. Additionally, we tested the use of lung function tests in an animal model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), using secondhand smoke exposure to induce the disease and to identify inflammatory pathways. We found that smoke exposure increased inflammatory signaling through receptors for advanced glycation end-products, and inhibition of these receptors using a novel therapy of semi-synthetic glycosaminoglycan ethers (SAGEs) reduced inflammation and improved lung function. Together, the data from two different lung disease models supports the use of lung function as a preclinical efficacy variable for experimental drugs. The combination of biochemical and functional assessments of B6_BP_dslf and SAGEs gives weight to their therapeutic potential.

This dissertation uses game theoretic models in a principal-agent framework to study how firms optimally manage long term career related incentives for their sales people. When sales people put sales effort they face incentives not only from short term incentives like commissions and bonuses but also from long term rewards associated with progression in their career. In particular, sales people are often motivated to get promoted and avoid being laid off, to get selected to managerial positions and to form stronger relationships with customers so that they can bargain for higher wages in the future, respectively. Three different essays examine each of these three career related incentives and how firms can optimally manage them. Essay 1 (Chapter 2) studies why and how firms use a type of promotion and layoff policy, called the Forced Ranking policy, to provide optimal long term career incentives to sales people. Findings from the essay suggests that when sales people are ambiguity averse and there is economic uncertainty regarding promotions and layoffs, firms are likely to commit to a promotion policy but may or may not commit to a layoff policy as part of Forced Ranking. Interestingly, it is shown that firms enjoying higher margins are more likely to commit to both promotion and layoffs, consistent with observations from industry practice. Results also suggest that in absence of costs from promoting and laying off employees, firms should use an up-or-out contract to motivate the sales force. Essay 2 (Chapter 3) investigates how career incentives associated with promotion of sales employees to sales management roles may interfere with selection of the right sales managers. The essay was motivated by the common observation that organizations often promote their best sales people to sales managerial roles but after promotion find that the sales people are not as good as they were expected to be in their new roles, a phenomenon called Peter Principle. An alternative explanation for this phenomenon of adverse selection is provided and possible solutions are analyzed as part of the essay. In essay 3 (Chapter 4) long term career incentives that sales reps face when they can form relationships with their customers are considered. Loyalty generated from customer-salesperson relationships is often "owned" by the sales person and it can be lost if the sales person moves to another firm. Therefore, firms compete for both customers as well as sales reps with the objective of poaching customers that are loyal to the sales reps. The essay analyzes how firms can deal with such a competition. Findings suggest that contrary to general beliefs, the presence of anti-employee poaching regulations like Non-Compete clauses, or tacit collusion to not poach each other's employees may hurt firm profits under some conditions. Overall, the dissertation answers how firms can manage sales force career incentives to maximize profits.

An assessment of the validity of idealizing a concrete diaphragm as rigid was performed through the modal analysis of three existing buildings. Modal analysis was performed both by physical experimentation and computational analysis. Experimental determination of the mode shapes shows that two of the three buildings’ diaphragms exhibited flexible behavior. The experimental results were compared to computational analysis results and were shown to be similar, confirming that that the two building diaphragms are not rigid. As a standard, diaphragms with aspect ratios less than three are permitted to be idealized as rigid per ASCE 7-05. To determine the effect of the rigid diaphragm idealization, the design forces and roof deflections for each building were determined from the computational model through a spectral analysis for both a model with rigid diaphragms and a model with semi-rigid diaphragms. It was found that the design seismic demands for the two buildings with flexible diaphragms were higher when modeled with semi-rigid diaphragms than with rigid diaphragms. The conclusion is made that idealizing a concrete diaphragm as rigid solely based on its aspect ratio may result in an unconservative estimate of the seismic demands on a building.

In 1945/46, after the surrender of Germany in the Second World War, approximately twelve million German civilians living in Central and Eastern Europe were expelled (or fled before they received the inevitable expulsion order) mostly to Germany in what R.M. Douglas termed the "largest forced population transfer [...] in human history." Even though these events occurred over sixty years ago, the recollections of these expellees suggest the ongoing immediacy of their experiences. For this phenomenological-historical ethnography, I collected more than eighty life stories and oral histories specifically from ethnic Germans expelled from Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia (Sudeten Germans). Through the lenses of musical practice and musical repertoire, I investigate how these Sudeten Germans used and still continue to use music as a tool for both remembrance and adaptation in their new environments. I seek to understand music's significances for social and political integration in the Sudeten-Germans' "new sounding homeland" in West Germany. Taken one at a time, these recollections disclose the various ways in which music and musical practices retrieve memories of their Bohemian homelands and are able to mitigate both the loss of those homelands and the distressing overall effects of expulsion. Woven together, these recollections reveal how music offers emotional solace and facilitates the building of a new sense of belonging in the face of geographic displacement and material dispossession. I then compare these recollections to memories of Sudeten Germans expelled to the former East Germany as well as to the memories of Germans who were forced to stay in Czechoslovakia. This comparison highlights how the reframing and even silencing of musical practices in these environments affected processes of social identity reconstruction until the 1989 Velvet Revolution. I suggest that the analysis of the Sudeten Germans' individual musical experiences reveals new perspectives of how they used and still use musical practices to negotiate intercultural power relations and rebuild a sense of Heimat (notion of belonging to a place of origin). Broadly speaking, the results of this study facilitate an understanding of the phenomenon of forced migration and how music is able to reflect, reframe, and renegotiate it.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup for men's football has received massive criticism since it was announced in December 2010 that Qatar would host it. With a significant history of human rights violations, many were shocked that Qatar was elected. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media reported on the ongoing abuses in the country and warned about the consequences of Qatar hosting the World Cup. Therefore, this thesis will examine these consequences and how preparations for the World Cup affect human rights in Qatar – specifically migrant workers' rights. The focus will be on Qatar, companies working with the World Cup, and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), addressing and analyzing their responsibilities and obligations. The thesis is a descriptive analysis discussing how migrant workers' rights were violated and neglected. It is also a normative analysis that will analyze what should and could have been done to prevent it. Both Qatar's legal system and the regulation of international standards for human rights and business will be analyzed in the text. This thesis will shed light on the football world and its relation to human rights, as well as who bears the primary responsibility to ensure human rights in the preparation and execution of the World Cup. It will discuss how football and human rights affect each other, aiming to show that football organizations influence societies and social structures. Football is not only a sport but a tool that can either improve or worsen people's availability to human rights. This thesis is based on two different theories: A Marxist perspective on conflict theory and Corporate Social responsibility theory. To answer the research questions through these theories, this thesis has used a qualitative data analysis method to analyze different reports and documents from NGOs, Qatar, FIFA, and the United Nations. The thesis concludes with a summary highlighting FIFA as the prime duty bearer during the preparation and delivery of the World Cup, as well as acknowledging that Qatar, FIFA, and companies' lack of improvement and monitoring contributes to the enforcement of modern slavery/forced labor.

The intersection of forced migration and disability is often overlooked, both in research, public discourse and political action. Building on the emerging literature looking at the situation in host countries and against the backdrop of the increasing focus on employment in both asylum and disability contexts, the thesis explores the access to the labour market for persons with disabilities and forced migration experience in Sweden and Germany. In order to answer the question of how pathways to the labour market for persons with disabilities and forced migration experience look like, the thesis combines a policy document analysis with four semi-structured interviews with organisations working at the intersection in both countries. The selected material and interviews are analysed with a reflexive thematic analysis approach following Braun & Clarke (2006) under an intersectional lens. The policy analysis shows, in addition to the lack of engagement with the intersection, that the respective asylum laws influence the access to the labour market through work permits and through their interplay with the provision of disability services. From the interviews, it appears that in both countries, persons with disabilities and forced migration experience get access to the labour market either through registration with the Employment Agency and their specific programmes for persons with disabilities, through sheltered workplaces in Sweden or sheltered workshops in Germany or personal contacts with diaspora communities or organisations. These different pathways are in both countries furthermore highly dependent on structural and personal prerequisites. Despite experiences of discrimination and ableism, the interviews highlight not only the complexity that comes with the intersection, but also that persons with disabilities and forced migration experience, often with the help of organisations, nevertheless navigate the pathways and find employment.

In February 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started the war that would lead to the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. In response to the war, SWAN, the Swedish Artists Residency Network, initiated the project Emergency residencies. During 2022, the network’s artist residencies opened up to provide safety for Ukrainian artists fleeing the war. Through an ethnographic case study and in-depth interviews, this thesis explores the experiences of four Ukrainian musicians in times of war and displacement, that took part of the Emergency residencies. It also investigates the function of SWAN’s Emergency residencies for musicians facing forced migration. The purpose is to shed light on the experience of musicians in a refugee position and the residency as a space that may contribute to uphold music-making and musical labour for refugee artists.   This thesis uses a transdisciplinary approach. It draws on notions of music as an emotional resource, music becoming political, and theoretical concepts regarding identity, belonging, and detachment, as well as translocality and transcultural capital. SWAN’s Emergency residencies is shown to provide several benefits for musicians displaced during Russia’s war on Ukraine. It includes the contribution of economic resources, opportunities for artistic practice and development, and promotion of cultural understanding and social inclusion. It also suggests that typical benefits provided by artist residencies gain added value for artists experiencing war and displacement, as it answers to losses typically experienced in forced migration. The war and refugee position are embedded in the daily experience of musicians facing war and displacement. This thesis suggests that musicians can use various strategies to either enforce, dismiss, expand or change the view of their prescribed identity in relation to the war and the refugee position. A Ukrainian identity is enhanced to show pride of their country, create awareness of Ukraine’s situation or foster a sense of belonging. Music can also be used to detach from positions and preconceptions surrounding such labels and connections, either through performing other identities or releasing from all categories. Furthermore, music and music-making can act as an emotional resource that helps regulate emotions or become a vehicle for political mobilisation and support for Ukraine. The politicisation of music is also actualised by the refugee position in itself and public perceptions of such positions. Transcultural capital highlights the capacities and strategies of musicians to create various economic, cultural and social opportunities through links to both their host and home country.