The goal of this thesis is two-fold. On the one hand, it pursues to provide a contribution to the conjugate duality by proposing a new duality concept, which can be understood as an umbrella for different meaningful perturbation methods. On the other hand, this thesis aims to investigate minimax location problems by means of the duality concept introduced in the first part of this work, followed by a numerical approach using epigraphical splitting methods. After summarizing some elements of the convex analysis as well as introducing important results needed later, we consider an optimization problem with geometric and cone constraints, whose objective function is a composition of n+1 functions. For this problem we propose a conjugate dual problem, where the functions involved in the objective function of the primal problem are decomposed. Furthermore, we formulate generalized interior point regularity conditions for strong duality and give necessary and sufficient optimality conditions. As applications of this approach we determine the formulae of the conjugate as well as the biconjugate of the objective function of the primal problem and analyze an optimization problem having as objective function the sum of reciprocals of concave functions. In the second part of this thesis we discuss in the sense of the introduced duality concept three classes of minimax location problems. The first one consists of nonlinear and linear single minimax location problems with geometric constraints, where the maximum of nonlinear or linear functions composed with gauges between pairs of a new and existing points will be minimized. The version of the nonlinear location problem is additionally considered with set-up costs. The second class of minimax location problems deals with multifacility location problems as suggested by Drezner (1991), where for each given point the sum of weighted distances to all facilities plus set-up costs is determined and the maximal value of these sums is to be minimized. As the last and third class the classical multifacility location problem with geometrical constraints is considered in a generalized form where the maximum of gauges between pairs of new facilities and the maximum of gauges between pairs of new and existing facilities will be minimized. To each of these location problems associated dual problems will be formulated as well as corresponding duality statements and necessary and sufficient optimality conditions. To illustrate the results of the duality approach and to give a more detailed characterization of the relations between the location problems and their corresponding duals, we consider examples in the Euclidean space. This thesis ends with a numerical approach for solving minimax location problems by epigraphical splitting methods. In this framework, we give formulae for the projections onto the epigraphs of several sums of powers of weighted norms as well as formulae for the projection onto the epigraphs of gauges. Numerical experiments document the usefulness of our approach for the discussed location problems.

Since the advent of human consciousness all manner of theoreticians from mystics to philosophers, and linguists to scientists have considered why and how it is that an individuated self seems to occupy or indwell a physical body. There is a common experiential sense, in other words, in which personal consciousness and our bodies are felt to be two different things. Two broad areas of opinion attempting to explain this apparent bifurcation are defined for the purpose of addressing this problem: Essentialists who variously maintain that there are non-physical properties inherent to all forms and functions of physicality; and Physicalists who claim that the extant universe as a multiplicity of complex material processes is the only reality. The respective natures of body and mind and the ways in which they relate has yielded an extraordinary variety of hypotheses within and between these two broad categories. In this thesis the dilemma is called the Hard Problem and it focuses particularly on the relationship between consciousness and the brain. Recently, Ken Wilber has constructed an Integral Philosophy which attempts a synergistic gradation of all possible genres of experience and knowledge into one cohesive scheme representing the total Reality. The culminating point of Wilber’s theory claims resolution of the Hard Problem, indeed of all appearances of duality, in the realisation of consummate emptiness in mystical consciousness. Wilber’s proposal therefore tenders a version of Essentialism since it implies that an Absolute principle is inherent to all existence. The problem explored in this study considers whether the epistemological architecture of Wilber’s Philosophy is coherent and consistent. Following a critical appraisal of Wilber’s system it is proposed that epistemological coherence is more likely to be achieved by retaining the ontology of consciousness and matter to only one kind. In this way the scientific protocols which Wilber imports to validate his truth-claims are protected from ontological confusion. Whether this non-dual Physicalism is adequate as a means of explaining consciousness, and particularly mystical consciousness, is moot. Perhaps there remains an inalienable quality in mysticism which will always elude our ability to apprehend it. / Christian Sprituality, Church History & Missiology / D. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

In the existing literature, the constructs of "madness" and "woman' have long been associated with one another. This association has led to attempts by various authors, and also this current work, to deconstruct the constructs of madness and gender. The association between the constructs of "madness" and gender is seen in terms of metaphor. The relationship between the constructs of madness" and "woman" are described in terms of the manner in which meanings of metaphors of duality are collapsed onto one another. The approach to this discussion typifies the current shift in the human sciences from a belief in objective bias-neutral research to a new kind of self -conscious and sophisticated reality. I placed myself in this discussion as a researcher and a therapist, influenced by feminist, contextual and social constructionist ideas. The structure of this discussion was employed to reflect the theoretical perspectives mentioned above.therapist, influenced by feminist, contextual and social constructionist ideas. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This work evaluates whether the branch of Reynolds Averaging in Computational Fluid Dynamics can be used to, based on real field measurements, find the source of the measured gas in question. The method to do this is via the adjoint to the Reynolds Averaged Scalar Transport equation, explained and derived herein. Since the Inverse is only as good as the main equation, forward runs are made to evaluate the turbulence model. Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes is solved in a domain containing 4 cubes in a 2x2 grid, generating a velocity field for said domain. The turbulence model in question is a union of two modifications to the standard two equation k-ε model in order to capture blunt body turbulence but also to model the atmospheric boundary layer. This field is then inserted into the Reynolds Averaged Scalar Transport equation and the simulation is compared to data from the Environmental Flow wind tunnel in Surrey. Finally the adjoint scalar transport is solved, both for synthetic data that was generated in the forward run, but also for the data from EnFlo. It was discovered that the turbulent Schmidt number plays a major role in capturing the dispersed gas, three different Schmidt numbers were tested, the standard 0.7, the unconventional 0.3 and a height dependent Schmidt number. The widely accepted value of 0.7 did not capture the dispersion at all and gave a huge model error. As such the adjoint scalar transport was solved for 0.3 and a height dependent Schmidt number. The interaction between measurements, the real source strength (which is not used in the adjoint equation, but needed to find the source) and the location of the source is intricate indeed. Over estimation and under estimation of the forward model may cancel out in order to find the correct source, with the correct strength. It is found that Reynolds Averaged Computational fluid dynamics may prove useful in source term estimation. / Detta arbete utvärderar hurvida Reynolds medelvärdesmodellering inom flödessimuleringar kan användas till att finna källan till en viss gas baserat på verkliga mätningar ute i fält. Metoden går ut på att använda den adjungerade ekvationen till Reynolds tidsmedlade skalära transportekvationen, beskriven och härledd häri. Då bakåtmodellen bygger på framåtmodellen, måste såleds framåtmodellen utvärderas först. Navier-Stokes ekvationer med en turbulensmodell löses i en domän, innehållandes 4 kuber i en 2x2 orientering, för vilken en hastighetsprofil erhålles. Turbulensmodellen som användes är en union av två olika k-ε modeller, där den ena fångar turbulens runt tröga objekt och den andra som modellerar atmosfäriska gränsskiktet. Detta fält används sedan i framåtmodellen av skalära transportekvationen, som sedan jämförs med körningar från EnFlo windtunneln i Surrey. Slutligen testkörs även den adjungerade ekvationen, både för syntetiskt data genererat i framåtkörningen men även för data från EnFlo tunneln. Då det visade sig att det turbulenta Schmidttalet spelar stor roll inom spridning i det atmosfäriska gränsskiktet, gjordes testkörningar med tre olika Schmidttal, det normala 0.7, det väldigt låga talet 0.3 samt ett höjdberoende Schmidttal. Det visade sig att det vanligtvis använda talet 0.7 inte alls lyckas fånga spridningen tillfredställande och gav ett stort modellfel. Därför löstes den adjungerade ekvationen för 0.3 samt för ett höjdberoende Schmidttal. Interaktionen mellan mätningar, den riktiga källstyrkan (som är okänd i den adjungerade ekvationen) samt källpositionen är onekligen intrikat. Över- samt underestimationer av framåtmodellen kan ta ut varandra i bakåtmodellen för att finna rätt källa, med rätt källstyrka. Det ter sig som Reynolds turbulensmodellering mycket möjligt kan användas inom källtermsuppskattning.

Recent failure of such companies as Enron, Worldcom and Parmala showed that there are internal reasons contributing to company’s financial distress. Financial distress is a condition when a company fails to meet its debt obligations. Board of directors is liable for long-term decisions and their ineffective work in monitoring and controlling management can influence companies’ performance. With that in mind, in this degree project, we would like to answer the following research question: “What is the relationship between characteristics of Board and probability of financial distress, measured by Altman’s Z-score models in Sweden and Denmark?”   The epistemological and ontological choices for our study were positivism and objectivism with deductive approach. We have calculated Z-scores of Swedish and Danish companies in order to detect distressed and healthy companies. Further on, the information about board composition in each company was collected; mainly we were interested in board independence, board size, board ownership, COB ownership, CEO duality and employee representatives.   In order to examine if there is a relationship between board composition and financial distress, we have done Multiple and Binary Regression analyses. Based on the results we can state that board independence, board ownership and employee representatives and market capitalization (control variable) have significant relationship with probability of financial distress. Our study is interesting since we have looked at employee representatives, as a board characterectic that is specific for Nordic countries and that was not studied before. In addition, we have found that there is no CEO duality in Sweden and Denmark, since all companies in our sample followed the Companies’ Acts. COB ownership, the additional variable we wanted to test and board size have shown no significant relationship.

In this work we present a general duality-theory framework for revenue maximization in additive Bayesian auctions involving multiple items and many bidders whose values for the goods follow arbitrary continuous joint distributions over some multi-dimensional real interval. Although the single-item case has been resolved in a very elegant way by the seminal work of Myerson [1981], optimal solutions involving more items still remain elusive. The framework extends linear programming duality and complementarity to constraints with partial derivatives. The dual system reveals the natural geometric nature of the problem and highlights its connection with the theory of bipartite graph matchings. We demonstrate the power of the framework by applying it to various special monopoly settings where a seller of multiple heterogeneous goods faces a buyer with independent item values drawn from various distributions of interest, to design both exact and approximately optimal selling mechanisms. Previous optimal solutions were only known for up to two and three goods, and a very limited range of distributional priors. The duality framework is used not only for proving optimality, but perhaps more importantly, for deriving the optimal mechanisms themselves. Some of our main results include: the proposal of a simple deterministic mechanism, which we call Straight-Jacket Auction (SJA) and is defined in a greedy, recursive way through natural geometric constraints, for many uniformly distributed goods, where exact optimality is proven for up to six items and general optimality is conjectured; a scheme of sufficient conditions for exact optimality for two-good settings and general independent distributions; a technique for upper-bounding the optimal revenue for arbitrarily many goods, with an application to uniform and exponential priors; and the proof that offering deterministically all items in a single full bundle is the optimal way of selling multiple exponentially i.i.d. items.

This thesis explores diaspora experiences among Somali-Swedish parents and their daughters where the girls are enrolled in a Muslim-profiled school. The thesis uses migration theory with a transnational perspective, with findings that depart from the traditional view of migrants’ rootedness in a single country. It adopts the new paradigm for the sociology of childhood, where childhood is regarded as a social construction and children are considered to possess agency and competence. Anthony Giddens’s structuration theory and its main concept ‘duality of structure’ was employed as a theoretical tool. Methods that were used were participant observation, interviews (individual and in group) and analysis of essays. The thesis consists of three studies. The first study explores how Somali-Swedish parents explain their choice of a Muslim-profiled school for their children. The results refute the traditional view that such choices are solely faith-based, showing faith as important but not determining. Important factors were finding a school that met their high educational ambitions and  made both parents and children feel trusted, safe and not disrespected because of their faith and skin-colour. The second study explores transnational experiences, particularly the transfer of transnational practices from the Somali-Swedish parents’ to their children and the construction of a transnational social space, built on close global relationships. The results show that transnational practices are feasible irrespective of physical travel. The study also exemplifies the group’s readiness to relocate between countries by the onward migration from Sweden to Egypt, and implications for the children are illuminated. Somalis in diaspora often explain their propensity to move by their past nomadic life-patterns, but this study shows as strong factors the desire for better opportunities in combination with experiences of cultural and economic marginalisation in the West. The third study analyses how girls in grade 5 (about eleven years old) imagine their future career and family life by analysing essays. The findings reveal that their dreams are both consistent with the expectations of their families (in particular, high educational ambitions) and inspired from elsewhere (particularly in terms of future family life). How the girls imagine their adulthood could be seen as an example of how their original culture is subject to change in a new environment. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript.</p><p> </p>

La version intégrale de ce[te] mémoire [thèse] est disponible uniquement pour consultation individuelle à la Bibliothèque de musique de l’Université de Montréal (http://www.bib.umontreal.ca/MU). / Résumé Ce document présente une collection d’œuvres composées sur une période de deux ans. Le premier chapitre comprend les sommaires des premières pièces de cet période, écrites pour des instruments solistes ou des petits ensembles. Le second chapitre consiste en une analyse approfondie de « Three Constructions in Heavy Metal », une pièce pour un ensemble de musique de chambre à six interprètes et un chef. Les pièces sont présentées chronologiquement afin d’illustrer l’évolution du processus de composition, ainsi que d’exposer plusieurs éléments recyclés dans de nouveaux contextes. Puisque toutes les pièces sont écrites pour des petits ensembles, l’accent est mis sur la maximalisation du potentiel sonore disponible. Ceci se passe tout d’abord au niveau instrumental, mais la présente analyse démontrera aussi sa pertinence au niveau des matériaux musicaux; en effet, presque tout le matériel dans « Three Constructions in Heavy Metal » peut être retracé, d’une quelconque façon, dans les pièces présentées dans le premier chapitre. Mots-clés : Musique, composition, dualité, chambre, texture, ensemble, instrumental / Abstract The following document presents a collection of pieces all composed during a two- year period. The first chapter consists of overviews of the earliest pieces, written for solo instruments or small ensembles, while the second chapter is an in-depth analysis of the most recent work, “Three Constructions in Heavy Metal” (a chamber piece for six performers and conductor). The pieces are presented in a chronological order to illustrate the evolution of the compositional process as well as the way certain ideas are recycled and reused in new contexts in different pieces. As all the pieces are written for small ensembles, there is an emphasis on maximizing the sonic potential available. This takes places at the instrumental level and, as analysis will show, at the level of the musical materials; nearly all the material in “Three Constructions in Heavy Metal” can be traced in some way to the pieces presented in the first chapter. Keywords: Music, composition, duality, chamber, texture, ensemble, instrumental

Benjamin Fondane est un penseur et un artiste du XXe siècle qui demeure encore relativement méconnu de la communauté universitaire. Pourtant, son œuvre poétique et ses essais révèlent une démarche atypique et une vision concrète de la dualité humaine et de la pratique de la pensée. « Le mal des fantômes », poème central de l’œuvre de Fondane, est une incarnation imagée du mal-être psychique de l’humain qui pressent que ses réflexes intellectuels, tels la raison et l’esprit de non-contradiction, créent une rupture avec son expérience intime du monde, brigue une portion du réel. L’étude de la figure du fantôme (qui est la figure de la hantise dans la tradition littéraire) ainsi que de l’économie discursive de la traversée maritime qui se déploient dans ce poème nous permet d’interroger les astuces rhétoriques que Fondane met en place afin de contrecarrer ce malaise. À travers l’expérience scripturale et la lecture, il est à la recherche d’une nouvelle disposition de l’activité réflexive qui serait davantage solidaire de l’existence humaine. C’est grâce au geste de l’écriture que sa pensée voyage, se meut, retrouve sa vivacité et, par là même, ses pouvoirs de mutation. Se pencher sur la mise en œuvre de la réflexion chez Benjamin Fondane permet de poser un regard sensible sur les propres rapports que nous entretenons avec notre activité intellectuelle, scripturale et notre pensée. / Benjamin Fondane is a thinker and an artist of the twentieth century who is still relatively unknown to the academic community. However, his poetry and essays reveal an unusual flow of language and a concrete vision of human duality and practice of thought. “Le mal des fantômes,” Fondane’s central poem, is a image-laden incarnation of the human’s mental uneasiness in creating a disjunction between his or her intellectual reflexes, such as reason and the spirit of non-contradiction, and an intimate experience of the world, a disjunction that necessarily limits the mind to a mere portion of a larger, integral reality. In studying the “fantôme” trope – that is, the haunting figures of the literary tradition – in conjunction with the poem's discursive economy of the sea voyage, we seek to unveil the rhetorical ploys that Fondane mobilizes to counteract this malaise. Through writing and reading experimentation, he seeks a new paradigm of thinking that follows more closely unfolding human existence. By virtue of writing itself, thought travels, moves along, and regains both its vitality and transformative power. Moreover, considering the workings of Fondane’s thought enables us to examine the ongoing relationship between our own intellectual activity, writing, and thought.

Dans un contexte de prix de marché fixes et exogènes pour un ensemble de biens choisis pour être produits, le problème de conception d'une chaine logistique a été analysé comme un problème de formation d'une coalition dans le cadre de la théorie des jeux coopératifs, et formulé comme un jeu de production linéaire. Dans un premier temps, ce travail étudie la compatibilité entre la formation d'une coalition stable et l'allocation équitable du profit total entre les participants. Il est montré qu'en général, le mécanisme d'allocation purement compétitif ne vérifie pas la propriété d'équité. Deux techniques ont été proposées pour corriger ce défaut. La première consiste en l'introduction de paiements de transfert entre les membres de la coalition optimale. La deuxième technique se base sur la substitution des contraintes de capacité de ressources par des contraintes de saturation linéaires par morceaux. Par ailleurs, si la coalition d'entreprises décide de s'organiser sous forme d'une chaine logistique et d'imposer le prix de gros de ses produits fabriqués, alors le problème de conception de chaine logistique soumis à une hypothèse de demande aléatoire élastique peut être formulé grâce au modèle du jeu biforme. Cette situation génère un jeu de production quadratique (JPQ) jusqu'alors inexistant dans la littérature. Il est montré que ce jeu a un cœur non vide et qu'il est en général non convexe. Enfin, il est démontré qu'en général l'optimum global de la chaine logistique n'est atteint que lorsque la coalition d'entreprises vend directement ses produits sur le marché final sans intervention du détaillant. / In the context of fixed market prices for a set of goods selected to be manufactured, the design of a supply chain network can be interpreted as a coalition formation problem in the cooperative game theory framework and formulated as a linear production game (LPG). This study investigates the possibility of combining the requirement of coalition stability with a fair allocation of profits to the participants. It is shown that, in general, the purely competitive allocation mechanism does not exhibit the property of fairness. Two techniques are proposed to correct this defect. The first one consists in introducing transfer payments among the players of the optimal coalition. The second technique relies on an improved representation of capacitated resources through clearing functions. Now, if an enterprise network decides to organize itself as a supply chain and imposes the wholesale price of its manufactured goods, then the supply chain design problem under a price elastic random demand from the market can be formulated as a biform game. This situation has generated a quadratic production game (QPG) not yet studied in the literature. It has been shown that this game has a non empty core and it is generally non convex. Finally, it has been proved that global profit optimality is obtained if the manufacturing network is directly selling the goods to the market rather than to a retailer.