The purpose of this essay is, in a political philosophy perspective, to offer an illumination of John Stuart Mill¡¦s thoughts on modernity. In this essay, firstly, in the first chapter, I will try to elaborate the reason why I write this essay and take a perspective of history and political philosophy as my analytic viewpoint. Moreover, I also briefly introduce Mill¡¦s writings and the frameworks of this essay. In the second chapter, I describe the events, movements, and thoughts that gradually shape the modernity. From the standpoints of Weber, Hume and Romanticism, I also refer to one of the most important characteristics of modernity in political philosophy: value pluralism. In Mill¡¦s thoughts, how to response to the problem derived from value pluralism is my most important discourse. In the following chapter, I offer an exposition to detail Mill¡¦s discourses on modernity, focusing on his utilitarianism and liberalism. I mainly discuss how Mill¡¦s principles of utility and liberty response to the problem derived from value pluralism. I also discuss two contemporary thinkers¡¦ thoughts to find Mill¡¦s discourses on modernity, namely John Rawls and John Gray. In the fourth chapter, I assess and review the criticisms on Mill¡¦s discourses on modernity. In the conclusion chapter, I briefly go through the major viewpoints of this essay.

In this dissertation, we study the mixed finite element method for the linear plane elasticity problem and iterative solvers for the resulting discrete system. We use the Arnold-Winther Element in the mixed finite element discretization. An overlapping Schwarz preconditioner and a multigrid preconditioner for the discrete system are developed and analyzed. We start by introducing the mixed formulation (stress-displacement formulation) for the linear plane elasticity problem and its discretization. A detailed analysis of the Arnold-Winther Element is given. The finite element discretization of the mixed formulation leads to a symmetric indefinite linear system. Next, we study efficient iterative solvers for the symmetric indefinite linear system which arises from the mixed finite element discretization of the linear plane elasticity problem. The preconditioned Minimum Residual Method is considered. It is shown that the problem of constructing a preconditioner for the indefinite linear system can be reduced to the problem of constructing a preconditioner for the H(div) problem in the Arnold-Winther finite element space. Our main work involves developing an overlapping Schwarz preconditioner and a multigrid preconditioner for the H(div) problem. We give condition number estimates for the preconditioned systems together with supporting numerical results.

<p>Humanitarian logistics is a young science and complex discipline compared to business logistics because not only are actors in that arena compelled to work with outmost speed in <em>interrupted </em>environments having undetermined demand, they are also forced to work closely with other unknown players. Even more complex are civil-military relations because as studies show, the differences between these two humanitarian actors run deep to include contrasting missions, humanitarian principles, organizational and cultural differences.</p><p>The purpose of this work is to examine civil-military relations during the preparedness and response phases of humanitarian crises. We developed a frame of reference, set forth some operational and theoretical definitions, examined overlapping supply chains, modeled organizational structures and coordination mechanisms, established civil-military cooperation framework, disaster cycle studies and proposed a working model.</p><p>Our methodology included primary data collection through an empirical study of two NGOs and the military force through a series of interviews. Data culled was then analyzed in conjunction with the models and literature outlined in the frame of reference.</p><p>Based on our analysis, a number of observations were made in the conclusion. To begin with a number of strategies are employed during the preparedness and response phase where speed and agility are crucial. Also, overlapping roles between the military and NGOs have both positive and negative impact. Different organizational structures and funding outlay mean differences abound in how actors coordinate activities and share information. Cooperation, trust, information sharing and coordination are closely linked when finding a strategic fit among actors. In spite of the attempt at seeking a right formula for civil-military relations, it would be erroneous to ‘standardize’ relations as no two cases are ever the same.</p>

No description available.

Univ., Diss (Nicht für den Austausch)--Bielefeld, 2006.

Multicarrier modulation is a transmission technique that is quite convenient for high data rates in wireless communication. Information symbols are partitioned and parallelly sent over multiple narrowband subchannels. Pulse shaping filters are critically important in multicarrier modulation for determining the characteristics of signal in time and frequency domains. In this thesis, we propose a new pulse shaping approach for multicarrier schemes to increase spectral efficiency in multi-user scenarios. Conventionally, the time-frequency lattice and the prototype filter are designed considering the worst-case of time-varying multipath channel. However, this approach ignores to make use of multi-user diversity and leads to excessive spacings between successive symbols in time and frequency. Unlike the prevalent methods, we investigate user-based filter utilization considering the wireless channel of each user individually to prevent over-design and improve spectral efficiency. Also, this approach is implemented in a denser time-frequency lattice design. Symbols are allowed to be overlapped (depending on time-frequency dispersion of their individual channels) as long as the signal-to-interference ratios (SIRs) observed by all users are kept above a certain level. Employing user-specific filters to enhance SIR of the user exposed to the most interference provides more overlapping flexibility. Therefore, further improvement in spectral efficiency is achieved in our wireless communication system design.

In this dissertation, multicarrier schemes are reviewed within the framework of Gabor Systems. Their fundamental elements; what to transmit, i.e., symbols, how to transmit, i.e., filters or pulse shape, and where/when to transmit, i.e., lattices are investigated extensively. The relations between different types of multicarrier schemes are discussed. Within the framework of Gabor systems, a new windowing approach, edge windowing, is developed to address the out-of-band (OOB) radiation problem of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based multicarrier schemes. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, the diversity on the range of the users is exploited to suppress the sidelobes of OFDM. In addition to that, the concept of using different filters in OFDM structure is proposed. Besides the improvement on the OOB radiation performance of OFDM via edge windowing, conventional lattice structure of OFDM frame is enhanced considering the diversity in the network. The lattice structure of an OFDM frame is designed based on the statistical characteristics of the range of the users and the mobility. The concept of channel-aware frame structure is developed, which allows more efficient and reliable transmission. In addition to the aforementioned improvements on OFDM, interference issues in uncoordinated networks are addressed in this dissertation considering different multicarrier schemes. It is stressed that the interference from other links in the network sharing the same spectrum might degrade the link performance between the devices in an uncoordinated network, significantly. Considering the degradation due to other-user interference, the concept of partially overlapping tones (POT) is proposed. With the concept of partially overlapping tones, the interference energy observed at the victim receiver is mitigated via an intentional frequency offset between the links. The usefulness of intentional frequency offset to combat with the asynchronous nature of other-user interference without any timing constraint between interfering signals is emphasized. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time, the efficacy of non-orthogonal schemes are shown along with POT to address the other-user interference, which relies on the fact that self-interference problem is easier than other-user interference problem in an uncoordinated network. In the last part of this dissertation, required number of equalizer taps for multicarrier schemes is investigated to address the potential self-interference problems (e.g. due to the non-orthogonal multicarrier schemes with the concept of POT). Composite impact of transmit pulse shape, communication medium, and receive filter on the characteristics of the interference among the symbols in time and frequency is analyzed. It is emphasized that while taking less number of taps into account for the channel estimation causes lack of description of the composite effect, using more number of taps folds the noise into the estimated channel. The number of interfering symbols and their locations are obtained in both time and frequency for a given multicarrier scheme and signal-to-noise ratio. It is shown that correct number of taps yields not only improvement on BER performance but also less complex equalizer structures in practice.

Θεωρούμε μία ακολουθία από n ανεξάρτητες τυχαίες μεταβλητές Bernoulli, X1,X2,...,Xn (n>0) διατεταγμένες σε γραμμή. Τα δυνατά αποτελέσματα είναι δύο και χαρακτηρίζονται ως επιτυχία (S ή 1) ή αποτυχία (F ή 0). Ροή επιτυχιών είναι μία ακολουθία συνεχόμενων επιτυχιών (S) των οποίων προηγούνται και έπονται αποτυχίες (F) ή τίποτα. Μήκος μιας ροής επιτυχιών είναι ο αριθμός των επιτυχιών που περιλαμβάνονται στη ροή. Η μελέτη τυχαίων μεταβλητών που σχετίζονται με ροές είναι ιδιαίτερα αποτελεσματική σε πολλά επιστημονικά πεδία. Συγκεκριμένα, η μελέτη του αριθμού των ροών επιτυχιών σύμφωνα με διάφορα σχήματα απαρίθμησης αποτελεί ένα ενδιαφέρον θέμα ήδη από την εποχή του De Moivre (1756). Το 1940, ορίστηκε η βάση για τη δημιουργία ελέγχων υποθέσεων από τους Wald και Wolfowitz (1940) και τον Wolfowitz (1943). Επίσης, οι ροές χρησιμοποιήθηκαν και στον ποιοτικό έλεγχο από τους Mosteller (1941) και Wolfowitz (1943). Στις μέρες μας πέρα από τη Στατιστική, εφαρμόζεται και σε άλλες επιστημονικές περιοχές όπως η βιολογία (ακολουθίες DNA), η οικολογία, η ψυχολογία, η αστρονομία και η αξιοπιστία μηχανικών συστημάτων. Η παρούσα εργασία επικεντρώνεται στην μελέτη τυχαίων μεταβλητών, που μετρούν ροές επιτυχιών μήκους k. Αρχικά, αναλύονται οι τυχαίες μεταβλητές Nn,k και Mn,k, που παριστάνουν τον αριθμό των μη επικαλυπτόμενων ροών επιτυχιών μήκους k σύμφωνα με τον Feller (1968) και τον αριθμό των επικαλυπτόμενων ροών επιτυχιών μήκους k σύμφωνα με τον Ling (1988), αντίστοιχα. Επίσης, μελετάται η ασυμπτωτική τους συμπεριφορά και προσδιορίζεται η κατανομή τους μέσω συνδυαστικών μεθόδων, αναδρομικών σχημάτων, αθροισμάτων πολυωνυμικών και διωνυμικών συντελεστών καθώς και μέσω της μεθόδου εμβάπτισης τυχαίας μεταβλητής σε Μαρκοβιανή αλυσίδα. Δίνονται εκφράσεις για τη μέση τιμή, τη διασπορά και τη ροπογεννήτρια της τυχαίας μεταβλητής Mn,k. Επιπλέον, αναλύεται μια νέα κατηγορία αρνητικής διωνυμικής κατανομής τάξης k. Στη συνέχεια, δίνεται έμφαση στη μελέτη της τυχαίας μεταβλητής Nn,k,l, η οποία παριστάνει τον αριθμό των l-επικαλυπτόμενων ροών επιτυχιών μήκους k σε n ανεξάρτητες δοκιμές Bernoulli και γίνεται μία αναφορά στις γενικευμένες διωνυμικές κατανομές τάξης k. Παρουσιάζονται εκφράσεις για τη μέση τιμή και τη πιθανογεννήτρια συνάρτηση της τυχαίας μεταβλητής Nn,k,l και προσδιορίζεται η κατανομή της αναδρομικά, συνδυαστικά και μέσω της μεθόδου εμβάπτισης τυχαίας μεταβλητής σε Μαρκοβιανή αλυσίδα. Επίσης, μελετάται η τυχαία μεταβλητή Nn,k,l σε ακολουθία που προκύπτει από το σχήμα δειγματοληψίας Polya-Eggenberger. Τέλος, γίνεται σύνδεση της αξιοπιστίας m-συνεχόμενων-k-από-τα-n συστημάτων αποτυχίας με τις κατανομές των τυχαίων μεταβλητών Nn,k, Mn,k και Nn,k,l και παρουσιάζονται εκφράσεις για τον υπολογισμό της αξιοπιστίας αυτών των συστημάτων. / Consider a sequence X1,X2,...,Xn (n>0) of binary trials with outcomes arranged on a line. There are two possible outcomes, either a success (S ή 1) or a failure (F ή 0). A success run is a sequence of consecutive successes preceded and followed by failures (F) or by nothing. The number of successes in a success run is referred to as its length. The concept of runs has been used in various areas. In the early 1940s it was used in the area of hypothesis testing (run test) by Wald and Wolfowitz (1940) and Wolfowitz (1943) and in the area of statistical quality control by Mosteller (1941) and Wolfowitz (1943). Recently, it has been successfully used in many other areas, such as reliability of engineering systems, quality control, DNA sequencing, psychology, ecology and radar astronomy. Different enumerative schemes have been employed while discussing the number of success runs. The study of the random variables Nn,k and Mn,k, representing the number of non-overlapping consecutive k successes, in the sense of Feller’s (1968) counting and the number of overlapping consecutive k successes, in the sense of Ling’s (1988) counting, respectively, is important for this study. Also, the asymptotic behavior of these random variables is discussed. The methods that have been used to obtain the distributions of Nn,k and Mn,k are also presented, i.e. combinatorial analysis, recursive schemes and the Markov chain imbedding technique. The mean, the variance and the moment generating function of Mn,k are given. In addition, a new class of negative binomial distribution of order k is analyzed. This work is focused on the study of the random variable Nn,k,l, which represents the number of l-overlapping success runs of length k in n Bernoulli trials. Our study gives an overview of results referring to the distribution of the random variable Nn,k,l defined on sequences of Bernoulli trials (independent and identically distributed) and Markov trials. Also, formulae for the mean value and the probability generating function of Nn,k,l are presented. The distribution of Nn,k,l is determined recursively, combinatorially and via the Markov chain imbedding technique. Moreover, the random variable Nn,k,l is studied for sequences with outcomes from a Polya-Eggenberger sampling scheme. The distributions of Nn,k, Mn,k and Nn,k,l is used to study m-consecutive-k-out-of-n:F systems, i.e. systems that fail if and only if at least m sequences of k consecutive components fail. Several results concerning the reliability of such systems are also presented.

Stochastic programming is a mathematical technique for decision making under uncertainty using probabilistic statements in the problem objective and constraints. In practice, the distribution of the unknown quantities are often known only through observed or simulated data. This dissertation discusses several methods of using this data to formulate, solve, and evaluate the quality of solutions of stochastic programs. The central contribution of this dissertation is to investigate the use of techniques from simulation and statistics to enable data-driven models and methods for stochastic programming. We begin by extending the method of overlapping batches from simulation to assessing solution quality in stochastic programming. The Multiple Replications Procedure, where multiple stochastic programs are solved using independent batches of samples, has previously been used for assessing solution quality. The Overlapping Multiple Replications Procedure overlaps the batches, thus losing the independence between samples, but reducing the variance of the estimator without affecting its bias. We provide conditions under which the optimality gap estimators are consistent, the variance reduction benefits are obtained, and give a computational illustration of the small-sample behavior. Our second result explores the use of phi-divergences for distributionally robust optimization, also known as ambiguous stochastic programming. The phi-divergences provide a method of measuring distance between probability distributions, are widely used in statistical inference and information theory, and have recently been proposed to formulate data-driven stochastic programs. We provide a novel classification of phi-divergences for stochastic programming and give recommendations for their use. A value of data condition is derived and the asymptotic behavior of the phi-divergence constrained stochastic program is described. Then a decomposition-based solution method is proposed to solve problems computationally. The final portion of this dissertation applies the phi-divergence method to a problem of water allocation in a developing region of Tucson, AZ. In this application, we integrate several sources of uncertainty into a single model, including (1) future population growth in the region, (2) amount of water available from the Colorado River, and (3) the effects of climate variability on water demand. Estimates of the frequency and severity of future water shortages are given and we evaluate the effectiveness of several infrastructure options.

The main focus of this thesis is to develop biologically-based computational models for object recognition. A series of models for attention and object recognition were developed in the order of increasing functionality and complexity. These models are based on information processing in the primate brain, and specially inspired from the theory of visual information processing along the two parallel processing pathways of the primate visual cortex. To capture the true essence of incremental, constraint satisfaction style processing in the visual system, interactive neural networks were used for implementing our models. Results from eye-tracking studies on the relevant visual tasks, as well as our hypothesis regarding the information processing in the primate visual system, were implemented in the models and tested with simulations. As a first step, a model based on the ventral pathway was developed to recognize single objects. Through systematic testing, structural and algorithmic parameters of these models were fine tuned for performing their task optimally. In the second step, the model was extended by considering the dorsal pathway, which enables simulation of visual attention as an emergent phenomenon. The extended model was then investigated for visual search tasks. In the last step, we focussed on occluded and overlapped object recognition. A couple of eye-tracking studies were conducted in this regard and on the basis of the results we made some hypotheses regarding information processing in the primate visual system. The models were further advanced on the lines of the presented hypothesis, and simulated on the tasks of occluded and overlapped object recognition. On the basis of the results and analysis of our simulations we have further found that the generalization performance of interactive hierarchical networks improves with the addition of a small amount of Hebbian learning to an otherwise pure error-driven learning. We also concluded that the size of the receptive fields in our networks is an important parameter for the generalization task and depends on the object of interest in the image. Our results show that networks using hard coded feature extraction perform better than the networks that use Hebbian learning for developing feature detectors. We have successfully demonstrated the emergence of visual attention within an interactive network and also the role of context in the search task. Simulation results with occluded and overlapped objects support our extended interactive processing approach, which is a combination of the interactive and top-down approach, to the segmentation-recognition issue. Furthermore, the simulation behavior of our models is in line with known human behavior for similar tasks. In general, the work in this thesis will improve the understanding and performance of biologically-based interactive networks for object recognition and provide a biologically-plausible solution to recognition of occluded and overlapped objects. Moreover, our models provide some suggestions for the underlying neural mechanism and strategies behind biological object recognition.