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As the consequences of climate change is increasing the need of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy globally is becoming more urgent. A central question that has been questioned in the literature is that if the world is on track on a transition away from fossil fuels or if we are only adding renewable energy to the energy mix in a world that continues to grow and consume more energy. Because of the above mentioned, this thesis aims to investigate if the increased generation of electricity from renewable sources are displacing the generation of electricity from fossil fuels. This is tested using a time and country fixed effects model including 176 countries with yearly observations from 2000 to 2020. The result from the regression showed that one additional kWh electricity generated from renewable sources has not statistically managed to displace one kWh of electricity generated from fossil fuels, net of controls. Previous studies using a similar methodology but on older time frames has shown result were almost no displacement has occurred when renewable sources have been added. The result from this thesis should not be interpreted as that the transition is not going to happen since it might be that the global initiatives taken around the globe to make the transition happenis not get visible in the numbers used in thesis, but the result does on the other hand indicate that several economic, political, and social factors has made the transition to renewables difficult, and that we should not assume that renewable energy will replace fossil fuels for electricity generation without policy measures that supports the transition.

The  real  estate  market  is  constantly  changing  due  to  shifts  in  demand  and  the  rise  of  new technologies. Innovations emerge at a relentless pace, and the timeframe for exploiting already established  value  is  reduced.  Commercial  real  estate  firms  must  therefore  be  able  to  exploit established  products  while,  at  the  same  time,  exploring  innovations.  The  ability  to  manage these opposing forces is called ambidexterity. Organisational ambidexterity is a well-explored area  in  the  academic  literature,  withnumerous  theories  regarding  how  to  achieve  it  most suitably. Wofford, Wyman and Starr (2020) present the paradox map that allegedly provides a practical visual focus for teams considering the short and long-term targets and change for the business. This paradox map has not been tested empirically. Thus, this master’s thesis explores the paradox management approach and thereby contributes to the gap in the academic literature. The  study  has  been  conducted  with  a  qualitative  research  approach.  The  collected  data consisted  of  semi-structured  interviews  and a document  analysis. Theinterviews  were  held with  respondents  from  five  different  commercial  real  estate  owners  and  a  total  of  nine interviews  were  conducted.  The  document  analysis  was  performed  by  studying  all firms’annual  reports  and  one  firm's  website  to  complement  the  respondent's  answers.The  results from the empirical study were analysed thematically with a deductive approach based on the theoretical framework on the paradox map. The  study concludes  that  the  six  sub-paradoxes  in  the  paradox  map  are  most  relevant  when organisations make decisions since they evidently influence decisions regarding innovations. It is also concluded that the commercial real estate owners are ambidextrous according to the innovation   paradox   of   exploit   and   explore.   Thus,   since   the   allegedly   ambidextrous organisations  proved  to  be  ambidextrous  according  to  the  innovation  paradox,  it  is  also concluded that the framework is applicable in practice.

Latinos generally have equal or lower rates of mental illness relative to their White counterparts (the so-called Hispanic paradox). In addition, first-generation Latino immigrants have decreased odds of psychiatric illness than second-generation Latino immigrants (referred to as the immigrant paradox). Unfortunately, our understanding of mechanisms underlying the Hispanic and immigrant paradoxes has been limited by methodological issues in extant research, resulting in only a vague understanding of the resiliency of Latinos to psychiatric illness. The current project addresses these shortcomings by comparing risk and protective factors to mental illness among first- and second-generation Latinos. Results of this study indicate that first-generation Latinos report higher national identity exploration, pressure to acculturate, and social status and lower language-based acculturation in comparison to second-generation Latinos. Regression analyses suggest that higher ethnic discrimination and acculturative stress, lower perceived social status, and residency in an ethnic enclave increase Latinos' risk to mental illness, whereas higher American and Latino identification and social support reduce this risk. Results of moderation analyses indicate that ethnic discrimination and certain dimensions of acculturative stress exacerbate associations between age of immigration and years in the U.S. and negative mental health outcomes for first-generation Latinos. These findings, taken together, provide a greater understanding of the underlying processes of the Hispanic and immigrant paradoxes. Study limitations, policy and clinical implications, and future directions are presented.

According to the dominant approach in the theory of vagueness, the nature of the vagueness of an expression ‘F’ consists in its presenting borderline cases in an appropriately ordered series: objects which are neither definitely F nor definitely not F (where the notion of definiteness can be semantic, ontic, epistemic, psychological or primitive). In view of the various problems faced by theories of vagueness adopting the dominant approach, the thesis proposes to reconsider the naive theory of vagueness, according to which the nature of the vagueness of an expression consists in its not drawing boundaries between any neighbouring objects in an appropriately ordered series. It is argued that expressions and concepts which do present this feature play an essential role in our cognitive and practical life, allowing us to conceptualize—in a way which would otherwise be impossible—the typically coarse-grained distinctions we encounter in reality. Despite its strong initial plausibility and ability to explain many phenomena of vagueness, the naive theory is widely rejected because thought to be shown inconsistent by the sorites paradox. In reply, it is first argued that accounts of vagueness based on the dominant approach are themselves subject to higher-order sorites paradoxes. The paradox is then solved on behalf of the naive theory by rejecting the unrestricted transitivity of the consequence relation on a vague language; a family of logics apt for reasoning with vague expressions is proposed and studied (using models with partially ordered values). The characteristic philosophical and logical consequences of this novel solution are developed and defended in detail. In particular, it is shown how the analysis of what happens in the attempt of surveying a sorites series and deciding each case allows the naive theory to recover a "thin" notion of a borderline case.

Braess' paradox is a counter-intuitive phenomenon which can occur in congesting networks. It refers to those cases where the introduction of a new link in the network results in the total travel time on the network increasing. The dissertation starts by introducing the traffic assignment problem and the concept of equilibrium in traffic assignment. The concept of equilibrium is based on Wardrop's first principle that all travellers will attempt to minimize their own travel time regardless of the effect on others. A literature review includes details of a number of papers that have been published investigating theoretical aspects of the paradox. There is also a brief description of Game Theory and the Nash Equilibrium. It has been shown that the equilibrium assignment is an example of Nash Equilibrium. The majority of work that has been published deals with networks where the delay functions that are used to compute the travel times on the links of the network do not include explicit representation of the capacity of the links. In this dissertation a network that is similar in form to the one first presented by Braess was constructed with the difference being that the well-known BPR function was used in the delay functions. This network was used to show that a number of findings that had been presented previously using simpler functions also applied to this network. It was shown that when it occurs, Braess' paradox only occurs over a range of values at relatively low levels of congestion. Real-world networks were then investigated and it was found that similar results occurred to those found in the simpler test networks that are often used in discussions of the paradox. Two methodologies of eliminating the paradox were investigated and the results are presented. / Decision Sciences / M.Sc.

This report presents a selfcontained derivation of Hawking radiation, and discusses the consequent information loss paradox.

This portfolio identifies a lacuna in the ways most mainstream management literature speaks of change. This literature focuses predominantly on the activities of 'planning', 'implementing' and 'evaluating' change in organizations, while largely overlooking the situated and embodied experience of actually becoming changed. I propose that this type of experience lies at the heart of organizational change. My research focuses on such experiences, addressing the questions of what characterizes them, what are the conditions that enable them, and what is involved in a practice that attempts to generate and sustain them. Building on Complex Responsive Process Theory, which claims that all change is constituted by shifts in the patterning of local interactions, I am proposing that the study of the qualities of ordinary, everyday 'experiences of transformation', which take place in conversational interactions between organizational members, is crucial to our understanding of how change happens. These qualities involve fleeting and elusive shifts of awareness and energy. What I am suggesting 'transforms' in such experiences is the complex interweaving of meaning, sense of self or identity, and ways of interacting and speaking. I argue that these shifts both create, and are created by, the responsive engagement with the complex, puzzling and ambiguous aspects of lived experiences of interaction. My narratives are concerned with the ways in which new meaning and novel directions of 'going on together' emerge paradoxically within the very experience of the fragmentation and dissolving of our usual, taken for granted understanding and sense of self. This often happens as we agree to encounter the 'otherness' of others in a conversational setting in which all the disconcerting, troubling and moving ramifications of that encounter are allowed to play out. In crafting an approach to change which resonates more with our everyday organizational lives, my narratives call attention to the details of such experiences: their textured richness and complex multi-facetedness. I propose that learning to carefully notice and engage with such experiences offers both deeper insights into the nature of change, and generates more nuanced, subtle, and ultimately effective, ways of working with change processes.

Em nossa dissertação de mestrado, ESTUDOS SOBRE A LÓGICA PARACONSISTENTE DL E APLICAÇÕES EM DIREITO estávamos interessados na construção de um sistema deôntico paraconsistente a partir de uma lógica dialética e na introdução de operadores de interpretação na lógica clássica. A pesquisa atual pretende ampliar o uso de lógicas deônticas paraconsistentes para formalizações com quantificadores e operador de igualdade e apresentar a lógica DL-DQ=, como uma melhor formalização do que os sistemas input/out e algumas lógicas de proposições normativas. Pretendemos aplicar a lógica DL-DQ= na solução de paradoxos deônticos. / In our masters dissertation, ESTUDOS SOBRE A LÓGICA PARACONSISTENTE DL E APLICAÇÕES EM DIREITO (Studies of Paraconsistent Logic DL and its applications in Law) we focused on establishing a paraconsistent deontic system based on specific dialectical logic and urging in interpretations symbols in classical logic. In this research we try to expand the paraconsistent deontic logic to formal languages with symbols for quantifiers and equality and to develop the logic DL-DQ= which we believe presents a better formalization, compared to two other system called Input\\Output and Normative Propositional Logics. We intend to apply DL-DQ= as tool to solve deontic paradoxes.

Thesis advisor: Stephen Pfohl / Recent work on Hispanic immigrants has consistently shown a decline in educational attainment over generations-since-immigration despite the fact that advanced education is currently presented in the public arena as the foundation for economic mobility (Telles and Ortiz). This study investigates the seeming contradiction of Hispanic youth's disengagement from the system that is presented as the pathway to increased economic achievement. The dissertation is based on findings from a qualitative study consisting of in-depth interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic data collected during an 18 month stay in a small, semi-rural, largely Hispanic, community in New Mexico, where the local high school has a graduation rate of 55%. Refuting claims that school disengagement emerges from either low ability or "leveled aspirations," the findings of this study indicate that young people's decisions are based largely on the advice that they are given regarding the economic utility of post-secondary schooling. Lacking this advice these young people determined it was not worth the risk of time out of the labor market, money, and effort that advanced schooling required. The findings of this study argue that one of the key reasons these young people disengage from school stems from the failure of any institution or individual to make it clear to students how educational credentials connect to occupational opportunities. Thus, a number of young people who have had some success at school still choose to leave because they are unconvinced that educational credentials are actually economically useful. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.