Graduation date: 1997

Systems of linear equations are central to many science and engineering application domains. Given the abundance of low-cost parallel processing fabrics, the study of fast and accurate parallel algorithms for solving such systems is receiving attention. Fast linear solvers generally use a form of LU factorization. These methods face challenges with workload distribution and communication overhead that hinder their application in a true broadcast communication environment. Presented is an efficient framework for solving large-scale linear systems by means of a novel utilization of Cramer's rule. While the latter is often perceived to be impractical when considered for large systems, it is shown that the algorithm proposed has an order N^3 complexity with pragmatic forward and backward stability. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that Cramer's rule has been demonstrated to be an order N^3 process. Empirical results are provided to substantiate the stated accuracy and computational complexity, clearly demonstrating the efficacy of the approach taken. The unique utilization of Cramer's rule and matrix condensation techniques yield an elegant process that can be applied to parallel computing architectures that support a broadcast communication infrastructure. The regularity of the communication patterns, and send-ahead ability, yields a viable framework for solving linear equations using conventional computing platforms. In addition, this dissertation demonstrates the algorithm's potential for solving large-scale sparse linear systems.

This thesis is trying to find out whether the five studied countries, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain would have avoided the economic crisis by having an independent central bank.The theory used for our study is the Taylor rule, using statistical data in order to count out the short-term nominal interest rate. Results are compared with the ECB nominal interest rate to see if the difference between the two rates is big. By looking at other macroeconomic data we will try to understand if the fiscal policy could have been conducted in a better way.The results we reached were varying. In the case of Ireland and Spain we could clearly see that a higher interest rate could have drastically altered the outcome, potentially avoiding the crisis. Regarding Italy and Portugal, the current crisis is more due to structural problems and not due to the level of the interest rate. Finally, we could see that Greece could have benefited from a higher interest rate. But we cannot definitely say that this has been the reason for the crisis since the Greek fiscal policy has been poorly conducted.

Den här magisteruppsatsen analyserar domen mot Microsoft i EG-domstolens första instans. Domen fastställde att Microsoft genom användningen av kopplingsförbehåll, missbrukat sin dominerande ställning enligt artikel 82 i EG-fördraget. Kopplingsförbehållet i det aktuella fallet bestod i att Microsoft uteslutande sålde två separata produkter tillsammans, operativsystemet Windows och mediaspelaren Windows Media Player. Före Microsoft-fallet tillämpades inom EG-rätten ett per se-förbud mot kopplingsförbehåll, vilket innebar att de automatiskt ansågs olagliga utan att effekterna av det individuella kopplingsförbehållet utreddes. Kopplingsförbehållet i Microsoft-fallet ansågs däremot ha en så komplicerad karaktär att en vidare utredning var nödvändig. Därför gjordes en övergång från per se-förbudet till en bedömning med inslag av rule of reason. Den nya bedömningen innebar bland annat en granskning av den effekt som kopplingsförbehållet hade på marknaden. Det var också möjligt för Microsoft att visa att kopplingsförbehållet hade konkurrensfrämjande effekter och effektivitetsvinster som övervägde kopplingsförbehållets konkurrenshämmande effekter, vilket skulle anses som sakligt skäl. Om det bedömdes att det fanns sakliga skäl till kopplingsförbehållet, skulle det kunna tillåtas. I ett närmast identiskt fall av kopplingsförbehåll i USA, även det gällande Microsoft, ansågs en bedömning enligt rule of reason vara bättre än tillämpningen av ett per se-förbud. Det fanns dock betydande skillnader mellan den rule of reason-bedömning som förespråkades i USA och den europeiska bedömningen som hade inslag av rule of reason. I USA ansågs exempelvis testet som användes för att fastslå att kopplingsförbehållet bestod av två separata produkter som alltför tillbakablickande och riskerade att hämma teknologisk utveckling och innovation. Det synsättet fanns inte i Europa och därför tillämpades testet vid bedömningen av Microsofts kopplingsförbehåll. Den europeiska metoden för att bedöma kopplingsförbehåll ställde överlag betydligt hårdare krav på svaranden än den amerikanska motsvarigheten. I det europeiska fallet var det upp till Microsoft att visa att kopplingsförbehållet var ”indispensible”, det vill säga nödvändigt för att effektivitetsvinsterna och de konkurrensfrämjande effekterna skulle erhållas. Något krav på svaranden att visa att kopplingsförbehållet var nödvändigt ställdes inte i USA. Trots att vi ställer oss positiva till avsteget från ett per se-förbud, anser vi att det nya sättet att bedöma kopplingsförbehåll har svagheter. Metoden att fastslå effekterna av kopplingsförbehållet är mycket spekulativt och kravet på att svaranden måste visa att kopplingsförbehållet är nödvändigt för att uppnå konkurrensfrämjande effekter är alltför hårt. Det råder fortfarande osäkerhet kring vilka konsekvenser den nya europeiska metoden kommer att få i framtiden vid bedömningen av kopplingsförbehåll enligt artikel 82 i EG-fördraget. Sedan Microsoft-fallets avgörande har det inte tagits upp något annat fall av kopplingsförbehåll, varken av Kommissionen eller EG-domstolen. Det är därför än så länge oklart om per se-förbudet är avskaffat och en rule of reason-inriktad bedömning kommer att göras i fortsättningen.

An Extension to the Composite Rule Induction System Discovering knowledge from data is an important task for knowledge management and development of intelligent systems, which is called knowledge acquisition or data mining. Many techniques have been developed for such purpose. For example, ID3, C4.5 (tree induction techniques) and Artificial Neural Networks are among the popular techniques in ¡§Classification and Prediction¡¨ area. However, these methods often use the same criteria to analyze nominal and non-nominal attributes, which is very likely to produce biased knowledge due to mis-match between data type and their algorithms. In Liang (1992), he proposed a composite approach called CRIS to inducing knowledge that introduces statistical concepts and data mining heuristics and found the composite method outperformed other methods including tree induction, discriminant analysis, and neural networks. However, the paper focuses on the classification of binary objects and did not describe how the approach can be applied to a problem with more than two classes in the dependent variable. In this research, we extend the previous approach to solve the problem with more than two classes. We also enhance the approach by adding steps to prioritizing attributes using their identification power and controlling the growth of generated hypothesis. In order evaluate the extended CRIS method, a prototype system, eCRIS, was developed and compared with a commercial data mining package, XLMiner3 (developed by Cytel Software Corporation) using three existing datasets in data mining research. The results indicate that the extended CRIS outperforms tree induction and backpropagation in neural networks in datasets that include both nominal and non-nominal data and performed equally well with them.

Background - Current guidelines suggest that all cancer patients with venous thrombosis be treated with long-term low molecular weight heparin. Whether treatment strategies should vary according to clinical characteristics remains unknown. // Systematic review - A systematic review was performed to determine current understanding of the association between malignancy characteristics in patients with cancer-associated VTE and the risk of VTE recurrence. Four retrospective and 6 prospective studies were included. They suggest that lung cancer, metastases, and adenocarcinomas confer an increased the risk of recurrence and breast cancer a low risk. // Survey - I performed survey to evaluate thrombosis experts’ opinion about the low risk of VTE recurrence they would consider acceptable for patients with cancer- associated thrombosis 103 specialists participated. 80% of respondents agreed that a risk of recurrent VTE during anticoagulation below 7% is low enough. 92% agreed that a CPR that categorizes risk of recurrence is relevant. // Retrospective Study - I performed a single retrospective cohort study to assess the feasibility of derivation of a CPR that stratifies VTE recurrence risk in patients with cancer–associated thrombosis. The study included 543 patients. A multivariate analysis selected female, lung cancer and prior history of VTE as high risk predictors and breast cancer and stage I disease as low risk. // Conclusion - Patients with cancer-associated thrombosis do have varying risks of recurrent VTE depending on clinical characteristics.

Fluid phenomena dominated by viscous effects can, in many cases, be modeled by the Stokes equations. The boundary integral form of the Stokes equations reduces the number of degrees of freedom in a numerical discretization by reformulating the three-dimensional problem to two-dimensional integral equations to be discretized over the boundaries of the domain. Hence for the study of objects immersed in a fluid, such as drops or elastic/solid particles, integral equations are to be discretized over the surfaces of these objects only. As outer boundaries or confinements are added these must also be included in the formulation. An inherent difficulty in the numerical treatment of boundary integrals for Stokes flow is the integration of the singular fundamental solution of the Stokes equations, e.g. the so called Stokeslet. To alleviate this problem we developed a set of high-order quadrature rules for the numerical integration of the Stokeslet over a flat surface. Such a quadrature rule was first designed for singularities of the type <img src="http://www.diva-portal.org/cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi?1/%7C%5Cmathbf%7Bx%7D%7C" />. To assess the convergence properties of this quadrature rule a theoretical analysis has been performed. The slightly more complicated singularity of the Stokeslet required certain modifications of the integration rule developed for <img src="http://www.diva-portal.org/cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi?1/%7C%5Cmathbf%7Bx%7D%7C" />. An extension of this type of quadrature rule to a cylindrical surface is also developed. These quadrature rules are tested also on physical problems that have an analytic solution in the literature. Another difficulty associated with boundary integral problems is introduced by periodic boundary conditions. For a set of particles in a periodic domain periodicity is imposed by requiring that the motion of each particle has an added contribution from all periodic images of all particles all the way up to infinity. This leads to an infinite sum which is not absolutely convergent, and an additional physical constraint which removes the divergence needs to be imposed. The sum is decomposed into two fast converging sums, one that handles the short range interactions in real space and the other that sums up the long range interactions in Fourier space. Such decompositions are already available in the literature for kernels that are commonly used in boundary integral formulations. Here a decomposition in faster decaying sums than the ones present in the literature is derived for the periodic kernel of the stress tensor. However the computational complexity of the sums, regardless of the decomposition they stem from, is <img src="http://www.diva-portal.org/cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi?%5Cmathcal%7BO%7D(N%5E%7B2%7D)" />. This complexity can be lowered using a fast summation method as we introduced here for simulating a sedimenting fiber suspension. The fast summation method was initially designed for point particles, which could be used for fibers discretized numerically almost without any changes. However, when two fibers are very close to each other, analytical integration is used to eliminate numerical inaccuracies due to the nearly singular behavior of the kernel and the real space part in the fast summation method was modified to allow for this analytical treatment. The method we have developed for sedimenting fiber suspensions allows for simulations in large periodic domains and we have performed a set of such simulations at a larger scale (larger domain/more fibers) than previously feasible. / <p>QC 20121122</p>

A special role amongst various efforts to combat transnational criminal activity belongs to extradition, which has transformed into a form of international cooperation and became an indispensable tool for ensuring criminal responsibility in any part of the world. However, for a long period of time, an individual in the process of extradition has been treated as a passive object of intergovernmental relations which have a significant political component. In this thesis, the claim is that treatment of an individual as a rights bearer and an active subject of legal relationships among other parties of the process, combined with transfer of final decision-making right from the executive to judiciary branch of power, is capable to enable application of the Rule of law principles to particular extradition cases, limit broad discretion of decision makers and minimize political component of extradition.

A special role amongst various efforts to combat transnational criminal activity belongs to extradition, which has transformed into a form of international cooperation and became an indispensable tool for ensuring criminal responsibility in any part of the world. However, for a long period of time, an individual in the process of extradition has been treated as a passive object of intergovernmental relations which have a significant political component. In this thesis, the claim is that treatment of an individual as a rights bearer and an active subject of legal relationships among other parties of the process, combined with transfer of final decision-making right from the executive to judiciary branch of power, is capable to enable application of the Rule of law principles to particular extradition cases, limit broad discretion of decision makers and minimize political component of extradition.

Background - Current guidelines suggest that all cancer patients with venous thrombosis be treated with long-term low molecular weight heparin. Whether treatment strategies should vary according to clinical characteristics remains unknown. // Systematic review - A systematic review was performed to determine current understanding of the association between malignancy characteristics in patients with cancer-associated VTE and the risk of VTE recurrence. Four retrospective and 6 prospective studies were included. They suggest that lung cancer, metastases, and adenocarcinomas confer an increased the risk of recurrence and breast cancer a low risk. // Survey - I performed survey to evaluate thrombosis experts’ opinion about the low risk of VTE recurrence they would consider acceptable for patients with cancer- associated thrombosis 103 specialists participated. 80% of respondents agreed that a risk of recurrent VTE during anticoagulation below 7% is low enough. 92% agreed that a CPR that categorizes risk of recurrence is relevant. // Retrospective Study - I performed a single retrospective cohort study to assess the feasibility of derivation of a CPR that stratifies VTE recurrence risk in patients with cancer–associated thrombosis. The study included 543 patients. A multivariate analysis selected female, lung cancer and prior history of VTE as high risk predictors and breast cancer and stage I disease as low risk. // Conclusion - Patients with cancer-associated thrombosis do have varying risks of recurrent VTE depending on clinical characteristics.