Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are hybrid materials and are acknowledged as an important class of functional solid-state materials with high scientific interest in academia and industry alike. Their modular nature in terms of structural and compositional diversity, tunability, high surface area, and controlled pore size renders MOFs as the ideal candidate to address various persistent challenges pertaining to gas storage/separation, catalysis, drug delivery, and smart sensing. Through the field of reticular chemistry, targeted structures can be constructed through multiple design approaches, based on preselected building blocks prior to the assembly process. This thesis illustrates the merit of the supermolecular building layer (SBL) approach for the rational construction and discovery of highly connected and porous MOFs based on rare earth cations. Specifically, the emphasis of this study is on (i) the rational design and synthesis of 3-periodic MOFs based on SBLs pillared by ditopic ligands through post-synthetic modification (PSM) and in situ reactions. (ii) The investigation of the mixed-ligand system with different lengths and geometry of ditopic ligands on the isolation of metal clusters with distinct pore sizes. (iii) Gaining an overall insight into the exploration of different synthetic pathways that control the assembly of rare earth MOFs.

我國籃球運動，在1994年成立中華職業籃球聯盟，在歷經6年的經營，於1999年正式宣布解散，使我國籃球運動自此回歸業餘。在中華職業籃球聯盟之後，由中華民國高級中等學校體育總會主辦之「HBL高中籃球聯賽」再次地在國內引起一陣風潮，籃球賽事又再度吸引球迷目光。而中華民國大專院校體育總會所主辦之UBA大專籃球聯賽無論是電視轉播、媒體報導甚至現場觀眾人數，皆無法與人氣鼎沸的高中籃球聯賽相提並論。為何兩者雖皆屬於體育類非營利組織，主管機關同樣為內政部，目的事業主管機關亦同樣為教育部及行政院體育委員會，亦分別有大型企業之贊助，所經營之籃球聯賽卻有如此之差異？本研究發現，高中體總對籃球聯賽之行銷，設有臨時任務編組，並累積多年行銷運作過程之經驗，轉化為智慧資本，並與行銷公司及贊助廠商定期召開會議，不致在行銷過程中產生問題。而大專體總與行銷公司及贊助廠商之合作過程，則缺乏充分溝通協調，導致行銷效果不彰。大專體總與高中體總在其行銷運作時同樣面臨困難，包括球員配合行銷活動問題、運動組織與行銷公司配合問題等問題。另外，主動積極檢視行銷公司執行行銷之成效。除行銷本身運作之困難，尚有其他外在因素會阻礙行銷計畫之進行。包括學生球員與社會球隊球員重疊之問題、少子化趨勢等，皆增加了行銷之困難度。

Synthesis of materials with certain properties for targeted applications is an ongoing challenge in materials science. One of the most interesting classes of solid-state materials that have been recently introduced with the potential to address this is metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs chemistry offers a higher degree of control over materials to be synthesized utilizing various new design strategies, such as the molecular building blocks (MBBs) and the supermolecular building layers (SBLs) approaches. Depending on using predetermined building blocks, these strategies permit the synthesis of MOFs with targeted topologies and enable fine tuning of their properties. This study examines a number of aspects of the design and synthesis of MOFs while exploring their possible utilization in two diverse fields related to energy and pharmaceutical applications. Concerning MOFs design and synthesis, the work presented here explores the rational design of various MOFs with predicted topologies and tunable cavities constructed by pillaring pre-targeted 2-periodic SBLs using the ligand-to-axial and six-connected axial-to-axial pillaring strategies. The effect of expanding the confined spaces in prepared MOFs or modifying their functionalities, while preserving the underlying network topology, was investigated. Additionally, The MBBs approach was employed to discover new modular polynuclear rare earth (RE)-MBBs in the presence of different angular polytopic ligands containing carboxylate and nitrogen moieties with the aid of a modulator. The goal was to assess the diverse possible coordination modes and construct highly-connected nets for utility in the design of new MOFs and enhance the predictability of structural outcomes. The effect of adjusting ligands’ length-to-width ratio on the prepared MOFs was also evaluated. As a result, the reaction conditions amenable for reliable formation of the unprecedented octadecanuclear, octanuclear and double tetranuclear RE-MBBs were isolated, and their corresponding MOFs were successfully synthesized and characterized. Regarding the applications of MOFs, gas sorption behavior of the novel prepared MOFs was studied to establish structure-property relationships that elucidate the effect of using different metals and/or ligands on tuning various properties of the prepared compounds. Furthermore, the magnetic properties of selected MOFs were investigated. Besides, as a proof-of-concept, known neutral and anionic MOFs were considered as potential drug delivery carriers.

Modern robotics and automation systems require high-level reasoning capability in representing, identifying, and interpreting the three-dimensional data of the real world. Understanding the world's geometric structure by visual data is known as 3D perception. The necessity of analyzing irregular and complex 3D data has led to the development of high-dimensional frameworks for data learning. Here, we design several sparse learning-based approaches for high-dimensional data that effectively tackle multiple perception problems, including data filtering, data recovery, and data retrieval. The frameworks offer generative solutions for analyzing complex and irregular data structures without prior knowledge of data. The first part of the dissertation proposes a novel method that simultaneously filters point cloud noise and outliers as well as completing missing data by utilizing a unified framework consisting of a novel tensor data representation, an adaptive feature encoder, and a generative Bayesian network. In the next section, a novel multi-level generative chaotic Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) has been proposed using a sparse tensor structure for image restoration. In the last part of the dissertation, we discuss the detection followed by localization, where we discuss extracting features from sparse tensors for data retrieval. / Doctor of Philosophy / The development of automation systems and robotics brought the modern world unrivaled affluence and convenience. However, the current automated tasks are mainly simple repetitive motions. Tasks that require more artificial capability with advanced visual cognition are still an unsolved problem for automation. Many of the high-level cognition-based tasks require the accurate visual perception of the environment and dynamic objects from the data received from the optical sensor. The capability to represent, identify and interpret complex visual data for understanding the geometric structure of the world is 3D perception. To better tackle the existing 3D perception challenges, this dissertation proposed a set of generative learning-based frameworks on sparse tensor data for various high-dimensional robotics perception applications: underwater point cloud filtering, image restoration, deformation detection, and localization. Underwater point cloud data is relevant for many applications such as environmental monitoring or geological exploration. The data collected with sonar sensors are however subjected to different types of noise, including holes, noise measurements, and outliers. In the first chapter, we propose a generative model for point cloud data recovery using Variational Bayesian (VB) based sparse tensor factorization methods to tackle these three defects simultaneously. In the second part of the dissertation, we propose an image restoration technique to tackle missing data, which is essential for many perception applications. An efficient generative chaotic RNN framework has been introduced for recovering the sparse tensor from a single corrupted image for various types of missing data. In the last chapter, a multi-level CNN for high-dimension tensor feature extraction for underwater vehicle localization has been proposed.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The Swedish exit tax legislation in Chapter 22. § 5 p. 4 IL states that businesses who change its tax residence to another Member State within the EES are taxed as having its assets sold at the time of the change of domicile. This legislation was declared incompatible with the freedom of establishment in case RÅ 2009 ref. 30 due to the fact that businesses who changed tax residence were treated worse than businesses that remained within the Member State of origin. Of importance for the outcome of the case was the fact that ECJ had declared exit tax incompatible with the freedom of establishment in two previous cases. In connection with RÅ 2008 ref. 30 the Commission also addressed requirements for Sweden to abolish the restrictive legislation through a reasoned opinion. In the aftermath of RÅ 2008 ref. 30 the legislator drafted a suggestion for new legislation which aimed to make the exit tag legislation in IL compatible with the freedom of establishment. The legislator made clear that the communication from the Commission on exit taxation was of great significance in formulating the legislation, particularly the requirement from the Commission that exit tax ought not to lead to immediate tax consequences for the businesses. The suggested legislation made businesses able to defer payment of the exit tax by introducing a new chapter in SBL. Thus did not the wording of the exit tax legislation in IL change. The suggested legislation was heavily criticized by the respondents in the preparatory legislation and also in legal doctrine. The legislation was, however, adopted and the deferment legislation in Chapter 17a SBL came into force 1 January 2010. The question that arises is whether this addition to the exit tax legislation is a sufficient action to achieve the objective of the legislation. It can be concluded that the situation for businesses changing tax residence is not significantly affected by the introduction of the deferment legislation in Chapter 17a SBL. The fact remains that business changing tax residence still are adversely affected due to the fact that taxation occurs on the exit date, which can have the effect of these businesses being taxed in an earlier phase than resident businesses. Consequently the legislation continue to impose immediate tax consequences in certain cases. The fact that the legislation could be achieved in a less restrictive manner by placing the time of taxation at the real disposal of the assets makes the legislation disproportionate. Furthermore, it is not obvious that the conditions which the deferment is associated with should be seen as proportionate either. Due to the fact that it is ascertain that the conditions in some cases can be costly in terms of valuation costs and that the purpose of the legislation could be achieved in a less restrictive manner by applying directives in the field of mutual assistance and recovery of claims instead of an annual deferment procedure. The conditions could therefore be considered disproportionate in relation to the purpose of the legislation. Nevertheless, the main reason for arguing that the Swedish exit tax legislation should be considered as incompatible with the freedom of establishment is the fact that the legislation does not take full account of the taxed assets potential decrease in value, capable of arising after the businesses transfer of tax residence. Through ECJ-case law it can be noted that decrease in value must be taken into account by either the state of origin or the host state to be considered proportionate. The Swedish exit tax legislation is therefore incompatible with the freedom of establishment in all cases where the host state does not take notice of such decrease in value.

本論文旨在探討台灣運動節目性別偏差之成因，從運動產業複合體運作過程的角度切入，了解運動產業中資本流動對於節目性別偏差的影響為何。本論文主要有兩個研究問題：（一）了解台灣的運動產業複合體的運作情況；（二）台灣的運動產業複合體架構對運動節目性別偏差之影響。本論文所採用的研究方法為深度訪談法，來了解運動產業複合體三者（運動組織－媒體組織－企業組織）之間的互動關係，針對性別偏差的部分則是以文本分析為主、深度訪談為輔。 　本論文以SBL及WSBL為研究案例。研究結果發現，台灣運動產業複合體的運作邏輯，大致符合西方文獻中所述的運動與資本的關係，三者間的資金流動造成其相互依賴；而性別偏差的部分，從量與質兩大面向的分析結果，發現台灣運動轉播節目確實有性別偏差的現象，且造成此一現象的原因，是因為運動產業三者間存有「群眾≒利潤」的思考邏輯，使得運動組織、媒體組織、企業組織皆以男籃為主、忽視女籃，而形成了節目偏異的結果。 / This paper purposes to discuss the reasons of the gender disproportion of the sports programs in Taiwan. The main direction of this paper is the sport/industry complex, and this paper tried to understand how the capital circulating in the complex effects the gender disproportion of sports programs. The two main questions include: (1) How the Taiwan sport/industry complex works? (2) How the framework of Taiwan sport/industry complex influences the gender disproportion of sports programs? I used the method of in-depth interviewing to find out the relationship within the three parts of sport/industry complex (sport organizations-media organizations-enterprise organizations). Text analysis is the major method to analyze the gender deviation, and the secondary method is in-depth interviewing. 　The study cases are SBL and WSBL in this paper. The result reveals that the logic of working sport/industry complex approximately conforms with the relationship of sport and capital described in the west literature. From two directions of quality and quantity, the observing results show that there is gender disproportion in Taiwan sport programs. More important, the logic “audience≒profit” within the three kinds of organizations is the reason of gender deviation. It also makes the sport, media, enterprise organizations put their resources on the male basketball games and ignore the female basketball games. Therefore, the gender disproportion in the Taiwan sport programs forms.

Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / Future sea bases, such as the Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), will serve as key distribution nodes and must be able to sustain forces ashore and selectively offload supplies from storerooms quickly and efficiently. Current MPF ships maximize the available cargo storage onboard and have little ability to selectively offload supplies. To make selective offload a reality, MPF(F) requires lower stowage densities and new technologies to efficiently move items, especially for those supplies needed in direct support of forces ashore. The difficult questions are how dense and in what configurations MPF(F) storerooms can be packed, and how items should be retrieved in order to selectively offload supplies and provide acceptable response time. We analyze the trade-off between storage density and mean retrieval time in a dynamic environment for different storage densities and configurations in notional storerooms aboard a future sea base. We examine two demand scenarios and two different retrieval rules to determine how each storage configuration responds to retrieval requests over time. Our results provide insight into the types of storeroom configurations that provide the best mean retrieval times and how a simple retrieval rule can significantly reduce mean retrieval time under certain demand conditions. / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy