Worldwide, rural road networks serve a vital link in the chain leading goods to markets and people to places. The efficiency of rural road network services is influenced by road-related investment and policy decisions. Reaching good decisions, however, is complicated by: interrelationships among policy, investment, road use, road performance, and rural economies; and combinatorial challenges involving the distribution of discrete policy and investment arrangements across networks.</p><p>The main objective of this study is to address this complex problem as it pertains to rural road networks in Saskatchewan. Rural roads in Saskatchewan are suffering under increasing volumes of heavy truck traffic motivated principally by recent changes in the grain handling and transportation system. To address this problem, Saskatchewan Department of Highways and Transportation is considering a range of haul policy and road structure investment options. The question is, what (spatial) arrangement of available policy and investment options best meets this challenge. </p><p>To answer this question, a cost-based standard is incorporated within a network design modeling approach and solved using custom algorithmic strategies. Applied to a case study network, the model determines a demonstrably good arrangement of costly road structure modifications under each considered policy option. Resulting policy-investment combinations are subsequently ranked according to total cost and equivalent net benefit standards. </p><p>A number of important findings emerge from this analysis. Policy and investment decisions are linked; spatial arrangement of road structure modifications is contingent on the haul policy regime in place. Road performance and use characteristics are indeed sensitive to policy and investment decisions. Optimal budget levels computed by the model contradict perceptions that rural road networks in Saskatchewan are grossly under-funded. Despite best intentions, ill-considered policy can actually reduce the net benefits of road provision and use. </p><p> Model application and design limitations suggest promising avenues for future research. These include: model larger networks in Saskatchewan and beyond; determine optimal road budgets under benefit-cost standards reflecting competing economic needs; employ model within regional economic planning investigations to forecast road-related implications; and model policy endogenously to aid design of heavy haul sub-networks and to address questions concerning network expansion or contraction.

This thesis proposes a novel theory to account for the structural Case facts in Standard Arabic (SA). It argues that structural Nom and Acc Cases are licensed by Verbal Case (VC). Thus it argues against the proposal that structural Case in SA is licensed as a reflex of phi-agreement (Schütze 1997 and Chomsky 2001 crosslinguistically, and Soltan 2007 for SA), and also against the view that structural Case is a [uT] feature on the DP (Pesetsky & Torrego 2001, 2004). After arguing against these two approaches, it is shown that verbless sentences, where the verb is not licensed (by VC), do not witness the licensing of structural Case. Thus verbless sentences provide a context where verbs are not licensed, similar to the embedded subject position of control verbs like ‘try’ (where lexical DPs are not licensed). Investigation of the SA verbal system reveals that SA verbs are licensed through Case checking/assignment by verbal particles. Thus, like DPs, verbs receive a form of Case, which I call VC, represented as unvalued [VC] features on I and v*. Since the VC-assigning particles are Comp elements, I propose that [VC] is valued on I and v* by a valued [VC] feature on Fin (via Agree), which enables I and v* to value the [Case] features on the subject and object as Nom and Acc, respectively. Thus the DP is licensed by the same feature that licenses the verb, which is VC. Given the observation that [T], [phi], and [Mood] do not license Case in SA, I argue for two types of finiteness, Infl-finiteness, related to [T], [Mood], and [phi], and Comp-finiteness, related to [VC]. To account for the Case facts in various SA sentence types, I propose that Fin0 has a [VC] feature iff it selects an XP that has (at least) one I-finiteness feature ([T], [Mood], [phi]) and a categorial [V] feature.

This thesis proposes a novel theory to account for the structural Case facts in Standard Arabic (SA). It argues that structural Nom and Acc Cases are licensed by Verbal Case (VC). Thus it argues against the proposal that structural Case in SA is licensed as a reflex of phi-agreement (Schütze 1997 and Chomsky 2001 crosslinguistically, and Soltan 2007 for SA), and also against the view that structural Case is a [uT] feature on the DP (Pesetsky & Torrego 2001, 2004). After arguing against these two approaches, it is shown that verbless sentences, where the verb is not licensed (by VC), do not witness the licensing of structural Case. Thus verbless sentences provide a context where verbs are not licensed, similar to the embedded subject position of control verbs like ‘try’ (where lexical DPs are not licensed). Investigation of the SA verbal system reveals that SA verbs are licensed through Case checking/assignment by verbal particles. Thus, like DPs, verbs receive a form of Case, which I call VC, represented as unvalued [VC] features on I and v*. Since the VC-assigning particles are Comp elements, I propose that [VC] is valued on I and v* by a valued [VC] feature on Fin (via Agree), which enables I and v* to value the [Case] features on the subject and object as Nom and Acc, respectively. Thus the DP is licensed by the same feature that licenses the verb, which is VC. Given the observation that [T], [phi], and [Mood] do not license Case in SA, I argue for two types of finiteness, Infl-finiteness, related to [T], [Mood], and [phi], and Comp-finiteness, related to [VC]. To account for the Case facts in various SA sentence types, I propose that Fin0 has a [VC] feature iff it selects an XP that has (at least) one I-finiteness feature ([T], [Mood], [phi]) and a categorial [V] feature.

Worldwide, rural road networks serve a vital link in the chain leading goods to markets and people to places. The efficiency of rural road network services is influenced by road-related investment and policy decisions. Reaching good decisions, however, is complicated by: interrelationships among policy, investment, road use, road performance, and rural economies; and combinatorial challenges involving the distribution of discrete policy and investment arrangements across networks.</p><p>The main objective of this study is to address this complex problem as it pertains to rural road networks in Saskatchewan. Rural roads in Saskatchewan are suffering under increasing volumes of heavy truck traffic motivated principally by recent changes in the grain handling and transportation system. To address this problem, Saskatchewan Department of Highways and Transportation is considering a range of haul policy and road structure investment options. The question is, what (spatial) arrangement of available policy and investment options best meets this challenge. </p><p>To answer this question, a cost-based standard is incorporated within a network design modeling approach and solved using custom algorithmic strategies. Applied to a case study network, the model determines a demonstrably good arrangement of costly road structure modifications under each considered policy option. Resulting policy-investment combinations are subsequently ranked according to total cost and equivalent net benefit standards. </p><p>A number of important findings emerge from this analysis. Policy and investment decisions are linked; spatial arrangement of road structure modifications is contingent on the haul policy regime in place. Road performance and use characteristics are indeed sensitive to policy and investment decisions. Optimal budget levels computed by the model contradict perceptions that rural road networks in Saskatchewan are grossly under-funded. Despite best intentions, ill-considered policy can actually reduce the net benefits of road provision and use. </p><p> Model application and design limitations suggest promising avenues for future research. These include: model larger networks in Saskatchewan and beyond; determine optimal road budgets under benefit-cost standards reflecting competing economic needs; employ model within regional economic planning investigations to forecast road-related implications; and model policy endogenously to aid design of heavy haul sub-networks and to address questions concerning network expansion or contraction.

Supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model (SM) have many interesting experimental consequences which can provide important hints to the physics beyond the SM. In this thesis, we first study the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and show that a significant constraint on the parameter space can be obtained from its current experimental value. In the next topic, we study the CP violations in B -> phi K decays and show that the SM and the minimal supergravity model (mSUGRA) cannot account for the current experimental observation. We then show that all the data can be accommodated for a wide range of parameters in models with non-universal soft breaking left-right A terms. In our last topic, which is based on a Horava-Witten inspired model proposed by R. Arnowitt and B. Dutta, we extend their analysis to the full fermion sector of the SM and propose a new mechanism different from the usual see saw mechanism to generate small neutrino masses which are in good agreement with the current neutrino oscillation data.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Geoffrey Xie. Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-122). Also available online.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

With the discovery of a particle consistent with the Standard Model (SM) Higgs at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in 2012, the final ingredient of the SM has been found. The SM provides us with a powerful description of the physics of fundamental particles, holding up at all energy scales we can probe with accelerator based experiments. However, astrophysics and cosmology show us that the SM is not the final answer, but e.g. fails to describe dark matter and massive neutrinos. Like any non-trivial quantum field theory, the SM must be subject to a so-called renormalization procedure in order to extrapolate the model between different energy scales. In this context, new problems of more theoretical nature arise, e.g. the famous hierarchy problem of the Higgs mass. Renormalization also leads to what is known as the metastability problem of the SM: assuming the particle found at the LHC is the SM Higgs boson, the potential develops a second minimum deeper than the electroweak one in which we live, at energy scales below the Planck scale. Absolute stability all the way up to the Planck scale is excluded at a confidence level of about 98 %. For the central experimental SM values the instability occurs at scales larger than ~ 10¹⁰ GeV. One can take two viewpoints regarding this instability: assuming validity of the SM all the way up to the Planck scale, the problem does not necessarily lead to an inconsistency of our existence. If we assume our universe to have ended up in the electroweak minimum after the Big Bang, the probability that it would have transitioned to its true minimum during the lifetime of the universe is spectacularly small.  If we on the other hand demand absolute stability, new physics must modify the SM at or below the instability scale of ~ 10¹⁰ GeV, and we can explore which hints the instability might provide us with on this new physics. In this work, the metastability problem of the SM and possible implications are revisited. We give an introduction to the technique of renormalization and apply this to the SM. We then discuss the stability of the SM potential and the hints this might provide us with on new physics at large scales. / Standardmodellen inom partikelfysik är vår bästa beskrivning av elementarpartiklarnas fysik. År 2012 hittades en ny skalär boson vid Large Hadron Collider (LHC) på CERN, som är kompatibel med att vara Higgs bosonen, den sista saknade delen av Standardmodellen. Men även om Standardmodellen ger oss en väldigt precis beskrivning av all fysik vi ser i partikelacceleratorer, vet vi från astropartikelfysik och kosmologi att den inte kan vara hela lösningen. T.ex. beskriver Standardmodellen ej mörk materia eller neutrinernas massa. Som alla kvantfältteorier måste man renormera Standardmodellen för att få en beskrivning som fungerar på olika energiskalor. När man renormerar Standardmodellen hittar man nya problem som är mer teoretiska, t.ex. det välkända hierarkiproblemet av Higgsmassan. Renormering leder också till vad som kallas för metastabilitetsproblemet, dvs att Higgspotentialen utvecklar ett minimum som är djupare än det elektrosvaga minimum vi lever i, på högre energiskalor. Om vi antar att partikeln som hittades på CERN är Standardmodellens Higgs boson, är absolut stabilitet exkluderad med 98 % konfidens. För centrala experimentiella mätningar av Standardmodells parametrar uppkommer instabiliteten på skalor över ~ 10¹⁰ GeV. Det finns två olika sätt att tolka stabilitetsproblemet: Om man antar att Standardmodellen är den rätta teorien ända upp till Planckskalan, kan vi faktiskt fortfarande existera. Om vi antar att universum hamnat i det elektrosvaga minimumet efter Big Bang är sannolikheten att det har gått över till sitt riktiga minimum under universums livstid praktiskt taget noll. Dvs att vi kan leva i ett metastabilt universum. Om vi å andra sidan kräver att potentialen måste vara absolut stabil, måste någon ny fysik modifiera Standardmodellen på eller under instabilitetsskalan ~10¹⁰ GeV. I så fall kan vi fundera på vilka antydningar stabilitetsproblemet kan ge oss om den nya fysiken. Den här uppsatsen beskriver Standardmodells metastabilitetsproblem. Vi ger en introduktion till renormering och använder tekniken till Standardmodellen. Sen diskuteras stabiliteten inom Standardmodellens potential och vilka antydningar problemet kan ge oss angående ny fysik.

published_or_final_version / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy