Bakgrund: Den senaste tiden har en debatt blossat upp i media om huruvida det är rimligt att bostadsrättsföreningar får tillämpa progressiva avskrivningar och om raka avskrivningar är ett bättre alternativ. Bokföringsnämnden beslöt under våren år 2014 att progressiva avskrivningar inte är en tillämplig avskrivningsmetod för byggnader. I media har många uttalat sig om vad detta kommer få för effekt på marknaden för bostadsrätter, men det har ännu inte utretts ur ett vetenskapligt perspektiv. Syfte: Uppsatsen syftar till att bidra med detta vetenskapliga perspektiv genom att analysera huruvida progressiva avskrivningar är en förutsättning för nyproduktion. I uppsatsen ämnas även undersöka om detta skiljer mellan olika regioner i Sverige. Metod: För att besvara de i syftet ställda problemformuleringarna har en teoretisk modell utvecklats med grundantagandet att köpare av bostadsrätter ska vara indifferenta till vilken avskrivningsmetod som används. Regler och praxis kring avskrivningar i bostadsrättsföreningar har kartlagts för att kunna ge modellen adekvat utformning. Modellens slutresultat visar hur en övergång från progressiva till raka avskrivningar påverkar lönsamheten i nyproduktion av bostadsrätter. En diskussion har förts kring rimligheten i de antaganden som gjorts i modellen och det framtagna resultatet, med utgångspunkt i mikroekonomisk teori och en generell analys av bostadsmarknaden. Slutsats: Enligt de antaganden som gjorts i denna studie och den modell som tagits fram har slutsatsen dragits att de progressiva avskrivningarna på kort sikt är en förutsättning för nyproduktion. Det finns dock ett antal omständigheter som tyder på att reaktionen i verkligheten blir något mildare än vad resultatet från modellen visar. Vidare tycks effektens storlek minska ju högre marknadspriset för bostadsrätter var innan övergången till raka avskrivningar. På lång sikt är inte progressiva avskrivningar en förutsättning för nyproduktion av bostadsrätter. / Background: In Sweden, there has been a recent debate about the reasonability of the use of progressive depreciations by housing cooperatives and if straight line depreciations is a better alternative. The Swedish Accounting Standards Board decided during the spring of 2014 that progressive depreciation is not an applicable depreciation method for buildings. In media, many have discussed the effect on the market for housing cooperative shares but it has not yet been investigated with a scientific perspective. Purpose: The aim of the thesis is to contribute with this scientific perspective by analyzing if progressive depreciations is a prerequisite for production of new dwellings. The thesis is also meant to look into regional differences of this matter. Method: To answer the two problem formulations above, a theoretical model has been developed with the basic assumption that buyers of housing cooperative shares should be indifferent to which depreciation method is applied. Rules and practices of housing cooperative depreciations have been charted in order to make the model adequate. The end result of the model shows how a transition from progressive to straight line depreciation affects the profitability of production of new dwellings. With respect to microeconomic theory and a general analysis of the housing market, a discussion has been carried out about the model assumptions and the model results. Conclusions: According to the used model and its assumptions, the conclusion has been made that progressive depreciations is a short term prerequisite for production of new dwellings. Although, there are circumstances that indicate that the market reaction would be milder than what the model results show. Furthermore, the effect of the depreciation method transition seems to decrease with higher market prices for the housing cooperative shares. In the long term, progressive depreciations is not a prerequisite for production of new dwellings.

All heat pump cycles have one common feature that connects them to one another; this feature is the presence of a heat exchanger. There are even some heat–driven cycles that are completely composed of heat exchangers, every heat exchanger fulfilling a different, though critical role. The need therefore exists to optimize heat exchangers, more specifically Compact Heat Exchangers (CHE). This study deals with the optimization of such a CHE by determining an optimal hydraulic diameter of the micro–channels in a CHE, for minimal hydraulic losses. Two Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models were developed for a single micro–channel that is present in a CHE. The first model had a semi–circular cross–section, the second a triangular cross–section. The results were verified by comparing it with existing experimental data. Following the verification of the results, the micro–channel was optimized by implementing an optimum diameter for the lowest pressure drop over the micro–channel. This was done for both the semi–circular and triangular micro–channel cross–sections. / Thesis (M.Ing. (Nuclear Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

All heat pump cycles have one common feature that connects them to one another; this feature is the presence of a heat exchanger. There are even some heat–driven cycles that are completely composed of heat exchangers, every heat exchanger fulfilling a different, though critical role. The need therefore exists to optimize heat exchangers, more specifically Compact Heat Exchangers (CHE). This study deals with the optimization of such a CHE by determining an optimal hydraulic diameter of the micro–channels in a CHE, for minimal hydraulic losses. Two Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models were developed for a single micro–channel that is present in a CHE. The first model had a semi–circular cross–section, the second a triangular cross–section. The results were verified by comparing it with existing experimental data. Following the verification of the results, the micro–channel was optimized by implementing an optimum diameter for the lowest pressure drop over the micro–channel. This was done for both the semi–circular and triangular micro–channel cross–sections. / Thesis (M.Ing. (Nuclear Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

<p>The central object of study of this thesis is inverse mean curvature vector flow of two-dimensional surfaces in four-dimensional spacetimes. Being a system of forward-backward parabolic PDEs, inverse mean curvature vector flow equation lacks a general existence theory. Our main contribution is proving that there exist infinitely many spacetimes, not necessarily spherically symmetric or static, that admit smooth global solutions to inverse mean curvature vector flow. Prior to our work, such solutions were only known in spherically symmetric and static spacetimes. The technique used in this thesis might be important to prove the Spacetime Penrose Conjecture, which remains open today. </p><p>Given a spacetime $(N^{4}, \gbar)$ and a spacelike hypersurface $M$. For any closed surface $\Sigma$ embedded in $M$ satisfying some natural conditions, one can ``steer'' the spacetime metric $\gbar$ such that the mean curvature vector field of $\Sigma$ becomes tangential to $M$ while keeping the induced metric on $M$. This can be used to construct more examples of smooth solutions to inverse mean curvature vector flow from smooth solutions to inverse mean curvature flow in a spacelike hypersurface.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis foregrounds a question unanswered in queer theory�s account of the ongoing reproduction of heteronormativity. In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler asks "From where does the performative draw its force, and what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo" that discursively legitimated enacting? (Bodies That Matter 224-5). While queer theory offers a compelling account of how the normative fictions of identity privilege heterosexuality, the first part of Butler�s question remains relatively under-theorised. This thesis addresses this gap and argues that to understand the source of performative authority, we must address the intimate relationship between gay identity and commodity culture. Thus, I investigate the connections between the marketing industry, an historically politicised gay press, and a lesbian and gay politics imagined through the paradigm of identity, and argue that they combine in a citational feedback loop to performatively produce gay identity as the "ideal consumer." I then undertake case studies of two media texts, the website Gay.com and the television series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in order to demonstrate how the white, male, middle-class gay aesthete functions hegemonically as gayness in culture. My analysis then turns to the second part of Butler�s question -"what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo?"- and examines the consequences of the absence of an analysis of commodity culture for the notion of queer. To that end, I suggest that alongside their repetitions of gay normativity, both Gay.com and Queer Eye perform queer possibility. However, the case studies I undertake, along with the critical reception of Queer Eye and the internet technologies behind Gay.com, suggests that these media texts fall short of the promise of queerness. This apparent failure to disturb heteronormative reproduction is connected in these critiques to each text�s commercial imperatives. This thesis argues that such critiques tend to rely on determinations of the authenticity of queer performance, and emphasise veracity over queer theory�s potential to exploit the critical potential of deliberate indeterminacy. I argue, instead, that a key part of queer theory�s contingency is its capacity to respond to the changing performative contexts of the normative repetitions it seeks to undo. To put this more simply: If consumer desire defines contemporary gayness, then it is with consumer desire that queer theory must contend. It is precisely the indeterminacy of queer that enables such shifts in its strategies of subversion. Recognition of how queer�s indeterminacy enables those subversive moves returns us to the importance to queer theory of a sustained consideration of the constitutive capacities of commodity culture. What I suggest in this thesis is that if we do no ask "From where does the performance draw its force?" then we cannot answer "And what happens to the performative whose task it is to undo?" the normative framework of identity.

Thesis (M.A. (Human Rights))--Mahidol University, 2007. / LICL has E-Thesis 0025 ; please contact computer services.

Au croisement des études culturelles, de la comparaison différentielle et des études genre et queer, cette thèse propose une analyse mythopoétique des (re)configurations discursives et genrées du mythe d’Hercule à la croisée des chemins dans les cultures européennes, de l’Antiquité aux débuts du XIXe siècle, dans les domaines allemand, anglais, français et italien. La thèse commence par une relecture critique des interprétations humanistes du mythe, qui font du héros hésitant entre le vice (ou le plaisir) et la vertu le paradigme universel et désincarné d’un sujet moral. Grâce aux apports des études sur les masculinités, la deuxième partie procède à une recontextualisation et à une historicisation genrées des réécritures du choix herculéen. Étudiant successivement les reconfigurations du mythe dans la pédagogie humaniste, ses réinvestissements dans des textes épiques sur la longue durée européenne, ses reprises dans des pièces et poèmes didactiques du XVIIIe siècle, puis sa réélaboration dans les romans de formation, qui émergent au tournant des XVIIIe-XIXe siècles européens comme formes privilégiées de mise en récit d’un devenir-masculin hégémonique, la présente étude avance que ce mythe constitue une puissante « technologie de genre » (Teresa de Lauretis), à travers laquelle s’est engendrée, selon des modalités (con)textuelles variées, la figure d’un sujet libéral, masculin, blanc et straight, érigé en mythe fondateur de la modernité européenne (et de sa raison discriminante). Une dernière partie propose dès lors une relecture queer du mythe, en explorant plusieurs réécritures qui troublent la binarité du choix à la croisée des chemins pour mieux désorienter son héros. / This PhD thesis proposes a mythopoetic analysis of the discursive and gendered (re-)configurations of the myth of Hercules at the crossroads, as it has taken shape in the realm of European cultures, from Antiquity until the beginning of the 19th century, in German, English, French, and Italian. Adopting an approach at the intersection of cultural studies, comparative studies, gender and queer studies, the thesis begins with a critical rereading of the humanist interpretations of the myth, where the hesitating hero, torn between vice (or pleasure) and virtue, is the universal paradigm of a moral subject. Based on masculinity studies, the second part of the thesis recontextualises and historicizes Hercules choices from a gendered perspective. The core of this thesis revisits historical reconfigurations of the myth by looking at humanist pedagogy and its resurgence of epic forms in the long European tradition—including 18th century didactic plays and poems and coming-of-age novels that emerge at the turn of the 18th to 19th century. These become the primary discursive forms for narrating a hegemonic idea of masculinity. The thesis demonstrates that the Hercules myth constitutes a powerful “gender technology” (Teresa de Lauretis), that has operated as a vector for engendering, in varying contextual modalities, the figure of the liberal, masculine, white and straight subject, erected as the founding myth of European modernity (and its discriminatory implications). Departing from this argument, the last part proposes a queer reading of the myth, by exploring several rewritings that trouble the binary choice of the crossroads in order to better disorient its hero.

This thesis presents work done on compressed graph representations via hyperedge replacement grammars. It comprises two main parts. Firstly the RePair compression scheme, known for strings and trees, is generalized to graphs using graph grammars. Given an object, the scheme produces a small context-free grammar generating the object (called a “straight-line grammar”). The theoretical foundations of this generalization are presented, followed by a description of a prototype implementation. This implementation is then evaluated on real-world and synthetic graphs. The experiments show that several graphs can be compressed stronger by the new method, than by current state-of-the-art approaches. The second part considers algorithmic questions of straight-line graph grammars. Two algorithms are presented to traverse the graph represented by such a grammar. Both algorithms have advantages and disadvantages: the first one works with any grammar but its runtime per traversal step is dependent on the input grammar. The second algorithm only needs constant time per traversal step, but works for a restricted class of grammars and requires quadratic preprocessing time and space. Finally speed-up algorithms are considered. These are algorithms that can decide specific problems in time depending only on the size of the compressed representation, and might thus be faster than a traditional algorithm would on the decompressed structure. The idea of such algorithms is to reuse computation already done for the rules of the grammar. The possible speed-ups achieved this way is proportional to the compression ratio of the grammar. The main results here are a method to answer “regular path queries”, and to decide whether two grammars generate isomorphic trees.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T16:30:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RESUMO - Kelly Portugal Rodrigues.pdf: 90584 bytes, checksum: a9009d09309f76e094fc03b33ceabe30 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-04 / The aim of this in vitro study was to compare the friction resistance among conventional and aesthetic orthodontic brackets with metal and vitreous slot with round and rectangular wires of different sections, simulating some situations without wire displacement, 2 mm of displacement and binding of 3o. A group of 125 brackets from 5 brands (Roth Standard, Composite, Elation, Invu and Radiance) was tested, 25 brackets for each brand. Five brackets were set on a device in order to simulate a top right hemi-arch (lateral and central incisors, canine, first and second premolars) and after that, the device was coupled on an universal testing machine EMIC DL2000. The archwires 0.016 , 0.018 and 0.017 x 0.025 NiTi were used on the no displacement and 2 mm displacement tests, while the wires 0.017 x 0.025 , 0.019 x 0.025 and 0.021 x 0.025 stainless steel were used to simulate the binding effect. Variance analysis and Tukey tests (p<0,05) were run to compare brackets with different archwires sizes and angulation. The study demonstrated that the polycarbonate aesthetic bracket Composite had the least friction in all archwires sizes tested. On the other hand, the monocrystalline ceramic bracket Radiance showed the greatest frictional resistance on the tests without wire displacement. Studies with archwire displacement and binding showed a statistically significant difference between the five accessories, of which Composite, Roth Standard, Elation, Invu and Radiance produced the highest friction resistance, in increasing order. Moreover, the insertion of a metal slot in the polycarbonate bracket Elation significantly reduced the friction. However, these friction was greater than the one from a metal bracket. To sum up, the insertion of a vitreous slot in the polycrystalline ceramic bracket Invu offered a greater surface smoothness, reducing consequently the friction and favoring the displacement. / O presente estudo visou comparar in vitro o atrito produzido por braquetes convencionais metálicos e estéticos com canaleta metálica e vítrea quando inseridos fios de secções redonda e retangular de diferentes dimensões, simulando situações sem deslocamento, com deslocamento de 2 mm e com simulação do efeito binding 3º. Foram utilizados 125 braquetes de 5 marcas comerciais (Roth Standard, Composite, Elation, Invu e Radiance), sendo 25 braquetes para cada corpo de prova. Para os ensaios laboratoriais, foram colados 5 braquetes simulando uma hemi-arcada superior direita (incisivos central e lateral, canino, primeiro e segundo premolares) em um dispositivo para posicionamento dos braquetes, sendo este acoplado à máquina universal de ensaios EMIC DL2000. Foram empregados os fios 0,016 , 0,018 e 0,017 x 0,025 NiTi para realização dos ensaios sem deslocamento e com deslocamento de 2 mm e os fios de secção 0,017 x 0,025 , 0,019 x 0,025 e 0,021 x 0,025 CrNi para realização dos ensaios com angulação zero grau e 3º. Para a comparação entre os braquetes nos diferentes fios e angulações, foi utilizada a Análise de Variância e o teste de Tukey (p<0,05). Os resultados demonstraram que nos ensaios sem deslocamento o braquete estético de policarbonato Composite apresentou menor atrito em todos os fios avaliados, enquanto o maior atrito em todas as combinações realizadas foi observado no braquete estético cerâmico monocristalino Radiance em relação aos demais braquetes. Nos ensaios com deslocamento de 2 mm e simulação do efeito binding 3º, os resultados foram semelhantes aos observados nos ensaios sem deslocamento. Contudo, houve uma diferença estatisticamente significante entre os cinco corpos de prova, sendo o atrito verificado, respectivamente e de forma crescente, nos braquetes Composite, Roth Standard, Elation, Invu e Radiance. Pôde-se concluir que a resistência friccional teve influência da composição dos braquetes, diâmetro dos fios e tipo de ensaio realizado (deslocamento de 2 mm e angulação de 3º). Além disso, a inserção da canaleta metálica no braquete estético de policarbonato Elation reduziu de forma estatisticamente significante o atrito, porém esse foi maior do que o gerado por um braquete convencional metálico e, por fim, a incorporação da canaleta vítrea no braquete estético cerâmico policristalino Invu ofereceu uma maior lisura de superfície, reduzindo as irregularidades e imperfeições presentes na canaleta o que levou, consequentemente, a uma redução estatisticamente significante no atrito, o que demonstra que a modificação em sua canaleta favoreceu o deslocamento e reduziu de forma efetiva essa resistência à fricção.

This work thesis is dealing with planar mechanisms. It?s concentrated on definition the topic, enumeration methods of mathematical description of mechanisms and occasion of simulation with usage information technology. It?s going mainly on GeoGebra program, in which were created most of schemes and models mechanisms. Created models are recorded on attached CD. Important charter of this theses are mechanisms used to draving planar curves, ending with mechanisms used to drawing straight line.