abstract: The primary focus of this dissertation lies in extremal combinatorics, in particular intersection theorems in finite set theory. A seminal result in the area is the theorem of Erdos, Ko and Rado which finds the upper bound on the size of an intersecting family of subsets of an n-element set and characterizes the structure of families which attain this upper bound. A major portion of this dissertation focuses on a recent generalization of the Erdos--Ko--Rado theorem which considers intersecting families of independent sets in graphs. An intersection theorem is proved for a large class of graphs, namely chordal graphs which satisfy an additional condition and similar problems are considered for trees, bipartite graphs and other special classes. A similar extension is also formulated for cross-intersecting families and results are proved for chordal graphs and cycles. A well-known generalization of the EKR theorem for k-wise intersecting families due to Frankl is also considered. A stability version of Frankl's theorem is proved, which provides additional structural information about k-wise intersecting families which have size close to the maximum upper bound. A graph-theoretic generalization of Frankl's theorem is also formulated and proved for perfect matching graphs. Finally, a long-standing conjecture of Chvatal regarding structure of maximum intersecting families in hereditary systems is considered. An intersection theorem is proved for hereditary families which have rank 3 using a powerful tool of Erdos and Rado which is called the Sunflower Lemma. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Mathematics 2011

Since their original introduction, strongly complementary observables have been a fundamental ingredient of the ZX calculus, one of the most successful fragments of Categorical Quantum Mechanics (CQM). In this thesis, we show that strong complementarity plays a vastly greater role in quantum theory. Firstly, we use strong complementarity to introduce dynamics and symmetries within the framework of CQM, which we also extend to infinite-dimensional separable Hilbert spaces: these were long-missing features, which open the way to a wealth of new applications. The coherent treatment presented in this work also provides a variety of novel insights into the dynamics and symmetries of quantum systems: examples include the extremely simple characterisation of symmetry-observable duality, the connection of strong complementarity with the Weyl Canonical Commutation Relations, the generalisations of Feynman's clock construction, the existence of time observables and the emergence of quantum clocks. Secondly, we show that strong complementarity is a key resource for quantum algorithms and protocols. We provide the first fully diagrammatic, theory-independent proof of correctness for the quantum algorithm solving the Hidden Subgroup Problem, and show that strong complementarity is the feature providing the quantum advantage. In quantum foundations, we use strong complementarity to derive the exact conditions relating non-locality to the structure of phase groups, within the context of Mermin-type non-locality arguments. Our non-locality results find further application to quantum cryptography, where we use them to define a quantum-classical secret sharing scheme with provable device-independent security guarantees. All in all, we argue that strong complementarity is a truly powerful and versatile building block for quantum theory and its applications, and one that should draw a lot more attention in the future.

abstract: Chinese activists came forth in unprecedented numbers to compete as independent candidates in the 2011-12 local people's congress elections throughout China, directly challenging the ruling Chinese Communist Party within the electoral arena. In response, the government threatened, harassed and obstructed the campaigns of these candidates, and as a result only a handful of independent candidates made it onto the official ballots, let alone win the elections. Despite their lack of success, independent candidates have been promoted by media sources as the latest movement with the potential to bring about democratic reform within China. However, independent candidates as a collective have not been sufficiently analyzed in order to determine the extent of these candidates' shared desire for democratic reform or their powers to effect such reform. Therefore, within the theoretical framework of electoral authoritarianism and utilizing a single-case, exploratory case study, this thesis explores the potential of the 2011-12 independent candidate movement to initiate democratic reform in China. Relying upon the statements of the candidates as reported by English-language news media, I create a typology of the movement and examine the candidates' goals and motives, as well as their interactions with the local people's congresses and the Chinese Communist Party, in hopes of revealing a clearer picture of the balance of power between the movement and the current regime. I conclude that due to the inability of independent candidates to win a significant number of seats, the limited power of deputies on local people's congress to effect structural change, and the lack of unity and organization among independent candidates, the 2011-12 independent candidate movement will not immediately result in structural democratic reform in China. Nevertheless, I contend that the increased awareness of electoral rights and democracy in China as a result the independent candidate movement will, in the coming years and decades, compel the ruling Chinese Communist Party to take significant steps to appease the ever-growing demand for political participation in China. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social Justice and Human Rights 2012

The thesis examines the social memory of Soviet period in Ukraine on the national and regional levels drawing on the conceptual framework of social memory as shared, normative and formative knowledge of the past, subject to contentious interpretations of various groups and reflecting the power structure of the society. The analysis of the law on the rehabilitation of victims of political repressions in Ukraine, the law on the Holodomor as genocide against Ukrainian nation, and the decommunization laws shows that on the official level Ukraine moved from an ambivalent attitude towards the Soviet legacy, in which Stalinism was repudiated, to the condemnation of Soviet power as a whole. On the regional level, the study reveals the divisive memory of the Soviet past. The analysis of the activities of the Memorial Society, of monuments to the prisoners executed in Lviv by retreating Soviets in June of 1941, of the Museum-Prison on Lontsky street and other museums and monuments shows that in Lviv, as in the Baltic States, the Soviet power is viewed as an alien regime, imposed on freedom-loving Ukrainians by Soviet Russia tyranny. On the opposite side of Lviv is Donetsk. The analysis of the memorial landscape of the city shows that the Donbas memory of the 1930s, as in Soviet times and in Russia, is based on an official forgetting of the repressions. The general assessment of the Soviet past is positive is incorporated into the collective identity of Donetsk as its integral part. After the Euromaidan events of late 2013-early 2014 the opposite memories of the Soviet past became even more apparent. Soviet past in Ukraine is a complex historical period. Examples of post-second world war Western Europe shows that a society, which wants to rebuild itself after a traumatic, divisive past, has to work through this past critically and honestly through an extremely difficult, but necessary open public debate. Only free exchange of opinions, where diversity of perspectives and interpretations of the Soviet experience would be heard, will allow Ukrainian society to grasp the complexity of the Soviet past and to build an inclusive, pluralist democracy.

The proposition of the thesis is, in its role as the lead offshore petroleum regulator in Ghana, the Petroleum Commission is not competent enough to oversee robust offshore health and safety regulation. Two accounts are developed to support this claim. First, the conferment of dual licensing and health and safety regulatory functions on the Petroleum Commission gives rise to a potential conflict. Secondly, even recognising a distinction between formal and de facto independence, neither is present in the Petroleum Commission. A number of factors justify these assertions: not least the fact that the law establishing the Petroleum Commission confers discretionary powers on the executive and does not provide regulatory independence as a formal requirement. In addition, the Commission's financial and administrative procedures are determinable by influences external to it. Formal independence is not, however, in itself a sufficient condition for the proper exercise of regulatory discretion. It is necessary for the regulatory body in question to be able in fact to behave independently, that is, to develop and take ownership of regulatory values, which in turn depend on the possession of relevant competence and expertise. Based on comparative analysis of global offshore regulatory regimes, and backed by empirical evidence, the thesis recommends legislative reforms in Ghana aimed at a functional separation of petroleum licensing from health and safety regulation.

SOARES, Aládia Quintella. Compositores e intérpretes cearenses: o campo da música independente no Ceará dos anos 1980 e 1990. 2015. 120f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza (CE), 2015. / Submitted by Gustavo Daher (gdaherufc@hotmail.com) on 2016-09-08T12:03:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_aqsoares.pdf: 6222825 bytes, checksum: 2b490a7f4fd48f16318328eb113b76ba (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-09-08T12:24:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_aqsoares.pdf: 6222825 bytes, checksum: 2b490a7f4fd48f16318328eb113b76ba (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-08T12:24:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_dis_aqsoares.pdf: 6222825 bytes, checksum: 2b490a7f4fd48f16318328eb113b76ba (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / This research discuss how the trajectory of the musical group NUCIC – Núcleo de Compositores e Intérpretes Cearenses –, core of composers and performers of Ceará – contributed to produce the first independent music CD of Fortaleza City entitled " Composers and Performers Ceará " in 1993, by this collective. The members of this collective were musicians, mostly born in Ceará, with some characteristics in common; the main perceived one in the development of this research is the fact that most of them had non-formal and informal musical training. In Ceará, before the work of NUCIC, we can verify the presence of other collectives such as “O Pessoal do Ceará" in the 1970s and "Massafeira" in the 1980’s. However, it is remarkble that there is a scant literary output about the Ceará music production in the 1990’s. This study intends to contribute with a register of this movement to changing this situation. The focus of this work is to observe the mid of the eighties and early nineties. However, with the intention of contextualizing this period, it is necessary to pull back and also move ahead in time, as these will help us in the reading. Such a procedure will be connected to the historical context in Ceará and in Brazil. The theoretical foundation is based on authors such as BOURDIEU (2005; 2007); BARBALHO (2005); LIBÂNEO (1986; 1991); ROGÉRIO (2006; 2011), among others that focus on musical training, habitus, training trajectories. This is a case study in which methodologically, texts readings, interviews with members and privileged observers are included. The expected results converge to a reflection on the non-formal and informal musical education, broadening the field of vision about the Ceará music production in the eighties and early nineties. / Esta pesquisa objetiva compreender como a trajetória formativa musical dos integrantes do grupo NUCIC – Núcleo de Compositores e Intérpretes Cearenses – contribuiu para que este coletivo produzisse o primeiro CD de música independente de Fortaleza intitulado “Compositores e Intérpretes Cearenses” em 1993. Os membros desse coletivo eram músicos, em sua maioria nascidos do Ceará, com algumas características em comum, sendo que a principal delas percebida no desenvolvimento da pesquisa é o fato de que a maioria teve uma formação musical não-formal e informal. No Ceará, anterior ao trabalho do NUCIC, verificamos a presença de outros coletivos em torno da música como o “Pessoal do Ceará” na década de setenta e o “Massafeira” na década de oitenta. No entanto, percebe-se, uma escassa literatura sobre a produção musical cearense na década de noventa e com esse estudo pretende-se contribuir para a mudança dessa conjuntura. O foco deste trabalho terá como recorte meados da década de oitenta e início dos anos noventa. No entanto, com a intenção de contextualizarmos tal período na história do Ceará e do Brasil, faz-se necessário recuar, como também, avançar no tempo. Isto irá nos auxiliar na leitura. A fundamentação teórica baseia-se nos textos de BOURDIEU (2005; 2007); BARBALHO (2005); LIBÂNEO (1986; 1991); ROGÉRIO (2006; 2011), entre outros autores que focam sobre processos de formação musical, habitus, trajetórias formativas. Trata-se de um estudo de caso, onde metodologicamente, utilizam-se leituras de textos, entrevistas com os membros do grupo e observadores privilegiados. Os resultados esperados convergem para uma reflexão sobre a educação musical não-formal e informal, ampliando o campo de visão sobre a produção musical cearense independente na década de oitenta e início de noventa.

Online social networks (OSNs) have become a powerful medium of communicating, sharing and disseminating information. Because of popularity and availability of OSNs throughout the world, the connected users can spread information faster and thus propagate influence over each other constantly. Due to such impact, a lot of applications on OSNs focused on picking an initial set of users (seeds) to infuse their message in the OSN. Due to huge size of the network, the main challenge in picking the initial set is to maximize the resultant influence over the users in the network. The optimization problem of finding out the most influential set of members in an OSN for maximization of influence is an NP-hard problem. In this paper, we propose using the Positive Influential Dominating Set (PIDS) algorithm for the initial seed. PIDS is a well-known algorithm which determines the influential backbone nodes in the networks. We implemented PIDS-based influence maximization by using different propagation models. We compared PIDS performance to that of the existing approaches based on greedy and random heuristics. The experimental results from extensive simulation on real-world network data sets show that PIDS gives better influence spread than greedy and random for both Independent Cascade Model and Linear Threshold Model of influence propagation. PIDS is also scalable to large networks and in all size ranges, it performs well in influence maximization.

xiii, 429 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / My dissertation argues that the film comedies of Kevin Smith, through their willingness to depict and verbalize gender-bending, queer desire, and deviant sexual practices, exemplify the role independent "slacker" cinema played in the 1990s explosion of American queer media visibility. Couched in witty verbal comedy, Smith's films depict the tensions and dangers Generation-X males face as they negotiate the culturally enforced gap separating male homosociality (intense friendship, male bonding) from explicit male-male homoerotic desire in contemporary U.S. culture. The project takes Smith's career as a metonym for independent slacker cinema (which includes films by Smith, Richard Linklater, Jim Jarmusch, and Judd Apatow) and argues that Smith's films have been successful because they tap into and exploit both the 1990s boom in independent queer media production and the particular interests and needs of actual young white slackers, including how these young men navigate tensions related not only to gender and sexuality but also to race and class (all of which are evident in their taste for mainstream superhero comics and the Star Wars films). Chapter II argues that Smith's debut feature, Clerks (1994), exemplifies, through its plot and formal elements, the homosocial buddy relation that suppresses male-male homoerotic desire by channeling it into men's rivalries over women. The chapter exposes the misogyny inherent to the slacker's homosocial group and discusses his fear/fascination with masculine women such as domineering mothers, bossy girlfriends, and (in later Smith films) lesbians. Chapter III argues that Mallrats (1995) shares key narrative properties and subject matter with superhero comic books, thereby addressing the comic book fans who largely constitute Smith's fan base. Chapter IV offers a bisexual reading of Smith's third feature film, Chasing Amy (1997). Chapter V examines Smith's later films Dogma (1999), and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), arguing that they function generically as queer road movies. Chapter VI analyzes Smith's public persona as an indie cinema icon who uses ironic, ambiguous modes of self-presentation to "have it both ways," maintaining an appeal for both homophobic and queer-friendly audiences, thereby demonstrating Smith's keen understanding of self-promotion and the economic structures of independent cinema. / Adviser: Kathleen Rowe Karlyn

xvii, 397 p. : ill., maps. / Thousands of films are produced every year in the United States, and only a fraction of these is made by mainstream Hollywood film studios. Independent filmmakers working in regional locations produce the majority of these films, retaining financial, creative and distribution control and working with locally-based cast and crew members. This film activity must be acknowledged in order to fully understand the American film industry. This study examines regional independent filmmaking through case studies of two film communities: Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Using political economy of communication as the primary theoretical foundation, this study focuses on the infrastructure (systems, policies, resources and practices) that supports and/or limits the production and distribution of independent films. The research utilizes extensive document analysis of historical materials and contemporary documents produced by organizations and individuals, as well as a survey of 60 film professionals and interviews with over 40 film professionals. A central challenge to independent filmmaking is the term "independent," which has been contested by film professionals and scholars; therefore, this study analyzes and offers a new definition of "independent filmmaking." The history of filmmaking activity in Portland and Seattle is presented, as well as an extensive discussion of the contemporary landscape of regional independent filmmaking in these two communities. The study finds that there are a multitude of contradictions pertaining to financing, distribution, labor and myths of independent filmmaking. These contradictions present a range of opportunities and challenges that often simultaneously conflict with each other. The filmmaking communities in Portland and Seattle have notable networks of support, including professional and educational organizations, film festivals, government initiatives and a few locally-operated distributors. However, filmmakers in both cities also share challenges in financing, distribution and labor. The study argues that regional independent filmmaking has made a dynamic and influential contribution to the American film industry and cultural production but has been under-explored in academic scholarship. The research also points to the need to examine and understand the contradictions of independent filmmaking to improve the circumstances and infrastructure that support regional independent filmmaking. / Committee in charge: Dr. Janet Wasko, Chairperson; Dr. Gabriela Martinez, Member; Dr. H. Leslie Steeves, Member; Dr. Michael Aronson, Outside Member

Research into mainstream (AAA) video games reveals a popularized form of militarized masculine entertainment that is synonymous with violence toward other men and sexualized violence toward women. The means of successful AAA game production are limited to those who have access to sophisticated game engines, advanced programming skills, and substantial financial backing. Consequently, a robust independent “indie” game industry has emerged to promote a greater range of game creation excluded from the AAA model. Drawing on political economic, feminist, and cultural studies approaches, this study seeks to trace the emergent trends and dynamics in the indie industry and analyzes common practices, strategies, and discursive themes of the Independent Games Festival (IGF), their hosting event, GDC, and their parent company UBM. This thesis contributes to media industry studies, game studies, and critical theory and highlights how economic logics shape social relations and influences processes of cultural change.