No description available.

<p>This thesis is mainly a critical examination of Professor Mark C. Murphy’s theory of defectiveness. In his view, being backed by decisive reasons for action is a standard internal to legality, to the property of being law, such that a law or a legal system that is not backed by decisive reasons for action fails to measure up and thus, is <em>defective</em> qua law or legal system. Following a short introduction, I will devote chapter I to presenting Professor Murphy’s theory of defectiveness in the context of his defence of the natural law tradition. In the remaining two chapters, I shall state and assess two types of argument in support of this main thesis. Chapter II is concerned with the functional argument, which holds that law’s characteristic activity, thus law’s function, is to provide dictates backed by decisive reasons for action. I criticize Murphy’s account claiming that his explanation is bereft of a causal mechanism that links certain characteristic activities with certain effects, which is the main element of non-agentive functional explanations. The different type of argument that attempts to present the presence of decisive reasons as a non-defectiveness condition of illocutionary acts in general, and thus for legal illocutionary acts, is considered in chapter III. Here, I argue that Murphy’s position is not supported by the orthodox theory of illocutionary acts. From this I conclude that we have reason to doubt Professor Murphy’s success in providing an appropriate theory of legal defectiveness.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>The research contained in this thesis is concerned with longterm behaviour of drilled piers socketed in weak rock. The experimental work involved testing of two steel and seven concrete model piers. The 25.4 mm (1.0 in) diameter steel piers had relatively smooth socket walls (RF = 0.033) and were socketed into pseudo-rock material. The concrete piers were 76.2 mm (3.0 in) in diameter and were socketed into weak rock (Queenston Shale). The concrete piers were of two types: conventional socketed piers with relatively smooth socket walls (RF = 0.025) and grooved piers with relatively rough socket walls (RF = 0.081 and 0.303).</p> <p>The piers were tested under two condition of load support, shaft resistance only and combined shaft resistance and end-bearing support conditions.</p> <p>In case of steel piers, electrical resistance strain gauges were mounted on the pier shaft to measure the load distribution along the shaft of the piers. For concrete piers under combined shaft resistance and end-bearing support conditions, flat jack load cells with Marsh and Budenberg pressure gauges and/or electrical pressure transducers were used to measure the load transfer at the base.</p> <p>All model piers were axially loaded in the laboratory using load frames designed and fabricated for this purpose. The axial loads were iii applied by the air cylinders and held constant throughout the period of testing using a regulated air pressure supply.</p> <p>The test results confirmed that performance of socketed piers can be significantly improved by increasing the roughness of the pier-rock interface. Both the primary creep rate and the load transfer with time were larger for piers with small shaft roughness.</p> <p>A second stage of creep having a much lower creep rate was observed for all model tests. The time to the end of primary creep was found to depend on the roughness of the socket wall. The primary and secondary creep rate appeared to be dependent on the stress level, shaft roughness, compressive strength of weak rock and support conditions.</p> <p>The results of the model tests are compared with available test data and with values predicted using methods based on viscoelastic analysis. This method of analysis for piles in clay soils has been modified for application to socket piers in weak rock. It is suggested that the modifications can be used to estimate the long-term settlement of socket piers in weak rock</p> / Master of Engineering (ME)

The Maxwell equations of electromagnetism form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, and are of interest to mathematicians, physicists, and engineers alike. The first part of this thesis concerns boundary value problems for the anisotropic Maxwell equations in Lipschitz domains. In this case, the material parameters that arise in the Maxwell system are matrix valued functions. Using methods from functional analysis, global in time solutions to initial boundary value problems with general nonzero boundary data and nonzero current density are obtained, only assuming the material parameters are bounded and measurable. This problem is motivated by an electromagnetic inverse problem, similar to the classical Calder\'on inverse problem in Electrical Impedance Tomography. The second part of this thesis deals with materials having negative refractive index. Materials which possess a negative refractive index were postulated by Veselago in 1968, and since 2001 physicists were able to construct these materials in the laboratory. The research on the behavior of these materials, called metamaterials, has been extremely active in recent years. We study here refraction problems in the setting of Negative Refractive Index Materials (NIMs). In particular, it is shown how to obtain weak solutions (defined similarly to Brenier solutions for the Monge-Amp\`ere equation) to these problems, both in the near and the far field. The far field problem can be treated using Optimal Transport techniques; as such, a fully nonlinear PDE of Monge-Amp\`ere type arises here. / Mathematics

Bostadspolitiken i Sverige behöver förändras för att skapa jämlika förutsättningar för kommuner att kunna utveckla den lokala bostadsmarknaden och tillgodose sitt lagstadgade bostadsförsörjningsansvar. Landsbygder har andra förutsättningar än de urbaniserade städerna och flera av Sveriges landsbygdskommuner uppvisar en befolkningsminskning, låga bostadspriser och liten eller obefintlig nyproduktion. Denna studien har riktat sitt fokus till två landsbygdskommuner i norra Sverige och deras arbete med sin bostadsförsörjning. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka förutsättningar det finns i kommunerna Sorsele och Älvsbyn att tillgodo se sitt bostadsförsörjningsansvar. Syftet är också att visa potentiella åtgärder i den nationella politiken som underlättar för landsbygdskommuner att tillgodose sitt bostadsförsörjningsansvar.  Resultaten av studien visar på att det finns många problem som står vägen för att kommunerna Älvsbyn och Sorsele ska kunna förbättra sina bostadsmarknader. Några av problemen som framkommer är låga fastighetspriser, finansieringssvårigheter och ett sviktande skatteunderlag. Konkurrenssituationen som existerar mellan kommunerna om invånare och arbetstillfällen medför att kommuner har en tendens att planera för en ökande befolkning snarare än en minskande. Detta i sin tur skapar problem då planeringen av service och bostadsbestånd inte är anpassade utifrån rådande förutsättningar, utan snarare är anpassade för en större befolkning. På grund av sina små ekonomiska muskler har Sorsele och Älvsbyn svårt att själva vända den pågående utvecklingen. Utifrån rådande situation tvingas de lägga sina förhoppningar på extern finansiering, företagsetableringar och inflyttningar.   För att visa på alternativ till pågående utveckling för bostadsförsörjning i landsbygdskommuner har en framtidsstudie gjorts. I framtidsstudien identifieras tre scenarier med potential att nå en positiv framtidsvision och den utgår ifrån hur bostadspolitiken behöver förändras för att landsbygdskommuner med svaga bostadsmarknader ska kunna leva upp till sitt bostadsförsörjningsansvar. Framtidsstudien visar på att reformer inom bostadspolitiken, landsbygdspolitiken och skattepolitiken kan användas för att uppnå visionen. Trots att det råder osäkerhet om genomförbarheten och resultatet av olika reformer som föreslås i framtidsstudien, är en slutsats att framtidens bostadspolitik har mycket goda förutsättningar att lyckas skapa en förbättrad bostadsmarknad i landsbygdskommuner. / Housing policy in Sweden needs to change in order to create equal conditions for municipalities to develop the local housing market and meet their statutory housing supply responsibilities. Rural areas, particularly in northern Sweden, have long been disadvantaged by housing policies pursued by the government. Rural areas are in a difficult situation and several areas are experiencing population decline, low house prices and little or no new construction. As housing research tends to focus on housing policy from the perspective of an urban norm, this study has instead focused on housing policy in rural areas. The aim of this study is to investigate what conditions exist in the municipalities of Sorsele and Älvsbyn and how they are working to achieve their housing supply responsibilities. Furthermore, the aim is to examine potential national policy measures to help rural municipalities meet their housing responsibilities. The results of the study show that there are many problems that stand in the way of the municipalities of Älvsbyn and Sorsele improving their housing markets. Some of the problems identified are low property prices, financing difficulties and a shrinking tax base. Because of their small financial muscle, Sorsele and Älvsbyn have difficulty in reversing the current trend themselves. Given the current situation, they are forced to place their hopes in external financing, the establishment of companies and the arrival of new residents.  In contrast to current housing trends, a futures study has been undertaken to show alternatives to the current development of housing supply in rural municipalities. The study identifies three scenarios with the potential to achieve a positive vision of the future, based on how housing policy needs to change to enable rural municipalities with weak housing markets to meet their housing supply responsibilities. The futures study shows that reforms in housing policy, as well as fiscal policy can be used to achieve the vision.  Despite uncertainty about the feasibility and outcome of various reforms proposed in the future study, this study concludes that future housing policy has a very good chance of succeeding in creating an improved housing market in rural municipalities.

The emergence and importance of human rights are rarely discussed without the discussion in some way also touching on the impact that various popular movements or social resistance have had on the manifestation of rights claims. This thesis focus in particular on the development in recent times in Afghanistan since the Taliban's takeover of power in August 2021. For the women and girls in Afghanistan the Taliban’s new power meant a return from 20 years of developed opportunities and recognized human rights, which can be directly derived to the rights and non-discrimination of women declared in the UN Women's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This thesis will primarily deal with Amnesty International's report Death in Slow Motion: Women and girls under Taliban rule, which consists of a 100-page report, including testimonies, that describes the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban took gained power in August 2021. The analytical discussion of this thesis is based on a critical theoretical framework built on the concepts of performative practice, weapons of the weak, translation and ontological disturbance. The operationalization of the theoretical framework of this thesis is done with the help of a critical discourse analysis (CDA). The analytical discussion and conclusions of this thesis establish that Afghan women's and girls' current, every day or small-scale acts of resistance in order to assert their rights, demands for belonging, equality and freedom take varying forms and that these approaches move dynamically between the public and private spheres of society. In many ways, the resistance takes place beyond the Taliban's supervision and despite the risks that the acts of resistance entail, the actions of the Afghan women and girls contribute to manifesting and strengthening their rights claims and highlighting their capacity for agency and freedom of action. This thesis mainly highlights how these acts of resistance and agents can open up conditions for women and girls in Afghanistan to form communities and solidarity belonging within a social and political arena that has come to place them on the periphery.

When modeling interest rates, using strong formulations of underlying differential equations is prone to bad numerical approximations and high computational costs, due to close to non-smoothness in the probability density function of the interest rate. To circumvent these problems, a weak formulation of the Fokker–Planck equation using Gaussian radial basis functions is suggested. This approach is used in a parameter estimation process for two interest rate models: the Vasicek model and the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross model. In this thesis, such an approach is shown to yield good numerical approximations at low computational costs.

Satellite remote sensing has revolutionized the acquisition of large amounts of data, employing both active and passive sensors to capture critical information about our planet. These data can be analysed by using deep learning methodologies that demonstrate excellent capabilities in extracting the semantics from the data. However, one of the main challenges in exploiting the power of deep learning for remote sensing applications is the lack of labeled training data. Deep learning architectures, typically demand substantial quantities of training samples to achieve optimal performance. Motivated by the above-mentioned challenges, this thesis focuses on the limited availability of labeled datasets. These challenges include issues such as ambiguous labels in case of large-scale remote sensing datasets, particularly when dealing with the analysis of multi-source satellite remote sensing images. By employing novel deep learning techniques and cutting-edge methodologies, this thesis endeavors to contribute to advancements in the field of remote sensing. In this thesis, the problems related to limited labels are solved in several ways by developing (i) a novel spectral index generative adversarial network to augment real training samples for generating class-specific remote sensing data to provide a large number of labeled samples to train a neural-network classifier; (ii) a mono- and dual-regulated contractive-expansive-contractive convolutional neural network architecture to incorporate spatial-spectral information of multispectral data and minimize the loss in the feature maps and extends this approach to the analysis of hyperspectral images; (iii) a hybrid deep learning architecture with a discrete wavelet transform and attention mechanism to deal with few labeled samples for scene-based classification of multispectral images; and (iv) a weak supervised semantic learning technique that utilises weak or low-resolution labeled samples with multisource remote sensing images for predicting pixel-wise land-use-land-cover maps. The experiments show that the proposed approaches perform better than the state-of-the-art methods on different benchmark datasets and in different conditions.

In this dissertation, four test approaches were developed to characterize the adhesion performance and durability of adhesive bonds for specific applications in areas spanning from structural adhesive joints to popular confectionaries such as chewing gum. In the first chapter, a double cantilever beam (DCB) specimen geometry is proposed for combinatorial fracture studies of structural adhesive bonds. This specimen geometry enabled the characterization of fracture energy vs. bondline thickness trends through fewer tests than those required during a conventional "one at a time" characterization approach, potentially offering a significant reduction in characterization times. The second chapter investigates the adhesive fracture resistance and crack path selection in adhesive joints containing patterns of discreet localized weak interfaces created using physical vapor deposition of copper. In a DCB specimen tested under mode-I conditions, fracture energy within the patterned regions scaled according to a simple rule of mixture, while reverse R-curve and R-curve type trends were observed in the regions surrounding weak interface patterns. Under mixed mode conditions such that bonding surface with patterns is subjected to axial tension, fracture energy did not show R-curve type trends while it was observed that a crack could be made to avoid exceptionally weak interfaces when loaded such that bonding surface with defects is subjected to axial compression. In the third chapter, an adaptation of the probe tack test is proposed to characterize the adhesion behavior of gum cuds. This test method allowed the introduction of substrates with well-defined surface energies and topologies to study their effects on gum cud adhesion. This approach and reported insights could potentially be useful in developing chewing gum formulations that facilitate easy removal of improperly discarded gum cuds from adhering surfaces. In the fourth chapter we highlight a procedure to obtain insights into the long-term performance of silicone sealants designed for load-bearing applications such as solar panel support sealants. Using small strain constitutive tests and time-temperature-superposition principle, thermal shift factors were obtained and successfully used to characterize the creep rupture master curves for specific joint configurations, leading to insights into delayed failures corresponding to three years through experiments carried out in one month. / Ph. D.

The main focus of the present thesis is on the homogenization of some selected elliptic and parabolic problems. More precisely, we homogenize: non-periodic linear elliptic problems in two dimensions exhibiting a homothetic scaling property; two types of evolution-multiscale linear parabolic problems, one having two spatial and two temporal microscopic scales where the latter ones are given in terms of a two-parameter family, and one having two spatial and three temporal microscopic scales that are fixed power functions; and, finally, evolution-multiscale monotone parabolic problems with one spatial and an arbitrary number of temporal microscopic scales that are not restricted to be given in terms of power functions. In order to achieve homogenization results for these problems we study and enrich the theory of two-scale convergence and its kins. In particular the concept of very weak two-scale convergence and generalizations is developed, and we study an application of this convergence mode where it is employed to detect scales of heterogeneity. / Huvudsakligt fokus i avhandlingen ligger på homogeniseringen av vissa elliptiska och paraboliska problem. Mer precist så homogeniserar vi: ickeperiodiska linjära elliptiska problem i två dimensioner med homotetisk skalning; två typer av evolutionsmultiskaliga linjära paraboliska problem, en med två mikroskopiska skalor i både rum och tid där de senare ges i form av en tvåparameterfamilj, och en med två mikroskopiska skalor i rum och tre i tid som ges i form av fixa potensfunktioner; samt, slutligen, evolutionsmultiskaliga monotona paraboliska problem med en mikroskopisk skala i rum och ett godtyckligt antal i tid som inte är begränsade till att vara givna i form av potensfunktioner. För att kunna uppnå homogeniseringsresultat för dessa problem så studerar och utvecklar vi teorin för tvåskalekonvergens och besläktade begrepp. Speciellt så utvecklar vi begreppet mycket svag tvåskalekonvergens med generaliseringar, och vi studerar en tillämpningav denna konvergenstyp där den används för att detektera förekomsten av heterogenitetsskalor.