Since the beginning of the nuclear era, starting during the 1940s, large amount of radioactivity has been released into the environment. This thesis deals with the temporal and spatial distribution of the anthropogenic radioisotope 129I (T1/2= 15.7 Myr) in northern Europe. A routine sample preparation procedure for extraction of iodine from milligram amounts of solid materials has been developed and aimed for measuring the 129I concentration by the ultra-sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry method. The technique was further used for the analysis of 129I in sediments collected from two lakes in Sweden and one lake in Finland as well as sediments from two sites in the Baltic Sea. In addition, 129I concentrations in aerosol samples from northern and southern Sweden covering the period 1983 to 2000 have been measured. The results reveal a gradual increase in the anthropogenic 129I fluxes since the 1950s that are linked to emissions from the nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities in Sellafield (UK) and La Hague (France). A sharp increase coinciding with the Chernobyl accident is identified from the Swedish lakes located in areas characterised by relatively high Chernobyl fallout. Numerical modeling of the 129I deposition predicts that >50% of the flux to the lake sediments is related to the liquid emissions from the reprocessing facilities. The modeling also reasonably simulates the contribution of the Chernobyl event to the total 129I flux. The novel time series from northern Europe on 129I in aerosols show about one order of magnitude higher concentration in northern compared to southern Sweden. Estimate of 129I dry fallout based on the aerosol data suggests <25% contribution to the total fallout. The distribution of 129I in the sediment archives demonstrates the potential of the isotope as a new time marker for chronological and environmental investigations.

This thesis examines the wetland sacrifices that were performed in Northern Europe in the Iron Age. Skedemosse on central Öland is the largest wetland sacrifice in Sweden and was the site of a cult which sacrificed animals and humans. Between the late second century and well into the fifth century the place was also used for large sacrifices of military equipment. New radiocarbon dates has shown that the place functioned as a ritual place from the Pre Roman Iron Age and into the Late Viking Age. Both in the Iron Age and later wetlands seem to have been both venerated and feared and the thesis discusses why this came to be, and how it can be seen in the archaeological material. A smaller part of the sacrificial site of Skedemosse was selected for a closer study and it was possible to establish several depositions which appear to have been treated slightly different from each other. The investigations of the animal sacrifices have focused on the horses as they are the most common animal. The horse was an important mythological animal in the Iron Age and they were equally important in the cult. The horses in Skedemosse were eaten in ritual meals, and it is possible that some of them took part in ritual races along the ridge east of the former lake.  Such races were called skeið and the name Skedemosse may be derived from this word. Skedemosse is also rare because the remains of ca 38 people have been found in it. Some of these people have suffered a violent death. They are compared to other bog bodies from northern Europe and the follow a similar pattern to those; In the Pre Roman Iron Age mainly women and children were sacrificed and after the first century AD mainly men ended up in the lake.

In this thesis, mathematical modeling and heuristic approaches are developed for surface-to-air weapon-target allocation problem with time varying single shot hit probabilities (SSHP) against linearly approaching threats. First, a nonlinear mathematical model for the problem is formulated to maximize sum of the weighted survival probabilities of assets to be defended. Next, nonlinear objective function and constraints are linearized. Time varying SSHP values are approximated with appropriate closed forms and adapted to the linear model obtained. This model is tested on different scenarios and results are compared with those of the original nonlinear model. It is observed that the linear model is solved much faster than the nonlinear model and produces reasonably good solutions. It is inferred from the solutions of both models that engagements should be made as late as possible, when the threats are closer to the weapons, to have SSHP values higher. A construction heuristic is developed based on this scheme. An improvement heuristic that uses the solution of the construction heuristic is also proposed. Finally, all methods are tested on forty defense scenarios. Two fastest solution methods, the linear model and the construction heuristic, are compared on a large scenario and proposed as appropriate solution techniques for the weapon-target allocation problems.

It is in military engagements the task of the air defense to protect valuable assets such as air bases from being destroyed by hostile aircrafts and missiles. In order to fulfill this mission, the defenders are equipped with sensors and firing units. To infer whether a target is hostile and threatening or not is far from a trivial task. This is dealt with in a threat evaluation process, in which the targets are ranked based upon their estimated level of threat posed to the defended assets. Once the degree of threat has been estimated, the problem of weapon allocation comes into the picture. Given that a number of threatening targets have been identified, the defenders need to decide on whether any firing units shall be allocated to the targets, and if so, which firing unit to engage which target. To complicate matters, the outcomes of such engagements are usually stochastic. Moreover, there are often tight time constraints on how fast the threat evaluation and weapon allocation processes need to be executed. There are already today a large number of threat evaluation and weapon allocation (TEWA) systems in use, i.e. decision support systems aiding military decision makers with the threat evaluation and weapon allocation processes. However, despite the critical role of such systems, it is not clear how to evaluate the performance of the systems and their algorithms. Hence, the work in thesis is focused on the development and evaluation of TEWA systems, and the algorithms for threat evaluation and weapon allocation being part of such systems. A number of algorithms for threat evaluation and static weapon allocation are suggested and implemented, and testbeds for facilitating the evaluation of these are developed. Experimental results show that the use of particle swarm optimization is suitable for real-time target-based weapon allocation in situations involving up to approximately ten targets and ten firing units, while it for larger problem sizes gives better results to make use of an enhanced greedy maximum marginal return algorithm, or a genetic algorithm seeded with the solution returned by the greedy algorithm. / Fredrik Johansson forskar också vid Skövde Högskola, Informatics Research Centre / Fredrik Johansson also does research at the University of Skövde, Informatics Research Centre

More guns-less violence? A qualitative and comparative analysis between the swedish and the american daily news-press.

Honors Project--Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-119).

Achieving a state of balance is essential when developing a video game (Schell, 2019, “Game Mechanics Must Be in Balance,” para. 1). Despite this, game balancing is frequently overlooked in game development curricula (Schreiber, 2016, 00:30). This research describes the development and pilot study of a framework that junior game designers can utilize to gain valuable skills in the area of game balance. The framework produced by this research provides users with the ability to tune weapon parameters and see the effects these changes have on a first-person shooter deathmatch game in real time. Participants in the study utilized the framework to achieve three pacing and balance goals. Data regarding the weapon parameters selected by participants and information about the participants’ usage of the framework is described in detail. This study serves as the groundwork for future research focused on finding a method for teaching junior game designers about game balance.

[pt] O estupro foi visto durante muito tempo como uma consequência do conflito armado. Contudo, esse cenário mudou na guerra da Bósnia, pois o estupro deixou de ser meramente um efeito colateral da guerra para ser percebido como estratégia/arma de guerra com o principal objetivo de realizar a limpeza étnica. A violência, o estupro e o trauma são os protagonistas da nossa investigação. Nossa pesquisa é de cunho estritamente teórico e, para isso, utilizamos a referência psicanalítica nos baseando principalmente na obra freudiana para pensar a ideia de pulsão de morte, violência, guerra e trauma. Além disso, utilizamos também as considerações de André Green para analisar os conceitos de objetalização e desobjetalização do corpo da mulher nesse processo. Pois percebemos o quanto a mulher é investida como objeto/instrumento de guerra com o fim de um propósito maior – como no caso da guerra da Bósnia, a limpeza étnica – também é totalmente desinvestida e anulada como sujeito, sem poder consentir ao que acontece com seu corpo tornado objeto. Além disso, analisamos o quanto o trauma possui efeitos dessubjetivantes na mulher que passa por essa cena de horror. / [en] Rape has long been seen as a consequence of armed conflicts. However, in the Bosnian war this setting changed, for rape was no longer merely a side effect of the war, to be seen as a strategy/weapon of war with the main objective of carrying out ethnic cleansing. Violence, rape and trauma are the leading figures of our investigation. Our research is strictly theoretical and for this we use the psychoanalytical reference based on Freud s work to think about the idea of death drive, violence, war and trauma. In addition we also use André Green s considerations to analyze the concepts of objectalization and deobjectalization of the woman s body in such process. As we realize how much women are invested as an object/ instrument of the war with the aim of a greater purpose – as the ethnical cleansing in the Bosnian war – the woman is also totally disinvested and annulled as a subject, without being able to consent to what happens to her body made an object, In addition, we analyze how much trauma has desubjective effects on the woman who goes through such horror scene.

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