Hydrogen appears to be a clean and sustainable fuel for transportation vehicles, including internal combustion engine vehicles. In this research, a 1986 GMC Sierra truck with a 350CID 5.7L V8, 4 barrel carbureted Chevrolet gasoline engine is converted to burn hydrogen as a sustainable and envirnmentally benign fuel with a shorter energetic cycle. It demonstrates that the problems of backfire can be eliminated using several less expensive methods, such as employing cold spark plugs with reduced spark gap and low temperature cooled valves along with the introduction of water vapor to the mixture. In the experiments, the internal combustion engine was tested for two fuels: (i) octane 95 gasoline, and (ii) gaseous hydrogen at 99% purity. The vehicle underwent dynamometer tests using both the gasoline and hydrogen fuels for performance comparisons. A comprehensive thermodynamic analysis, through energy and exergy, of the engine is conducted for both cases: (i) with the octane 95 gasoline fuel and (ii) with hydrogen gaseous fuel. The performance results through energy and exergy efficiencies are compared for possible improvements. The mileage and energy efficiencies calculated and tested using this engine showed that it is more efficient operating on gasoline fuel rather than hydrogen. This is explained fully in the thesis as to the properties of hydrogen and gasoline fuels that differ, and the particular vehicle technology makes this difficult to achieve a reasonable mileage and efficiency. / UOIT

I denna uppsats är syftet att analysera en polariserad debatt och undersöka om det går att se tecken på kunskapsresistens, förnekelsen av fakta. Studien bygger på kritisk diskursanalys och analyserar delar av klimatdebatten. Materialet utgörs av en samling artiklar skrivna av kritiker som motsätter sig det som idag anses vara den etablerade forskningen kring klimatet, och fokus ligger på att granska hur detta går att koppla samman med kunskapsresistens. Analysen av materialet visar att det går att finna tendenser på kunskapsresistens bland materialet hämtat ur klimatdebatten och diskuterar hur detta kan komma till uttryck i olika sammanhang inom debatten.

This thesis presents a quantitative study that aims to investigate whether Brian Martin is right in his theory about how more powerful actors have a greater capacity to prevent outrage and anger after opressions and thus suffer less from political jiu-jitsu, a process in which oppression becomes counterproductive. This is done by looking at whether more powerful regimes getaway more easily with repressing nonviolent campaigns. By designing a measuring scale for the scope of political jiu-jitsu, the connection between the scope and three different aspects of power - national capacity, wealth and state oppression - is investigated. The results shows that the more powerful the oppressive states are in terms of national capacity and wealth, the less extensive political jiu-jitsu. On the other hand, a higher degree of state oppression results in more extensive political jiu-jitsu. The results linked to the degree of staterepression are statistically significant and it can thus be said that the differences in the extent of political jiu-jitsu are not due to chance. The results indicate that more powerful states getaway with repressing nonviolent campaigns more easily, if power is measured in terms ofnational capacity or wealth. If, on the other hand, power is measured in the amount of noppression, it is more costly for the states that exercise more oppression.

Denna uppsats ämnar till att beskriva och förklara hur liknande ickevåldsmetoder och strategier kan få olika utfall i olika motståndskampanjer. Detta genom att i en jämförande studie undersöka två liknande ickevåldskampanjer i den Iranska revolutionen 1977-1979 och den första palestinska intifadan 19871992. Där Iran i jämförelse med i Palestina mer framgångsrikt uppnådde sin kampanjs målsättningar, även om Intifadan delvis också uppnådde framgångar sett till dess målsättningar. Denna jämförelse undersöks med stöd av ett teoretiskt ramverk baserat på teorier om ickevåld. Uppsatsen kommer fram till att även om motståndskampanjer bör förstås utifrån deras kontextuella och strukturella förhållanden och att det är komplicerat att komma med definitiva slutsatser över avgörande faktorer för lyckade och inte lyckade ickevåldsrörelser, kan det utifrån fallen presenteras en del viktiga likheter och skillnader som bidrar till förståelse. Ickevåldsmetoder kan vara mycket effektiva i att uppnå samhällsförändring och målsättningar som dess användare strävar efter. Baserat på ickevåldskampanjerna i Iran och Palestina nämns särskilda viktiga element för framgångsrika ickevåldsrörelser i bland annat: mobilisering, ledarskap, disciplin och hur rörelser lyckas hålla sig till enade strategier. Även regimers motageranden för att kontra ickevåld med bl.a. censur har visat sig vara en faktor till att ickevåldskampanjerna skilde sig i fallen.

Previous research has detailed concerns that exposure to both pro- and counter- attitudinal content on social media can result in outcomes of ideological polarization (e.g. Bail et al., 2018; Lu & Lee, 2018). However, further research is needed in order to understand the conditions under which this polarization may take place. To investigate this issue, this study utilizes a sample of 414 social media users in the U.S. to investigate the mediating effects of a) anger toward political opposites and b) anger toward oppositional social media content on the relationships between various types of political content exposure and the outcome of ideological polarization. Results revealed that both types of politically oriented anger partially or fully mediated all relationships between the explanatory variables and the outcome variable, demonstrating that exposure to all types of political content on social media can affect polarization through the mechanism of anger. Theoretical implications for the echo chamber theory and the backfire effect are discussed.

This thesis aims to investigate if state oppression towards independence movements affects their chosen strategies for achieving autonomy, as well as examine whether the state oppression results in political jiu-jitsu and/or backfire for the state. In recent years there have been more studies regarding state oppression towards non-violent movements examining in what ways this affects the non-violent movements, as this has been seen as unjust methods. Furthermore, it has been examined in relation to political jiu-jitsu and backfire, however not specifically regarding independence movements in a qualitative study. The study is based on the theoretical framework political jiu-jitsu by Gene Sharp and the backfire framework by Brian Martin. This has been done with a qualitative comparative case study through a process tracing method with the independence movements UCK and ETA as analytical units. The result from the study firstly indicates that there is a connection between the experience of state oppression and the prominence of political jiu-jitsu and backfire for states - that states experience political jiu-jitsu and backfire when choosing oppressive methods towards non-violence movements. Second, the independence movements are likely to choose violence as methods to achieve their political goals. These results are of importance to understand how violence can affect non-violent movements and how states using oppression can end up suffering from it - acknowledging it may not be the way to go.

Der praktische Anspruch von Ideologiekritik – die Reduzierung und Überwindung von Ideologien – kann nur durch die Berücksichtigung der Ergebnisse der empirischen Einzelwissenschaften und die Förderung der kritischen Kompetenzen der aufzuklärenden Akteure eingelöst werden. Am Beispiel der „Backfire Effects“ wird nachgewiesen, weshalb Aufklärungstechnologien und die Einschätzungen ihres Erfolgspotentials auf die empirischen und idealiter experimentell verfahrenden Einzelwissenschaften angewiesen sind. Das bei der Anwendung dieser Ergebnisse deutlich werdende Paternalismusproblem kann entschärft werden – und die Lösung dieses Problems verdeutlicht schließlich sowohl die zweckmäßige Auswahl des aufklärungstechnologisch einzusetzenden Sachwissens als auch die Grenzen eines allein auf klassische Aufklärungsarbeit setzenden Verständnisses praktischer Ideologiekritik.

Over the past decade, the success rate of non-violent resistance movements has decreased. With the development of information and communication technology (ICT), governments have taken repression into the digital realm to tamper with protest movements. The effects of repression on protest mobilization have been rather inconclusive; even less is known about the effects of digital repression. By using the political jiu-jitsu, backfire and moral jiu-jitsu theory as well as the theory on emotion and protest participation in hard autocracy, this thesis showcases how the moral shock and indignation helps to overcome fear caused by both traditional and digital repression, thus helping to explain the relationship between repression and mobilization. This theoretical framework is applied to the case of Belarusian post-election protests in 2010 and 2020. Although traditional repression was present in both time frames, there is a significant variation in the government’s digital repression resolve. The analysis shows that mobilization was primarily driven by traditional repression – police brutality and violence. However, in 2020 people were also outraged by censorship and Internet shutdowns that left them in an information vacuum which was deemed completely undeserved. The outrage about digital repression was facilitated by the opposition activities that acted against digital repression.