<p>Integrated tracking and detection, based on unthresholded measurements, also referred to as track before detect (TBD) is a hard nonlinear and non-Gaussian dynamical estimation and detection problem. However, it is a technique that enables the user to track and detect targets that would be extremely hard to track and detect, if possible at all with ''classical'' methods. TBD enables us to be better able to detect and track weak, stealthy or dim targets in noise and clutter and particles filter have shown to be very useful in the implementation of TBD algorithms. </p><p>This Master's thesis has investigated the use of particle filters on radar measurements, in a TBD approach.</p><p>The work has been divided into two major problems, a time efficient implementation and new functional features, as estimating the radar cross section (RCS) and the extension of the target. The later is of great importance when the resolution of the radar is such, that specific features of the target can be distinguished. Results will be illustrated by means of realistic examples.</p>

Im sechsten Band der Reihe Pri ha-Pardes untersucht Ulrike Heikaus die deutschsprachigen Filme, die zwischen 1933 und 1945 aus Mitteleuropa nach Palästina importiert und einer breiten Öffentlichkeit vorgeführt wurden. Im Mittelpunkt der Analyse steht die Bedeutung und Repräsentation dieser deutschsprachigen Filme in der palästinensischen Filmkultur, ihre Wahrnehmung und Rezeption, vor allem durch die deutschsprachigen Einwanderer selbst. Mehr als zweihundert deutschsprachige Filme wurden in den palästinensischen Kinotheatern während der Jahre 1930 bis 1945 in Palästina zum Teil über Jahre hinweg regelmäßig aufgeführt. Doch wie sehr waren diese Filme tatsächlich in der hebräischsprachigen Öffentlichkeit präsent? Wie wurde für sie geworben? Und wie wurden diese Filme von den deutschsprachigen Einwanderer wahrgenommen? Antworten dazu geben dabei vor allem die in Palästina in den dreißiger und vierziger Jahren erschienenen Zeitungen in deutscher Sprache, die den Neueinwanderern als Mittel zur sozialen Kommunikation und Plattform für gesellschaftliches, kulturelles und soziales Leben zur Verfügung standen. Untersucht werden ferner Materialien israelischer Archive, die über den Aspekt des deutschsprachigen Filmimports und die Vermarktung der Filme im Kontext der frühen Kinokultur im damaligen Palästina Aufschluss geben. / The focus of this study are the numerous German-speaking films, which were imported to Palestine from Europe between 1933 and 1945 and screened for a broad public. The importance and representation of these films for the young film culture of Palestine, their perception and reception, especially by the German-speaking Jews, will be investigated and analysed in this thesis.

Bakgrund: 1 januari 2013 kommer Direktivet (2009/138/EG) för Solvens II att implementeras. Detta kommer ske samtidigt inom Europeiska Unionen (EU) och kommer leda till en harmonisering av försäkringslagstiftning i medlemsstaterna. Tidigare svensk lagstiftning, Försäkringsrörelselagen (2010:2043), kommer med andra ord att anpassas till det nya regelverket. Regeländring kan komma att påverka svenska försäkringsbolags bedrivna kapitalförvaltning. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka om svenska försäkringsbolag utifrån rådande lagstiftning kan bedriva en, enligt finansiell teori, rationell kapitalförvaltning och om möjligheten till att bedriva en rationell kapitalförvaltning kommer att förändras i och med implementeringen av Solvens II. Genomförande: En genomgång av dagens regelverk, Försäkringsrörelselagen, samt Direktivet (2009/138/EG) för Solvens II kommer att presenteras. Utöver detta har fem stycken intervjuer med svenska försäkringsbolag genomförts. Slutsats: Dagens lagstiftning ger inte möjligheter till att bedriva en rationell kapitalförvaltning fullt ut. Solvens II kommer att förbättra försäkringsbolagens möjligheter att bedriva en rationell kapitalförvaltning. Försäkringsbolagen bedriver idag en förvaltning som till stor del kan anses vara rationell utifrån finansiell teori. Dock finns det vissa områden inom förvaltningen som skiljer sig från teorins bild. / Background: January 1, 2013, Directive (2009/138/EC) of Solvency II will be implemented. This will take place simultaneously in the European Union (EU) and will lead to a harmonization of insurance laws of the member states. Former Swedish legislation, Försäkringsrörelselagen (2010:2043), will therefore be adapted to the new framework. The rule change may affect Swedish insurance companies’ asset management. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to examine if Swedish insurance companies can apply rational asset management theory when Solvency II is implemented and if changes will occur in the asset management strategies. Implementation: A review of current regulations, Försäkringsrörelselagen (2010:2043), and Directive (2009/138/EC) of Solvency II will be presented. In addition, five interviews with Swedish insurance companies have been done. Conclusion: The current legislation does not provide opportunities to fully apply rational asset management. Solvency II will improve the insurance companies' ability to pursue a rational asset management. The asset management in Swedish insurance companies currently adopts strategies that to high extent comply with generally accepted financial theories. However, there are certain areas within the asset management that deviate from these financial theories.

Integrated tracking and detection, based on unthresholded measurements, also referred to as track before detect (TBD) is a hard nonlinear and non-Gaussian dynamical estimation and detection problem. However, it is a technique that enables the user to track and detect targets that would be extremely hard to track and detect, if possible at all with ''classical'' methods. TBD enables us to be better able to detect and track weak, stealthy or dim targets in noise and clutter and particles filter have shown to be very useful in the implementation of TBD algorithms. This Master's thesis has investigated the use of particle filters on radar measurements, in a TBD approach. The work has been divided into two major problems, a time efficient implementation and new functional features, as estimating the radar cross section (RCS) and the extension of the target. The later is of great importance when the resolution of the radar is such, that specific features of the target can be distinguished. Results will be illustrated by means of realistic examples.

Issued also as thesis, Leipzig, under title: Kommunefreiheit und Gesellschaft, Arles 1200-1250. / Includes bibliographical references.

Anti-communism in America reached its apex in the 1950s. One element of this crusade focused on preventing suspected communists from working in their chosen profession, a practice called blacklisting. In attempting to assert their legal rights, the blacklisted found an imperfect justice system, cloaked in equality, yet hampered by the existing cultural setting that treated as immoral anything communist. This dissertation deconstructs the interplay between culture and law, between the desire to root out communists and the attempt to maintain a fair legal system. With an emphasis on the entertainment industry, broadly defined, I will trace blacklisting from anti-labor tool to for-profit instrument focusing on how the blacklisted employed the lawsuit to fight for their jobs. I argue that from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, blacklisted plaintiffs continuously found themselves handicapped by their association -- either current or past, real or perceived -- with the Communist Party, and not until a plaintiff with no demonstrable ties to communism came along did the legal system prove a comprehensively effective tool in ending the practice. I show that various members of the blacklisted community, with the aid of a small number of lawyers, tried an assortment of legal theories in their attempt to remedy their pariah status with the results often promising -- the first three jury trials ended in victories for the plaintiffs -- but ultimately hollow as a recalcitrant appellate judiciary dashed these early hopes. Moreover, I show how plaintiff's lawyers, sensitive to a legal system that demanded a successful plaintiff be free of communist ties, adjusted their strategy to accommodate the relationship between cultural setting and legal success. / text

This research uses the interpretive framework of the Psychological Grotesque to address a protagonist's response when she is unable to integrate the experience of interpersonal trauma into her psyche. The framework reveals a survival mechanism, identity incorporation, with roots in the transgressive and evolutionary nature of the grotesque as discussed in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, Mary Douglas and Leonard Cassuto. The psychological grotesque is explicated using Stvgo by Laura Hendrie, The Life Before Her Eyes, by Laura Kasischke, and Linden Hills by Gloria Naylor.The psychological grotesque reveals how the protagonist within each of these novels, when positioned within a specific matrix of contributing factors engages in flawed survival strategies to reconcile psychic fragmentation. Drawing on theories of trauma from the work of Bessel Van Der Kolk, Dori Laub, Sigmund Freud, Mardi Horowitz, Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, Laurie Vickroy, Cathy Caruth, Peter Woods and Tim Middleton, the definition of the matrix includes: interpersonal trauma, prior history of emotional problems, no social support network, and self-perceived complicity in the violence. Where these criteria are present, the protagonist is incapable of achieving the repair of her damaged psyche in order to reintegrate into society and relief from the pain of trauma. In an effort to repair her brokeness through the incorporation of parts of the identity of others, the protagonist creates a grotesque mental hybrid living in fractured time. The protagonist experiences destabilization of time due to incorporating the temporal perspective of the other identities. A flawed survival strategy, identity incorporation leads to further psychic fragmentation.The psychological grotesque takes up the challenge of communicating the effects of trauma and addresses the lack of a literary interpretive mechanism for trauma literature in which a critical component of the narrative is the story of female victims of interpersonal violence. This framework confronts the fact that representations of women and trauma are problematic due to how trauma resists linguistic representation and because women have historically been denied a voice in the canon. Therefore, by drawing on elements of the grotesque, specifically hybridity and transgression, this interpretive framework recuperates the experiences of traumatized protagonists. / Department of English

During my years as a Cabinet Minister in New Zealand, the relationship between a Minister and his key officials was strongly modelled on the Westminster system as then applied in Britain. As in Britain, the ministers were the product of the political and parliamentary processes. The leader of the political party with the majority in the House was called upon by the Queen's representative (our Governor General) to form the new Government. All Ministerial appointees were necessarily chosen entirely from members then in Parliament. As in Britain, also, the key officials to serve each Minister in their portfolios were provided by the career Public Service, the long-serving body of officials who were there to advise and manage the system for successive governments. The Minister did not choose his departmental head, nor did that departmental head choose his minister. There were many assumptions inherited from the past which helped to make the relationship work. Policy decisions were shaped by the Minister representing the political side of the equation. Execution and management was carried out by the head official, responsible for the operation of the bureaucratic machine he headed. In explaining my thesis message - "Managing Change as a Minister of the Crown" - a very strong autobiographical dimension to my experience and comments is inevitable. In the political setting, the relationship between Minister and Head of Department, though a key factor, is but one of many. All change affects many people - some positively and beneficially, and some the reverse. The effects of change can be anticipated rather than actually felt. Perceptions can sometimes become bigger problems to manage than realised consequences. Change in politics invariably reaches out far beyond those obviously and directly affected. Handling change therefore involves making plans for how one can best point the change in a forward-looking and constructive way, and put a socially positive spin on one's efforts and the outcome. If one's efforts are done openly, and one's arguments are well founded, real progress can be made. One of life's constants is change itself. It affects us all in some measure. In communities categorized as "developed", it can be particularly fast and sweeping. This means, inevitably, that the forms of its infrastructures - from public services to business enterprises - which enable society and the economy to function effectively must adapt, and constructively, to those changes. From my experience, in facing a variety of problems calling for change in handling portfolio responsibilities, I have found every case is different from the others, and each solution had to be shaped to meet the characteristics of that particular case. The only common denominator I would call the "people factor". Compounding the challenge, that "people factor" had to be fashioned as appropriate for the personalities with whom I was working, and the characteristics of the problem being addressed. I did, however, find that there were some common fundamentals in the "people factor" which I address in my conclusion. They helped facilitate co-operation in managing change.

Issued also as thesis, Leipzig, under title: Kommunefreiheit und Gesellschaft, Arles 1200-1250. / Includes bibliographical references.

Les sources cunéiformes principalement de nature économique et administrative montrent que les femmes avaient un rôle très remarquable dans la vie économique en Mésopotamie au Ill' millénaire avant notre ère. Les femmes de différente strates sociales participaient d'une manière ou d'une autre dans la vie économique : les femmes proches du pouvoir ou autonomes qui géraient leurs propres ressources et maisonnées, ainsi que les femmes en bas de l'échelle sociale dépendantes des grands organismes et qui composait une abondante force de travail qui a largement été utilisée par les autorités. Les femmes de rang "normal" pouvaient exercer des activités productives telles que la production textile et la préparation des céréales, ou des activités à l'extérieur des maisonnées comme les travaux agricoles et les travaux de construction, elles pouvaient aussi exercer des métiers spécifiques comme la médecine. / Cuneiform sources, mainly of an economic and administrative nature, show that women had a very remarkable role in the economic life of Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. Women in different social strata participated in one way or another in economic life: women in power or autonomous who managed their own resources and households, as well as women at the bottom of the social depended of the large organizations, constituted an abundant labor force which was widely used by the authorities. Women from "normal" rank were able to engage in productive activities such as textile production and cereal processing, or activities outside households such as agricultural work and construction work, they could also be engaged in specific occupations such as Medicine.