No description available.

This thesis is a study of the subgroup structure of some remarkable groups of automorphisms of rooted trees. It is divided into two parts. The main result of the first part is seemingly of an algorithmic nature, establishing that the Gupta--Sidki 3-group G has solvable membership problem. This follows the approach of Grigorchuk and Wilson who showed the same result for the Grigorchuk group. The proof, however, is not algorithmic, and it moreover shows a striking subgroup property of G: that all its infinite finitely generated subgroups are abstractly commensurable with either G or G × G. This is then used to show that G is subgroup separable which, together with some nice presentability properties of G, implies that the membership problem is solvable. The proof of the main theorem is also used to show that G satisfies a "strong fractal" property, in that every infinite finitely generated subgroup acts like G on some rooted subtree. The second part concerns the subgroup structure of branch and weakly branch groups in general. Motivated by a natural question raised in the first part, a necessary condition for direct products of branch groups to be abstractly commensurable is obtained. From this condition it follows that the Gupta--Sidki 3-group is not abstractly commensurable with its direct square. The first main result in the second part states that any (weakly) branch action of a group on a rooted tree is determined by the subgroup structure of the group. This is then applied to answer a question of Bartholdi, Siegenthaler and Zalesskii, showing that the congruence subgroup property for branch and weakly branch groups is independent of the actions on a tree. Finally, the information obtained on subgroups of branch groups is used to examine which groups have an essentially unique branch action and why this holds.

Submitted by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-07-14T12:48:19Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Jean Carlo de Sousa e Silva - 2016.pdf: 1067779 bytes, checksum: b4f60747c4efb9967cd66d2dba3afc20 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-07-14T12:49:42Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Jean Carlo de Sousa e Silva - 2016.pdf: 1067779 bytes, checksum: b4f60747c4efb9967cd66d2dba3afc20 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-14T12:49:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Jean Carlo de Sousa e Silva - 2016.pdf: 1067779 bytes, checksum: b4f60747c4efb9967cd66d2dba3afc20 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-30 / The simple pendulums have oscillatory and periodic movements. Thus, if we analyze some of them with independent movements, they may again return to be in the same spot, if your periods are comensurávies. We present the basic concepts needed to understand this phenomenon. Ending with a hint of implementation. / Os pêndulos simples possuem movimentos oscilatórios e periódicos. Assim, se analisarmos alguns deles com movimentos independentes, eles poderão voltar a se encontrar no mesmo ponto se seus períodos forem comensurávies. Para isso apresentamos os conceitos básicos necessários para a compreensão desse fenômeno. Finalizando com uma sugestão de aplicação do mesmo.

Social discounting aims to compare the respective future consequences of differing courses of action for human well-being, and so to help decide on policies for matters as varied as climate change, transport and criminal justice. Social discounting is widely used, though some decisions are too trivial, or too urgent, for it to be justified. Even so, its pervasive use is at variance with scepticism about its moral foundations, and about whether the comparisons that it claims to make can be made at all. Debate has, however, concentrated on how, rather than on whether, social discounting should be done and the conditions upon which it must be based seem never to have been set out systematically. This thesis aims to fill that gap, by explaining the moral and practical conditions that must be met for social discounting to be justified. The conditions are demanding. It behoves policy makers to satisfy themselves more carefully than is now done that the conditions are met in respect of the decisions where use of social discounting is proposed, and to consider alternatives where one or more conditions is not met. The thesis takes for granted that human well-being counts morally. But social discounting requires that well-being is capable of being described through an objective list of desiderata and that some aspect of well-being is measurable, at least on a cardinal scale and inter-personally, implying commensurabilities amongst some of the things comprising or contributing to well-being. Some moral theories incorporate priorities, such as property rights or the interests of poor people. Priorities range from easy to meet to very difficult. Priorities of the latter type are inconsistent with social discounting, and are the basis for theories as varied as those of Nozick and Nussbaum. This thesis suggests that the theories consistent with social discounting may collectively be called ‘moderate welfarism’. Moderate welfarism allows room for priorities and other moral considerations provided only that the monetisable aspect of social well-being is morally important. Moderate welfarism is necessary but not sufficient for social discounting to be justifiable. Practical difficulties may make it incapable of implementation. One such difficulty is the well-known epistemic problem, but the thesis sets out nine such difficulties, each implying a condition that must be met if social discounting is to be capable of practical use. The thesis concludes that the moral and practical conditions that must be met for social discounting to be justified are demanding and, more speculatively, that some of the conditions are not widely understood leading to inappropriate use of the technique by governments.

Biodiversity losses are occurring at an unprecedented rate, with ongoing environmental degradation at the expense of expanding economic activities. A transformative change is needed away from business-as-usual development and towards prioritizing the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. For the effective governance of biodiversity, a well-designed mix of policy instruments are needed that are suited to the local context. This PhD project examines the social-ecological implications of policy instruments for biodiversity governance, with an emphasis on biodiversity offsets. Offsets are a policy instrument where actions are taken to compensate for negative impacts to biodiversity caused by developments. I discuss how such policy instruments must be carefully designed and implemented to ensure positive outcomes for people and biodiversity. In Paper I, I examined how biodiversity offset policies, which have been commonly misunderstood as a market-based mechanism, can be designed with various levels of involvement from market and state. I presented an ideal-typical typology based on the institutions from which biodiversity offsets are organised: Public Agency, Mandatory Market and Voluntary Offset. I identified the institutional arrangements of six offset policies using cross-case comparison and stakeholder mapping to analyse how the biodiversity losses and conservation measures are decided. Based on these results, I determined how the six policies relate to the ideal types. The results found that the government plays a key role not just in enforcing mandatory policies but also in controlling the supply and demand of biodiversity units, supervising the matching of biodiversity values or granting legitimacy to the offset. The paper concluded that commensurability of natural capital is restricted in offsets (biodiversity is always exchanged with biodiversity), while different degrees of commodification are possible depending on the policy design and role of price signals when trading credits. In Paper II, I examined the implementation gap of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) objectives and global biodiversity targets at a (sub)national level. I identified obstacles to achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and challenges faced in interpreting the CBD guidelines through a content analysis of biodiversity policy documents, participant observation as well as semi-structured interviews with experts at the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD. As compliance was found as a key challenge in the CBD, I presented insights for fostering the implementation and enforcement of biodiversity policies by drawing from concepts in international human rights law. In particular, I examined review mechanisms of human rights law and biodiversity agreements to determine the strategies used for compliance. The paper concluded that recognising the synergies between human rights and biodiversity can help strengthen review mechanisms for implementing the objectives of the CBD.The findings from Paper I provided a foundation for understanding the institutional design of national and local offset policies. In Paper II, I then broadened out to discuss the challenges faced in interpreting and implementing global biodiversity targets into national regulatory frameworks. Together, both papers analysed the institutional design and implementation of policy instruments, and examined their contributions to a transformation for the sustainable use of biodiversity.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2017-02-15T13:24:58Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação_Mestrado_FaniaCM.pdf: 2231632 bytes, checksum: bb26fa0342704fd41ad5ba76719deac0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-15T13:24:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação_Mestrado_FaniaCM.pdf: 2231632 bytes, checksum: bb26fa0342704fd41ad5ba76719deac0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-06-30 / FACEPE / Recentes progressos na fabrica¸c˜ao de nanoestruturas fornecem a possibilidade de produzir filmes finos que contenham defeitos artificiais como s´ıtios de aprisionamento com tamanho, geometria e disposi¸c˜ao espacial bem definidas. O estudo dessa introdu¸c˜ao de um arranjo regulardedefeitosemfilmesfinossupercondutoresdotipoIItemsidoativamentedesenvolvido desde o ponto de vista te´orico e experimental, por um lado pela riqueza de comportamentos est´aticos e dinˆamicos que apresenta e, por outro, pela compreens˜ao dos mecanismos para estabilizareancorararededev´orticescontraasfor¸casmotorasexternas. Umdosfenˆomenos mais not´aveis destes sistemas ´e chamado efeito matching, o qual ocorre quando o n´umero de v´ortices ´e um m´ultiplo inteiro do n´umero dos centros de aprisionamento, sendo observados picos na corrente cr´ıtica (resposta est´atica) ou atenua¸c˜oes na mobilidade dos v´ortices (resposta dinˆamica) nos valores de campo onde esta condi¸c˜ao ´e satisfeita. Nesses campos comensur´aveis, os v´ortices podem formar uma rede altamente ordenada onde as intera¸c˜oes v´ortice-v´ortice que reduzem o ancoramento efetivo s˜ao minimizadas. Usando simula¸c˜oes dedinˆamicamolecular,analisamosasconfigura¸c˜oesdosv´orticeseosefeitosdepinning artificialnadinˆamicadev´orticesemumfilmefinosupercondutordotipoII,comumadistribui¸c˜ao peri´odica de centros de pinning. A dinˆamica de v´ortices e suas configura¸c˜oes estruturais, foram simuladas usando o algoritmo de dinˆamica de Langevin. As intera¸c˜oes entre v´ortices foram modeladas dentro da aproxima¸c˜ao de London com condi¸c˜oes de contorno peri´odicas. Na parte inicial do estudo, calculamos as configura¸c˜oes de equil´ıbrio para a rede de v´ortices, encontrando resultados similares aos estudados em trabalhos anteriores. Inclusive, observamos em nossas simula¸c˜oes que o n´umero de satura¸c˜ao dos centros de ancoragem, i.e. o n´umero m´aximo de v´ortices aprisionados por cada centro, ´e fun¸c˜ao do campo externo. de aprisionamento. Esse estudo revela que os tipos de comensurabilidades encontradas nesse problema dinˆamico s˜ao, em geral, diferentes daqueles encontrados no problema est´atico. Portanto, a pr´atica usual na literatura de se inferir sobre as configura¸c˜oes est´aticas dos v´ortices a partir de medidas de magnetorresistˆencia deve ser revista. / Recent progress in manufacturing of nanostructures provides the possibility to produce thin films containing artificial defects as pinning sites with well-defined size, geometry and spatial arrangement. The study of the introduction of a regular arrangement of defects in type II superconducting thinfilmshasbeenactivelydevelopedfromatheoreticalandexperimentalpointofview,ononeside due to the richness of static and dynamic behaviors that it presents and, second, by understanding themechanismstostabilizeandanchorthenetworkofvorticesagainstexternaldrivingforces. One ofthemostremarkablephenomenaofthesesystemsiscalledmatching effectwhichoccurswhenthe number of vortices is a multiple integer of the number of pinning centers, with peaks observed in the cr´ıtical current (static response) or the attenuation of the vortices mobility (dynamic response) values in field where this condition is satisfied. These measurable fields, the vortices can form a highly ordered network where the vortex-vortex interactions that reduce the effective anchoring are minimized. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we analyzed the settings of the vortices and the effects of artificial pinning at the dynamics of vortices in a type II superconducting thin film with a periodic distribution of pinning centers. The dynamics of vortices and their structural configurations were simulated using the Langevin dynamics algorithm. hm. The interactions between vortices were modeled using London’s approach with periodic boundary conditions. In the early part of the study, we calculated the balance settings for the vortex network, finding results similar to those studied in previous works. In fact, we observed in our simulations that the number of saturation of the anchoring centers, i.e. the maximum number of vortices trapped by each center, is a function of the external field. This result had already been predicted in calculations performed within the Ginzburg-Landau formalism. Here, we show that the same effect can be reproduced at the London scheme. In the second part of the study, we analyzed the dynamics when an external force is applied in the longitudinal direction relative to the symmetry of the network of traps. We show that this system displays dynamic commensurability effects when the settings of the vortices coincide with the periodicity of the arrangement, through the magnetoresistance curves that have a number of features in the different fields of matching. Certain field values, it falls in tension are absent due to the particular configuration of vortices and the interaction between interstitial vortices with the vortices occupying the pinning centers. This study shows that the types of measurability found in this dynamic problem are generally different from those found in the static problem. Therefore, the usual practice in the literature to infer the static settings of vortices from magnetoresistance measures should be reviewed.

The main problem posed in this thesis is an epistemological one to do with what counts as knowledge in the organisation/management and management accounting areas of scholarship. This question arose regarding discrepancies between an original text, Burns and Stalker's The Management of Innovation (1961, 1966, 1994), and longstanding representations in the mainstream literature. The discrepancies were between the largely objectivist representations focussing on the relationship between organisation structure and environmental contingency, while omitting subjectivist factors and organisational processes, also significant in Burns and Stalker's analysis. The analysis in this thesis is concerned with two main questions: the similarities and differences between The Management of Innovation and mainstream representations; and explanations for these, particularly for the differences. The analytical framework is critical realist theory underpinned by an Hegelian dialectical methodology, looking at phenomena from different perspectives with inconsistencies addressed by a more holistic analysis. This thesis is based on a non-linear, multi-angled approach, which examines each of the two questions from different perspectives through two dialectical circles. A detailed analysis of Burns and Stalker's work and mainstream representations enabled clarity regarding the different foci in the two sets of texts. The absenting of human factors and organisational processes in much mainstream scholarship was found to extend beyond representations of Burns and Stalker's work to orthodox scholarship more widely, despite strong and persistent critiques from within the field. The dialectical opposition constructed between objectivist and subjectivist factors was investigated further and linked to attitudes regarding the commensurability of different approaches in the social sciences, particularly in the organisation/management and management accounting fields. It is suggested that this opposition is based on a particular view of science and scientific method. A broader interpretation however shows that science is also influenced by researchers' subjectivities. This has led to an argument for the complementary, more holistic approaches already present in the field becoming more widespread in the interests of more sustainable and emancipatory knowledge.

La connaissance, parce qu'elle est le résultat de l'interprétation par un individu d'une information, ne peut pas toujours être manipulée comme un objet. C'est en filtrant au travers de nos schémas d'interprétation les informations qui nous parviennent que nous créons des connaissances. La commensurabilité des schémas d'interprétation est un concept abstrait se basant sur une règle assez floue : plus il est probable que la même information prenne le même sens pour plusieurs individus, plus leurs schémas d'interprétation sont commensurables ; moins il est probable que la même information prenne le même sens pour plusieurs individus, moins leurs schémas d'interprétation sont commensurables. L'objet de cette thèse est de proposer des approches pour déterminer dans quelle mesure deux individus donnent le même sens à la même information. / Knowledge resulting of the interpretation by an individual of information, it cannot always be handled as an object. Indeed, we create knowledge when filtering information through ours interpretative frameworks. The commensurability of interpretative frameworks is an abstract concept, relying on a quite unclear rule: higher is the probability that the same information will have the same meaning for several people, more commensurable are their interpretative frameworks ; lower is that probability, less commensurable are their interpretative frameworks. The purpose of this thesis is to propose approaches in order to determine to what extent two individuals will give the same meaning to the same information.

The master thesis is focused on analysis of data comparability and commensurability in datasets, which are used for obtaining knowledge using methods of data mining. Data comparability is one of aspects of data quality, which is crucial for correct and applicable results from data mining tasks. The aim of the theoretical part of the thesis is to briefly describe the field of knowledqe discovery and define specifics of mining of aggregated data. Moreover, the terms of comparability and commensurability is discussed. The main part is focused on process of knowledge discovery. These findings are applied in practical part of the thesis. The main goal of this part is to define general methodology, which can be used for discovery of potential problems of data comparability in analyzed data. This methodology is based on analysis of real dataset containing daily sales of products. In conclusion, the methodology is applied on data from the field of public budgets.

No description available.