Le commerce équitable entend instaurer des relations marchandes plus justes, par l’établissement d’un prix considéré comme juste. En promouvant des échanges équitables, entre des agents économiques ayant un désir de justice, et qui se situent dans des pays différents, le commerce équitable donne à voir la nécessité d’une nouvelle réflexion sur les questions de justice et d’équité. Il révèle l’intérêt d’une théorie de la justice commutative, la justice dans l’échange, alors que dominent les théories de la justice distributive. Grâce au commerce équitable, nous montrons que les théories néoclassique, institutionnaliste et rawlsienne de la justice confondent fréquemment justice avec ajustement, justesse, compassion ou équité, et basculent vers des théories politiques de la justice. Le commerce équitable réactualise la pertinence de la distinction aristotélicienne entre bonne et mauvaise économie, mais il dévoile surtout le fait que la bonne économie est encore possible et vivace, et n’a pas totalement disparu sous la mauvaise chrématistique. Les agents économiques ont un goût pour la justice et ont le désir de « bien » échanger. C’est parce que le commerce équitable entend réhabiliter la possibilité d’une économie à l’abri de la mauvaise chrématistique, inscrite dans un aristotélisme pratique, qu’il nous donne à voir la nécessité d’une théorie de la justice dans l’échange économique et qu’il rejoint in fine les réflexions sur le perfectionnisme moral. / Fair trade aims at creating fairer market relationships, by establishing what is considered to be the just price. By promoting exchanges on an equitable basis, through international partnerships grounded in a desire for justice, fair trade highlights the need for new thinking on the notions of justice and equity. In a world dominated by the theories of distributive justice, it shows the interest of a theory of commutative justice, of justice in the exchange. Fair trade enables us to demonstrate that neoclassical, institutionalist and Rawlsian theories of justice often fail to distinguish between justice and adjustment, accuracy, compassion and equity, and drift towards political theories of justice. Fair trade shows that the Aristotelian distinction between a good and a bad economy is still relevant, but more importantly it reveals the fact that the good economy is enduring, and has not completely disappeared under bad chrematistic. Economic agents have a taste for justice, for a “good” exchange. Because fair trade seeks to restore the possibility of an economy preserved from bad chrematistic and framed in practical Aristotelianism, it shows us the necessity for a theory of justice in economic exchanges and ultimately leads us to consider the notion of moral perfectionism.

Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à la géométrie non-commutative - aux triplets spectraux en particulier - comme moyen d'unifier gravitation et modèle standard de la physique des particules. Des triplets spectraux permettant une telle unification on déjà été construits dans le cas des variétés riemanniennes. Il s'agit donc ici de généraliser au cas des variétés semi-riemanniennes, et d'appliquer ensuite au cas lorentzien, qui est d'une importance particulière en physique. C'est ce que nous faisons dans la première partie de la thèse, ou le passage du cas riemannien au cas semi-riemannien nous oblige à nous intéresser à des espaces vectoriels de signatures indéfinies (et non définies positives), dits espaces de Krein. Ceci est une conséquence de notre étude des algèbres de Clifford indéfinies et des structures Spin sur variétés semi-riemanniennes. Nous généralisons ensuite les triplets spectraux en triplets dits indéfinis en conséquence de cela. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, nous appliquons le formalisme des formes différentielles non-commutatives à nos triplets indéfinis pour formuler des théories de jauge non-commutatives sur espace-temps lorentzien. Nous montrons ensuite comment obtenir le modèle standard. / The subject of this thesis is noncommutative geometry - more specifically spectral triples - and how it can be used to unify General Relativity with the Standard Model of particle physics. This unification has already been achieved with spectral triples for Riemannian manifolds. The main concern of this thesis is to generalize this construction to semi-Riemannian manifolds generally, and Lorentzian manifolds in particular. The first half of this thesis will thus be dedicated to the transition from Riemannian to semi-Riemannian manifolds. This entails a study of Clifford algebras for indefinite vector spaces and Spin structures on semi-Riemannian manifolds. An important consequence of this is the introduction of complex vector spaces of indefinite signature. These are the so-called Krein spaces, which will enable us to generalize spectral triples to indefinite spectral triples. In the second half of this thesis, we will apply the formalism of noncommutative differential forms to indefinite spectral triples to construct noncommutative gauge theories on Lorentzian spacetimes. We will then demonstrate how to recover the Standard Model.

This thesis deals with toric ideals associated with finite simple graphs. In particular we establish some results pertaining to the nature of the generators and syzygies of toric ideals associated with finite simple graphs. The first result dealt with in this thesis expands upon work by Favacchio, Hofscheier, Keiper, and Van Tuyl which states that for G, a graph obtained by "gluing" a graph H1 to a graph H2 along an induced subgraph, we can obtain the toric ideal associated to G from the toric ideals associated to H1 and H2 by taking their sum as ideals in the larger ring and saturating by a particular monomial f. Our contribution is to sharpen the result and show that instead of a saturation by f, we need only examine the colon ideal with f^2. The second result treated by this thesis pertains to graded Betti numbers of toric ideals of complete bipartite graphs. We show that by counting specific subgraphs one can explicitly compute a minimal set of generators for the corresponding toric ideals as well as minimal generating sets for the first two syzygy modules. Additionally we provide formulas for some of the graded Betti numbers. The final topic treated pertains to a relationship between the fundamental group the finite simple graph G and the associated toric ideal to G. It was shown by Villareal as well as Hibi and Ohsugi that the generators of a toric ideal associated to a finite simple graph correspond to the closed even walks of the graph G, thus linking algebraic properties to combinatorial ones. Therefore it is a natural question whether there is a relationship between the toric ideal associated to the graph G and the fundamental group of the graph G. We show, under the assumption that G is a bipartite graph with some additional assumptions, one can conceive of the set of binomials in the toric ideal with coprime terms, B(IG), as a group with an appropriately chosen operation ⋆ and establish a group isomorphism (B(IG), ⋆) ∼= π1(G)/H where H is a normal subgroup. We exploit this relationship further to obtain information about the generators of IG as well as bounds on the Betti numbers. We are also able to characterise all regular sequences and hence compute the depth of the toric ideal of G. We also use the framework to prove that IG = (⟨G⟩ : (e1 · · · em)^∞) where G is a set of binomials which correspond to a generating set of π1(G). / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The nite size of nucleons should play an important role in the description of high density nuclear matter as found in astro-physical objects. Yet we see that the Walecka model, which is generally used to describe these systems, treats the nucleons as point particles. Here we argue that a non-commutative version of the Walecka model may be a consistent and appropriate framework to describe nite nucleon size e ects. In this framework the length scale introduced through the non-commutative parameter plays the role of the nite nucleon size. To investigate the consequences of this description, the equations of motion and energy-momentum tensor for the non-commutative Walecka model are derived. We also derived an expression for the total energy of the system, as a function of the non-commutative parameter, in a spatially non-uniform matter approximation. The non-commutative parameter, as a variable dependent on the dynamics of the system, remains to be solved self-consistently. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die eindige grootte van nukleone moet 'n belangrike rol speel in die beskrywing van ho e-digtheid kern materie soos gevind in astro- siese voorwerpe. Tog sien ons dat die Walecka model, wat in die algemeen gebruik word om hierdie stelsels te beskryf, die nukleone as punt deeltjies hanteer. Ons redeneer dus dat 'n nie-kommutatiewe weergawe van die Walecka model 'n konsistente en gepaste raamwerk is om die e ekte van eindige nukleon grootte te beskryf. In hierdie raamwerk speel die lengte-skaal wat ingevoer word deur die nie-kommutatiewe parameter die rol van eindige grootte vir nukleone. Om die gevolge van hierdie beskrywing te ondersoek, word die vergelykings van beweging en die energie-momentum tensor afgelei vir die nie-kommutatiewe Walecka model. Ons het ook 'n uitdrukking vir die totale energie van die stelsel, as 'n funksie van die niekommutatiewe parameter, afgelei in 'n ruimtelik nie-uniforme materie benadering. Die niekommutatiewe parameter, as 'n veranderlike afhanklik van die dinamika van die stelsel, bly steeds om self-konsistent opgelos te word.

Thesis (MSc (Physics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Due to the minimal length scale induced by non-commuting co-ordinates, it is not clear a priori what is meant by a position measurement on a non-commutative space. It was shown recently in a paper by Scholtz et al. that it is indeed possible to recover the notion of quantum mechanical position measurements consistently on the non-commutative plane. To do this, it is necessary to introduce weak (non-projective) measurements, formulated in terms of Positive Operator-Valued Measures (POVMs). In this thesis we shall demonstrate, however, that a measurement of position alone in non-commutative space cannot yield complete information about the quantum state of a particle. Indeed, the aforementioned formalism entails a description that is non-local in that it requires knowledge of all orders of positional derivatives through the star product that is used ubiquitously to map operator multiplication onto function multiplication in non-commutative systems. It will be shown that there exist several equivalent local descriptions, which are arrived at via the introduction of additional degrees of freedom. Consequently non-commutative quantum mechanical position measurements necessarily confront us with some additional structure which is necessary (in addition to position) to specify quantum states completely. The remainder of the thesis, based in part on a recent publication (\Noncommutative quantum mechanics { a perspective on structure and spatial extent", C.M. Rohwer, K.G. Zloshchastiev, L. Gouba and F.G. Scholtz, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 (2010) 345302) will involve investigations into the physical interpretation of these additional degrees of freedom. For one particular local formulation, the corresponding classical theory will be used to demonstrate that the concept of extended, structured objects emerges quite naturally and unavoidably there. This description will be shown to be equivalent to one describing a two-charge harmonically interacting composite in a strong magnetic eld found by Susskind. It will be argued through various applications that these notions also extend naturally to the quantum level, and constraints will be shown to arise there. A further local formulation will be introduced, where the natural interpretation is that of objects located at a point with a certain angular momentum about that point. This again enforces the idea of particles that are not point-like. Both local descriptions are convenient, in that they make explicit the additional structure which is encoded more subtly in the non-local description. Lastly we shall argue that the additional degrees of freedom introduced by local descriptions may also be thought of as gauge degrees of freedom in a gauge-invariant formulation of the theory. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: As gevolg van die minimum lengteskaal wat deur nie-kommuterende ko ordinate ge nduseer word is dit nie a priori duidelik wat met 'n posisiemeting op 'n nie-kommutatiewe ruimte bedoel word nie. Dit is onlangs in 'n artikel deur Scholtz et al. getoon dat dit wel op 'n nie-kommutatiewe vlak moontlik is om die begrip van kwantummeganiese posisiemetings te herwin. Vir hierdie doel benodig ons die konsep van swak (nie-projektiewe) metings wat in terme van 'n positief operator-waardige maat geformuleer word. In hierdie tesis sal ons egter toon dat 'n meting van slegs die posisie nie volledige inligting oor die kwantumtoestand van 'n deeltjie in 'n niekommutatiewe ruimte lewer nie. Ons formalisme behels 'n nie-lokale beskrywing waarbinne kennis oor alle ordes van posisieafgeleides in die sogenaamde sterproduk bevat word. Die sterproduk is 'n welbekende konstruksie waardeur operatorvermenigvuldiging op funksievermenigvuldiging afgebeeld kan word. Ons sal toon dat verskeie ekwivalente lokale beskrywings bestaan wat volg uit die invoer van bykomende vryheidsgrade. Dit beteken dat nie-kommutatiewe posisiemetings op 'n natuurlike wyse die nodigheid van bykomende strukture uitwys wat noodsaaklik is om die kwantumtoestand van 'n sisteem volledig te beskryf. Die res van die tesis, wat gedeeltelik op 'n onlangse publikasie (\Noncommutative quantum mechanics { a perspective on structure and spatial extent", C.M. Rohwer, K.G. Zloshchastiev, L. Gouba and F.G. Scholtz, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 (2010) 345302) gebaseer is, behels 'n ondersoek na die siese interpretasie van hierdie bykomende strukture. Ons sal toon dat vir 'n spesi eke lokale formulering die beeld van objekte met struktuur op 'n natuurlike wyse in die ooreenstemmende klassieke teorie na vore kom. Hierdie beskrywing is inderdaad ekwivalent aan die van Susskind wat twee gelaaide deeltjies, gekoppel deur 'n harmoniese interaksie, in 'n sterk magneetveld behels. Met behulp van verskeie toepassings sal ons toon dat hierdie interpretasie op 'n natuurlike wyse na die kwantummeganiese konteks vertaal waar sekere dwangvoorwaardes na vore kom. 'n Tweede lokale beskrywing in terme van objekte wat by 'n sekere punt met 'n vaste hoekmomentum gelokaliseer is sal ook ondersoek word. Binne hierdie konteks sal ons weer deur die begrip van addisionele struktuur gekonfronteer word. Beide lokale beskrywings is gerie ik omdat hulle hierdie bykomende strukture eksplisiet maak, terwyl dit in die nie-lokale beskrywing deur die sterproduk versteek word. Laastens sal ons toon dat die bykomende vryheidsgrade in lokale beskrywings ook as ykvryheidsgrade van 'n ykinvariante formulering van die teorie beskou kan word.

Thesis (PhD (Physics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is threefold. Firstly, I give an overview of non-commutative quan- tum mechanics and build up a description of non-commutative piecewise constant poten- tial wells in this context. Secondly, I look at some of the stationary properties of a finite non-commutative well using the mathematical tools laid out in the first part. Lastly, I in- vestigate how non-commutativity affects the tunneling rate through a barrier. Throughout this work I give the normal commutative descriptions and results for comparsion. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van hierdie tesis is drievoudig. Eerstens gee ek ’n oorsig van niekommutatiewe kwantummeganika en bou daarmee ’n beskrywing van niekommutatiewe deelswyskon- stante potensiaal putte op. Tweedens kyk ek na ’n paar van die stasionˆere eienskappe van ’n eindige niekommutatiewe potensiaal put deur die wiskunde te gebruik wat in die eerste deel uiteengesit is. Laastens ondersoek ek hoe niekommutatiwiteit die spoed van tonneling deur ’n potensiaal wal be¨ınvloed. Dwarsdeur die hierdie hele tesis gee ek die normale kommutatiewe beskrywings en resultate vir maklike vergelyking.

An artinian standard graded algebra has the weak Lefschetz property if the multiplication by a general linear form induces maps of maximal rank between consecutive degree components. It has the strong Lefschetz property if the multiplication by powers of a general linear form also induce maps of maximal rank between the appropriate degree components. These properties are mainly studied for the constraints they place, when present, on the Hilbert series of the algebra. While the majority of research on the Lefschetz properties has focused on characteristic zero, we primarily consider the presence of the properties in positive characteristic. We study the Lefschetz properties by considering the prime divisors of determinants of critical maps. First, we consider monomial complete intersections in a finite number of variables. We provide two complements to a result of Stanley. We next consider monomial almost complete intersections in three variables. We connect the characteristics in which the weak Lefschetz property fails with the prime divisors of the signed enumeration of lozenge tilings of a punctured hexagon. Last, we study how perturbations of a family of monomial algebras can change or preserve the presence of the Lefschetz properties. In particular, we introduce a new strategy for perturbations rooted in techniques from algebraic geometry.

In this dissertation we will look at properties of two different posets from different perspectives. The first poset is the Rees product of the face lattice of the n-cube with the chain. Specifically we study the Möbius function of this poset. Our proof techniques include straightforward enumeration and a bijection between a set of labeled augmented skew diagrams and barred signed permutations which label the maximal chains of this poset. Because the Rees product of this poset is Cohen-Macaulay, we find a basis for the top homology group and a representation of the top homology group over the symmetric group both indexed by the set of labeled augmented skew diagrams. We also show that the Möbius function of the Rees product of a graded poset with the t-ary tree and the Rees product of its dual with the t-ary tree coincide. We discuss labelings for Rees and Segre products in general, particularly the Rees product of the face lattice of a polytope with the chain. We also look at cases where the Möbius function of a poset is equal to the permanent of a matrix and we consider local h-vectors for the barycentric subdivision of the n-cube. In each section we state open conjectures. The second poset in this dissertation is the Dowling lattice. In particular we look at the k = 1 case, that is, the partition lattice. We study inequalities on the flag vector of the partition lattice via a weighted boustrophedon transform and determine a more generalized version for the Dowling lattice. We generalize a determinantal formula of Niven and conclude with conjectures and avenues of study.

Si G est un groupe de Lie connexe, l'anneau de représentations de Kasparov, KK^G(C,C) contient un élément particulièrement important---l'élément gamma---qui établit un lien entre l'anneau de représentations de Kasparov de G et l'anneau de représentations de son sous-groupe compacte maximal K. Dans les preuves de la conjecture de Baum-Connes avec coefficients pour les groupes G=SO(n,1) [Kasparov] et G=SU(n,1) [Julg-Kasparov], une partie fondamentale est la construction explicite de l'élément gamma comme élément de la K-homologie G-équivariante pour l'espace G/B, où B est le sous-groupe de Borel de G. Dans cette thèse, nous décrirons des constructions analytique qui peuvent être utiles pour telle construction de gamma pour le groupe de Lie de rang deux G=SL(3,C). L'inspiration est le complexe de Bernstein-Gel'fand-Gel'fand---un complexe différentiel naturel de fibrés homogènes sur G/B. Les raisons de considérer ce complexe sont expliquées en détails. Pour G=SL(3,C), l'espace G/B admet deux fibrations canoniques, qui réapparaît souvent dans l'analyse suivante. La géométrie locale de G/B se comporte comme la géométrie du groupe de Heisenberg en dimension trois, noté H. Donc, nous étudions l'algèbre d'opérateurs différentiels sur H. Nous définissons une famille à deux paramètres d'espaces de Sobolev H^(m,n)(H), en utilisant les deux fibrations de G/B. Nous introduisons les opérateurs laplaciens longitudinaux $\Delta_X$ et $\Delta_Y$. Nous montrons que ces opérateurs satisfont une condition d'ellipticité longitudinal par rapport aux espaces H^(m,n)(H) pour quelques valeurs (m,n), mais par contre nous donnons un contre-exemple à cette propriété pour un autre choix de (m,n). Ce contre-exemple est un obstacle de taille pour une approche pseudodifférentielle à l'element gamma de SL(3,C). Au lieu de cela, nous considérons l'analyse harmonique du sous-groupe compacte K=SU(3). En utilisant la théorie spectrale des opérateurs laplaciens longitudinaux K-invariants sur G/B, nous construisons une C*-catégorie $\mathcal{A}$ et des idéaux $\mathcal{K}_X$ et $\mathcal{K}_Y$ liés aux fibrations canoniques. Nous expliquons pourquoi celles-là sont les structures prometteuses pour la construction de l'élément gamma.

In this thesis, we use martingales to show that the dilation of a sequence of monotone convolutions $D_\frac{1}{b_n} (\mu_1 \triangleright \mu_2 \triangleright \cdots \triangleright \mu_n)$ is stable, where $\mu_j$ are probability distributions with the condition $\sum \limits_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{b_n} \text{var}(\mu_n) < \infty$. This proves a law of large numbers for monotonically independent random variables.