Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1979. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Daniel U. Friedman. / M.S.

This thesis employs Bourdieu's theory of practice to explore small immigrant business owners' adaptation to the host country's income tax system. In doing this, the thesis applies a sociological perspective in the theorizing and study of their tax compliance behaviour. Drawing on a survey (N=101) and in-depth interviews (N=27) with Bangladeshi family business owners and their tax advisers in the UK, this thesis demonstrates that immigrant business owners' engagement with the host country's tax system is grounded in the sociocultural status they inherit from their country of origin, even though their social class positions in the new society unconsciously condition and impact on how they practise tax compliance. Findings suggest that the power relations inherent in the tax professional-taxpayer relationship act as a critical factor in the reproduction and transformation of immigrant business owners' moral disposition towards compliance with tax laws. The thesis argues that the ways small Bangladeshi family business owners think, feel and act in their approach to tax compliance is likely to differ not only from those of native business communities but also from those of other immigrant communities in the UK.

Graph Isomorphism is one of the very few classical problems in NP of unsettled complexity status. The families of highly regular structures, for example Steiner 2-designs, strongly regular graphs and primitive coherent configurations, have been perceived as difficult cases for graph isomorphism. These highly regular structures arise naturally as obstacles for both the classical group theory and combinatorial approaches for the graph isomorphism problem. In this thesis we investigate the isomorphism problem of highly regular structures. We present new results to understand the combinatorial structure of highly regular structures, and propose some new algorithms to compute the canonical forms (and thus isomorphism testing) of highly regular structures based on the structural theorems. We also give an algorithm solving the isomorphism problem of two unknown graphs in the property testing setting. Our new algorithm has sample complexity matching the information theoretical lower bound up to some multiplicative subpolynomial factor.

O objetivo geral do trabalho foi o de produzir reflexões/proposições teóricas que possam auxiliar os estudos geográficos do clima, segundo o plano conceitual da complexidade sistêmica. Acreditar que a associação crítica e inventiva de pressupostos sistêmicos contemporâneos, envolvendo os aspectos ôntico-epistêmicos do pensamento complexo, às idéias de MONTEIRO sobre clima e o ritmo climático, poderia gerar especulações científicas inovadoras e eficazes a respeito da complexidade das relações climáticas, da natureza complexa da poíeses do clima, compôs a motivação especifica que nos moveu a desenvolvêlo. Tem o clima realmente uma existência per se? E se tem, qual o fundamento teórico/epistemológico da ontologia/poiésis climática? A partir de quais paradigmas se processa a fenomenologia do ritmo climático? Dos tipos de tempo? E do próprio clima? Seriam o clima e os tipos de tempo unidades complexas? Emergências? E ainda, no contexto do pensamento sistêmico complexo, como são considerados conceitos/enunciados como ?hierarquia limática?, ?organização funcional do clima?, o clima como ?a série dos estados da atmosfera em sua sucessão habitual?? Essas são as principais indagações que constituem o nosso fio da meada, por onde permeiam nossas revisitações filosóficas e flui o desenvolvimento de nossas reflexões teóricas mais exclusivas na busca pela compreensão dos fundamentos conceituais da poiésis climática. / The aim of this work was produce theoretical reflections and propositions that could assist the geographic studies on climate, aligned with the conceptual plan of the systematic complexity. To believe that the critic and inventive association of contemporary systemic premises, involving ontological/epistemic aspects of complex thinking, and the MONTEIRO\'S ideas about climate and climatic rhythm could generate innovative and effective scientific speculations with reference to the complexity of the climatic relationships, complex nature of climate poiésis, was the specific motivation to develop this work. Does the climate have a per se existence, actually? If it has, what is the theoretical/epistemological foundation of the climatic ontology/poiésis? Which paradigms support the climatic rhythm phenomena occurrence? And weather types? And the climate itself? Should be the climate and the varieties of weather, complex units? Emergencies? And again, in the context of the complex systemic thinking, how they are considered conceptions/enunciations like \"climatic hierarchy\", \"functional organization of the climate\"?, the climate as the sequence of the atmosphere states in its habitual succession? These are the mains questions which constitutes the line that guides the philosophic new readings and where the development of the most exclusive theoretical reflections flows.

No presente trabalho, estudamos e desenvolvemos algoritmos com análise de complexidade de avaliação de pior caso para problemas de programação não linear. Para minimização irrestrita, estabelecemos dois algoritmos semelhantes que exploram modelos de ordem superior com estratégia de regularização. Propusemos uma implementação computacional que preserva as boas propriedades teóricas de complexidade, e fizemos experimentos numéricas com problemas clássicos da literatura, a fim de atestar a implementação e avaliar a aplicabilidade de métodos que empreguem modelos de ordem superior. Para minimização com restrições, estabelecemos um algoritmo de duas fases que converge a pontos que satisfazem condições de otimalidade de primeira ordem não escaladas para o problema de programação não linear. / In the present work, we have studied and developed algorithms with worst-case evaluation complexity analysis for nonlinear programming problems. For the unconstrained optimization case, we have established two similar algorithms that explore high-order regularization models. We have proposed a computational implementation that preserves the good properties of the evaluation complexity theory, and we made numerical experiments with classical problems from the literature, in order to check the implementation and certify the practical applicability of methods that employ high-order models. For the constrained optimization case, we have established a two phases algorithm that converges to points that meet the unscaled first-order optimality condition for the nonlinear programming problem.

O presente trabalho discute o potencial da narrativa no processo de construção do conhecimento, sobretudo do conhecimento histórico. O caráter narrativista da História demonstra que desde sua origem o conhecimento histórico já estava associado à ideia de narrativa e os desdobramentos dessa associação são aqui discutidos. Tendo como princípio que o processo de construção do conhecimento se efetiva dentro de uma rede de relações, a presente dissertação analisa de que modo o saber narrativo pode contribuir para redimensionar o conhecimento sobre o passado a fim de que esse conhecimento possa fazer sentido na vida dos sujeitos. Ancorado na teoria da complexidade, no paradigma indiciário e na ideia de rede do conhecimento, busca-se discutir as relações entre o saber narrativo e a educação, destacando alguns estudos realizados nessa área, sobretudo, os do psicólogo norte-americano Jerome Bruner, que analisa a narrativa sob o aspecto do desenvolvimento cognitivo e discute o papel que ela assumiu na evolução da cultura humana. Como exercício de reflexão sobre o papel da narrativa na construção do conhecimento, o filme Narradores de Javé (2003) é aqui utilizado. / This paper discusses the potential of narrative in the process of knowledge construction, especially of historical knowledge. The narrativist character of history shows that from its origin the historical knowledge was already associated with the idea of narrative and the consequences of this association are discussed here. Based on the principle that the process of knowledge construction is effective within a network of relationships, this dissertation examines how narrative knowledge can contribute to resize the knowledge about the past so that this knowledge may make sense in peoples lives. Anchored on complexity theory, on the evidential paradigm and on the idea of knowledge network we seek to understand the relationships between narrative knowledge and education, highlighting some studies in this area, especially those of the American psychologist Jerome Bruner, who analyzes the narrative from the standpoint of cognitive development and discusses the role it has assumed in the evolution of human culture. As an exercise of reflection on the role of narrative in the construction of knowledge the movie Narradores de Javé (2003) is used here.

Ce travail doctoral propose une analyse de la standardisation des systèmes d’information (SI) au sein d’un groupe bancaire de dimension internationale. L’objectif est d’apporter des éléments de réponses à la problématique suivante : quels sont les principes de déploiement et les impacts d’une stratégie de standardisation des SI bancaires ? L’étude du cas du Crédit Agricole et dix-huit de ses filiales nous permet d’interpréter cette stratégie de standardisation des systèmes d’information comme un phénomène complexe et non linéaire. Les filiales étant autonomes juridiquement et opérationnellement, la démarche étudiée consiste à analyser le déploiement (gouvernance des SI, phénomènes d’isomorphisme), les conséquences organisationnelles entre la maison-mère et les filiales (apprentissage, routines organisationnelles) mais également les gains stratégiques attendus au niveau du groupe dans sa globalité (économies, interopérabilité, innovation). Au final, si cette stratégie se présente à première vue sous une forme d’impacts organisationnels simples, nous démontrons au travers de cette recherche que la standardisation des SI bancaires est une articulation bouclée complexe entre les niveaux de la stratégie, de la politique de standardisation et de l’organisation quotidienne. Nous montrons que cette complexité peut se gérer. / This doctoral work proposes an analysis of the standardization of information systems within an international banking group. The objective is to provide elements of answers to the following problematic: what are the principles of deployment and the impacts of a strategy of standardization of banking IS? The case study of Credit Agricole and eighteen of its subsidiaries allows us to interpret this strategy of information systems standardization as a complex and non-linear phenomenon. Since the subsidiaries are legally and operationally autonomous, the approach studied consists in analyzing the deployment (IS governance, isomorphism phenomenon), the organizational consequences between the parent company and the subsidiaries (learning, organizational routines) but also expected strategic gains at the the group as a whole (savings, interoperability, innovation). In the end, if this strategy appears at first glance in a form of simple organizational impacts, we demonstrate through this research that the standardization of banking IS is a complex looped articulation between the levels of the strategy, the standardization policy and the daily organization. We show that this complexity can be managed.

A moeda fiduciária permitiu o surgimento da política monetária e esta vêm ganhando cada vez mais destaque entre as ferramentas e políticas econômicas. Porém, não existe consenso no meio acadêmico sobre a influência da política monetária à economia, alguns acreditam que ela apenas resulta em variações nominais e outros que ela pode afetar fatores reais da economia. Diversas pesquisas feitas comprovam, ao menos no curto prazo, a existência do chamado ajuste nominal incompleto, onde choques monetários afetam os valores reais dos agregados econômicos. Porém, quais são os custos e externalidades que advem desta rigidez de preços? Tentando oferecer novas respostas a esta questão, remontamos o reconhecido modelo de Ball e Romer (1989) sob a perspectiva da complexidade e dos modelos computacionais baseados em agentes. Os resultados encontrados nesta nova perspectiva foram muito diferentes dos resultados encontrados no modelo original, com a possibilidades de vantagens e externalidades positivas da rigidez, inserção de problemas distribuitivos, valores mais significativos de custos privados e sociais vinculados à rigidez, tudo isso devido à heterogeneidade presente no modelo computacional. / The fiduciary money allowed the emergence of monetary policy, that are gaining more prominence among the economic tools and policies. However, there is no consensus in the academy about the influence of the monetary policy in the economy, some believe it results in only nominal changes, others that it can affect real factors of the economy. Several researches show, at least in the short term, the existence of so-called incomplete nominal adjustment, where monetary shocks affect the real values of economic aggregates. But which are the costs and externalities that come from this price rigidity? Trying to provide new answers to this question, we reassembled the recognized model of Ball and Romer (1989) from the perspective of complexity and computational agent-based models. The new results are very different from the findings of the original model, with the potential benefits and positive externalities from rigidity, insertion of distributive problems, more significant amounts of private and social costs related to rigidity, all because of the heterogeneity inserted by the computational model.

A homomorphism from a graph G to a graph H is a function from V (G) to V (H) that preserves edges. Many combinatorial structures that arise in mathematics and in computer science can be represented naturally as graph homomorphisms and as weighted sums of graph homomorphisms. In this thesis we study the complexity of various problems related to graph homomorphisms.

Atualmente, a Energia com valor econômico, tecnológico, social e ambiental, tem sido abordada de forma essencialmente reducionista. Ou seja, separando-a de seu contexto, subdividindo-a em partes e isolando cada uma destas. Separaram-se as demandas econômicas das demandas da natureza, disto decorreram diversos problemas ambientais. A abordagem reducionista ultrapassa o domínio energético e afeta a sociedade moderna de forma geral. No começo do século XX, o pensamento científico reducionista começou a ruir com diversas descobertas ocorridas, em especial, as da Física Moderna e emergiu com grande força um novo paradigma. Chamado de sistêmico ou complexo, este paradigma surge não apenas por questões teóricas, mas, sobretudo, por questões práticas. Este trabalho tratará de examinar a questão da Energia de um enfoque complexo. Assim, será mostrada uma nova abordagem para as interações da Energia com a Biosfera, a esfera social e a esfera econômica. Assim é possível avaliar melhor as questões tecnológicas, econômicas, sociais, ambientais e políticas. A transmissão desse novo paradigma se daria, em boa parte, através da Educação. No trabalho se dará um exemplo aplicado a uma disciplina de graduação do ciclo básico do curso de Engenharia Elétrica da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo: PEA 2200 - Energia, Meio Ambiente e Sustentabilidade. / Currently, the Energy, with economic, technological, social and environmental value, has been studied through an essentially reductionist form. In other words, separating it from its context, subdividing it into parts and isolating each one of them. The economic demands were separated from the demands of nature, and from this environmental problems have elapsed. The reductionist approach overcomes the energetic domain and affects the modern society in general. In the beginning of the XX century, the reductionist scientific thought started to collapse mainly with the discoveries of Modern Physics and a new paradigm emerged with great force. Called systemic or complex, this paradigm is born not just because of theoretical aspects but, above all, because of practical aspects. This work examines the aspect of Energy in a complex approach. With this, a new approach for the interactions of Energy with the biosphere, the social sphere and the economical sphere, will be shown. With this it is possible to evaluate the technological, economical and political aspects better. The new paradigm can be transmitted, mainly, through Education. The following study applies this new concept in one of the basic subjects in the Electrical Engineering course of the Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo: PEA 2200 - Energy, Environment and Sustainability.