Traditionally, the promotion of socio-economic justice has been seen as an exclusive concern for the state and its citizens. Many contemporary political thinkers criticize this view and argue that the principles of justice which apply within a state also apply to the global level. Further, they often argue that this conclusion is strengthened by the increased level of interconnectedness between people and states created by globalization. It is said that even if principles of justice are constrained by institutional boundaries, these boundaries no longer coincide with state borders but rather extend transnationally, or even globally. In this thesis it is argued that the impacts on justice inferred from globalization are often seriously overstated. The demand for socio-economic justice is created exclusively by a special relationship between citizens. This relationship is constituted by a common membership in the kind of coercive institutional structure epitomized by the state. Under current state of affairs, state coercion has no counterpart in the global arena. The conclusion is that concerns of socio-economic justice should be reserved for the domestic arena. Yet, it is also argued that justice is pluralistic and other kinds of concern are applicable on a global scale. Issues of fairness in international trade are discussed as examples of such concerns, and it is concluded that the international trade regime should institutionalize a number of safeguards that reduce the vulnerability of developing states.

Background This thesis explores the relationship between individuals’ subjective experiences and the welfare state setting. The research questions in focus deal with the outcomes of women’s and men’s increasing dual roles in work and family in contemporary welfare states. The studies analyse women’s and men’s subjective experiences of combining work and family, and their perceptions of fairness in the division of household work. Methods The thesis applies a comparative perspective where the unit of analysis is country and/or family policy model. A broad perspective with the aim to capture general patterns across a broad range of welfare states is combined with a narrower case-oriented approach. Multilevel analysis is used to analyse patterns at national as well as individual levels in the same model. Latent Class Analysis is used to capture patterns of latent dimensions with regard to the central concept of subject experiences. Results The results indicate that the introduction of policies aiming to promote dual roles among women and men and the articulation of gender equality can matter for individuals’ subjective experiences of work-family conflict. In dual-earner countries, the probability that a high level of conflict is counterbalanced by feelings of life satisfaction is higher than in other policy models. A class asymmetry is found when it comes to effects of policy on men’s and women’s levels of work-family conflict and work-family satisfaction; women in the working class and the salaried class are more similar when it comes to experiences of work-family conflict and satisfaction in Sweden than in Germany and the UK. The analysis also shows that perceptions of fairness in the division of housework are moderated by the institutional and normative context. The politicisation of gender equality increases the correspondence between actual share of housework performed and the perceptions of fairness in the division of housework. The effect of politicisation is more important for men’s perceptions than for women’s. Conclusion The thesis contributes to a deepened understanding of the relationship between policy and work-family conflict and the integration of the perspectives of role conflict and role expansion; knowledge about the ways in which both class and gender relations are structured concerning the patterns of work-family conflict and satisfaction in different policy contexts; and new knowledge about the relationship between policy and men’s – and not only women’s – perceptions of fairness in the division of household work.

There have been good arguments made for the development of aggressive affirmative action policies with the end goal of quickly moving black South Africans into corporate and high ranks within management of organisations. One of the central arguments in favour of aggressive AA policies is the risk of racial polarization post-apartheid should a quick fix not be initiated. It makes good business and economic sense for AA policies to be implemented as black consumers coupled with black managers will have the eventual end point of lower unemployment and crime, through job creation and security of the representative majority.

In this thesis I present and discuss the phenomenon of ethical fading, and its association with biased assessment of a fair action. Ethical fading is an intuitive, self-deceptive, unconscious mechanism by which even morally competent agents are lead to disregard the ethical consequences of a particular choice. In engaging in this psychological mechanism, I argue, agents are also presupposing a biased assessment of entitlement. This biased assessment of fairness is intentionally dubious, and to be found in decision frames and reinforced by contexts. In the final part of the work I present an applied ethics case to show how ethical fading may be a quite prevalent pattern of behavior.

Tjänster för strömmad media stiger kraftigt i popularitet, samtidigt som utbudet av denna typ av tjänster ökar. Internet protocol television (IPTV) med standardupplösning levereras redan till många hem, och högupplöst IPTV kommer att bli vanligt inom en relativt snar framtid. Mer avancerade tjänster, som tredimensionell TV och TV med fritt valbara vyer, står sedan på tur. Strömmad video är av naturen väldigt bandbreddskrävande, och denna utveckling kommer därför att sätta den befintliga nätverksinfrastrukturen på prov. Multicast är mer bandbreddseffektivt än unicast för scenarion där många mottagare samtidigt är intresserade av samma data, vilket är fallet med populärt direktsänt material. Anledningen är att mottagarna av multicast-sessioner delar på resurserna via ett gemensamt transmissionsträd, där ingen data sänds mer än en gång över någon gren. Användningen av multicast kan därför generera stora besparingar av bandbredd. Internetleverantörerna har dock inga riktigt starka skäl för att stödja multicast, vilket medfört att spridningen varit långsam. Vi föreslår att multicast-sessioner tilldelas mer bandbredd när det uppstår trafikstockningar i näten. Fördelningen baseras på antalet mottagare och datatakten som de erhåller, eftersom det är det som avgör graden av resursdelning. Vi anser att det är rättvist att ta hänsyn till detta, och kallar därför den föreslagna bandbreddsfördelningen multicast-favorable max-min fair. Vidare så presenteras två bandbreddstilldelningspolicyer som använder sig av olika mängd återkoppling för att uppnå fördelningar som ligger förhållandevis nära den föreslagna. Vi föreslår även två mekanismer för kostnadsallokering, vilka bygger på antagandet att kostnaden för dataöverföring ska täckas av mottagarna. De föreslagna mekanismerna fördelar kostnaderna mellan mottagarna baserat på deras andel av resursutnyttjandet, vilket generellt är fördelaktigt för multicast-mottagare. De två mekanismerna för kostnadsallokering skiljer sig åt genom att den ena eftersträvar optimalt rättvis fördelning av kostnaderna, medan den andra kan ge rabatt till vissa mottagare. Rabatten möjliggör större grupper med mottagare, vilket även kan reducera kostnaderna för icke rabatterade mottagare. Förslagen gör multicast mer attraktivt för användarna av strömmad media. Om förslagen implementerades i nätverk med multicast-stöd så skulle övriga Internetleverantörer bli tvungna att stödja multicast för att vara konkurrenskraftiga. / Media-streaming services are rapidly gaining in popularity, and new ones are knocking on the door. Standard-definition Internet protocol television (IPTV) has already entered many living rooms, and high-definition IPTV will become common property in the not too distant future. Then even more advanced and resource-demanding services, such as three-dimensional and free-view TV, are next in line. Video streaming is by nature extremely bandwidth intensive, and this development will put the existing network infrastructure to the test. In scenarios where many receivers are simultaneously interested in the same data, which is the case with popular live content, multicast transmission is more bandwidth efficient than unicast. The reason is that the receivers of a multicast session share the resources through a common transmission tree where data are only transmitted once along any branch. The use of multicast transmission can therefore yield huge bandwidth savings. There are however no really strong incentives for the Internet service providers (ISPs) to support multicast transmission, and the deployment has consequently been slow. We propose that more bandwidth is allocated to multicast flows in the case of network congestion. The ratio is based upon the number of receivers and the bitrate that they are able to obtain, since this is what determines the degree of resource sharing. We believe that it is fair to take this into account, and accordingly call the proposed allocation multicast-favorable max-min fair. Further, we present two bandwidth-allocation policies that utilize different amount of feedback to perform allocations that are reasonable close to be multicast-favorable max-min fair. We also propose two cost-allocation mechanisms that build upon the assumption that the cost for data transmission should be covered by the receivers. The mechanisms charge the receivers based on their share of the resources usage, which in general is favorable to multicast receivers. The two cost-allocation mechanisms differ in that one strives for optimum fair cost allocations, whereas the other might give discounts to some receivers. The discounts facilitate larger groups of receivers, which can provide cheaper services for the non-discounted receivers as well. The proposals make multicast transmission more attractive to the users of media-streaming services. If the proposals were implemented in multicast-enabled networks, the rest of the ISPs would be forced to support multicast, to stay competitive.

Policy guidelines of the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) state that accommodations and participation decisions on the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) do not threaten validity. However, these issues are contentious in American large-scale testing. New approaches integrate test access, administration, accommodation and participation within a unified fairness and validity construct. The current study, based on demographic and outcome data for the entire population of OSSLT-eligible students from 2006 to 2009, demonstrates changing patterns in accommodations and participation decisions across schools and years. In particular, English language learners are found to be considerably underrepresented among students receiving special needs accommodations. This has implications for the valid interpretation and fair use of test scores. Recommendations are proposed for improving fairness, consistency, and validity in administering accommodations and participation.

Policy guidelines of the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) state that accommodations and participation decisions on the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) do not threaten validity. However, these issues are contentious in American large-scale testing. New approaches integrate test access, administration, accommodation and participation within a unified fairness and validity construct. The current study, based on demographic and outcome data for the entire population of OSSLT-eligible students from 2006 to 2009, demonstrates changing patterns in accommodations and participation decisions across schools and years. In particular, English language learners are found to be considerably underrepresented among students receiving special needs accommodations. This has implications for the valid interpretation and fair use of test scores. Recommendations are proposed for improving fairness, consistency, and validity in administering accommodations and participation.

Tradicionalment, les tècniques d'accés múltiple en sistemes de comunicacions multi-usuari han estat desenvolupades o bé orientades a la connexió o bé orientades al tràfic. En el primer cas, l'objectiu és establir tants canals ortogonals com sigui possible per tal d'assignar-los als usuaris. Aquesta idea va motivar el disseny de les estratègies més conegudes, com són FDMA, TDMA i CDMA. Per altra banda, però, els mètodes d'accés aleatori que s'iniciaren amb el conegut ALOHA pretenen compartir estadísticament un mateix medi de comunicació aprofitant la necessitat de transmetre la informació a ràfegues que s'origina en les xarxes de dades. Així, molts dels actuals sistemes es poden encabir dins d'aquest esquema si a més a més, tenim en compte combinacions d'aquestes. No obstant, sistemes moderns com el DVB-RCS en l'entorn de comunicacions digitals per satèl·lit o el WiMAX en l'accés terrestre de banda ampla implementen mecanismes de petició i assignació de recursos, els quals requereixen una gestió dinàmica d'aquests en el sistema (és el que s'anomena distribució dinàmica de l'amplada de banda en un sentit ampli).L'anterior concepte inclou múltiples variables, configuracions i protocols tant de capa física com de capa d'enllaç. En aquesta tesi s'exploren en primer lloc les bases matemàtiques que permeten coordinar les diferents capes de la divisió OSI dels sistemes i els distints nodes dins la xarxa. Ens referim a les tècniques de descomposició focalitzades en problemes d'optimització convexa, els quals han aportat, durant els últims anys, solucions elegants a molts problemes dins dels camps del processament del senyal i les comunicacions. Revisarem els esquemes coneguts i proposarem una nova metodologia. Acte seguit, es comparen les diferents possibilitats de descomposició, cadascuna de les quals implica diferents maneres d'establir la senyalització. A la pràctica, són aquestes diverses opcions de descomposició les que infereixen les diferents interaccions entre capes o els protocols de control entre elements de la xarxa. Els resultats en quant a nombre d'iteracions requerides per a convergir a la solució òptima són favorables al nou mètode proposat, la qual cosa obra noves línies d'investigació.Finalment, es contribueix també amb dos exemples d'aplicació, en DVB-RCS i en WiMAX. Formulem el problema de gestió de recursos resultant de l'accés múltiple dissenyat per cadascun dels sistemes com un problema de maximització d'utilitat de xarxa (conegut com a NUM en la bibliografia) i el solucionarem aplicant les tècniques anteriors. L'objectiu serà garantir l'equitativitat entre els usuaris i preservar, al mateix temps, la seva qualitat de servei. Per aconseguir-ho, cal seleccionar funcions d'utilitat adequades que permetin balancejar l'assignació de recursos cap als serveis més prioritaris. Mostrarem que en els escenaris considerats, l'ús del mètode proposat comporta guanys significatius ja que requereix menys iteracions en el procés (i per tant, menys senyalització) o bé menys temps de càlcul en un enfoc centralitzat (que es tradueix en la possibilitat d'incloure més usuaris). També es mostren els avantatges de considerar interaccions entre capes, ja que es poden ajustar els paràmetres de capa física per tal d'afavorir els tràfics més prioritaris o bé extreure els requeriments de servei de valors típicament disponibles en capes superiors.En general, la implementació eficient de tècniques de gestió dinàmica de recursos treballant en l'accés múltiple dels sistemes pot aportar guanys significatius però implica establir una bona coordinació entre capes i elements de xarxa. L'eina matemàtica que ho possibilita són les tècniques de descomposició. Cada nou escenari i sistema introdueix un nou repte d'optimització i la capacitat que tinguem de coordinar totes les variables del sistema cap al punt òptim en determinarà el rendiment global. / Traditionally, multiple access schemes in multi-user communications systems have been designed either connection-oriented or traffic-oriented. In the first ones, the goal was to provide as many orthogonal channels as possible, each one serving a different connection. That is the motivation of the so-called FDMA, TDMA and CDMA solutions. On the other hand, random access techniques, which started with the so-called ALOHA protocol, aim to statistically multiplex a shared communication medium by means of exploiting the random and bursty nature of transmission needs in data networks. Most of the multiple access solutions can be interpreted according to that classification or as a combination of those approaches. Notwithstanding, modern systems, such as the digital satellite communications standard DVB-RCS or the broadband wireless access WiMAX, have implemented a multiple access technique where users request for transmission opportunities and receive grants from the network, therefore requiring dynamic bandwidth allocation techniques. The concept of dynamic bandwidth allocation is wide and involves a number of physical and link layer variables, configurations and protocols. In this Ph.D. dissertation we first explore the mathematical foundation that is required to coordinate the distinct layers of the OSI protocol stack and the distinct nodes within the network. We talk about decomposition techniques focused on the resolution of convex programs, which have elegantly solved many problems in the signal processing and communications fields during the last years. Known schemes are reviewed and a novel decomposition methodology is proposed. Thereafter, we compare the four resulting strategies, each one having its own particular signalling needs, which results in distinct cross-layer interactions or signalling protocols at implementation level. The results in terms of iterations required to converge are favourable to the proposed method, thus opening a new line of research.Finally, we contribute with two practical application examples in the DVB-RCS and WiMAX systems. First, we formulate the dynamic bandwidth allocation problem that is derived from the multiple access schemes of both systems. Thereafter, the resulting Network Utility Maximization (NUM) based problem is solved by means of the previous decomposition mechanisms. The goal is to guarantee fairness among the users at the same time that Quality of Service (QoS) is preserved. In order to achieve that, we choose adequate utility functions that allow to balance the allocation towards the most priority traffic flows under a common fairness framework. We show that in the scenarios considered, the novel proposed coupled-decomposition method reports significant gains since it reduces significantly the iterations required (less iterations implies less signalling) or it reduces the time needed to obtain the optimal allocation when it is centrally computed (more users can be managed). We further show the advantages of cross-layer interactions with the physical and upper layers, which allow to benefit from more favourable adjustments of the transmission parameters and to consider the QoS requirements at upper layers. In general, an efficient implementation of dynamic bandwidth allocation techniques in Demand Assignment Multiple Access (DAMA) schemes may report significant performance gains but it requires proper coordination among system layers and network nodes, which is attained thanks to decomposition techniques. Each new scenario and system adds another optimization challenge and, as far as we are able to coordinate all the variables in the system towards that optimal point, the highest will be the revenue.

Las demandas y expectativas de los usuarios y operadores móviles crecen sin parar y, consecuentemente, los nuevos estándares han incorporado tecnologías de acceso de radio cada vez más eficientes. Las especificaciones IMT-Advanced para la cuarta generación (4G) de redes móviles de banda ancha requieren, entre otras cosas, tasas más altas de transmisión de datos, del orden de 100 Mbps a 1 Gbps, dependiendo del nivel de movilidad. Para conseguir éstas tasas se ha escogido como tecnología de acceso el Acceso Múltiple por División de Frecuencias Ortogonal (OFDMA), y se han considerado femtoceldas para mejorar la cobertura de espacios interiores. Para explorar completamente la flexibilidad de estas tecnologías y utilizar los escasos recursos radio de la manera más eficiente posible se requieren técnicas de Gestión de Recursos Radio (RRM) adaptativas e inteligentes. En el ámbito de los sistemas celulares basados en OFDMA, uno de los problemas todavía no resuelto es el compromiso que existe entre la eficiencia en la utilización de los recursos y la equidad en su distribución entre los usuarios de la red. El compromiso entre eficiencia y equidad aparece cuando los recursos radio asignados dan lugar a diferentes indicadores de eficiencia con respecto a los distintos usuarios de red (diversidad multi-usuario). El uso de una asignación de recursos oportunista, para explorar estas diversidades y maximizar la capacidad, causa situaciones de desigualdad en la distribución de los recursos. Por otro lado, los esquemas de RRM que propician equidad absoluta consideran un escenario de peor caso, penalizando a los usuarios con mejores condiciones y reduciendo la capacidad del sistema. En esta tesis, se han propuesto varias políticas y técnicas de RRM para balancear este compromiso en el contexto de redes macrocelulares y femtocelulares. En el caso particular de sistemas macrocelulares, proponemos un nuevo paradigma de gestión de red basado en el control del índice de equidad de la celda en escenarios con servicios de tiempo no-real y de tiempo real. Se han estudiado dos enfoques para el control de la equidad: control instantáneo (a corto plazo) utilizando técnicas de RRM de adaptación de tasa y equidad, y control promediado (a mediano plazo) utilizando estructuras de RRM basadas en la Teoría de la Utilidad. En el caso de las femtoceldas, se ha formulado una nueva técnica para evitar la interferencia capaz de balancear el compromiso entre eficiencia espectral y la equidad entre los puntos de acceso de las femtoceldas. Esta estrategia de RRM se basa en una planificación a mediano/largo plazo de las frecuencias disponibles, que toma en consideración la topología de interferencia de grupos de femtoceldas vecinas. Las técnicas de RRM consideradas en esta tesis se han evaluada utilizando de forma sistemática técnicas de simulación numéricas a nivel de sistema. En el caso del escenario macrocelular, se demuestra que las técnicas adaptativas de RRM propuestas son, para los operadores móviles una, herramienta valiosa porqué, además de ser una generalización de estrategias clásicas bien conocidas, son capaces de garantizar de forma eficiente diferentes niveles de equidad en el sistema, y controlar el compromiso entre eficiencia y equidad. Además, se concluye que las estrategias basadas en la teoría de utilidad, que hacen un control promedio de la equidad, muestran resultados tan buenos ó incluso mejores que los presentados por las técnicas basadas en optimización instantánea de la adaptación de la tasa y la equidad, utilizando menores recursos computacionales. Finalmente, se demuestra que la técnica propuesta para evitar interferencia en redes de femtoceldas puede garantizar una coexistencia sin degradaciones entre punto de acceso vecinos para cualquier topología de interferencia. Esta técnica puede ser implementada mediante arquitecturas de red distribuidas ó centralizadas, presentando en ambos casos unos requisitos de señalización muy bajos. / User and cellular operator requirements and expectations have been continuously evolving, and consequently, advanced radio access technologies have emerged. The International Mobile Telecommunications - Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specifications for mobile broadband Fourth Generation (4G) networks state, among other requirements, that enhanced peak data rates of 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps for high and low mobility should be provided. In order to achieve this challenging performance, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) has been chosen as the access technology, and femtocells have been considered for improving indoor coverage. In order to fully explore the flexibility of these technologies and use the scarce radio resources in the most efficient way possible, intelligent and adaptive Radio Resource Management (RRM) techniques are crucial. There are many open RRM problems in wireless networks in general and OFDMA-based cellular systems in particular. One of such problems is the fundamental trade-off that exists between efficiency in the resource usage and fairness in the resource distribution among network players. Several opportunistic RRM algorithms, which dynamically allocate the resources to the network players that present the highest efficiency indicator with regard to these resources, have been proposed to maximize the efficiency in the resource usage. The trade-off between efficiency and fairness appears when the resources have different efficiency indicators to different network players (multi-user or multi-cell diversity). The use of opportunistic resource allocation to explore these diversities causes unfair situations in the resource distribution. On the other hand, schemes that provide absolute fairness deal with the worst case scenario, penalizing players with better condition and reducing the system capacity. In this thesis, several RRM policies and techniques are proposed to balance this compromise in macrocell and femtocell networks. In the particular case of macrocell systems, we propound a new network management paradigm based on the control of a cell fairness index in scenarios with Non-Real Time (NRT) or Real Time (RT) services. Two fairness control approaches are studied: instantaneous (short-term) control by means of generalized fairness/rate adaptive RRM techniques and average (mid-term) control using utility-based frameworks. For femtocell networks, a novel interference avoidance technique able to balance the trade-off between spectral efficiency in the femtocell tier and fairness among the Femtocell Access Points (FAPs) is formulated. This RRM strategy is based on a high-level, mid/long-term frequency planning that takes into account the topology of groups of neighboring FAPs. The RRM techniques considered in this thesis are evaluated by means of extensive system-level and/or numerical simulations. Regarding the macrocell scenario, it is shown that the proposed adaptive RRM techniques are valuable tools for the mobile operators, because they are generalizations of well-known classic strategies found in the literature and they can effectively guarantee different fairness levels in the system and control the trade-off between efficiency and fairness. Furthermore, it is concluded that the utility-based strategies that perform an average fairness control can provide performance results as good as the fairness/rate adaptive techniques, which are based on instantaneous optimization, using less computational resources. Finally, it is demonstrated that the proposed interference avoidance technique for femtocell networks can guarantee a seamless coexistence between neighboring FAPs in any interference topology. Furthermore, this technique can be implemented in both centralized and distributed network architectures and generates very low signaling overhead.

I explore the problem of using primary goods as the index for determining the least-advantaged members in a society in Rawls’s theory of justice. I look at the problems presented to Rawls by Amartya Sen and his capabilities approach. I discuss the solutions to Sen’s problems given by Norman Daniels, who argues that primary goods are able to take capabilities into account. Finally, I supplement Daniels, arguing that the parameters Rawls uses to define his theory limit Sen’s objection and that primary goods are the appropriate metric of justice in Rawls’s theory.