<p>This thesis advances a number of claims, some conceptual, some empirical, some normative. The conceptual claims are concentrated in chapters 1 and 2, where a general account of the notion of a source of law is provided. Roughly, sources of law are documents or practices (e.g. statutes, judicial decisions, official customs) from which norms can be derived that function as sources of content-independent reasons for judges to decide legal cases one way or another. The remainder of the thesis is dedicated to discussing whether legal scholarship – or, more precisely, a particular type of legal scholarship that can be described as standard or doctrinal – is used as a source of law (as the concept is defined in chapters 1 and 2) in modern municipal legal systems. The conclusion that legal scholarship is used as a source of law (and thus as a source of content-independent reasons for action) may come as a surprise to those who associate recourse to legal scholarship by judges with judicial activism. It will be argued, however, that legal scholarship can plausibly be used to mitigate discretion. Indeed, it is precisely because it can be used in this way that judges sometimes refer to scholarship deceptively and suggest that it limits discretion in situations in which it in fact does not.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

The research reported in this dissertation is motivated by two trends in the system-on-chip (SoC) design industry. First, due to the incessant technology scaling, the interconnect delays are getting larger compared to gate delays, leading to multi-cycle delays in communication between functional blocks on the chip, which makes implementing a synchronous global clock difficult, and power consuming. As a result, globally asynchronous and locally synchronous (GALS) designs have been proposed for future SoCs. Second, due to time-to-market pressure, and productivity gain, intellectual property (IP) block reuse is a rising trend in SoC design industry. Predesigned IPs may already be optimized and verified for timing for certain clock frequency, and hence when used in an SoC, GALS offers a good solution that avoids reoptimizing or redesigning the existing IPs. A special case of GALS, known as Latency-Insensitive Protocol (LIP) lets designers adopt the well-understood and developed design flow of synchronous design while solving the multi-cycle latency at the interconnects. The communication fabrics for LIP are synchronous pipelines with hand shaking. However, handshake based protocol has complex control logics and the unnecessary handshake brings down the system's throughput. That is why scheduling based LIP was proposed to avoid the hand-shakes by pre-calculated clock gating sequences for each block. It is shown to have better throughput and easier to implement. Unfortunately, static scheduling only exists for bounded systems. Therefore, this type of design in literatures restrict their discussions to systems whose graphic representation has a single strongly connected component (SCC), which by the theory is bounded. This dissertation provides an optimization design flow for LIP synthesis with respect to back pressure, throughput and buffer sizes. This is based on extending the scheduled LIP with minimum modifications to render it general enough to be applicable to most systems, especially those with multiple SCCs. In order to guarantee the design correctness, a formal framework that can analyze concurrency and prevent fallacious behaviors such as overflow, deadlock etc., is required. Among many formal models of concurrency used previously in asynchronous system design, marked graphs, periodic clock calculus and polychrony are chosen for the purpose of modeling, analyzing and verifying in this work. Polychrony, originally developed for embedded software modeling and synthesis, is able to specify multi-rate interfaces. Then a synchronous composition can be analyzed to avoid incompatibly and combinational loops which causes incorrect GALS distribution. The marked graph model is a good candidate to represent the interconnection network which is quite suitable for modeling the communication and synchronizations in LIP. The periodic clock calculus is useful in analyzing clock gating sequences because periodic clock calculus easily captures data dependencies, throughput constraints as well as buffer sizes required for synchronization. These formal methods help establish a formally based design flow for creating a synchronous design and then transforming it into a GALS implementation either using LIP or in a more general GALS mechanisms. / Ph. D.

Due to the ever increasing complexity of safety-critical applications, handwritten code is being replaced by automatically generated code derived from a high level specification. Code generation from high level specification requires a model of computation with an underlying formalism and correctness-preserving refinement steps to generate the lower level application code. Such software synthesis techniques are said to be 'correct-by-construction'. Synchronous programming languages such as Esterel, LUSTRE, which are based on a synchronous model of computation are used for sequential code generation. They work on a synchrony assumption (zero time intraprocess computation and zero time inter process communication) at the specification level. Early versions of synchronous languages followed an execution pattern where an iteration of software was mapped to an interval between ticks of an external reference clock. Since this external reference tick was unrelated to variables (or signals) within the software, redundant operations such as reading of ports, computation of guards were performed for each tick. In this dissertation, we highlight some of these performance issues and missed optimization opportunities. Also we show how a multi-clock (or polychronous) formalism, where each variable has an independent rate of execution associated with it, can avoid these problems. An existing polychronous language named SIGNAL, creates a hierarchy of clocks based on the rate of execution of individual variables, to form a root clock which acts a reference tick. We seek to replace the clock analysis with a technique to form a unique order of events without a reference time line. For this purpose, we present a new polychronous formalism termed Multi-rate Instantaneous Channel connected Data Flow (MRICDF). Our new synthesis technique inspects the specification to identify a master trigger at a Boolean equation level to act as the reference tick. Furthermore, we attempt to make polychronous specification based software synthesis more accessible to practicing engineers, by constructing a software tool EmCodeSyn, with a visual environment for specification and a more intuitive analysis technique. Our Boolean approach to sequential synthesis of embedded software has multiple implementations, each of which utilizes existing academic software tools. Optimizations are proposed to minimize synthesis time by simplifying the input to these external tools. Weaknesses in causal loop analysis techniques applied by existing synthesis tools are highlighted and solutions for performing time efficient loop analysis are integrated into EmCodeSyn. We have also determined that a part of the non-synthesizable polychronous specifications can be used to generate correct multi-threaded code. Additionally, we investigate composition of polychronous modules and propose properties that are necessary to guarantee agreement on shared signals. / Ph. D.

Le but de cette thèse est d'explorer la faisabilité d'expériences de diffraction résonante sur des systèmes multiferroïques et en particulier avec un champ/courrant électrique appliqué. Un formalisme de matrices de propagation a été développé pour simuler la réflectivité résonante, en utilisant un ensemble d'ondes propres comme base arithmétique pour le calcul. Des expériences de diffraction résonante ont été menées sur trois oxides de métaux de transition. Cette technique combinant la selectivité chimique et la sensibité à l'espace réciproque, elle a été utilisée sur des films très minces de PbTiO3 pour étudier la structure atomique d'un agencement périodique de domaines ferroélectriques. La signatures spectroscopiques observées par nos expériences de diffraction X durs sont reproduites par des simulations ab-initio FDMNES de super-cellules complexes. Dans le domaine X mous, nous avons étudié la structure antiferromagnétique cycloïdale du multiferroïque BiFeO3, et plus spécialement l'empreinte de la cycloïde sur une couche mince de Co déposée sur le matériau multiferroïque. Nous présentons également une expérience dans laquelle nous avons tenté d'explorer l'effet d'un courant électrique appliqué sur un film mince du composé à ordre de charge Pr(1-x)Ca(x)MnO3. La dernière partie est consacrée à l'instrumentation. Nous passons en revue les lignes synchrotron européennes et les diffractomètres qui permettent de faire des expériences de diffraction résonante de rayons X. Pour finir, nous détaillons un nouveau porte-échantillon que nous avons développé et testé sur le diffractomètre RESOXS, et qui permet d'appliquer un champ/courant électrique. / The aim of this thesis is to explore the capabilities offered by resonant X-ray scattering for the study of multiferroic systems with a special emphasis on the feasibility of such experiments under applied electric field/current. Boundary propagation matrices formalism has been developed for the simulation of resonant reflectivity, using a set of eigenwaves as a basis for the computation. Resonant X-ray experiments were performed on three transition metal oxides. This technique combines chemical selectivity and reciprocal space information, and was used on very thin films of PbTiO3 to solve the atomic structure of a periodic pattern of ferroelectric domains. The spectroscopic signatures observed in our hard X-ray experiments are well reproduced with FDMNES ab-initio simulations of complex super cells. In the soft X-ray range, we studied the cycloidal antiferromagnetic structure of multiferroic BiFeO3 and especially the imprint of the cycloid on a 10 nm-thin layer of Co deposited on top of the multiferroic bulk material. We also present an experiment in which we tried to explore the effect of an electrical current applied on a thin film of charge-ordered Pr(1-x)Ca(x)MnO3. Last part is dedicated to instrumentation. We summarize the state of the art of european synchrotron beamlines and diffractometers which can host resonant X-ray diffraction experiments. Finally, we detail a new sample holder that we developed and tested in the high-vacuum diffractometer RESOXS, which allows for the application of an electric field/current.

No description available.

In the course of this thesis, decisive problematizations, in the Foucauldian sense, around Viktor Šklovskij’s early Russian Formalism shall be the object of re-problematizations. More precisely, a careful look will be taken at re-problematizations around theoretical aspects regarding Šklovskij’s paradigmatic reductionist model, primarily as it is introduced in his article Art as device (1917), described most notably by Aage Hansen-Löve and Wolf Schmid in Der Russische Formalismus (1978) and Slavische Erzähltheorie (2010), Elemente der Narratologie (2014) as well as Grundthemen der Literaturwissenschaft: Erzählen (2018) respectively. The thesis will distinguish four main problematizations divided into two parts, taking the Marxist-Leninist debate on Formalism stirred by People’s Commissar Trotsky and the Nietzschean Dionysian-Apollonian dichotomy characteristic of Russian Modernism as its starting points, encompassing the problematizations as a whole. The initial part of the thesis will address re-problematizations around Šklovskij’s formalist polemics with and misinterpretation of Alexandr Potebnja’s Humboldtian theories, as they appear chiefly in the monograph Thought and Language (1862), in order to illustrate how Šklovskij’s frames a continuum with Potebnja descending from the teachings of Wilhelm von Humboldt. The re-problematizations shall be underpinned by Victor Erlich in Russian Formalism. History – Doctrine (1980), Jacqueline Fontaine in La « innere Form » : de Potebnja aux formalistes (2006) and Serge Tchougounnikov in The formal method in Germany and Russia: the beginnings of European psycholinguistics (2018). The second part of the thesis will foreground the (French) (post)structuralist discourse which, according to this thesis, shapes the formation of problematizations around Šklovskij’s immanent reductionism against the backdrop of Boris Tomaševskij’s interpretation of Formalism in Teorija literatury. Poetika (1925) and also the ideological exchange of the 1920s, assuming this backdrop as part of a definitive understanding and materialist critique of Šklovskij’s reductionist terminology, the homogeneity of its outcome, and what Wolf Schmid calls its anti-substantialism particularly in regards to the binary concept fabula and sjužet. The re-problematizations evolve around what is taken as a materialist solution to these problematizations, which annulls the Aristotelian significance of sjužet as energeia by replacing it with ergon. The discussion will take its point of departure in Göran Sonesson’s article Semiotics of art, life, and thought: Three scenarios for (post)modernity (2011) and search the basis for Sonesson’s argument in Roland Barthes’ article Ecrivains et écrivants (1960). By highlighting Šklovskij’s early Formalism as a mode of experiencing Art on its own terms, this thesis aims to revive its aesthetic principle and the question whether it can enlighten modern literary science.

Cremmer und Julia haben 1978 die Existenz von verborgenen En(n)-exzeptionellen Symmetrien in den maximalen Supergravitationstheorien (SUGRA), die aus der Kompaktifizierung der elfdimensionalen SUGRA auf einem n-Torus folgen, entdeckt. Die Existenz dieser En(n)-Symmetrien in den maximalen SUGRA ist eine ihrer bemerkenswertesten Eigenschaften, aber die Bedeutung dieser Symmetrien in der Quantentheorie ist noch nicht vollständig verstanden. Zudem ist erst seit 2013 bekannt, wie eine manifest En(n)-kovariante exzeptionelle Feldtheorie (ExFT), die auf einer exzeptionellen Geometrie basiert und insbesondere die elfdimensionale SUGRA beinhaltet, konstruiert werden kann (Hohm & Samtleben, 2013). In dieser Dissertation konstruieren wir die kanonische Formulierung der E6(6)-ExFT, was als Ausgangspunkt der kanonischen Quantisierung angesehen werden kann. Wir ermitteln die nicht-integrale Form des topologischen Terms der E6(6)-ExFT und untersuchen eine topologische Modelltheorie, die auf dem kinetischen Term der zwei-Form basiert. Um die Konstruktion einer verallgemeinerten Geometrie zu illustrieren konstruieren wir explizit den Y-Tensor für die Gruppe Sp(2n). Außerdem beschreiben wir eine vereinfachte kanonische Behandlung der Zwangsbedingungen des skalaren symmetrischen Raumes, welche wir für SL(n)/SO(n) erläutern. Zur Vorbereitung der kanonischen Analyse der ExFT untersuchen wir die kanonische Formulierung der manifest E6(6)-invarianten ungeeichten maximalen fünfdimensionalen SUGRA und führen eine umfassende kanonische Analyse, inklusive aller Eichtransformationen und der vollständigen Poisson-Algebra der Zwangsbedingungen, durch. Wir errechnen die Hamilton-Funktion der ExFT, sowie den Großteil der kanonischen (Eich-)Transformationen und Teile der Poisson-Algebra der Zwangsbedingungen. Zudem untersuchen wir, wie die kanonische Formulierung durch das verallgemeinerte Vielbein ausgedrückt werden kann und erörtern die mögliche Existenz von verallgemeinerten Ashtekar-Variablen. / In 1978 Cremmer and Julia discovered the existence of hidden non-compact global En(n) exceptional symmetries in the maximal supergravity (SUGRA) theories that follow from the compactification of eleven-dimensional SUGRA on an n-torus. The existence of these hidden exceptional symmetries in maximal SUGRA theories is one of their most notable features, but the role of these symmetries is not yet fully understood at the quantum level. Moreover it has only been known since 2013 how a manifestly En(n) covariant exceptional field theory (ExFT) can be constructed, which is based on an exceptional geometry and in particular contains the eleven-dimensional SUGRA (see Hohm & Samtleben, 2013). In this thesis we construct and investigate the canonical formulation of the (bosonic) E6(6) ExFT, which can be seen as the starting point of the canonical quantisation procedure. We calculate the explicit non-integral form of the topological term of the E6(6) ExFT and explore a topological model theory based on the two-form kinetic term. To illustrate the construction of a generalised geometry we explicitly construct the Y-tensor for the group Sp(2n). Furthermore we establish a simplified canonical treatment of the scalar coset constraints, which we illustrate for SL(n)/SO(n). As a preparation to the canonical analysis of the ExFT we calculate the canonical formulation of the manifestly E6(6) invariant ungauged maximal five-dimensional SUGRA theory and carry out a comprehensive canonical analysis including all gauge transformations and the full constraint algebra. We then proceed to work out the canonical formulation of the E6(6) ExFT. We calculate the full ExFT Hamiltonian, most of the canonical (gauge) transformations and parts of the constraint algebra. Moreover we examine how the canonical formulation can be expressed in the generalised vielbein form and we discuss the possible existence of generalised Ashtekar variables.

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Active materials are a subset of soft matter that is constantly being driven out of an equilibrium state due to the energy input from internal processes such as the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to adenosine diphosphate (ADP), as found in biological systems. Firstly, we construct and study a simple model of a flexible filament with an active crosslinker/molecular motor. We treat the system on a mesoscopic scale using a Langevin equation approach, which we analyse via a functional integral approach using the Martin-Siggia-Rose formalism. We characterise the steady state behaviour of the system up to first order in the motor force and also the autocorrelation of fluctuations of the position of the active crosslink on the filament. We find that this autocorrelation function does not depend on the motor force up to first order for the case where the crosslinker is located in the middle of the contour length of the filament. Properties that characterise the elastic response of the system are studied and found to scale with the autocorrelation of fluctuations of the active crosslink position. Secondly, we give a brief overview of the current state of dynamical polymer network theory and then propose two dynamical network models based on a Cayley-tree topology. Our first model takes a renormalisation approach and derive recurrence relations for the coupling constants of the system. The second model builds on the ideas of an Edwards type network theory where Wick’s theorem is employed to enforce the constraint conditions. Both models are examined using a functional integral approach. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Aktiewe stelsels is ’n subveld van sagte materie fisika wat handel oor sisteme wat uit ekwilibruim gedryf word deur middel van interne prossesse, soos wat gevind word in biologiese stelsels. Eerstens konstruëer en bestudeer ons ’n model vir ’n buigbare filament met ’n aktiewe kruisskakelaar of molekulêre motor. Ons formuleer die stelsel op ’n mesoskopiese skaal deur gebruik te maak van ’n Langevin vergelyking formalisme en bestudeer die stelsel deur gebruik te maak van funksionaal integraal metodes deur middel van die Martin-Siggia-Rose formalisme. Dit laat ons in staat om die tydonafhankle gedrag van die stelsel te bestudeer tot op eerste orde in die motorkrag. Ons is ook in staat om die outokorrelasie fluktuasies van die posisie van die aktiewe kruisskakelaar te karakteriseer. Ons vind dat die outokorrelasie onafhanklink is van die motorkrag tot eerste orde in die geval waar die kruisskakelaar in die middel van die filament geleë is. Die elastiese eienksappe van die sisteem word ook ondersoek en gevind dat die skaleer soos die outokorrelasie van die fluktuasies van die aktiewe kruisskakelaar posisie. Tweedens gee ons ’n vlugtige oorsig van die huidige toestand van dinamiese polimeer netwerk teorie en stel dan ons eie twee modelle voor wat gebasseer is op ’n Caylee-boom topologie. Ons eerste model maak gebruik van ’n hernormering beginsel en dit laat ons toe om rekurrensierelasies vir die koppelingskonstates te verkry. Die tweede model bou op idees van ’n Edwards tipe netwerk teorie waar Wick se teorema ingespan word om die beperkingskondisies af te dwing. Beide modelle word met funksionaal integraal metodes bestudeer.

Thesis (MSc (Physics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Non-commutative quantum mechanics is a generalisation of quantum mechanics which incorporates the notion of a fundamental shortest length scale by introducing non-commuting position coordinates. Various theories of quantum gravity indicate the existence of such a shortest length scale in nature. It has furthermore been realised that certain condensed matter systems allow effective descriptions in terms of non-commuting coordinates. As a result, non-commutative quantum mechanics has received increasing attention recently. A consistent formulation and interpretation of non-commutative quantum mechanics, which unambiguously defines position measurement within the existing framework of quantum mechanics, was recently presented by Scholtz et al. This thesis builds on the latter formalism, extends it to many-particle systems and links it up with non-commutative quantum field theory via second quantisation. It is shown that interactions of particles, among themselves and with external potentials, are altered as a result of the fuzziness induced by non-commutativity. For potential scattering, generic increases are found for the differential and total scattering cross sections. Furthermore, the recovery of a scattering potential from scattering data is shown to involve a suppression of high energy contributions, disallowing divergent interaction forces. Likewise, the effective statistical interaction among fermions and bosons is modified, leading to an apparent violation of Pauli’s exclusion principle and foretelling implications for thermodynamics at high densities. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Nie-kommutatiewe kwantummeganika is ’n veralgemening van kwantummeganika wat die idee van ’n fundamentele kortste lengteskaal invoer d.m.v. nie-kommuterende ko¨ordinate. Verskeie teorie¨e van kwantum-grawitasie dui op die bestaan van so ’n kortste lengteskaal in die natuur. Dit is verder uitgewys dat sekere gekondenseerde materie sisteme effektiewe beskrywings in terme van nie-kommuterende koordinate toelaat. Gevolglik het die veld van nie-kommutatiewe kwantummeganika onlangs toenemende aandag geniet. ’n Konsistente formulering en interpretasie van nie-kommutatiewe kwantummeganika, wat posisiemetings eenduidig binne bestaande kwantummeganika raamwerke defineer, is onlangs voorgestel deur Scholtz et al. Hierdie tesis brei uit op hierdie formalisme, veralgemeen dit tot veeldeeltjiesisteme en koppel dit aan nie-kommutatiewe kwantumveldeteorie d.m.v. tweede kwantisering. Daar word gewys dat interaksies tussen deeltjies en met eksterne potensiale verander word as gevolg van nie-kommutatiwiteit. Vir potensiale verstrooi ¨ıng verskyn generiese toenames vir die differensi¨ele and totale verstroi¨ıngskanvlak. Verder word gewys dat die herkonstruksie van ’n verstrooi¨ıngspotensiaal vanaf verstrooi¨ıngsdata ’n onderdrukking van ho¨e-energiebydrae behels, wat divergente interaksiekragte verbied. Soortgelyk word die effektiewe statistiese interaksie tussen fermione en bosone verander, wat ly tot ’n skynbare verbreking van Pauli se uitsluitingsbeginsel en dui op verdere gevolge vir termodinamika by ho¨e digthede.