Crítica del libro Contratos Modernos: elementos esenciales y reglas aplicables para acuerdos comerciales de Alfredo F. Soria Aguilar y Madeleine Osterling Letts.

Thesis advisor: Régine Jean-Charles / Practice whereby a host (the one who receives) open his/her door to a guest (the one who is either invited or simply received), hospitality is nowadays under fire as the migrant crisis unfolds the plight of countless strangers who, at the end of their perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, come and knock at the doors of Europe, in particular France—birthplace of the Rights of Man. Taking the stand of Louis de Jaucourt on the socio-political challenges of hospitality outlined in his 18th century French article, Hospitalité, as the point of departure of our study, we focus on how hospitality intersects with social criticism through the person of the stranger in the following corpus of literary texts, which spans from the 18th to the 20th century: 1. Lettres persanes (Montesquieu), Lettres philosophiques (Voltaire), and L’Ile des Esclaves (Marivaux); 2. L’Ingénu (Voltaire), Lettres d’une Péruvienne (Françoise de Graffigny), and Ourika (Claire de Duras) ; 3. La Noire de… (Sembène Ousmane), and Xavier, le drame d’un émigré Antillais (Tony Delsham). Here, we enter in dialogue with Julia Kristeva’s essay, Etrangers à nous-mêmes, namely the chapter she writes about philosophers of the Enlightenment: L’Etranger : alter ego du philosophe. She argues that, as a satirical modus operandi, these philosophers withdraw behind the figure of the stranger, who then becomes their “double”, their “mask” (196). We show that Kristeva’s argument is not only limited to the works of 18th century French philosophers, but also to those of their literary heirs, who ascribe rather to the “mask” of the stranger of color, and moreover the hospitality he/she receives in France, as a satirical tool to lay bare the flaws of their own society. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures.

The research herein presents an approach to stabilising reactive materials by engineering and designing strategies for forming multi-component materials containing the reactive molecules by use of their non-covalent intermolecular interactions. These interactions may be utilised as part of a design approach to create new materials of more beneficial physical and chemical properties for the desired application. The reactive materials focussed on in this research are organic peroxyacids, in particular peroxyacetic acid, meta-chloroperbenzoic acid and 6-phthalimidoperoxyhexanoic acid. The stabilities of these target materials under different conditions are probed to find a suitable environment for crystallisation experiments. Crystal structures of the materials were isolated and characterised and the peroxyacids were subsequently cocrystallised with materials chosen to interact with the target molecules to form new molecular complexes, including carboxylic acids, π stacking materials and metal salts. A hosting approach was also employed to form multi-component systems containing these materials, crystallising them with larger, stable, structure-generating compounds with the aim of intercalating the reactive molecules in their stable structure. To this end, urea based compounds, cyclodextrins and Montmorillonite clay were investigated as hosting materials. Candidate multi-component materials were synthesised which successfully retain peroxyacid reactivity. A second set of materials studied was agrichemicals, which also frequently have reactive character, in which a change in physical properties was pursued by the method of forming new crystalline complexes. Five new crystalline agrochemical molecular complexes were synthesised and tested for thermal stability in comparison to the original materials to assess for changes in properties of the multi-component materials.

abstract: Nowadays, the widespread introduction of distributed generators (DGs) brings great challenges to the design, planning, and reliable operation of the power system. Therefore, assessing the capability of a distribution network to accommodate renewable power generations is urgent and necessary. In this respect, the concept of hosting capacity (HC) is generally accepted by engineers to evaluate the reliability and sustainability of the system with high penetration of DGs. For HC calculation, existing research provides simulation-based methods which are not able to find global optimal. Others use OPF (optimal power flow) based methods where too many constraints prevent them from obtaining the solution exactly. They also can not get global optimal solution. Due to this situation, I proposed a new methodology to overcome the shortcomings. First, I start with an optimization problem formulation and provide a flexible objective function to satisfy different requirements. Power flow equations are the basic rule and I transfer them from the commonly used polar coordinate to the rectangular coordinate. Due to the operation criteria, several constraints are incrementally added. I aim to preserve convexity as much as possible so that I can obtain optimal solution. Second, I provide the geometric view of the convex problem model. The process to find global optimal can be visualized clearly. Then, I implement segmental optimization tool to speed up the computation. A large network is able to be divided into segments and calculated in parallel computing where the results stay the same. Finally, the robustness of my methodology is demonstrated by doing extensive simulations regarding IEEE distribution networks (e.g. 8-bus, 16-bus, 32-bus, 64-bus, 128-bus). Thus, it shows that the proposed method is verified to calculate accurate hosting capacity and ensure to get global optimal solution. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2018

As renewable energy plays an increasingly important role in the power system, the addition of PV systems to the distribution network has become a major trend in the current power system development. However, if a PV system with excessive capacity is added to the distribution network, voltage problems may occur in the system. Hence, it is important to determine the capacity of the PV system that can be added at the distribution system. The thesis aims to identify the major factors that affect the PV hosting capacity of distribution systems. The thesis studies various scenarios for the IEEE-123 test network PV system and evaluates the PV hosting capacity of the distribution system based on simulation tools including Matlab and Opendss software.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

I inledningen av våra uppsatsstudier fann vi ingen tydlig definition av värdskap. Engelskans hospitality är alltför vid för att kunna förklara värdskapets betydelse inom turismbranschen. Vi har i vår uppsats belyst samt försökt förklara: Vad är värdskap? Vidare ville vi också se eventuella kulturella skiljaktigheters påverkan på värdskap. Vårt forskningsbidrag är därför en värdskapsmodell för att tydliggöra ämnet. Modellen beskriver rumsliga dimensioners påverkan på värdskap. Vi har också valt att genomföra kvalitativa intervjuer, dels med forskare och dels med utövare inom resebranschen, för att få en mer djupgående förståelse för om och hur det arbetas med värdskap i praktiken. / In the beginning of our feasibility studies, we found that there was no clear definition of the subject hosting. The English definition hospitality is way too wide and includes the whole tourism industry more or less. We wanted to find out: What is hosting? We also wanted to find out if there was any cultural differences regarding hosting. Our tribute to science is a model on hosting to define the subject. The model describes different dimensions and their effect on hosting. We´ve also chosen to make interviews with scientists and personal in the travel industry to get a more and deepened understanding on if and how hosting is used in practice.

Online and other forms of distance learning are a permanent fixture in the educational landscape. Mathematics taught in distance formats pose an even greater challenge to students and teachers alike. As mathematics is a skill subject, demonstration of concepts and processes is crucial, if not critical, to learning, particularly to visual and kinesthetic learners. Video podcasts and screencasts are the answer to distance students’ need for demonstration and explanation of mathematical topics. In the current economic climate, however, expensive audio/video capture software and hardware, as well as a lack of technical media support, make it virtually impossible to create such course materials. Also, there is the question of ownership of intellectual property if created with institutional funds and/or resources. Free capture software and internet video hosting sites make it possible for an individual to create his or her own podcasts and screencasts for student use, retaining ownership of the created materials.Materials developed for online students can be made available to students in seated class. This benefits students who are unable to attend class, but can be made available to the entire class.

The ambitious governmental policies, particularly in Europe, in pursuit of established energy targets require an increase in distributed generation. As a result, photovoltaic (PV) technologies have emerged, predominantly at residential Low Voltage (LV) feeders. However, PV rich LV feeders are highly likely to pose technical challenges such as significant voltage rise and thermal overloading. This inevitably limits the volume of PV systems that can be hosted on LV feeders. Therefore, the deployment of solutions that can enable feeders to accommodate greater volumes of PV systems without having any technical issues is crucial. This thesis, consequently, thoroughly investigates one of the potential solutions: transforming the radial operation of LV feeders into ring operation. European-style LV feeders are typically operated in a radial fashion and yet are designed to be reconfigurable with neighbouring feeders. It is, therefore, essential to identify the best pairing option (of PV rich LV feeders) in a practical and straightforward manner due to the large number of existing LV feeders in a given Distribution Network Operator (DNO) area. This thesis proposes a generic innovative methodology to enable DNOs to straightforwardly identify the best pairing feeder; a decision-making tool to facilitate the rapid uptake of PV systems. To accomplish this goal, an impact assessment of a set of real residential LV feeders is carried out to identify the first technical issue/constraint that limits their hosting capacity. Next, regression analyses are carried out to gain an understanding of the relation between this first occurrence of technical issue/constraint and the corresponding level of PV penetration. The most practical and adequately accurate metric needs to be chosen. Feeders are then classified based on the range of metrics to cover all possible pairing cases. Finally, the ring operation of feeders in each class is analysed and hosting capacities are compared to those of radial ones. This process creates a practical matrix from which DNOs can easily identify the best pairing feeders. DNOs are likely to be hesitant to adopt permanent ring operation as it is not typically adopted in traditional LV feeders. Therefore, the switch located between feeders can be operated over time (i.e., dynamic ring operation) to reduce the duration for which ring operation is in place. It is, however, challenging to identify the most favourable control strategy. This thesis proposes different strategies for dynamic ring operation. Note that the most preferable control strategy is that which preserves the benefits of permanent ring operation with the minimum duration of ring operation and minimum number of switching. To achieve this, four different control strategies are explored-using different control cycles and considering hosting capacity, duration and switching. The best control strategy is found to be able to increase hosting capacity as permanent ring operation, reduce switching actions and minimise duration of ring operation compared to other proposed strategies and, crucially, operate ring operation only when it is truly needed. Finally, this thesis investigates the use of ring operation with an LV on-load tap changer (OLTC) as this is recently available voltage control technologies and is increasingly drawing the attention of DNOs. Two approaches are investigated to increase hosting capacity and limit ring operations: the use of the switch and OLTC are controlled separately using local measurements (i.e., localised) and their simultaneous control at the LV transformer level (i.e., centralised). The latter gives the priority to the OLTC to minimise the duration of the ring operation. The assessments are extended to cover an integrated medium and low voltage network to obtain more realistic results. The results show that centralised approach provides better performance considering hosting capacity, the number of switching/tap actions and the duration of ring operation.

Meltdown och Spectre är två säkerhetshål som har upptäckts i moderna processorer. För att säkra sig mot dessa säkerhetshål är företagen tvungna att uppdatera sina system med de säkerhetsuppdateringar som släpps även om prestandan eventuellt kan försämras. Studien har som syfte att undersöka huruvida svenska hostingföretag har blivit påverkade av uppdateringarna mot säkerhetshålen. Företagen kan påverkas prestandamässigt men även få problem med de uppdateringsprocesser som har genomgåtts. Hostingföretagen är de företag som ansetts vara ett av de mer påverkade. Urvalet för de medverkande företagen i studien blev små till medelstora hostingföretag lokaliserade på olika platser i Sverige. Undersökningen använder en kvalitativ intervjustudie. Företagen kontaktades med E-post, för att sedan bli vidarebefordrad till en person som har varit involverad i arbetet med Meltdown och Spectre. Totalt var det 59 företag som kontaktades och det var fyra företag som ställde upp på att vara delaktiga i studien. Ett av företagen kunde inte utföra en intervju över Skype, men medverkande genom att svara på frågorna över E-post. Svaren från intervjuerna sammanställdes och analyserades sedan och de analyserade svaren visar att: Företagen har blivit påverkade prestandamässigt av uppdateringarna men inte i den utsträckning att det skulle påverka den dagliga verksamheten. Den del som påverkade företagen mest var den arbetsprocess utfördes för att applicera uppdateringarna samt komplikationerna från leverantörernas sida att leverera en fungerade och skyddande uppdatering i tid. / This studies focus is to analyze the impact on Swedish hosting companies after the announcement about Meltdown and Spectre. Meltdown and Spectre are two security issues that reside on modern processors today. It has been said that the hosting business will take most of the impact generated by the patches to fix the problem. The effects that it could have on the companies are performance degradation but also questions arising during the patching process. The companies that were chosen to be part of this study were small to medium sized hosting companies located in different places in Sweden. A qualitative interview study was used to collect data. An email was used to contact companies to be redirected to the person that had been involved with the work around Meltdown and Spectre. Totally 59 companies were contacted to see if there were interest in participating in the study. Out of those 59 companies, there were four contributors, where three of these were real interviews over Skype and one over email. The data collected from the interviews were analyzed and showed that: The companies have been affected by the updates, but not to the extent that it would change the day-today operations. The part that touched the companies the most was the work process that had to be performed to apply the updates, as well as the complications from the supplier's side to deliver a secure working patch in time.