This bachelor thesis in human rights aims to critically study the human rights of the muslim minority in Sweden and the possible limitations of the swedish minority politics. With the Sweden Democrats’s (SD) bigger influence in swedish politics today, an increased xenophobia is a fact, which leads to a risk of a society where islamophobic ideas can grow. Through a case study, muslims’ requirements that their basic human rights are guaranteed, will be discussed, to examine limitations in the swedish multicultural society. With the perspecitve of Iris MarionYoung’s “five faces of oppression”, muslims’ situation will be analyzed, through a variety of material. Universal rights, group rights, integration politics and freedom of religion are parts of the analysis. International critique concerning Sweden’s lack of equality statistics and Sweden’s responsability to guarantee minority groups their rights will also be discussed. A need to strengthen the human rights for muslims in general is emphazised in the conclusion, with suggestions for further research.

I denna uppsats undersöks communityreglerna för Facebook för att se hur väl plattformen kan säkert utgöra den digitala offentliga sfären. Detta görs genom en anpassad WPR-analys, där materialet är communityreglerna för Facebook. Teorin som används är Iris Marion Youngs deliberativa demokratiteori, där Young redovisar ett antal kriterier som är förutsättningarna för en hälsosam offentlig sfär. Resultatet för undersökningen är att företaget som äger Facebook (Meta), både tydligt strävar efter att uppnå en hälsosam digital offentlig sfär och förstår vad problemen är som hindrar användarna från att uppnå en hälsosam digital offentlig sfär utan några regler. Resultatet visar att det Meta gör mycket väl är att de har flera effektiva åtgärder för att skapa ärliga och resonabla diskussioner på plattformen, med bra mångfald och pluralism. Där målet är att alla deltagare ska kunna uttrycka sig utan att riskera hot eller hat från andra användare. Där det fanns flest brister var i hanteringen av falsk information. Där Meta förlitar sig mycket på enbart faktagranskare som själva inte är tillräckligt för att hantera sanning och information. Dessutom ser Meta det offentliga och officiella narrativet som sanning och användare som avviker sig från det narrativet kan få sina inlägg borttagna eller att spridningen av deras uttalanden minskas. De användare som bryter mot reglerna exkluderas också från den offentliga sfären där Meta inte gör någonting för att inkludera deltagare med problematiska värderingar, vilket är negativt för en deliberativ demokrati.

Yes / The concept of proximity curve and a new algorithm are proposed for obtaining clusters in a finite set of data points in the finite dimensional Euclidean space. Each point is endowed with a potential constructed by means of a multi-dimensional Cauchy density, contributing to an overall anisotropic potential function. Guided by the steepest descent algorithm, the data points are successively visited and removed one by one, and at each stage the overall potential is updated and the magnitude of its local gradient is calculated. The result is a finite sequence of tuples, the proximity curve, whose pattern is analysed to give rise to a deterministic clustering. The finite set of all such proximity curves in conjunction with a simulation study of their distribution results in a probabilistic clustering represented by a distribution on the set of dendrograms. A two-dimensional synthetic data set is used to illustrate the proposed potential-based clustering idea. It is shown that the results achieved are plausible since both the ‘geographic distribution’ of data points as well as the ‘topographic features’ imposed by the potential function are well reflected in the suggested clustering. Experiments using the Iris data set are conducted for validation purposes on classification and clustering benchmark data. The results are consistent with the proposed theoretical framework and data properties, and open new approaches and applications to consider data processing from different perspectives and interpret data attributes contribution to patterns.

Yes / n this paper, a powerful face recognition system for authentication and identification tasks is presented and a new facial feature extraction approach is proposed. A novel feature extraction method based on combining the characteristics of the Curvelet transform and Fractal dimension transform is proposed. The proposed system consists of four stages. Firstly, a simple preprocessing algorithm based on a sigmoid function is applied to standardize the intensity dynamic range in the input image. Secondly, a face detection stage based on the Viola-Jones algorithm is used for detecting the face region in the input image. After that, the feature extraction stage using a combination of the Digital Curvelet via wrapping transform and a Fractal Dimension transform is implemented. Finally, the K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN) and Correlation Coefficient (CC) Classifiers are used in the recognition task. Lastly, the performance of the proposed approach has been tested by carrying out a number of experiments on three well-known datasets with high diversity in the facial expressions: SDUMLA-HMT, Faces96 and UMIST datasets. All the experiments conducted indicate the robustness and the effectiveness of the proposed approach for both authentication and identification tasks compared to other established approaches.

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Mardi Gras draws millions of tourists to New Orleans yearly, contributing to the economy of the city. Visitors soon discover the thrill of catching "throws" tossed to paradegoers by members of parade organizations' riding floats. For tourists and locals alike, throws become the cultural currency of New Orleans during Carnival. Beads, doubloons, coconuts, cups and other throws develop an inherent value, enticing crowds. People esteem throws enough to compete for them, with varying levels of intensity, along parade routes and on the streets of the French Quarter. The purchase of throws by Carnival krewes also brings revenue into New Orleans. Scholars have written many studies on Mardi Gras, including studies on individual organizations, tourism and economy. However, no study examines the history of Mardi Gras throws. This thesis seeks to fill that void, and establishes an earlier date for the first time beads were thrown from floats.

A pigmentação dos olhos, cabelos e pele, bem como presença ou ausência de sardas, está entre os exemplos mais visíveis da variação fenotípica humana. O estudo da diversidade genética em genes de pigmentação tem beneficiado diferentes áreas do conhecimento, como a área da genética e antropologia forense, bem como a área relacionada a saúde e bemestar. Adicionalmente, a presença de estruturas secundárias na íris tem sido reportada como importante fator na percepção de cor de olho observada que um indivíduo pode ter referente a íris e também a fatores de risco para algumas doenças oculares, ainda que as bases genéticas envolvidas nestas características sejam pouco conhecidas. Os genes OCA2 e HERC2 representam dois genes associados à variação normal da pigmentação. Este trabalho avaliou a relação de polimorfismos nas regiões regulatórias e codificantes destes dois genes com os fenótipos de pigmentação e estruturas secundárias presentes na íris encontrados em uma amostra populacional de 340 indivíduos do estado de São Paulo, por meio de sequenciamento de nova geração. Análises de regressão logística e linear para as variáveis qualitativas e quantitativas da cor dos olhos e estruturas secundárias presentes na íris foram realizadas. 170 pontos de variação ao longo das regiões estudadas foram identificados, dos quais 18 estão associadas a pelo menos um fenótipo de pigmentação e estruturas secundárias presentes na íris. Destaca-se a existência de muitos polimorfismos que não se mostrara-se associados quando avaliados independentemente, porém foram associados quando analisados sob a ótica de interações epistáticas, considerada uma possível explicação para a variabilidade encontrada nestes fenótipos, principalmente aqueles intermediários, como a cor dos olhos verdes e mel. O uso de variáveis quantitativas para os olhos revelou pela primeira vez a associação do polimorfismo não sinônimo rs201872292 no gene HERC2 com olhos claros, independente do efeito do polimorfismo rs12913832. Ainda, a associação do polimorfismo rs58358300 localizado em um íntron do gene HERC2 com pigmentação da esclera, o que representa a primeira vez que um polimorfismo é associado a esta característica. Este foi o primeiro estudo no Brasil que se propôs a analisar polimorfismos genéticos em genes candidatos à variação normal da pigmentação humana com estruturas secundárias presentes na íris. Os resultados confirmam a hipótese de que polimorfismos dos genes OCA2 e HERC2 podem contribuir para a formação dos fenótipos clássicos de pigmentação de olhos, pele, cabelos e estruturas secundárias presentes na íris humana dos indivíduos da população brasileira. / The pigmentation of the eyes, hair and skin, as well as the presence or absence of freckles, are amongst the most visible examples of human phenotypic variation. The study of genetic diversity in pigmentation genes has contributed greatly to the fields of forensics genetics, anthropological genetics and public health. In addition, the presence of iris features has been reported to influence the perception of overall iris color and also consists in risk factors for ocular diseases, although very little is known about the genetic basis of these traits. The OCA2 and HERC2 genes have been associated with normal variation of pigmentation in diverse populations. The present study evaluated the relationship of polymorphisms in the regulatory and coding regions of these two genes with the pigmentation phenotypes and iris features found in a population sample of 340 individuals from the state of São Paulo, Brazil, through next-generation sequencing. Logistic and linear regression analyzes for the qualitative and quantitative variables were performed. A total of 170 points of variation throughout the studied regions were identified, of which 18 were associated with at least one pigmentation phenotype when analyzed as qualitative and/or quantitative variables and iris features. It is worth mentioning that many associations that were not observed when evaluated independently, were indeed associated when analyzed from the perspective of epistatic effects, which is considered a possible explanation for the variability found in these phenotypes, especially those presented as intermediate, such as green and hazel eye colors. The use of quantitative variables to evaluate the eye color, acquired from photographs, revealed for the first time the association of the nonsynonymous mutation rs201872292 in the HERC2 gene with light eyes, independently of the effect of the rs12913832 polymorphism. We highlight the association of the polymorphism rs58358300 located in an intron of the HERC2 gene with sclera pigmentation, which was the first time that a polymorphism is associated with this feature. This was the first study in Brazil to analyze genetic polymorphisms in candidate genes related to normal variation of human pigmentation and iris features by next-generation sequencing. The results confirm the hypothesis that OCA2 and HERC2 genes may contribute to classic pigmentation phenotypes of eyes, skin, hair, freckles and iris features in the Brazilian population.

Neste trabalho é apresentado um método para reconhecimento de seres humanos através da textura da íris. A imagem do olho é processada através da análise do gradiente, com uma técnica de dispersão aleatória de sementes. Um vetor de características é extraído para cada íris, baseado na análise dos componentes wavelet em diversos níveis de decomposição. Para se mensurar as distâncias entre esses vetores foi utilizado o cálculo da distância Euclidiana, gerando-se curvas recall x precision para se medir a eficiência do método desenvolvido. Os resultados obtidos com algumas famílias wavelets demonstraram que o método proposto é capaz de realizar o reconhecimento humano através da íris com uma precisão eficiente. / This work presents a method for recognition of human beings by iris texture. The image of the eye is processed through gradient analysis, based on a random dispersion of seeds. So, it is extracted a feature vector for each iris based on wavelet transform in some levels of decomposition. To estimate the distances between these vectors it was used the Euclidean distance, and recall x precision curves are generated to measure the efficiency of the developed method. The results gotten with some wavelets families had demonstrated that the proposed methodology is capable to do human recognition through the iris with an efficient precision.

This thesis explores the figure of the trickster in the works of Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark. By looking at these writers’ treatment of elusive, illusive and allusive characters, the thesis argues that they each incorporated what can be read as “trickster” figures in their fiction as a means of addressing anxieties about art, society and the self. The trickster is a character-type found in narratives from a multitude of cultures and eras, and is typically characterised by his subversive presence, his boundary-crossing and his role as a healer of predicament. While the trickster is often perceived as a universal phenomenon arising from a collective unconscious, this thesis instead focusses on writers’ intentional inclusion of trickster characters in literature as a way of thinking through specific problems. Bowen, it will be shown, interpolated tricksy characters drawn from myth and fairy-tale into her fiction in order to expose a perceived rift between art and academia; Taylor used the trickster to think about the construction of identity in post-war Britain; Murdoch took models from Shakespeare to create tricksters that helped her explore the ethics of writing fiction; and Spark’s tricksters allowed her to conceptualise truth and lies, and good and evil. Concentrating on four mid-century writers whose works have been seen to vary in genre and style, this thesis demonstrates that a trickster paradigm emerged in mid-twentieth-century British fiction – a period not previously associated with the trickster. Influenced by converging strands of trickery and allusion in art through the early decades of the twentieth century, notable mid-century British writers used outsider characters to probe social and artistic shifts in a landscape fractured by war and to reach for a sense of healing. By identifying such characters as trickster figures, this thesis sheds new light on patterns of subversion, healing and character in mid-century fiction. It explores the particular affinity the trickster had with women’s writing, and illustrates how the trickster was important to twentieth-century concerns surrounding metafiction and the role of the reader.

Les performances des systèmes de reconnaissances basés sur l'iris sont très négativement affectées par les relâchements des contraintes lors de l'acquisition des images (sujet mobile ou faiblement coopératif, image acquise loin du capteur…). L’objectif de cette thèse est de proposer une amélioration des algorithmes de segmentation traditionnels afin de pouvoir travailler dans de telles conditions. Nous avons identifié et traité quarte modules qui permettent de limiter l'impact des dégradations des images sur les performances du système de reconnaissance global : • Une localisation précise et robuste de la pupille dans l'image l'œil. Pour cela, nous avons développé une méthode qui supprime les cils et les sourcils de l'image pour faciliter la détection de la pupille. • Une segmentation précise de la texture de l'iris dans l'image. Nous avons étudié plusieurs méthodes de la littérature des Contours Actifs et comparé l'impact de ces méthodes sur les performances de reconnaissances du système complet. • Une estimation précise et robuste des contours anatomique de l'iris indépendamment des occlusions dans l'image. Pour cela, nous avons dérivé les équations des Contours Actifs explicitement pour des cercles et des ellipses. Nous avons par ailleurs proposé une méthodologie efficace pour rendre la détection moins sensible aux minimas locaux. • Une méthode de détection des erreurs de segmentation. Il est en effet important de pouvoir avertir le système de reconnaissance global qu'une erreur s’est produite. Pour cela nous avons développé plusieurs critères d'évaluation de la qualité de segmentation. Nous avons ensuite fusionnés ces mesures en utilisant un algorithme de type <<Support Vector Regression>> (SVR) pour former une mesure de qualité globale évaluant la qualité de la segmentation / This thesis is focused on the development of robust segmentation algorithms for iris recognition systems working in degraded acquisition conditions. In controlled acquisition scenarios, iris segmentation is well handled by simple segmentation schemes, which modeled the iris borders by circles and assumed that the iris can only be occluded by eyelids. However, such simple models tend to fail when the iris is strongly occluded or off-angle, or when the iris borders are not sharp enough. In this thesis, we propose a complete segmentation system working efficiently despite the above-mentioned degradations of the input data. After a study of the recent state of the art in iris recognition, we identified four key issues that an iris segmentation system should handle when being confronted to images of poor quality, leading this way to four key modules for the complete system: • The system should be able locate the pupil in the image in order to initialize more complex algorithms. To address this problem, we propose an original and effective way to first segment dark elements in the image that can lead to mistakes of the pupil localization process. This rough segmentation detects high frequency areas of the image and then the system uses the pupil homogeneity as a criterion to identify the pupil area among other dark regions of the image. • Accurate segmentation of the iris texture in the eye image is a core task of iris segmentation systems. We propose to segment the iris texture by Active Contours because they meet both the requirement in robustness and accuracy required to perform segmentation on large databases of degraded images. We studied several Active Contours that varies in speed, robustness, accuracy and in the features they use to model the iris region. We make a comparative evaluation of the algorithms’ influence on the system performance. • A complete segmentation system must also accurately estimate the iris shape in occluded regions, in order to format the iris texture for recognition. We propose a robust and accurate scheme based on a variational formulation to fit an elliptic model on the iris borders. We explicitly derive evolution equations for ellipses using the Active Contours formalism. We also propose an effective way to limit the sensitivity of this process to initial conditions. This part of our work is currently under review for final acceptance in the international journal Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU). • Finally, we address the main issue of automatic detection of segmentation failures of the system. Few works in the literature address measuring the quality of a segmentation algorithm, critical task for an operational system. We propose in this thesis a set of novel quality measures for segmentation and show a correlation between each of them with the intrinsic recognition performance of the segmented images. We perform fusion of the individual quality measures via a Support Vector Regression (SVR) algorithm, in order to propose a more robust global segmentation quality score