Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [262]-270.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2009. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Concerns the Hmong people in the Lao People's Democratic Republic and the Turkmens in Iraq. / UN Job no.: G0511801 E. Material type: NGO written statements. Issued under agenda item 6, agenda document E/CN.4/2005/1. Issued under agenda item 6a, agenda document E/CN.4/2005/1.

Pluralities of people s crossings of the Mekong Thai-Lao border occur as locals subvert, reject, ignore, and embrace the logic of the national border. From a state-centric point of view, the everyday movements of these people, who rely mainly on a subsistence economy and have their own modes of crossing, are undocumented. I argue that people s mobility co-exists with the practice of sedentary assumption. The aim of this thesis is to promote theory related to the Third Space in Borderland Studies by the presentation and analysis of people s pluralities in border-crossings. The borderland area of Khong Chiam (Thailand)-Sanasomboun (Lao PDR) is the location of an in-between state in which spatial negotiations, temporal negotiations, and negotiations of political subjectivities contribute to the nature of mobility in the Third Space. To achieve the objective of this thesis, ethnographic methodology was used over six months of fieldwork from March to September 2016, and included participant observations, interviews and essay-readings that involved 110 participants in the borderland site. People s movements across the Mekong River border occur daily without formal state approval. From the perspective of the Thai Ban, the river is a lived space in which they catch food and use for transport. However, their interpretation of the Mekong as the state boundary does not completely disappear. This thesis examines the everyday banal pluralities of the Thai Ban s border-crossings by weaving together the three concepts of space, temporality, and negotiations of political subjectivities. The spatial and temporal negotiations involved in the border-crossings shape and are shaped by this other interpretation of the Mekong as a lived space, and different political subjectivities contribute to the pluralities of the crossings. The presentation of these pluralities of border-crossings adds to Borderland Studies specifically and the social sciences in general in the development of an understanding of the Third Space. As this thesis focuses on people s mobility at quasi-state checkpoints and in areas along the Mekong Thai-Lao border with no border checkpoints, it is suggested that future research examines the everyday practices of border-crossings at land borders.

In the wake of state borders becoming more porous the flows of people crossing them in search for opportunities have increased. This trend is evident in Greater Mekong Sub region where the economic boom of Thailand attracts thousands of migrant workers every year from neighboring countries making Thai industries dependent on the cheap labor. Alongside these developments, human trafficking, the slave trade of our time, has emerged as an increasing challenge. In Lao PDR the historic ties to Thailand make for a long history of cross-border relations and flows. With the relative economic differences, labor migration to the richer neighbor is becoming an accepted way of improving family conditions. However, the risks involved, exploitation and trafficking, are not widely known in the communities. Counter-trafficking work in Lao PDR has been evolving over the passed 10 years. This study has, through an ethnographic approach to organizational work combined with reflections and observations, tried to create a picture of the counter-trafficking work on the ground. Using semi-structured interviews projects, aims and assumptions could be derived and three main problems identified: Trafficking is hard to separate from labor migration, thus making it hard to effectively target; there is a dissonance between perceived and actual inter-sector communication, and; the trafficking sector is isolated from other sectors as dialogue across sector borders appear to be nonexistent. Reasons given for these discords mainly came down to dependency on donors and a need to meet their requirements. Essentially it seems that organizations working with this open-border phenomenon are rigidly closed to each other.

Cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude des propriétés de transport statique et dynamique du gaz d'électrons bidimensionnel supraconducteur à l'interface LaAlO3/SrTiO3. Dans un premier temps, nous étudions l'effet du désordre microscopique induit par le dopage en Chrome, sur la supraconductivité et le couplage spin-orbite en fonction de la densité de porteur modulée par effet de champ. Dans une géométrie de grille locale au-dessus du gaz, nous montrons le contrôle électrostatique de la transition supraconducteur-isolant. De même, nous analysons l'ajustement du couplage spin-orbite contrôlé par effet de champ. A l'aide de méthodes de nanofabrication par lithographie électronique, nous démontrons la première réalisation d'un point critique quantique dans LaAlO3/SrTiO3. En changeant le confinement latéral et le niveau de Fermi par effet de champ, nous sommes capables de régler le nombre de canaux conducteurs dans l'état normal et de mesurer la quantification de la conductance. Enfin, nous présentons des mesures radio-fréquence qui donnent accès aux propriétés dynamiques du gaz supraconducteur. L'évolution de la conductivité en fonction de la densité de porteurs et de la température est comparée avec la théorie standard BCS/Mattis-Bardeen d'une part, et avec la théorie BKT d'autre part. / This thesis is devoted to the study of static and dynamical transport properties of the superconducting two-dimensional electron gas at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface. Under strong 2D confinement, the degeneracy of the t$_{2g}$ bands of SrTiO$_3$ is lifted at the interface, generating a rich and complex band structure. Starting from a free electron model, we derive numerically a self-consistent calculation of the potential well and the band structure (chapter 1). These simulations highlight the presence of two types of bands d$_{xy}$ and d$_{xz/yz}$ with very different transport properties. We investigate first the effect of microscopic disorder introduced by Cr doping, on superconductivity and spin-orbit coupling over a wide range of back-gate doping (chapter 3). We also describe the first implementation of a field-effect device where the superconductor-insulator transition could be continuously tuned with a top-gate. The presence of a strong spin-orbit coupling that could be controlled with the top-gate voltage is also demonstrated by analyzing the magneto-transport measurements. The gate dependence of the spin-splitting energy, of the order of a few meV, is found to be consistent with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. Going one step further in nanofabrication, we report on the first realization of a quantum point contact in LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ using split gates (chapter 6). To go further in the understanding of the LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interface, we present high frequency measurements of the conductivity $\sigma$ (chapter 5). This measurement gives us access to the superfluid stiffness and to the gap energy via the BCS theory. We show that the competition between these two energy scales controls the superconducting Tc in the phase diagram.

No description available.

Graphene is a semimetal with zero band gap. Position of Fermi level can be changed by applied gate voltage, which results in a change of free carier concentration. This work focuses on a simultaneous measurement of surface potential by Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and transport response of graphene Hall bars in different relative humidities and with applying gate voltage. The transport response was also observed in case of graphene Hall bar structure modified by local anodic oxidation (LAO).

No description available.

No description available.