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M.Tech. / My research explores how process, i.e. the physical means of material production, can embody and conceptually signify transformation within personal and public realms. My practical work draws on multiple material sources which I subject to various physical processes in order to produce alteration. These material processes function as metaphors for processes of self-exploration. In my theoretical argument, I propose speculative connections between my sense of liberation (experienced in the processes of artmaking and through my adoption of instability, dissolution, hybridity and open-endedness as working strategies) and certain socio-political transformations that have occurred in the past decade. Cultural effects of postcolonialism such as hybridity and otherness are used as reference points in my theoretical text, in which I foreground personal narrative as integral to my research design. Ways in which the contemporary South African artist, Penny Siopis similarly engages autobiography as subject matter and working strategy, are explored and interwoven into my discussion.

A tese investiga as transformações urbanísticas ocorridas em Fortaleza entre 1810 e 1933, examinando as ações do poder público e o papel da iniciativa privada na apropriação e produção material da cidade, com foco no espaço intraurbano, na sua tessitura e nos atores envolvidos. À luz da história da urbanização, entendida como um processo social em suas diferentes escalas (local, regional, nacional e internacional) trata na longa duração as permanências e momentos de inflexão. Pretende contribuir ao experimentar novas possibilidades de interpretação da história do urbanismo com base na espacialização e sobreposição de fontes primárias de naturezas diversas - plantas, planos de expansão, códigos de posturas, censos, décimas urbanas, etc - com vistas a interpretar a dinâmica de transformação da cidade em diferentes momentos. A hipótese central é que, até 1933, a cidade de Fortaleza cresceu induzida por planos e normas de regulação urbanística elaborados pelo poder público, mas foi edificada pelas mãos da iniciativa privada. Identifica os protagonistas do setor privado vinculados à produção material da cidade, dandolhes face, configurando perfis individuais e de grupo, e, sobretudo, quantificando e espacializando seus imóveis. Verificou-se que os maiores proprietários de imóveis urbanos eram negociantes (lusitanos, cearenses e estrangeiros) envolvidos com o comércio internacional. / This thesis investigates urban transformations that took place in the city of Fortaleza (Brazil) between 1810 and 1933, examining governmental action and the role of the private sector in relation to land ownership and physical building of that city, focusing on its interurban space, its organization and actors involved. Given the history of urbanization, understood as a social process in its different scales - local, regional, national and international - this study sought to deal, in a long-term historical perspective, with this process continuities and ruptures. This thesis aims at contributing to develop new possibilities of its interpreting town planning history based on urban maps produced from primary sources of various kinds - city blue prints, urban development plans, legislation, census, and urban taxes archives - in order to interpret Fortaleza\'s urban dynamic at different times. The central hypothesis is that, until 1933, Fortaleza\'s growth was induced by urban regulatory plans produced by the public government, but the city was built by the private sector. It identifies the main roles of those involved in the private sector linked to the physical production of the city, giving them a face, setting individual and group profiles, and, above all, quantifying and spatializing their properties within the city fabric. It can, also, be noticed that largest urban estate landowners were businesspeople (from Ceará, Portuguese, and other foreigners) involved with international trade.

A tese investiga as transformações urbanísticas ocorridas em Fortaleza entre 1810 e 1933, examinando as ações do poder público e o papel da iniciativa privada na apropriação e produção material da cidade, com foco no espaço intraurbano, na sua tessitura e nos atores envolvidos. À luz da história da urbanização, entendida como um processo social em suas diferentes escalas (local, regional, nacional e internacional) trata na longa duração as permanências e momentos de inflexão. Pretende contribuir ao experimentar novas possibilidades de interpretação da história do urbanismo com base na espacialização e sobreposição de fontes primárias de naturezas diversas - plantas, planos de expansão, códigos de posturas, censos, décimas urbanas, etc - com vistas a interpretar a dinâmica de transformação da cidade em diferentes momentos. A hipótese central é que, até 1933, a cidade de Fortaleza cresceu induzida por planos e normas de regulação urbanística elaborados pelo poder público, mas foi edificada pelas mãos da iniciativa privada. Identifica os protagonistas do setor privado vinculados à produção material da cidade, dandolhes face, configurando perfis individuais e de grupo, e, sobretudo, quantificando e espacializando seus imóveis. Verificou-se que os maiores proprietários de imóveis urbanos eram negociantes (lusitanos, cearenses e estrangeiros) envolvidos com o comércio internacional. / This thesis investigates urban transformations that took place in the city of Fortaleza (Brazil) between 1810 and 1933, examining governmental action and the role of the private sector in relation to land ownership and physical building of that city, focusing on its interurban space, its organization and actors involved. Given the history of urbanization, understood as a social process in its different scales - local, regional, national and international - this study sought to deal, in a long-term historical perspective, with this process continuities and ruptures. This thesis aims at contributing to develop new possibilities of its interpreting town planning history based on urban maps produced from primary sources of various kinds - city blue prints, urban development plans, legislation, census, and urban taxes archives - in order to interpret Fortaleza\'s urban dynamic at different times. The central hypothesis is that, until 1933, Fortaleza\'s growth was induced by urban regulatory plans produced by the public government, but the city was built by the private sector. It identifies the main roles of those involved in the private sector linked to the physical production of the city, giving them a face, setting individual and group profiles, and, above all, quantifying and spatializing their properties within the city fabric. It can, also, be noticed that largest urban estate landowners were businesspeople (from Ceará, Portuguese, and other foreigners) involved with international trade.

Buildings can play an essential role in the transition to a sustainable society. Different strategies, including improved energy efficiency in buildings, substitution of carbon intensive materials and fuels, efficient energy supply among others can be employed for this purpose. In this thesis, the implications of different insulation materials, modelling and design strategies on primary energy use of residential buildings are studied using life cycle and system perspective. Specifically, the effects of different insulation materials on production primary energy and CO2 emission of buildings with different energy performance are analysed. The results show that application of extra insulation materials to building envelope components reduces the operating primary energy use but more primary energy is required for the insulation material production. This also slightly increases the CO2 emissions from material production. The increases in primary energy use and CO2 emissions are mainly due to the variations in the quantities, types and manufacturing processes of the insulation materials. Thus, choice of renewable based materials with energy efficient manufacturing is important to reduce primary energy use and GHG emissions for building material production. Uncertainties related to building modelling input parameters and assumptions and how they influence energy balance calculations of residential buildings are explored. The implications on energy savings of different energy efficiency measures are also studied. The results show that input data and assumptions used for energy balance simulations of buildings vary widely in the Swedish context giving significant differences in calculated energy demand for buildings. Among the considered parameters, indoor air temperature, internal heat gains and efficiency of ventilation heat recovery (VHR) have significant impacts on the simulated building energy performance as well as on the energy efficiency measures. The impact of parameter interactions on calculated space heating of buildings is rather small but increases with more parameter combinations and more energy efficient buildings. Detailed energy characterisation of household equipment and technical installations used in a building is essential to accurately calculate the energy demand, particularly for a low energy building. The design and construction of new buildings present many possibilities to minimise both heating and cooling demands over the lifecycle of buildings, and also in the context of climate change. Various design strategies and measures are analysed for buildings with different energy performance under different climate scenarios. These include household equipment and technical installations based on best available technology, bypassing the VHR unit, solar shading of windows, combinations of window u- and g-values, different proportions of glazed window areas and façade orientations and mechanical cooling. The results show that space heating and cooling demands vary significantly with the energy performance of buildings as well as climate scenarios. Space heating demand decreases while space cooling demand and the risk of overheating increase considerably with warmer climate. The space cooling demand and overheating risk are more significant for buildings with higher energy performance. Significant reductions are achieved in the operation final energy demands and overheating is avoided or greatly reduced when different design strategies and measures are implemented cumulatively under different climate change scenarios. The primary energy efficiency of heat supply systems depends on the heat production technology and type of fuel use. Analysis of the interaction between different design strategies and heat supply options shows that the combination of design strategies giving the lowest primary energy use for space heating and cooling varies between heat supply from district heating with combined heat and power (CHP) and heat only boilers (HOB). The primary energy use for space heating is significantly lower when the heat supply is from CHP rather than HOB. Operation primary energy use is significantly reduced with slight increase in production primary energy when the design strategies are implemented. The results suggest that significant primary energy reductions are achievable under climate change, if new buildings are designed with appropriate strategies.

How does material production become socially recognised in capitalism? This is a fundamental question to be addressed in capitalist production, since material production takes place privately and independently in a global and atomistic system. This thesis shows that the question is tackled by Marx in the first three chapters of Capital. The process of social recognition of material production is that of the realisation of work carried out privately and independently as part of the social labour. For Marx this occurs through the private and independent work becoming objective social labour as the substance of the value of commodities, and through the latter finding its necessary developed mercantile expression in the price form of commodities. Therefore, private and independent work becomes social labour through the recognition of its product as equivalent to a certain amount of money. The thesis argues that Marx’s answer is powerfully insightful but flawed because it did not succeed in fully characterising the historical specificity of commodity. Commodity is not merely the differentiated unity of use value and value but of use value and mercantile use value, and of labour value and mercantile value. The former dialectic is immediate and distinguishes between the utility of commodity as a direct means of consumption or production and that as a means of exchange, fully determining the behaviour of the private and independent commodity producer. The latter dialectic is objective and distinguishes between commodity as the embodiment of the social labour necessary to reproduce it and as the embodiment of command over social labour, enabling the adjustment of the productive structure. Both dialectics are mediated by the mercantile form of value, which allows the indirect expression of labour value as the gravitational force of the system. The theory of commodity offered in this thesis, unlike that of Marx, consistently hinges on the atomistic private and independent commodity producer. The thesis shows that commodity production is the organisation of society’s labour for its material reproduction, just as in any previous mode of production. The discovery of the generic aspect of commodity production breaks the false immediate link between production and supply, and that between the labour theory of value and both the supply-side-determined theory of price and the single-factor theory of production. The thesis also shows that the mercantile form of value is what allows society’s labour to become an objective and autonomous materially abstract substance regulating the adjustment of the productive system under the form of material signals. This is the specific aspect of a global mode of production comprised of free and independent individuals. The mercantile form of value is thus Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Finally, the thesis analyses some implications of the framework with regard to the analysis of monetary phenomena, capital accumulation and sustainable development, and reviews the most popular Marxian topic in Economics: the transformation of values into prices of production.

How does material production become socially recognised in capitalism? This is a fundamental question to be addressed in capitalist production, since material production takes place privately and independently in a global and atomistic system. This thesis shows that the question is tackled by Marx in the first three chapters of Capital. The process of social recognition of material production is that of the realisation of work carried out privately and independently as part of the social labour. For Marx this occurs through the private and independent work becoming objective social labour as the substance of the value of commodities, and through the latter finding its necessary developed mercantile expression in the price form of commodities. Therefore, private and independent work becomes social labour through the recognition of its product as equivalent to a certain amount of money. The thesis argues that Marx's answer is powerfully insightful but flawed because it did not succeed in fully characterising the historical specificity of commodity. Commodity is not merely the differentiated unity of use value and value but of use value and mercantile use value, and of labour value and mercantile value. The former dialectic is immediate and distinguishes between the utility of commodity as a direct means of consumption or production and that as a means of exchange, fully determining the behaviour of the private and independent commodity producer. The latter dialectic is objective and distinguishes between commodity as the embodiment of the social labour necessary to reproduce it and as the embodiment of command over social labour, enabling the adjustment of the productive structure. Both dialectics are mediated by the mercantile form of value, which allows the indirect expression of labour value as the gravitational force of the system. The theory of commodity offered in this thesis, unlike that of Marx, consistently hinges on the atomistic private and independent commodity producer. The thesis shows that commodity production is the organisation of society's labour for its material reproduction, just as in any previous mode of production. The discovery of the generic aspect of commodity production breaks the false immediate link between production and supply, and that between the labour theory of value and both the supply-side-determined theory of price and the single-factor theory of production. The thesis also shows that the mercantile form of value is what allows society's labour to become an objective and autonomous materially abstract substance regulating the adjustment of the productive system under the form of material signals. This is the specific aspect of a global mode of production comprised of free and independent individuals. The mercantile form of value is thus Adam Smith's invisible hand. Finally, the thesis analyses some implications of the framework with regard to the analysis of monetary phenomena, capital accumulation and sustainable development, and reviews the most popular Marxian topic in Economics: the transformation of values into prices of production.

This article deals with properties of cathode material of lithium-ion cells study in term of active layer dependence. Aim of the work is to get familiar with problematics of cathode material production and diagnostics and to compare different active layer production methods. The opening of the work is concentrating on rechargeable batteries, mainly lithium-ion batteries and their electrode materials. Practical part is describing method of cathode material production and its characteristics.