This thesis deals with role of the European Union in the ethnic conflicts of South Caucasus, notably in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In the first part, the author concentrates on the evolution of situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as well as on the role of international actors in these territories, before the outbreak of war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. The master thesis continues with the analysis of the EU's engagement in break-away territories where author focuses on the evaluation of specific policies and instruments used by the EU towards the two ethnic territories and Georgia. The final section assesses the EU's responsiveness during the Russian-Georgian war and also the steps taken in the period after the violence. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to evaluate the Union's policies in South Ossetia and Abkhazia before, during and after the breakthrough war in August 2008. In this context, the author concludes that EU policies have failed because of unability to prevent a renewed outbreak of violence. Failure depended on the EU's reluctance to get involved in political and security issues and also on Russia's influence on decision-making process of the EU member states.

Orientador: Alexandre César Rodrigues da Silva / Resumo: Neste trabalho foram programados dois algoritmos descritos na literatura denominados de XOR e MDM que realizam a síntese de circuitos reversíveis a partir da tabela verdade. Programou-se também algoritmos relacionados com a otimização pós-síntese, denominados Greedy, Simulated Annealing e Variable Neighbourhood Descent, que empregam métodos heurísticos e regras de reescrita, cujo objetivo é reduzir a quantidade de portas lógicas reversíveis do circuito sintetizado. A contribuição deste trabalho foi o emprego do método Divisão que divide o circuito sintetizado em vizinhanças e aplica o método Simulated Annealing ou Variable Neighbourhood Descent nas partes do circuito. Os métodos de otimização implementados foram comparados utilizando como testes 42 circuitos. Constatou-se que os métodos Simulated Annealing e Variable Neighbourhood Descent em conjunto com o método Divisão geraram circuitos menores. Além disso, o algoritmo que aplica a meta-heurística Simulated Annealing comparado ao Variable Neighbourhood Descent obteve menor quantidade de portas em 7 dos 42 circuitos, mesmo custo em 29 circuitos e pior custo em 6. / Abstract: In this work, two algorithms described in the literature denominated of XOR and MDM are programmes that realize the synthesis of reversible circuits from the truth table. It has been programmed also algorithms related to the post-synthesis optimization, called Greedy, Simulated Annealing and Variable Neighbourhood Descent, which use heuristic methods and rewriting rules, whose objective is to reduce the number of reversible logic gates of the synthesized circuit. The contribution of this work was the use of the Division method that divides the synthesized circuit into neighborhoods and applies the Simulated Annealing or Variable Neighbourhood Descent method in the circuit parts. The implemented optimization methods were compared using 42 circuits as a test. It was found that the Simulated Annealing and Variable Neighborhood Descent methods together with the Division method generated smaller circuits. Furthermore, the algorithm that applies the Simulated Annealing meta-heuristic compared to the Variable Neighbourhood Descent obtained the lowest number of gates in 7 of the 42 circuits, even cost in 29 circuits and the worst cost in 6. / Mestre

Propomos o estudo do meio desordenado onde a caminhada determinista parcialmente autorrepulsiva (CDPA) é desenvolvida e o estudo da caminhada aleatória autorrepulsiva (SAW) em rede regular. O meio desordenado na CDPA, gerado por um processo Poissônico espacial, é caracterizado pela estatística de vizinhança e de distâncias. A estatística de vizinhança mede a probabilidade de um ponto ser $m$-ésimo vizinho mais próximo de seu $n$-ésimo vizinho mais próximo. A estatística de distâncias mede a distribuição de distância de um ponto ao seu $k$-ésimo vizinho mais próximo. No problema da estatística de distâncias, calculamos a função densidade de probabilidade (pdf) e estudamos os casos limites de alta ordem de vizinhança e alta dimensionalidade. Um caso particular dessa pdf pode verificar se um conjunto de pontos foi gerado por um processo Poissônico. Na SAW em rede regular, um caminhante escolhe aleatoriamente um sítio adjacente para ser visitado no próximo passo, mas é proibido visitar um sítio duas ou mais vezes. Desenvolvemos uma nova abordagem para estudar grandezas conformacionais por meio do produto escalar entre o vetor posição e vetor deslocamento no $j$-ésimo passo: $\\langle\\vec{R}_{j}\\cdot\\vec{u}_{j}angle_{N}$. Mostramos que para $j=N$ o produto escalar é igual ao comprimento de persistência (projeção do vetor posição na direção do primeiro passo) e que converge para uma constante. Calculamos a distância quadrática média ponta-a-ponta, $\\langle \\vec{R}_{N}^{2}angle_{N}\\sim N^{2 u_{0}}$, como o somatório de $1\\leq j \\leq N$ do produto escalar. Os dados gerados pelo algoritmo de simulação Monte Carlo, codificado em linguagem C e paralelizado em MPI, fornecem o expoente $ u_{0}$ da regra de escala $\\langle \\vec{R}_{j}\\cdot\\vec{u}_{j}angle_{N}\\sim j^{2 u_{0}-1}$, para $1\\leq j \\leq \\Theta(N)$, próximo ao valor esperado. A partir de $\\Theta(N)\\approx N/2$ para rede quadrada e $\\Theta(N)\\approx N/3$ para rede cúbica, a caminhada torna-se mais flexível devido ao maior número de graus de liberdade disponível nos últimos passos. / We propose the study of disordered media where the deterministic partially self-avoiding walk (DPSW) is developed and the study of self-avoiding random walk (SAW) in regular lattices. The disordered media in the DPSW, generated by a spatial Poissonian process, is characterized by neighborhood and distance statistics. Neighborhood statistics quantifies the probability of a point to be the $m$th nearest neighbor of its $n$th nearest neighbor. Distance statistics quantifies the distance distribution of a given point to its $k$th nearest neighbor. For the distance statistics problem, we obtain the probability density function (pdf) and study the high dimensionality and high neighborhood order limits. A particular case of this pdf can verify if a points set is generated by a Poissonian process. In a SAW in regular lattice, the walker randomly chooses an adjacent site to be visited in the next step, but is forbidden to visit a site two or more times. We developed a new approach to study conformational quantities of SAW by means of the scalar product between the position vector and the displacement vector in the $j$th step: $\\langle\\vec{R}_{j}\\cdot\\vec{u}_{j}angle_{N}$. We show that for $j=N$ the scalar product is equal to the persistence length (projection of position vector in the direction of the first step) and that converges to a constant. We compute the square end-to-end distance, $\\langle \\vec{R}_{N}^{2}angle_{N}\\sim N^{2 u_{0}}$, as the summation $1\\leq j \\leq N$ of scalar product. The data generated by Monte Carlo simulation algorithm, coded in C language and parallelized in MPI, provides the exponent $ u_{0}$ of the scaling law $\\langle \\vec{R}_{j}\\cdot\\vec{u}_{j}angle_{N}\\sim j^{2 u_{0}-1}$, for $1\\leq j \\leq \\Theta(N)$, close to the expected value. Starting from $\\Theta(N)\\approx N/2$ for square lattice and $\\Theta(N)\\approx N/3$ for cubic lattice, the walk becomes more flexible due to the large number of degrees of freedom available in the last steps.

This thesis aims to implement a combination of Linear Programming Column Generation and a Large Neighbourhood Search heuristic to solve scheduling problems. The resulting method is named Integer Programming Column Search (IPCS). For computational evaluation, the IPCS method is applied to the problem Prize-Collecting Job Sequencing with One Common and Multiple Secondary Resources generalised to parallel identical machines. The interest of combining exact procedures with heuristic approaches is quickly growing since scheduling problems have many and complex real-world applications. Most of these problems are NP-hard and therefore very challenging to solve. By using a combination of heuristic strategies and exact procedures, it can be possible to find high-quality solutions to such problems within an acceptable time horizon. The IPCS method uses a greedy integer programming column generating problem introduced in a previous work. This problem is designed to generate columns that are useful in near-optimal integer solutions. A difference to previously introduced method is that we here build a master problem, an Integer Programming Column Search Master (IPCS-Master). This is used to update the dual solution that is provided to the greedy integer programming column generating problem. The computational performance of the IPCS method is evaluated on instances with 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 jobs. The result shows that the combined design encourage the generation of columns that benefit the search of near-optimal integer solutions. The introduction of an IPCS-Master, which is used to update the dual variable values, generally leads to fewer pricing problem iterations than when no master problem is used.

The aim of this study is to describe and explain (individual level) public political participation, with particular focus on the significance of the local, geographical context. Studies of political participation have traditionally focused on individual level explanations. Here, however, the question of the significance of place, is also raised i.e. does place have an effect on the probability of the individual to take political action? Such causal relationships are known as contextual (or neighbourhood) effects. These occur when contextual factors affect individual behaviour so that it varies systematically between different contexts, even after controlling for individual level predictors. Although empirical research has been lacking, there is a widespread assumption that place of residence can have both positive and negative effects on outcomes at the level of the individual. This is the case especially with regard to urban residential segregation, which is believed to cause self-generating, negative effects on the political engagement of citizens. My line of argument is that contextual effects cannot be taken for granted; rather they must be tested empirically in a systematic way, using individual level data and appropriate techniques. Political participation is operationalised in terms of: voting in local elections, contacting local officials, and participating in manifestations. The local, geographical context is operationalised in two ways; as Swedish municipalities and as city districts. The latter is done using case studies of two Swedish cities; Umeå, a medium-sized town with moderate socioeconomic segregation, and Göteborg, a large city with extensive polarisation. Survey data is used and analysed by means of multilevel analysis, a technique developed especially for hierarchical data and contextual analysis of individual level outcomes. The results do not provide strong support for the hypothesis of contextual effects on public political participation. There are, in several cases, strong, bivariate relationships between socioeconomic composition and political participation at the aggregate level. However, this is not confirmed in analyses of individual level data. The variation between individuals residing in different places is significant in only one case; when the context is operationalised as municipalities and the dependent variable is participation in manifestations. This variation cannot, however, be explained neither by individual level SES/political engagement nor by socioeconomic composition at the municipal level. An analysis of crosslevel interactions shows that employed persons residing in affluent districts of Göteborg have a higher probability to vote and to participate in contacting than employed persons living in poor neighbourhoods. Similarly, individuals with an immigrant background living in affluent districts in Göteborg are more likely to vote than those living in poor areas. These results give some support for the hypothesis of contextual effects on political participation. However, as the number of observations in this particular analysis is very small, the results are not robust and, consequently, must be interpreted with caution. In order to identify relevant individual level predictors, the SES and CV-models are applied. The results indicate that socioeconomic variables such as employment status and education are important predictors of voting. However, when it comes to contacting officials and participating in manifestations, socio-political resources such as political engagement and organisational membership are better as predictors of political participation.

This thesis consists of an introduction and seven appended papers. The purpose of the introduction is to give an overview of the field of topology optimization of discretized load carrying continuum structures. It is assumed that the design domain has been discretized by the finite element method and that the design variable vector is a binary vector indicating presence or absence of material in the various finite elements. Common to all papers is the incorporation of von Mises stresses in the problem formulations. In the first paper the design variables are binary but it is assumed that the void structure can actually take some load. This is equivalent to adding a small positive value, epsilon, to all design variables, both those that are void and those that are filled with material. With this small positive lower bound the stiffness matrix becomes positive definite for all designs. If only one element is changed (from material to void or from void to material) the new global stiffness matrix is just a low rank modification of the old one and thus the Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury formula can be used to compute the displacements in the neighbouring designs efficiently. These efficient sensitivity calculations can then be applied in the context of a neighbourhood search method. Since the computed displacements are exact in the 1-neighbourhood (when one design variable is changed) the neighbourhood search method will find a local optimum with respect to the 1-neighbourhood. The second paper presents globally optimal zero-one solutions to some small scale topology optimization problems defined on discretized continuum design domains. The idea is that these solutions can be used as benchmarks when testing new algorithms for finding pure zero-one solutions to topology optimization problems. In the third paper the results from the first paper are extended to include also the case where there is no epsilon>0. In this case the stiffness matrix will no longer be positive definite which means that the Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury formula can no longer be applied. The changing of one or two binary design variables to their opposite binary values will still result in a low rank change, but the size of the reduced stiffness matrix will change with the design. It turns out, however, that it is possible to compute the effect of these low rank changes efficiently also without the positive lower bound. These efficient sensitivity calculations can then be used in the framework of a neighbourhood search method. In this case the complete 1-neighbourhood and a subset of the 2-neighbourhood is investigated in the search for a locally optimal solution. In the fourth paper the sensitivity calculations developed in the third paper are used to generate first and partial second order approximations of the nonlinear functions usually present in topology optimization problems. These approximations are then used to generate subproblems in two different sequential integer programming methods (SLIP and SQIP, respectively). Both these methods generate a sequence of iteration points that can be proven to converge to a local optimum with respect to the 1-neighbourhood. The methods are tested on some different topology optimization problems. The fifth paper demonstrates that the SLIP method developed in the previous paper can be applied also to the mechanism design problem with stress constraints. In order to generate the subproblems in a fast way small displacements are assumed, which implies that the efficient sensitivity calculations derived in the third paper can be used. The numerical results indicate that the method can be used to lower the stresses and still get a functional mechanism. In the sixth paper the SLIP method developed in the fourth paper is used as a post processor to obtain locally optimal zero-one solutions starting from a rounded solution to the corresponding continuous problem. The numerical results indicate that the method can perform well as a post processor. The seventh paper is a theoretical paper that investigates the validity of the commonly used positive lower bound epsilon on the design variables when stating and solving topology optimization problems defined on discretized load carrying continuum structures. The main result presented here is that an optimal "epsilon-1" solution to an "epsilon-perturbed" discrete minimum weight problem with constraints on compliance, von Mises stresses and strain energy densities, is optimal, after rounding to zero-one, to the corresponding "unperturbed" discrete problem. This holds if the constraints in the perturbed problem are carefully defined and epsilon>0 is sufficiently small. / QC 20100917

Nearly 50 years after the building of the first million programme neighbourhoods many Swedish municipalities faces an extensive restoration work in these neighbourhoods which during their relatively short lifetime have acted as a target for a large amount of criticism. Öster in Gävle is a million programme neighbourhood that has gone through an extensive restoration between 2001-2009 with the aim of improving the living environment. Improvements have been made in the outdoor environment, to the facades of the houses and the entrances’ of each building. The purpose of this study has been to investigate the effects of the renewal in the physical outdoor environment for those who live in the neighbourhood. Factors such as safety, comfort and use of the outdoor environment have been investigated through observations and an inventory of the outdoor environment together with a questionnaire study which was distributed among the citizens of Öster. This study shows that both safety and comfort are satisfactory among the residents unlike previous studies. Many residents reside in the outdoor environment at least once a week and the aesthetics of the area is widely appreciated. To develop the neighbourhood, further improvements that encourage spontaneous meetings in the outdoor environment can be made. Examples of such improvements could be more outdoor sitting areas. The renewal of the area can boost positive spirals for the sense of community in the area which can lead to an increased sense of safety and comfort among the residents. Continued studies could for example examine what effect the development of Gävle Strand east of Öster will have on the integration of the neighbourhood with the other parts of Gävle. / Nästan 50 år efter uppförandet av de första miljonprogramsområdena ställs många svenska kommuner inför omfattande upprustningsarbeten av dessa bostadsområden, som under sin relativt korta livstid varit föremål för mycket kritik. Öster i Gävle är ett miljonprogramsområde som under åren 2001-2009 genomgått en omfattande förnyelse för att förbättra boendemiljön. Förbättringar av utemiljön, husfasader och entréer är några exempel på åtgärder som utfördes under förnyelsen. Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka effekterna av förnyelsen av den fysiska utemiljön för de boende på Öster. Genom observationer och en inventering av utemiljön i området tillsammans med en enkät som gått ut bland de boende på Öster har faktorer som trygghet, trivsel och utemiljöns användning undersökts. Studien visar att både tryggheten och trivseln bland de boende är god till skillnad från tidigare studier i området. Många vistas i utemiljön minst en gång i veckan och områdets estetik uppskattas. För att utveckla området föreslås ytterligare åtgärder som uppmuntrar till spontana möten i utemiljön som till exempel fler sittplatser. Förnyelsen i området kan skapa positiva spiraler för den sociala sammanhållningen i området vilket i sin tur ger en ökad känsla av trygghet och trivsel bland de boende. Fortsatta studier kan förslagsvis undersöka hur utvecklingen av Gävle Strand öster om Öster påverkar integrationen av stadsdelen med övriga Gävle.

This thesis assesses whether the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) could evolve as an effective foreign policy tool of the EU. It aims to analyze the ENP&rsquo / s impact on the EU foreign policy in general and the Union&rsquo / s transformative capacity over its neighbours in particular. To this purpose, the thesis initially explores the underlying motives behind the origins and emergence of the ENP and further elaborates its policy framework and its phase of implementation so far. The thesis then identifies the limits of the ENP, namely the internal and external constraints of the policy and on the basis of these shortcomings, discusses the overall impact of the ENP on the EU foreign policy. More specifically, the thesis focuses on the ENP&rsquo / s impact analysis for the EU&rsquo / s transformative capacity in its direct neighbourhood. Finally, the thesis assesses the main reasons of why it seems unlikely that the ENP could not evolve as a fully-fledged foreign policy tool for the Union and highlights the need for a major reform or re-adjustment of the policy.

This study is primarily concerned with the evolution of the EU as a pluralistic security community throughout the course of European integration. Its main purpose is to examine how the EU member states have managed to renounce the use of force in their relations with one another and consequently succeeded in establishing a lasting peace in Western Europe following World War Two.Within the scope of the study, the EU&rsquo / s attempts to extend its zone of peace and stability beyond its immediate borders by using some foreign policy tools such as the enlargement and the recently launched European Neighbourhood Policy are also explored .Finally, the thesis attempts to evaluate the potential contribution that Turkey would make to the EU security community in the post-Cold War era upon her membership in the EU.

This thesis aims to examine the European Union (EU) as a normative power in the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) through case studies of Morocco and Egypt. The uniqueness of the EU as a distinct actor in international politics has led many observers to claim that the EU is a normative power. The ENP, which emerged in 2004, has been one of the main instruments of the EU within this framework. This thesis studies the claim as to whether the EU is, in fact, a normative power in the context of the ENP with two cases studies. The selection of Morocco and Egypt originates from the existing similarities which render an opportunity to have a comparative study. The thesis will analyze this puzzle through an analysis of both primary documents published by the EU and the secondary literature. Through a close scrutiny of Morocco and Egypt, the normative power of the EU in its near abroad will be explored through the analysis of democratization process in these countries in terms of democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Based on theoretical analysis and two case studies, this thesis argues that the EU faces several challenges in its claim to be a normative power within the context of the ENP.