This diploma thesis examined human trafficking in Latin America focusing on child trafficking in chosen countries and showed the importance of prevention. One major key point is to develop more strategies helping youngsters avoid being trapped in human trafficking. Major role is played by parents and teachers who are in daily contact with young people and can help them to develop their critical thinking. Method used in our research include case study approach, more precisely instrumental case study. Using this method, we try to illustrate the phenomena occurring in selected Latin American countries, namely the problem of child soldiers in Colombia, the criadazgo system in Paraguay, Brazil Baby Affair and the problem of illegal adoptions in Brazil, and last but not least, the issue of child sexual exploitation in Venezuela. Since these countries have different experiences and also their will to deal with the issue is distinct, it is not possible to compare their approaches to the problem. Therefore, based on our observations, we have created common factors that may contribute to increasing human trafficking in the region, as well as focusing on the characteristics of society that lead to the primary use of children and women as the main victims of this criminal activity. The aim of the thesis is to...

What does “success” mean for social reintegration of ex-combatants in urban settings? Although reintegration of former fighters has been at the center of academic and policy discourse for achieving peace, limited attention has been paid to unraveling how social reintegration processes occur and how they are impacted in urban contexts. This thesis studies the specific issue of successful social reintegration in urban contexts and asks why it evidences higher levels of success in some urban settings than others. Drawing on previous research on the impact of security conditions on reintegration processes, it argues that actual or suspected eroded security conditions, caused by the presence of organized armed groups as well as reintegrating ex-combatants whose former unit operated in the same host community, negatively impact levels of success of social reintegration in urban centers because they each increase levels of fear towards ex-combatants among community members. Through process tracing and structured focused comparison, this thesis assesses the explanatory power of the proposed hypotheses for the cases of Bogota and Medellin. Based on the yielded results, support for both hypotheses is identified. Nonetheless given the nuanced conceptualizations propose heiring, future research is called upon to further assess the explanatory power of the proposed models.

L’émergence de la complexité, et de la vie en particulier, demeure l’une des énigmes les plus complexes pour la science moderne. Des travaux récents ont souligné la pertinence d’un apport de la physique statistique et de la théorie des phénomènes critiques — et en particulier de la théorie des phénomènes à criticalité auto-régulée — relativement à ces champs d’intérêt, tout autant que du rôle des phénomènes de coopération biochimique dans les premiers instants du vivant. La description des mécanismes par lesquels la vie a pu apparaître est par ailleurs d’un intérêt pratique pour l’astrophysique, puisque notre compréhension de ceux-ci module la manière dont l’analyse de biosignatures s’effectue dans le cadre de la recherche de la vie ailleurs dans l’Univers. L’analyse proposée ici porte sur un modèle en théorie des jeux permettant d’étudier les phénomènes de coopération implémenté dans un contexte spatial servant à émuler la dynamique d’un système ayant pu voir apparaître la vie. Une analyse de l’espace des paramètres du modèle révèle que celui-ci affiche des phénomènes de transition de phase et d’auto-organisation de structures spatiales, ces éléments se révélant des adjuvants à l’émergence de la coopération entre joueurs a priori égoïstes, dans un contexte qui à prime abord n’est pas d’emblée favorable à l’apparition de comportements coopératifs. Les résultats obtenus ici semblent supporter que la coopération biochimique puisse apparaître via un phénomène de transition de phase et que le modèle sous-jacent de dilemme du prisonnier itéré sur réseau présenté ici agit comme un système à criticalité autorégulée. / The emergence of complexity, and of life more specifically, is still one of the most intractable conundrums for modern science. Recent work emphasized the relevance of statistical physics and critical phenomena theory’s contribution to those questions — especially of self-organized criticality theory — just as much as the role of biochemical cooperation in life’s first moments. Moreover, the description of the mechanisms by which life could have appeared is of particular interest for astrophysics, because our comprehension of those mechanisms influences how biosignatures are analyzed in the context of the search for life elsewhere in the Universe. The analysis presented here concerns a model in game theory that allows to study cooperation phenomena — implemented in spatial context as to emulate the dynamics of a system in which life could have appeared. An analysis of the model’s parameter space reveals that it displays phase transition and self-organization of spatial structures phenomenon, those elements being adjuvants to the emergence of cooperation between a priori egoist players, in a context that is initially not favorable to the emergence of cooperative behavior. The results obtained here thus seem to support the idea that both biochemical cooperation can emerge through phase transition phenomena, and that the underlying lattice iterated prisoner’s dilemma model used here behaves like a self-organized critical system.

Over the last four decades organized crime groups, particularly, drug trafficking organizations or drug cartels, have managed to be under the spotlight of the security agendas of American countries such as Colombia and the United States. During the last two decades, however, the global securitization of the drug trafficking issue, has led them to become a major security threat not only for the Americas, but also for Europe and more recently for West African countries. These organizations pose a threat not only to the security of the state, but to the very essence of it, by corrupting and damaging everything they come in contact with at the political, social, economical and even cultural level. This graduate thesis presents an analysis on Latin American drug trafficking organizations or drugs cartels, as they are commonly known, focusing on the cases of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. By comparing these two case studies, I suggest that today's Mexican drug trafficking organizations have gained their momentum and incommensurable strength by following the footsteps of the big three Colombian drug cartels that existed between the 1980s and 1990s. The first chapter will expose the definitions and concepts surrounding the research of organized crime. In the second and third chapters, both the...

Contemporary society perceives boredom largely as a normal part of everyday life. Nevertheless, academic discourse has not come to an agreement on its interpretation. The researchers differ on two main points: first, whether boredom is universal or historically developed phenomenon, and second, whether it is an individual or the external conditions, who is more responsible for the emergence of boredom. This paper reflects on these conceptual difficulties and attempts to elude them by suggesting an alternative, sociologically relevant approach. A new sociological concept of the phenomenon is introduced, based on Martin Heidegger's conceptualization of boredom. Boredom is thereby understood as a specific way, in which individual relates to his/her social environment and its objects. In order to avoid epistemological dilemmas resulting from an imbalanced account, which puts too much emphasis either on subject or its environment, the concept situates boredom's origin and actuation onto the level where subject and its environment meet. The theoretical part of the text is followed by an empirical one, which uses the concept to interpret a specific segment of tourism: organized holidays. This particular model, constructed and offered by travel agencies as a complex product, is understood here as an...

La préservation de l’environnement et des ressources naturelles pour les prochaines générations est aujourd’hui considérée comme un des axes les plus prioritaires dans presque tous les secteurs économiques. Le secteur des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication est loin d’être épargné de cette tendance écologique. Nous considérons dans cette thèse la problématique de la conservation d’énergie dans le contexte technologique actuel caractérisé par: • La coexistence d’une multitude de technologies d’accès sans fil offrant un environnement riche et dynamique • Des terminaux mobiles multimodaux • Limitations persistantes des sources d’énergie sur les terminaux mobiles. Dans ce contexte très riche, les possibilités offertes aux usagers sont à double tranchant. D’un côté, elles peuvent très bien améliorer la QoS en offrant toujours la meilleure connectivité en fonction du contexte de l’utilisateur. D’un autre côté, et sans une bonne optimisation de la consommation d’énergie sur le terminal, la disponibilité de celui-ci peut vite diminuer et donc faire baisser la QoE à cause de l’énergie nécessaire pour gérer plusieurs interfaces radio en parallèle. Nous considérons essentiellement les liens entre les stations de base (ou les point d’accès) et les terminaux mobiles. Notre objectif étant d’analyser la consommation d’énergie sur ces liens pour ensuite proposer des contributions permettant de mieux la maitriser. Nous focalisons essentiellement sur l’exploitation des multiples interfaces et du multi-flux pour étudier, analyser et proposer des solutions dynamiques et adaptatives d’ordonnancement, de sélection et de gestion d’interfaces minimisant la consommation d’énergie / Since the last decades, environmental issues are becoming among the major concerns for most human activities, including the Information and Communication Technologies sector. This will surely influence upcoming networking technologies, architectures and usage practices. New approaches and methodologies are required in order to evaluate and to reduce the Carbon Footprint toward what is commonly denoted as Green Networks. Within the ICT sector, the main efforts are related to energy saving techniques. These efforts started in early stages within wireless technologies, mainly because of energy limitations on mobile devices such as mobile phones and wireless sensors. Additionally, because of health considerations, standardization bodies and government had set stringent policies and limits on electromagnetic radiation levels that can be emitted by radio stations. For these reasons, many academic and industrial research and development activities had led to a number of relatively energy efficient solutions. In this thesis, we consider energy efficiency in the context of Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks. These are composed of multi-standards wireless network solutions, with non uniform topologies and cell sizes and Multi-Modal mobile terminals able to manage simultaneously different connections. The main contributions of our studies include the proposal of new optimization solutions regarding user association and scheduling techniques at both flow and packet levels for multi-homed mobile terminals. An overall context-based solution is also proposed in order to provide end-to-end energy efficient networking solutions

La révolution numérique a favorisé l’apparition d’une nouvelle forme de criminalité : la cybercriminalité. Celle-ci recouvre un grand nombre de faits dont la plupart sont commis à l’aide de stratégies d’ingénierie sociale. Il s’agit d’un vieux phénomène, pourtant mal connu qui, encouragé par l’accroissement de données circulant sur Internet et par le développement de barrières techniques de sécurité, s’est adapté aux caractéristiques de l’univers virtuel pour une exploitation combinée des vulnérabilités « humaines » avec des outils numériques. L’ingénierie sociale transforme les utilisateurs qui deviennent, inconsciemment, facilitateurs des cyberattaques, au point d’être perçus comme le « maillon faible » de la cybersécurité. Les particuliers, les entreprises et les Etats sont tous confrontés au défi de trouver une réponse à ces atteintes. Cependant, les moyens juridiques, techniques, économiques et culturels mis en place semblent encore insuffisants. Loin d’être éradiquée, l’utilisation de l’ingénierie sociale à des fins illicites poursuit son essor. Face au manque d’efficacité de la politique criminelle actuelle, le travail en amont nous apparaît comme une piste à explorer. Savoir anticiper, détecter précocement et réagir promptement face à la délinquance informatique sont alors des questions prioritaires nécessitant une approche plus humaniste, axée sur la prévention et la coopération. Si nous sommes d’accord sur ce qu’il reste à faire, le défi est de trouver le« comment ». / The digital revolution has encouraged the emergence of a new type of criminal activity : cyber-crime. This includes a vast array of activities and offences that often use social engineering techniques. These techniques are old and not widely understood, yet benefit from the increase of data available online and the use of firewalls and other security systems. They have been adapted to work with the Internet and digital technologies in order to exploit the “vulnerabilities” of human psychology. Social engineering targets the user, who often unconsciously, allows access to systems or data, making the user the weakest link in the cyber-security chain. Individuals, companies and governments are all facing the same challenge in trying to solve these issues, utilising current legal, financial, technological and social resources which seem to be insufficient. Far from being eradicated, fraudulent activities that use social engineering continue to increase in prevalence. The inefficiency of current judicial polices forces us to consider alternative strategies upstream. Being proactive, predicting early and reacting quickly to computer related crimes should be the priority of a more humanistic approach which is focused on prevention and cooperation. Although one can agree on the approach ; the challenge is to find out how to implement it.

Self-organization is a hot topic as it has the potential to create surface patterns on the nanoscale avoiding cost-intensive top-down approaches. Although chemists have promising results in this area, ion irradiation can create self-organized surface patterns in a more controlled manner. Different regimes of pattern formation under ion irradiation were described so far by 2D models. Here, two new regimes have been studied experimentally, which require modeling in 3D: subsurface point defect kinetics as well as ion impact-induced melt pool formation. This thesis deals with self-organized pattern formation on Ge and Si surfaces under normal incidence irradiation with heavy monatomic and polyatomic ions of energies up to several tens of keV. Irradiation has been performed using liquid metal ion sources in a focused ion beam facility with mass-separation as well as by conventional broad beam ion implantation. Irradiated samples have been analyzed mainly by scanning electron microscopy. Related to the specific irradiation conditions, investigation and discussion of pattern formation has been divided into two parts: (i) formation of Ge morphologies due to point defect kinetics and (ii) formation of Ge and Si morphologies due to melt pool dynamics. Point defect kinetics dominates pattern formation on Ge under irradiation with monatomic ions at room temperature. Irradiation of Ge with Bi and Ge ions at fluences up to 10^17 cm^(-2) has been performed. Comprehensive studies show for the first time that morphologies change from flat surfaces over hole to nanoporous, sponge-like patterns with increasing ion energy. This study is consistent with former irradiations of Ge with a few ion energies. Based on my studies, a consistent, qualitative 3D model of morphology evolution has been developed, which attributes the ion energy dependency of the surface morphology to the depth dependency of point defect creation and relaxation. This model has been proven by atomistic computer experiments, which reproduce the patterns found in real irradiation experiments. At extremely high energy densities deposited by very heavy ions another mechanism dominates pattern formation. The formation of Ge and Si dot patterns by very heavy, monatomic and polyatomic Bi ion irradiation has been studied in detail for the first time. So far, this formation of pronounced dot pattern cannot be explained by any model. Comprehensive, experimental studies have shown that pattern formation on Ge is related to extremely high energy densities deposited by each polyatomic ion locally. The simultaneous impact of several atoms leads to local energy densities sufficient to cause local melting. Heating of Ge substrates under ion irradiation increases the achievable energy density in the collision cascade substantially. This prediction has been confirmed experimentally: it has been found that the threshold for nanomelting can be lowered by substrate heating, which allows pattern formation also under heavy, monatomic ion irradiation. Extensive studies of monatomic Bi irradiation of heated Ge have shown that morphologies change from sponge-like over highly regular dot patterns to smooth surfaces with increasing substrate temperature. The change from sponge-like to dot pattern is correlated to the melting of the ion collision cascade volume, with energy densities sufficient for melt pool formation at the surface. The model of pattern formation on Ge due to extremely high deposited energy densities is not specific to a single element. Therefore, Si has been studied too. Dot patterns have been found for polyatomic Bi ion irradiation of hot Si, which creates sufficiently high energy densities to allow ion impact-induced melt pool formation. This proves that pattern formation by melt pool formation is a novel, general pattern formation mechanism. Using molecular dynamics simulations of project partners, the correlation between dot patterning and ion impact-induced melt pool formation has been proven. The driving force for dot pattern formation due to high deposited energy densities has been identified and approximated in a first continuum description.

In this thesis we investigate the formation of patterns in a simple activator-inhibitor model supplemented with an inhibitory nonlocal coupling term. This model exhibits a wave instability for slow inhibitor diffusion, while, for fast inhibitor diffusion, a Turing instability is found. For moderate values of the inhibitor diffusion these two instabilities occur simultaneously at a codimension-2 wave-Turing instability. We perform a weakly nonlinear analysis of the model in the neighbourhood of this codimension-2 instability. The resulting amplitude equations consist in a set of coupled Ginzburg-Landau equations. These equations predict that the model exhibits bistability between travelling waves and Turing patterns. We present a study of interfaces separating wave and Turing patterns arising from the codimension-2 instability. We study theoretically and numerically the dynamics of such interfaces in the framework of the amplitude equations and compare these results with numerical simulations of the model near and far away from the codimension-2 instability. Near the instability, the dynamics of interfaces separating small amplitude Turing patterns and travelling waves is well described by the amplitude equations, while, far from the codimension-2 instability, we observe a locking of the interface velocities. This locking mechanism is imposed by the absence of defects near the interfaces and is responsible for the formation of drifting pattern domains, i.e. moving localised patches of travelling waves embedded in a Turing pattern background and vice versa.

Summary: The organized youth crime that exists today is a relatively newsocial problem in most parts of our country. Younger people are drawn intothe criminal lifestyle and the phenomenon is an upgoing trend in Sweden,especially in ages between 15-20. In this study we wanted to see how oursociety responds to this phenomenon, in a local context. Our study is done ina municipality with 70 000+ inhabitants.We choose to use a case study as a research method. The empirical datacollected through interviews, with a total of eight respondents affiliated tothe phenomenon. The results given from the interviews shows that there is alack of clarity in how the phenomenon should be handled. We could see thatthe interventions of the problem are still under development. There aredifferent views on who carries what responsibility and which interventionsare most appropriate to these young kids. The schools approach seems to notmatch the target groups needs and their actions can be seen as one of thesocial mechanisms that is enabling the problem.