Community justice in Scotland – the system of agencies that deliver community punishments and related services – is being restructured for the second time in a decade. The current system of administration by regional Community Justice Authorities (CJAs) will be replaced by a two-tier model, with local planning passing to Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) and a new national body providing leadership for the sector. This thesis, the only empirical study of the restructuring, draws on interviews with politicians and practitioners to analyse the policy, its historical background and the ways in which – without directly affecting practice – it connects to major questions about Scottish politics and penal policy. Using the theoretical concept of the ‘penal field’, the thesis discusses the effects on community justice of struggle and compromise between Scottish local and national government. The birth of CJAs from this compromise caused them to be structurally flawed, but they were nonetheless not without certain achievements. Community justice is also considered in relation to historical narratives of a distinctive Scottish penal identity, and efforts to reaffirm it by reorienting the justice system towards community penalties rather than prison. Recent scholarship which highlights the role of local democratic structures in penal policy informs an analysis of CPPs (whose limited success has produced concern about their ability to fulfil justice responsibilities) and the relationship between their development (including the recent Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act) and the community justice redesign; the thesis argues that the community justice and community empowerment agendas are being allowed to converge but not meet. The new system, it is argued, is another structurally flawed compromise. The proliferation of agencies will likely hinder partnership working, while the new national body will have little power to fulfil some difficult and complex responsibilities around legitimacy and accountability. The policy will disrupt lines of communication despite efforts to smooth the transition, and the length of its development has already caused disruption. The restructuring, it is further argued, is insufficient to fulfil a deeply felt need for major reorientation of Scotland’s penal field.

Esta dissertação busca aproveitar os métodos de penalidades exatas diferenciáveis de programação não-linear para resolver problemas de desigualdades variacionais. Problemas desse tipo têm recebido grande atenção na literatura recentemente e possuem aplicações em diversas áreas como Engenharia, Física e Economia. Métodos de penalidades exatas diferenciáveis foram desenvolvidos nos anos 70 e 80 para resolver problemas de otimização com restrições por meio da solução de problemas irrestritos. Esses problemas são tais que, com uma escolha apropriada do parâmetro de penalização, uma solução do problema original é recuperada após a resolução de um único problema irrestrito. A função a ser minimizada é semelhante a um lagrangiano aumentado clássico, porém uma estimativa do multiplicador é automaticamente calculada a partir do ponto primal. Nesse trabalho, mostramos como acoplar a estimativa de multiplicadores sugerida por Glad e Polak [27] ao lagrangiano aumentado clássico para desigualdades variacionais sugerido por Auslender e Teboulle. Obtivemos assim uma penalidade exata para problemas de desigualdades variacionais. Os resultados mais finos de exatidão foram obtidos no caso de problemas de complementaridade não-linear. Uma característica importante da penalidade proposta é que ela não envolve informações de segunda ordem das funções que definem a desigualdade variacional. Além desses resultados, que formam o núcleo da dissertação, apresentamos uma breve revisão de penalidades não-exatas diferenciáveis , exatas não-diferenciáveis e exatas diferenciáveis em otimização. / This work intends to build upon differentiable exact penalty methods for nonlinear programming, using them to solve variational inequality problems. Such problems have been given a lot of attention in the literature lately and have applications to diverse areas of knowledge such as Engineering, Physics and Economics. Differentiable exact penalty methods were developed during the 70s and 80s to solve constrained optimization problems by means of the solution of unconstrained problems. Those problems are such that, with an appropriate choice of the penalty parameter, one finds a solution of the original constrained problem by solving only one unconstrained problem. The function which is minimized is similar to the classic augmented lagrangian, but an estimate of the multiplier is automatically calculated from the primal point. In this thesis we show how to couple Glad and Polak?s multiplier estimate, with the classic augmented lagrangian of a variational inequality developed by Auslender and Teboulle. This allowed us to obtain an exact penalty function for variational inequality problems. The best exactness results were obtained in the particular case of nonlinear complementarity problems. An important characteristic of the proposed penalty is that it doesn?t involve second order information of any of the functions which compose the variational inequality. In addition to those results, which are the core of this work, we also present a brief review of inexact differentiable penalties, exact nondifferentiable penalties and differentiable exact penalties in optimization.

The presence of missing entries pose a hindrance to data analysis and interpretation. The missing entries may occur due to a variety of reasons such as sensor malfunction, limited acquisition time or unavailability of information. In this thesis, we present algorithms to analyze and complete data which contain several missing entries. We consider the recovery of a group of signals, given a few under-sampled and noisy measurements of each signal. This involves solving ill-posed inverse problems, since the number of available measurements are considerably fewer than the dimensionality of the signal that we aim to recover. In this work, we consider different data models to enable joint recovery of the signals from their measurements, as opposed to the independent recovery of each signal. This prior knowledge makes the inverse problems well-posed. While compressive sensing techniques have been proposed for low-rank or sparse models, such techniques have not been studied to the same extent for other models such as data appearing in clusters or lying on a low-dimensional manifold. In this work, we consider several data models arising in different applications, and present some theoretical guarantees for the joint reconstruction of the signals from few measurements. Our proposed techniques make use of fusion penalties, which are regularizers that promote solutions with similarity between certain pairs of signals. The first model that we consider is that of points lying on a low-dimensional manifold, embedded in high dimensional ambient space. This model is apt for describing a collection of signals, each of which is a function of only a few parameters; the manifold dimension is equal to the number of parameters. We propose a technique to recover a series of such signals, given a few measurements for each signal. We demonstrate this in the context of dynamic Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reconstruction, where only a few Fourier measurements are available for each time frame. A novel acquisition scheme enables us to detect the neighbours of each frame on the manifold. We then recover each frame by enforcing similarity with its neighbours. The proposed scheme is used to enable fast free-breathing cardiac and speech MRI scans. Next, we consider the recovery of curves/surfaces from few sampled points. We model the curves as the zero-level set of a trigonometric polynomial, whose bandwidth controls the complexity of the curve. We present theoretical results for the minimum number of samples required to uniquely identify the curve. We show that the null-space vectors of high dimensional feature maps of these points can be used to recover the curve. The method is demonstrated on the recovery of the structure of DNA filaments from a few clicked points. This idea is then extended to recover data lying on a high-dimensional surface from few measurements. The formulated algorithm has similarities to our algorithm for recovering points on a manifold. Hence, we apply the above ideas to the cardiac MRI reconstruction problem, and are able to show better image quality with reduced computational complexity. Finally, we consider the case where the data is organized into clusters. The goal is to recover the true clustering of the data, even when a few features of each data point is unknown. We propose a fusion-penalty based optimization problem to cluster data reliably in the presence of missing entries, and present theoretical guarantees for successful recovery of the correct clusters. We next propose a computationally efficient algorithm to solve a relaxation of this problem. We demonstrate that our algorithm reliably recovers the true clusters in the presence of large fractions of missing entries on simulated and real datasets. This work thus results in several theoretical insights and solutions to different practical problems which involve reconstructing and analyzing data with missing entries. The fusion penalties that are used in each of the above models are obtained directly as a result of model assumptions. The proposed algorithms show very promising results on several real datasets, and we believe that they are general enough to be easily extended to several other practical applications.

The aerospace industry has always been looking forward new developments with the aim to create more environmental friendly aircraft, as well as to improve their performance. Over the last few years, a prominent research topic to achieve these challenging goals has been focussed on the incorporation of more electric Secondary Power Systems (SPS), this concept is known as More Electric Aircraft (MEA) or All Electric Aircraft (AEA) when the internal combustion engine is also replaced. Among others, Airbus is using Electro-hydrostatic Actuators, (EHAs) to combine hydraulic and electric power in A320 and A340 for flight tests since 1993. The company TTTECH applied the same concept by working on the development of an electrical steering system for an aircraft nose landing gear, and power source rationalization and electrical power flexibility in aircraft. Some of the advantages stated when the MEA concept is applied are: reduction in aircraft weight and performance penalties related to conventional SPS. Although the More/All electric aircraft concept provided satisfactory results for fixed-wing aircraft, research for rotary-wing aircraft is less common. This encourages the assessment of fuel consumption and performance penalties due to conventional and more electric SPS at conceptual level, which could achieve similar outcomes, while finding the best configuration possible. This project takes into account the previous research focused on fixed-wing aircraft and studies on new technologies for SPS within Cranfield University, this includes electrical Ice Protection System (IPS), Environmental Control System (ECS) and Actuation System (AS). Additionally, Fuel System (FS) and Electrical System (ES) capabilities were added, developing a generic tool able to predict the total power requirements depending on the flight conditions. This generic tool was then integrated with a performance model, where overall fuel consumption is calculated for a flight mission, giving continuity and improvement to the work already done. Secondary systems configuration and operating characteristics for a representative light single-engine rotary-wing aircraft were tailored, and the systems behaviour is presented. Finally, fuel consumption was calculated for a baseline mission profile, and compared to the fuel consumption when the systems are not included. The baseline mission set the initial flight conditions from which a parametric study was carried out; by varying these conditions the parametric study determined total fuel requirements for the analysed flight segments. An increment of up to %1.9 in the fuel consumption was found by integrating the proposed systems to the performance model, showing the impact produced by the systems, and the importance of studying different technologies to minimise it.

Dissertação voltada ao estudo das sanções administrativas previstas na Lei Federal 8.666/1993 (Lei de Licitações). Apresenta quadro panorâmico das licitações e contratações públicas no Direito Administrativo Brasileiro. Trata do regime jurídico do exercício da atividade sancionatória pela Administração Pública, com destaque para os princípios regentes da matéria. Examina as discussões teóricas, doutrinárias e jurisprudenciais relativas à aplicabilidade das sanções administrativas previstas nos artigos 86 a 88 da Lei de Licitações, como a multa, a advertência, a suspensão temporária de participação em licitação, o impedimento de contratar com a Administração e a declaração de inidoneidade, aí incluindo a competência para imposição de sanções, os sujeitos passivos das penalidades aplicáveis, além das nuances de cada uma delas. Destaca a controvérsia estabelecida acerca das distinções e abrangência dos efeitos das penas de suspensão temporária, impedimento de contratar e declaração de inidoneidade. Estuda a possibilidade de a Administração Pública fazer uso da Teoria da Desconsideração da Personalidade Jurídica, inicialmente em um cenário de ausência de autorização legislativa, como forma de incremento da efetividade daquelas sanções, quando constatado o abuso de direito dos particulares ao constituírem novas sociedades, com o intuito de burlá-las. Examina a Lei Federal 12.846/2013, que trata da responsabilização de pessoas jurídicas pela prática de atos contra a Administração Pública, e suas consequências na seara das licitações e contratações administrativas. / Dissertation focused on the study of administrative sanctions under Federal Law no. 8.666/1993 (public bidding Law). It presents an overview of public bidding and public hiring under Brazilian administrative law. It presents the legal regime of the sanctioning activity exercised by public authorities, especially the matter governing principles. It examines the theoretical, doctrinal and jurisprudential discussion concerning the applicability of administrative sanctions established by Articles 86 to 88 of the Public Bidding Law, such as fines, warnings, temporary suspension from participating in public biddings, the impediment to contract with the government and the unfitness declaration, including the power to impose sanctions, the subjects liable of applicable penalties, and the nuances of each one of these penalties. It highlights the controversy about the distinctions and comprehensiveness of the effects related to the temporary suspension, avoidance of contract and declaration of unfitness. It analyses the possibility of public administration adopt the theory of piercing of the corporate veil, initially in a scenario of absence of legislative authorization, as a way of increasing the effectiveness of those sanctions when found abuse of the right of individuals which constitute new associations in order to chouse them. It examines the Federal Law No. 12.846/2013, which deals with the liability of legal entities for the commission of acts against the government and its consequences on the public bids and administrative hires area. Keywords: administrative penalties, sanctions under administrative law, principle of typicality, extension effects of penalties, piercing of the corporate veil.

Dissertação voltada ao estudo das sanções administrativas previstas na Lei Federal 8.666/1993 (Lei de Licitações). Apresenta quadro panorâmico das licitações e contratações públicas no Direito Administrativo Brasileiro. Trata do regime jurídico do exercício da atividade sancionatória pela Administração Pública, com destaque para os princípios regentes da matéria. Examina as discussões teóricas, doutrinárias e jurisprudenciais relativas à aplicabilidade das sanções administrativas previstas nos artigos 86 a 88 da Lei de Licitações, como a multa, a advertência, a suspensão temporária de participação em licitação, o impedimento de contratar com a Administração e a declaração de inidoneidade, aí incluindo a competência para imposição de sanções, os sujeitos passivos das penalidades aplicáveis, além das nuances de cada uma delas. Destaca a controvérsia estabelecida acerca das distinções e abrangência dos efeitos das penas de suspensão temporária, impedimento de contratar e declaração de inidoneidade. Estuda a possibilidade de a Administração Pública fazer uso da Teoria da Desconsideração da Personalidade Jurídica, inicialmente em um cenário de ausência de autorização legislativa, como forma de incremento da efetividade daquelas sanções, quando constatado o abuso de direito dos particulares ao constituírem novas sociedades, com o intuito de burlá-las. Examina a Lei Federal 12.846/2013, que trata da responsabilização de pessoas jurídicas pela prática de atos contra a Administração Pública, e suas consequências na seara das licitações e contratações administrativas. / Dissertation focused on the study of administrative sanctions under Federal Law no. 8.666/1993 (public bidding Law). It presents an overview of public bidding and public hiring under Brazilian administrative law. It presents the legal regime of the sanctioning activity exercised by public authorities, especially the matter governing principles. It examines the theoretical, doctrinal and jurisprudential discussion concerning the applicability of administrative sanctions established by Articles 86 to 88 of the Public Bidding Law, such as fines, warnings, temporary suspension from participating in public biddings, the impediment to contract with the government and the unfitness declaration, including the power to impose sanctions, the subjects liable of applicable penalties, and the nuances of each one of these penalties. It highlights the controversy about the distinctions and comprehensiveness of the effects related to the temporary suspension, avoidance of contract and declaration of unfitness. It analyses the possibility of public administration adopt the theory of piercing of the corporate veil, initially in a scenario of absence of legislative authorization, as a way of increasing the effectiveness of those sanctions when found abuse of the right of individuals which constitute new associations in order to chouse them. It examines the Federal Law No. 12.846/2013, which deals with the liability of legal entities for the commission of acts against the government and its consequences on the public bids and administrative hires area. Keywords: administrative penalties, sanctions under administrative law, principle of typicality, extension effects of penalties, piercing of the corporate veil.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

To penalize contractual breaches allows efficient allocation of risks in a contract, ensuring and maintaining the contractual equilibrium that the parties had in mind and shaped in its contractual regulation. The intelligent use of penalties will safeguard and maintain the economic balance of the contracts, thus maintaining the profitability of business operations pursued through them. / Penalizar los incumplimientos permite una asignación eficiente de los riesgos en un contrato, asegurando y conservando el equilibrio contractual que las partes tuvieron en mente y plasmaron en su regulación contractual. El uso inteligente de las penalidades permitirá salvaguardar y mantener el equilibrio económico de los contratos, manteniendo así la rentabilidad de las operaciones comerciales perseguidas a través de ellos.

Chapter 16 of the Tax Administration Act (28 of 2011) (the TA Act) deals with understatement penalties, which replaced the penalty provisions included under section 76 of the Income Tax Act (58 of 1962) and section 60 of the Value-Added Tax Act (89 of 1991). In the event of an ‗understatement‘, in terms of Section 222 of the TA Act, a taxpayer must pay an understatement penalty as determined by the understatement penalty table which is contained in Section 223 of the TA Act, unless the understatement results from a bona fide inadvertent error. In the Draft Response Document presented by National Treasury and SARS to the Committee on Finance (SCOF) on 11 September 2013, it was stated that SARS would develop guidance in this regard for the use of taxpayers and SARS officials (SARS, 2013d:42). The determining of a bona fide inadvertent error on taxpayers‘ returns as stipulated in Section 222 of the TA Act, as amended in 2013, is a totally new concept in the tax fraternity. It is of utmost importance that this section is applied correctly based on sound evaluation principles and not on professional judgement when determining if the error was indeed the result of a bona fide inadvertent error. This research study focuses on exploring key considerations when determining bona fide inadvertent errors resulting in understatements. The role and importance of tax penalty provisions is explored and the meaning of the different components in the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘ critically analysed with the purpose to find a possible definition for the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘. The study also compares the provisions of other tax jurisdictions with regards to errors made resulting in tax understatements in order to find possible guidelines on the application of bona fide inadvertent errors as contained in Section 222 of the TA Act. The term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘ is evaluated by comparing the term with the characteristics of a good tax system and improvements for the practical execution of the new amendment to the TA Act are suggested. A literature review is used to gain an in-depth understanding of the role and importance of tax penalty provisions. Doctrinal research is also carried out to perform a critical analysis on the meaning of the different components in the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘. A comparative analysis between different countries regarding errors being made when dealing with understatements is performed and a normative research approach is followed to critically evaluate the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘. The findings of the research study revealed that the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘ contained in Section 222 of the TA Act should be defined urgently and that guidelines must be provided by SARS on the application of the new amendment. SARS should also clarify the application of a bona fide inadvertent error in light of the behaviours contained in Section 223 of the TA Act to avoid any confusion. / MCom (South African and International Tax), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Chapter 16 of the Tax Administration Act (28 of 2011) (the TA Act) deals with understatement penalties, which replaced the penalty provisions included under section 76 of the Income Tax Act (58 of 1962) and section 60 of the Value-Added Tax Act (89 of 1991). In the event of an ‗understatement‘, in terms of Section 222 of the TA Act, a taxpayer must pay an understatement penalty as determined by the understatement penalty table which is contained in Section 223 of the TA Act, unless the understatement results from a bona fide inadvertent error. In the Draft Response Document presented by National Treasury and SARS to the Committee on Finance (SCOF) on 11 September 2013, it was stated that SARS would develop guidance in this regard for the use of taxpayers and SARS officials (SARS, 2013d:42). The determining of a bona fide inadvertent error on taxpayers‘ returns as stipulated in Section 222 of the TA Act, as amended in 2013, is a totally new concept in the tax fraternity. It is of utmost importance that this section is applied correctly based on sound evaluation principles and not on professional judgement when determining if the error was indeed the result of a bona fide inadvertent error. This research study focuses on exploring key considerations when determining bona fide inadvertent errors resulting in understatements. The role and importance of tax penalty provisions is explored and the meaning of the different components in the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘ critically analysed with the purpose to find a possible definition for the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘. The study also compares the provisions of other tax jurisdictions with regards to errors made resulting in tax understatements in order to find possible guidelines on the application of bona fide inadvertent errors as contained in Section 222 of the TA Act. The term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘ is evaluated by comparing the term with the characteristics of a good tax system and improvements for the practical execution of the new amendment to the TA Act are suggested. A literature review is used to gain an in-depth understanding of the role and importance of tax penalty provisions. Doctrinal research is also carried out to perform a critical analysis on the meaning of the different components in the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘. A comparative analysis between different countries regarding errors being made when dealing with understatements is performed and a normative research approach is followed to critically evaluate the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘. The findings of the research study revealed that the term ‗bona fide inadvertent error‘ contained in Section 222 of the TA Act should be defined urgently and that guidelines must be provided by SARS on the application of the new amendment. SARS should also clarify the application of a bona fide inadvertent error in light of the behaviours contained in Section 223 of the TA Act to avoid any confusion. / MCom (South African and International Tax), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015