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Analytic Continuation of TBA Equations As A Method of Solving Integrable Models: Application to the Sinh-Gordon Model
Get PDFThis thesis presents a method whereby one may solve an integrable quantum field theory using only its S-matrix as input. From here one may then use the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz to calculate the ground state energy of the model and analytically continue the TBA to obtain the excited states.
This technique was applied to the sinh-Gordon model and along the way an interesting limit on the technique was discovered and investigated
Enrichment of Wind Turbine Health History for Condition-Based Maintenance
Get PDFThis research develops a methodology for and shows the benefit of linking records of wind turbine maintenance. It analyses commercially sensitive real-world maintenance records with the aim of improving the productivity of offshore wind farms.
The novel achievements of this research are that it applies multi-feature record linkage techniques to maintenance data, that it applies statistical techniques for the interval estimation of a binomial proportion to record linkage techniques and that it estimates the distribution of the coverage error of statistical techniques for the interval estimation of a binomial proportion. The main contribution of this research is a process for the enrichment of offshore wind turbine health history.
The economic productivity of a wind farm depends on the price of electricity and on the suitability of the weather, both of which are beyond the control of a maintenance team, but also on the cost of operating the wind farm, on the cost of maintaining the wind turbines and on how much of the wind farm’s potential production of electricity is lost to outages. Improvements in maintenance scheduling, in condition-based maintenance, in troubleshooting and in the measurement of maintenance effectiveness all require knowledge of the health history of the plant. To this end, this thesis presents new techniques for linking together existing records of offshore wind turbine health history.
Multi-feature record linkage techniques are used to link records of maintenance data together. Both the quality of record linkage and the uncertainty of that quality are assessed. The quality of record linkage was measured by comparing the generated set of linked records to a gold standard set of linked records identified in collaboration with offshore wind turbine maintenance experts. The process for the enrichment of offshore wind turbine health history developed in this research requires a vector of weights and thresholds. The agreement and disagreement weights for each feature indicate the importance of the feature to the quality of record linkage. This research uses differential evolution to globally optimise this vector of weights and thresholds.
There is inevitably some uncertainty associated with the measurement of the quality of record linkage, and consequently with the optimum values for the weights and thresholds; this research not only measures the quality of record linkage but also identifies robust techniques for the estimation of its uncertainty.
ACCESS TO LAND, ACCESS TO JUSTICE THE DIVERGENCE OF LEGAL PROTECTION: CULTURAL PROTECTION FOR SAMI ACCESS TO LAND AND WATERS UNDER SWEDISH LAW IN LIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS
Get PDFThe human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Swedish Indigenous Sami population are secured by both constitutional and international law. This makes both national and international legal norms relevant for Sami legal protection, but it raises the question of whether Swedish legal norms provide the Sami with effective and practical protection for their human rights and fundamental freedoms in line with international human rights law as prescribed in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. This thesis aims to provide an answer to this question. It does so by examining the level of protection of Sami human rights and fundamental freedoms at a national level in comparison with the protection the European Convention aims to ensure.
A comparison of the legal protection for cultural aspects of Sami private life under the Swedish legal system and under the European Convention is the ultimate purpose of this thesis. To better understand the contemporary context of Sami interests, a brief overview is provided of international instruments linked to Indigenous peoples. A thorough study is then carried out in two phases. The first phase examines the national protection of Sami interests in light of the historical context that underlies the Sami’s natural right to access land and waters to preserve their culture. The second phase examines jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms with a focus on the right of respect for private life under Article 8 and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possession under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The study reveals that the Swedish Constitution’s approach to the protection of cultural aspects of private life means it does not provide sufficient protection for the rights and fundamental freedoms secured by Article 8 of the European Convention
Contributions to Nonparametric Predictive Inference with Right-Censored Data
Get PDFA right-censored data set is most common in reliability and survival analyses.
It occurs when a particular event of interest is not fully observed in an experiment
and when there is no information provided about a random quantity except that it
exceeds a certain value. Nonparametric Predictive Inference (NPI) is a frequentist
statistical method based on only few assumptions. It focuses explicitly on future
observations and uses imprecise probabilities, based on Hill's assumption A(n), to
quantify uncertainty. NPI has been developed for several types of data, including
right-censored data. However, NPI with right-censored data has only taken into
consideration a single future observation.
This thesis presents three contributions to NPI with right-censored data. First,
some statistical methods on extreme values assume that the endpoint of the support
is equal to the largest observed value in a data set. However, a question that may
be of interest is whether, for some right-censored observations in a data set, their
actual value might exceed the largest observed value.
Secondly, the actuarial estimator provides information on the number of events
and censorings at any given discrete point in time. The nature of this estimator
is such that, at every time point (except if all people in the data set have died)
there is right-censoring, the data themselves are not necessarily right-censored. A
similar approach is followed here, but we aim to develop an alternative method to the
actuarial estimator, based on NPI with right-censored data. The proposed method
will be used to derive NPI lower and upper probabilities for a variety of events of interest. As an example application, we apply the newly developed method to obtain
NPI lower and upper survival probabilities for reliability of systems.
Thirdly, NPI has been developed for real-valued data that contain right-censored
observations but only a single future observation was considered. There may be reasons
to be interested in multiple future observations, and it is important that in the
NPI approach such multiple future observations are not conditionally independent
given the data. We extend NPI for right-censored data by considering two future
observations. Particularly, we present NPI lower and upper probabilities for the
event that both future observations are greater than time t. We apply the proposed
method to system reliability.
The results in this thesis widen the applicability of NPI for several real-world
scenarios, while also suggesting new related topics for research
PUNCHING VIOLENT EXTREMISTS: VIOLENCE AS A LEGITIMATE MORAL TOOL FOR DEALING WITH FAR-RIGHT EXTREMISM.
Get PDFThis dissertation seeks to provide an argument in favour of the use of violence against those who perpetuate violent extremist ideologies, for example Neo-Nazis, in order to protect marginalised communities and to prevent reoccurrences of historical injustices. Furthermore, it contends that non-marginalised agents of virtuous character have a responsibility to act on behalf of marginalised people, or should at least feel favourably disposed towards the performance of such action. It is argued that though we are preconditioned to believe all violence to be immoral, there is a case in favour of using violence, so long as the agent carrying out the violence is a virtuous agent and that they follow certain necessary criteria to ensure that their action is morally acceptable in the circumstances. The dissertation seeks to show via a discussion of tacit consent that violent extremists in effect consent to violence being used against themselves, through their holding an ideology which accepts that violence is a legitimate tool to achieve the ends they wish to achieve. Good people may intuitively wish to ignore the behaviour of violent extremists, due to the fear of sinking to their level, rather than respond in the language of extremism itself. However, violence is a key component to ideologies such as Neo-Nazism and therefore may be a valuable communicative tool in the battle against extremism. By acting violently, the virtuous agent may be more likely to provoke lasting or significant change and advance the goal of protecting marginalised people. Rather than dismissing violence as inherently immoral, we should consider the intention behind violence to determine its morality, rather than the action itself. As the Neo-Nazi (or other variety of violent extremist) perpetuates an ideology that promotes the use of violence to achieve their ends, they cannot consistently complain of injustice should violence be used against themselves, as a moral agent may universalise the intolerance of Nazi ideology to communicate intolerance for Nazism itself. Therefore, violence may, under certain limited conditions, be used by virtuous agents in order to protect marginalised communities and to break the cycles of historical injustice whose pernicious influence continues to stimulate the reoccurrence of such events in our own day
DO HOME COUNTRY EFFECTS ENCOURAGE EMERGING MARKET MNEs TO ENGAGE IN STRATEGIC ASSET SEEKING? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF MALAYSIAN MNEs
Get PDFOutward foreign direct investment-related to strategic asset seeking (henceforth; SAS OFDI) has garnered International business scholars' attention. Many studies have emphasized that firms from emerging markets are capturing assets from developed market firms to upgrade and build their capacity for being competitive at their home market (Lecraw, 1993; Makino et al., 2002; Child and Rodrigues, 2005; (Cuervo-Cazurra et al., 2018; Kong et al., 2020)). EMNEs - as ‘late-comers’ aspiring to ‘catch-up’- have been actively involved in SAS FDI in developed markets (Boisot & Meyer, 2008; Child & Rodrigues, 2005; Luo & Tung, 2007). They aim to rapidly fill their capability holes (Ramamurti & Williamson, 2019). This asset augmentation arises because EMNEs are ‘pushed’ to achieve the competitive advantages they lack to compete with foreign entrants in their home country (Chari, 2013) and local firms in host countries (Buckley et al., 2016).
Home country effects has garnered attention among international business scholars (Cuervo- Cazurra et al., 2018; Wan & Hoskisson, 2003; Yan et al., 2018). Although the internationalization of emerging market market firm is becoming increasingly important, the role of home country effects in international expansion is poorly understood (Cuervo-Cazurra and Dau, 2009;Cui and Jiang, 2010;Del Sol and Kogan, 2007;Luo and Tung, 2007;Witt and Lewin, 2007; Cuervo-Cazurra,2019). Indeed, there is considerable debate about how home country effects influence outward internationalization strategies (Dau, 2012,Del Sol and Kogan, 2007,Lee and Weng, 2013,Liu et al., 2014,Luo and Wang, 2012). There are two home country instiutions namely instuitional constraint and support (Li & Ding,2017). The impacts of the home country instuitions we called as home country effects (Cuervo-Cazurra,2008). It
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is classified as business groups and domestic governmental support, and have been speculated to play an important impact on emerging market MNE internationalisation However, little research has specifically examined empirically whether and how these so called ‘home country effects’ assists the SAS OFDI of EMNEs. This research looks specifically at EMNEs from Malaysia and what assets Malaysian EMNEs try and acquire from developed counterparts. It aims to explore in more detail the role of home country effects in assisting strategic assets seeking; from EMNEs perspectives. Malaysia launched a National Development Policy as early as 1991, with the purpose of assisting firms in exploiting technological resource from overseas, making it an interesting case.
This research adopted an explanatory sequential approach, where phase one data was collected and it I focused on quantitative empirical models to better understand the general characteristics of Malaysian MNE outward FDI strategy (using Tobit Regression models). In the second phase of the research qualitative multiple case studies were employed to delve further into the characteristics of Malaysian MNEs and explore their considerable heterogeneity. Specifically, in Malaysia business groups dominate and many of them are dominated by either ethnic groups (Chinese mainly) and state-owned groups. In the former group, firms were normally owned by a single family, a group of families or a Chinese political party. By contrast, state owned groups evidently expanded through government involvement and support and are controlled by ethnic Malays. This has created an interesting duality in Malaysian business and also its outward FDI characteristics, providing interesting insights into the impacts of domestic home country effects (i.e. including the historical legacy of the impacts of different ethnic groupings). Indeed, although there are government and military enterprises in other Southeast Asian countries such as in the Philippines and Indonesia, it is only in Malaysia that political parties actually own or control large business groups. Three large Malaysian MNEs with varying histories and background (Petronas, Sime Darby and YTL)
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were chosen to further explore the nature of Malaysian MNEs and in particular consider in greater detail that nature of their strategic asset seeking activities.
I make, in particular, several contributions to the theoretical "goldilocks debate," which scholars have raised concerning the validation of current theories explaining EMNE’ activities. Thisresearchhasdemonstratedtheroleofhomecountryeffectsinassistingstrategic asset seeking. Moreover, this research's uniqueness relates to providing further insights into the ethnic origins and heterogeneity of Malaysian MNEs and how this influences their behaviors, including seeking assets from Western counterparts. To date, much of the IB literature has centralized on countries from BRICS. Therefore, this could able to add knowledge to EMNEs' works of literature. In a nutshell, this research will enhance our understanding of EMNEs internationalization, specifically from Malaysia. This research also will contribute new knowledge to business groups' literature
Late Holocene coastal evolution and palaeoseismology in the southern region of the Jalisco subduction zone, México.
Get PDFThe Pacific coast of Mexico is a region with a rapid rate of urbanization. Parallel to this coast lies the Mexican subduction zone, where great earthquakes (Mw > 8.0) have produced catastrophic impacts over the last decades. Our knowledge about the seismicity of this megathrust fault is limited by earthquake instrumental records, which extend back to the last ~120 years. This time span is too short to know the spatial and temporal recurrence of great earthquakes because of their highly variable recurrence, which commonly extends to several hundreds of years. In this sense, this study aims to contribute to our understanding of the long-term seismicity in the southern region of the Jalisco subduction zone, where the Rivera plate subducts beneath the North American plate. This research is innovative in the context of Mexican palaeoseismology as this is the first microfossil-based investigation that estimates coseismic land-level changes to infer past earthquake ruptures.
Tidal wetland deposits from the coastal plain of the Marabasco river were investigated using fossil diatoms, sediment geochemistry, sediment grain size and X-ray computed tomography (CT) images. Using the criteria to identify the stratigraphic signature of palaeoearthquakes, imprinted in this type of sedimentary systems, two abrupt stratigraphic contacts reveal a sudden increase of salinity conditions, suggesting a rapid land-level change, attributed to coseismic subsidence. Based on a Bayesian age-depth models, using 14C and 137Cs dates, the ages of these two events, 1995 ± 2 AD and 1914 ± 50 AD, allowed to correlate them with the earthquakes occurred in 1995 (Mw 8.0) and 1932 (Mw 7.8).
The stratigraphic signature of the 1932 and 1995 earthquakes serve as analogues, to investigate Late Holocene deposits, 14C dated between 2350 and 955 cal. yr BP, to find evidence of coseismic land-level changes and infer variable rupture modes. Five probable palaeoearthquakes were identified, three events (1710-1541; 1265-1183; and 1111-1023 cal. yr BP) suggest coastal subsidence and only two events (1820 - 1657 and 1269-1219 cal. yr BP) coastal uplift. These land-level changes patterns confirm a trend of shallow ruptures, producing coastal subsidence. Nonetheless, evidence of coseismic uplift suggests deeper and likely wider earthquakes ruptures. The implications of these findings highlight the importance of geological evidence to better understand the long-term seismicity of the Mexican subduction zone, as earthquake ruptures over millennial time scales may differ from those witnessed in the last centuries
Young People Leaving Care in Saudi Arabia: What Needs To Be Done?
Get PDFInstitutionalization presents adverse effects on the developmental outcomes and well-being of abandoned children and young people. This research explored the problems of abandoned young people in, and out of, residential care systems in Saudi Arabia. The key purpose was to explore the value of more support for this vulnerable population. The study provided a summary of the present state of knowledge of abandoned young people in Saudi Arabia, and the progress made towards a comprehensive understanding of the scope and nature of the issue. Seven main research questions were identified, with data being collected from all players in the residential care systems, including abandoned young people in residential care, staff at residential care, care leavers, and employees at Ekha'a. A mixed-methods approach was applied to gather the needed information, mainly based on questionnaires and interviews. Thematic analysis was utilized as a method of data analysis to determine patterns and trends. In particular, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) tool applied for generating results. Present programmes in Saudi Arabia are not well-suited to address the plight of abandoned young people in and out of care institutions. Suggestions are made as to what steps are necessary in the future to enhance and expand the Kingdom's provision of care to tackle this challenge
THE ORIGINS OF ARMENIAN PHILANTHROPY: NERSĒS THE GREAT AND THE QUESTION OF THE GREEK INFLUENCE (CRITICAL EXAMINATION)
Get PDFThis thesis investigates the work of Nersēs the Great, who was one of the most prominent ecclesiastical leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the 4th century. In Armenian church history, Nersēs is esteemed as a founder of the
philanthropic movement. There is, however, no consensus regarding the origins of Armenian philanthropy. Through an examination of late antique Armenian sources, this work will explore important similarities and some differences
between the philanthropic institutions of Nersēs and those of Basil of Caesarea. This exploration suggests that Nersēs’ philanthropic movement was a part of a broad movement that began to emerge in Greek world prior to Eustathius or Nersēs.
An introductory chapter examines the 4th century historical environment of Armenia Major, which allows us to appreciate how various political, religious and social challenges influenced the emergence of the philanthropic movement of
Nersēs. The second chapter considers, first, the sources that tell us about the origins of Nersēs’s philanthropic movement and, second, it addresses the dating of the
Council of Ašhtišhat. In the third chapter, I investigate the similarities and differences between the philanthropic institutions of Nersēs and the Basiliada. The fourth chapter considers social justice in Armenian and Basilian traditions of philanthropy. In the 5th chapter, I show how the sponsorship of philanthropy was organized in both traditions and that parallels exist between the two traditions in relation to their concern with tax relief for the poor. In the 6th chapter, I consider a few important questions concerning the possible relationship between Eustathius and Armenia. In the seventh chapter I question the standard view that the charitable agencies of Nersēs did not continue after his death because of the antichurch policy of the Armenian King Pap (369-375). My conclusion suggests that the observed parallels between the philanthropic movement of Nersēs and Basiliada enables us to hold that they both stem from a common tradition, that particularly the West could have served as a source of inspiration for the philanthropic movement of Nersēs
Stratigraphic control of slip localization within the Cambro-Ordovician Sedimentary Sequence during the late stages of emplacement of the Moine Thrust Zone, Scotland
Get PDFGeodynamic models of orogenic wedges usually involve significant weakening occurring along basal detachments to allow large-scale horizontal displacement. The mechanical weakening that allows these structures to accommodate major horizontal shortening is commonly attributed to the presence of mineralogically weak fault rocks, the development of overpressured pore fluids or other various strain-induced softening mechanisms related to grain-size reduction.
Here, we explore the role of lithological control over weakening mechanisms - and the potential role played by dynamic weakening during co-seismic slip - that lead to the localization of slip along specific units in the tectonic context of large-scale thrust faults, employing an approach that combines field observations, petrography and microstructural documentation and frictional experiments to investigate the sedimentary rocks of the Cambro-Ordovician sequence of the Moine Thrust Zone foreland.
The Cambro-Ordovician shallow-marine sedimentary succession was involved in an intricate system of imbricates and duplexes within the structurally lower thrust sheets of the Moine Thrust Zone, during the late stages of emplacement of this Caledonian thrust belt. The fine-grained clastic units and carbonate-dominated formations of this sedimentary succession have been appointed as the lithologies in which slip tends to localise within the imbricates and the detachments. The slip localization is, generally, attributed to frictional weakness of these sedimentary units.
Field work corroborated the observations previously made by other authors, and expanded on that, appointing other stratigraphic unis potentially localizing slip. At a grain-scale, the rocks involved in the lower structural sheets of the Moine Thrust Zone deform primarily in a brittle manner, with a significant additional contribution from fluid-assisted diffusion mechanisms. Pressure solution, evidenced by changes in the shape of minerals along cleavage surfaces and the presence of dissolution seams and caps, is widespread throughout the studied rock sequences. The profuse occurrence of this grain-scale mechanism makes it very likely a syn-deformational fluid-influx occurred. This is substantiated by the anomalously high content of authigenic K-feldspar found particularly to affect the fault rocks derived from the fine-grained clastic units of the Cambro-Ordovician sequence. The compositional heterogeneities within the sedimentary succession are enhanced by the K-enriched fluid alteration affecting the lithologies differently, and have markedly influenced the way that these rocks accommodate deformation.
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Cambro-Ordovician powdered rocks were tested in a rotary shear apparatus, to investigate the frictional strength and stability of the gouges. The mechanical data derived from these experiments show that, different from what was previously proposed, the rheological contrast produced by the frictional weakness of the Cambro-Ordovician protoliths is not enough plausibly to explain the deformation localization observed in the field. Our experiments demonstrated that the fine-grained clastic and carbonate-dominated lithologies – previously appointed as weak layers - exhibit a substantial shift from original frictional and stability behaviours, following an imposed episode of co-seismic slip, particularly in the presence of a hydrous fluid. Initially, all the investigated lithologies exhibit similar frictional strength and velocity-strengthening behaviour (prone to stable sliding). After a simulated earthquake is imposed, the fine-grained clastic units change drastically their behaviour to a consistent velocity-weakening response – this is a shift to an unstable behaviour, that allows the material to host and, furthermore, nucleate other earthquakes. The carbonate-dominated gouges retain their stable behaviour but show a significant drop in frictional strength. The units that show a significant change in frictional response are those largely observed to concentrate slip within the MTZ lower sheets. Based on these results, we propose an alternative model to account for those observations and to help explain the observed strain partitioning in the field.
Our work on the Cambro-Ordovician synthetic gouges suggest that beyond lubricating faults during co-seismic slip, the occurrence of a seismic slip episode can trigger lasting changes in frictional strength and stability of fault gouges. These findings have important repercussions for earthquake propagation at shallower crustal depths and provide fresh perspective on the role played by the frictional properties controlling deformation localization within the foreland sedimentary rocks of Moine Thrust Zone and potentially other foreland fold and thrust belts
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