107 research outputs found
Irsko-americká identita v díle Franka McCourta
No full textPráce pojednává o irsko-americké identitě zobrazené v literárním díle Franka McCourta, románu Andělin popel. Autor diplomové práce definuje pojmy lidské migrace a asimilace a dotýká se s nimi souvisejícími problematiky rasismu, diskriminace, etnicity, náboženské rozdílnosti, udržování vlastní národní identity a touze po návratu do rodné vlasti.
V první, teoretické, části je studována historie irských přistěhovalců do Ameriky. Jejich neuspokojivé životní podmínky jsou důkazem předsudků místních obyvatel vůči nově příchozí irské diaspoře. Dále se diplomová práce věnuje otázkám identity, jejího zachování a předávání dalším generacím.
Irská identita je zachycena v literárním díle Andělin popel. Autor uvádí autobiografické dílo Franka McCourta do širšího literárního kontextu a krátce rozebírá dílo z literárního hlediska.
Jednotlivé otázky přistěhovalství jsou rozpoznány na vybraných korespondujících případech z uvedené knihy. Autor uvádí čtenáře do situace ve třicátých letech dvacátého století a představuje Spojené státy americké a Irsko v tehdejší době. Autor práce líčí historické a kulturní spojitosti mezi těmito dvěma a jinými státy a jejich důsledky v mentalitě tehdejšího obyvatelstva.
Na závěr jsou přístupy k přistěhovalcům postaveny do kontrastu, vyjadřujíc tak rozdílnost identit jednotlivých států.The thesis concerns with Irish-American identity mirrored in Frank McCourt?s literary piece of work Angela?s Ashes. The author defines terms such as human migration and assimilation and touches the closely connected issues of racism, discrimination, ethnicity, religious diversity, cultural continuity and the desire to return home.
In the first, theoretical, part the history of Irish immigrants arriving to America is studied. Their poor living conditions prove the prejudices and stereotypes of the local population holding towards the new coming Irish diaspora. Further on, the paper deals with the question of identity, its maintaining and passing it on the next generation.
The Irish identity is recorded in the mentioned novel, Angela?s Ashes. The author of the thesis sets Frank McCourt?s autobiographical work into a wider literary context and shortly analyses the book from literary point of view.
Individual issues of immigration are matched with corresponding cases found in the novel. The author presents to the reader the picture of Ireland and the United States of America in 1930s and depicts the historical and cultural connections among these two nations and their relations towards other countries.
In conclusion, the different approaches of different nations towards immigrants are put into contrast to express the disparity of identities of individual nations.Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistikyDokončená práce s úspěšnou obhajobo
Zapis „żałosnego, irlandzkiego dzieciństwa” w dylogii autobiograficznej Franka McCourta
No full textThe article aims to analyse and interpret the topic of poverty in the memories of Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis). Using sociological literature by, i.a, Ruth Lister and Zygmunt Bauman, the study presents the biography of the protagonist and his mother, marked by the phenomenon of inherited poverty. Drawing attention to the problem of irony and intertextuality in the literary works, the author argues that language is insufficient to express the experience of poverty and to be individualised from its system. The author of the article puts forward the thesis that the Irish writer’s dilogy is only seemingly of a confessional and personal nature, being more a story about the universal fate of an Irishman, a person affected by the problem of poverty.Celem artykułu jest analiza i interpretacja wątku biedy we wspomnieniach Franka McCourta (Popiół i żar oraz I rzeczywiście). Korzystając z piśmiennictwa socjologicznego, autorstwa m.in. Ruth Lister i Zygmunta Baumana, studium przedstawia biografię bohatera utworu i jego matki naznaczoną zjawiskiem biedy dziedziczonej. Zwracając uwagę na ironię i intertekstualność w utworach McCourta, akcentuje twierdzenie o niewystarczalności języka do wyrażenia doświadczenia ubóstwa i prób wydobycia się z niego. Autorka artykułu stawia przy tym tezę, że dylogia irlandzkiego pisarza tylko z pozoru ma charakter konfesyjny i osobisty, stanowiąc w istocie opowieść o zuniwersalizowanym losie Irlandczyka, osoby dotkniętej problemem ubóstwa
Re-africanised: A post-developmentalist approach to infrastructure and public space in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
No full textMany cities in Africa are confronted with the challenges of a rapidly expanding population, urban geography and the service provision it requires. Also Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s main economic and cultural city, is with 6 million inhabitants and a project population of 10 million by 2030, classified as one of the fasted growing cities in Africa. Consequently, livelihood activities are diversifying and expanding, while spaces for doing so are hardly available or threatened to disappear. The general lack of resources and knowledge incapacities make many development plans dependent on the investment of foreign and popular interests. These ‘development’ schemes ought to answer to sprawling cities through increased accessibility and the premise of economic growth, but ignore local welfare and do not recognise the potentials around public space and infrastructure that shape socio-economic livelihoods. This thesis argues to look beyond the one way story of infrastructural development for solely city scaled interventions and proposes alternative infrastructure at places where different scales meet. This infrastructure focusses not only on roads, but is designed to integrate development, environment, living and justice as critical projects. The spatial strategy can be regarded as a methods for urban planning and designing which addresses 4 strategic urgencies that are besides being defined by site specific conditions, also based upon the research on Dar es Salaam as an African city.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Complex Citie
Optimizing the transport scheduling of an online grocer
No full textIn this thesis, we consider the Multi Depot Vehicle Scheduling Problem with Time Windows with driver day duration restrictions that addresses the task of assigning a given set of time window shipments to trucks with consideration of practical requirements. The goal of this thesis is to design an algorithm that finds a good solution for the problem within 15 minutes. In the literature, the problem is usually applied to public transport cases. We consider the freight transport application of an online grocer. We introduce a Multi-Commodity Minimum Network Flow ILP implementation for MDVSPTW with short computation time. Also, based on the Concurrent Scheduler algorithm for MDVSP from the literature, we introduce the Greedy Scheduler algorithm that is able to find a feasible solution within short computation time for our problem. These two implementations form building blocks for the three main algorithms we introduce, that find good feasible solutions for our problem within 15 minutes: the ILP + Greedy algorithm, the Random Search algorithm and the Random Search and Fix algorithm. We incorporate the driver day duration restriction in the three algorithms by either allowing a driver change, that is two drivers executing one truck day, or not, and compare the results. We show that the ILP + Greedy algorithm performs the best. In the case an algorithm that does not involve an ILP is preferred, e.g., for robustness reasons, the Random Search and Fix algorithm performs better than the Random Search algorithm.Applied Mathematic
ILoSA: Interactive Learning of Stiffness and Attractors
No full textTeaching robots how to apply forces according to our preferences is still an open challenge that has to be tackled from multiple engineering perspectives. This paper studies how to learn variable impedance policies where both the Cartesian stiffness and the attractor can be learned from human demonstrations and corrections with a user-friendly interface. The presented framework, named ILoSA, uses Gaussian Processes for policy learning, identifying regions of uncertainty and allowing interactive corrections, stiffness modulation and active disturbance rejection. The experimental evaluation of the framework is carried out on a Franka-Emika Panda in four separate cases with unique force interaction properties: 1) pulling a plug wherein a sudden force discontinuity occurs upon successful removal of the plug, 2) pushing a box where a sustained force is required to keep the robot in motion, 3) wiping a whiteboard in which the force is applied perpendicular to the direction of movement, and 4) inserting a plug to verify the usability for precision-critical tasks in an experimental validation performed with non-expert users.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Learning & Autonomous ControlHuman-Robot Interactio
Streets as Places: Reconnecting Toronto with its waterfront by rediscovering streets as social places
No full textThis graduation thesis concerns the reintegration and reinterpretationof infrastructure in the urban landscape. Since the Industrial Revolution,people and cities have become more dependent on cars, and by the mid-20th century, infrastructure moved toward being a component of trafficmanagement, instead of urbanism. In urban situation, this caused barriers andisolated spaces, breaking up the fine grained pedestrian network. The cardependent city has serious consequences for health, social connectednessand the environment.In the research location Toronto, large infrastructural elements are imposingthemselves as a barrier between the city and the waterfront. In order toreconnect the city to its Waterfront, streets need to be rediscovered as socialspace and the balance between a street as ‘movement space; and ‘socialspace’ has to be restored. ‘Walkability‘ is the key. A theoretical framework on‘Access & Linkage’ and ‘Placemaking’ will support the design for a succesfulpedestrian network in the city.A new pedestrian network, supported by an intensive and diverse land-use,connects landmarks, parks and attractive facilities in the area, and offers manyopportunities for people to meet, relax, play, run, do sports, and so on. Thedesign will attract public life and contribute to an active lifestyle, with positiveresults for health and social connectedness. The project can serve as anexample for other car dominated cities or for other areas in Toronto whereinfrastructure is causing problems and limits the walkability of the city. When walkability is applied in more cities in the world, this will have positiveresults on the environment.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Landscape Architectur
Voorbeelden van tegenintuïtief gedrag van compacte Hausdorff-ruimten
No full textTopologische ruimten kunnen, ondanks dat ze wellicht compacte Hausdorff-ruimten zijn, heel andere eigenschappen hebben dan compacte metrische ruimten. In dit verslag wordt deze bewering toegelicht aan de hand van zes voorbeelden. Deze voorbeelden zijn ingedeeld in drie hoofdstukken: meetkundige voorbeelden, de Cech-Stone compactificatie van de natuurlijke getallen en de Fedorchuk-Lijn. Van de meetkundige voorbeelden tonen de Dubbele Cirkel en het Lexicografisch geordend vierkant aan dat een compacte Hausdorff-ruimte met een aftelbare lokale basis niet separabel hoeft te zijn. De laatste twee ruimten, de Dubbele Pijl en de Helly Ruimte, zijn voorbeelden van compacte Hausdorff-ruimten die weliswaar separabel zijn, maar wel een relatief groot gewicht hebben. De Cech-Stone compactificatie heeft meerdere opvallende eigenschappen. Deze ruimte laat zien dat compacte Hausdorff-ruimten relatief groot kunnen zijn, de elementen geen aftelbare omgevingsbasis hoeven te hebben en geen convergente rij hoeven te bevatten. Tot slot wordt opgemerkt dat de Cech-Stone compactificatie wel een convergente rij bevat geïndiceerd door een overaftelbare verzameling. De Fedorchuk-Lijn snijdt het gedrag van compacte Haudorff-ruimten in de dimensietheorie aan. Deze ruimte laat namelijk zien dat de verschillende definities van een dimensie niet noodzakelijk samenvallen als een separabele ruimte niet-metrizeerbaar is
A Method to identify potential Climate Change Impacts on Infrastructural Assets and Further Steps for Adaptability: A case study on the Afsluitdijk
No full textClimate change is likely to affect our infrastructures in the Netherlands and seems to accelerate: sooner, faster, stronger. This stresses the need for adaptable infrastructure. Asset owners cannot assume a certain final situation of the infrastructure and the impacts on it due to climate change. This report answers the following research question: How can existing infrastructural asset designs in the Netherlands be adapted to anticipated current and future expected climate change effects? A method is developed to explore what the effects of climate change are on infrastructure and what further steps can be taken to make the infrastructure adaptable. The Afsluitdijk is used as a case study and has five embedded sub-assets: the dam, motorway, outlet sluices, ship locks and bridges. Nine climate change effects are distinguished for the Netherlands in the scenario WH of the KNMI in 2085. The climate change effects are combined with the asset parts and all combinations are assessed separately. An expert reflects on the combination of climate change impacts and asset part and elaborates on how the climate change effect impacts the reliability, safety or maintenance of the asset. This resulted in 21 identified possible problems for the 2020 design of the Afsluitdijk. In this report is looked at foreign situations that are comparable to the Afsluitdijk’s circumstances. Some of the 21 identified problems can easily be solved. A structured approach on how to assess the impact of climate change on infrastructure is lacking so far. The method makes sure all aspects are considered and helps the expert to think of all theoretical problems that have not occurred yet but are in the future a possible problem. Assets that are an integral system are preferred. The Afsluitdijk is interconnected to its environment and hard boundaries are difficult to determine. This makes the Afsluitdijk not an ideal case study, but this interconnectedness is typical for large scale infrastructural projects and those projects are often most interesting. Rijkswaterstaat recognizes the surplus of water problems in the new design. However, drought, heat waves and a low water level are three climate impacts that are not taken into consideration in the new design of 2020. Summer related problems are explored by Rijkswaterstaat but have not yet received the attention it deserves. Rijkswaterstaat is unprepared to a situation where climate change effects are more severe than was estimated in their assumptions. On top of that, Rijkswaterstaat is inclined to address problems of big infrastructural problems by cutting them of in smaller projects and try to solve them. However, in large projects it is better to have an integral solution since all aspects are interconnected and influence one another. The method provides this integral viewpoint and allows the user to make long-term decisions while taking the uncertainties of climate change into account. By using the method, choices in design and management of the infrastructural asset can be made with confidence. This does not guarantee that the outcome of a risky decision will be optimal. But the decision will be rational in the face of uncertainty and that the repeated application of the method will on the long run be more beneficial.Civil Engineering | Construction Management and Engineerin
Learning Interactively to Resolve Ambiguity in Reference Frame Selection
No full textIn Learning from Demonstrations, ambiguities can lead to bad generalization of the learned policy. This paper proposes a framework called Learning Interactively to Resolve Ambiguity (LIRA), that recognizes ambiguous situations, in which more than one action have similar probabilities, avoids a random action selection, and uses the human feedback for solving them. The aim is to improve the user experience, the learning performance and safety. LIRA is tested in the selection of the right goal of Movement Primitives (MP) out of a candidate list if multiple contradictory generalizations of the demonstration(s) are possible. The framework is validated on different pick and place operations on a Emika-Franka Robot. A user study showed a significant reduction on the task load of the user, compared to a system that does not allow interactive resolution of ambiguities.Learning & Autonomous Contro
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