Complementarity of Future Dark Energy Probes

In recent years a plethora of future surveys have been suggested to constrain the nature of dark energy. In this paper we adapt a binning approach to the equation of state factor ``w'' and discuss how future weak lensing, galaxy cluster counts, Supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillation surveys constrain the equation of state at different redshifts. We analyse a few representative future surveys, namely DES, PS1, WFMOS, PS4, EUCLID, SNAP and SKA, and perform a principal component analysis for the ``w'' bins. We also employ a prior from Planck cosmic microwave background measurements on the remaining cosmological parameters. We study at which redshifts a particular survey constrains the equation of state best and how many principal components are significantly determined. We then point out which surveys would be sufficiently complementary. We find that weak lensing surveys, like EUCLID, would constrain the equation of state best and would be able to constrain of the order of three significant modes. Baryon acoustic oscillation surveys on the other hand provide a unique opportunity to probe the equation of state at relatively high redshifts.Comment: 22 pages, 20 figure

ADMINISTRATIVE CONVERGENCE AND REFORMS IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES - Analyses, models and comparative studies

The fundamental idea of the current publication emphasizes the characteristics of the processes related to administrative convergence and reform in the South-Eastern European states. Of course the area under review is quite wide and complex and therefore our approach aims to comprise only a few characteristics. Encompassing various geo-political aspects, political heritages enhancing that diversity as well as endemic socio-cultural traditions, the public administrations in the South-Eastern European states have faced a definite option for restoring democracy and accomplishing reforms according to the principles and values of the European Administrative Space, in the past two decades. For the time being other questions emerge and others remain still open. Which is the most adequate model for the administrative reform, which are the most efficient mechanisms and tools triggering its accomplishment and implementation? Lacking a formalized acquis communautaire on the processes related to administrative reform, their diversity has enhanced and the conditions for so called administrative convergence have multiplied. The research reports achieved and presented in the current publication emphasise the progress in implementing the democratic processes of central and local governance which do not lead however to convergence, being definitely relevant for the processes related to administrative dynamics. Various political experiences undergone by the states under review in the second half of the 20th century have induced attitudes and behaviours mainly of subordination and loss of identity of the organizations in national public administrations. That situation persisting in the South-Eastern European space creates difficulties and unbalances in the dialogue and cooperation with the public administrations of Western European states. The state itself is weak, determining a lack of finality for the administrative reforms. The processes of administrative convergence have become more complex and complicate as the EU administration is searching a model and it is attempting to define an identity. The traditional models of administration, based on a hierarchic bureaucracy are overcome and the model of EU administration could not be found by a transfer or enlargement of an administrative model belonging to one or several states. Therefore, we should acknowledge that the processes related to administrative convergence and reform are profoundly integrated in a complex context, with globalizing valences, benefiting of profound mechanisms, enhancing the interdependence and systemic character of the developments of national public administrations. The current volume incorporates contributions of South-Eastern European universities (National School of Political Studies and Public Administration – Romania, New Bulgarian University – Bulgaria, University of the Aegean - Greece or University of Rijeka – Croatia, as well as of international organizations – European Public Law Organization – Greece. In the above briefly described context, the studies reveal both comparative aspects, strategies of administrative reform or significant developments of administrative convergence and conceptual models aimed to contribute to the debates on EU administrative and organizational future or contemporary developments of EU administrative law. The reports were achieved in the framework of Jean Monnet project “South-Eastern European developments on the administrative convergence and enlargement of the European Administrative Space in Balkan states“ and provide an overview close to the realities on specificity of administrative processes in South-Eastern European states.administrative convergence, balkans, public administration reforms, european administrative studies, South-Eastern European States

Iterativni postupci sa regularizacijom za rešavanje nelinearnih komplementarnih problema

U doktorskoj disertaciji razmatrani su iterativni postupci za rešavanje nelinearnih komplementarnih problema (NCP). Problemi ovakvog tipa javljaju se u teoriji optimizacije, inženjerstvu i ekonomiji. Matematički modeli mnogih prirodnih, društvenih i tehničkih procesa svode se takođe na ove probleme. Zbog izuzetno velike zastupljenosti NCP problema, njihovo rešavanje je veoma aktuelno. Među mnogobrojnim numeričkim postupcima koji se koriste u tu svrhu, u ovoj disertaciji posebna pažnja posvećena je generalizovanim postupcima Njutnovog tipa i iterativnim postupcima sa re-gularizacijom matrice jakobijana. Definisani su novi postupci za rešavanje NCP i dokazana je njihova lokalna ili globalna konvergencija. Dobijeni teorijski rezultati testirani su na relevantnim numeričkim primerima.Iterative methods for nonlinear complementarity problems (NCP) are con-sidered in this doctoral dissertation. NCP problems appear in many math-ematical models from economy, engineering and optimization theory. Solv-ing NCP is very atractive in recent years. Among many numerical methods for NCP, we are interested in generalized Newton-type methods and Jaco-bian smoothing methođs. Several new methods for NCP are defined in this dissertation and their local or global convergence is proved. Theoretical results are tested on relevant numerical examples

Audio self-supervised learning: a survey

Inspired by the humans' cognitive ability to generalise knowledge and skills, Self-Supervised Learning (SSL) targets at discovering general representations from large-scale data without requiring human annotations, which is an expensive and time consuming task. Its success in the fields of computer vision and natural language processing have prompted its recent adoption into the field of audio and speech processing. Comprehensive reviews summarising the knowledge in audio SSL are currently missing. To fill this gap, in the present work, we provide an overview of the SSL methods used for audio and speech processing applications. Herein, we also summarise the empirical works that exploit the audio modality in multi-modal SSL frameworks, and the existing suitable benchmarks to evaluate the power of SSL in the computer audition domain. Finally, we discuss some open problems and point out the future directions on the development of audio SSL

Model-Independent Reconstruction of the Expansion Rate of the Universe Through Combination of Different Cosmological Probes

This work proposes a method to constrain the cosmic expansion rate and the linear growth factor for structure formation from different cosmological measurements, without reference to a specific Friedmann model and its parameters. First, a model-independent reconstruction technique to estimate the expansion rate from luminosity distance data has been developed: it converts the integral relation between the expansion function and the luminosity distance into a Volterra integral equation, which is known to have a unique solution in terms of a Neumann series. Expanding observables such as the luminosity distances to type-Ia supernovae into a series of orthonormal functions, the integral equation can be solved and the cosmic expansion rate recovered within the limits allowed by the accuracy of the data. The performance of the method is demonstrated through application to synthetic data sets of increasing complexity, including a toy model with a sudden transition in the expansion rate. With the additional assumption of local Newtonian dynamics, the growth rate for linear structure formation can be calculated from the estimate of the expansion rate, in the redshift interval over which supernovae are available, and employed in the analysis of cosmic shear data: combined to a traditional, Lambda-CDM analysis of the same data set, this approach allows to tighten the constraints on the matter density parameter, Omega_m, and the normalisation of the power spectrum, sigma_8. Furthermore, the method to reconstruct the expansion rate can be applied to angular-diameter distance data from baryon acoustic oscillation experiments; an optimisation of the orthonormal function set employed in the algorithm has also been performed, by means of a principal component analysis

Evaluating public sector reforms in Botswana : performance management, privatization and anti-corruption reforms

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.This study sought to examine Botswana’s most recent attempts at public sector reform, which, to a greater extent than its previous endeavours have reflected global trends. Specifically, it sought to evaluate the impact of performance management, privatization and anti-corruption reforms on the country’s public sector. The dissertation has primarily consisted of desktop documentary review of relevant literature and provides an extensive assessment of public sector reforms trends in developed and developing countries, as the background against which examination of the three reform initiatives undertaken by Botswana is made

On the detection of Galaxy Clusters

In dieser Arbeit präsentieren wir eine Studie über statistische Eigenschaften von Galaxiehaufen, die wir mit verschiedenen Filtern in kosmologischen Simulationen detektziert haben. Als Signal wurde sowohl die Scherung, hervorgerung durch den schwachen Gravitationslinseneffekt, benutzt, als auch simulierte Beobachtungen des Sunyaev-Zel´dovich-Effektes (SZ) und von Röntgenemmissionen. Wir testen verschiedene Filter zur Verwendung mit dem schwachen Gravitationslineseffekt und untersuchten ihre Leistung mit Hilfe von simulierten Scherungskarten, auf denen die Positionen der Halos genau bekannt waren. Wir entdeckten, dass großräumige Strukturen eine wichtige Kontaminationsquelle darstellen. Dies ist insbesondere der Fall für räumlich tiefe Beobachtungen. Wir sind überzeugt, dass sie die Quelle für viele Scherungsmaxima sein können, die keine Entsprechung im optischen oder Röntgenbereich haben. Wir bestätigten, die dazu konstruiert sind, um große räumliche Strukturen zu unterdrücken, ein besseres Ergebnis erzielen. Wir untersuchten die statistischen Eigenschaften von SZ- und Röntgendetektionen und ihre Korrelationen. Zu diesem Zweck verwendeten wir eine kosmologische hydrodynamische Simulation. Wir stellten fest, dass SZ-Multibandfilter die Vollständigkeit von Detektionen verbessern und den Grad an Kontamination, verglichen mit Einzelbandfiltern, deutlich verringern. Roentgenkataloge sind im Vergleich zu SZ-Katalogen vollständiger, und die korrelierten Detektionen zeigen Eigenschaften, die ähnlich denen der Multibandbeobachtungen sind

Economics of Conflict and Terrorism

This book contributes to the literature on conflict and terrorism through a selection of articles that deal with theoretical, methodological and empirical issues related to the topic. The papers study important problems, are original in their approach and innovative in the techniques used. This will be useful for researchers in the fields of game theory, economics and political sciences