"We don't Strive for Gay Parades!": The Conceptual Anorexia of Female Sexual and Bodily Rights in Beirut Analyzed from a Queer Perspective

This thesis aims to analyze female sexual and bodily rights in Lebanon from a queer perspective, focusing on issues such as space and visibility and the strategically neglecting of historical existence of female narratives, referred to as conceptual anorexia. The thesis was preceded by a field work conducted in Beirut where observations of the field and interviews with LGBTQ- and/or feminist activists constitute the main empirical data. Queer theory and methodology is permeating the thesis and identifying some core assumptions on which this thesis relies, such as the understanding of gender to be socially constructed and performed. The findings suggest that patriarchal structures and a heteronormative gaze exist even within the LGBTQ communities, which is causing internal marginalization of women and trans individuals. However, the general taboo surrounding female sexuality in Lebanon is indeed limiting women but is similarly being used as providing a somewhat opportunity to escape the heteronormative gaze. Criticizing the Western domination of queer politics, the informants of this study all strive for an Arab interpretation of queer concepts and identities

Operator-Schmidt decompositions and the Fourier transform, with applications to the operator-Schmidt numbers of unitaries

The operator-Schmidt decomposition is useful in quantum information theory for quantifying the nonlocality of bipartite unitary operations. We construct a family of unitary operators on C^n tensor C^n whose operator-Schmidt decompositions are computed using the discrete Fourier transform. As a corollary, we produce unitaries on C^3 tensor C^3 with operator-Schmidt number S for every S in {1,...,9}. This corollary was unexpected, since it contradicted reasonable conjectures of Nielsen et al [Phys. Rev. A 67 (2003) 052301] based on intuition from a striking result in the two-qubit case. By the results of Dur, Vidal, and Cirac [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 (2002) 057901 quant-ph/0112124], who also considered the two-qubit case, our result implies that there are nine equivalence classes of unitaries on C^3 tensor C^3 which are probabilistically interconvertible by (stochastic) local operations and classical communication. As another corollary, a prescription is produced for constructing maximally-entangled operators from biunimodular functions. Reversing tact, we state a generalized operator-Schmidt decomposition of the quantum Fourier transform considered as an operator C^M_1 tensor C^M_2 --> C^N_1 tensor C^N_2, with M_1 x M_2 = N_1 x N_2. This decomposition shows (by Nielsen's bound) that the communication cost of the QFT remains maximal when a net transfer of qudits is permitted. In an appendix, a canonical procedure is given for removing basis-dependence for results and proofs depending on the "magic basis" introduced in [S. Hill and W. Wootters, "Entanglement of a pair of quantum bits," Phys Rev. Lett 78 (1997) 5022-5025, quant-ph/9703041 (and quant-ph/9709029)].Comment: More formal version of my talk at the Simons Conference on Quantum and Reversible Computation at Stony Brook May 31, 2003. The talk slides and audio are available at http://www.physics.sunysb.edu/itp/conf/simons-qcomputation.html. Fixed typos and minor cosmetic

Timing of the first drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake synchronous with the onset of Greenland Stadial 1

Glacial varves can give significant insights into recession and melting rates of decaying ice sheets. Moreover, varve chronologies can provide an independent means of comparison to other annually resolved climatic archives, which ultimately help to assess the timing and response of an ice sheet to changes across rapid climate transitions. Here we report a composite 1257-year long varve chronology from south-eastern Sweden spanning the regional late Allerød-late Younger Dryas pollen zone. The chronology was correlated to the Greenland Ice Core Chronology 2005 using the time-synchronous Vedde Ash volcanic marker, which can be found in both successions. For the first time, this enables secure placement of the Lateglacial Swedish varve chronology in absolute time. Geochemical analysis from new varve successions indicate a marked change in sedimentation regime accompanied by an interruption of ice-rafted debris deposition synchronous with the onset of Greenland Stadial 1 (GS-1; 12 846 years before 1950 AD). With the support of a simple ice flow/calving model, we suggest that slowdown of sediment transfer can be explained by ice-sheet margin stabilisation/advance in response to a significant drop of the Baltic Ice Lake level. A reassessment of chronological evidence from central-western and southern Sweden further supports the hypothesis of synchronicity between the first (penultimate) catastrophic drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake and the start of GS-1 in Greenland ice cores. Our results may therefore provide the first chronologically robust evidence linking continental meltwater forcing to rapid atmosphere-ocean circulation changes in the North Atlantic

A note on the error analysis of classical Gram-Schmidt

An error analysis result is given for classical Gram--Schmidt factorization of a full rank matrix $A$ into $A=QR$ where $Q$ is left orthogonal (has orthonormal columns) and $R$ is upper triangular. The work presented here shows that the computed $R$ satisfies \normal{R}=\normal{A}+E where $E$ is an appropriately small backward error, but only if the diagonals of $R$ are computed in a manner similar to Cholesky factorization of the normal equations matrix. A similar result is stated in [Giraud at al, Numer. Math. 101(1):87--100,2005]. However, for that result to hold, the diagonals of $R$ must be computed in the manner recommended in this work.Comment: 12 pages This v2. v1 (from 2006) has not the biliographical reference set (at all). This is the only modification between v1 and v2. If you want to quote this paper, please quote the version published in Numerische Mathemati

Groebner bases of symmetric ideals

In this article we present two new algorithms to compute the Groebner basis of an ideal that is invariant under certain permutations of the ring variables and which are both implemented in SINGULAR (cf. [DGPS12]). The first and major algorithm is most performant over finite fields whereas the second algorithm is a probabilistic modification of the modular computation of Groebner bases based on the articles by Arnold (cf. [A03]), Idrees, Pfister, Steidel (cf. [IPS11]) and Noro, Yokoyama (cf. [NY12], [Y12]). In fact, the first algorithm that mainly uses the given symmetry, improves the necessary modular calculations in positive characteristic in the second algorithm. Particularly, we could, for the first time even though probabilistic, compute the Groebner basis of the famous ideal of cyclic 9-roots (cf. [BF91]) over the rationals with SINGULAR.Comment: 17 page

Organizational and managerial challenges for public actors working towards becoming a smart city - A case study of the City of Stockholm

Cities are becoming smart to cope with the challenges associated with urban development. One of the cities trying to become smart is the City of Stockholm, which in 2017 adopted a strategy to become the world’s smartest and most connected city. However, becoming a smart city is not easy. The transformation requires a new organizational approach and innovation in management, which the City of Stockholm must address to make the transformation successful. The master’s thesis was conducted through a case study of the City of Stockholm to investigate the organizational and managerial challenges of becoming a smart city, and the important critical success factors for a public actor, like the City of Stockholm, in managing towards a smart city. Ten interviews and four observations were carried out through a cross-section of the City of Stockholm to understand the work towards becoming smart from different perspectives. The empirical data was combined with theoretical frameworks regarding smart city and innovation management to analyze the City of Stockholm’s attempt to become a smart city. The master’s thesis identified twelve organizational and managerial challenges; multiple and conflicting smart city definitions, lack of knowledge about the smart city strategy, lack of management support, unclear vision of the smart city strategy, insufficient involvement of employees, lack of alignment between the overall smart city goals and the initiated smart city projects, lack of structure for exchanging knowledge, lack of structure and routines for involving the citizens, high presence of functional silos and hierarchy, poor receptiveness of new ideas and resistance to change, lack of structure for liberating time and resources for new ideas and not embracing calculated risk. Finally, the identified important critical success factors were; management and organization, people and community and governance. The City of Stockholm and similar public actors should take the findings into consideration to accelerate the smart city transformation.Globalization, digitization and urbanization are three worldwide megatrends radically altering the world. On one hand, these megatrends come with many challenges for cities such as coping with excessive energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste management, traffic congestions,scarcity of resources and human health concerns. On the other hand, urban development presents various opportunities to exploit. To manage the emerging problems cities are trying to become smart. One of the cities trying to transform into a smart city is the City of Stockholm, which in 2017 adopted a strategy to become the world’s smartest and most connected city. However, becoming a smart city is not easy. The transformation poses new organizational challenges for public actors. The organizational challenges are many, from finding new ways to collaborate across borders to improved information sharing and integration, which public actors need to address by employing new organizational approaches. The master’s thesis identified twelve organizational and managerial challenges

The digital revolution and the organization of work : contemporary management techniques

Viewed from a global perspective, the digital revolution affects organizations as well as individuals. For present purposes, the digital revolution refers to the transformation process of analog data into a digital format. The key driver behind this process seems to be the technological progress in particular within the information and telecommunication industry. To ensure both productive and attractive jobs during times of rapid change, an efficient allocation of work gains in importance. Nonetheless, owing to the strong trend towards digitalization, a window of opportunity for flexible solutions at company level opens. Before this backdrop, the paper addresses in particular the area of knowledge- and project-based work within the service sector. By doing so, the paper attempts to set out where the technological forces and trends are leading the organization of work and what the contemporary management can do to better adapt to this development. To do so, an interdisciplinary research approach is followed, including aspects from labor economics, occupational psychology and business administration. Finally, the investigation identifies concrete management techniques to provide proper tools to meet the demands of modern workplaces