Suchergebnisse

I. Nowadays, tropical landscapes experience large-scale land use intensification and land conversion driven by increasing demand for resourses. Due to the continuously high demand for tropical timber and politically intended step increase in palm oil production, multiple rounds of logging and subsequent conversion to oil palm plantations became a regionally wide-spread land conversion pattern in Southeast Asia. Although many tree species and some animals are highly threatened by logging, a great number of species groups, such as birds or mammals, have been shown to persist in logged forests. Accordingly, many ecosystem services, such as dung removal, seed dispersal or the activity of scavengers, are functionally maintained in logged forests. In contrast, oil palm plantations have been shown to not only dramatically alter the species composition and reduce biodiversity, but also curtail many crucial biotic and abiotic ecosystem functions. The focus of this dissertation was to investigate the response of anuran species richness and community composition to logging and conversion to oil palm plantation in northern Borneo (chapter II). I analysed the diet of various frog species and their change with habitat degradation. Furthermore, I assessed the shift in the trophic position of the anuran community as well as the response of anuran phylogenetic, dietary, and functional diversity to logging and conversion to oil palm plantations (chapter III). Finally, the resilience of the predator-prey interaction between an ant-specialist toad and its ant prey was analysed using shifts in species-level interactions (chapter IV). II. This part of the study compares the species richness, relative abundance and community composition of stream anuran assemblages among primary forests, repeatedly logged forests and oil palm plantations. I used a highly standardised sampling setup applying transect-based sampling. Surprisingly, most of the anuran species native to primary forests were able to survive in logged forest streams. In contrast, on average only one third of the forest species richness was found in oil palm plantation streams. However, a high percentage of canopy cover above the plantation streams was able to mitigate this loss substantially. This study demonstrates the high conservation value of logged forests for Southeast Asian anurans. In contrast, the conversion to oil palm plantations leads to a dramatic decline of forest species. However, they have a mainly unused potential to contribute to the protection of parts of the regional anuran biodiversity if conservation-oriented management options are implemented. III. In this part, I analysed the shifts in trophic position and multiple diversity layers of Southeast Asian stream-dependent anuran species across a gradient of disturbance from primary forest through intensively logged forest to oil palm plantation. For this purpose, I identified the diet composition of 59 anuran species by means of stomach flushing. Furthermore, I use diet composition of frog species as well as species traits to calculate dietary and functional diversity, respectively. I found that the trophic position of the entire anuran community is elevated in heavily disturbed habitats. Furthermore, species diversity, phylogenetic species variation, dietary diversity, and functional diversity were reduced. However, beyond the effect of the decreased species richness, only phylogenetic species variability and functional diversity were significantly impacted by land conversion, indicating a non-random loss of phylogenetic groups and functionally unique species. Overall, the observed changes to species interactions and functional composition suggest a greatly modified role of anurans in altered habitats and major foodweb reorganisation. Such far-reaching changes to the way species groups interact are likely to threaten local biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in natural and particularly modified habitats. However, I could also show, that small-scale habitat quality, provided by riparian reserves, is able to mitigate the negative consequences of land conversion considerably. IV. Here I assess how logging of rain forest and conversion to oil palm plantations affect the populations of the ant-specialist giant river toad (Phrynoidis juxtaspera), and availability and composition of its ant prey. I measured canopy cover as an estimate for the degree of disturbance. I found that toad abundance decreased with increasing disturbance. At the same time, ant community composition was altered, and local ground-foraging ant species richness increased with disturbance. However, for a given amount of canopy cover, primary forest supported more ant species than altered habitats. Despite these changes, composition of ants consumed by toads was only weakly affected by habitat change, with the exception of the invasive yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes), which was positively selected in oil palm plantations. This suggests that predator-prey interactions can be mostly maintained with habitat disturbance despite shifts in community composition, and even that some predators are capable of exploiting new prey sources in novel ecosystems. V. I could show that anuran diversity and their trophic interaction is negatively impacted by logging and in particular by conversion to oil palm plantations. From species richness and community composition, my study expanded to phylogenetic, dietary and functional diversity. Furthermore, I investigated the interaction of a particular toad species with its preferred prey (ants), on species level. This increasing degree of detail in my study provided comprehensive results, beyond the detail of many related studies. Overall, conservation of the remaining forest in Southeast Asia is urgently required to protect anuran biodiversity and their trophic interactions. ; I. Durch den stetig steigenden Bedarf an vielfältigen Ressourcen stehen heutzutage vor allem tropische Ökosysteme unter enormem Druck hin zu intensiver Landwirtschaft und der Umwandlung von natürlichen Lebensräumen. Getrieben durch die hohe Nachfrage an Tropenhölzern und dem politisch gewollten Anstieg der Palmölproduktion, etablierte sich in Südostasien eine weit verbreitete Landnutzungsumwandlung charakterisiert durch wiederkehrende Holznutzung und die anschließende Umwandlung zu Ölpalmplantagen. Manche Tiergruppen und vor allem Baumarten sind dadurch stark gefährdet. Dennoch können andere Organismengruppen wie Vögel oder Säuger auch in genutzten Wäldern überleben. Auch Ökosystemdienstleistungen, wie Kotbeseitigung oder die Aktivität von Aasfressern bleiben vielfach in genutzten Wäldern erhalten. Im Gegensatz dazu stellen Ölpalmplantagen keinen geeigneten Lebensraum für viele Tier und Pflanzenarten dar und viele Ökosystemserviceleistungen können in diesen Plantagen nicht aufrecht erhalten werden. Ziel dieser Arbeit war die Auswirkungen dieser massiven Habitatumwandlung auf die Artenzahl und die Artenzusammensetzungen von Fröschen und Kröten in Nordborneo zu untersuchen (Kapitel II). Ich untersuchte die Nahrungszusammensetzung von mehreren Froscharten und wie sich diese mit Habitatumwandlung verändert. Zusätzlich habe ich die Stellung von Fröschen in der Nahrungskette sowie ihre phylogenetische, nahrungs- und funktionelle Diversität untersucht (Kapitel III). Schließlich habe die Interaktion von Fröschen mit ihrer Beute (in diesem Fall Ameisen) auch auf Artebene untersucht (Kapitel IV). II. Dieser Teil der Arbeit vergleicht die Artenzahl, relative Häufigkeit und die Artenzusammensetzung der bachlebenden Froscharten zwischen Primärwäldern, genutzten Wäldern und Ölpalmplantagen. Dazu nahm ich die Froschbestände mit einer standardisierten Transektmethode auf. Ich fand heraus, dass die meisten Froscharten aus Primärwäldern auch in forstwirtschaftlich intensiv genutzten Wäldern überleben konnten. Im Gegensatz dazu wiesen Ölpalmplantagen nur durchschnittlich ein drittel der Froscharten aus Wäldern auf. Jedoch konnte dieser Artenschwund durch einen hohen Kronenschluss über den Plantagenbächen reduziert werden. Diese Studie belegt den hohen naturschutzfachlichen Wert von genutzten Wäldern in Südostasien und die geringe Bedeutung von Ölpalmplantagen in diesem Zusammenhang. Jedoch zeigt es auch Wege auf, wie Ölpalmplantagen naturschutzfachlich aufgewertet werden können. III. Dieser Teil der Arbeit befasst sich mit den Auswirkungen der Habitatumwandlung auf die trophischen Interaktionen und mehrere Ebenen der Froschbiodiversität. Dazu untersuchte ich die Nahrungszusammensetzung von 59 Froscharten mittels Magenspülung. Darüber hinaus nutzte ich diese Daten um die Nahrungsvielfalt zu untersuchen und Daten aus der Literatur und die funktionelle Diversität zu erfassen. Dabei fand ich heraus, dass Frösche bei zunehmender Habitatzerstörung eine höhere Stellung in der Nahrungskette einnahmen. Darüber hinaus sank die allgemeine Diversität, die phylogenetische Verwandtschaft, die Nahrungsvielfalt und die funktionelle Diversität der Frösche. Also lässt sich schließen, dass diese tiefgreifenden Veränderungen eine deutlich andere Rolle der Frösche in den umgewandelten Habitaten zur Folge hat. Solche dramatischen Eingriffe in das Nahrungsnetz können negative Auswirkungen auf die Stabilität von Ökosystemen haben, jedoch zeigt sich auch hier, dass diese durch die Erhöhung des Kronenschlusses deutlich abgemildert werden können. IV. In diesem Abschnitt befasse ich mich auf die Auswirkungen der Habitatumwandlung auf die Häufigkeit der Kröte Phrynoidis juxtaspera, ihre Beute (Ameisen), sowie die Interaktion von Räuber und Beute. Dabei fand ich heraus, dass die Kröte in ungestörten Bächen am häufigsten war und gleichzeitig mehr (und andere) Ameisenarten in Ölpalmplantagen vorkamen. Jedoch war die Artenzahl von Ameisen bei konstantem Kronenschluss in Primärwäldern immer höher als in Ölpalmplantagen. Im großen Gegensatz zu diesen Veränderungen, war die Nahrungszusammensetzung der verbleibenden Kröten in den Plantagenbächen kaum unterschiedlich im Vergleich mit Primärwaldbächen. Eine Ausnahme war ein deutlich gestiegener Anteil der invasiven Ameisenart Anoplolepis gracilipes. Diese Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Räuber-Beute Interaktion unter Umständen unverändert die Habitatumwandlung überstehen können, aber auch in gewissem Umfang neue Ressourcen erschlossen werden können. V. Mit dieser Arbeit konnte ich zeigen, dass sich die großflächige Habitatumwandlung von Wäldern hin zu Ölpalmplantagen negativ auf die Froschbiodiversität, wie auch die Räuber-Beute Interaktionen von Fröschen auswirkt. Ausgehend von Artenzahl und Artenzusammensetzung konnte ich in meiner Arbeit darüber hinaus auch die Biodiversität der Frösche auf verschiedenen Ebenen beleuchten und schließlich sogar die Räuber-Beute Interaktion auf Artebene untersuchen. Dadurch konnte ich diesen komplexen Zusammenhang in ganz besonderer Tiefe beleuchten. Insgesamt liefert diese Arbeit einen weiteren wichtigen Beleg dafür, dass Primärwälder, aber neuerdings auch immer mehr genutzte Wälder entscheidend für den Erhalt von tropischer Biodiversität sind.

España ha sido uno de los principales destinos elegidos en los proyectos migratorios internacionales de los ciudadanos que han partido de Ecuador. Las similitudes culturales y las perspectivas de empleo han permitido contrarrestar la distancia geográfica que separa ambos países. El éxito de unos atrajo a otros, entrando en funcionamiento los postulados de la teoría de redes. De esta forma, especialmente a partir de la década de 1990, los ecuatorianos se han convertido en uno de los colectivos de mayor peso en España, ocupando puestos en la construcción, las actividades agrícolas y el sector servicios, entre ellos en el servicio doméstico. Con el paso del tiempo se han ido consolidando en el país. Los procesos extraordinarios de regularización aprobados por los distintos Gobiernos españoles han contribuido a promocionar su seguridad jurídica en España, aunque en algunos casos solo ha sido de manera temporal. También han aprovechado y contribuido al dinamismo mostrado por la economía española, que se traducía en una importante creación de empleo. En base a esta estabilidad han adquirido viviendas y se han acogido en muchos casos a la reagrupación familiar, trayendo a sus parejas, descendientes y ascendientes. Estos procesos dotaron al colectivo de una mayor vocación de permanencia en España, reforzado aún más si cabe por el hecho de que en muchos casos se han nacionalizado español. No obstante lo suelen hacer sin renunciar a su nacionalidad de origen y con el objeto de aprovechar los beneficios, la seguridad jurídica, que les reporta el ser considerado ciudadano de la Unión Europea. La situación descrita de consolidación y crecimiento de la colonia ecuatoriana ha encontrado un punto de inflexión en los últimos años. La crisis económica que atraviesa España ha provocado que parte de la población ecuatoriana haya perdido su empleo. Los propios españoles vuelven a tomar el camino de la emigración ante el deterioro de la situación sociolaboral y la falta de perspectivas profesionales. En esta línea el Gobierno de España ha puesto en marcha diversos programas de retorno voluntario dirigidos a los extranjeros que se encuentran en el país, al objeto de relajar la presión sobre el mercado de trabajo y reducir la competencia laboral. En un primer momento estos programas de retorno han tenido poco eco entre sus destinatarios. Sin embargo, la prolongación en el tiempo de la recesión, e incluso la acentuación la misma, ha llevado a que muchos hayan agotado las prestaciones por desempleo a que tenían derecho por el tiempo trabajado. Como resultado carecen de recursos económicos para hacer frente a las hipotecas que suscribieron para adquirir sus viviendas, son desahuciados y las perspectivas laborales no son nada halagüeñas a corto plazo. Ante esta situación el regreso al país de origen comienza a ganar adeptos. A ello hay que sumar que al contrario de lo que sucede en España, la economía de Ecuador se muestra dinámica, crece, y el Gobierno del país adopta también medidas para hacer atractivo el regreso de sus nacionales. Entre las citadas medidas se encuentra el Plan Tierra, dirigido a realizar una reforma agraria y dotar de tierras a la población para su puesta en valor. La presente comunicación se centrará en analizar la incidencia de este Plan entre los ecuatorianos que se encuentran en España. Este documento recoge parte del trabajo realizado por los autores en la ejecución del proyecto I+D+i Gestión colectiva de contrataciones agrícolas en origen y sus soportes territoriales en España y Marruecos: propuesta de concatenación de campañas e implicaciones en el codesarrollo. Dicho proyecto es financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Ref. CSO2010-18764, 2011-2013) y está siendo llevado a cabo por investigadores de distintas universidades españolas. El "Instituto de Desarrollo Local" (IDL), grupo de investigación de la Universidad de Huelva, actúa como jefe de filas del mismo. ; Spain has been one of the top tourist destinations in international migration projects of citizens who have left Ecuador. Cultural similarities and employment prospects have offset the geographical distance separating the two countries. The success of some attracted others to come on stream the tenets of network theories. In this way, especially since the 1990s, Ecuatorians have become one of the groups with more weight in Spain, holding positions in construction, farming and the service sector, including domestic servants. With the pass of time they have been consolidated in the country. The extraordinary regularization process approved by the various Spanish governments have helped to promote legal security in Spain, although in some cases has only been temporary. They have also benefited and contributed to the dynamism of the Spanish economy, which resulted in significant job creation. Based on this stability they have acquired properties and have been welcomed in many cases of family reunion, bringing their partners, descendants and ascendants. These processes endowed the collective greater degree of permanence in Spain, enhanced even further by the fact that in many cases have been nationalized as Spanish. Notwithstanding usually they do not renounce their nationality of origin in order to reap the benefits, legal security, reporting them to be considered a citizen of the European Union. The described situation of consolidation and growth of the Ecuadorian colony has found a turning point in recent years. The economic crisis in Spain has caused part of the Ecuadorian population to lose their jobs. The Spaniards themselves retake the path of emigration to the deterioration of social and working conditions and lack of career prospects. In this vein the Government of Spain has implemented various voluntary return programs targeting foreigners in the country, in order to ease the pressure on the labor market and reduce labor competition underway. At first these return programs have had little echo among the recipients. However, the extension in time of recession, and even stress it, it has led many to have exhausted unemployment benefits they were entitled for the time worked. As a result, they lack the financial resources to meet the mortgages signed to acquire their homes, they are hopeless and job prospects are not bright in the short term. In this situation they return to the home country begins to gain followers. To this must be added that, contrary to what happens in Spain, Ecuador's economy is dynamic, is growing, and the government of the country also takes steps to appeal the return of their nationals. Among those measures is the Land Plan, aimed at making land reform and give land to the population for its value. This communication will focus on analyzing the impact of this plan among Ecuadorians who are in Spain. This document contains part of the work done by the authors in the project implementation R & D + i collective management of agricultural contracts in origin and territorial supports Spain and Morocco: concatenation proposed campaigns and co-development implications. This project is funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ref CSO2010-18764, 2011-2013) and is being conducted by researchers from different Spanish universities. The "Institute for Local Development" (IDL), a research group at the University of Huelva, acts as team leader. ; Este documento recoge parte del trabajo realizado en la ejecución del Proyecto I+D+i (2010-2014): "Gestión colectiva de contrataciones agrícolas en origen y sus soportes territoriales en España y Marruecos: propuesta de concatenación de campañas e implicaciones en el codesarrollo". Dicho Proyecto es financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Ref. CSO2010-18764, 2011-2014).

The exemplum is a privileged target for the cultural study of the medieval society. If the research regarding the content of those edifying anecdotes is already well advanced, the analysis of the real audiences and concrete uses of the exempla remained yet to be undertaken. Because the expansion and characterization of this typology is directly linked with the emergence of the collections of exempla, our investigation was based on this kind of works. To succeed with this project, we used the information existing in the manuscripts copies and in medieval booklists. With these two kinds of sources, we analysed books as physical objects (cover, writing, etc.), vehicles of culture (versions, surrounding works, etc.) and historical witness (purchase, legacies, etc.). The thesis focused on the following central questions: how did books of exempla diffused in time and space? Which works achieved success? Who were the owners of these books? How did they read and use them? In the first part of our analysis, the theoretical one, historiographical and historical definitions of the exemplum and the collections of exempla have been clarified. This was indispensable because a large part of the scientific literature, especially in France, only considered the exemplum as a kind of story, which appeared in the twelfth century and was used by preachers in sermons to illustrate a salutary message. By saying so, they neglected the persuasive nature of the exemplum, confining it to a literary genre. In reality, the exemplum should be primarily considered as a rhetorical argument based on a deed or a word that happened in the past. Nevertheless, its persuasive power, which comes from its visual imagery, is especially effective when the case is told in the form of a story. This phenomenon is currently studied in the storytelling management, which uses stories to improve communication. In sum, the exemplum is an argument stemming from reality in the form of a story. The history of the exemplum does not start with the mendicant orders, but within democracy and the rhetoric schools of Athena and later in Rome. With the emergence of Christianity, church fathers use it to fight against heretics and monks to share the spiritual experience of elders to novices. A pro domo use of the exempla appears with the creation of the new religious orders, first Cluny, then the Cistercians and finally the mendicants. The latter put exempla in theirs sermons to attract the attention of their audience, though not only. They use them in conversations, lectiones and also in didactic and moral treatises. This was no novelty: previous writers such as John of Salisbury in his Polycraticus uses it abundantly. If the years 1250-1350 are the magnificent era of the exemplum, since the second half of the 14th century, we can notice a decline of the exemplum, which becomes either an illustration, an allegory, or an open, facetious, entertaining or devote story. As far as the books of exempla are concerned, for a long time scholars did not try to define them precisely. They looked at these collections only for the stories they contained. To their minds, an exempla collection was simply a book in which there were exempla. To make a necessary distinction between very differing books of exempla, we need to precise: a) the proportion of exempla; b) if the exempla are used by the authors as arguments or offered to the readers for rhetorical purposes; c) if there is an organizational system. Those questions successively allow distinguishing books of exempla from books with exempla, exempla treaties from exempla collections and exempla repositories. Nonetheless, due to the fact that exemplum is not a genre but a function, it is very hard to define a clear corpus. The first important book of exempla comes from Roman Antiquity. The Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus was used as a text book for students in rhetoric. With the flourishing of monasticism, exempla collections of the Vitae patrum spread all over the Christian world, diffusing the good examples of the desert Fathers. In the beginning of the second millennium, religious orders continued this practice, but with the new will of putting their respective orders forward. The first alphabetical repositories of exempla appear at the end of the 13th century due to the necessity of preaching and of tidying up growing knowledge. However, alongside the existence of these collections of exempla made for preaching purposes, there are many others books and treaties of exempla, whose function is either to instruct, or to give the rules of social morality, or simply to edify readers. The second part of the thesis puts the stress on the concrete diffusion and uses of the exempla collections. The investigation on the manuscript copies shows, inter alia, an increase in their number during the centuries (13 times more in the 15th than in the 13th century), the predominant place of the German area, especially in the 15th century, and the growing importance of the treatises of exempla, taking advantage on the repertories. With regards to the incunabula, we count 172 Latin and 74 vernacular editions of exempla collections before 1500. This mainly concerns repositories for the former when the latter contains almost exclusively treaties. The production of this edition starts in the years 1470, culminates in the years 1480 and declines at the end of the century. Geographically, we notice the same importance of the German speaking area, especially in the city of Strasbourg. At the second place we find Italy, which produces mainly antique exempla collections. For the manuscript copies as for the incunabula editions, we have to keep in mind that it exists huge differences of success between books of exempla. The last chapter focuses on the diffusion and uses of the books of exempla written by the Dominicans, the biggest producer of such collections. We also see big discrepancies of success, owners and uses. For example, the Gerard of Frachet's Vitas fratrum were mainly read in continental Europe by Dominicans and Canons regular to keep conventual order and morality, while the John Herolt's Promptuarium exemplorum was used by different orders and persons in the German world for pastoral purposes and John of Bromyard's Summa praedicantium was located in England in highly intellectual institutions, such as universities and big Benedictine monasteries. A collection of exempla can also have different readers and uses. Thomas of Cantimpre's Bonum universale de apibus, written for conventual purposes, was also used either as a repertory of exempla for preaching or as a treaty of social morality. John of Cessoles' Liber de moribus was not only read by preachers and pastors but also by lay people as spiritual lecture. Across the study of the different exempla collections, we notice many German 15th century manuscripts exclusively elaborated for pastoral uses. In these Priesterhandbücher we can find, next to exempla collections, sermons, artes predicandi, treaties on the Mass, explanation of the sacraments, the Ten Commandments and Credo. Unlike a common vision of exempla collections produced and used within the preaching, this global study shows, on the one hand, the great diversity of production environments and aims intended by exempla compilers, as well as, on the second hand, an equally important variety concerning diffusion and real uses of such works. Added to the thesis, there is an appendix of more than 300 pages presenting 68 Latin books of exempla, in which the characteristics of the work are exposed, the objectives of use pursued by the author, and the modalities of diffusion (including the list of manuscripts, medieval mentions, translations and editions). ; (DOCFILO02) -- FUNDP, 2013

The exemplum is a privileged target for the cultural study of the medieval society. If the research regarding the content of those edifying anecdotes is already well advanced, the analysis of the real audiences and concrete uses of the exempla remained yet to be undertaken. Because the expansion and characterization of this typology is directly linked with the emergence of the collections of exempla, our investigation was based on this kind of works. To succeed with this project, we used the information existing in the manuscripts copies and in medieval booklists. With these two kinds of sources, we analysed books as physical objects (cover, writing, etc.), vehicles of culture (versions, surrounding works, etc.) and historical witness (purchase, legacies, etc.). The thesis focused on the following central questions: how did books of exempla diffused in time and space? Which works achieved success? Who were the owners of these books? How did they read and use them? In the first part of our analysis, the theoretical one, historiographical and historical definitions of the exemplum and the collections of exempla have been clarified. This was indispensable because a large part of the scientific literature, especially in France, only considered the exemplum as a kind of story, which appeared in the twelfth century and was used by preachers in sermons to illustrate a salutary message. By saying so, they neglected the persuasive nature of the exemplum, confining it to a literary genre. In reality, the exemplum should be primarily considered as a rhetorical argument based on a deed or a word that happened in the past. Nevertheless, its persuasive power, which comes from its visual imagery, is especially effective when the case is told in the form of a story. This phenomenon is currently studied in the storytelling management, which uses stories to improve communication. In sum, the exemplum is an argument stemming from reality in the form of a story. The history of the exemplum does not start with the mendicant orders, but within democracy and the rhetoric schools of Athena and later in Rome. With the emergence of Christianity, church fathers use it to fight against heretics and monks to share the spiritual experience of elders to novices. A pro domo use of the exempla appears with the creation of the new religious orders, first Cluny, then the Cistercians and finally the mendicants. The latter put exempla in theirs sermons to attract the attention of their audience, though not only. They use them in conversations, lectiones and also in didactic and moral treatises. This was no novelty: previous writers such as John of Salisbury in his Polycraticus uses it abundantly. If the years 1250-1350 are the magnificent era of the exemplum, since the second half of the 14th century, we can notice a decline of the exemplum, which becomes either an illustration, an allegory, or an open, facetious, entertaining or devote story. As far as the books of exempla are concerned, for a long time scholars did not try to define them precisely. They looked at these collections only for the stories they contained. To their minds, an exempla collection was simply a book in which there were exempla. To make a necessary distinction between very differing books of exempla, we need to precise: a) the proportion of exempla; b) if the exempla are used by the authors as arguments or offered to the readers for rhetorical purposes; c) if there is an organizational system. Those questions successively allow distinguishing books of exempla from books with exempla, exempla treaties from exempla collections and exempla repositories. Nonetheless, due to the fact that exemplum is not a genre but a function, it is very hard to define a clear corpus. The first important book of exempla comes from Roman Antiquity. The Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus was used as a text book for students in rhetoric. With the flourishing of monasticism, exempla collections of the Vitae patrum spread all over the Christian world, diffusing the good examples of the desert Fathers. In the beginning of the second millennium, religious orders continued this practice, but with the new will of putting their respective orders forward. The first alphabetical repositories of exempla appear at the end of the 13th century due to the necessity of preaching and of tidying up growing knowledge. However, alongside the existence of these collections of exempla made for preaching purposes, there are many others books and treaties of exempla, whose function is either to instruct, or to give the rules of social morality, or simply to edify readers. The second part of the thesis puts the stress on the concrete diffusion and uses of the exempla collections. The investigation on the manuscript copies shows, inter alia, an increase in their number during the centuries (13 times more in the 15th than in the 13th century), the predominant place of the German area, especially in the 15th century, and the growing importance of the treatises of exempla, taking advantage on the repertories. With regards to the incunabula, we count 172 Latin and 74 vernacular editions of exempla collections before 1500. This mainly concerns repositories for the former when the latter contains almost exclusively treaties. The production of this edition starts in the years 1470, culminates in the years 1480 and declines at the end of the century. Geographically, we notice the same importance of the German speaking area, especially in the city of Strasbourg. At the second place we find Italy, which produces mainly antique exempla collections. For the manuscript copies as for the incunabula editions, we have to keep in mind that it exists huge differences of success between books of exempla. The last chapter focuses on the diffusion and uses of the books of exempla written by the Dominicans, the biggest producer of such collections. We also see big discrepancies of success, owners and uses. For example, the Gerard of Frachet's Vitas fratrum were mainly read in continental Europe by Dominicans and Canons regular to keep conventual order and morality, while the John Herolt's Promptuarium exemplorum was used by different orders and persons in the German world for pastoral purposes and John of Bromyard's Summa praedicantium was located in England in highly intellectual institutions, such as universities and big Benedictine monasteries. A collection of exempla can also have different readers and uses. Thomas of Cantimpre's Bonum universale de apibus, written for conventual purposes, was also used either as a repertory of exempla for preaching or as a treaty of social morality. John of Cessoles' Liber de moribus was not only read by preachers and pastors but also by lay people as spiritual lecture. Across the study of the different exempla collections, we notice many German 15th century manuscripts exclusively elaborated for pastoral uses. In these Priesterhandbücher we can find, next to exempla collections, sermons, artes predicandi, treaties on the Mass, explanation of the sacraments, the Ten Commandments and Credo. Unlike a common vision of exempla collections produced and used within the preaching, this global study shows, on the one hand, the great diversity of production environments and aims intended by exempla compilers, as well as, on the second hand, an equally important variety concerning diffusion and real uses of such works. Added to the thesis, there is an appendix of more than 300 pages presenting 68 Latin books of exempla, in which the characteristics of the work are exposed, the objectives of use pursued by the author, and the modalities of diffusion (including the list of manuscripts, medieval mentions, translations and editions). ; (DOCFILO02) -- FUNDP, 2013

The exemplum is a privileged target for the cultural study of the medieval society. If the research regarding the content of those edifying anecdotes is already well advanced, the analysis of the real audiences and concrete uses of the exempla remained yet to be undertaken. Because the expansion and characterization of this typology is directly linked with the emergence of the collections of exempla, our investigation was based on this kind of works. To succeed with this project, we used the information existing in the manuscripts copies and in medieval booklists. With these two kinds of sources, we analysed books as physical objects (cover, writing, etc.), vehicles of culture (versions, surrounding works, etc.) and historical witness (purchase, legacies, etc.). The thesis focused on the following central questions: how did books of exempla diffused in time and space? Which works achieved success? Who were the owners of these books? How did they read and use them? In the first part of our analysis, the theoretical one, historiographical and historical definitions of the exemplum and the collections of exempla have been clarified. This was indispensable because a large part of the scientific literature, especially in France, only considered the exemplum as a kind of story, which appeared in the twelfth century and was used by preachers in sermons to illustrate a salutary message. By saying so, they neglected the persuasive nature of the exemplum, confining it to a literary genre. In reality, the exemplum should be primarily considered as a rhetorical argument based on a deed or a word that happened in the past. Nevertheless, its persuasive power, which comes from its visual imagery, is especially effective when the case is told in the form of a story. This phenomenon is currently studied in the storytelling management, which uses stories to improve communication. In sum, the exemplum is an argument stemming from reality in the form of a story. The history of the exemplum does not start with the mendicant orders, but within democracy and the rhetoric schools of Athena and later in Rome. With the emergence of Christianity, church fathers use it to fight against heretics and monks to share the spiritual experience of elders to novices. A pro domo use of the exempla appears with the creation of the new religious orders, first Cluny, then the Cistercians and finally the mendicants. The latter put exempla in theirs sermons to attract the attention of their audience, though not only. They use them in conversations, lectiones and also in didactic and moral treatises. This was no novelty: previous writers such as John of Salisbury in his Polycraticus uses it abundantly. If the years 1250-1350 are the magnificent era of the exemplum, since the second half of the 14th century, we can notice a decline of the exemplum, which becomes either an illustration, an allegory, or an open, facetious, entertaining or devote story. As far as the books of exempla are concerned, for a long time scholars did not try to define them precisely. They looked at these collections only for the stories they contained. To their minds, an exempla collection was simply a book in which there were exempla. To make a necessary distinction between very differing books of exempla, we need to precise: a) the proportion of exempla; b) if the exempla are used by the authors as arguments or offered to the readers for rhetorical purposes; c) if there is an organizational system. Those questions successively allow distinguishing books of exempla from books with exempla, exempla treaties from exempla collections and exempla repositories. Nonetheless, due to the fact that exemplum is not a genre but a function, it is very hard to define a clear corpus. The first important book of exempla comes from Roman Antiquity. The Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus was used as a text book for students in rhetoric. With the flourishing of monasticism, exempla collections of the Vitae patrum spread all over the Christian world, diffusing the good examples of the desert Fathers. In the beginning of the second millennium, religious orders continued this practice, but with the new will of putting their respective orders forward. The first alphabetical repositories of exempla appear at the end of the 13th century due to the necessity of preaching and of tidying up growing knowledge. However, alongside the existence of these collections of exempla made for preaching purposes, there are many others books and treaties of exempla, whose function is either to instruct, or to give the rules of social morality, or simply to edify readers. The second part of the thesis puts the stress on the concrete diffusion and uses of the exempla collections. The investigation on the manuscript copies shows, inter alia, an increase in their number during the centuries (13 times more in the 15th than in the 13th century), the predominant place of the German area, especially in the 15th century, and the growing importance of the treatises of exempla, taking advantage on the repertories. With regards to the incunabula, we count 172 Latin and 74 vernacular editions of exempla collections before 1500. This mainly concerns repositories for the former when the latter contains almost exclusively treaties. The production of this edition starts in the years 1470, culminates in the years 1480 and declines at the end of the century. Geographically, we notice the same importance of the German speaking area, especially in the city of Strasbourg. At the second place we find Italy, which produces mainly antique exempla collections. For the manuscript copies as for the incunabula editions, we have to keep in mind that it exists huge differences of success between books of exempla. The last chapter focuses on the diffusion and uses of the books of exempla written by the Dominicans, the biggest producer of such collections. We also see big discrepancies of success, owners and uses. For example, the Gerard of Frachet's Vitas fratrum were mainly read in continental Europe by Dominicans and Canons regular to keep conventual order and morality, while the John Herolt's Promptuarium exemplorum was used by different orders and persons in the German world for pastoral purposes and John of Bromyard's Summa praedicantium was located in England in highly intellectual institutions, such as universities and big Benedictine monasteries. A collection of exempla can also have different readers and uses. Thomas of Cantimpre's Bonum universale de apibus, written for conventual purposes, was also used either as a repertory of exempla for preaching or as a treaty of social morality. John of Cessoles' Liber de moribus was not only read by preachers and pastors but also by lay people as spiritual lecture. Across the study of the different exempla collections, we notice many German 15th century manuscripts exclusively elaborated for pastoral uses. In these Priesterhandbücher we can find, next to exempla collections, sermons, artes predicandi, treaties on the Mass, explanation of the sacraments, the Ten Commandments and Credo. Unlike a common vision of exempla collections produced and used within the preaching, this global study shows, on the one hand, the great diversity of production environments and aims intended by exempla compilers, as well as, on the second hand, an equally important variety concerning diffusion and real uses of such works. Added to the thesis, there is an appendix of more than 300 pages presenting 68 Latin books of exempla, in which the characteristics of the work are exposed, the objectives of use pursued by the author, and the modalities of diffusion (including the list of manuscripts, medieval mentions, translations and editions). ; (DOCFILO02) -- FUNDP, 2013

The paper compares the introduction and stabilization of national currency in the First and Second Republics of Lithuania (LR I and LR II) during the years 1918–1922 and 1990–1993, respectively. These diachronic comparisons are supplemented by the synchronic ones where LR I is compared with Estonia, Latvia, and Poland and LR II with Estonia and Latvia. Jointly with Lithuania, all these countries faced the challenge of nation state building simultaneously with the macroeconomic stabilization. Both times, Lithuania was the last to introduce the national currency. The analysis starts with a discussion of the similarities and differences in the economic situations of the LR I and LR II during the first years of independence. In this discussion, the author argues that the prototype of the Soviet command administrative economy was the administrative war economy of Kaiser Germany during WWI, with occupied Lithuania suffering under extreme forms of the administrative control of economic activities by the Oberost authorities. The restoration of the capitalist free market economy and macroeconomic equilibrium was complicated by the extraordinary spending to finance the independence wars in 1918–1920 when national states-in-making lacked administrative capacities to collect taxes in the ordinary ways. Therefore, all Lithuanian neighbours did finance their independence wars by inflation tax, introducing national currencies almost immediately after proclaiming independence and collecting up to 2/3 of the total state revenue from the seigniorage. Among all countries fighting indepenendence wars in the modern times, Lithuania was probably unique in its persistent effort to pay the war cost without the inflation tax. As Lithuania maintained a monetary union with Germany up to 1922, it donated to this country the seigniorage income and was not able to draft all its available manpower because of monetary restrictions. At the same time, the early LR I provides for the posteriority an example of the frugal management of state finance policies even under extraordinary circumstances. This example still lacks the due appreciation by neoliberal monetarist apologists of the sound monetary and fiscal policies. During its early time of restored independence, LR II procrastinated to end the monetary union with its former imperial suzerain (Russia) too for quite a different reason: the choice of the Gediminas Vagnorius' government to participate in the "inflation race" in the rouble zone after September 1991 when the restoration of independent Lithuania was internationally recognized. The winners in this race were the former republics of the USSR that were the leaders in rising prices and wages. Therefore, while Lithuania in 1918–1922 suffered only from imported (from Germany) inflation, in 1991–1992 this country both imported and exported inflation. While permissive policies of the Vagnorius government helped to void the efforts of the Moscow to undermine Lithuanian independence in January–August 1991 by the economic blockade, their continuation after the dissolution of the USSR delayed the onset of macroeconomic stabilization until the early summer 1993. Even after October 1st, 1992 when the national provisional currency talonas became the only legal tender in Lithuania, its govermnent continued collecting the inflation tax, which was immoral given the absence of the war or other extraordinary circumstances. Because of the delayed macroeconomic stabilization, market reforms in Lithuania were conducted in the wrong sequence, with a large-scale privatization enacted under conditions, near to hyperinflation, which favoured prolonged rent-seeking by the early winners. The correct sequence of market reforms in Estonia, due to its early monetary stabilization (since June 1992), jointly with more favourable initial conditions, helped this country to become the leader in the "Baltic race". The policy of Gediminas Vagnorius to chase after short-time advantages of the leadership in the inflation race among the former Soviet republics was punished by Lithuania losing the long-time advantages of the leadership in the transformation race among them Baltic countries. According to another concluding causal argument, the governments of LR I committed a strategic blunder by declining to use the inflation tax for the extraordinary spending to finance the independence war in 1918–1920. Despite their smaller populations and a greater WWI damage (in Latvia's case), both Estonia and Latvia raised more than 70 000 manpower each, financing their war efforts by the inflation tax. Because of its responsible and frugal financial policies, which were wrong given the extraordinary circumstances of a war, the peasantly penny-pinching Lithuania had only some 30 000 manpower at the time of critical battles for its historical capital Vilnius in the autumn 1920. Such military power was too small and weak to hold the city against only one allegedly rebellious division under general Lucjan Żeligowski from landlordly lavish Poland which, like other Lithuania's neighbours, financed its war effort in 1918–1920 by the inflation tax. So Lithuania lost Vilnius in 1920, because it was not ready to pay its (monetary) price. Credits to Prof. Dr. Arnd Bauerkämper from Freie Universität Berlin who hosted the research visit of the author to Berlin to collect and research part of the sources (about post-WWI inflation in Germany and Eastern Europe) used in the paper. ; Straipsnyje lyginamas nacionalinių pinigų įvedimas ir stabilizacija Pirmojoje ir Antrojoje Lietuvos Respublikose (LR I ir LR II). Šie diachroniniai palyginimai papildomi sinchroniniais – LR I lyginama su Estija, Latvija ir Lenkija, o LR II – su Estija ir Latvija, gretimomis šalimis, kurios vienu metu sprendė nacionalinės valstybės kūrimo ir makroekonominės stabilizacijos problemas. Ir vienoje, ir kitoje epochoje LR paskutinė įsivedė nacionalinius pinigus, nors tarpukariu tik Latvija aplenkė Lietuvą tuos pinigus galutinai stabilizuodama. Palyginimų tikslas yra išaiškinti LR vėlavimo priežastis ir jo padarinius. Pirmiausia išryškinami LR I ir LR II ekonominės situacijos pirmaisiais nepriklausomybės metais panašumai ir skirtumai. Išryškinant panašumus, parodoma, kad sovietinio komandinio-administracinio ūkio prototipas buvo Pirmojo pasaulinio karo laikų kaizerinės Vokietijos karinė administracinė ekonomika, kurios poligonu tapo Oberosto kraštas (apėmęs ir šiuolaikinės Lietuvos teritoriją), kur administracinė ūkinės veiklos kontrolė įgijo griežčiausias formas. Grįžimą prie kapitalistinės laisvosios rinkos ekonomikos ir makroekonominės pusiausvyros atkūrimą ankstyvuoju tarpukariu sukomplikavo nepaprastosios išlaidos nepriklausomybės karams, dar tik besikuriančioms nacionalinėms valstybėms neturint administracinių gebėjimų surinkti tradicinio tipo mokesčius. Visos Lietuvos kaimynės nepriklausomybės karus finansavo infliaciniu mokesčiu, pačioje nepriklausomybės pradžioje įsivedusios nacionalinius pinigus ir iki 2/3 visų valstybės pajamų gaudamos iš senjoražo. Vos ne tarp visų nepriklausomybės karus moderniaisiais laikais kariavusių šalių LR I unikali savo monetarine "neoliberalia iki neoliberalizmo" finansų politika, išsivertusi be senjoražo pajamų, padovanotų Vokietijai, su kuria Lietuva iki pat 1922 m. išlaikė pinigų sąjungą. Nepriklausomybės atkūrimo laikais delsimą nutraukti pinigų sąjungą su buvusiu imperiniu siuzerenu (Rusija) lėmė Gedimino Vagnoriaus vyriausybės pasirinkimas ir po tarptautinio LR II nepriklausomybės pripažinimo 1991 m. rudenį tęsti pirmoje tų metų pusėje pasiteisinusias infliacijos lenktynes, kuriose išlošdavo sparčiausiai atlyginimus ir kainas keliančios rublio zonos narės. Taigi dėl taupios LR I finansų politikos ankstyvojo tarpukario Lietuva kentėjo tik dėl importuojamos iš Vokietijos infliacijos, atsikovojusi nepriklausomybę ir toliau išlaidavusi Lietuva infliaciją iš Rusijos ir importavo, ir eksportavo. 1992 m. rudenį talonui tapus vienintele teisėta mokėjimo priemone, LR II vyriausybė dar aštuonis mėnesius savo išlaidoms dengti naudojo infliacinį mokestį, vykdydama moraliai nepateisinamą taikos sąlygomis finansų politiką, kuri dėl masinės privatizacijos vykdymo artimomis hiperinfliacijai sąlygomis turėjo pragaištingų ilgalaikių padarinių Lietuvos ekonominei raidai – nulėmė jos didėjantį atsilikimą nuo Estijos. O tarpukario nepriklausomybės pradžios LR I vyriausybės padarė strateginę klaidą, atsisakydamos infliacinio mokesčio nepaprastosioms nepriklausomybės karo išlaidoms finansuoti. Jis mažiau gyventojų turinčioms ir ne mažiau už Lietuvą nuo Pirmojo pasaulinio karo veiksmų nukentėjusioms Estijai ir Latvijai davė išteklių mobilizuoti apie 70 000 vyrų kariuomenes. Vykdydama neadekvačią karo sąlygoms taupią ir atsakingą finansų politiką, valstietiškai šykšti Lietuva 1920 m. rudenį turėjo tik apie 30 000 vyrų kariuomenę, kuri buvo per maža ir silpna apginti Vilnių nuo vienos dvarponiškai išlaidžios Lenkijos (kuri kaip ir kitos Lietuvos kaimynės savo 1918–1920 m. karus finansavo iš infliacinio mokesčio pajamų) tariamai sukilusios divizijos.

The recent years have shown an increasing number of inter-linkages across countries. This surely is a result of what is called the integration phenomenon. Looking at the financial side, stock and bond markets have become more intertwined across countries leading to a simplification of trade in securities and goods. Banking sectors across borders on the other hand have come to be more unified, allowing countries to increase the number of operations further boosting trade and helping promote domestic growth and development. To this end my dissertation has studied the recent phenomenon of financial integration and its effect on economic growth and financial development. Moreover it examined the impact of the most recent measures taken at the European level that are established to promote greater integration and harmonization. The first chapter of the dissertation, "Financial Openness and Financial Development: An Analysis Using Indices" studies the link between financial openness and financial development through panel data analysis on advanced and emerging market countries. Using indices, financial openness together with institutional, educational and macroeconomic variables is shown to explain a large part of the variation in financial development across countries and over time. The analysis demonstrates that different indexing strategies could serve in finding better measures in terms of significances for financial openness and financial development in comparison to the individual indicators used in the literature. Principal component type financial openness index conveys a positive effect on financial development independent from the lag structure chosen, time dummies and trends used. The second chapter of the dissertation, "Financial Harmonization and Industrial Growth: Evidence from Europe" analyzes the growth effects of the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) of the European Commission, a set of measures and directives that aim to harmonize European financial markets. Using a panel of 25 countries and 30 industries, the standard specification predicts harmonization to lower growth, though the negative effect is mitigated for industries that depend more on external finance. This seemingly surprising result however occurs as a result of omitted variable bias. As in any policy implementation, early adopters are more likely to bear higher costs and experience less of the benefits of harmonization. Controlling for the relative timing of adoption, harmonization is then shown to have a positive effect on growth. This finding is robust to including further controls, splitting up the sample into different groups of countries, and extending the model to a dynamic setting. The third and the last chapter of the dissertation, "Financial Harmonization and Financial Development: An Application of Europe's Financial Services Action Plan" examines the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) of the European Commission which intends to create an open, secure, integrated financial market across EU member countries. Although recent research has shown a positive impact of the FSAP directives on cross-border lending and industrial growth the effect on financial development remains to be examined. Using principal component analysis to construct financial, banking sector, bond and stock market development indices, this paper investigates the impact of financial harmonization policies of the FSAP on financial development in a panel of twenty five EU member states for the period of 1996 – 2007. Taking into account the timing perspective in implementing the FSAP directives across countries financial harmonization is found to positively affect financial development. The results are shown to be robust to different approaches in constructing the harmonization index and the harmonization difference (relative timing of adoption) variable, adding further controls, and extending the analysis to include the data for the recent period. ; En los últimos años hemos presenciado un incremento en el número de vínculos entre los países. Esto sin duda es un resultado de lo que se denomina fenómeno de integración. Mirando el lado financiero, los mercados de acciones y bonos se han entrelazadas más entre los países, llevando a una simplificación del comercio de valores y mercancías. Los sectores bancarios a través de fronteras, por otra parte han llegado a estar más unificados, lo que permite a los países a aumentar el número de operaciones para impulsar aún más el comercio y ayudar a promover el crecimiento interno y el desarrollo. Con este propósito, mi tesis estudia el fenómeno reciente de la integración financiera y su efecto sobre el crecimiento económico y el desarrollo financiero. Además se analiza el impacto de las medidas más recientes adoptadas a nivel europeo que se establecieron para promover una mayor integración y armonización. El primer capítulo de la tesis, "Apertura Financiera y Desarrollo Económico: un Análisis utilizando Índices" estudia la relación entre la apertura financiera y el desarrollo económico mediante un análisis de datos de panel de países avanzados y países emergentes. Utilizando los índices, se muestra que la apertura financiera, junto con variables institucionales, educativas y macroeconómicas explica una gran parte de la variación en el desarrollo financiero entre los países ya lo largo del tiempo. El análisis demuestra que las diferentes estrategias de indización podrían ser útiles en la búsqueda de mejores medidas en términos de significatividad para la apertura financiera y el desarrollo financiero en comparación con los indicadores individuales utilizados en la literatura. Los índices de apertura financiera de componentes principales transmiten un efecto positivo en el desarrollo financiero independiente de la estructura de retardos elegida, dummies temporales y tendencias utilizadas. El segundo capítulo de la tesis, "Armonización financiera y Crecimiento Industrial: Evidencia de Europa" analiza los efectos de crecimiento del Plan de Acción de Servicios Financieros (SFAP) de la Comisión Europea, un conjunto de medidas y directivas dirigidas a armonizar los mercados financieros europeos. Utilizando un panel de 25 países y 30 industrias, la especificación estándar predice la armonización a menor crecimiento, aunque el efecto negativo se ve mitigado por las industrias que dependen más de la financiación externa. Este aparentemente sorprendente resultado, sin embargo, se produce como resultado del sesgo de variables omitidas. Como en cualquier aplicación de políticas, los primeros usuarios son más propensos a enfrentar mayores costes y experimentar menores beneficios de armonización. Controlando por el tiempo de adopción, la armonización muestra entonces tener un efecto positivo en el crecimiento. Este hallazgo es robusto a la inclusión de nuevos controles, dividiendo la muestra en diferentes grupos de países, y extendiendo el modelo a un entorno dinámico. El tercer y último capítulo de la tesis, "Armonización Financiera y Desarrollo Económico: Una Aplicación del Plan de Acción de Servicios Financieros Europeo", analiza el Plan de Acción de Servicios Financieros (SFAP) de la Comisión Europea, que pretende crear un mercado financiero integrado, abierto y seguro para los países miembros de la UE. Aunque la investigación reciente ha demostrado un impacto positivo de las directivas del SFAP en los préstamos transfronterizos y el crecimiento industrial, queda por examinar el efecto sobre el desarrollo financiero. Mediante el análisis de componentes principales para la construcción de los índices de desarrollo de los mercados financieros, el sector bancario, y los mercados de bonos y acciones, este trabajo investiga el impacto de las políticas de armonización financieros de la SFAP en el desarrollo financiero de un grupo de veinticinco Estados miembros de la UE para el período de 1996 a 2007. Teniendo en cuenta la perspectiva de los tiempos de implementación de las directivas del SFAP en los países, se concluye que la armonización financiera influye positivamente en el desarrollo financiero. Los resultados se muestran robustos a diferentes enfoques en la construcción del índice de armonización y la diferencia de armonización (tiempo relativo de adopción), a la adición de más controles, y a la extensión del análisis para la inclusión de los datos para el período más reciente.

My thesis consists of three chapters. In the rst chapter, The choice to become self-employed: acknowledging frictions, I develop and calibrate a search model of self- employment that is quantitatively consistent with the unemployment, paid employment and self-employment rates, the transitions between those states and the observed dis- tribution of earnings in self-employment and paid employment. I first report evidence indicating that many individuals choose self-employment as a route out of unemployment. Using data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP; Eurostat), I find that the proportion of unemployed entering self-employment is higher that the proportion of paid employed entering self-employment. Then I find that the earnings of the self- employed coming from unemployment are lower than the earnings of the paid employed coming from unemployment. Moreover, I find that the self-employed coming from unemployment earn less than those coming from paid employment. This evidence cannot be captured by existing theoretical models of self-employment that assume a perfectly competitive environment in the labor market and ignore market frictions such as unemployment. I construct a model of self-employment where I allow for on-the-job search in both paid employment and self-employment. Workers receive job offers from a wage distribution and business ideas from an income distribution. The model captures the fact that the self-employed earn less in median and in mean than the paid employed and that the distribution of self-employment earnings exhibits greater variation. Unemployed individuals choose self-employment with associated low incomes because their option values in self-employment are better than those in unemployment. Self-employment is a transitory state for these workers who see in self-employment a door to paid employment. The model is then used to analyze the e¤ects of some policies that encourage self-employment. In the second chapter, How does employment protection legislation in uence hiring and ring decisions by the smallest firms? (joint with J.M. Millán, C. Román and A. van Stel), we examine the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on hiring decisions by own-account workers and ring decisions by very small rms (1-4 employees). Using data from the EU-15 countries, our results show that the strictness of employment protection legislation is negatively related to both these types of decisions, and hence, to labor mobility among the smallest firms. This new evidence may be useful for governments aiming to create a more enabling macro-environment for employment and productivity growth. Finally, in the third chapter Unraveling the relationship between the business cycle and the own-account worker s decision to hire employees (joint with J.M. Millán, C. Román and A. van Stel), We study the role of the business cycle in the individual decision of own-account workers to hire employees. Using panel data from the European Community Household Panel for the EU-15 countries, we show that own-account workers are less likely to hire employees during recessions. Next, we focus on identifying the underlying mechanisms of this negative relationship, while bearing in mind that liquidity constraints and unemployment are more common during recessions. First, we observe how liquidity constraints reduce the probability of transitioning from own-account worker to employer. Second, we nd that non-higher educated own-account workers who were formerly unemployed are less likely to take on employees compared to those who were formerly in paid employment. This lower likelihood does however not seem to apply to formerly unemployed own-account workers who enjoyed tertiary education. These results suggest that formal education and former work experience are important assets for own-account workers which increase the probability that they create new jobs. This new evidence may be useful for governments aiming to stimulate employment growth. ; Mi tesis consta de tres capítulos. En el primer capítulo, The choice to become self- employed: acknowledging frictions , elaboro y calibro un modelo de búsqueda con autoempleo que es consistente cuantitativamente con las tasas de desempleo, empleo asalariado y autoempleo, las probabilidades de transición entre estos estados y las distribuciones de ganancias en el autoempleo y el empleo asalariado. Primero reporto evidencia que indica que un gran número de individuos elige el autoempleo como una vía de escape al desempleo. Usando datos del Panel de Hogares de la Unión Europea (ECHP; Eurostat), hallo que los desempleados son más propensos que los empleados asalariados a entrar en el autoempleo. También hallo que las rentas de los autoempleados que vienen del desempleo son menores que las rentas de los empleados asalariados que vienen del desempleo. Es más, los autoempleados que provienen del desempleo ganan menos que aquellos que provienen del empleo asalariado. Los modelos teóricos de autoempleo que asumen un entorno per- fectamente competitivo en el mercado laboral e ignoran la existencia de fricciones como es el caso del desempleo, no son capaces de capturar esta evidencia. Construyo un modelo de autoempleo donde permito búsqueda de empleo mientras se está trabajando tanto en el empleo asalariado como en el autoempleo. Los trabajadores reciben ofertas de trabajo e ideas de negocios. El modelo captura el hecho de que los autoempleados ganan menos en media y en mediana que los empleados asalariados y que la distribución de ganancias de los autoempleados presenta una varianza mayor. Los desempleados eligen el autoempleo aunque sus ingresos sean bajos porque sus alternativas en el autoempleo son mejores que en el desempleo. El autoempleo es un estado transitorio para aquellos trabajadores que lo consideran como una entrada al empleo asalariado. Después, el modelo se usa para analizar el efecto de algunas políticas que promueven el autoempleo. En el Segundo capítulo, How does employment protection legislation in uence hiring and ring decisions by the smallest fi rms? (junto con J.M. Millán, C. Román and A. van Stel), examinamos el impacto de la legislación de protección al empleo sobre las decisiones de contratación por parte de los autónomos y las decisiones de despido por parte de las pequeñas empresas (1-4 trabajadores). Usando datos de los países de la EU-15, nuestros resultados muestran que la rigurosidad de de la legislación de protección al empleo está relacionada negativamente con ambos tipos de decisiones, y por tanto, con la movilidad laboral entre las empresas más pequeñas. Esta nueva evidencia podría ser útil para los gobiernos que pretenden crear un entorno macroeconómico para el empleo y el crecimiento de la productividad. Finalmente, en el tercer capítulo Unraveling the relationship between the business cycle and the own-account worker s decision to hire employees (junto con J.M. Millán, C. Román and A. van Stel), estudiamos el papel del ciclo economico en la decisión individual por parte de los autónomos de contratar trabajadores. Usando datos de los países de la EU-15, mostramos que los autónomos son menos propensos a contratar trabajadores durante las recesiones. A continuación, nos centramos en identi car los mecanismos subyacentes a esta relación negativa, mientras tenemos en cuenta que las restricciones de liquidez y el desempleo son más comunes durante los periodos de recesión. Primero observamos cómo las restricciones de liquidez reducen la probabilidad de transitar de autónomo a empleador. Segundo, hallamos que los autónomos que no possen educación superior y que previamente fueron desempleados son menos propensos a contratar trabajadores que aquellos que previamente fueron empleados asalariados. Sin embargo, esta menor probabilidad no parece ser aplicable a los autónomos previamente desempleados con educación terciaria. Estos resultados sugieren que la educación formal y la experiencia laboral previa son recursos importantes para los autónomos ya que incrementan la probabilidad de que creen nuevos puestos de trabajo. Esta nueva evidencia podría ser útil para los gobiernos que pretenden estimular el crecimiento del empleo.

[Resumen] Debido a los malos tiempos que estamos atravesando, en los que la economía mundial está pasando por un duro momento, y en los que cada vez se hace más complicado el conseguir financiación para la construcción de nuevos buques por su alto coste de financiación, se hace necesario el innovar en la Construcción Naval. Dentro de los trabajos de diseño y construcción de un buque, el trabajo de tuberías es el que tradicionalmente ha condicionado los plazos de construcción, así como el coste total del buque, por lo que, conseguir mejorar los procesos de diseño, fabricación y montaje de tubería, puede dar lugar a un menor coste total del buque así como una mayor competitividad en plazo con otros astilleros mundiales. El mercado de la construcción naval sufre una gran competitividad originada en gran parte por la globalización y la explotación de las economías emergentes. Los precios son cada vez más bajos forzando a los astilleros a realizar un gran esfuerzo de diseño y productividad. Es por ello que, en esta Tesis se estudiarán los distintos procesos de diseño, fabricación y montaje de tuberías centrándose sobre todo la atención en el diseño de tuberías por ser la rama en la cual desempeña su cargo el autor de la Tesis. Se estudiará también la reglamentación y normativa a tener en cuenta en el diseño de tubería y los materiales a seleccionar para un buen diseño, además de ahondar en las mejoras de los procesos de diseño y su influencia económica en la construcción global del buque. Por último, se realizará un procedimiento para la realización del diseño de tubería por unidades constructivas o productos intermedios y se programará una herramienta para control del diseño de tubería para cualquier tipo de Buque (Militar o Civil), con la capacidad de controlar todas las tareas del diseño (en oficina técnica) y así poder corregir posibles desviaciones del mismo que acarrean pérdidas económicas importantes en la fase productiva. El autor, en su cargo actual de jefe de la sección de servicios (tubería, ventilación, aire acondicionado, instrumentación y transmisiones de válvulas) perteneciente a la Empresa Diseño Naval e Industrial, S.L., y por lo tanto, como coordinador de proyecto de todos los trabajos de diseño de tubería que dicha empresa realiza para distintos Astilleros nacionales y extranjeros en los últimos 5 años (Fragatas de la clase F-100, Buques de Proyección Estratégica BPE para Armada Española, Buques ALHD para armada Australiana, Remolcadores, Buques Supply, etc), y anteriormente en Cartagena como responsable tecnológico de la tubería y coordinador de proyecto de diseño de tubería que dicha empresa realizó para Navantia Cartagena S.A. durante 3 años (Submarinos de la Clase Scorpene), ha tomado parte activa en el desarrollo y en la ejecución de los trabajos de diseño, fabricación y montaje de tubería. ; [Abstract] Because of the hard times we are experiencing, in which the world economy is going through a hard time, and in which it is becoming more difficult to secure financing for the construction of new vessels for its high cost of financing, it is necessary innovate in the Shipbuilding. Within the work of design and construction of a vessel, pipe work is what has traditionally conditioned construction time and total cost of the ship, so that achieve improved processes Design, Manufacture and Installation of pipe, can lead to a lower total cost of the ship and more competitive with others shipyards world. The shipbuilding market suffers great competitiveness caused largely by globalization and the exploitation of the emerging economies. Prices are getting lower forcing a major effort to design and productivity by shipyard. That is why, in this thesis will explore the different processes of Design, Manufacture and Installation of pipes and mostly focusing attention on the design to be the branch that holds office the author of the thesis. It will also explore the regulations and standards to be considered in the design of pipe and materials to select for good design, in addition to further improvements in design processes and economic influence in the overall construction of the ship. Finally a process for the realization of pipe design by construction units or intermediate products will be made and a tool for pipe design control will be programmed for any type of vessel (Military or Civil), with the capacity to control all design tasks (in Technical office) so you can correct any deviations which carry significant productive economic losses. The author, in his current position as Chief of the Services (Piping, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, Instrumentation and Operating Gear Miscellaneous Valves) belonging to the Naval Design and Industrial Company Ltd., and therefore, as coordinator of all jobs piping design that the company has made for different national and foreign Shipyards in the last 5 years (Class Frigates F-100, BPE Strategic Projection Ship for Spanish Armada, ships ALHD for Australian armed, Tugboats Supply Vessels, etc), and previously in Cartagena as technologist and coordinator of pipe for Navantia Cartagena S.A. for 3 years (Class Scorpene Submarines), has taken active part in the development and implementation of the work of Design, Manufacture and Installation of piping. ; [Resumo] Por mor dos tempos difíciles que atravesamos , en que a economía mundial está pasando por un momento difícil , e nos que cada vez é máis difícil conseguir financiamento para a construción de novas embarcacións polo seu alto custo de financiamento, é necesario innovar na Construción Naval. Dentro do traballo de deseño e construción dun buque, o traballo de tubos é o que tradicionalmente condiciona os prazos de construción, así como o custe total do buque, de xeito, conseguir mellorar os procesos de deseño, fabricación e montaxe dos tubos pode levar a reducir o custo total do barco así coma a unha maior competitividade en prazo con outros estaleiros do mundo. O mercado da construción naval sofre gran competitividade causada en gran parte pola globalización e pola explotación das economías emerxentes. Os prezos son cada vez máis baixos forzando aos estaleiros a realizar un grande esforzo en deseño e produtividade. É por iso que, nesta tese estudaranse os diferentes procesos de deseño, fabricación e montaxe de tubos centrando sobre todo a atención no deseño de tubos por ser o sector no que desenrola o seu cargo o autor da tese. Tamén se estudarán as normas e regulamentos a seren consideradas no deseño de tubos e os materiais a elixir en prol dun bo deseño , así como outras melloras nos procesos de deseño e a súa influencia económica na construción global do buque. Por último , realizarase un procedemento para a realización do deseño dos tubos para unidades de construción ou produtos intermedios e programarase unha ferramenta de proxecto para o control do deseño da tubos para calquera tipo de embarcación (militar ou civil), coa capacidade de controlar todas as tarefas do deseño (oficina técnica) e así poder corrixir posibles desviacións, as cales dan lugar a perdas económicas significativas na fase de produción. O autor , na súa actual posición como xefe da sección de Servizos do Buque (tubos , ventilación, climatización , instrumentación e transmisións de válvulas), pertencente a empresa Diseño Naval e Industrial, S.L., e polo tanto, como coordinador de proxecto de todos os traballos de deseño de tubos que a empresa realiza a varios estaleiros nacionais e estranxeiros nos últimos 5 anos (fragatas da clase F -100, BPE Buque de Proxección Estratéxica para a Armada Española , buques ALHD para a armada de Australia, rebocadores, buques de abastecemento, etc.), e anteriormente en Cartaxena como responsable tecnolóxico da tubos e coordinador de proxecto de deseño de tubos que dita empresa realizou en Navantia Cartaxena SA durante 3 anos ( submarinos da clase Scorpene), foi activo no desenvolvemento e realización do traballo de deseño, fabricación e instalación de tubos.

Als Reaktion auf die fortschreitende, anthropogen bedingte Veränderung und Zerstörung der Ökosysteme fand 1992 die Konferenz der Vereinten Nationen über Umwelt und Entwicklung in Rio de Janeiro statt. Die Konferenz markiert aus heutiger Sicht einen Startpunkt multilateraler Umweltschutzbemühungen, da offiziell formuliert wurde, dass die lokal auftretenden Umweltprobleme durch globale Veränderungen hervorgerufen werden und nur durch gemeinsame Bemühungen auf internationaler Ebene zu bewältigen sind. Ergebnis dieser Konferenz war die Verabschiedung verschiedener internationaler Abkommen zum Umweltschutz. Wälder spielen dabei in ihrer Funktion als Kohlenstoffspeicher und als terrestrischer Lebensraum mit der höchsten Artenvielfalt eine zentrale Rolle. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellen sich für die Waldinventur neue Aufgaben, sowohl bezüglich der zu erfassenden Zielgrößen als auch hinsichtlich der Rahmenbedingungen, da die erhobenen Informationen nicht mehr nur auf Betriebsebene für die Planung der Bewirtschaftung verwendet werden, sondern auch für die Erfüllung der internationalen Berichtspflichten. Als zentrale Größe des Waldmonitorings muss die Waldfläche gesehen werden, da sie die Grundlage für die meisten Berechnungen ist. Daneben wird die Waldfragmentierung, also die Form und räumliche Verteilung der Waldflächen, häufig als Indikator für die Biodiversität diskutiert. Die fernerkundliche Erfassung der Waldfläche und die Beschreibung der Waldfragmentierung mit Landschaftsstrukturmaßen (LSM) im Kontext der internationalen Umweltabkommen ist Gegenstand der vorliegenden Arbeit. Zielsetzung ist es, kritische methodische und technische Aspekte, welche die Schätzung der Waldfläche und die Berechnung der LSM beeinflussen, zu identifizieren und ihre Wirkungen zu analysieren. Anhand einer Literaturrecherche wurden zunächst vier kritische Faktoren identifiziert: i) die Walddefinition, ii) die Waldranddefinition, iii) der Beobachtungsmaßstab und iv) das Landschaftsmodell, welches für die Berechnung der LSM verwendet wird. Die Effekte und Wechselwirkungen zwischen den vier genannten Faktoren wurden im zweiten Teil der Arbeit auf Grundlage einer Simulationsstudie untersucht. Dafür wurden Kronenkarten und Geländemodelle auf Basis von Gauß'schen Zufallsfeldern in verschiedenen Auflösungstufen simuliert. Durch Variation der Mindestüberschirmung und der Größe der Referenzfläche, auf der die Überschirmung gemessen wird, konnten aus den Kronenkarten Waldkarten mit unterschiedlichen Wald- und Waldranddefinitionen erstellt werden. Zusätzlich wurde der Einfluss des Landschaftsmodells auf die Berechnung der LSM untersucht. Dies geschah mit Hilfe eines neuen Verfahrens, das die Berechnung der LSM im dreidimensionalen Raum ermöglicht. Die Ergebnisse der Simulation zeigen, dass alle vier Faktoren einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf die Waldflächenkarten haben können. Dabei ergeben sich besonders für die Kronenüberschirmung und die Referenzflächengröße spezifische Wechselwirkungen, die sich teilweise mit einem einfachen geometrischen Waldrandmodell theoretisch erklären lassen. So zeigt sich, dass besonders für Walddefinitionen mit einer Mindestüberschirmung, die stark von 50 % abweicht, die Referenzflächengröße einen erheblichen Einfluss auf die Waldfläche und Fragmentierung hat. Basierend auf den Ergebnissen der Simulationstudie wurde im 3. Teil der Arbeit ein Klassifikationschschema entwickelt, das es ermöglicht spezifische Kriterien einer Walddefinition in den Auswertungs- und Klassifikationsprozess von Fernerkundungsdaten zu integrieren, um standardisierte Waldkarten zu erstellen. Beispielhafte Grundlage war die Walddefinition der Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), die Wald als eine Landnutzungsform beschreibt. Im Gegensatz zu Landbedeckungsformen können Landnutzungsklassen nicht direkt in Fernerkundungsdaten beobachtet werden. Zur Erstellung einer Landnutzungskarte müssen daher neben den Landbedeckungsklassen weitere Kontextinformationen berücksichtigt werden. Dafür wurde in der vorliegenden Arbeit ein hierarchischer Klassifikationsschlüssel entwickelt, der ausgehend von einer Landbedeckungskarte, eine Landnutzungs- und eine Waldkarte generiert. Die benötigten Kontextinformationen werden dabei mit Hilfe von Entscheidungsbäumen, die auf eine fixe Referenzfläche angewendet werden, berücksichtigt. Dieses Verfahren ermöglicht es, Waldkarten zu erstellen, die einer bestimmten vorher festgelegten Walddefinition entsprechen. Insofern kann das Verfahren zur Standardisierung der Waldflächenerfassung beitragen. Darüber hinaus bietet es die Möglichkeit die Walddefinition durch Änderung der Kriterien oder der Schwellenwerte flexibel anzupassen, sodass es als wissenschaftliches Werkzeug zur Analyse des Effektes verschiedener Walddefinitionen verwendet werden kann. Im letzten Teil der Arbeit wurde eine Fallstudie durchgeführt, die untersucht inwieweit sich das entwickelte Verfahren operational für die Waldflächenerfassung einsetzen lässt. Da der Fokus der internationalen Umweltabkommen auf den tropischen Waldgebieten liegt, wurden für die Fallstudie zwei unterschiedliche tropische Waldlandschaften in Costa Rica ausgewählt. Zur Klassifikation der Landbedeckung kamen Satellitenbilder des RapidEye-Systems mit einer räumlichen Auflösung von 5 m zum Einsatz. Für die Klassifikation der Landbedeckung wurde zunächst eine Software entwickelt, welche atmosphärische und topographische Korrekturen, Bildverbesserung, nicht-parametrische Klassifikationsverfahren und den, im dritten Teil der Arbeit entwickelten hierarchischen Klassifikationsansatz für die Erstellung der Landnutzungskarten, implementiert. Die Ergebnisse der Fallstudie zeigen, dass das entwickelte Verfahren geeignet ist, Waldkarten für stark fragmentierte tropische Landschaften zu erstellen. Die Waldkarten entsprechen einer zuvor festgelegten Walddefinition (z. B. FAO), in der die einzelnen Kriterien (u. a. Mindestüberschirmung, Mindestgröße, vorherrschende Landnutzung) während der Klassifikation explizit geprüft werden. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt theoretisch, empirisch und auch in der praktischen Anwendung, dass eine Vielzahl von Faktoren die Erfassung der Waldfläche beeinflusst. Einer der wichtigsten Faktoren ist dabei die Walddefinition. Die übliche Praxis bei der fernerkundlichen Erstellung von Waldkarten, die Klasse "Wald" ohne expliziten Bezug auf geeignete Kriterien direkt auszuweisen, führt zu großen Unsicherheiten bei der Waldflächenschätzung und ist im Rahmen von international verbindlichen Abkommen kaum akzeptabel. Die Entscheidung welche Walddefinition verwendet werden soll, wird in politischen Verhandlungen bestimmt. Aufgabe der Waldinventur muss es dann sein, diese politischen Vorgaben umzusetzen. Die hier vorgestellten Methoden können insofern zur Standardisierung der fernerkundlichen Waldflächenerfassung beitragen, als das sie transparente Entscheidungsregeln implementieren und somit konsistente Waldkarten erzeugen. ; In reaction to the ongoing anthropogenetic changes of the earth' ecosystems the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was hold in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. This conference was an important starting point in environmental negotiations as it was recognized that locally observed problems are caused by global changes in the ecosystems and thus global actions are required. The conference resulted in the agreement on different international environmental conventions including the Convention on Biological Diversity (UN-CBD) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) which in turn led to the Kyoto protocol. Forests play a significant role in both conventions either as being a carbon pool or as host to greater biodiversity. In this context forest monitoring faces new challenges regarding the target variables as well as the usage of the information which will no longer only be used for forest management decisions but also to fulfill international reporting obligations. The forest area and its fragmentation are the most fundamental variables of the required monitoring then. The topic of this work is the remote sensing based assessment of forest area and characterization of its fragmentation by means of landscape metrics in the context of international environmental conventions with the specific objective to identify and analyze critical methodological and technical aspects and their relevance for forest cover monitoring systems. Based on a literature review four critical factors were identified: i) forest definition, ii) forest edge definition, iii) scale of observation, and iv) the landscape model used to derive the landscape metrics. The effects and interactions of these factors were analyzed in the second part of the study using a spatial simulation based on artificial landscapes. Therefore tree crown maps and elevation models were simulated with different spatial resolutions using Gaussian random fields. By varying the minimum crown cover threshold and the reference area on which crown cover is determined, forest maps with different underling forest and forest edge definitions were generated. To analyze the effects of the landscape model on the calculation of landscape metrics a new approach which enables the calculation of landscape metrics in the three dimensional space was taken. The simulation results showed that all of the studied factors have an influence on the forest area estimates and the derived landscape metrics. Significant interactions between crown cover and the size of the reference area were found and could be explained partly by the analysis of a simple geometric forest edge model. A major finding of the simulation study is, that if the crown cover threshold is different from 0.5, significant effects are to be expected from the size of the reference area. Based on the findings from the simulation a classification framework was developed in the third part of the study which allows the integration of a specific forest and forest edge definition into the analysis of remote sensing data. The FAO forest definition is most widely used in the context of international environmental conventions and defines forest as a land use class. Land use can not be observed directly in remote sensing data without the integration of context information. Therefore a hierarchical classification key which allows the generation of land cover, land use and forest cover maps was developed. The required context information was collected by applying the concept of a fixed reference area. This approach allows the implementation of specific criteria of forest definitions and separates the process of image classification form the application of a forest definition. Thus forest definitions can easily be adopted to the user requirements and forest maps with different forest definition can be generated, which makes the framework an interesting research tool. In the last part of the work the operational practicability of the developed approach was tested in a case study. Therefore two tropical highly fragmented forest landscapes in Costa Rica were selected. For both study sites land cover maps were generated from RapidEye satellite images. Therefore a software was programmed which implements the 6-S atmospheric correction, topographic correction, image enhancement and the Random Forests classifier. The results of the case study demonstrated that the developed approach is capable of producing forest cover maps for highly fragmented tropical landscapes. The forest maps are in line with the current forest definitions (e.g. FAO) as the criteria (e.g. crown cover, minimum area, predominantly land use) are evaluated individually during the classification. The study at hand shows theoretically, empirically and also practically that a number of factors influence the assessment of forest cover and fragmentation. The most important factor is the forest definition. The widespread practice to generate forest maps without the implication of specific forest definitions leads to large uncertainties of the forest area estimates which are hardly acceptable in the context of international conventions. The decision on criteria and thresholds of forest definitions are negotiated in a political debate. The forest inventory will be responsible to transcript the political guidelines into an operational monitoring system. The proposed approaches can contribute to the standardization of forest cover monitoring as they implement transparent definitions to generate consistent forest cover maps.

A hurricane threat, a shortened schedule, some botched scheduling and an audience that couldn't get excited in unison were just a few of the challenges that confronted the Republican Party's Convention that concluded this past week in Tampa, Florida. The main purpose was to reintroduce Mitt Romney to the file and rank of his own party as well as to the wider national audience and to show that, besides business experience and his CEO approach to politics, the man is also human. With the help of Ann Romney, this was arguably accomplished. However, once humanized, the candidate had to convey a compelling message, a vision of the future that would sway the 8% undecided, and convert the anti-Obama into pro-Romney voters. In this, the Convention fell short. His strategic efforts as a candidate in the Primary Election were dedicated to convincing the right wing of the Republican party that his ideas and values had "evolved "from his times of governor of Massachusetts: he is now pro-life and not pro-choice, and his signature health care reform for that state, based on an individual mandate, had very little resemblance to Obamacare. He succeeded then, but these ultra conservative positions alienated two fundamental blocs of voters he will need for the general election, namely, women and Latinos. Indeed, the gender gap puts Obama ahead, with 51% of women voting for Obama and 41% for Romney. The Latino voter gap is at 63% for Obama to 28% for Romney. The campaign's political calculation was thus to use the Convention to appeal to the wider audience by showing the party's "diversity", by "humanizing" the candidate and by convincing the Evangelical right that being Mormon is not a monstrosity. Testimonials by members of his congregation, a convincing speech by Ann Romney and a black- and- white biographical video succeeded in meeting this goal. We learned that Mr. Romney is a wonderful husband and father, a patient man who tries to live by a set of values; that his years as head of a Mormon community were devoted to helping the needy, accompanying the lonely and counseling the troubled. It was also revealed that his tithing was uncommonly and consistently generous. The Convention was carefully staged to show younger, more diverse GOP "rising stars" in order to bring into the fold some of still persuadable minorities. Paul Ryan, the Catholic, strictly anti- abortion 42-year old that completes the ticket, gave an ideological speech that charmed the older generation, with references to "central-planners" and direct attacks on Obama's "socialist" policies, using what could be described at best as half-truths. A great admirer of atheist right-wing writer Ayn Rand, Ryan, a Representative from Wisconsin, rose to fame this past year by presenting a budget plan that would lower taxes for the upper-income bracket, privatize Medicare and harshly restrict social programs. Portraying himself as a compassionate conservative, he is supposed to bring in the Catholic vote. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Florida Senator Marco Rubio used their personal stories aptly and were able to get two of the few electrifying moments of the Convention. Rice's appearance was important after a period of what seemed to be her retirement from politics; she talked optimistically about America, its unbound freedoms, its role as an underwriter of world order, and unquestionably, the land of exceptional opportunity: channeling Obama, she offered her story as a testament of these possibilities. In spite of growing up in the Jim Crow South, she rose to Secretary of State and here she was today, the first "stateswoman" of the Republican Party. Rubio, a fresh-faced 41 year old and the son of working class Cuban immigrants, was the Latino version of the same idea. He had the difficult task of introducing Mitt Romney after the audience was still puzzled at Clint Eastwood's imaginary dialogue with President Obama (represented by an empty chair). After an awkward moment during which the seniors in the audience were still trying to process the meaning of Eastwood's sometimes off-color parody, Rubio managed the transition quite well and soon people were paying him undivided attention. One of the best-received portions was an anecdote about his father, who worked for years at a bar. "He stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room," Rubio said, bringing in a huge applause. There were many of these "rag-to-riches" stories aimed at reassuring the viewers that the candidate's wealth is not an obstacle to Romney and Ryan's newly found empathic conservatism. Mitt Romney's entrance along a cordoned red carpet, shaking hands and nodding to groups of supporters on each side, as well as the first few lines of his acceptance speech were shrewdly staged to evoke the State of the Union address. In line with the general theme, he devoted two thirds of his speech to his own biography and very little to the specifics of his economic agenda. While conventions are seldom memorable affairs, and while this one is most likely going to be remembered by the bizarre spectacle of actor Clint Eastwood talking, at times incoherently, to an empty chair, there were other minor headlines running parallel to it that deserve more attention for what they reveal of the long-term GOP plan to re-take government. Under the pretext that voter fraud is prevalent in presidential elections (a claim unsubstantiated by serious research), at least 14 Republican-dominated state legislatures, mostly (but not all) in the South, have been quietly passing new laws aimed at making the act of voting more difficult in those states. The intention is clear: to keep just enough demographic groups likely to vote for the Democrats (namely, young people and minorities) away from the polls. This voter suppression strategy takes different forms, the most prevalent of which is requiring the presentation of government- issued photo IDs, such as a driver's license or a US passport, at the polls It is a well-known fact that many elderly minorities and disabled citizens who don't drive lack these (Social Security cards in the US do not have photos, and there is not voting document such as a "credencial civica" in the US). These groups of people would have a hard time getting one, sometimes requiring them to travel miles away to get to the closest Public Safety office. In the case of young students, university-issued student identification cards for the most part are not accepted at the polls. Other bills and rules were aimed at shortening early voting time frames, repealing Election Day registration laws, and preventing non-profit, non-partisan groups such as the League of Women Voters from organizing voter registration campaigns. This week, however, a three-judge panel of the Federal District Court in Washington DC struck down a Texas voter ID law. Two days earlier, a different three-judge panel for the same court found that, in its redrawing of the electoral-district map (a practice that takes place every ten years following a national Census), the Texas legislature had intentionally discriminated against minority voters More important than any platform, more lasting than any emotional appeal to voters, voter suppression attempts constitute a politically divisive outrage that goes to the heart of our democracy. Indeed, it is unfathomable that over a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Fifteenth Amendment, and half a century after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, minorities in the United States still have to rely on the court system to protect their right to vote. In a presidential election year and with a race as tight as the one we are about to witness in two months, voter turnout is fundamental. Laws aimed at discouraging citizens to vote are a surreptitiously shrewd, anti-democratic way to ensure victory.

Hindu nationalism has seen a dramatic growth in India and abroad from the nineteen eighties. This growth has coincided with – and relates in complex ways to – several other highly significant developments, including (in no particular order) the instituting of liberalization in the economy; the legislation on reservations for 'Other Backward Castes' and its implementation; the intensification of the integration of the middle classes into the global economy; and the intensifying pauperization of the rural poor. These developments as well as Hindu nationalism's links with them have been the subject of scholarly attention from a variety of perspectives and disciplines. Apart from these however, one may also note the unfolding of less obvious, but equally significant and related developments in this period: the growth and intensification of female feticide and infanticide; the increase in dowry related violence and deaths; the targeting of women as objects of sexual violence, especially during communal riots, but also routinely; the increasing presence of women in rightwing organizations and mobilizations; an intensification in the policing of sexual discourses and sexuality; conversely and paradoxically, there has also been an increase in the visibility of women in the public sphere (through for instance, the widening of options for employment for women). Feminist scholarship has addressed several of these issues, independently and in their intersections; it has also addressed the rise of Hindu nationalism. However, there is little work on the relations that obtain between these issues and the more obvious ones set out above. Specifically, there was and remains a serious deficiency of attention to the relations between masculinity and Hindu nationalism. This study hopes to contribute towards addressing this deficiency in several ways. Firstly, it seeks to locate itself in the theoretical and analytical spaces between gender studies and political economy. It attempts to do so by reviewing and then parting from, the dominant trends in the theoretical and analytical debates on men and masculinity. In my thesis I have therefore focused, not on kinds and forms of masculinity – which remains the dominant approach in masculinity studies – but on the ways in which institutions, organizations and structures come to be gendered, and consequently, on the processes of gendering that are invoked in the articulation and elaboration of power within specific structural, institutional and/or organizational relations. I have sought to develop this argument specifically with regard to masculinity/ies by proposing the idea of 'masculine hegemony'. Briefly, through this term I wish to suggest that uneven power distribution may be understood in Gramscian hegemonic terms, and that this hegemony is usually gendered as masculine. Any given society is organised along multiple and intersecting hierarchies of domination and subordination that determine the access to and exercise of power – the distribution and possession of its resources and rights – within it, as well as the terms within which that power is (to be) exercised. Further, the organisation of these hierarchies may be discerned as hegemonic formations that favour specific social groups and/or alignments. Any given hegemonic condition is thus layered by multiple and intersecting hierarchies of domination and subordination that extend far beyond conventionally recognised macro manifestations –race, nation, region, religion, community, class – to its manifestations at the fundamental 'cellular' (or in Gramsci's terms, 'molecular') level of the family and the organisation of sexuality. Thus, while the multi-layered hegemonic formations that constitute the given hegemonic condition are all diversely marked by other signs – of race, class, age, region, religion, etc – they are all inflected by the foundational discourse of gender. This is the broad theoretical perspective within which the thesis is elaborated, because it provides for the multiple articulation of complex phenomena with each other, across history as well as across regions. Based on this, and secondly, it seeks to approach the issue of Hindu nationalism from a historical perspective. The study therefore begins by chronologically examining the term 'Hindu' and the various semantic and social transformations in its history, beginning with its early derivation from 'Indus', through the medieval period when it gradually but nebulously came to identify a community, to its coalescence into the more concrete religio-social entity that emerged through the colonial encounter and the caste and other reform movements of the nineteenth century, to its politicization under B G Tilak and V D Savarkar (among others) into a religio-cultural nationalism in the early part of the twentieth century. Crucial to understanding this evolution, the study argues, is the pan-Indian spread of the Brahmin castes (as opposed to the localized presence of the lower-castes), and the consequent identification of 'Hindu' territory with the presence of the Brahmins. In mapping this process, I emphasize the gender and caste dynamics inherent to the construction of this identity, especially in the concretizing of communal lines around the issue of personal laws, and elaborate on the economic, communal and political determinants of this gendered dynamic in the construction of the identity 'Hindu'. It thus argues that the strongly Brahmanical caste-profile of the anti-colonial nationalist movement indicates the extent to which Brahmanical patriarchy (or masculine hegemony) and its practices came to define the hegemonic understanding of the identity 'Hindu' as well as 'India' – and continued to do so even after independence. The argument of the thesis is that, unless one takes account of these processes, it is difficult to fully comprehend the depth, scale and reach of Hindu nationalism – as a latent and as an active ideology. Thirdly, I argue the need to factor in another process in the understanding of Hindu nationalism, which also has its roots in the colonial encounter but which gains a different dynamic after independence: the idea and practice of 'development'. The study proceeds to briefly historicize the idea of development and then to chart the trajectories of its implementation through the Nehruvian emphasis on Planning and state driven social change, and the consequent impact on the changing social, economic and political theatre of the country after independence. It analyses this impact specifically on the gender and caste dynamics of this period, arguing that the Brahmanical hegemony of the pre-independence period begins to transform in the seventies, as it negotiates with and then accommodates the increasing visibility and volubility of lower caste presence in the political domain. Similarly, even as women's movements successfully moved the state to implement policies that actually empowered women and made possible their greater participation in the public sphere, the gradual and ongoing process of shifting control of the economy from the state to the private sector has ensured that safeguards for women, labor, lower castes and other marginal groups are almost non-existent, or at best, remain arbitrary and at the mercy of the private sector. The study proposes that the processes of liberalization and privatization were thus crucial to the transformation of Brahmanical masculine hegemony, in its strategies to retain hegemonic power. In other words, the study argues that the developmentalist agenda of the post-independence Indian state contributed, in no small measure, to the resurgence of Hindu nationalism on the political stage, from the late seventies and particularly in the eighties, into the present. Finally, the study explores the tensions and relations that obtain between the multiple dichotomies generated in the thesis – the personal and the political, the hegemonic and the hegemonised, upper caste and lower caste, Hindu and non-Hindu, masculine and feminine, modern and traditional, etc. I argue that Hindu nationalist positions should not be understood as manifest only in its organizational and/or institutional manifestations, but in and through this field of beliefs, actions and relations that constitute the masculine hegemony of Brahmanical patriarchy, within and from which Hindu nationalism finds its visceral roots. I close by proposing that unless we take cognizance of this, and look beyond the electoral performances of the Bharatiya Janata Party to the ways in which hegemonies are maintained using the very tools and structures intended to dismantle them we will not truly be able to counter the Hindu right or its masculinist violences.

L'étude de l'établissement de Gaillardon à Ménétru-le-Vignoble s'inscrit dans le cadre d'un programme de recherche pluridisciplinaire engagé sur les sites de hauteur de l'Antiquité tardive et du haut Moyen Âge dans le département du Jura. Créé ex nihilo vers le début du Ve siècle, ce lieu semble avoir été occupé de manière permanente jusqu'au VIe siècle. Les aménagements identifiés à l'intérieur de l'enceinte maçonnée, qui enserre une superficie de 1,5 ha, suggèrent une concentration d'activités artisanales diversifiées. Certaines catégories de mobilier reflètent un niveau de vie aisé d'une partie des occupants ainsi que la présence d'une garnison ou d'une milice armée. Cet établissement participe à un phénomène plus large d'émergence de nouvelles places fortifiées aux fonctions complexes, qui ne se réduisent pas à l'explication longtemps invoquée de refuge temporaire destiné à une population rurale. ; Study of the Gaillardon settlement in Ménétru-le-Vignoble falls within the framework of the research programme investigating the hill sites of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in the département of the Jura. The municipality lies in the Vignoble region that straddles the boundary between the plains of the Saône and the first Jura plateau. The Gaillardon locality covers a table-like surface measuring roughly 1.8 hectares. The extremely steep slopes provided the site with natural defences. The settlement was established in an area where a fairly dense habitation already existed in the 1st and 2nd centuries, a fact that probably reflects the conditions conducive to agriculture. Although the population probably underwent marked fluctuation from the end of the 2nd century and experienced its lowest figure during the 5th and 6th centuries, the number of necropolises from the early Middle Ages shows a refound vitality during the second half of the 6th century. Several roads have been found close to Gaillardon, of which one corresponds to an important and ancient road between Lyon and Strasbourg, while another served a large part of the First Plateau.Occupation of the site began at the start of the 5th century and continued until the mid-6th century. Excavation in most of the other hilltop sites in the département has yielded personal goods attributed to the 5th and 6th centuries, thus the establishment of these sites seems for the most part to fall within a broadly consistent phase.The fortifications consist of masonry walls that on the north side have a thickness of 2.45 metres. They are built in rectilinear sections that enclose an area of approximately 1.5hectares. The poor state of conservation of the archaeological structures in the inner space restricts our understanding considerably. The settlement does not seem to have been well equipped and no masonry construction from Late Antiquity has been found. All the existing floors were made from beaten earth, the walls of dry stone and the structures from frames of wooden posts. The construction techniques were very different from those of Roman tradition. The built area seems to have been polarised by the rampart, which plays a dominant role in the organisation of the inner space. This organisation leaves a large central area not built upon that contrasts strongly with the model of secondary agglomerations from the Early Empire organised by the street network.The large number of coins and glassware connotes a material affluence that contrasts with the quality of the buildings. The presence of imported containers demonstrates that the site was included in long-distance trading networks. This high-level status is also seen in the remains of animals, which denote an abundance of quality meat and thus a different diet to that of agro-pastoral communities. Crafts are represented by a forge that stood next to an antler horn transformation workshop that in particular produced objects used in weaving. Leather and furs were provided by a specialised hunting activity, in addition to which the discovery of different tools probably reflects a much more diversified range of manufacturing activities. This concentration of multiple types of crafts know-how in a rural setting was probably one of the most characteristic aspects of the settlement. The remains of wild animals also indicates that they were bred in situ or close by. A large number of objects might be associated with the military sphere and represent the presence of a garrison during at least the 5th century.The hypothesis that the site was a fortified settlement with the unique function of providing temporary shelter during periods of great insecurity may be discarded. Nor can it be thought of as one of a group of rudimentary settlements fortified at an elementary level. It is instead necessary to consider Gaillardon's strategic dimension and thus that it was created one element in a policy whose aim was to control a particular territory. The hilltop settlements in the Jura mostly overlook the roads arriving from secondary agglomerations that are poorly documented but which offer every indication of having been occupied during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and where the production of salt during these periods is either attested or supposed. The hill sites may have been created to control routes that had become economically important and the goods that passed on them.This study has revealed a new and as yet unnamed type of group habitat that falls somewhere between an agglomeration and a fortified camp characterised by an economic dimension, with agricultural and crafts activities, and a strategic dimension represented by the presence of a garnison or armed militia. This type of establishment can no longer be thought of as an epiphenomenon but as an influential form of occupation in the control of a territory. ; Die Untersuchung der Siedlung von Gaillardon in Ménétru-le-Vignoble ist Teil eines Forschungsprogramms zum Thema der spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Höhensiedlungen im Departement Jura. Ménétru-le-Vignoble liegt im "Vignoble", einer Region, die den Übergang zwischen den Ebenen des Saône-Tals und dem ersten Juraplateau bildet. Der Ort mit dem Flurnamen "Gaillardon" entspricht einer ungefähr 1,8 ha großen Hochfläche. Durch die steilen Hänge war der Platz natürlich geschützt. Die Niederlassung liegt in einem Sektor, in dem im 1. und 2. Jh. bereits recht dicht gestreute Siedlungsstrukturen existierten, die günstige Bedingungen für die Landwirtschaft widerspiegeln dürften. Ab Ende des 2. Jh. durchlebt die Besiedlung zweifellos starke Schwankungen und fällt im 5. und 6. Jh. auf ihren niedrigsten Stand, ab der zweiten Hälfte des 6. Jh. zeugt die Anzahl der frühmittelalterlichen Nekropolen jedoch von einer wiedergefundenen Dynamik. In der Nähe von Gaillardon wurden mehrere Verkehrsachsen ausgemacht, eine entspricht der bedeutenden antiken Straße, die von Lyon nach Straßburg führte, eine weitere erschließt einen großen Teil des ersten Juraplateaus.Die Besiedlung des Platzes setzt zu Beginn des 5. Jahrhunderts ein und dauert bis in die Mitte des 6. Jahrhunderts an. Die Prospektionen auf den anderen Höhensiedlungen des Departements liefern mehrheitlich Material aus dem 5.-6. Jh. Die Herausbildung dieser Plätze scheint sich also überwiegend in eine recht homogene Phase einzuordnen.Das Verteidigungssystem besteht aus Mauern, die im Norden eine Dicke von 2,45 m erreichen konnten. Sie gliedern sich in geradlinige eine ca. 1,5 ha große Fläche umgebende Abschnitte. Die Interpretation der Innenfläche wird durch den schlechten Erhaltungszustand der archäologischen Strukturen stark beeinträchtigt. Es scheint sich um eine bescheidene Anlage gehandelt zu haben, aus der Spätantike ist keine gemauerte Struktur bekannt. Sämtliche Laufhorizonte bestehen aus Stampferde ; sie stehen im Zusammenhang mit kleinen Trockenmauern und Pfostenbauten. Die Bautechniken sind von denen der römischen Traditionen weit entfernt. Der bebaute Raum scheint auf den Wall ausgerichtet zu sein, der für die Organisation der Innenfläche offensichtlich eine ausschlaggebende Rolle spielt. Ein weiträumiger zentraler Bereich bleibt unbebaut ; dieses Modell unterscheidet sich von dem der kleineren Ortschaften der frühen Kaiserzeit, in denen der Verlauf der Verkehrswege ausschlaggebend war.Die große Anzahl von Münzen und Glas lässt auf einen mit der Physionomie der Bauten kontrastierenden materiellen Wohlstand schließen. Importierte Keramik deutet darauf hin, dass die Siedlung in ein weitläufiges Handelsnetz eingebunden war. Dieser gehobene Status ist ebenfalls an den Fauna-Resten erkennbar. Sie weisen auf eine qualitätvolle, reichhaltige und fleischreiche Ernährung, die sich von der der bäuerlichen Gemeinschaften unterscheidet. Auch Handwerker waren in Gaillardon tätig. Neben einer Werkstatt, in der Hirschgeweih verarbeitet wurde, und die insbesondere Gerätschaften für die Weberei herstellte, befand sich eine Schmiede. Zu diesen Aktivitäten kommt die auf Pelzwaren ausgerichtete Jagd. Außerdem wurden sehr unterschiedliche Werkzeuge entdeckt, die eine sehr vielfältige Palette von Produktionen widerspiegeln dürften. Diese Konzentration sehr unterschiedlicher handwerklicher Tätigkeiten in einer ländlichen Umgebung stellt zweifellos einen der beherrschenden Züge der Siedlung dar. Die Faunareste zeigen zudem, dass im Ort selbst oder in der Nähe Tierzucht betrieben wurde. Eine bezeichnende Anzahl von Gegenständen kann dem militärischen Bereich zugewiesen werden ; sie zeugen davon, dass zumindest im 5. Jahrhundert in Gaillardon eine Garnison stationiert war.Die Hypothese, es habe sich um eine befestigte Siedlung gehandelt, deren einzige Funktion darin bestanden hätte in Zeiten großer Unsicherheit als Fluchtburg zu dienen, kann ausgeschlossen werden. Der Siedlungskomplex kann auch nicht mit einer Gruppe von rudimentären, dürftig befestigten Höfen gleichgesetzt werden. Die strategische Dimension von Gaillardon, gibt Anlass zu der Vermutung, dass die Siedlung ursprünglich im Rahmen einer Politik der Kontrolle eines Territoriums gegründet wurde. Die Höhensiedlungen des Jura beherrschen mehrheitlich Verkehrswege, die aus kaum erforschten dörflichen Siedlungen kommen, jedoch ausnahmslos deutliche Anzeichen einer spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Besiedlung aufweisen, zudem ist in diesen Siedlungen während dieser Perioden die Produktion von Salz entweder erwiesen oder sie wird vermutet. Die Höhensiedlungen könnten dazu gedient haben, die wirtschaftlich bedeutenden Verkehrswege und die auf diesen transportierten Waren zu kontrollieren.Aus dieser Untersuchung ergibt sich eine neue, nur schwer definierbare Form der geschlossenen Siedlung, die sowohl Züge einer Zivilsiedlung als auch eines befestigten Lagers aufweist, zugleich eine ökonomische Dimension mit landwirtschaftlichen und handwerklichen Aktivitäten und eine strategische Dimension mit der Präsenz einer Garnison oder einer bewaffneten Miliz besitzt. Dieser Siedlungstyp kann nicht weiter als Randerscheinung abgetan werden, sondern muss als eine für die Gebietsverwaltung entscheidende Siedlungsform angesehen werden.

In a 5-4 decision that will make history, the Roberts court upheld Obama's signature legislation on health care last week. Contrary to expectations, it was not Justice Anthony Kennedy's "swing" vote that determined the majority but Chief Justice John Roberts himself, who, for the first time in his tenure, joined the liberal wing in upholding the constitutionality of the Patient's Affordable Health Care Act, derisively called "Obamacare" by its opponents. This decision, which will most likely bolster Mr. Obama's re-election chances, was preceded by another victory for the president last week when the Court in a 5-3 vote, struck down all but one of the anti-immigration Arizona bill SB 1070 provisions. The latter ruling dovetailed nicely with Obama's executive order two days earlier to stop deportation of children of illegal immigrants brought to the United States before age 16, and to offer them a path to legal status. The eagerly anticipated ruling astounded conservatives and liberals alike. The same Roberts court had issued the 2010 Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for unlimited money to finance electoral campaigns and was much vilified by the populace, as well as the 2008 decision that struck down a Washington DC ban on hand guns. Both were major decisions made along ideological lines, which had led to accusations of crude partisan activism by the supreme tribunal. The new ruling is being interpreted as a compromise by a chief justice concerned with preserving the balance of the formal institutions of democratic governance at a time of deep divisions and extra-constitutional conflict in the polity itself. If this was his intention, then it would be in line with the Founders' concerns about the danger of political parties: a society deeply divided along partisan lines is anathema to law and public order, and consequently a threat to the Republic. Could Justice Roberts (who is only in his early 50s) be thinking about his legacy? Or was this a candid interpretation of the statute by a brilliant constitutional scholar? It was in these terms that the media framed the decision as the pundits set out looking for "clues". The Affordable Care Act is a complex piece of legislation and the ruling was bound to be anything but straightforward. The majority decision is so convoluted that there was some confusion in the first few minutes after it was announced. CNN news led with the banner "Individual Mandate found unconstitutional" and had to correct itself a few minutes later with "Health Care Law Upheld" 5-4. This can be explained by the way the decision was written, which is being touted as a brilliant stroke by Roberts. Reluctant to be seen as injecting himself in presidential politics four months before a presidential election, and conscious of Congress prerogatives as the branch of government directly elected by the people, he upheld a politically controversial law while at the same time creating some legal precedents that will in fact pose more limits to the legislative powers of Congress in the long-term. In that sense, many analysts are referring to it as both a political victory for Obama (he got his signature legislation passed, which will give him a general aura of success and thus energize the base) and also a constitutional victory for the Conservatives because it put serious constraints on the Commerce Clause interpretation. Because the so-called Commerce Clause of the Constitution allows Congress to regulate inter-state commerce, its broad interpretation by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1924 has been the single greatest source of expansion of Congressional authority. Roberts wrote that the Commerce Clause does not apply in this case because Congress cannot regulate "inactivity" (not buying health insurance). In this part of the ruling he was joined by the Conservative judges and the vote was 5-4. In a legal contortion that will be examined by constitutional scholars for decades to come, Roberts then pivoted and with the assent of Liberal wing (5-4), ruled that Congress does havethe power to fine individuals who do not buy insurance coverage under a its taxing authority. Failure to buy health insurance will result in a punitive measure which can be construed as a tax to influence behavior, just like taxes on cigarettes or alcohol. And since the exaction is modest, individuals still can exercise their freedom, not buy health insurance and pay the penalty instead. This exercise in semantics was viciously attacked by the dissenting judges (Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy) who wrote that the Chief Justice's logic "was not to interpret the statute but to re-write it". In fact, Roberts' reasoning hinges on his belief that in his capacity, he should find a "saving construction" to uphold laws passed by Congress, whose mandate is validated by regular elections. Though the Constitution gives Congress broad taxing powers, when the bill was being discussed, President Obama, aware of the spleen the word elicits in some constituencies, repeatedly refused to call the penalty a tax, insisting that it was a "shared responsibility", not a tax. This cautious choice of words will give further ammunition to his contender Mitt Romney, who is running on a platform of fewer and lower taxes and who, immediately after the ruling, promised once again to repeal the law "on his first day in office". Ironically, Governor Romney's own legislation for the state of Massachusetts in 2006 was the model for "Obamacare": it was built around the individual mandate and the principle of personal responsibility, which was "essential to bring down the costs of health care" (his own words). It was indeed a Republican idea that came out of the Heritage Foundation think tank and had the full support of the private sector (insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceutical industry). It was only in 2006, when the idea migrated to the Left, that its constitutionality became suspect. But in the present national environment, politics trumps policy. Since 1942, the Commerce Clause has been used as the constitutional basis for modern government to regulate economic activity (much of which did not cross state lines). The health industry is one of the largest economic activities and it does clearly spill over state lines. Does the decision constitute a new jurisprudence restricting those legislative powers that made the New Deal possible? Or is this a narrow ruling that applies only to a sui generis, very specific activity and there probably won't be other issues that require a federal mandate as a solution? Is the individual mandate simply a "free-loader fee" and not an expansion of federal power? History will tell. For the time being, there is a sense that the institutional order prevailed over political divisions and the Founders' Republic is thus safe. However, in their "nullification by any means" strategy, Republicans are now pivoting to another major finding by the Court, in this instance on the expansion of Medicaid (public health care for the indigent that states administer with federal grants), which will now include those receiving an income of up to 133% above the poverty line. While the expansion itself was found constitutional (and it is wholly funded by federal money for the first three years of implementation), the federal government's coercive power to withdraw present funds from states that do not accept it was struck down by a 7-2 vote. This has opened a new political front for Republicans. In their determination to make it impossible for Democrats to govern, they have turned to state governors for help: at least seven Republican governors have already claimed they will not accept federal funding to expand Medicaid. This provides enough fodder for their immediate political interests: to portray the President as a big spender who has no interest in reducing the deficit. Their political calculation is based on the fact that the lower income groups that will receive or not those benefits are not their voters. In a tight race, this could be a winning strategy.

Ubemandede flyvemaskiner (UAV'er) eller droner bliver i stigende grad brugt i missioner hvor bemandede fly ikke egner sig. De ubemandede fly har en række fordele med hensyn til størrelse, vægt og manøvredygtighed som gør at de kan løse opgaver som fly før i tiden ikke kunne løse. Den primære årsag til at udviklingen af UAV'er er nået til det niveau vi ser i dag er at militæret har set potentialet i dem. Både til overvågnings operationer og direkte angreb har UAV'erne mange fordele frem for de bemandede fly, hvoraf den største nok er at piloterne ikke direkte kommer i kontakt med fjenden. Efterhånden har UAV'erne dog også fundet vej til civil anvendelse. Her har de kunne lette opgaver som foto-inspektion af store bygningsværker og redningsaktioner til havs. Alt i alt har UAV'er inden for de sidste år vist deres mangfoldige potentiale. Den stigende brug af UAV'er betyder også at de skal færdes sammen med bemandede fly og i områder hvor mennesker færdes på jorden. Dette stiller selvsagt nogle krav til flyenes sikkerhed og pålidelighed. Det er uundgåeligt at komponenter ombord på en UAV på et eller andet tidspunkt vil fejle. Når dette sker, er det vigtigt at fejlen opdages i tide således at en passende indgriben kan iværksættes. Enten kan flyets styrecomputer tage højde for den opståede fejl eller en menneskelig operatør kan gribe ind. Detektion af fejl der opstår under flyvningen er netop emnet for denne afhandling. For bemandede fly består sikkerheden overfor fejl ofte i at de fleste systemer ombord er redundante. Derved opnår man let en høj grad af sikkerhed da fejl på et enkelt system ikke er katastrofale. Det fejlede delsystem kan udkobles og de redundante systemer kan overtage det fejlede systems opgave. For mindre UAV'er hvor både pris og flyets vægt er af høj betydning vil redundant hardware i mange tilfælde ikke være en brugbar sikkerhedsløsning. Derfor er der i denne afhandling fokuseret på metoder hvor redundanser i stedet opnås ved hjælp af modeller og viden om flyets opførsel. Med udgangspunkt i telemetri data fra en specifik UAV, benyttet af det danske forsvar, undersøges hvordan en række kritiske fejl kan detekteres og håndteres. En af udfordringerne ved at benytte telemetri data til fejldiagnose er den begrænsede båndbredde i radioforbindelsen mellem flyet og base-stationen på jorden. Sammen med denne begrænsning gør støj på de enkelte signaler det vanskeligt at bruge præcise modeller til fejldiagnosen. Dette er løst ved at bruge statistiske fordelinger til at beskrive flyets normale opførsel og afvigelser fra denne, som indikerer forskellige fejl. For at øge anvendeligheden er de modeller, der bliver brugt til fejldiagnose, til en hvis grad selvindstillende. Det gør at mindre afvigelser mellem fly og vindforhold ikke har så stor indflydelse på fejldiagnosens ydelse i form af detektions tid og afvisning af falske alarmer. Det betyder også mindre justering hvis metoderne skal anvendes på en ny type fly med andre parametre. Et af hovedresultaterne af dette forskningsprojekt er en metode der kan finde fejl på en UAV's pitot rør, der måler flyets hastighed. En række software redundanser baseret på hastigheds information fra GPS samt motorens trækkraft bruges til at detektere unormale hastigheds signaler. Et andet bidrag, der er værd at nævne, omhandler diagnose af fejl på styreflader. Her benyttes en række modeller med lav kompleksitet mellem flyets drejehastigheder og styrefladernes udslag til fejldetektionen. Begge metoder er blevet verificeret mod data fra hændelser hvor de respektive fejl optræder, og viser lovende resultater. Afhandling består af et resume af de forskellige metoder, undersøgelser og resultater fundet i forbindelse med projektet. Mere detaljerede beskrivelser findes i en række artikler indsendt til videnskabelige konferencer og tidsskrifter i løbet af projektet. Disse er vedlagt i sidste del af afhandlingen. ; Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones are used increasingly for missions where piloted aircraft are unsuitable. The unmanned aircraft has a number of advantages with respect to size, weight and manoeuvrability that makes it possible for them to solve tasks that an aircraft previously has been unable to solve. The primary cause that UAVs has reached the current level of development is their military potential. Both for surveillance operations and direct strikes, UAVs has many benefits compared to manned aircraft, and the biggest of those are that no pilots are put in direct contact with enemy troops. Gradually UAV's are also being introduced in civilian applications. In this setting they have reduced the difficulty of tasks such as photo inspections of large buildings and rescue missions at sea. All in all UAVs have shown their great potential within the recent years. The increasing use of UAVs causes them to coexist with manned aircraft and in areas where humans are present on ground. This of course carries demands to the safety and reliability of the aircraft. It is inevitable that components onboard a UAV will fail at some point in time. When this happens it is important that the fault is discovered in time such that appropriate actions can be taken. That could either be the aircraft controlling computer taking the fault into account or a human operator that intervenes. Detection of faults that occur during flight is exactly the subject of this thesis. Safety towards faults for manned aircraft is often achieved by making most of the systems onboard redundant. This is an easy way to obtain safety since no single system fault is catastrophic. The failed subsystem can be disconnected and the redundant systems can take over the tasks of the failed system. For smaller UAVs both price and weight of the aircraft is very important meaning that redundant hardware will not be an applicable safety solution. This is why focus of this thesis have been on methods where redundancies are obtained by models and knowledge about the aircraft behaviour. Based on telemetry data from a specific UAV, used by the Danish military, it is investigated how a number of critical faults can be detected and handled. One of the challenges using telemetry data for the fault diagnosis is the limited bandwidth in the radio link between the aircraft and the base-station on ground. This combined with noise on the signals makes it difficult to use precise models for the fault diagnosis. This is solved by using statistical distributions to describe the aircraft's normal behaviour and deviations from this, indicating different faults. To increase the applicability of the models, used for fault diagnosis, these are adaptive to some extent. This makes small discrepancies between aircraft and wind conditions to have less influence on the performance of the fault diagnosis with respect to time to detect and false alarms. It also means that less adjustment is needed if the methods should be applied to another type of aircraft with different parameters. Amongst the main findings of this research project is a method to handle faults on the UAV's pitot tube, which measures the aircraft speed. A set of software redundancies based on GPS velocity information and engine thrust are used to detect abnormal airspeed signals. Another contribution worth mentioning considers diagnosis of control surface faults. Here a set of low-complexity models between the aircraft's turn rates and input deflections are used in the fault detection. Both methods has been verified against data from incidents where the respective faults occurs, and show good potential. The thesis consists of a summary of the different methods, investigations and results obtained during the project. Detailed descriptions are found in a number of papers submitted to research conferences and journals during the project. These have been enclosed in the last part of the thesis.