Refugees in the Norwegian welfare state : marginalized when unfit for labour market participation?

The aim of this thesis is to shed light on some challenges facing the Norwegian welfare state associated with accommodating for refugees with poor health. It might also provide knowledge to policy makers on local and national level when deciding on refugee and welfare services. Many refugees with health problems end up as long-term social assistance recipients, and it seems that they get less usage of support through the National Insurance Scheme. This study investigates how the Norwegian universal welfare state accommodates for refugees when health problems hinder their participation in the introduction programme, and thus make them dependent on social welfare support. The study also examines the types of measures offered to refugees above 55 years old, who are excluded from the right to participate in the introduction programme. Finally the study investigates whether the increased share with refugee status versus humanitarian grounds has had any effect on the access to rights within the National Insurance Scheme. The study is based on a literature review. In addition it is reviewing selected cases processed in the National Insurance Court, and looks into the factors affecting the decisions on health related benefits. Furthermore, it assesses the findings from these endeavours against the tenets of the Discrimination Act and discusses possible effects on marginalization and social citizenship for those affected. The main observation is that case processing resources are wasted due to weaknesses in the case preparations. It also reveals examples of insufficient use of interpreters in the health services. These factors substantiates that social assistance will be the main source of income for long periods before the majority are recognized with rights within the frames of the National Insurance Scheme. The thesis concludes with four suggestions for policy and service improvements.Master in International Social Welfare and Health Polic

ANALISIS PROFIL HUBUNGAN PENGUASAAN KONSEP DAN KARAKTER SISWA SMP MENGENAI ISU-ISU SAINS

Pendidikan karakter telah menjadi pusat perhatian bagi pendidikan Indonesia saat ini. Banyaknya kasus-kasus moral yang terjadi pada siswa sekolah menengah pertama khususnya di kota Bandung merupakan salah satu dampak dari kesalahan pendidikan yang cenderung lebih banyak menekankan pembelajaran pada aspek kognitif dan mengabaikan aspek lainnya terutama dalam aspek penanaman karakter. Meskipun dalam pembelajaran di sekolah khususnya pada mata pelajaran IPA, siswa ditekankan untuk dapat menghargai lingkungan, namun fakta yang terjadi di lapangan adalah masih banyak siswa yang acuh terhadap keadaan lingkungan sekitarnya. Kasus ini menimbulkan pertanyaan besar dalam dunia pendidikan terkait pengaruh pengetahuan (kognitif) terhadap karakter yang tertanam dalam diri siswa. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis profil hubungan penguasaan konsep dan karakter siswa SMP mengenai isu-isu sains. Alasan dilakukannya penelitian ini dikarenakan salah satu fungsi Pendidikan Nasional adalah untuk mengembangkan potensi dan karakter peserta didik. Pendidikan di Indonesia dikatakan berhasil apabila pendidikan mampu menyeimbangkan antara domain kognitif dan karakter. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif terhadap 220 siswa SMP dari enam sekolah yang terdiri dari sekolah kluster I, II, dan III di kota Bandung. Instrumen yang digunakan yaitu Tes Penguasaan Konsep untuk mengukur tingkat penguasaan konsep siswa dan Tes Dilema Moral untuk mengukur karakter siswa. Pola hubungan penguasaan konsep dan karakter Siswa yang ditemukan pada penelitian ini adalah siswa dengan penguasaan konsep sangat baik, baik, dan cukup mempunyai persentase aspek karakter baik moral knowing, moral feeling, dan moral action yang lebih tinggi dibandingkan siswa dengan tingkat penguasaan konsep rendah dan sangat rendah. ;--- Character education has become a central concern for education in Indonesia today. The number of cases of moral happens to secondary school students especially in Bandung is one of the effects of educational trespass that tend to more emphasize of learning on cognitive aspects and tend to ignore other aspects, the aspect of character cultivation in particular.Although learning in school, especially in science subjects, students can appreciate the emphasis on the environment, but the fact that happened is still a lot of students are indifferent to the state of the surrounding environment.This case raises a big question in the world of education related to the influence of knowledge (cognitive) toward characters that are embedded in students. This study aimed to analyze the profile of relationship between mastery of concepts and characters junior high school students about science issues. The reason for this research because one of the functions of National Education is to develop the potential and character of students. Education in Indonesia can succeed if education is able to balance between the cognitive domain and character.This research uses qualitative descriptive to 220 junior high school students from six schools consisting of school clusters I, II, and III in the city of Bandung. The instrument used is the Concept Mastery Tests to measure students 'mastery of concepts and Moral Dilemma Tests to measure students' character. The pattern of relationship mastery of concepts and characters students found in this study is a student with a mastery of the concept is very good, good, and enough have percentage aspects of good character moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral action are higher than students with a level of mastery of the concept of low and very lo

Refugees in the Norwegian welfare state : marginalized when unfit for labour market participation?

Master in International Social Welfare and Health PolicyThe aim of this thesis is to shed light on some challenges facing the Norwegian welfare state associated with accommodating for refugees with poor health. It might also provide knowledge to policy makers on local and national level when deciding on refugee and welfare services. Many refugees with health problems end up as long-term social assistance recipients, and it seems that they get less usage of support through the National Insurance Scheme. This study investigates how the Norwegian universal welfare state accommodates for refugees when health problems hinder their participation in the introduction programme, and thus make them dependent on social welfare support. The study also examines the types of measures offered to refugees above 55 years old, who are excluded from the right to participate in the introduction programme. Finally the study investigates whether the increased share with refugee status versus humanitarian grounds has had any effect on the access to rights within the National Insurance Scheme. The study is based on a literature review. In addition it is reviewing selected cases processed in the National Insurance Court, and looks into the factors affecting the decisions on health related benefits. Furthermore, it assesses the findings from these endeavours against the tenets of the Discrimination Act and discusses possible effects on marginalization and social citizenship for those affected. The main observation is that case processing resources are wasted due to weaknesses in the case preparations. It also reveals examples of insufficient use of interpreters in the health services. These factors substantiates that social assistance will be the main source of income for long periods before the majority are recognized with rights within the frames of the National Insurance Scheme. The thesis concludes with four suggestions for policy and service improvements

Aerodynamic simulations of offshore wind turbines by using a potential flow approach

This thesis explores the aerodynamic performance of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) using a potential flow approach. The primary objective is to understand how the output power of an FOWT is affected by imposing different motions on the substructure. To this end, I employ an aerodynamic model based on the well-known unsteady vortex-lattice method (UVLM) to simulate the aerodynamic behaviour of the turbines in combination with a UVLM-oriented mesh generator (UVLMeshGen, developed at the University of Bergen) to build the aerodynamic grids. As part of this thesis, I have also integrated into UVLMeshGen the capacity of: meshing spar-like substructures, generating boundary surfaces intended for representing sea waves, and the kinematics associated with both the substructure’s motion and sea waves. Initially, the aerodynamic model of fixed and floating offshore wind turbines were validated against well-established benchmarks, including the NREL 5 MW, DTU 10 MW RWT, and Sandia 13.2 MW turbines. Following this, various motion scenarios were simulated to investigate the effects of individual and combined heave, surge, and wind turbine pitch motions on the power output. The results showed that the surge motion has the most significant impact on the power, while the heave motion has the least. However, the heave motion greatly affects the shape of the wake. In addition, I analyze the effect of including sea waves, as a boundary surface with imposed kinematics, on the output power of stand-still FOWTs. The findings indicate that higher wave amplitudes produces a slight increase in power output, the so-called blocking effect in aeronautics. Such findings undoubtedly require further investigations in this direction to fully understand and characterize such a phenomenon. Finally, simulations of multiple FOWTs demonstrated the importance of considering wake interactions when designing wind farm layouts. FOWTs placed in close proximity showed reduced power output due to wake interference, highlighting the need for accounting wake interactions when optimizing wind farm layouts and operating wind farms. This research contributes to the field of renewable energy by enhancing the predictive capabilities of aerodynamic simulations for FOWTs. It provides a framework for future studies to incorporate more complex wave-structure interactions and optimise the design and placement of floating wind turbines to maximise the power production.Masteroppgave i energiENERGI399MAMN-ENER

Multi-modal Learning-based Navigation

In denne oppgaven utforskes kollisjonsunngåelse i et skogsmiljø. Spesielt fokuseres det på effektene av å integrere en sekundærmodalitet ved å utvide en variasjonell autoenkoder (engelsk: Variational Autoencoder) fra å ta inn dybde til RGB-D, for å forbedre rekonstruksjonen av tynne og nærtliggende objekter. Videre integreres nettverket i et kollisjonsprediksjonsnettverk (CPN) for å studere de overordnede effektene modaliteten har for autonom navigasjon på en quadcopter. Et simuleringsrammeverk for automatisk, kontinuerlig generering av innhold, med et tilhørende skript for innsamling av multimodal data utvikles ved bruk av UE4 og AirSim. Videre samles et datasett for trening av den nevnte multimodale autoenkoderen, som integreres med et subsett av TartanAir. I tillegg settes et miljø opp ved bruk av ROS og Gazebo for å lagre tilfeldige utspillinger av en simulert drone, til bruk for trening av CPN. Til slutt forværres RGB-modaliteten på forskjellige måter for å kvantifisere dens bidrag og effekt. De multimodale nettverkene overgår sine monomodale motparter. Eksempelvis oppnådde det multimodale nettverket opptil dobbelt så høy suksessrate som den monomodale i visse miljøer. Videre ble det funnet at nettverket er ekstremt følsomt for endringer i RGB data, som gir utslag i form av dårligere ytelse på usyntetisk data.In this thesis, collision avoidance in a forest environment is explored. Specifically, it focuses on the effects of integrating a second modality, namely expanding a variational autoencoder (VAE) from depth to RGB-D inputs, to improve the reconstruction of thin and close objects. Furthermore, the network is integrated into a collision prediction network (CPN) to study the overarching effects the modality has for autonomous navigation on a quadrotor. A simulation framework for procedural content generation and a script for collection of multimodal data is developed using UE4 and AirSim. Following its development a dataset for training the aforementioned multimodal VAE is procured and merged with a subset of the pre-existing dataset TartanAir. Furthermore, an environment is set up using ROS and Gazebo to capture random rollouts from a simulated drone which can subsequently be used for training the CPN. Finally, the RGB modality is ablated to quantify its contribution and effect. The multimodal networks overall were found to outperform their counterparts. With the multimodal CPN obtaining upwards of twice the success rate of the monomodal one in certain environments. Yet, through ablation it was found that the network is extremely sensitive to changes in the RGB input, combined with poorer performance being associated with tests on real data

System Analysis of Large-Scale Wind Power Integration in North-Western Europe: A study on the impact of large-scale wind power expansion and on the impact of a North Sea offshore grid

Problem description: The objective of this project was to create a simple model of the European power system and to investigate the effect an increasing amount of on- and offshore wind power will have on the North European power market in general and Norway in particular. The scenarios contain increasing amounts of installed wind power capacity, both on- and offshore. Emphasis was to be on the area surrounding the North Sea. The project covers the following issues: - Simulations of simplified power system scenarios set in the years 2005, 2020 and 2030. - Study how an increasing amount of installed wind power will affect energy prices, power production distribution, and power transmission flows. - Investigate how an offshore grid consisting of interconnections between offshore wind farms will affect the system. The task: The simulations in this project were performed using simple power market model. The model included 6 price areas: Denmark West, Denmark East, Norway, Sweden/Finland, Germany and UCTE/Others. The existing market model was modified in the following manner: - Split Norway into three price areas: Norway North, Middle and South - Add the Netherlands - Add the United Kingdom - Add corresponding offshore price areas for areas neighbouring the North Sea. Wind series were generated for each wind generator using reanalysis data. Scenarios were created for the years 2005, 2020 and 2030. In these scenarios, wind power capacities are increasing as time progresses. The 2020 and 2030 scenarios have been simulated with two alternative grid configurations: one where the offshore areas are connected only to their respective onshore areas and one where the offshore areas are also interconnected in an offshore grid. In total 7 different scenarios were simulated. Results: Wind power is able to supplant a large share of energy originally produced by con-ventional thermal generators. The presence of an offshore grid does not have any dramatic effects on energy production for the system, though it is possible to conclude that the presence of an offshore grid may contribute to slightly shift the power system in favour of renewable energy sources. Wind power will cause a significant reduction in energy prices in all areas, resulting in reduced energy costs for the entire system. Analysis of lost wind and hydro power reveals the importance of sufficient transmission capacity when large quantities of wind power are added to the system. Scenario 4 features enormous quantities of lost hydro power in the North and Middle of Norway due to transmission limitations. Analyses of power transmissions reveal that the offshore grid is over-dimensioned. Rationalizing the grid by reducing transmission capacities to more realistic levels will give a more cost-effective solution. This was demonstrated by performing a quick simulation and analysis of a scenario featuring such a rationalized grid. Wind power will cause more frequent variations in hydro power generation, due to balancing needs. Parts of the increased variability in the hydro generators can be explained by the increasing amount of wind power in the system, while other parts are most likely caused by limitations in the simulation model itself. Conclusion: Given the number of assumptions made in the grid, in cost calculations and in the model at large, it is more important to focus on general trends than on concrete numerical values. However, it is clear that increasing the amount of on- and offshore wind power in the European power system will have a beneficial impact to society's energy costs. It is also clear that wind power has the potential to dramatically reduce CO2-emissions caused by power generation. The offshore grid seems to be more beneficial to the power producers than to consumers since it causes slightly higher energy prices and providing a measure of flexibility as to where offshore wind power production is sent. Wind power will present challenges, especially regarding transmission grid development. A sufficiently dimensioned grid will be essential to the successful implementation of such amounts of wind power, both with respect to profitability and in order to avoid waste of potential wind or hydro energy

Constraining the Number Density of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray Sources

Ultra-høyenergiske kosmiske stråler (UHEKS) har blitt studert i mange tiår nå, men opprinnelsen til universets mest energiske partikler er fortsatt et åpent spørsmål. Denne oppgaven har som mål å begrense tettheten til potensielle kilder ved å sammenligne numeriske simuleringer av ankomstretninger med de mest energiske partiklene oppdaget av Pierre Auger Observatoriet (PAO). Simuleringer for to opprinnelse scenarier har blitt laget: (1) en uniform fordeling av kilder og (2) kilder som følger den lokale materiefordelingen i Universet. Interaksjoner med bakgrunnstrålingsfelt og magnetiske felt i verdensrommet har blitt tatt hensyn til. Den resulterende klyngingen i ankomstretningene blir statistisk analysert ved å bruke to-punkts vinkelkorrelasjonsfunksjonen (TPVKF), og nedre grenser for kildetettheten utledes for begge kildefordelingene. Tettheten er funnet å være større enn 10^-5 Mpc^-3 for jevnt fordelte kilder, og 10^-4 Mpc^-3 for den lokale materiefordelingen, forutsatt vinkelavstander opp til 10 grader.Ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) have been studied for many decades, but the origin of the Universe’s most energetic particles is still an open question. This thesis aims to constrain the number density of potential sources by comparing numerically simulated arrival directions with the most energetic events detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO). Simulations of two origin scenarios are created: (1) a uniform distribution of sources and (2) sources following the local matter distribution in the Universe. Interactions with background photon fields and magnetic deflections are accounted for. The resulting clustering in arrival direction is statistically analyzed using the two-point angular correlation function (TPACF), and lower bounds on the number density of sources are derived for both source distributions. The density is found to be larger than 10^-5 Mpc^-3 for uniformly distributed sources, and 10^-4 Mpc^-3 for the local matter distribution, assuming angular separations up to 10 degrees

Pore-scale Modeling of Viscous Flow and Induced Forces in Dense Sphere Packings

We propose a method for effectively upscaling incompressible viscous flow in large random polydispersed sphere packings: the emphasis of this method is on the determination of the forces applied on the solid particles by the fluid. Pore bodies and their connections are defined locally through a regular Delaunay triangulation of the packings. Viscous flow equations are upscaled at the pore level, and approximated with a finite volume numerical scheme. We compare numerical simulations of the proposed method to detailed finite element (FEM) simulations of the Stokes equations for assemblies of 8 to 200 spheres. A good agreement is found both in terms of forces exerted on the solid particles and effective permeability coefficients

5Minuti Website

I de siste tiår har nettsider spilt en stor rolle i vårt samfunn. nettsider har mange ulike roller. Nettsider kan tiltrekke og informere lesere om forskjellige ting. Dette er også tilfellet for vårt prosjekt. Våre klienters restaurant bestemte seg for at de også skulle lage en nettside med målet om å informere leseren og gi kundene en unik service, å la dem bestille fra en online Platform. Hoved målet med prosjektet var å lage en nettside for en pizza restaurant her i Ålesund. En nettside som ville bli brukt til å bestille mat og samtidig gi informasjon om restauranten. Nettsiden er designet for å gi kunder valget om å se og velge ulike produkter etter deres preferanse, samtidig som så kalte «admins» kan prosessere og se disse ordrene. Nettsiden vil også kunne prosessere ordre. Prosjektet var planlagt etter klinetes behov. Prosjektet inkluderte planlegging, utvikling og til slutt en rapport. Rapporten oppsummerer planleggingen og inkluderes en rapport med detaljer av planlegging og utviklings fasene for prosjektet sammen med den samlede prosessen over prosjektet.In the past decade, websites have played a major role in our society. Websites have many unique roles. Websites can attract and inform their readers about certain things. This is the case for our project. Our clients’ restaurant decided they should also have a website created, with the purpose of informing their readers and providing their customers with a unique service, allowing them to order from an online platform. The main goal with this project is to create a website for a pizza restaurant, here in Ålesund. A website that will be used as a food ordering service, will also provide information about the restaurant. The website is designed to allow customers the option to view and select items according to the preferred menu items but also can be used by the so called “admins” to process and view these orders. The website will also entail being used to process orders. The project was planned according to the clients’ needs. The project included planning, developing and then a report. The report summarizes the planning and includes a report detailing the planning and development stages for the project along with the overall process over the project