A homological approach to the Poincaré--Birkhoff--Witt theorem

Formålet med denne oppgaven er å utvikle noen verktøy deriblandt Hochschild cohomology, filtrerte og graderte algebraer og algebraisk deformasjonsteori for å kunne gjennomføre en konseptuel tilnærming til å bevise Poincare-Birkoff-Witt(PBW) teoremet.The goal of this thesis is to develop some tools including Hochschild cohomology, filtered and graded algebras and algebraic deformation theory in order to take a conceptual approach to proving the Poincare-Birkoff-Witt(PBW) theorem

Apartment layouts and domestic life : the interior space and its usability : a study of Norwegian apartments built in the period 1930-2005

The background for this study is Norwegian housing where floor plans of new apartments seem to differ significantly from what previously has been built as well as from what architects have considered good quality. The study consists of two empirical surveys. The first is a diachronic analysis examining the development of apartment layouts since the 1930s, while the second is a synchronic interview-based survey where different apartments identified through the diachronic study are examined as dwellings for contemporary living. The features of apartments particularly examined in the diachronic analysis are the sizes of rooms and the spatial configurations of the apartments, two features that are decisive for the degree of generality concerning functions or use. These features of space have been analysed in a sample of 150 apartments built in Oslo since 1930. The conclusion of this analysis is the identification of three generations of apartments. Apartments of the first generation, which was common until about 1955, were general with respect to sizes of the rooms as well as to the spatial configuration. Around 1960, there was a change towards larger apartments and functional specificity. In the second generation of apartments, those that were typical in the period from the 1960s until the early 1980s, the individual rooms were highly differentiated in size and positioned in accordance with their very specific function. Since then, the number of rooms has decreased and the spatial layout has become simpler, the kitchens are now usually in the living room and the bedrooms have become smaller. These apartments, which are the third generation, are specific with respect to use in that the bedrooms are rooms for sleeping while the “living and kitchen room” is the place for all daytime living. The three generations of apartments defined by the diachronic analysis are not just a theoretical classification of floor plan layouts but also a typology that captures features relevant for real domestic lives. Sizes of rooms and configurational aspects of the interior spaces are decisive for what kind of households that lives in a particular apartment as well as for how they use their rooms. A conclusion from the interview-based survey is that generality works; the first generation of apartment, the apartment characterised as general due to large “second largest rooms” and a spatial layout where all rooms have access directly from the entrance, is the kind that houses the largest range of households. This is very different from the apartments being built now, which are appropriate only for a limited range of households. Since they rarely have more than one place for daytime living, they are unsuitable for the many households where daily lives consist in simultaneous and not easily co-existing activities. Where theory and methodology are concerned, the field of architectural research named “space syntax” has been a basis for figuring out the subject to examine as well as for carrying out the analyses. This study not only illustrates how space syntax can be useful for identifying patterns across a sample of dwellings, but also how the configurational features of space captured by the space syntax methodology are relevant for households preferences of dwellings and for their daily living.publishedVersio

Reimagining academic freedom:a companion piece

We consider academic freedom in the context of broader developments in higher education. We suggest that the tenor of contemporary debates on the subject is a manifestation of pervasive forms of authoritarianism that undermine the university as a home of adventure, a place and space that is conducive to the conduct of free inquiry.It is evident that some champions of academic freedom engage in dangerously polarized forms of spectacle, engendered by a management culture that embraces showmanship and routinely favours talking over listening. As such, they represent a force for conformity rather than dissent; division rather than collective action. These forms of spectacle jeopardize rather than promote the principles of academic freedom by polarizing the terms of the debate for maximum ‘impact’. We explore the implications of conceptualizations of academic freedom that focus on the rights of everyone in the university. We also suggest that the notion might usefully be extended to those on precarious contracts, and to students facing normative expectations about what constitutes ‘progress’ in academic practice. Drawing upon Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century and an essay by Vaclav Havel, we reassess the notion of the ‘pursuit of truth’ that underlies conventional definitions of academic freedom.We conclude with a brief vignette, a rousing endorsement of the ineffable and irreducible qualities of friendship. This entails slaying a fictitious, three-headed dragon and embracing a form of spectacle that transcends attempts to capture why it moves us. We leave the reader with warm-blooded traces of energy, curiosity, liveliness, and quiet determination

Assessing cities: Applying GIS-based methods for mapping cross-scale spatial indicators

In recent years, several systems and tools to assess energy consumption and carbon emissions at scales beyond that of merely buildings, such as LEED, CASBEE and BREEAM communities have been development. However, reviews reveal a lack of robustness in these methods both in terms of an unstructured mix of qualitative and quantitative criteria and lack of focus on urban form parameters found to influence energy consumption and carbon emissions. A promising quantitative assessment system including various urban form indicators is developed by the Urban Morphology Institute (UMI) in Paris. Within the research centre on zero emission neighbourhoods in smart cities (ZEN), a GIS-based method is applied to analyze conditions of urban form known to contribute to carbon emissions. In this paper we demonstrate how a selection of the UMI indicators describing proximity can be further specified applying GIS-based methods. The potential of applicability of urban assessment system in planning as well as design processes will increase when linked to tools that are already implemented, and map visualizations as well as data provided by these methods are highly applicable in planning and urban design. As further research, methods described in recent research within ZEN and specified measures for calculating UMI indicators, will be tested in analyses of urban development areas in Norway.publishedVersionContent from this work may be used under the terms of theCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Published under licence by IOP Publishing Lt

Mus(ick)ing on pedagogical relations as the art of encounter

This article comprises a lyrical exposition of the ‘in-betweenness’ that underlies pedagogical relations and musical practice. The latter comprises making, performing, teaching, and indeed listening to music, phenomena encapsulated in the term ‘musicking’, first coined by the musicologist Christopher Small in 1999. Improvisatory practice is inscribed into the very process of writing as a means of mainstreaming the power of connection; and troubling the notion of seeking as the hallmark of ‘poor pedagogy’ (Masschelein, 2010) or weak education (Ingold, 2018). Drawing inter alia on a scintillating improvisational performance by the musician Bobby McFerrin, we argue that pedagogical relations, construed as the art of encounter, are about finding rather than seeking. Finding implies experiencing a sense of connection, ‘that feeling of landing in the present tense’, of being immersed in whatever occupies you, paying close attention to the details of experience’ (Tempest, 2022, p. 5). This is a far cry from education in a major key, the secure territory of understanding that is premised on codified knowledge that pre-empts attention or marginalises it altogether. We draw on examples from music education to explore the deleterious effects of power dynamics. We end with a rallying cry for education as a common chorus

Improving GIS-based Models for Bicycling Speed Estimations

For reasons ranging from carbon emissions to public health, traffic planning as well as urban design aim to increase the modal share of bicycling on the cost of fossil fuel based commuting. However, most urban and traffic planning practices handle bicycling very schematically. Typically, tools for analyzing bicycling rely on fixed speed templates, paying little attention to the fact that bicycling speeds vary a lot depending on type of bicyclist and explicit properties of bicycle routes and the contexts of those routes. As long as very simplified assumptions form the basis for analysis, it is hard to make reliable comparisons of alternative proposals of urban form layouts and infrastructure investments. Therefore, from the perspective of traffic planning as well as from the perspective of urban planning and design, there is need for more refined methods for predicting bicycling speeds. This paper presents an outline for such a bicycling speed modelling tool.\ua0This work combines tools and measures from two recent bikeability modelling studies. One is an urban form based study of bicycle route networks, grasping issues related to geometrical directness of routes and various measures of accessibility and density. The other calculates likely speeds based on horizontal and vertical geometry of routes. The latter model uses an advanced statistical model to grasp dependence between adjacent road segments. The new combined model is estimated using GPS tracking of real bicycle trips in combination with GIS-based data of bicycle route networks and of the local contexts of the routes.\ua0More in detail, the new model includes parameters estimated for the following covariates:\ua0• route geometry (by slope and by horizontal curvature)• intersection impedances derived from type of junction (by presence of signal-crossings and by kinds of crossing streets categorized by amounts of traffic)• type of bicycle-route (bicycle lane in street, separate bicycle lane, combined walk- and bicycle lane or mixed-use streets)\ua0• kind of surface (smooth surface or gravel)• density of entrances along route (a proxy for slower bicycling due to urban/vibrant context)The modelling is based on so-called Markov-dependence, including that the covariates are used to estimate continuous speed profiles along entire routes, and not only average speed levels on road segments seen separate and independent. Through this, the new model results in more realistic speed estimations than the previous models. The paper presents the result from applying the tool on a sample of bicycle routes in Gothenburg and compares the results with analyses from previous models and with empirical data of bicycling along the same routes