This thesis draws upon modern consumption theory to provide an interpretive research framework for examining material culture and consumer behaviour in the Roman world. This approach is applied to data from twelve Pompeian households to identify patterns of consumption, materiality, and motivations for the acquisition of commodities. Analysis of the assemblage data is performed at multiple levels comprising weighted ranking of goods and the application of Correspondence Analysis, with investigation performed on both functional categories and artefact types. Setting the results against theories of consumption and rationality, consumer choice in the ancient world is examined. From this detailed examination of twelve Pompeian houses, ‘core’ and ‘fringe’ commodities and recurring suites of goods are identified. Non-luxury goods are given particular attention as they provide information concerning the consumption of everyday utility objects. This approach also allows the evaluation of statements about the state of occupation of houses in sites such as Pompeii. The results validate this form of analysis as an important tool for assessing the role of the consumer in economies of the ancient world, moving beyond concepts of conspicuous consumption and group values. This research provides a structured interpretive framework upon which varied archaeological data can be superimposed to interrogate the motivations behind commodity acquisition. This research also raises the potential for future consumption modelling using multivariate statistics. Through the application of consumer theory to Roman data, discussion of ancient economies is shifted away from a focus on production to one of demand, choice, and sites of consumption.

This is an interpretive study that explores the potency of consumption culture in China through a selected group that belongs to the first generation of the one-child policy – the 'Little Emperors'. This is a population that is unprecedented, not only in China but also in human history. The dawning of postmodernity has ushered in a consumption culture. Fashion and brands are chosen as the consumption sites in this study in view of their significance: they are accessible and inundated with symbolic meanings for the construction of identities. In the vertigo of postmodernity, there is a sudden excess of commodities and signs in the marketplace. Anchored in traditional Chinese values and operating from a holistic perspective, this first generation of Little Emperors has cultured a different kind of consumption literacy in the 'Postmodern(Eas)t Mall'. They are brand raisers, in the context, there is a salient socio-cultural logic in symbolic consumption, an outside-in dialectical process in the self construct, a layered self with a strong institutional influence and discipline ascribed or imagined, they are happy consumers, even though they may not know fashion or brands very well.

This thesis emerges in the context of recent developments in the field of charity fundraising. In particular, in order to increase, or simply maintain, fundraising levels charities have had to develop innovative devices which both take charity giving into the spaces in which individuals carry out their daily activities, and provide mechanisms through which they are able to give to charity in their daily lives. This thesis focuses on one such attempt. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate both the practices of constructing alternative giving and the materials which result from this, and the practices of giving and receiving an alternative gift. Alternative giving refers to a fundraising device which is built around a range of gift cards or certificates produced by the charity, each of which represent one particular item or service provided by the charity to its beneficiaries. The cards or certificates are then sold at a price which is designed to mirror the actual cost of providing the item or service represented and are intended to be used by the purchaser as a gift for a friend or relative. As such, alternative giving, as a form of fundraising used by international development charities, raises a number of questions, particularly in terms of how it affects the relationships between individuals and charities, and individuals and the specific beneficiary. Therefore, this thesis draws on literatures around ethics, governmentality, consumption and gift theory to examine the implications of alternative giving for these relationships. Having drawn these literatures into conversations with empirical research based around interviews with charities and those engaging in alternative giving, and a range of textual materials surrounding this, the thesis argues that practices of alternative giving are carried out by ethical subjects who are situated within broad sets of social relations, and which matter to how connections in the charitable act are manifest.

The modern consumer expects a consumption experience with both hedonic and utilitarian rewards during a single visit to the mall. The orchestrating of both hedonic and utilitarian benefits in one visit challenges mall management and retailers to deliver the maximum shopping experience. This study seeks to reveal relationships among six variables: demographic characteristics, mall shopping orientation, mall perception, hedonic satisfaction, utilitarian satisfaction, and mall consumption. The intercept survey was conducted at a major entertainment-themed mall in north Texas. Multiple regression analyses (N = 202) indicate that demographic characteristics and mall shopping orientation were significant predictors of mall perception. Also, two mall perception factors (Sensation and Physical Environment) were predictors of hedonic and utilitarian mall shopping satisfaction. However, hedonic and utilitarian mall shopping satisfaction were found not to predict mall consumption in terms of cross-shopping, money spent, and time spent.

The purpose of this research was to determine if installing a smaller air compressor could reduce the electrical usage of a large semiconductor manufacturing plant. A 200 horsepower Atlas Copco compressor was installed with the existing 500 horsepower Ingersoll-Rand compressors. Testing was conducted during the regular manufacturing process at MEMC Southwest in Sherman, Texas. Analysis of the data found that installing the new compressor could reduce electrical consumption. The study also found there are specific operational setpoints that allow the compressor to operate more efficiently.

Shoplifting proliferated in eighteenth-century England with retail expansion, acquiring a new prominence as it was made a capital crime. This study comprehensively examines this phenomenon, seating it within the historiographies of crime, marketing and consumption. The majority of offenders were occasional thieves, drawn from some of the most economically vulnerable sectors of plebeian communities, their profile confirming the significance of age and gender. While specialist shops were shoplifters' primary target, particularly those selling textiles and clothing, a spatial analysis suggests that thieves preferred smaller, local shops to their more prestigious counterparts. Shoplifters matched their tactics to the size and status of shop, using performance as a tool to achieve their ends. Yet the study questions assumptions around the influence of fashion and consumer desire on shop theft, discussing how the type and quantity of goods stolen points to more complex economic motives, both financial and social. The potential impact of the crime on women's role as shopkeepers and the tendency to sexualise female offenders are also scrutinised. While retailers were initially instrumental in driving legislative change and worked constructively with magistrates to control the crime's incidence, their constant reluctance to prosecute conveys a false impression of the crime's true extent. The study calculates prevalence, and projects the financial impact of shoplifting on its victims at a time of highly competitive retailing. 'Risk-based' in their thinking, retailers developed practical means of protecting their stores, while new marketing techniques proved variously a boon and handicap. Yet shopkeepers' reactions were not uniform, some apparently preferring such situational prevention, while others turned more readily to the law. This ambivalence was also exhibited in their engagement with the capital law reform that ultimately saw the repeal of the Shoplifting Act. Employing a variety of sources from court transcripts to literature, the study finally explores how changing social perspectives on crime during the period coloured public attitudes to shoplifting, foreshadowing reconfigured nineteenth-century perceptions of the crime.

The energy use of commercial building operations is a significant contributor to the total global energy demand, and lighting is one of the largest end uses of electricity in commercial buildings. Convention Centers as commercial buildings are examples of big energy consumers, and they present a unique opportunity to showcase benefits of green building techniques due to their large size and broad range of visitors; however, the individual nature of convention centers makes it challenging to find design improvements which will be helpful in general for many convention centers. One exception to this rule of individuality is the presence of public assembly rooms, which are ubiquitous in nature and are used heavily. Traditionally, public assembly rooms are fully enclosed to allow for full control of illumination levels with artificial lighting, particularly fluorescent light. This represents a missing opportunity to utilize daylight or energy efficient artificial light to reduce energy use while enhancing human visual comfort. The objective of this research is to analyze the potential impact of the use of daylight in public assembly rooms. We present the results of a set of computer simulations performed using IES VE software. The simulations are performed as an iterative process, using as base case a north-facing public assembly room in the Tucson Convention Center, and progressively updating the lighting scheme using the software to analyze the illuminance levels for each case. The results are used to propose a lighting scheme for the north-facing public assembly room which uses 100% daylight to achieve a uniform level of illumination and meets the compliance of illumination requirements for public assembly rooms.

In the contemporary world, there has been a great proliferation of using smart-phone devices and broadband wireless networks, the young generation using mobile gaming market is tremendously increasing because of the enormous entertainment features. Mobile cloud gaming is a promising technology that overcome the implicit restrictions such as computational capacity and limited battery life. GamingAnywhere is an open source cloud gaming system which is used in this thesis and calculate the energy consumption of mobile device when using GamingAnywhere. The aim of the thesis is to measure the power consumption of the mobile device when the game is streamed from the GamingAnywhere server to GamingAnywhere client. Total power consumption is calculated for four resolutions by using the hardware monsoon power monitoring tool and the individual components of mobile device such as CPU, LCD and Audio power are calculated by software PowerTutor. The memory usage of the mobile device is also calculated by using Trepn Profiler application when using GamingAnywhere. Based on the obtained results, it was found that there is an increase in power consumption and memory usage of the mobile device on client side when the resolution is varying from low to high. After mapping the results of the hardware with the software, it was identified that there is very small difference between the hardware results and software results from which we could estimate that the software PowerTutor can be used instead of hardware Monsoon power tool as the software is capable of calculating the power consumption of individual components of mobile device

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the most prominent cause of adult mortality, killing 38 million people each year and on the rise[1]. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases are responsible for 82% of NCD-related illness and death. These four diseases, along with mental illness, are estimated to cost the developing world $21 trillion over the next two decades.[2] Given the substantial health and economic detriments of NCDs, policy makers, government officials, and enterprises around the globe have begun to focus efforts on better understanding and preventing the proliferation of these diseases. Lifestyle factors, including increased inactivity, poor diet, and alcohol and tobacco consumption are currently the most commonly attributed risk factors of NCDs. With the influx of epidemiological literature linking meat consumption to western disease prevalence, and the World Health Organization (WHO) releasing a statement this year classifying processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen alongside cigarette smoking, this thesis seeks to understand more thoroughly the role of diet, specifically meat consumption, in the incidence of cancer, heart disease and diabetes around the world. This paper analyzes previous epidemiological studies on dietary consumption and disease incidence as well as conducts an empirical analysis of data from the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to understand the relationship between meat consumption and disease prominence. This paper is the first of its kind to compare country-level data on dietary and lifestyle factors with respective disease incidence and mortality rates in order to observe the impact of country consumption trends on health outcomes. The results of this analysis may provide insight into global economic, health policy and individual-level consumption recommendations in order to mitigate the occurrence of ill-health.

The aim of this study is to analyze factors that affecting consumers to drink coffee, based on two case studies in University of Gävle in Sweden and Zhuhai College of Jilin University in China.The study was conducted with mixed research methods. A questionnaire survey was designed as a pre-study to get a general idea and the interviews were designed based on the result of survey in order to gain more detailed information and explanations from the respondents. All the data are shown by tables or diagrams or histograms. University students in two different culture participated in survey and interviews, a comparison perspective for cross culture was mentioned in this study. As for Result & Conclusions, both external factors (culture, price and people around) as well as internal factors (personality, psychological influence, learning and knowledge) impact the consumer‟s behaviors that are shown in different consumption characteristics. Take all in account, these factors could have an effect on university students to drink (or not drink) coffee in Jilin University and University of Gävle. And Contribution & implication, the comparison of coffee drink between Chinese culture and Swedish culture is the most attractive contributions, supplementing the related study. Price issue was considered as the important factor that affecting the consumer to choose coffee, thus suggesting the managers to focus on the coffee price. In addition, the effective way to explore coffee market in China or Sweden is to know better of the consumers. Suggestions for future research, other consumer groups are missing given the study only focus on the university students. Also tested with more sample sizes of survey andIIinterviews are recommended in the future research so as to make it even valid and reliable.