The presented thesis investigates the identification of burst locations in water distribution systems (WDS) by analysis of field and simulation experimental data. This required the development of a new hybrid method of burst detection and sizing, and also a burst location identification algorithm. Generally, existing practice relies on a combination of some simple procedure and experience of the involved staff and cannot be easily automated. The practical methods are based on direct manifestation of burst on the surface or on systematically surveying suspected areas e.g. by using listening sticks, such methods are very time consuming. The proposed burst location algorithm is based on comparing data by means of statistical analysis of field data with results of water network simulation. An extended network hydraulic simulator is used to model pressure dependent leakage terms. The presence of a burst changes the flow pattern and also pressure at network nodes which may be used to estimate the burst size and its location. The influence of such random factors as demand flows and background leakage on the process of burst detection is also considered. The field data is from a generalised fixed area and variable area (FAVOR) test where inlet pressure is being stepped up and down and the following variables are measured: inlet flow, inlet pressure (head) and pressure at a number of selected sensitive nodes. The method has three stages and uses two different models, one is inlet flow model (IFM) to represent the total inlet flow and another is the extended hydraulic model to simulate different burst locations. Initially the presence of a potential burst is investigated. If this is confirmed precise values of the demand, background leakage flow and burst flow in IFM are subsequently estimated. They are used to identify the burst site at the third stage of the method. The method can be easily adapted for practical use. It requires data from experiments carried out at night between 1am and 5am and involves placing typically about 20 temporary loggers to collect the measurements during this period. It also requires the availability of a hydraulic model which normally is in the possession of a water company. The program has been implemented in the Matlab package and is easy to use. The current methodology is tuned to identify a single burst but can be generalised to identify locations of multiple bursts.

Multi-criteria decision aid has emerged from the operational research field as the answer given to a couple of important questions encountered in complex decisions problems. Firstly, as decision aiding tools, such methods do not replace the decision maker with a mathematical model, but support him to construct his solution by describing and evaluating his options. Secondly, instead of using a unique criterion capturing all aspects of the problem, in the multi-criteria decision aid methods one seeks to build multiple criteria, representing several points of view. This work explores the application of multi-criteria decision aid methods for optimising food chain countermeasure strategies after a radioactive release to the environment. The core of the thesis is dedicated to formulating general lines for the development of a multi-criteria decision aid model. This includes the definition of potential actions, construction of evaluation criteria and preference modelling and is essentially based on the results of a stakeholders’ process. The work is centred on the management of contaminated milk in order to provide a concrete focus and because of its importance as an ingestion pathway in short term after an accident. Among other issues, the public acceptance of milk countermeasures as a key evaluation criterion is analysed in detail. A comparison of acceptance based on stochastic dominance is proposed and, based on that, a countermeasures’ acceptance ranking is deduced. In order to assess “global preferences” taking into account all the evaluation criteria, an ordinal method is chosen. This method allows expressing the relative importance of criteria in a qualitative way instead of using, for instance, numerical weights. Some algorithms that can be used for robustness analysis are also proposed. This type of analysis is an alternative to sensitivity analysis in what concerns data uncertainty and imprecision and seeks to determine how and if a model result or conclusion obtained for a specific instance of a model’s parameters holds over the entire domain of acceptable values for these parameters. The integrated multi-criteria decision aid approach proposed makes use of outranking and interactive methodologies and is implemented and tested through a number of case studies and prototype tools.

In today’s world there are 2.6 billion people that lack basic sanitation (37% of world inhabitants). In August of 2012, Cranfield University was awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with $810,000 to produce a prototype of the Cranfield’s innovative Nano-membrane Toilet (NMT). Finally, the prototype is going to be exhibited at the “Reinvent the Toilet Fair” during 21st and 22nd of March 2014 in the Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi (India). Cranfield’s NMT demands electricity for its daily performance. Nevertheless, it is targeted to off-grid communities. Consequently, a human-powered generator (HPG) was selected as a backup solution. The current MSc by Research aimed to design and test of a prototype of the aforesaid HPG. Moreover, to promote its usage, a portable power supply unit is designed to store energy and power small-loads like charging mobile phones and electric lighting. To select the most suitable design for our case study, a methodology using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution has been developed. As a result the plugged-in bike HPG alternative was selected. Next, prototypes of this generator and the portable power supply unit were developed, tested and shipped for display. While testing of the plugged-in generator and portable power supply unit, 26 Watt-hours (Wh) were harvested over 15 minutes, with its corresponding average charging power of 105 Watts. Nevertheless, the present study concludes 96 Wh as a more accurate energy level to be harvested during one hour of pedalling. Considering 96 Wh of energy, a round-trip battery efficiency of 70% (lead-acid), and a NMT’s demand of 283 Wh; a 10 people household needs to pedal the HPG over 4 hours and 20 minutes. Nevertheless, if considering an 85% inverter efficiency, 57.12 Wh are available to fully charge one mobile phone (5.6 Wh) and provide 4.5 hours of room and desk lighting (11 Watts bulb).

Much research into assessment has concentrated on its role in learning and educational practice, issues relating to objectivity and reliability in assessment, and the political and policy implications of assessment more generally. The means by which assessors arrive at their judgement has received comparatively little attention and remains obscure. There has been a focus on factors relating to the product rather than the subjectively experienced process of assessment. A greater understanding of the process is important for the validity of assessment and its wider consequences for students and others. The aim of this study was to examine how assessors conceptualise and carry out the assessment of discursive writing produced by students in a higher education context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with experienced lecturers in health care subjects. The interviews and the data analysis were approached from within a hermeneutic phenomenological tradition, involving both description and interpretation. The participants' descriptions provided an analogue of what they thought they did cognitively as they assessed. These texts were then subjected to interpretation negotiated with participants to develop an understanding of the assessment process. There were two main findings relating to how participants carried out the process of assessment. Firstly, they made use of a framework of meanings that appeared in part to arise from the practice of evaluating in terms of grade-bands. These were viewed as having categorical identities with discontinuities between them, as opposed to representing ranges within a continuous scale. The data suggested that there were changes in the aspects of writing to which assessors paid attention (content versus argument/integration and components versus the whole), and the kinds of judgements they made (quantitative versus qualitative), at different points along the grade band scale. Secondly, the participants made use of six categories of processes during the course of performing an assessment. Some were objective and analytical while others were more subjective and integrative. They were not carried out sequentially, but appeared to be determined by the demands of the assessment task and to serve a function of simplification. The variety of processes within each category, their co-occurring usage and interdependence, and the selective use (or awareness) of processes by different assessors may help to explain some of the apparent complexity inherent in the assessment task, and the difficulty that experienced assessors demonstrate when trying to explain what it is they do and how they do it.

Even though information scientists generally recognize that relevance judgments are multidimensional and dynamic, there is still discussion and debate regarding the degree to which certain internal (cognition, personality) and external (situation, social relationships) factors affect the use of criteria in reaching those judgments. Much of the debate centers on the relationship of those factors to the criteria and reliable methods for measuring those relationships. This study researched the use of relevance criteria to select an information source by undergraduate students whose task it is to create a course schedule for a semester. During registration periods, when creating their semester schedules, students filled out a two-part questionnaire. After completion of the questionnaire the students completed a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator instrument in order to determine their personality type. Data was analyzed using one-way ANOVAS and Chi-Square. A positive correlation exists between personality type as expressed by the MBTI and the information source selected as most important by the subject. A correlation also exists between personality type and relevance criteria use. The correlation is stronger for some criteria than for others. Therefore, one can expect personality type to have an effect on the use of relevance criteria while selecting information sources.

Master of Science / Department of Apparel, Textiles, and Interior Design / Joy Kozar / China is the world’s largest apparel producer, exporter, and maintains the largest domestic apparel market. Since economic reform in the 1980s that opened up the Chinese market for foreign investors, China’s domestic apparel market has attracted many foreign (Western) apparel brands (Shenkar, 2005). More than 10,000 different international apparel brands share China’s domestic apparel market, including brands from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, Britain, and South Korea, among others. Around 2,000 Chinese domestic apparel brands have experienced difficultly surviving in China’s domestic apparel market. Besides the large number of foreign (Western) apparel brands, counterfeit apparel products have grown faster than China’s government can control. As a result, China has become the world’s largest counterfeit market. This has become a secondary threat to China’s domestic apparel market and national economy. Additionally, because of economic growth and modernization in China, Chinese consumers have accepted more Westernized values, but also retained their traditional face-saving values. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how their attitudes toward counterfeit apparel products, China’s domestic apparel brands, and foreign (Western) apparel brands are influenced by their level of perception about knowledge and attitudes toward counterfeit apparel products, face-saving values, materialistic values, and ethical values. This study utilized a sample of males and females between the ages of 18 and 64, who reside in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Wuhan, China. A questionnaire was utilized as part of this study and data was collected online by SOJUMP Survey Company. A total of 1,192 participants (736 males and 456 females) participated in this study. There are in total nine significant relationships that have been found in this study. First, the researcher found a positive relationship between Chinese consumers’ perception about knowledge of counterfeit apparel products and their attitudes about counterfeit apparel products. Second and third, the present study also discovered that Chinese consumers with favorable attitudes of foreign apparel brands or negative attitude of China’s domestic apparel brands would similarly hold positive attitudes of counterfeit apparel products. Fourth, the present scholar concluded that Chinese consumers with favorable attitudes of China’s domestic apparel brands tend to hold negative attitudes of counterfeit apparel products. Fifth and sixth, it was found that Chinese consumers with high level of face-saving values show positive attitudes of foreign (Western) apparel brands and counterfeit apparel products. Seventh, Chinese consumers with high level of face-saving values also possess strong materialistic values. Consequently Chinese consumers with strong materialistic values tend to hold positive attitudes of counterfeit apparel products and foreign (Western) apparel products, but negative attitudes of China’s domestic apparel brands. The findings of this study show that Chinese consumers have a very low level of perception about knowledge of counterfeit apparel products. It is necessary to connect educators, government, apparel industry, and brand owners to develop and enhance anti-counterfeit educational programs. These programs should clearly explain the perception about knowledge of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), trademark, and the negative causes of counterfeit products are warranted. Also, it is better for China’s domestic apparel brand companies to develop better brand images and improve product quality to meet Chinese consumers’ face-saving standards and materialistic values.

After a review of the theoretical justifications of the fiscal criteria and the different concepts of sustainability the fiscal position of the EU countries selected as members of the EMU is examined. Firstly, the assessment by the Commission and the EMI is critically reported. After identifying countries with successful consolidations and those without success conclusions about the implications for sustainability are drawn. It turns out that the effort towards fiscal consolidation is not yet over for a long time. Here, the Stability and Growth Pact draws the line. In particular in countries with presently very high debt to GDP ratios the next decade in the EMU could become a hard one. Secondly, macromodel simulations shall demonstrate how asymmetric shocks (one supply and one demand shock) may hamper the ambitions towards sustainability. Similarly, a single monetary policy can have detrimental effects when the business cycles are not synchronized in Euroland. This problem is touched upon with model simulations of a change of the common interest rate. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

This study examines the importance of relevance criteria in end-user evaluation of valuable or high relevant information.

Five learning measures used in a skills training program were related to three types of job performance measures for a sample of 163 oil field employees. Statistical analyses resulted in only modest correlations between learning and job performance criteria. Factor analyses of learning measures followed by multiple regression on factors yielded a significant R with only one criterion measure. It was concluded from these data that the training program was of minimal value. The discussion centered on strategies for better training, training research, job engineering, and correcting the two limitations of this study.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, humanitarian intervention became an important pillar in the emerging new world order. From 1989 to 1995, 96 violent civil confrontations have occurred, but 91 of them did not result in humanitarian interventions. Here comes the question: Why? Why there were interventions in Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo and not in Rwanda, the Sudan, and Tajikistan? These are the main questions that the following study aims to answer. Particularly, the issue of American humanitarian intervention is scrutinized. The casual factors of interventions are examined to explain the selectivity of American Humanitarianism. Furthermore, a theory building is initiated to outline a model of variables which will allow to explain the combination of which casual factors leads to which form of intervention or non-intervention.