Kuwait’s per capita electrical energy consumption is among the largest in the world, reaching 13,663 kWh per person in 2011. The electricity demand in Kuwait is increasing, which requires additional investments in power generation. A particular challenge in Kuwait is the peak demand in summer, when extreme heat increases air conditioning loads. Peak demand reached 11,220 MW in 2011, with a fast growth rate averaging 5.6% over the last decade and a maximum production capacity of around 14,720 MW. It is not possible to cope with this demand simply by increasing generation capacity. Therefore, the only alternative available to Kuwait is to control electricity demand via demand-side management. The main objective of this research is to assess and select the optimal demand- side management (DSM) technologies for buildings in the governmental sector (office, religious and school buildings) and to investigate the key factors in the evaluation process. To achieve the research objective, a model was proposed using multi-criteria decision-making techniques to enable the forecasting and comparison of DSM alternatives that are suitable for buildings. The developed model includes environmental, economic, technical and social considerations. The research methodology is based on three main phases. Phase 1: Data collection through a mail questionnaire that was sent to 42 experts for the identification of criteria and demand-side management alternatives. Phase 2: Screening and narrowing of the data collected in Phase 1 using a set of questionnaires, including the identification of potential DSM alternatives and criteria suitable for further analysis. This phase was performed through the Delphi process, taking into consideration the opinions of 28 experts. Phase 3: Use of Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques, namely the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP), to evaluate and rank the identified DSM alternatives and criteria. This was done using pairwise comparisons of 17 experts to evaluate the criteria and alternatives for the buildings (office, religious and school). The research showed that the experts identified six alternative technologies and five criteria for the selection and evaluation of governmental buildings (office, religious and school). After performing the three phases of this research project, a set of criteria and alternatives were ranked based on the information gathered from every group of experts. It was found that reduction in consumption, capital cost and ease of implementation were the three most recommended criteria for the selection of DSM technologies in Kuwait government buildings while high efficiency lighting and programmable thermostats were identified as the most recommended DSM technologies for these buildings. An important aspect of this research is that unlike engineering approaches which sometimes depend on expensive test equipment or, often for building design, expensive computer modelling exercises, the proposed framework can be easily adopted by anyone without any significant financial cost. The FAHP approach was also tested and its results compared with those of AHP. There was a slight difference between using AHP and FAHP in terms of ranking the criteria and alternatives but that the difference barely affects the ranking. It was found that the AHP provides a convenient MCDM approach for solving the complex problem of selecting the optimal DSM options for buildings. The contributions of this thesis are the development of a novel framework for systematic selection and ranking of DSM technologies in different types of buildings using the Delphi method and AHP; the identification of the most important DSM technologies and criteria for their selection for three types of governmental buildings in Kuwait; and establishing that results from using AHP and FAHP for the selection of appropriate DSM measures in these buildings are almost identical, so use of AHP is likely to be sufficient in most building studies of this type.

This dissertation sets out to explore the animal presence in the novels of contemporary French writer Michel Houellebecq. Focusing on this often overlooked aspect in the growing number of publications dedicated to Houellebecq’s literary production, this study argues that the presence of animals is central to understanding how his novels are structured around borders between not only animals and humans but also between humans themselves. By pitting animals against humans the novels simultaneously show how these borders are created within the narratives only to be repeatedly broken down and/or transgressed. Whereas in previous research a posthumanvision in Houellebecq’s works has been largely attributed to the theme of a technological surpassing of the human, this study advances the idea that animals constitute an inherent part of Houellebecq’s questioning of an anthropocentric worldview. The first chapter of the thesis, which lays the foundation for the study, explores how descriptions structure two major ways in which animals are present: either as a backdrop setting where the characters, while trying to maintain the border between themselves and animals, are transformed into observers of animals in their natural habitat, or as metaphors used to describe appearances and seemingly unwanted personality traits of some of the characters. The second chapter expands on the idea of a frontier between animals and humans but contrary to the previous chapter it studies the porosity of these borders by showing how humans and animals are depicted and narrated in similar ways. Drawing on the theories of Giorgio Agamben, Dominique Lestel and Tristan Garcia the study concludes by proposing to read Houellebecq’s novels both as a form of life stories relating a common history between animals and humans and as an attempt to highlight the untenable project of maintaining an anthropocentric worldview.

The relationship between measures of temperament, growth performance, and social hierarchy in finishing beef cattle were explored in two experiments. In experiment 1, high OCS (objective chute score) steers had periods of significantly higher ADG (P < 0.01), but OCS had no relationship with dominance ranking (P > 0.47). Conversely, slow exit velocity (EV) correlated with higher ranking (P ≤ 0.06), but EV had no relationship with performance (P > 0.37) in a competitive environment. Rank showed no relationship with performance (P > .58). In experiment 2, steers with fast EV had periods of decreased growth (P ≤ .06), intake (P ≤ .06), and gain:feed (G:F; P = 0.02). There were no interactions between EV, OCS, and monensin or between EV and monensin. Monensin and EV together, however, significantly impacted overall (days 0 – end) G:F (P = 0.02) and gain (P = 0.05). Overall, these studies further confirm the idea that EV affects performance as does OCS in concert with monensin. Moreover, it further confirms that different measures of temperament correlated to different aspects of performance and should not be lumped together under the general term “temperament” when describing its relationship with performance.

This thesis proposes a holistic and hierarchical architecture to Multi-agent System design, in order to resolve the collaboration problem in diabetic healthcare system. A diabetic healthcare system is a complex and social system in the case that it involves many actors and interrelations. Collaborations among various healthcare actors are vital to the quality of diabetic healthcare. The collaboration problem is manifested by the problems of accessibility and interoperability. To support the collaboration in diabetic healthcare as such a complex and social system, the MAS must have corresponding social entities and relationships. Therefore, it is assumed that theories explaining social activity can be applied to design of MAS. Activity Theory, specifically its holistic triangle model from Engström and hierarchy thinking, provides theoretical supports to the design of individual agent architecture and MAS coordination mechanism. It is argued that the holistic and hierarchical aspects should be designed in a MAS when applied to the healthcare setting. The diabetic healthcare system is analyzed on three levels based on the hierarchy thinking. The collaboration problem is analyzed and resolved via MAS coordination. Based on the holistic activity model in Activity Theory, Müller’s Vertical Layered Architecture is re-conceptualized in the Control Unit and Knowledge Base design. It is also argued that autonomy, adaptivity and persona should be especially focused when designing the interaction between an agent system and human users. This study has firstly identified some important social aspects and the technical feasibility of embedding those identified social aspects in agent architecture design. Secondly, a MAS was developed to illustrate how to apply the proposed architecture to design a MAS to resolve the collaboration problem in diabetic healthcare system. We have designed and implemented an agent system – IMAS (Integrated Multi-agent System) to validate the research questions and contributions. IMAS system provides real time monitoring, diabetic healthcare management and decision supports to the diabetic healthcare actors. A user assessment has been conducted to validate that the quality of the current diabetic healthcare system can be improved with the introduction of IMAS.

分析層級程序法在產品刪除決策之應用 / The recent explosion of product management in consumer packaged goods has highlighted the importance of product assortment decisions. In particular, firms are increasingly faced with the decision of which products to delete from distribution. Upon reflection, there are both strategic and tactical dimensions to this decision. Strategic approaches focus on the development of optimal product assortments as the basis for deletion decisions. Tactical approaches address incremental (i.e., item-by- item) decisions whether to delete any product, and if so, which product. This thesis focuses on tactical approaches and proposes using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a systematic and analytic tool that helps to quantify the managerial judgments in identifying the candidates for product deletion. Supported by a practical case study, which illustrates how AHP can be beneficial in quantifying both financial and non-financial product performance rankings for managers’ easier understanding and higher transparency of product deletion decision-making.

<p>The aim of this work is to define the party structure of Feministic Initiative (FI). We want to examine the structure of an organization that doesn’t start out with a hierarchical order. We further intend to examine the party’s leadership; whether or not it is equal, between the three spokespersons.We find it interesting as a topic from a democratic point of view as well as to see if a flat structure could work in practice. We use several theories among them Michel’s “iron law of oligarchy” and Holmberg’s and Söderlind’s theory on flat organizations. There is modest research on leadership in Swedish political science; we therefore consider it important to highlight. Shared leadership is interesting to examine, for it might be an alternative to the traditional order.We use a mixed-methodology based upon qualitative interviews and text analysis. We have interviewed the three spokespersons and examined materials like official weekly letters written by the spokespersons and the party’s constitution.The result shows that a flat structure is hard to carry out in practise and it appears that some form of hierarchical order appears in the party structure. Despite efforts towards equality the shared leadership is not totally equal.</p>

Adaptive tutorial dialogues have been successfully employed by ITSs to facilitate deep learning of conceptual domain knowledge. But none of the approaches used for generating dialogues have been used across instructional domains and tasks. The objective of this project was twofold: (i) to propose a general model that provides adaptive dialogue support in both well- and ill-defined instructional tasks (ii) to explore whether adaptive tutorial dialogues are better than non-adaptive dialogues in acquiring domain knowledge. Our model provides adaptive dialogue support by identifying the concepts that the student has most difficulty with, and then selecting the tutorial dialogues corresponding to those concepts. The dialogues are customised based on the student’s knowledge and explanation skills, in terms of the length and the exact content of the dialogue. The model consists of three parts: an error hierarchy, tutorial dialogues and rules for adapting them. We incorporated our model into EER-Tutor, a constraint-based tutor that teaches database design. The effectiveness of adaptive dialogues compared to non-adaptive dialogues in learning this ill-defined task was evaluated in an authentic classroom environment. The results revealed that the acquisition of the domain knowledge (represented as constraints) of the experimental group who received adaptive dialogues was significantly higher than their peers in the control group with non-adaptive dialogues. We also incorporated our model into NORMIT, a constraint-based tutor that teaches data normalization. We repeated the experiment using NORMIT in a real-world class room environment with a much smaller group of students (18 in NORMIT study vs 65 in EER-Tutor study) but did not find significant differences. We also investigated whether our model could support dialogues in logical database design and fraction addition using paper-based methods. Our evaluation studies and investigations on paper indicated that our model can provide adaptive support for both ill-and well-defined tasks associated with a well-defined domain theory. The results also indicated that adaptive dialogues are more effective than non-adaptive dialogues in teaching the ill-defined task of database design.

This thesis focuses on change and persistence of the structure of the international system. It attempts to address the question why hierarchic structures prevailed during the Ancient and Classical eras (3000 B. C. ? 1500 A. D. ). The thesis compares and contrasts the Roman Empire (the Pax Romana period 1st century B. C. -3rd century A. D. ) and the Chinese Empire (the T?ang Dynasty 618-907 A. D. ) as hierarchic structures and the multi-state system of ancient Greece (8th-4th century B. C. ) and the multi-state system of ancient China (The Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Period 722-221 B. C. ) as anarchic structures. The thesis suggests that the moral purpose of the state, the competitive security environment, the desire for benefits and geopolitical and strategic advantages played the major role in the immediate transformation from anarchy to hierarchy. The thesis asserts that the generation of common goods, the decline in transaction costs and the success in securing the commitment of the members and the legitimacy of the system enabled and encouraged the persistence of hierarchic structures. It also re-emphasizes that whereas the persistence of hierarchic systems depends on the existence of several factors, only one factor can promote the persistence of anarchic structures e. g. the moral purpose of the state.

This study revolves around calculating the extent of appearance of both anonymously and named men and women as well as determining whether or not Yvonne Hirdman’s gender theory is applicable on two versions of a Swedish educational history textbook called Epos: historia: för gymnasieskolans kurs A (2008) and Epos [historia] 1b (2012), published for two different curriculum. Our qualitative investigation of two parts of the book’s content proves that the two principles of gender system are present in both books, although to a lesser extent in the latter version. Calculating the material, results have shown that anonymous men and women are almost equally presented in Epos 2012, which is not the case in the 2008 version. However, studying the extent of named men and women, we can determine that male characters are overrepresented in both versions, with a total of 80 % of all persons named in the books being of the male gender. To further problematize our material, we discuss how the student’s identity, based on E.H. Erikson’s theory of identity, could be affected by the subject matter content. We believe that it can be malicious to student’s self-image, and that it is the teacher’s responsibility to debate with the students about how the gender system’s two principles are present in our society.

This paper is exploring return migration in Sweden by implementing logistic regression technics on the cohort born 1978. In order to evaluate how socio-economic and geographical characteristics influence individuals propensities to re-circulate to the municipality of origin. Previous studies have indicated that socio-economic status is a selective trait that can either push or pull return migrants, depending on the setting. The theory of urban hierarchies was also applied to investigate if people were more likely to move back to certain region types. The calculations showed that 22 % of the movers had returned to their place of origin, with regional variations ranging from 18-30 %. The regression result revealed that a high socio-economic status decreased the likelihood of returning, while growing up in metropolitan city and having strong social capital in the place of origin increased the propensity. The findings were further supporting that movers have higher incomes than stayers, while return migrants gained less on their re-location in relation to all movers. I argue that these varying likelihoods depend on structural socio-economic divisions, which are pulling human capital to the metropolitan regions and causing a brain drain in the periphery. These population trends are replicating themselves over time and it is assumed that these processes are to enforce the regional disparities in the future.