This thesis attempts to apply the Representative Bureaucracy theory established and developed within the Public Administration scholarship addressing the lack of formal accountability of bureaucratic bodies on the case of the largest international bureaucracy in the world - the United Nations Secretariat. It builds on the normative presumption that it is necessary to staff the bureaucracy proportionally from all the societal groups so that it reflected the values of the society in whole and the policy outcomes corresponded to those produced if all the society participated in the process. Accordingly, we aspire to find out whether the UN Secretariat is a representative sample of the world population in terms of its bureaucrats' national affiliation, and, if not, what are the factors associated with a better relative representation of a Member State in the UN Secretariat. Through the usage of descriptive statistics tools and Ordinary Least Squares Multiple Linear Regression, we find out that the per capita representation of different Member States in the UN Secretariat is by no means equal and, thus, the UN Secretariat is not a representative sample of the world population. Moreover, the research identified internal capacity of a country to ensure wellbeing and opportunities of its people and low...

The purpose of this study is to examine the investment behaviour of women during the current recession and how demographic factors impact psychological biases related to investment behaviour. This research aims to examine the impact of age, marital status, education, income, cultural background and financial literacy on various biases such as overconfidence, confirmation bias, herding behaviour, representativeness bias, anchoring bias, risk- and loss aversion.  A questionnaire was conducted to collect data, resulting in a dataset of 558 observations. Using a deductive approach, based on theories of thirty-six hypotheses was tested using ordered logistic regression analysis. The primary findings revealed multiple connections between the demographic profiles of female investors and their investment behaviours, concerning psychological biases. Furthermore, this paper contributes to the ongoing debate about the relationship between investment behaviour and economic recession and provides stakeholders with valuable insights to tailor their communications and strategies to engage female investors. By analysing existing behavioural finance theories and empirical data, the study aims to improve understanding of women's investment preferences and attitudes across different demographic groups. Finally, the study aims to increase women's interest in managing their wealth and improving their financial decisions.

Ce document présente la mise en place d’un système de mesure des éclairements énergétiques spectraux solaires pour tout type de temps, sur 4 plans. Les 4 spectromètres mesurent au total 900 spectres/min et produisent chacun un spectre/min moyen et son écart type. Entre 2014 et 2015, 700 000 spectres ont été enregistrés sur un domaine compris entre 400 et 1000 nm avec un pas ≤1 nm. Un échantillon de 145 000 spectres représentatifs du climat lyonnais a été sélectionné pour une analyse statistique. Pour ce faire, l’échantillon a été réduit par partitionnement à 1175 spectres. Son domaine spectral a été étendu de 280 à 1500 nm à l’aide du RTM SMARTS. Une ACP de cet échantillon extrapolé a permis d’en réduire la description à 3 composantes et ainsi de réviser le modèle des illuminants D de la CIE. Enfin, la relation entre composition spectrale et paramètres environnementaux ou colorimétriques ouvre une voie vers des modèles statistiques de génération de spectres du rayonnement solaire. / This manuscript presents the design and setup of an all-weather spectral irradiance measurement system on 4 planes. The 4 spectrometers measure a total of 900 spectra/min to produce every minute, a mean spectral irradiance and its standard deviation. Between 2014 and 2015, this system recorded 700,000 spectra, for wavelengths ranging between 400 and 1,000 nm with a step ≤1 nm. A sample of 145,000 spectra representative of the Lyon climate was selected for statistical analysis. For this purpose, the sample was reduced in size by partitioning it in 1,175 spectra. Its spectral domain was extended to 280-1,500 nm by extrapolating the spectra with curve fitting using the SMARTS2 RTM. A PCA of the extrapolated sample reduced its description to only 3 components; hence, allowing a revision of the CIE’s illuminant D series. Finally, the relation between spectral power distribution and environmental or colorimetric parameters opens a way towards statistical models for generating solar spectra.

La place des acteurs sociaux lors de l’élaboration de la norme sociale légiférée se caractérise par une absence de reconnaissance constitutionnelle. L’autorité étatique est néanmoins consciente des vertus de la négociation collective. Même si la pratique existait auparavant, les pouvoirs publics ont permis de développer la négociation collective pré légiférante grâce principalement à l’introduction des articles L.1 à L.3 du Code du travail par la loi du 31 janvier 2007, conçus à l’image des procédures existantes en droit de l’Union européenne. L’association des acteurs sociaux au processus d’élaboration de la norme sociale a donc été favorisée. Pour autant, l’association des acteurs sociaux n’est pas totale. Le renforcement de leur légitimité est passé par une refonte du droit de la représentativité et du processus d’élaboration de la norme sociale mais une concurrence de légitimité est toujours visible entre une légitimité professionnelle détenue par les acteurs sociaux et une autre institutionnelle détenue par le Parlement. Au-delà du constat de l’association des acteurs sociaux au processus d’élaboration de la norme sociale, leur instrumentalisation semble avérée. Concernant la mise en œuvre de la loi négociée, la participation des acteurs sociaux à l’œuvre du législateur a été renforcée dans de nombreuses lois sociales. La répartition des compétences passe toujours par le législateur qui décide de laisser le pouvoir règlementaire dans les mains du pouvoir exécutif ou de le confier aux acteurs sociaux. Il est clair que les acteurs sociaux ne sont pas totalement libres lors de la mise en œuvre de la norme sociale même si la règle de la supplétivité est largement favorisée aujourd’hui. Lors du contrôle de la norme sociale négociée, les acteurs sociaux ont un rôle second alors qu’ils sont experts de l’application de la loi qu’ils ont négocié. Dans cette perspective, dans le processus de mise en œuvre de la norme négociée ils sont instrumentalisés par les pouvoirs publics. / The involvement of social actors in the legislative making of labour norms is not enshrined in the French Constitution. The State is nevertheless aware of the virtues of collective bargaining. Although it existed in practice before, the government has enhanced the development of prelegislative collective bargaining, mainly through the adoption of the law of January 31st 2007 that resulted in the introduction of articles L.1 to L.3 in the Labour Code, a process that was designed to mirror existing EU law procedures. As a consequence, the participation of social actors in the making of labour norms has been favoured. But this does not necessarily imply their full participation. The consolidation of their legitimacy is also the result of a redesign of the rules governing representativeness and the law making process in the labour field in general. However, a competition between the professional legitimacy of social actors and the institutional legitimacy of Parliament still exists. So, going beyond the simple acknowledgment of the involvement of social actors in the making of labour norms, we demonstrate that they have been instrumentalised. The role of social actors alongside the legislator in the implementation of such negotiated laws has been strengthened in many legislative instances. But Parliament is still in charge of dividing competences between social actors and the government when it comes to the attribution of regulatory powers, it can decide whether those powers should remain in the hands of the latter or should be entrusted to the former. It is clear that social actors are not entirely free when it comes to implementing social norms, although the use of suppletive rules is encouraged today. During control of the implementation of those negotiated laws, social actors play only a secondary role despite their expertise on the matter. In that respect, we conclude that their instrumentalisation is also established when it comes to the implementation of negotiated labour norms.

Behavioral operations management (BOM) has gained popularity in the last two decades. The main theme in this new stream of research is to include the human behavior in Operations Management (OM) models to increase the effectiveness of such models. BOM is classified into 4 areas: cognitive psychology, social psychology, group dynamics and system dynamics (Bendoly et al. 2010). This dissertation will focus on the first class, namely cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is further classified into heuristics and biases. Tversky and Kahneman (1974) discussed 3 heuristics and 13 cognitive biases that usually face decision makers. This dissertation is going to study 6 cognitive biases under the representativeness heuristic. The model in this dissertation states that cognitive reflection of the individual (Frederick 2005) and training about cognitive biases in the form of warning (Kaufmann and Michel 2009) will help decisions’ makers make less biased decisions. The 6 cognitive biases investigated in this dissertation are insensitivity to prior probability, insensitivity to sample size, misconception of chance, insensitivity to predictability, the illusion of validity and misconception of regression. 6 scenarios in OM contexts have been used in this study. Each scenario corresponds to one cognitive bias. Experimental design has been used as the research tool. To see the impact of training, one group of the participants received the scenarios without training and the other group received them with training. The training consists of a brief description of the cognitive bias as well as an example of the cognitive bias. Cognitive reflection is operationalized using cognitive reflection test (CRT). The survey was distributed to students at University of North Texas (UNT). Logistic regression has been employed to analyze data. The research shows that participants show the cognitive biases proposed by Tversky and Kahneman. Moreover, CRT is significant factor to predict the cognitive bias in two scenarios. Finally, providing training in terms of warning helps participants to make more rational decisions in 4 scenarios. This means that although cognitive biases are inherent in the mind of people, management of corporations has the tool to educate its managers and professionals about such biases which helps companies make more rational decisions.

Bibliographic record PROKOP, Daniel. (2012). Election polls in the Czech Republic: Methodological Optimization. Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institut of Sociological Studies. Thesis academic consultant: Mgr. Jindřich Krejčí, Ph.D. Abstract The thesis focuses on the election-polls and prediction of election results in the Czech Republic. Using data of research company MEDIAN s.r.o. from face-to-face (CAPI) and telephone interviewing (CATI) in election year 2010 it examines possibilities of methodological optimizations which could lead to reducing systematic bias and discrepancies of pre-election polls the election results. In particular, it discusses these methodological solutions: mix-mode data collection (combination of CATI and CAPI), data weighting focused on specific factors correlated with voting behavior, including preferences of undecided voters, prediction of the respondents' participation in elections, election-polls results time-series smoothing. Based on these analyses the thesis tries to articulate general findings which could be fruitful in discussion about Czech election-polls and their methodology in general. In the thesis, basic and advanced statistic methods (CART, exponential smoothing, etc.) are being used to achieve given research goals. Keywords: election...

台灣地區的民主化過程一直是中外學者注視的焦點。在長期實行民選地方政府或地方自治的台灣，真正是一個民主的社會嗎？在解嚴、動戡時期終止前，很容易回答，由於沒有組黨自由，中央民代選舉只是部分的增額改選，台灣的全國政治並不能達到民主社會的基本標準。但是，地方選舉則是長期地、完整地在舉行，要回答台灣地方是否民主，仍很難輕易地給予答案。地方民主是如此複雜、多樣化的面貌，如何才算達成地方民主？本論文基本上是以Leach和Percy-Smith所提出的地方民主的四個面向為標準，此即：1、課責性；2、回應性；3、參與性；4、代表性；進而探討。 筆者研究後發現：第一，從台北市的民主經驗來看，代表性應該不是問題的癥結；所謂的代表性是否意味著該和R. A. Dahl所言的，和社會人口或職業的結構相符合？在地方民主上來看，由於社會的多元化，以及要求民意代表的專業及高學歷背景，代表社會結構的多元民主（polyarchy）是否值得再強調？可以深思。第二，從台北市的民主經驗來看，參與性應該是地方民主很重要的一項指標。如何讓民眾更直接的參與到民主政治中，除了選舉之外，應該有更多的、直接的交換意見的平台或管道，例如公民投票、公民論壇、協調會等等。第三，地方民主的參與和地方政府的回應性夾雜在一塊，民眾參與到政策討論的領域中，政府也加入予以回應。所以，地方民主中，回應性與參與性似乎呈現某種程度的關聯性。第四，不論是參與性、回應性等民主的程度，都與政府能力有關，似乎地方政府解決問題的能力越高，民眾就越會表現出對於地方政府做為的參與，以及政策的回應。

<p>With rising temperatures, urbanization, population growth, improving economic wellbeing, decarbonization and electrification efforts, the demand for space cooling and heating equipment is continuously increasing around the world. To counteract the effect of rising demand for air conditioners and heat pumps on total energy consumption, peak electricity demand, and emissions, it is crucial to promote the development and market penetration of energy-efficient systems. Establishing minimum energy performance standards (MEPS), energy labeling and utility programs are some of the effective and tested methods for achieving this goal. The technical basis for these energy efficiency standards is a testing and rating procedure for estimating equipment seasonal performance from laboratory tests. Although the current rating procedures provide standardized metrics to compare different equipment performances, they fail to appropriately characterize the field representative performance of systems by not considering the effects of: 1) test unit embedded controls, thermostat, and realistic interactions with the building load and dynamics; 2) different climate zones and building types; and 3) and other integrated accessories for improving energy efficiency such as economizer for rooftop units (RTUs). Therefore, current approaches for performance ratings neither incentives the development and implementation of improved system and control designs nor consumers with a metric that represents the advanced systems' actual energy savings. To address this, a load-based testing methodology that enables dynamic performance evaluation of equipment with its integrated controls, thermostat, and other accessories was recently proposed. The test methodology is based on the concept of emulating the response of a representative building conditioned by the test unit in a test lab using a virtual building model. </p> <p>In this work, the proposed load-based testing methodology was further extended, evaluated, and validated for residential heat pumps to integrate it into next-generation energy efficiency testing and rating procedures and to serve as a tool for engineers to develop and validate improved control algorithms in a laboratory setting. Further, a load-based testing method for evaluating the dynamic performance of RTUs with integrated economizers was also developed and demonstrated.</p> <p>A load-based testing approach previously developed for residential cooling equipment is extended for heat pump heating-mode and demonstrated for a variable-speed system. The heat pump's typical dynamic behaviors are captured along with controller imperfections that aren't reflected in current testing approaches. Further, a comprehensive comparison was performed between the proposed load-based testing approach to the current steady-state testing approach in the U.S., AHRI 210/240, based on performance evaluation of three residential variable-speed heat pumps to understand the differences and their significance for the next-generation rating procedure. For cooling mode, steady-state testing estimates higher seasonal performance, but for heating mode, the steady-state testing approach estimates higher seasonal performance for warmer climates and is comparable for colder climates. The load-based testing methodology was validated by comparing the laboratory performance of a heat pump to that of a residential building in a controlled environment. The virtual building modeling approach for building loads and thermal dynamics effectively captured these characteristics of the house. The heat pump's cycling rate response with run-time fraction, which represents the unit's overall dynamic response, matched well between lab load-based tests and house tests. The test unit's COP difference for cooling and heating tests was within 3% between the two facilities, except for 9% in 95°F and 6% in 104°F cooling dry-coil test intervals. To evaluate the applicability of the developed load-based testing methodology as next-generation rating standards, its repeatability and reproducibility were assessed based on multiple heat pump round-robin tests conducted in two labs. Overall, reasonable to good repeatability was observed in load-based test results in both labs, however, poor reproducibility was observed except for one heat pump heating mode results. A root cause analysis of the observed differences along with recommendations for a next-generation rating approach are presented. This work aided in the development of a CSA (Canadian Standards Association) standard EXP07:19 and its subsequent revision for equipment rating based on load-based testing.</p> <p>The application of the load-based testing methodology as a tool for the development and evaluation of a residential heat pump controller design was demonstrated. Further, a load-based testing methodology was developed and demonstrated for the dynamic performance evaluation of RTUs with integrated economizers in a test laboratory setting. Recommendations for future work to further develop and improve the repeatability, reproducibility, and representativeness of the load-based testing and rating approach for residential and commercial air conditioners and heat pumps are summarized at the end of the dissertation. </p>