abstract: This project uses the tools of speculative climate fiction to explore and imagine the future of the United Nations climate negotiations in each of the five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios. Climate fiction (cli-fi) proves a powerful but imperfect tool for envisioning future challenging and turning scientific models into meaningful narratives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Sustainability 2020

This thesis deals with the influence of changes in the surrounding of development project area on its return. This is done in the form of defining the main areas of environmental change. These are based on exploration of the possibilities of urban development, the development process and the methods of its evaluation. From them, possible scenarios are put together, determined their predictability, identified aspects that can affect them and the stages of the process when they can occur. These scenarios are eventually verified on specific projects.

The thesis deals with the analysis of the macroeconomic, market and intern environment of corporations in order to analyze the appropriate time to establish a new company or to invest into an existing economical subject. For this purpose the qualitative modeling was used. Thanks to this method there is a possibility to predict the future development of the factors that have an influence on rentability of companies. The choice of variables is the same as with the ones that are analyzed in the process of evaluation rating.

Der Einsatz von E-Tutoren als Lernbegleiter in komplexen E-Learning-Szenarien sowie deren positive Wirkung auf die Lernenden wird in der Literatur vielfach diskutiert. Das SMWK-geförderte Projekt E‑TuPrax (07/2013-12/2014) knüpfte an diesen Diskurs unmittelbar an. Es hatte u.a. zum Ziel, die Rolle der E-Tutoren in komplexen E-Learning-Szenarien an sächsischen Hochschulen zu erproben und stärker zu professionalisieren. Um dies zu erreichen, wurden insgesamt 33 speziell qualifizierte E-Tutoren in zwei standortübergreifenden E-Learning-Szenarien des IHI Zittau eingesetzt und beforscht. Die dabei gewonnenen Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen flossen in ein ganzheitliches Konzept für den Einsatz von E-Tutoren in der sächsischen Hochschullehre ein.

Reference BOYANOVA, Pavlina. Scenarios of Future EU-Britain Defence Cooperation. Prague, 2020. Master's thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Security Studies. Abstract Brexit day may have passed, but we know too little about what form the future relationship between the EU and the UK will assume. This thesis explores several scenarios for an EU-Britain cooperation post-Brexit, focusing in particular on the partnership in defence policy. It considers defence cooperation (1) within the EU defence framework, (2) relations within the NATO framework, (3) structured cooperation outside the EU framework and the NATO framework, (4) bilateral ties between the UK and EU member states and (5) non-cooperation. The author combines analytic eclectism with a qualitative interpretative research design to evaluate each scenario against a series of theoretically-informed empirical expectations regarding governments' decisions to pursue defence jointly. It puts forward a theoretical framework that includes factors, such as strategic culture, foreign-political postures and attitudes towards European integration as potential explanations for the post- Brexit dynamics of defence cooperation. Keywords Brexit, Britain, European Union, defence, cooperation, scenarios

With the ever-pressing threat of a climate crisis, the EU has decided to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. This in turn will require the road transportation sector to make a transition from fossil dependent to fossil-free vehicles. Sweden has the objective to become net positive in GHG emissions by 2045. To be on track to reach this goal, the GHG emissions of the domestic transport sector must be reduced by 70% by 2030 compared to 2017’s levels. Electric vehicles (EVs) are leading the way in the transition to fossil-free vehicles. To further springboard the diffusion of EVs, the development of a fully functional EV charging network is required. In order to assist the transition to electric vehicles, this report aims to analyse the development of the public fast charging infrastructure in Norrland and Svealand from now to 2030. Additionally, identify geographical areas where an expansion of the public EV fast charging network is needed to cover the future demand of electrified passenger cars. However, there are two major hurdles in building a fast charging network with full coverage. The first is the high monthly costs of providing fast charging which needs a certain utilisation rate to cover the expenses. The second hurdle is the difficulty to receive a grid connection, in certain areas, at the required power output to be able to provide EV fast charging. Therefore, a semi-mobile battery solution used for EV charging is analysed through a business model perspective. The semi-mobile battery solution requires a lower grid connection hence it could be possible to implement public EV fast charging at a lower monthly cost and to develop the public EV fast charging network in otherwise technical difficult areas. A mixed-method approach including both quantitative and qualitative elements was utilised. Primarily, a study of 10 interviews with respondents from a range of different fields connected to EV charging and batteries was performed in combination with a literature review and document analysis. In addition, existing traffic flow data and data of fast-charging infrastructure, were converged via ArcGIS Pro to illustrate the coverage of the fast charging network. Furthermore, projections of the development of the EV fleet were used in order to forecast the flow of EVs in Norrland and Svealand by 2030. Based on these forecasts the future demand of public EV fast charging was analysed. Resulting in a map showing areas of interest, where there will arise a need to expand the charging infrastructure. These areas are Umeå to Piteå, Lycksele with proximity, Bollnäs to Ljusdal and Leksand to Älvdalen. Additionally, the exiting public fast charging infrastructure was identified to require expansion of existing charging stations due to the increased traffic flow of EVs by 2030. The upgrade of existing stations was further assessed to be required to meet both a permanent and seasonal demand, hence making semi-mobile battery supported charging an attractive solution. Furthermore, the design of a semi-mobile battery supporting public EV fast charging was identified to be influenced by situational aspects and that the location-specific conditions were vital in determining profitability for a specific case. For example, the power output in the EV chargers should be adapted to the specifications of the geographical location and the customer segment identified. The energy storage capacity of the battery should also be designed based on the conditions of the location. A connection to the electricity grid exceeding 0.1 MW was also important since it enables the semi-mobile battery to provide additional services to the electricity grid and hence increase revenue streams. Furthermore, FCR-D Up was determined to be the most suitable complementary service to integrate into the system. One major challenge for the semi-mobile battery, based on a business model perspective, is the high costs for semi-mobile batteries and EV fast charging station hardware. However, these costs are projected to continue to decrease and consequently, improve the opportunities for semi-mobile lithium-ion batteries.

Modern camera-based vehicle safety systems heavily rely on machine learning and consequently require large amounts of training data to perform reliably. However, collecting and annotating the needed data is an extremely expensive and time-consuming process. In addition, it is exceptionally difficult to collect data that covers critical scenarios. This thesis investigates to what extent synthetic data can replace real-world data for these scenarios. Since only a limited amount of data consisting of such real-world scenarios is available, this thesis instead makes use of proxy scenarios, e.g. situations when pedestrians are located closely in front of the vehicle (for example at a crosswalk). The presented approach involves training a detector on real-world data where all samples of these proxy scenarios have been removed and compare it to other detectors trained on data where the removed samples have been replaced with various degrees of synthetic data. A method for generating and automatically and accurately annotating synthetic data, using features in the CARLA simulator, is presented. Also, the domain gap between the synthetic and real-world data is analyzed and methods in domain adaptation and data augmentation are reviewed. The presented experiments show that aligning statistical properties between the synthetic and real-world datasets distinctly mitigates the domain gap. There are also clear indications that synthetic data can help detect pedestrians in critical traffic situations / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

Continentality of climate is one of the basic climate phenomena, describing the climate at current place according to annual changes of basic meteorological elements such as temperature, precipitation, etc. Its measure is usually expressed by indices and is being determined either according to observations using collected data or simulated by climate models. The goal is usually to determine the ability of climate models to represent the present state of climate and to determine and analyse the scenarios of future evolvement for Europe as an examined area. In present diploma thesis are briefly introduced terms like continentality, its indices, global and regional climate models, the ERA-Interim reanalysis, as well as the EURO-CORDEX iniciative. Subsequently individual simulations are processed, analysed and compared with the observations according to the E-OBS dataset.

A growing body of research is calling for radical transformation of society to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change and create a more sustainable and just future. To make this possible, climate researcher will need new approaches and methods that help envision and enable transformations. In this thesis I explore how transformative scenario studies can incorporate critical social theory to enable more reflexive and actionable results. I develop climate change scenarios for a Swedish municipality and adopt a novel combination of the Manoa method and causal layered analysis. This methodological contribution, combining the creativity of the Manoa method and critical perspective of causal layered analysis, is coupled with a transdisciplinary approach. Through collaboration with local actors, including political, private, and civil society representatives, the study maximizes the relevance of the results to the local community. Building on the area’s cultural heritage of oral storytelling, the final scenarios are developed in collaboration with local storytellers and presented back to the community as a set of short stories.  The study makes two noteworthy contributions. First, by allowing local context and culture to guide the creation and dissemination of results the study shows the power of a transdisciplinary approach. Second, by applying a critical theory lens, the study unveils how underlying assumptions limit our capacity to imagine different futures and that challenging these assumptions can increase the transformative potential of scenario research.

Thesis is focused on one specific territory - Manětínsko and deals with the possibility of creating credible scenarios of its future development. Although our future will always remain hidden is important to consider its direction that we can expect, especially in today's world, where nature and environment are endangered on a global scale. Human society also stands on fragile basis/foundations and must face the economic and other crises. Therefore, it is important to think ahead about possible future development at all levels (local, regional and global) and to try to avoid events that could threaten the overall development/ the development progress. Scenarios are also an important tool for strategic planning and can offer different options for actions and decision making. The work is divided into theoretical and empirical part. The theoretical part deals primarily with the selected location itself and its most important characteristics. This part is an important basis for the empirical part, which besides other things is based on data obtained from interviews with selected respondents. Outline of these interviews arose on this theoretical basis. It was the 12 interviews that aimed to identify major problems and opportunities of Manětínsko, which will play role in the future development of the...