Dissertation deals with the issue of cost management and budgeting through the methodology ABC / ABM. Using the ABC model allows for higher transparency in the costs in state organisational units. At the same time more effective cost management, including budget, through causal relationship between processes in organizations and their costs. Dissertation redefines the process of creating a model for state organisational units and analyzes the influence of various factors on the level of individual cost categories. In summarizing the outcome of the ratios based on the number of employees used to calculate the costs they are not very useful. The results of the regression analysis will confirm that a significant impact is mainly used asset value and technological developments.

Master thesis elaborates on agent-based modelling (ABM, computer simulation method) founded on the concept of analytical sociology and its use in empirical sociology. The use is demonstrated by creation of a model based on the principal of environmental sociology studying the influence of social factors on the environment. Thesis works with the empirical- theoretical concept New ecological paradigm (NEP) measuring the values and opinions on the environment. The origin of the paper was motivated by the absence of the projects combining the method of empirically calibrated agent-based modelling and sociological grounds, particularly in the Czech context, but also abroad. Based on the environmental module of Czech data ISSP 2010 and research question "How parameters of social network influence the willingness to sort waste?" model was created and analyzed. Relationship between both types of agents (sorting and not sorting waste during the whole simulation) and their neighbourhood was found. The higher the number of neighbours, the more agents with this particular type of behaviour. The likelihood of bond creation with long-distance agent at the expence of bond abolition with close neighbour was without any influence on the number of non/sorting agents. It seems the agents tend to replicate behaviour...

An agent based model (ABM) is a computational model with ``agents'' that interact with each other in an ``environment.'' This paper analyzes a particular ABM simulating individual ions in cardiac tissue, with the goal of modelling the strength and consistency of the electrical signals needed for a healthy heartbeat. We build several frameworks based on work by M. A. Yereniuk and S. D. Olson to demonstrate robustness of the original model. We conclude a moderate level of robustness using those frameworks, through a combination of proofs and empirical evidence.

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Bakgrund: I slutet av 1980-talet slog de aktivitetsbaserade tankegångarna igenom, i form av ABC-kalkylering. Dock visade sig metoden vara komplex att använda i praktiken och därför introducerades tankegångar kring att istället använda den aktivitetsbaserade informationen i styrningssyften, ABM. Trots detta är det ABC som har fått störst genomslag i svensk tillverkningsindustri. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om svenska företag använder sig av ABM och i så fall hur de använder ABM. Dessutom är syftet att studera hur sambandet mellan ABM och ABC ser ut för att utröna om det föreligger något beroende dem emellan. Metod: Denna uppsats har genomförts med en kombinerad forskningsdesign. Det har utförts både en enkätundersökning och en fallstudie, därmed har såväl kvantitativ som kvalitativ metod använts. Slutsatser: Resultatet av föreliggande studie visar på att företag i svensk tillverkningsindustri inte känner till begreppet ABM men trots det används den aktivitetsbaserade informationen i styrningssyften. Det finns ett fåtal företag som uttryckligen säger sig använda ABM. De vanligaste användningsområdena inom ABM är kostnadsreducering och ständiga förbättringar. Dessutom visar resultaten att det inte föreligger något beroende mellan ABM och ABC. / Background: The activity-based ideas made its breakthrough in the late 1980's with the Activity-Based Costing, ABC. But the method proved to be difficult and complex to use in practice and that's the reason to the introduction of alternative ways to use the activity-based ideas, namely Activity-Based Management, ABM. But it is although ABC that has had the greatest breakthrough in the Swedish manufacturing industry. Purpose: In this study, the purpose is to investigate if companies in the Swedish manufacturing industry use ABM and if, how do they use ABM. The purpose is also to study the relation between ABM and ABC to investigate if there is any dependence between them. Method: This study has been carried out with a mixed method. Both a survey and a case study has been made, which means that both quantitative as well as qualitative research method has been used. Conclusions: The result of this study shows that the term ABM is unknown to companies in the Swedish manufacturing industry, but although use the activity-based information in control purposes, ABM. There are though a few companies that explicitly express the use of ABM. The most common used applications of ABM is cost reducing and continuous improvement. The result also shows that there are no dependence between ABM and ABC.Keywords: ABM (Activity-Based Management), ABC (Activity-Based Costing) and the ABCM-cross.

Die Dissertation wendet sich insbesondere der Rolle der Ökonomik auf der Metaebene der wissenschaftsphilosophischen Argumentation zu. Ziel ist zu klären, welchen Erklärungsgehalt ökonomische Instrumente in der Wissenschaftsphilosophie haben können. Mit der Economics of Scientific Knowledge (ESK) hat sich seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre ein Literaturzweig herausgebildet, in dem genau diese Zielsetzung verfolgt wird, nämlich das Erkenntnisobjekt der wissenschaftlichen Koordination mit unterschiedlichen Methoden und Instrumenten der Ökonomik zu untersuchen. Es wird gezeigt, dass den analytischen Modellen der ESK einige Probleme inhärent sind, die prinzipiell durch neue Methoden und Instrumente gelöst werden können. Als ein geeigneter Kandidat wird die Agentenbasierte Modellierung (ABM) identifiziert, die eine realitätsnähere Abbildung der Akteure, eine ergebnisoffene Modellierung ihrer Entscheidungen und des Koordinationsprozesses erlaubt. Der Analyse von der ESK zuzuordnenden analytischen und agentenbasierten Modellen folgt im zweiten Teil der Dissertation die Programmierung einer eigenen ABM Continuous Opinions of Satisficing Agents and Discrete Actions (COSDA) mit Hilfe der Multi-Agenten-Programmiersprache NetLogo. In der heuristischen ABM COSDA werden zentrale wissenschaftsphilosophische und ökonomische Prämissen, die im ersten Teil der Arbeit als Problemfelder identifiziert wurden, aufgegeben. Mit Modellierung heterogener Agententypen, die - mit unterschiedlichen Präferenzen und Verhaltensheuristiken ausgestattet - miteinander interagieren, wird eine mögliche Mikrospezifikation für die Emergenz eines Makrophänomens erzeugt. Das Makrophänomen, d.h. die unterschiedlichen Resultate im wissenschaftlichen Koordinationsprozess, sind aus den selbstverstärkenden Effekten der Interaktion erklärbar, aber nicht vorhersehbar. Die Mikrospezifikation kann als relevante, durch eine kohärente Fiktion formulierte Möglichkeit interpretiert werden, die anders als analytische Modelle der ESK kein rationales Entscheidungskalkül der Agenten voraussetzt.

Die Dissertation wendet sich insbesondere der Rolle der Ökonomik auf der Metaebene der wissenschaftsphilosophischen Argumentation zu. Ziel ist zu klären, welchen Erklärungsgehalt ökonomische Instrumente in der Wissenschaftsphilosophie haben können. Mit der Economics of Scientific Knowledge (ESK) hat sich seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre ein Literaturzweig herausgebildet, in dem genau diese Zielsetzung verfolgt wird, nämlich das Erkenntnisobjekt der wissenschaftlichen Koordination mit unterschiedlichen Methoden und Instrumenten der Ökonomik zu untersuchen. Es wird gezeigt, dass den analytischen Modellen der ESK einige Probleme inhärent sind, die prinzipiell durch neue Methoden und Instrumente gelöst werden können. Als ein geeigneter Kandidat wird die Agentenbasierte Modellierung (ABM) identifiziert, die eine realitätsnähere Abbildung der Akteure, eine ergebnisoffene Modellierung ihrer Entscheidungen und des Koordinationsprozesses erlaubt. Der Analyse von der ESK zuzuordnenden analytischen und agentenbasierten Modellen folgt im zweiten Teil der Dissertation die Programmierung einer eigenen ABM Continuous Opinions of Satisficing Agents and Discrete Actions (COSDA) mit Hilfe der Multi-Agenten-Programmiersprache NetLogo. In der heuristischen ABM COSDA werden zentrale wissenschaftsphilosophische und ökonomische Prämissen, die im ersten Teil der Arbeit als Problemfelder identifiziert wurden, aufgegeben. Mit Modellierung heterogener Agententypen, die - mit unterschiedlichen Präferenzen und Verhaltensheuristiken ausgestattet - miteinander interagieren, wird eine mögliche Mikrospezifikation für die Emergenz eines Makrophänomens erzeugt. Das Makrophänomen, d.h. die unterschiedlichen Resultate im wissenschaftlichen Koordinationsprozess, sind aus den selbstverstärkenden Effekten der Interaktion erklärbar, aber nicht vorhersehbar. Die Mikrospezifikation kann als relevante, durch eine kohärente Fiktion formulierte Möglichkeit interpretiert werden, die anders als analytische Modelle der ESK kein rationales Entscheidungskalkül der Agenten voraussetzt.

Sustainable agriculture is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The pathways to sustainable agriculture consist of successive decisions for optimization that are often a matter of negotiation as resources are shared at all levels. This work essentially comprises three research projects with novel inter- and transdisciplinary methods to better understand and optimize agricultural water management under water scarcity conditions. In the first project, climate variability in the US Corn Belt was analyzed with a focus on deficit irrigation to find the optimal irrigation strategies for possible future changes. Two optimization methods for deficit irrigation showed positive water savings and yield increases in the predicted water scarcity scenarios. In the second project, a serious board game was developed and game sessions were carried out to simulate the complex decision space of actors in irrigated agriculture under climate and groundwater variability. The aim of the game was to understand how decisions are made by actors by observing the course of the game and linking these results to common behavioral theories implemented in socio-ecological models. In the third project, two frameworks based on innovation theories and agro-social-hydrological networks were developed and tested using agent-based models. In the first framework, centralized and decentralized irrigation management in Kansas US was compared to observe the development of collective action and the innovation diffusion of sustainable irrigation strategies. The second framework analyzed different decision processes to perform a sensitivity analysis of innovation implementation, groundwater abstraction and saline water intrusion in the Al Batinah region in Oman. Both frameworks allowed the evaluation of diverse behavior theories and decision-making parameters to find the optimal irrigation management and the impact of diverse socio-ecological policies. Inter- and Trans-disciplinary simulations of the interactions between human decisions and water systems, like the ones presented in here, improve the understanding of irrigation systems as anthropogenic landscapes in socio-economic and ecological contexts. The joint application of statistical and participatory approaches enables different but complementary perspectives that allow for a multidimensional analysis of irrigation strategies and water resources management.:Contents Declaration of Independent Work i Declaration of Conformity iii List of Publications v Acknowledgments ix Abstract xi Zusammenfassung xiii Contents xv List of Figures xvii List of Tables xix List of Abbreviations xxi 1. Introduction 3 1.1 Complex Networks Approach 3 1.2 Research Objectives 4 1.3 Thesis Outline 5 2. Literature Review 9 2.1 Agro-Hydrological Systems 9 2.1.1 Necessary Disciplinary Convergence 9 2.1.2 Multi-Objective Optimization Approaches 10 2.2 Optimization of Crop-Water Productivity 11 2.2.1 Irrigation Strategies 11 2.3 Sustainable Management of A-S-H Networks 12 2.3.1 Socio-Hydrology 13 2.3.2 Representation of Decision-Making Processes 14 2.3.3 Influence of Social Network 16 2.4 Socio-Hydrological Modeling Approaches 17 2.4.1 Game Theory Approach 17 2.4.2 Agent-Based Modeling 18 2.4.3 Participatory Modeling 20 2.5 Education for Sustainability 21 2.5.1 Experiential Learning 21 2.5.2 Serious Games 22 2.6 Summary of Research Gaps 24 3. Irrigation Optimization in The US Corn Belt 27 3.1 Agriculture in The Corn Belt 27 3.2 Historical and Prospective Climatic Variability 29 3.3 Simulated Irrigation Strategies 29 3.4 Optimal Irrigation Strategies Throughout the Corn Belt 30 3.5 Summary 31 4. Participatory Analysis of A-S-H Dynamics 35 4.1 Decision-Making Processes in A-S-H Networks 36 4.1.1 Collaborative and Participatory Data Collection Approaches 37 4.2 MAHIZ 38 4.2.1 Serious Game Development 38 4.2.2 Implementation of Serious Game Sessions 39 4.4 Evaluation of The Learning Process in Serious Games 40 4.5 Evaluation of Behavior Theories and Social Parameters 42 4.6 Summary 43 5 Robust Evaluation of Decision-Making Processes In A-S-H Networks 47 5.1 Innovation in A-S-H Networks 47 5.1.1 Multilevel Social Networks 48 5.1.2 Theoretical Framework of Developed ABMs 49 5.2 DInKA Model: Irrigation Expansion in Kansas, US 50 5.2.1 Robust Analysis of Innovation Diffusion 53 5.3 SAHIO Implementation: Coastal Agriculture in Oman 54 5.3.1 SAHIO Sensitivity analysis 58 5.4 Summary 60 6 Conclusions and Outlook 63 6.1 Limitations 64 6.2 Outlook 64 Bibliography 69 Appendix A. Implementation Code 79 A.1 DInKA 79 A.2 SAHIO 82 Appendix B. SAHIO’s Decision-Making Process for Each MoHuB Theory 91 Appendix C. SAHIO A-S-H Innovation Results 97 Appendix D. Selected Publications 101 D.1 Evaluation of Hydroclimatic Variability and Prospective Irrigation Strategies in the U.S. Corn Belt. 103 D.2 A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture. 121 D.2.1 MAHIZ Rulebook 140 D.2.2 MAHIZ Feedback Form 156

<p>The purpose of my one year master’s thesis is to add a documentation of a data processing-process of photo- graphs to the administration of archives. The thesis is written from an archival science perspective which is to be seen in my choice of literature, method and questions at issue. To be able to form a documentation of a data processing-process I studied DiBiS, a company specialized in digitalizing old photographs and publish them on a online database. I also added a chapter where I studied how archival institutions used to handle their old photo- graphs in a traditional manner so the reader of this thesis will be able to understand and see the differences be- tween traditional and modern photograph management. Following the chapters describing traditional and modern management I formulated some questions at issue about the data-processing-process. Those questions I studied and analyzed in chapters about advantages and the complex of problems surrounding the subject. I came to the conclusion that there are a lot of advantages surrounding the data processing-process, especially from an ar- rangement- preservation and access point of view. I also came to the conclusion that the problems with data processing is the exaggerated focus on the photographic subject, the mistake of thinking that a digital copy of the subject can replace the original photograph and that retouch might distort the original outcome and therefore not live up to  archival science standards. To my assistance I had Katarina Nordin, archivist at Arkiv Gävleborg and, among others, Ingrid Fallström, ar- chivist at DiBiS. Specialist technical literature used during my work with this thesis have been Anna Dahlgrens and Pelle Snickars (red.) I bildarkivet om fotografi och digitaliserings effekter, Hege Oulies Digitalisering av fotosamlinger, Project Minervas Good practices handbook, Wolfgang Ernsts Sorlet från arkiven – ordning ur oordning and Anna Christina Ulfsparres (red.) Arkivvetenskap.</p>

The purpose of my one year master’s thesis is to add a documentation of a data processing-process of photo- graphs to the administration of archives. The thesis is written from an archival science perspective which is to be seen in my choice of literature, method and questions at issue. To be able to form a documentation of a data processing-process I studied DiBiS, a company specialized in digitalizing old photographs and publish them on a online database. I also added a chapter where I studied how archival institutions used to handle their old photo- graphs in a traditional manner so the reader of this thesis will be able to understand and see the differences be- tween traditional and modern photograph management. Following the chapters describing traditional and modern management I formulated some questions at issue about the data-processing-process. Those questions I studied and analyzed in chapters about advantages and the complex of problems surrounding the subject. I came to the conclusion that there are a lot of advantages surrounding the data processing-process, especially from an ar- rangement- preservation and access point of view. I also came to the conclusion that the problems with data processing is the exaggerated focus on the photographic subject, the mistake of thinking that a digital copy of the subject can replace the original photograph and that retouch might distort the original outcome and therefore not live up to  archival science standards. To my assistance I had Katarina Nordin, archivist at Arkiv Gävleborg and, among others, Ingrid Fallström, ar- chivist at DiBiS. Specialist technical literature used during my work with this thesis have been Anna Dahlgrens and Pelle Snickars (red.) I bildarkivet om fotografi och digitaliserings effekter, Hege Oulies Digitalisering av fotosamlinger, Project Minervas Good practices handbook, Wolfgang Ernsts Sorlet från arkiven – ordning ur oordning and Anna Christina Ulfsparres (red.) Arkivvetenskap.