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Presentations of three potential nest intruders were used to investigate house wren nest defense behavior, while regular nest box checks provided information regarding house wren nest-destroying behavior. During nest defense trials, male wrens were typically more active in defense than females in the egg stage but no intersexual differences existed in the nestling stage. Males' greater defensiveness could be an extension of their territory defense role. Defense vocalizations were sex biased, with males giving primarily song calls and females giving chatter calls. Both sexes maintained or lowered their defense levels from egg to nestling stage, possibly due to decreased offspring vulnerability. House wrens altered their defense behaviors among intruder species, depending on the type of threat. Males exhibited greater defense levels against the house wren model compared to the bluebird or cowbird model in the egg stage but showed no differences among model species in the nestling stage. Females exhibited no defense differences among model species. Male defense levels were affected by their breeding strategy, as attentive males were more aggressive toward the house wren and cowbird models than non-attentive males. Attentive males discriminated among intruder species while non-attentive males did not. Lack of male attentiveness, due to polygamy or attempted polygamy, appeared to be potentially costly to females, regardless of their order of pairing with the male. House wren nest destroying behavior (NDB) varied with respect to the timing of house wren nest attacks, the abandonment and reacquisition of nests following a wren attack, and the status of neighboring house wren nests at the time of a nest attack. Some supportive evidence was found for the existing NDB hypotheses, but no single hypothesis was completely supported. House wren NDB may serve several functions but may ultimately depend on house wren population density. / Department of Educational Leadership

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This work deals with a "passive flow monitoring" technique which can be used to help determine the energy used by a building's heating system. The thesis first highlights the background and importance of energy monitoring in buildings. This work points out that energy monitoring is an important feature in the running of buildings today. In the past, the energy crisis in the 1970's made people aware of how important it was to have knowledge of how buildings consume energy. More recently, environmental issues have reinforced the importance of gaining good quality information on energy use in buildings. This thesis investigates the use of combined port flow characteristics/control signal relationships for three port control valves to predict system water flow rate in heating systems. A laboratory test rig was built and a range of three port valves were tested. A series of combined port flow characteristics/control signal relationships were developed from measurements from the test rig. Curve fit models were then applied to these relationships in the form of polynomial equations. Where practical relationships could not be measured for a valve, a theoretical valve model was derived. In order to validate the polynomial regression model and the mathematical model, the test rig was modified to take into account practical heating system characteristics. A series of flow characteristic results were produced from the modified test rig so that the performance of the two models (empirical and mathematical) could be evaluated. It was found that the empirical model performed well in predicting combined port flow ratios with RMS errors ranging between 2.73% and 6.54%. The mathematical model gave overall prediction errors between -2.63% and +9.25% which compare favourably with the performance of some flow meters. The work then goes on to present an energy use algorithm which incorporates the valve model (empirical or theoretical) for use in BEMS.

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Nowadays, energy is becoming more and more important. With the development of society, the demand of energy is also increasing correspondingly. There is 22% of the total energy which is used in building part. A more effective and sustainable energy system becomes necessary due to increasing energy prices and demand. The aim of this thesis is to make an energy survey of this building, evaluating different sources of energy supply and losses in this building. By evaluating, a better thermal comfort is expectedly achieved when having examinations, and a possible saving method is also expected in order to reduce the cost of this system.  In this project, the building is located in University of Gävle which is surveyed. It has 2 floors. The first floor is underground as a basement. An examination room is included in the second floor. There are a space heating system and heating recovery system ventilation in this examination building. At first step of analysis, the data of construction, ventilation, district heating and hot tap water were arranged by Mr. Magnus. Secondly, an energy balance had been done, and it helped to make energy input and output more clearly. In energy supply part, the solar radiation is 22.4MWh, the internal heat from people is 1.95MWh, the internal heat from equipment is 5.63MWh and district heating is 184MWh. In energy losses part, the transmission loss is 165MWh, the mechanical ventilation loss is 38.3MWh, the infiltration loss is 8.38MWh and the hot tap water is 2.09MWh. Thirdly, results of calculations were analyzed. At last, the optimization methods were given to save energy. The optimization methods were changing type of windows and improving indoor temperature which influenced the transmission loss part. Another method was reducing operating time of the ventilation system. Through these optimizing methods, the total energy use is reduced from 214MWh to 179MWh, and district heating is reduced from 184MWh to 149MWh. District heating of this building is supplied by Gävle Energi company, which is able to save 20% cost by these optimizing methods. According to the investment analysis, 19thousand SEK energy is saved per annum.

A brand can be a valuable asset for a company in two ways: On the one hand the brand can have an influence on the perceptions and preferences of the consumer and therebypositively influence the performance and success of a product, which can lead to acompetitive advantage. On the other hand, a brand can even be an asset of significantfinancial value. For the actual building of a strong brand, several theoretical modelsexist. Car modification companies offer modifications for and modified versions of cars ofother brands. The thereof resulting connection between the two brands and itsconsequences for the brand of the modification company cannot be depicted with theexisting theoretical brand and brand building models. In addition to that, carmodification companies touch upon the field of luxury cars. This factor has to be takeninto consideration when dealing with the brand building of car modification companies. In addition to the lack of applicability of existing brand building models for the carmodification industry, this special industry has not been covered by research yet ingeneral. In this thesis, a theoretical framework for brand building, the model of customer basedbrand equity as well as the characteristics of luxury branding will be lined out. In orderto examine how the special factors of the car modification industry, namely theconnection between the modification company and the base brand and luxury brandingcan be integrated into this model, six representatives from the car modification industryhave been interviewed. The results and analysis of these interviews show that through the assessment of thecustomer based brand equity of the base brand, the modification company can identifystrong and favorable aspects of the base brand that it can build upon, emphasize and/orexpand with the modification as well as weaknesses and flaws of the base brand that itcan make up for with the modification. Furthermore, the examination shows that byassessing the model of customer based brand equity of the modification brand and arelevant special brand factor, in the case of this thesis luxury branding, for commonfeatures and similarities, this special factor can also be integrated into the theoreticalmodel. Through these findings, the thesis is able to present a revised model of customer basedbrand equity that incorporates both the connection between the modification brand andthe base brand as well as the special factor luxury branding.