L’objectif de cette thèse est de développer et étudier des modèles mathématiques d’échanges économiques, basés sur la flexibilité de la demande, entre fournisseurs et consommateurs d’électricité. D’une part, des fournisseurs d’électricité offrent des prix dépendant de l’heure de consommation. D’autre part, des consommateurs adaptent leur usage, minimisant leur facture et le désagrément lié aux changements de consommation induits. La structure de ces problèmes correspond à des problèmes d’optimisation bi-niveau. Trois types de modèles sont étudiés. Tout d’abord, l’interaction entre un fournisseur et un opérateur de smart grid est modélisée par un problème à un seul meneur et un seul suiveur. Pour cette première approche, le niveau de détails du suiveur est particulièrement élevé, et inclut notamment une gestion stochastique de la production distribuée. La meilleure réponse d’un fournisseur dans un modèle à plusieurs meneurs et plusieurs suiveurs fait l’objet de la seconde partie de la thèse. Celle-ci intègre aussi la possibilité d’avoir des agrégateurs comme suiveurs. Deux nouvelles méthodes de résolution reposant sur la sélection d’équilibres de Nash entre suiveurs sont proposées. Enfin, dans une troisième et dernière partie, on se focalise sur la recherche d’équilibres non coopératifs pour ce modèle à plusieurs meneurs et plusieurs suiveurs.Tous les problèmes abordés dans cette thèse le sont non seulement d’un point de vue théorique, mais également d’un point de vue numérique / The objective of this thesis is to develop and study mathematical models of economical exchanges between energy suppliers and consumers, using demand-side management. On one hand, the suppliers offer time-of-use electricity prices. On the other hand, energy consumers decide on their energy demand schedule, minimizing their electricity bill and the inconvenience due to schedule changes. This problem structure gives rise to bilevel optimization problems.Three kinds of models are studied. First, single-leader single-follower problems modeling the interaction between an energy supplier and a smart grid operator. In this first approach, the level of details is very high on the follower’s side, and notably includes a stochastic treatment of distributed generation. Second, a multi-leader multi-follower problem is studied from the point of view of the best response of one of the suppliers. Aggregators are included in the lower level. Two new resolution methods based on a selection of Nash equilibriums at the lower level are proposed. In the third and final part, the focus is on the evaluation of noncooperative equilibriums for this multi-leader multi-follower problem.All the problems have been studied both from a theoretical and numerical point of view.

M-PESA (a mobile banking service in Kenya) was introduced to offer a person-to-person money transfer service. Its extensive adoption and appropriation for purposes other than person-to-person transfers has influenced the technology providers (Safaricom) to widen their services beyond their original intentions. M-PESA provides a wide range of financial services including services for people who were previously unbanked. Users of M-PESA can now pay different utilities, those without credit cards can purchase products online, others can repay loans to microfinance institutions, pay insurance premiums, withdraw money from ATMs, use it as Point of Sale Payment and open savings accounts. This research examines the existence of “bi-directional” influences between technology and society by taking M-PESA business users as a case. It specifically investigates how M-PESA as a technology has influenced the business environment in Kenya and how the design of M-PESA has in turn been influenced by its adoption. The research adopts the Adaptive Structuration Theory as the theoretical framework and interpretive case study research as a methodological approach. Interviews with different stakeholders in the industry were used to collect data. Data was analyzed using Diachronic Analysis. The results of the research show that there is a “bi-directional” influence between technology and people as they affect each other over time. Mobile technologies shape the way businesses operate, allowing them to provide new services and improve existing ones. At the same time, usage and adoption trends affect the design of mobile technologies. Over time, technology is adapted to accommodate the new needs of businesses and other needs in the wider community. This research shows that the impact of technology depends not only on its functionality but also on its use and appropriation in society. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Informatics / unrestricted

Valet av IT-system kan vara en omfattande process som trots många iblandade kan resultera i ett misslyckade, vilket kan leda till stora och oförutsedda kostnader. Om jämförelsen inte sker enligt en säker och beprövad process är risken större att valet blir fel då det snarare grundas på känsla och marknadsföring än en opartisk jämförelse. Företaget Genero Solutions erbjuder en IT-lösning för säljstyrning som bland annat tillhandahåller rapporter över fältsäljkårers besöksstatistik och ser ett behov av ett bättre rapportsystem som ger granskare av dessa rapporter större frihet vid exploatering av data. Många leverantörer av IT-system inom Business Intelligence erbjuder den här typen av rapportsystem, vilket gör det än svårare att välja vilket system som passar Genero Solutions bäst. Eftersom det finns en väldig mängd av dessa system är risken stor att valet blir fel om jämförelsen inte sker enligt en säker process, utan istället grundas på känsla och marknadsföring. Denna rapport innehåller en metod som jämför tre olika rapportsystem baserad på en etablerad jämförelsemetod för att undersöka möjligheten att åstadkomma ett vetenskapligt resultat. Jämförelsen granskar de tre Business Intelligence systemen Microsoft Powber BI, The Diver Solution och Qlik Sense och baseras på Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Rapporten resulterar i motiverad metod som är lämpad för undersökningen samt en rekommendation till Genero Solutions av det rapportsystem som är bäst lämpat. / Selecting the right IT-system might be an extensive process which, despite many people involved, might lead to a failure which can mean high and unforeseen costs. If the comparison of systems isn’t done according to a proven method there is a higher risk that the final choice of IT-system is based on emotions and good marketing rather than a straight and fair comparison. Genero Solutions offers an IT-solution for sales control which is partly providing reports containing statistics from the sales force on field. Genero Solutions is in need of a better reporting system which gives the inspector of the reports more flexibility when exploring data. There are many providers within Business Intelligence who is offering this kind of reporting service, which makes it even harder choosing the system fitting Genero Solutions needs. This report develops a method which is based on scientific theories and the established comparison method Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), aiming to achieve a scientifically proved result and apply it by examine the Business Intelligence systems Microsoft Power BI, The Diver Solution and Qlik Sense The result of this report in a motivated method that is suited for this investigation and also a recommendation for which system that is best suited for Genero Solutions needs.

Business Intelligence (BI) is growing fast and more and more companies realize the profits of data-driven decision making. One vital part of BI is data visualization and mainly in the form of dashboards. Although it is proven that private companies can create value from implementing dashboards in their decision-making process, we see a gap in the research whether the same can be done for the public sector. We find this topic interesting since the two fields have such a different view on what creates value. This study aims to fill in that gap by studying the possibilities and obstacles of applying dashboards within the public sector. In this study we created dashboard prototypes and conducted think-aloud testing followed by semistructured interviews with ten employees at a municipality in Sweden. The result of the study suggests that working with dashboards in municipalities have a possibility to create value, mainly in the form of analytics, decision-making, communication and motivation. However, the participants also expressed some negative aspects in the form of handling the immeasurable parts of society, mainly the parts of reality that is not measurable in statistics. We also found possible problems with handling data and a worry about resistance in implementing new systems for the employees. This study is conducted on one municipality, however we hope it will serve as inspiration for public sector organizations’ journey on using dashboards making their decisions data-driven and creating value for the citizens and employees.

The use of small satellites is rapidly growing, especially satellites with masses between 1 and 10 kg and few litres of volume. The main reasons are due to the low development time and cost. Electronics miniaturization and high density integration is enabling the small satellites class to perform more and better tasks and at a lower cost. When deployable structures are required for the missions, the actual paradigm is that there are very few that have been successfully developed and flown. It is usually not possible to scale down existing deployable structures from larger satellites. Power and attitude control is also very limited in small satellites thus, completely new deployable structures, low mass and with high packaging ratio (yet large and with adequate mechanical properties when deployed) must be developed. Furthermore, such new structures are usually made of very thin and light materials which complicates the on-ground tests prior the launch. Therefore, advances in modelling and simulation deployable structures such as booms are also of great interest for the scientific community. This thesis and the papers included herein focus on the finite element modelling of a meter-class passively deployable boom – based on the SIMPLE boom by Thomas W. Murphey – and deployment simulations. Experimental tests were also carried on a boom prototype suspended from a gravity off-loading system. An analytical model produced certain parameters which are used for validation of the finite element model. The strain energy stored in the boom prior to deployment and spacecraft displacements during deployment agreed well. The deployment time, however, have discrepancies: the models predicted a deployment time six times faster than the experimental tests. For that reason the deployment simulations cannot be compared with the tests. The reason of the discrepancies are believed to be due to the actual material model and the contacts formulation used in the finite element model. The finite element simulations, however, shows a reasonable behaviour given the nature of the deployment thus, despite the necessary improvements, we believe that future improvements in the material and friction models will provide us more realistic results. / Användningen av små satelliter ökar snabbt, särskilt satelliter med en vikt på mellan 1 och 10 kg och bara några liters volym. De främsta orsakerna till detta är den korta utvecklingstiden och den låga kostnaden. Elektronikminiatyrisering och hög integreringsdensitet möjliggör för små satelliter att utföra fler och bättre uppgifter till en lägre kostnad. När utfällbara strukturer krävs för uppdragen är nuvarande läge att det är få som utvecklats och flugits framgångsrikt. Det är inte heller alltid möjligt att skala ner utfällbara strukturer som utformats för användning i större satelliter. I små satelliter är den tillgängliga elektriska energin och volymen starkt begränsade faktorer och därmed måste helt nya passivt utfällbara strukturer med låg vikt och liten packningsvolym, men ändå rätt storlek och mekaniska egenskaper när de är utfällda, utvecklas. Dessa strukturer är vanligen tillverkade av mycket tunna och lätta material, som komplicerar tester innan uppskjutningen p.g.a. tyngdkraften. Därför är det av stort intresse att noggrant kunna modellera och simulera ett tyngdlöst utfällningsförlopp. Denna licentiatuppsats och bilagda artiklar i fokuserar på finit elementmodellering och utfällningssimuleringar av en 1 meter lång passivt utfällbar bom baserad på SIMPLE-bommen som utformats av Thomas W. Murphey. Utfällningsexperiment har utförts på en prototyp av bommen upphängd i ett tyngdkraftskompenserande system. Analytiska modeller har använts för att validera simuleringarna och töjningsenergin som lagrats i bommen innan utfällning och rymdfarkostens förflyttning efter utfällning överensstämmer väl. Utfällningstiden avviker dock och båda modellerna predikterar en utfällningstid som är sex gånger snabbare än den tiden som observeras i experimenten. Anledningen till skillnaderna antas delvis bero på begränsningar i den använda materialmodellen och i algoritmer för hantering av kontakt i den finita elementmodellen. De finite elementsimuleringarna visar dock ett rimligt dynamisk beteende hos bommen baserat på vad som observerats i experimenten och även om modellen är i behov av förbättring så finns det stora förhoppningar att åstadkomma en mer realistisk modell genom införande av förbättrade kontakalgoritmer och nogrannare modellering av dämpning och friktion. / <p>QC 20130506</p>

The established use of IT systems has increased the use of information in modern enterprises.From this information use, the concept of Business Intelligence has developed to enable more efficientand informed decision-making. As the business’ requirements of Business Intelligence reports changesrapidly due to changes of the business’ needs and more analytical organisations, traditional BusinessIntelligence development faces problems of ad-hoc analyses due to the inefficient adaption to changingneeds.This Master Thesis serves the purpose of deepen the understanding of the establishment of an agiledevelopment program of Self-service BI, addressing the concerns of more effectively meeting the changingrequirements of traditional Business Intelligence development. This study explores enablers through aqualitative case study, conducted at a Swedish bank, consisting of four group interviews discussing theestablishment of such program in Organisational, Processes, Technical and External dimensions,respectively. The qualitative case study was then followed by a discussion of governance of such programfor alignment to enablers.The qualitative case study resulted in 15 enablers of an agile development program of Self-Service BI,considering further enablers compared to more general literature of BI success factors, addressing theperspective of both an agile development program and Self-Service BI applications. The discussion ofgovernance of the program then identified eight governance mechanisms, which might align the programto the enablers, for successful establishment and development of applications.The findings of the study can be considered to culminate into a structure of an agile development programof Self-Service BI. The Thesis presents, from the findings, a framework for structuring such program,consisting of three development phases; Ordering process, Agile development, and Maintenance/Supportand Training, and with the discussed governance for steering the development.

ABSTRACT Date:  2021-06-03 Level:  Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors: Aryan Singh   Omar Eyad  Shaheen Mohammad  Title:  How Market Intelligence Helps With Pricing Tutor:  Ali Farashah Keywords: Digitalization, Business Intelligence (BI), Market Intelligence (MI), Competitive Intelligence (CI), Pricing, Decision Making, Dynamic Pricing Model, Price Authority Research Question: How does MI help in pricing decisions of the European market in Systemair Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate if Market Intelligence (MI) has any effect on pricing decisions within the European market in Systemair Group. Since the field of MI in pricing decisions is explorative, this study will conduct thorough interviews with the goal of getting a deep understanding of how MI can help with pricing decisions. This study also aims to contribute to the research in this subject. Method: This study has been conducted in a qualitative manner on the case company Systemair Group. Primary data was collected through academic articles found via the library of Mälardalen University and scientific databases. The research was based on 5 semi-structured interviews conducted online with employees of Systemair. Conclusion: MI plays an important role in pricing. It gathers real time market data that is objective to feelings from the sales team or other employees. Factory capacity will be optimized with the evolution of MI, profit margin will be set higher than before and so this will result in a push in the overall price level of Systemair products. Value-Based Selling points and Resources are an integral part of the dynamic pricing model, specifically in Strategic Input and Data Input respectively.

Organizations depend on IT for the successful completion of many organizationalactivities. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the research field and the awareness of the opportunities and limitations data storage puts on value creation with Business Intelligence. Thus, the research question asked in this thesis is: Which opportunities and limitations does data storage put on the value creation with Business Intelligence? A case study was conducted on an IT-organization along with two expert interviews in order to answer the research question. Semi-structured interviews were held with developers and an IT-architect of the IT-organization. We conclude that there might be situations where data storage affects BI-systems, but there are factors such as BI-maturity, time and budget that play a big part in how the value that an IT-organization aim to create can be realized. We identified that a migration to a graph database could be applied to the IT-organization for a more effective and optimized value creation through the BI-system. This due to the advantages with graph databases in relation to the type of data that the IT-organization is working with.

Cette thèse traite de la modélisation des tsunamis, des grandes échelles de propagation aux impacts sur desstructures côtières. Un inventaire des phénomènes physiques associés est établi et des modèles adéquats sontprésentés. Une étude numérique avec le modèle de Saint-Venant est effectuée avec le développement d’uneméthode de raffinement de maillage à seuil automatique. La simplicité et les performances de l’approche sontdémontrées. Pour améliorer la précision des prévisions, un système original approchant le modèle Serre-Green-Nahgdi est investigué. Une méthode pour prendre en compte la dissipation d’énergie au déferlement estproposée. Ce modèle permet d’envisager la modélisation fine de la propagation et de l’arrivée à la côte destsunamis dispersifs et non linéaires en des temps de calcul acceptables. Les différents types d’impact sur desstructures sont modélisés grâce à un modèle diphasique compressible permettant de considérer les écoulementsà phases séparées et les milieux aérés. Pour envisager une résolution à tous les régimes, des schémas TousMach sont investigués. Un schéma Tous Mach à variation totale limitée est proposé. Grâce à cette approche,des impacts incompressibles et compressibles sont investigués avec le même modèle. Les impactsd’écoulements aérés induisent des pressions moins élevées mais sur des temps plus longs que leurshomologues en phases pures. Bien que le schéma Tous Mach proposé soit moins sujet aux oscillationsnumériques que les préconditionnements classiques de la littérature, des oscillations non physiques à basnombre de Mach sont mises en évidence sur certains cas tests. Pour finir, une méthode de couplage entremodèles de propagation et d’impact est proposée, afin de pouvoir simuler un tsunami finement avec desmodèles appropriés à chacune de ces phases. / This thesis deals with tsunami modeling, from the large propagation scales to impacts on coastal structures. Aninventory of the associated physical phenomena is given and some adequat models are presented. A numericalstudy is carried out with the Saint-Venant model with the devellopment of an automatic refinment adaptivemesh method. The resolution efficiency and simplicity is justified. To increase the accuracy forecasts, anoriginal system which approximates the Serre-Green-Naghdi model is investigated. A breaking wave methodassociated with this model is proposed. This dissipative model allows thinking about accurate dispersive nonlinear tsunamis simulations up to the coast. Several wave impacts on stuctures are investigated with a generaltwo-phase model allowing separate phases as well as aerated impact studies. The all Mach regime numericaldifficulties are investigated. A new all Mach scheme with limited total variation bound is proposed. Thanks tothis approach, incompressible and compressible impacts are investigated with the same model. Aerated impactsare shown to give smaller impact pressure but on longer time than pure fluid impacts. In spite that the all Machscheme proposed reduces the numerical oscillations of classical literature preconditionning, some unphysicaloscillations are highlighted on some test cases. At the end, a coupling method is proposed in order to accuratlymodel the propagation and the impact of a tsunami with appropriated models for each phases.

La programmation bi-niveau désigne une classe de problèmes d'optimisation emboîtés impliquant deux joueurs.Un joueur meneur annonce une décision à un joueur suiveur qui détermine sa réponse parmi l'ensemble des solutions d'un problème d'optimisation dont les données dépendent de la décision du meneur (problème de niveau bas).La décision optimale du meneur est la solution d'un autre problème d'optimisation dont les données dépendent de la réponse du suiveur (problème de niveau haut).Lorsque la réponse du suiveur n'est pas unique, on distingue les problèmes bi-niveaux optimistes et pessimistes,suivant que la réponse du suiveur soit respectivement la meilleure ou la pire possible pour le meneur.Les problèmes bi-niveaux sont souvent utilisés pour modéliser des problèmes de tarification. Dans les applications étudiées ici, le meneur est un vendeur qui fixe un prix, et le suiveur modélise le comportement d'un grand nombre de clients qui déterminent leur consommation en fonction de ce prix. Le problème de niveau bas est donc de grande dimension.Cependant, la plupart des problèmes bi-niveaux sont NP-difficiles, et en pratique, il n'existe pas de méthodes générales pour résoudre efficacement les problèmes bi-niveaux de grande dimension.Nous introduisons ici une nouvelle approche pour aborder la programmation bi-niveau.Nous supposons que le problème de niveau bas est un programme linéaire, en variables continues ou discrètes,dont la fonction de coût est déterminée par la décision du meneur.Ainsi, la réponse du suiveur correspond aux cellules d'un complexe polyédral particulier,associé à une hypersurface tropicale.Cette interprétation est motivée par des applications récentes de la géométrie tropicale à la modélisation du comportement d'agents économiques.Nous utilisons la dualité entre ce complexe polyédral et une subdivision régulière d'un polytope de Newton associé pour introduire une méthode dedécomposition qui résout une série de sous-problèmes associés aux différentes cellules du complexe.En utilisant des résultats portant sur la combinatoire des subdivisions, nous montrons que cette décomposition mène à un algorithme permettant de résoudre une grande classe de problèmes bi-niveaux en temps polynomial en la dimension du problème de niveau bas lorsque la dimension du problème de niveau haut est fixée.Nous identifions ensuite des structures spéciales de problèmes bi-niveaux pour lesquelles la borne de complexité peut être améliorée.C'est en particulier le cas lorsque la fonction coût du meneur ne dépend que de la réponse du suiveur.Ainsi, nous montrons que la version optimiste du problème bi-niveau peut être résolue en temps polynomial, notammentpour des instancesdans lesquelles les données satisfont certaines propriétés de convexité discrète.Nous montrons également que les solutions de tels problèmes sont des limites d'équilibres compétitifs.Dans la seconde partie de la thèse, nous appliquons cette approche à un problème d'incitation tarifaire dans les réseaux mobiles de télécommunication.Les opérateurs de données mobiles souhaitent utiliser des schémas de tarification pour encourager les différents utilisateurs à décaler leur consommation de données mobiles dans le temps, et par conséquent dans l'espace (à cause de leur mobilité), afin de limiter les pics de congestion.Nous modélisons cela par un problème bi-niveau de grande taille.Nous montrons qu'un cas simplifié peut être résolu en temps polynomial en utilisant la décomposition précédente,ainsi que des résultats de convexité discrète et de théorie des graphes.Nous utilisons ces idées pour développer une heuristique s'appliquant au cas général.Nous implémentons et validons cette méthode sur des données réelles fournies par Orange. / Bilevel programming deals with nested optimization problems involving two players. A leader annouces a decision to a follower, who responds by selecting a solution of an optimization problem whose data depend on this decision (low level problem). The optimal decision of the leader is the solution of another optimization problem whose data depend on the follower's response (high level problem). When the follower's response is not unique, one distinguishes between optimistic and pessimistic bilevel problems, in which the leader takes into account the best or worst possible response of the follower.Bilevel problems are often used to model pricing problems.We are interested in applications in which the leader is a seller who announces a price, and the follower models the behavior of a large number of customers who determine their consumptions depending on this price.Hence, the dimension of the low-level is large. However, most bilevel problems are NP-hard, and in practice, there is no general method to solve efficiently large-scale bilevel problems.In this thesis, we introduce a new approach to tackle bilevel programming. We assume that the low level problem is a linear program, in continuous or discrete variables, whose cost function is determined by the leader. Then, the follower responses correspond to the cells of a special polyhedral complex, associated to a tropical hypersurface. This is motivated by recent applications of tropical geometry to model the behavior of economic agents.We use the duality between this polyhedral complex and a regular subdivision of an associated Newton polytope to introduce a decomposition method, in which one solves a series of subproblems associated to the different cells of the complex. Using results about the combinatorics of subdivisions, we show thatthis leads to an algorithm to solve a wide class of bilevel problemsin a time that is polynomial in the dimension of the low-level problem when the dimension of the high-level problem is fixed.Then, we identify special structures of bilevel problems forwhich this complexity bound can be improved.This is the case when the leader's cost function depends only on the follower's response. Then, we showthe optimistic bilevel problem can be solved in polynomial time.This applies in particular to high dimensional instances in which the datasatisfy certain discrete convexity properties. We also show that the solutions of such bilevel problems are limits of competitive equilibria.In the second part of this thesis, we apply this approach to a price incentive problem in mobile telecommunication networks.The aim for Internet service providers is to use pricing schemes to encourage the different users to shift their data consumption in time(and so, also in space owing to their mobility),in order to reduce the congestion peaks.This can be modeled by a large-scale bilevel problem.We show that a simplified case can be solved in polynomial time by applying the previous decomposition approach together with graph theory and discrete convexity results. We use these ideas to develop an heuristic method which applies to the general case. We implemented and validated this method on real data provided by Orange.