The boiler flue gas furnace exit temperature (FET) is a key operating parameter of coal fired steam boilers. From the design perspective, the FET is vital for materials selection and sizing of heat transfer surfaces. From an operating perspective, it is a major indicator of the rate of combustion and heat transfer that is occurring within the furnace. Downstream of the furnace, the FET has a significant impact on both the performance and reliability of the boiler heat exchangers, which ultimately impacts on both boiler efficiency and availability. Monitoring of the FET can advise operating and engineering corrective actions which will ultimately result in better efficiency, reliability and availability together with the associated economic benefits. Therefore, methods of determining FET are investigated. Two methods are focused on for this study, one indirect and one direct. The indirect method studied is a mass and energy balance method which begins with a global boiler mass and energy balance to calculate the major boiler flow rates of coal, air and flue gas which are difficult to measure online. These parameters are then used as inputs into a furnace or backpass mass and energy balance to calculate the furnace exit temperature. The method is applied to a case study, and is evaluated in terms of the measurement uncertainties which are propagated on the intermediate parameters calculated, as well as on the final calculated FET. The main conclusions are that this indirect method contains various uncertainties, due to parameters which have to be assumed such as (i) the distribution of ingress air (also called tramp air) in the different sections of the boiler and (ii) the estimation of the share of water evaporation heat transfer occurring in the water walls of the furnace part of the boiler. The method is however still useful and can be easily applied to any boiler layout and can be used as a reference tool to verify other measurements. The direct method studied is acoustic pyrometry. The work specifically focuses on the sources of error in determining the temperature from the measurement of the time of flight of sound, the impact of particle concentration on the speed of sound through a gas-particle mixture, and the temperature profile reconstruction from acoustic time of flight measurements. A limited set of physical testing was also carried out using one acoustic generator and receiver to take measurements on a real coal power plant. As part of this physical testing, the detection of time of flight from acoustic signals was explored. Already installed radiation pyrometers were also used as a reference for interpreting the acoustic measurements. The indications are that the acoustic pyrometer provides a more representative temperature measurement than the radiation pyrometers. The uncertainty of the acoustic measurement for the same case study as the indirect method was determined and compared with the calculated result. While many aspects still need to be researched further, this initial study and experimental testing produced very promising results for future application of acoustic pyrometry for better monitoring of the coal combustion processes in power plant boilers.

Massive MU-MIMO (Multiuser-Multiple Input and Multple Output) is a promising technology for 5G wireless communications because of its spectrum and energy efficiency. To combat the distortion from multipath fading channel, the acquisition of channel state information is essential, which generally requires the training signal that lowers the data rate. In addition, coarse quantization can reduce the high computational energy and cost, yet results in the loss of information. In this thesis, an iterative decision feedback receiver, including iterative Channel Estimation (CE) and equalization, is constructed for a Massive MU-MIMO uplink system. The impact of multipath distortion and coarse quantization can be gradually reduced due to the iterative structure that exploits extrinsic feedback to improve the CE and data detection, so that the data rate is improved by reducing training signals for CE and by using low precision quantization. To observe and evaluate the convergence behaviour, an Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) chart method is utilized to visualize the performance of the iterative receiver. / Graduate

The aim of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of exit strategies within the development studies and the development community. The exit of financial aid by donors from developing countries have large effects on the recipients. Modern donors are facing the challenge of how to effectively exit a partner country without affecting the sustainability of their intervention, their relationship with the partner and the economic and social impact on the beneficiaries. For this purpose, modern donors establish exit strategies to guide their processes. Czech Republic as a new modern donor is aiming to increase its effectivity of development cooperation. However, when exiting partner countries such as Serbia, it does not follow an exit strategy. This thesis tries to analyse how the process of exit of the Czech Republic can be used to argue for the need of exit strategies, and what lessons can be learned from past exits.

Prostitution is the oldest form of oppression. Many prostituted women in South Africa wish to exit sex work, but are unable to because they have no other means of earning money. There is a dearth of research available on assisting prostituted women to exit sex work in South Africa. This study explored the effectiveness of a Cape Town-based NGO's - Embrace Dignity - exit intervention for prostituted women. Using semi-structured interviews it investigated the experiences of eight prostituted women in Cape Town. The research goal was to be able to inform improvements to the intervention for exit. An interpretative phenomenological approach was used to analyse interviews of women's experiences of the intervention. Findings revealed that attempting to exit prostitution in South Africa is an incredibly difficult and deeply complex process. An exploration of women's experiences of Embrace Dignity suggested that whilst it provides emotional and social support to prostituted women, it does not address their physical needs, most importantly that of employment. This study reveals that although emotional support plays a crucial role in assisting prostituted women to exit, it is secondary to the urgent physical support needed to satisfy the basic survival needs of prostituted women living in extreme poverty in South Africa.

Venture capitalists enter into an investment with the intent of realising a substantial profit on theventure after a number of years; this realisation is usually labelled the exit. The disinvestment decisionis a critical issue in the venture capital industry, as the return of the investment is realised upon exit.There are two important dimensions to the disinvestment decision; how and when to exit.This thesis studies the role of Venture Capital (VC) syndication, and its’ effect on exit dynamics for VCfirms in Sweden. The aspects of syndication will be focused on firm characteristics of investing parties,were the ambition is to provide an analysis of these characteristics and their effect on exit route(Merger and Acquisitions, M&As, and Initial Public Offerings, IPOs) and exit timing. Our statisticalanalysis rely on survival analysis with Competing Risk Models (CRM), which is adequate to model timein one state, when exit is to a number of competing states. These models allow for a joint analysis ofexit type and exit timing, i.e. model durations that end with multiple exits. Specifically, we apply theWeibull distribution with Gamma Frailty.To conduct the study, we have used a self-collected data set of 300 investments derived from 20 VCfirms in Sweden. For each investment, the data includes information relating to a number ofexplanatory variables concerning selected characteristics of the portfolio company and investingparties. Our results reveal that the presence of one or more experienced VC firms in the syndicatewould prolong time to exit and increase the likelihood of exiting through an IPO. We provided evidencethat a larger syndicate size will increase the time to exit and increase the likelihood for exiting throughan IPO. We also provided empirical evidence that foreign investor involvement in a syndicate prolongstime to exit in comparison to investments with only domestic co-investors and should affect exit routeby increasing the probability of an IPO. Finally, we could infer that a match between location of at leastone VC firm in a syndicate and acquirer country will have an increasing effect on time-to-exit, whileincreasing the probability of an exit in that country.We hope that the findings of this thesis will provide scholars and venture capitalists with novel,valuable information on a syndicates’ effect on exit dynamics.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the determinants of exit by bankruptcy in industrial sectors in Sweden. The dataset which is used gives a complete picture of the pattern of exit by bankruptcy on industry level in both manufacturing and service sectors in Sweden during the period 2004-2008. The importance of some industry structural factors such as scale economies, profitability, tangible and intangible capital intensity and industrial market growth rate for exit by bankruptcy are investigated. The use of two types of exit rates by bankruptcy (by firms and by employees) contributes to the current research. The two-way fixed effects model is used for the dependent variable of exit rate calculated by number of bankruptcies and total number of registered firms. The results show that only the long-term industrial market growth rate affects the exit rate by bankruptcy and it has a negative effect. The GLS in the two-way random effects model is used for the dependent variable of exit rate calculated by number of employees of bankruptcies. The results in this model, however, show that the existence of scale economies, more profitability, and investments in tangible and intangible capital assets all deter the number of bankruptcy.

The objective of this essay is to investigate if working conditions affect the retirement age and additionally, aims to explore the differences in the effects between women and men. This study investigates this by using data of individuals living in Sweden in 2012 that were between the age of 63 and 74 (i.e individuals that are born between 1938 and 1949) retrieved fromStatistics Employment Register (Sysselsättningsregister). To complete the information, Statistics Sweden, conducted a survey on behalf of Anxo et al (2017) to 20 000 randomly selected individuals that included questions about the individual’s previous working conditions at point of retirement or at age 64 if the individual stayed above the age of 65. The result strengthened the idea from previous research that possibility to choose when and how to work decrease the likelihood of retiring earlier, hence, extends the time on the labour market. Additionally, the results indicated that psychologically demanding jobs and monotone tasks increase the probability of retiring earlier. Some results were rather counter-intuitive where the working conditions: physical demanding job, working under time pressure, number of working hours and working unsocial hours increased the likelihood for an individual to stay longer in the labour market. Additional findings in this essay that contradicted prior studies is that socializing with co-workers outside of work and the possibility to combine family and work increases the probability to retire earlier, hence reduces the likelihood of a later retirement.

In this dissertation project, I make three separate contributions on how we can improve aggregate election forecasting models with respect to modeling choices, interpretability, and performance. Two of the three papers are applications to particular cases, the U.S. and France specifically, while the third points to a cross-national pattern in polling errors. The first paper addresses how we can make more reasonable prior choices for key parameters – such as the variability of non-sampling error – by using past pre-election polls. I showcase this approach on U.S. presidential elections. The second paper shows how to create and aggregate predictions in a multi-party contest while keeping the individual forecasts intact. This is useful to see convergences or divergences in the forecasts which might affect our confidence in the aggregate prediction. I develop a new aggregate forecasting model for French presidential elections to demonstrate this idea. The last paper shows and investigates a pattern in polling errors. We see that across multiple countries and electoral systems, polling errors favor the lesser party in two-party contests, i.e. polling errors favor Democratic candidates in Republican states and vice versa. We demonstrate a simple adjustment procedure based on this pattern to reduce the mean absolute polling error. We achieve a 16% reduction in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

This Paper presents a case study of one individual’s trajectory through violent national socialist movement in Sweden. Here, do i offer a case study of one person’s trajectory into, through and out of national socialist extremism in Sweden, it is based primarily on a face-toface interview with ”Emil”. Although the reliance on a single case study will limit generalizability, it nevertheless provides an opportunity to deeply explore an important phenomenon. The Research area in this study covers is one under development. The study's contribution in general is with further theory development as well as a further oral narrative story of the individual experience of an individual's path through the national socialist environment in Sweden. What this case study hase presented is how the success of the Sweden Democrats in recent years has facilitated the recruitment process for the Nordic resistance movement, as well as illustrating the staging of the process, and the central mechanisms in entry- and exitprocess and demonstrated the relationship between these.

En utmaning för slöjdlärare idag är att det finns en brist på läromedel och vägledning för hur man ska arbeta med hållbar utveckling inom slöjden. I detta arbete presenteras en lektionsplanering för undervisning av hållbar utveckling med fokus på materiallära. I lektionsplaneringen förekommer de didaktiska metoderna EPA, agenda och exit-ticket. Planeringen har genomförts över två lektioner, med två olika klasser i årskurs fem. Upplägget har analyserats genom observationer, enkäter och intervjuer, både för att utvärdera vad eleverna har tagit till sig från undervisningen, men också med avsikt att utvärdera elevernas deltagande. Syftet var att ta fram en möjlig lektionsplanering för undervisning om hållbar utveckling i slöjd, och undersöka hur eleverna ser på den undervisningen. Genomförande av det studentinitierade utvecklingsarbetet föll ut väl, och slutsatsen är att dessa elever har hög motivation för ämnet slöjd, men att de hellre arbetar med praktisk handarbete än teoretisk arbete kring hållbar utveckling på slöjdlektionerna. Däremot uppskattar de ett lektionsupplägg som innefattar uppgifter som utförs på ett lekfullt sätt. Utifrån observationerna kunde det visas att det är positivt för elevernas engagemang att låta eleverna reflektera kring ett problem enligt EPA modellen. Resultatet av studien tyder på att upplägget av arbetsgången hjälper eleverna att utveckla ett reflekterande förhållningssätt kring hållbar utveckling.