The Bolivian forest products industry has experienced substantial growth during the last ten years. Exports of value-added products have largely replaced logs and green lumber, and raw materials for wood products have shifted to lesser used species. Important investment has taken place in lumber drying capacity, which unfortunately was not always accompanied by sound drying practices. Several non-governmental organizations, with U.S. financial aid, are currently supporting the industry with technical assistance. This project assists these efforts by assembling much needed information regarding lumber drying, and providing tools for performance measurement of drying practices. A survey was conducted among Bolivian companies to determine lumber drying capacity, technology and practices. Results showed a total drying capacity of 6,104,250 board feet in 167 kilns. Technology and practices used are highly variable. Thirty six percent of kilns are home-made, and 59% are European commercial brands. Upon completion of the survey, a set of analytical tools was developed and tested in six Bolivian firms. These tools were designed to systematically evaluate lumber drying operations and formulate actions for improvement. Equilibrium moisture content (EMC) during storage, manufacturing and shipping was monitored in plants located in three Bolivian cities and inside containerized shipments of wood products. Findings showed differences between EMC and lumber moisture content from -1% to 7%. Differences between EMC inside dry-lumber storage and processing facilities varied between 0% and 3.6% and were greatly influenced by facility configuration. Climate during shipment of wood products largely depended on packaging materials and methods, which attenuate sharp changes in ambient conditions. Monthly values for outdoor EMC for the main cities of Bolivia were calculated based on historic weather data and are reported. / Master of Science

Distributed computer systems are becoming increasingly prevalent, thanks to modern technology, and this leads to significant challenges for the software developers of these systems. In particular, in order to provide a certain service level agreement with users, the performance characteristics of the system are critical. However, developers today typically consider performance only in the later stages of development, when it may be too late to make major changes to the design. In this thesis, we propose a performance driven approach to development — based around tool support that allows developers to use performance modelling techniques, while still working at the level of program code. There are two central themes to the thesis. The first is to automatically relate performance models to program code. We define the Simple Imperative Remote Invocation Language (SIRIL), and provide a probabilistic semantics that interprets a program as a Markov chain. To make such an interpretation both computable and efficient, we develop an abstract interpretation of the semantics, from which we can derive a Performance Evaluation Process Algebra (PEPA) model of the system. This is based around abstracting the domain of variables to truncated multivariate normal measures. The second theme of the thesis is to analyse large performance models by means of compositional abstraction. We use two abstraction techniques based on aggregation of states — abstract Markov chains, and stochastic bounds — and apply both of them compositionally to PEPA models. This allows us to model check properties in the three-valued Continuous Stochastic Logic (CSL), on abstracted models. We have implemented an extension to the Eclipse plug-in for PEPA, which provides a graphical interface for specifying which states in the model to aggregate, and for performing the model checking.

The overall goal of this thesis is to draw relevant conclusions about the nature, impact and characteristics of sales promotions within the category of ready-to-eat cereals, based on thorough analysis of their effects. It is studied, whether sales promotions are beneficial or not for the long-term sales and how the shopper behaviour is influenced by the sales promotion activities. The effects of sales promotion on the overall consumption in the category are analyzed and other factors influencing the consumption are observed.

This study aimed to conduct an evaluation based on stakeholders&rsquo / perceptions of the effectiveness of the English Language Teaching Program at Atilim University, Preparatory School. Moreover, the study wanted to find out to what extent the program meets students&rsquo / expectations and whether there are any differences in stakeholders&rsquo / perceptions with regard to their ideal language teaching-learning environment and their real (classroom) practices. The sample included 62 instructors, including three administrators, and a teacher trainer and 216 students attending Prep. School in the academic term of 2008-2009. The data were collected through two questionnaires, developed by the researcher: one was designed for instructors and administrators / the other was designed for students. To support the close-ended items in the questionnaires, each questionnaire included some open-ended items. Data based on the questionnaires were analyzed through descriptive statistics. While, the qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis. Lastly, to validate the data and increase the credibility of the data, triangulation procedure was carried out. The findings of the study showed that the program at Atilim University Prep. School needs some improvements in the following areas: (1) the goals and objectives need to be clearly identified / (2) the content of the instruction needs to include all language skills / (3) the resources and materials need to be revised in terms of their content and compatibility with the goals of the school, and the proficiency exam / (4) the goals and the content of the testing means, especially proficiency exam, need to be redefined and made compatible with the content of the books and instruction.

Energy performance in buildings has become one of the most broadly debated subjects in contemporary architecture / and current legislation has emphasized its importance by requiring buildings to possess an energy performance certificate. Due to the technological advances in computational tools, it is possible to analyze the energy performance of buildings before construction starts / however most energy performance evaluation tools, requiring complex solid models and high technical knowledge in the field, can be used only during the post design phases. Since any design decision has an important effect on the energy performance of a building, evaluation tools should be used from the very beginning of the design process. In this dissertation, a building energy performance evaluation program, entitled the Energy performance Advisor (EnAd), was developed for evaluating the energy performance of buildings considering not only the legal framework of Turkey, but also the building design process. The program does not need advanced expertise, and was developed to be usable in any phase of the design process. The program, using the monthly calculation method of TS EN ISO 13790, was developed based on the European Union Directive on Energy Performance in Buildings (EPBD) and the current Turkish legislation on the subject. EnAd integrates the legal framework with the energy performance criterion into the building design process, while providing rapid feedback on energy performance and related legislation, and guiding the designer to improve design decisions. This dissertation has also shown the effects of building size, exposed surfaces, ventilation and infiltration, window-wall ratio, U-values, set-point temperatures and temperature differences between the outside and inside spaces on energy performance of buildings through generic case studies while searching the reasons for discrepancies between the results derived from the four evaluation tools, three of which is highly acknowledged energy performance evaluation tools. The validity, reliability, precision and usability of EnAd as a design-support tool has been proved through the usability and convergence tests conducted. Finally, the thesis has pointed out the importance of the use of energy performance evaluation tools from early stages of architectural design process to achieve higher performances as well as the roles of decision makers in this process.