This thesis discusses housing issues and its solutions in a village named Kobylí. The theoretical part focuses on introducing the issues by defining basic concepts related to housing, local real estate market and evaluating feasibility of projects. The thesis provides an overview of current as well as historic data and graphs related to housing. In the practical part, a feasibility study is presented and focuses on an economic evaluation of a construction of a new apartment building in Kobylí, followed by requirements assessment such as an effectiveness of critical variables and a crucial input value from the investor's point of view. Lastly, this thesis identifies and defines new tenants of the building which is offering appartemnts, and evaluates whether the tenants can afford housing in their new apartment.

This study aimed at evaluating and demonstrating the feasibility of using Concentrated Solar Thermal technology combined with biomass energy technology as a hybrid renewable energy system to supply the process heat requirements in small scale industries in Sri Lanka. Particularly, the focus was to apply the concept to the expanding hotel industry, for covering the thermal energy demand of a medium scale hotel. Solar modules utilize the rooftop area of the building to a valuable application. Linear Fresnel type of solar concentrator is selected considering the requirement of the application and the simplicity of fabrication and installation compared to other technologies. Subsequently, a wood-fired boiler is deployed as the steam generator as well as the balancing power source to recover the effects due to the seasonal variations in solar energy. Bioenergy, so far being the largest primary energy supply in the country, has a good potential for further growth in industrial applications like small hotels.  When a hotel with about 200-guests capacity and annual average occupancy of 65% is considered, the total annual CO2 saving is accounted as 207 tons compared with an entirely fossil fuel (diesel) fired boiler system. The annual operational cost saving is around $ 40,000 and the simple payback period is within 3-4 years. The proposed hybrid system can generate additional 26 employment opportunities in the proximity of the site location area.   This solar-biomass hybrid concept mitigates the weaknesses associated with these renewable technologies when employed separately. The system has been designed in such a way that the total heat demand of hot water and process steam supply is managed by renewable energy alone. It is thus a self-sustainable, non-conventional, renewable energy system. This concept can be stretched to other critical medium temperature applications like for example absorption refrigeration. The system is applicable to many other industries in the country where space requirement is available, solar irradiance is rich and a solid biomass supply is assured.

Introduction: Le cancer colorectal (CCR) demeure un véritable fardeau de santé publique au Canada. Malgré les énormes avancés scientifiques, l’étiologie du CCR n’est pas encore clairement définie. La prévention du CCR nécessite l’identification de nouveaux facteurs de risque. Durant ces dernières années, des études épidémiologiques ont rapporté l’association entre la santé buccodentaire et le cancer colorectal. Cependant, aucune étude n’a été conçue spécifiquement pour vérifier cette association. Objectifs : L’objectif principal de l’étude était de tester la faisabilité d’une grande étude épidémiologique ultérieure, conçue pour vérifier l’association entre la santé buccodentaire compromise et le risque de CCR. Les objectifs secondaires étaient de standardiser les procédures de l’étude, d’évaluer le taux de participation et le succès des approches proposées pour le recrutement, d’évaluer la faisabilité et la validité des méthodes de la collecte des données sur la santé buccodentaire et de produire des données préliminaires concernant l’association entre la santé buccodentaire compromise et le risque de CCR. Méthodologie: Il s’agit d’une étude de faisabilité, de devis cas-témoins à base populationnelle. Les participants dans le groupe de cas (n=30) ont été recrutés dans deux hôpitaux de Montréal. Les témoins (n=39) ont été recrutés dans la population générale de Montréal. Les données sur la santé buccodentaire ont été collectées aussi bien par un questionnaire sur la santé buccodentaire que par un examen clinique. Les données sur plusieurs facteurs de risque du CCR ont été collectées par des questionnaires validés. Résultats: L’étude de faisabilité a rencontré un taux de participation de 73% (30) chez les cas et de 32,5% (39) chez les témoins. Seulement 26% (7) des participants dans le groupe des cas et 79% (26) des participants dans le groupe de témoins ont complété l’examen dentaire. La santé buccodentaire compromise était associée au risque de CCR chez les participants plus âgés que 59 ans (OR=8,4 ; IC à 95% : 0,94 – 389,4; p=0,036). Les mesures de santé buccodentaire auto-rapportées par les participants par l’utilisation du questionnaire ont montré une bonne validité par rapport aux mesures de l’examen clinique. Conclusion: L’étude épidémiologique ultérieure est jugée faisable en apportant des modifications. Les résultats préliminaires plaident pour une association possible entre la santé buccodentaire compromise par la maladie parodontale et/ou l’édentement et le risque du CCR. / Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a real public health burden in Canada. Despite the recent advances in medicine, the etiology of CRC is not yet clearly defined. The prevention of CRC requires the identification of new risk factors. In recent years, epidemiological studies have reported the association between oral health and CRC. However, no study has been specifically designed to test this association. Objectives: The main objective of the study was to test the feasibility of a future large epidemiological study designed to investigate the association between impaired oral health and the risk of CRC. The secondary objectives were to standardize the procedures of the study, to assess the level of participation and success of proposed recruitment approaches, to assess the feasibility and validity of data collection methods on oral health and to produce preliminary data on the association between impaired oral health and the risk of CRC. Methodology: This was population-based case-control feasibility study. Participants in the case group (n = 30) were recruited from two hospitals in Montreal. Controls (n = 39) were recruited from the general population of Montreal. Oral health measures were collected both by a self-administered questionnaire on oral health and a clinical examination. Data on several risk factors for CRC were collected by validated questionnaires. Results: The participation rate of the study was 73% (30) among cases and 32.5 % (39) in controls. Only 26% (7) of participants in the case group and 79% (26) of participants in the control group completed the dental examination. Compromised oral health was associated with increased CRC risk in participants older than 59 years (OR = 8.4, 95% CI 95%: 0.94 – 389.4; p = 0.036). Self-reported oral health measures obtained through questionnaires showed good validity to clinical examination. Conclusion: The subsequent epidemiological study is considered feasible by making changes. The preliminary results argue for a possible association between oral health compromised by periodontal disease and / or tooth loss and risk of CRC.

Encontrar soluções para a problemática dos resíduos e, em virtude da crescente demanda por energia, diminuir a dependência dos combustíveis fósseis têm constituído grandes desafios para os pesquisadores. O setor hospitalar é um potencial gerador dos chamados Resíduos de Serviços de Saúde (RSS) que também apresenta um alto consumo de energia em decorrência do seu período de funcionamento e de equipamentos que necessitam de infraestrutura adequada. Apesar de representarem uma pequena parcela perante o montante dos Resíduos Sólidos Urbanos (RSU), no Brasil, nem todos os geradores se preocupam com seu tratamento e destinação final. O emprego de tecnologias desenvolvidas para o tratamento desses resíduos com a possibilidade de recuperação energética deve ser avaliado. O Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (HC-FMRP-USP) gera cerca de 1,9 ton/dia de RSS. Nesse contexto, o objetivo geral desta pesquisa foi avaliar a viabilidade legal, ambiental e econômico-financeira da implantação de um sistema próprio de tratamento de RSS no HCFMRP- USP para geração de energia. A metodologia foi estruturada em pesquisa exploratória, coleta de dados por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas com responsáveis pelo setor dos RSS no hospital, com pesquisadores da área da saúde, de escolas de engenharia, órgãos técnicos e indústrias fabricantes dos equipamentos; levantamento bibliográfico e análise de conteúdo. Para a avaliação econômico-financeira, foi empregada a avaliação custoefetividade. Estudos comparativos sobre os tipos de tratamento disponíveis e utilizados nacionalmente foram considerados. Assim, o processo que melhor se adequou ao sistema proposto foi o da incineração com tecnologia de gaseificação e combustão combinadas (GCC). Os resultados demonstraram que o sistema proposto está sob a égide da lei contemplando, inclusive, a Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos (PNRS), desde que mediante anuência do Conselho Gestor do campus da USP e de sua Comissão de Meio Ambiente, além do devido processo de licenciamento ambiental junto à CETESB e pré-análise dos RSS. Contudo, sob o aspecto ambiental há questões públicas e políticas sobre a aceitação de sua implantação no complexo hospitalar. Embora haja o emprego de avançada tecnologia, o equipamento avaliado necessita de instalação, manutenção e monitoramento adequados por profissionais capacitados para operá-los, a fim de se evitar possíveis danos às pessoas e ao meio-ambiente, para isso, os envolvidos devem agir com responsabilidade. Por fim, sob o aspecto econômico-financeiro houve um empate técnico entre os custos do tratamento realizado atualmente e os da proposta do investimento. Assim, esse último aspecto avaliado incidiu sobre o benefício implícito da decisão de se implantar ou não o processo. Portanto, considera-se a viabilidade da implantação de um sistema próprio para tratamento de RSS no HCFMRP-USP para geração de energia sob os três aspectos: legal, ambiental e econômicofinanceiro. / Finding solutions to the waste problem and reducing dependence on fossil fuels due to the growing demand for energy have become big challenges for researchers to deal with. Hospitals are large producers of Medical waste (MW) and also big energy consumers due to their long running hours and the running of equipment that demands adequate infrastructure. Despite accounting for a small share of all the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) not all producers, in Brazil, are concerned about waste treatment and its final destination. The use of technologies developed with the aim of treating such waste in order to generate energy has to be assessed. The Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (HCFMRP-USP) generates around 1.9 tons of waste per day. In this context, the general aim of this research program was to assess the legal, environmental and economic-financial feasibility of the implementation of a private system of biomedical waste treatment at HCFMRP-USP in order to generate energy. The method was structured in exploratory research, data gathering by means of semi-structured interviews with MW department staff at the hospital, with Health researchers, with Engineering College researchers, technical organizations and equipment manufacturers, besides bibliographic referencing and content analysis. Cost-effectiveness analysis was used for the economic-financial analysis. Comparative studies of the types of treatment available and used nationwide were taken into consideration. Thus, the process which best suited the proposed system was that of incineration by means of Gasification Combined Cycle (GCC). Results showed that the proposed system is under the support of Law and it also takes into consideration the National Policy for Solid Waste (NPSW), provided that it has the approval of the Director Council of the Administration of the campus of USP and of its Environment Committee as well as appropriate environmental licenses granted by CETESB and pre-analysis of MW. However, under the environmental aspect, there are public and political issues regarding the acceptance of this implementation in the hospital premises. Although there is the use of advanced technology, the equipment which was assessed needs to be installed, maintained and monitored adequately by professionals trained to operate it so as to avoid possible damage to humans and the environment. Staff involved must be responsible. Finally, under the economic-financial aspect there was a draw between the costs of the treatment conducted at present and those of the proposed investment. Therefore, this last aspect assessed prevailed over the implicit benefit of the decision on whether to implement the process or not. However, the feasibility of the implementation of a private MW treatment system at HC-FMRP-USP in order to generate energy is to be considered under the legal, environmental and economicfinancial aspects.

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate different repowering alternatives from the viewpoint of increasing power production from existing offshore wind farms (OWF), as some of the first commissioned OWFs are approaching the end of their expected lifetime. The thesis presents a literature review of components and financial aspects that are of importance for repowering of OWFs. In the literature review, risks and uncertainties regarding repowering are also lifted and analysed. The thesis contains a case study on Horns Rev 1 OWF, where three different repowering scenarios are evaluated by technical and financial performance, aiming to compare the cost of repowering alternatives. The design of the case study is based around previous studies of offshore repowering having focused mainly on achieving the lowest possible levelized cost of energy (LCoE) and highest possible capacity factor, often resulting in suggested repowering utilizing smaller wind turbines than the existing ones. In order to evaluate the financial viability of repowering alternatives, the software RETScreen Expert was used to estimate the annual energy production (AEP) after losses and calculate the net present value (NPV) and LCoE for lifetime extension and full repowering utilizing different capacity wind turbines. Input values from the literature as well as real wind resource measurements from the site was utilized to achieve as accurate results as possible. The result of the case study shows that repowering of OWFs have the possibility of providing a very strong business case with all scenarios resulting in a positive NPV as well as lower LCoE than the benchmarked electricity production price. Although the initial investment cost of the different repowering alternatives presented in this thesis still are uncertain to some extent, due to the lack of reliable costs for repowering alternatives, this thesis provides a base for further research regarding the repowering of OWFs.

Type 1 diabetes affects a person’s life on many levels in terms of quality of life, health, and socioeconomic costs both for the patients but also their families. As of now there is no therapy that targets the underlying mechanism of the disease. Intralymphatic administration of Diamyd® is being evaluated in a phase IIb clinical trial, DIAGNODE-2. The aim was to examine if the intralymphatic administration is feasible for both patients and medical professionals, and to identify any aspects of the procedure that can be improved. This feasibility study is based on interviews and answers received from questionnaires. The medical professionals that were selected were radiologists and study nurses that are involved in the DIAGNODE-2 trial. The radiologists were the prime focus and were thus interviewed through face-to-face/skype or phone and answered a questionnaire. Study nurses, having more contact with the patient, answered a survey in order to gain additional insights into the patient perspective.   The results show that the radiologists has a positive view towards the administration procedure, which was described as easy and safe. According to the study nurses the patients accept the procedure and they agreed that the patients understand the injection procedure once they received the information. In terms of the emotional state of the patients they were a bit nervous, but they became calmer after receiving the first injection. Based on the above-mentioned findings the intralymphatic injection procedure is described as feasible and has the potential to become a part of the standard clinical routine.

The thesis outlined in this report has been done as a sub-project in cooperation between the municipalities Borlänge in Sweden and Chisinau in Moldova. The project aimed to explore the region's economic and environmental opportunities for waste incineration with energy recovery, also known as Waste to Energy. At present, the solution to the waste situation is unmonitored landfills with smaller sorting operations. Environmentally, this is a poor solution and although there are plans for change, no specific strategy has been presented. Another important issue is Moldova's dependence on foreign produced energy. The country's energy system is dependent on imported natural gas, and only a small part of the country's electrical energy is produced domestically. What makes the waste to energy so interesting for this region is that it contributes to an improvement in both of these issues by using the waste as fuel to reduce energy dependency. The study has been done without specific waste composition data for the Chisinau region. With this in mind a dynamic model in several steps has been made, designed to obtain new results depending on what waste composition is specified. The results of this study show that implementation of a waste incineration plant in the Chisinau energy system is economically and environmentally feasible, given the current conditions. The proposed plant is designed to annually handle 400,000 tonnes of waste, and would with the assumed waste composition deliver 560 GWh of district heat and 260 GWh of electric energy. This production provides an annual profit of 31.6 M €, which gives a positive net present value after the project amortization. Compared with the city's current solution with landfills and gas turbines, the project also provides a significant environmental improvement. During the plant's design lifetime, greenhouse gas emissions are 53.9%, and only 6.8% with the assumption that only a portion of the carbon content of the waste is of fossil origin.

Le « Cloud computing » est un nouveau modèle de systèmes de calcul. L’infrastructure, les applications et les données sont déplacées de machines localisées sur des systèmes dématérialisés accédés sous forme de service via Internet. Le modèle « coût à l’utilisation » permet des économies de coût en modifiant la configuration à l’exécution (élasticité). L’objectif de cette thèse est de contribuer à la gestion de la Qualité de Service (QdS) des applications s’exécutant dans le Cloud. Les services Cloud prétendent fournir une flexibilité importante dans l’attribution des ressources de calcul tenant compte des variations perçues, telles qu’une fluctuation de la charge. Les capacités de variation doivent être précisément exprimées dans un contrat (le Service Level Agreement, SLA) lorsque l’application est hébergée par un fournisseur de Plateform as a Service (PaaS). Dans cette thèse, nous proposons et nous décrivons formellement le langage de description de SLA PSLA. PSLA est fondé sur WS-Agreement qui est lui-même un langage extensible de description de SLA. Des négociations préalables à la signature du SLA sont indispensables, pendant lesquelles le fournisseur de PaaS doit évaluer la faisabilité des termes du contrat. Cette évaluation, par exemple le temps de réponse, le débit maximal de requêtes servies, etc, est fondée sur une analyse du comportement de l’application déployée dans l’infrastructure cloud. Une analyse du comportement de l’application est donc nécessaire et habituellement assurée par des tests (benchmarks). Ces tests sont relativement coûteux et une étude précise de faisabilité demande en général de nombreux tests. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une méthode d’étude de faisabilité concernant les critères de performance, à partir d’une proposition de SLA exprimée en PSLA. Cette méthode est un compromis entre la précision d’une étude exhaustive de faisabilité et les coûts de tests. Les résultats de cette étude constituent le modèle initial de la correspondance charge entrante-allocation de ressources utilisée à l’exécution. Le contrôle à l’exécution (runtime control) d’une application gère l’allocation de ressources en fonction des besoins, s’appuyant en particulier sur les capacités de passage à l’échelle (scalability) des infrastructures de cloud. Nous proposons RCSREPRO (Runtime Control method based on Schedule, REactive and PROactive methods), une méthode de contrôle à l’exécution fondée sur la planification et des contrôles réactifs et prédictifs. Les besoins d’adaptation à l’exécution sont essentiellement dus à une variation de la charge soumise à l’application, variations difficiles à estimer avant exécution et seulement grossièrement décrites dans le SLA. Il est donc nécessaire de reporter à l’exécution les décisions d’adaptation et d’y évaluer les possibles variations de charge. Comme les actions de modification des ressources attribuées peuvent prendre plusieurs minutes, RCSREPRO réalise un contrôle prédictif fondée sur l’analyse de charge et la correspondance indicateurs de performance-ressources attribuées, initialement définie via des tests. Cette correspondance est améliorée en permanence à l’exécution. En résumé, les contributions de cette thèse sont la proposition de langage PSLA pour décrire les SLA ; une proposition de méthode pour l’étude de faisabilité d’un SLA ; une proposition de méthode (RCSREPRO) de contrôle à l’exécution de l’application pour garantir le SLA. Les travaux de cette thèse s’inscrivent dans le contexte du projet FSN OpenCloudware (www.opencloudware.org) et ont été financés en partie par celui-ci. / Cloud computing is a new computing model. Infrastructure, application and data are moved from local machines to internet and provided as services. Cloud users, such as application owners, can greatly save budgets from the elasticity feature, which refers to the “pay as you go” and on-demand characteristics, of cloud service. The goal of this thesis is to manage the Quality of Service (QoS) for applications running in cloud environments Cloud services provide application owners with great flexibility to assign “suitable” amount of resources according to the changing needs, for example caused by fluctuating request rate. “Suitable” or not needs to be clearly documented in Service Level Agreements (SLA) if this resource demanding task is hosted in a third party, such as a Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider. In this thesis, we propose and formally describe PSLA, which is a SLA description language for PaaS. PSLA is based on WS-Agreement, which is extendable and widely accepted as a SLA description language. Before signing the SLA contract, negotiations are unavoidable. During negotiations, the PaaS provider needs to evaluate if the SLA drafts are feasible or not. These evaluations are based on the analysis of the behavior of the application deployed in the cloud infrastructure, for instance throughput of served requests, response time, etc. Therefore, application dependent analysis, such as benchmark, is needed. Benchmarks are relatively costly and precise feasibility study usually imply large amount of benchmarks. In this thesis, we propose a benchmark based SLA feasibility study method to evaluate whether or not a SLA expressed in PSLA, including QoS targets, resource constraints, cost constraints and workload constraints can be achieved. This method makes tradeoff between the accuracy of a SLA feasibility study and benchmark costs. The intermediate of this benchmark based feasibility study process will be used as the workload-resource mapping model of our runtime control method. When application is running in a cloud infrastructure, the scalability feature of cloud infrastructures allows us to allocate and release resources according to changing needs. These resource provisioning activities are named runtime control. We propose the Runtime Control method based onSchedule, REactive and PROactive methods (RCSREPRO). Changing needs are mainly caused by the fluctuating workload for majority of the applications running in the cloud. The detailed workload information, for example the request arrival rates at scheduled points in time, is difficult to be known before running the application. Moreover, workload information listed in PSLA is too rough to give a fitted resource provisioning schedule before runtime. Therefore, runtime control decisions are needed to be performed in real time. Since resource provisioning actions usually require several minutes, RCSREPRO performs a proactive runtime control which means that it predicts future needs and assign resources in advance to have them ready when they are needed. Hence, prediction of the workload and workload-resource mapping are two problems involved in proactive runtime control. The workload-resource mapping model, which is initially derived from benchmarks in SLA feasibility study is continuously improved in a feedback way at runtime, increasing the accuracy of the control.To sum up, we contribute with three aspects to the QoS management of application running in the cloud: creation of PSLA, a PaaS level SLA description language; proposal of a benchmark based SLA feasibility study method; proposal of a runtime control method, RCSREPRO, to ensure the SLA when the application is running. The work described in this thesis is motivated and funded by the FSN OpenCloudware project (www.opencloudware.org).

Mathematical modeling and simulations of a submerged renewable storage system integrated to a wind farm, chosen based on the geographical and wind conditions at the Baltic Sea, gives insight on the feasibility of the submerged renewable storage and an approximation of the payback period and profits that could be generated. Genetic Algorithms were used to obtain the optimal number of spheres for a certain depth, based on 2 objective functions I.e. Minimum Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and maximum reduction in wind curtailment. The new arrangement concept shows that the Initial Capital Cost (ICC) could be decreased by 25% to 60% depending upon the number of sphere employed. Based on the inputs considered in the study, the results prove that the submerged renewable storage system would be feasible, and the profits ranging from 15 Million Euro to 29 Million Euro can be achieved at the chosen location, towards the Swedish side of the Baltic sea. Although, in a real life scenario it is assumed that only up to half of the profits obtained in the results would be achievable. The results also show that, the Pump/Turbine with a high turbine efficiency and lower pump efficiency, generated better profits, compared to a Pump/Turbine running with a higher pump efficiency and lower turbine efficiency. An attempt to increase the round-trip efficiency by adding a multi stage submersible pump, resulted in additional ICC and LCC, which saw a decrease in profits.

The main goal of my graduation thesis is the working-out project for tourism development in selected areas of Šumava. The project proposal for tourism development is specifically located in the village Frymburk. The proposal of project is called Reconstruction of pension to extend season in winter season. The purpose of this project is to provide accommodation services in the winter months due to installation of new heating equipment. Within the fulfillment of partial objectives, the thesis is concerned with identifying opportunities in the tourism market in selected areas, identifying the optimum technical and securing the project, and are also identified two variants of the financial security of the project.