The rapid growth of current data warehouse systems makes random sampling a crucial component of modern data management systems. Although there is a large body of work on database sampling, the problem of automatic sample selection remained (almost) unaddressed. In this paper, we tackle the problem with a sample advisor. We propose a cost model to evaluate a sample for a given query. Based on this, our sample advisor determines the optimal set of samples for a given set of queries specified by an expert. We further propose an extension to utilize recorded workload information. In this case, the sample advisor takes the set of queries and a given memory bound into account for the computation of a sample advice. Additionally, we consider the merge of samples in case of overlapping sample advice and present both an exact and a heuristic solution. Within our evaluation, we analyze the properties of the cost model and compare the proposed algorithms. We further demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the heuristic solutions with a variety of experiments.

This thesis presents the design and implementation of control strategies for building energy management systems (BEMS). The controllers considered include the multi PI-loop controllers, state-space designs, constrained input and output MIMO adaptive controllers, fuzzy logic solutions and genetic algorithm techniques. The control performances of the designs developed using the various methods based on aspects such as regulation errors squared, energy consumptions and the settling periods are investigated for different designs. The aim of the control strategy is to regulate the room temperature and the humidity to required comfort levels. In this study the building system under study is a 3 input/ 2 output system subject to external disturbances/effects. The three inputs are heating, cooling and humidification, and the 2 outputs are room air temperature and relative humidity. The external disturbances consist of climatic effects and other stochastic influences. The study is carried out within a simulation environment using the mathematical model of the test room at Loughborough University and the designed control solutions are verified through experimental trials using the full-scale BMS facility at the University of Bradford.

Ph. D. (Department of Logistics Management, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / The effective practice of green supply chain has been a focus of both practitioners and researchers for almost a decade, mostly focusing on greenhouse effects and implementing full green supply chain control systems. However, not much attention has been given to empirical relationships between internal environmental management systems, green packaging management, green information systems adoption and organisational performance. The chief objective of this study was to assess the internal environmental management factors of the plastic packaging manufacturing organisations in Gauteng province in South Africa, mainly focusing on the three major internal environmental factors, namely pollution prevention plans, total quality management and environmental audits. Secondly, the study aimed to determine the relationship between green packaging management, green information systems and organisational performance. A positivist approach was used as this study is quantitative. A total number of 250 questionnaires were distributed to managers and employees of the chosen plastic packaging organisations. Although 250 questionnaires were distributed to the chosen organisations, only 230 were deemed to be fit for capturing due to some errors on the other 20 questionnaires. For data analysis the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 24) was used to generate frequency tables and graphs. Furthermore, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to generate regression weights and standard regression weights. The factor loading was also generated using SEM as well as model fitness and path co-efficiency values. A detailed research approach was followed using a sample size of 230; the results of this study show that there is a positive significant relationship between internal environmental management systems, green packaging management and green information systems. Further, it was found that most organisations that adopt green management systems are more likely to perform better than those that do not. The study also discovered that the government policies that place emphasis on green practices, not only pressurise organisations, but also help them to be strategic. Most plastic packaging manufacturing organisations usually find it difficult to operate without polluting the environment, but this study discovered that if they control their internal environmental systems, it will be easy for these organisations to adopt environmental management systems and produce green products. Also, given the changing market environments, currently most consumers prefer green products and if organisations go green this might open up new markets for their new products and enhance performance. This study examined the importance of green packaging management from the perspective of both government policies and organisational policies. The results showed that some organisations are still struggling to align their internal environmental management process with the external environment; however, the market changes are enforcing that most plastic packaging organisations start aligning their internal management systems with external systems, as it gives them opportunities towards new products and new competitive strategies that will lead to better performance. An environmental management framework was developed in this study. The framework aims to help guide plastic manufacturers with their long- and short-term strategies. In line with non-linear relationships between variables, the study recommends the following to the plastic packaging organisations: to create pollution prevention policies and strategies to improve organisational performance by eliminating pollution and avoiding penalties from the government. Pollution prevention plans, total quality management and environmental audits were used as independent variables to measure organisational performance. In line with the linear relationship between the adoption of green packaging management and organisational performance, it is recommended to the plastic packaging organisations that enterprises facing slow-moving sales growth, profitability and general performance challenges, should use green technologies as a remedy for their problems.

Learning Management Systems have become increasingly used in all levels of education since more people have access to computers and the internet. An important feature of the LMS is to provide students with information about their courses. This information, however, is not always easy to find. Especially when the system does not follow usability guidelines about how to provide your users with information. In this study four different course pages on the KTH LMS Canvas have been evaluated with a moderated usability test to asses how well users find information on the LMS. The results show that some improvements could be made by adhering more to usability guidelines and that the courses that did were easier for testers to navigate. Some conclusions that can be made are that users find things easier when there is a high similarity between link names and the information they are looking for and that users scan web pages rather than read them. This is in line with previous research. The conclusions lead to four recommendations to KTH that can improve the usability of all Canvas course pages. / Utbildningsplattformar används allt mer sen intågen av datorer och internet i människors hem. En viktig funktion på en utbildningsplattform är att ge studenter information om sina kurser. Dock är denna information inte alltid så lätt att hitta. Särskilt inte om plattformen inte följer de riktlinjer som finns för hur man förser användare med information på ett användarvänligt sätt. I denna studie har fyra olika KTH- Canvassidor undersökts med ett modererat användartest för att utvärdera hur lätt användare hittar information på utbildningsplattformen. Resultaten visar att vissa förbättringar kan ske genom att tydligare följa riktlinjerna för användarvänlighet och att kurserna som följde riktlinjerna bättre var lättare att navigera. Slutsater som kan dras är bland annat att det är lättare för användare att hitta information när länknamnet är likt den information som söks och att användare skumläser hemsidor istället för att läsa dem noggrant. Detta överensstämmer med resultat från tidigare studier. Från slutsatserna gjordes fyra rekommendationer till KTH som kan förbättra användarvänligheten för alla Canvassidor.

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<p>  </p> <p>Traditional manual code compliance checking process is a time-consuming, costly, and error-prone process that has many shortcomings (Zhang & El-Gohary, 2015). Therefore, automated code compliance checking systems have emerged as an alternative to traditional code compliance checking. However, computer software cannot directly process regulatory information in unstructured building code texts. To support automated code compliance checking, building codes need to be transformed to a computer-processable, structured format. In particular, the problem that most automated code compliance checking systems can only check a limited number of building code requirements stands out.</p> <p>The transformation of building code requirements into a computer-processable, structured format is a natural language processing (NLP) task that requires highly accurate part-of-speech (POS) tagging results on building codes beyond the state of the art. To address this need, this dissertation research was conducted to provide a method to improve the performance of POS taggers by error-driven transformational rules that revise machine-tagged POS results. The proposed error-driven transformational rules fix errors in POS tagging results in two steps. First, error-driven transformational rules locate errors in POS tagging by their context. Second, error-driven transformational rules replace the erroneous POS tag with the correct POS tag that is stored in the rule. A dataset of POS tagged building codes, namely the Part-of-Speech Tagged Building Codes (PTBC) dataset (Xue & Zhang, 2019), was published in the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). Testing on the dataset illustrated that the method corrected 71.00% of errors in POS tagging results for building codes. As a result, the POS tagging accuracy on building codes was increased from 89.13% to 96.85%.</p> <p>This dissertation research was conducted to provide a new POS tagger that is tailored to building codes. The proposed POS tagger utilized neural network models and error-driven transformational rules. The neural network model contained a pre-trained model and one or more trainable neural layers. The neural network model was trained and fine-tuned on the PTBC (Xue & Zhang, 2019) dataset, which was published in the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). In this dissertation research, a high-performance POS tagger for building codes using one bidirectional Long-short Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) trainable layer, a BERT-Cased-Base pre-trained model, and 50 epochs of training was discovered. This model achieved 91.89% precision without error-driven transformational rules and 95.11% precision with error-driven transformational rules, outperforming the otherwise most advanced POS tagger’s 89.82% precision on building codes in the state of the art.</p> <p>Other automated information extraction methods were also developed in this dissertation. Some automated code compliance checking systems represented building codes in logic clauses and used pattern matching-based rules to convert building codes from natural language text to logic clauses (Zhang & El-Gohary 2017). A ruleset expansion method that can expand the range of checkable building codes of such automated code compliance checking systems by expanding their pattern matching-based ruleset was developed in this dissertation research. The ruleset expansion method can guarantee: (1) the ruleset’s backward compatibility with the building codes that the ruleset was already able to process, and (2) forward compatibility with building codes that the ruleset may need to process in the future. The ruleset expansion method was validated on Chapters 5 and 10 of the International Building Code 2015 (IBC 2015). The Chapter 10 of IBC 2015 was used as the training dataset and the Chapter 5 of the IBC 2015 was used as the testing dataset. A gold standard of logic clauses was published in the Logic Clause Representation of Building Codes (LCRBC) dataset (Xue & Zhang, 2021). Expanded pattern matching-based rules were published in the dissertation (Appendix A). The expanded ruleset increased the precision, recall, and f1-score of the logic clause generation at the predicate-level by 10.44%, 25.72%, and 18.02%, to 95.17%, 96.60%, and 95.88%, comparing to the baseline ruleset, respectively. </p> <p>Most of the existing automated code compliance checking research focused on checking regulatory information that was stored in textual format in building code in text. However, a comprehensive automated code compliance checking process should be able to check regulatory information stored in other parts, such as, tables. Therefore, this dissertation research was conducted to provide a semi-automated information extraction and transformation method for tabular information processing in building codes. The proposed method can semi-automatically detect the layouts of tables and store the extracted information of a table in a database. Automated code compliance checking systems can then query the database for regulatory information in the corresponding table. The algorithm’s initial implementation accurately processed 91.67 % of the tables in the testing dataset composed of tables in Chapter 10 of IBC  2015. After iterative upgrades, the updated method correctly processed all tables in the testing dataset. </p>

Abstrakt (Svenska) - Vikten av att ha effektiv hantering av kundrelationer (CRM) inom företag väger mycket, för att på ett lyckat sätt öka förståelsen och samarbeten med kunder. Företag ändrar eller uppdaterar sina CRM system för att kunna öka arbetseffektiviteten. Kunder och marknad utvecklas ständigt, och för att kunna följa upp med större datamängder och ökad konkurrens bör företag använda sig utav effektiva sätt att arbeta på, när det gäller hjälp med att göra data mer tillgängligt. Om företag inte framgångsrikt integrerar sina CRM system kan de halka efter och försämras. Ett byte gällande CRM är oftast bestämt av ledning och ifrågasatt av de faktiska användarna. Mottagarna av förändringen upplever ofta osäkerhet och tvivel. I denna avhandling beskriver vi hur vår forskning kring CRM processer, CRM system och intressenterna i fallföretaget, leder till att hitta utmaningar och behov. Vårt främsta bidrag är vår analys av rekommendationer baserade på våra resultat, som kan användas som underlag för att skapa en kravspecifikation av fallföretaget. Med de empiriska uppgifter som samlas in i vår avhandling strävar vi efter att hjälpa fallföretaget och andra organisationer i deras process att implementera ett nytt CRM system. / Abstract (English) - Efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is critical for successful understanding and collaboration with Customers. Companies frequently change or update their CRM systems in order to increase their work effectiveness. Customers and markets are always evolving and in order to keep up with increasing amounts of data and competition, companies should use efficient ways of working, regarding assistance in making data more accessible. If companies do not successfully integrate their CRM systems they risk falling behind other possible competitors and deteriorate. Change is often approved by those who are commanding it and questioned by those who receive it. The recipients of the change often experience uncertainty and hesitation. In this thesis, we describe how our research of CRM process, CRM systems and the stakeholders within the case company lead to finding challenges and needs. Our main contribution is the analysis of recommendations based on our findings, which can be used as a basis for creating a requirement specification in the context of integrating a new CRM system. With the empirical data collected in our thesis, and with the literature that we reviewed, we aim to assist the case company and other organizations in their process of implementing a new CRM system.

Brandväggar är en kritisk komponent i nätverkssäkerhet som kontrollerar och filtrerar nätverkstrafik för att skydda mot obehörig åtkomst och cyberhot. Effektiv hantering av brandväggsregler är avgörande för att säkerställa att ett nätverk fungerar smidigt och säkert. I stora företagsnätverk som Scania kan hanteringen av dessa regler bli komplex och resurskrävande, vilket kan leda till duplicerade och överlappande regler som försämrar systemets prestanda.Detta examensarbete undersöker tillämpningen av generativ artificiell intelligens (GAI) och maskininlärning för att hantera och optimera brandväggsregler, med fokus på identifiering och hantering av duplicerade och överlappande regler. Problemställningen adresserar de växande utmaningarna med att underhålla effektiva brandväggsregler i stora företagsnätverk som Scania. Genom att implementera och utvärdera en prototyp baserad på XGBoost, utforskar arbetet potentialen hos AI-tekniker för att förbättra hanteringen och säkerheten av nätverkstrafik. Resultaten visar att AI kan spela en kritisk roll i automatiseringen av processer för upptäckt och korrigering av felaktiga regler, vilket bidrar till ökad nätverkssäkerhet och optimerad resursanvändning. Studien bekräftar att användningen av AI inom brandväggshantering erbjuder betydande fördelar, men lyfter också fram behovet av fortsatt forskning för att adressera säkerhetsutmaningar relaterade till AI-lösningar. / Firewalls are a critical component of network security, controlling and filtering network traffic to protect against unauthorized access and cyber threats. Effective management of firewall rules is essential to ensure that a network operates smoothly and securely. In large enterprise networks like Scania, managing these rules can become complex and resourceintensive, leading to duplicate and overlapping rules that degrade system performance and security.This thesis investigates the application of generative AI (GAI) and machine learning to manage and optimize firewall rules, focusing on the identification and handling of duplicate and overlapping rules. The problem addresses the growing challenges of maintaining effective firewall rules in large enterprise networks like Scania. By implementing and evaluating a prototype based on XGBoost, this work explores the potential of AI techniques to improve the management and security of network traffic. The results demonstrate that AI can play a critical role in automating the processes for detecting and correcting faulty rules, contributing to increased network security and optimized resource usage. The study confirms that the use of AI in firewall management offers significant benefits but also highlights the need for further research to address security challenges related to AI solutions.

[ES] Debido a la globalización y al mercado competitivo actual, a la gran variedad de productos y servicios, a los clientes cada vez más exigentes y que demandan productos de alta calidad al mejor precio y a que la tecnología está continuamente mejorando; la mayoría de las pymes industriales decidieron implementar en sus instalaciones normas y sistemas de gestión con la intención de perfeccionar sus procesos y mejorar su nivel de competitividad y así asegurar su permanencia en su sector del mercado. Esto llevó a que una gran cantidad de empresas implementaran sistemas de gestión en sus instalaciones. Lo que a su vez provocó la necesidad y urgencia de crear nuevos sistemas de gestión relacionados con diferentes aspectos que pudieran afectar al desempeño organizacional y, por tanto, a la competitividad de la empresa. Todo esto se traduce en una gran cantidad de empresas que poseen en sus instalaciones varios sistemas de gestión independientes, con los que gestionar aspectos tan diversos como la calidad, el medio ambiente o la salud y la seguridad de sus trabajadores. Sin embargo, existe la posibilidad de administrar varios sistemas de gestión como si fueran uno solo, mediante los sistemas integrados de gestión. Con estos, las empresas pueden ayudarse de las sinergias que presentan en común para obtener una gestión más eficiente y sencilla que si se administraran por separado cada sistema de gestión. No obstante, al llevar a cabo una revisión literaria completa, se apreció que ningún sistema integrado de gestión está relacionado conjuntamente con los aspectos de calidad, mejora continua, riesgos y que ayude a eliminar aquellas actividades que no aportan valor añadido a la empresa. Es por este motivo por lo que el principal objetivo de la presente Tesis Doctoral es crear una metodología que integre las normas ISO 9001:2015 e ISO 31000:2009, Kaizen y Lean Manufacturing. Con esta metodología se intenta ofrecer ayuda a las empresas para mejorar la calidad de sus productos, afrontar los riesgos que pueden encontrarse diariamente y, al mismo tiempo, mejorar continuamente y prescindir de aquellas herramientas y actividades que no generan valor para la empresa. Para poder desarrollar dicha metodología de integración, una vez terminada la revisión literaria, se realizó un análisis empírico univariante y bivariante en el que se empleó una muestra de treinta pymes de la Comunidad Valenciana y una muestra de nueve empresas españolas ubicadas en la República Checa con dos o más sistemas de gestión implementados. De este estudio se concluye que la mayoría de las pymes examinadas han integrado sus sistemas de gestión examinando los elementos comunes de los sistemas de gestión que querían integrar y mediante su propio mapa de procesos. Esta integración tardó entre uno y dos años y en el que afrontaron barreras como "Falta de recursos humanos", "Falta de colaboración entre los departamentos" y "Empleados poco motivados". Gracias al sistema integrado de gestión, las empresas consiguieron mejorar su imagen externa, perfeccionar la calidad de sus productos y aumentar su ventaja competitiva en el mercado y su eficiencia organizacional. También se observó que la totalidad de las pymes valencianas de la muestra, antes de empezar con el proceso de integración y en un plan de integración, determinaron "los Objetivos de calidad y la planificación para lograrlos", la "Gestión de la Infraestructura" y el "Control de las no-conformidades". Mientras que las pymes españolas ubicadas en la República Checa crearon un plan de integración en el que determinaron el "Control de las no conformidades", la "Información documentada (documentación, registro)", los "Roles, responsabilidades, autoridades" de cada trabajador, la "Revisión del sistema" y las "Acciones preventivas y correctivas". / [CAT] A causa de la globalització i al mercat competitiu actual, a la gran varietat de productes i serveis, als clients cada vegada més exigents i que demanen productes d'alta qualitat al millor preu i a que la tecnologia està contínuament millorant; la majoria de les pimes industrials van decidir implementar en les seves instal·lacions normes i sistemes de gestió amb la intenció de perfeccionar els seus processos i millorar el seu nivell de competitivitat, per així assegurar la seva permanència en el seu sector del mercat. Això va fer que una gran quantitat d'empreses implementaren sistemes de gestió en les seves instal·lacions. El que al seu torn va provocar la necessitat i urgència de crear nous sistemes de gestió relacionats amb diferents aspectes que poguessen afectar a l'acompliment organitzacional i, per tant, a la competitivitat de l'empresa. Tot això es tradueix en una gran quantitat d'empreses que posseeixen diversos sistemes de gestió independents, amb els quals gestionar aspectes tan diversos com la qualitat, el medi ambient o la salut i la seguretat dels seus treballadors. No obstant això, hi ha la possibilitat d'administrar diversos sistemes de gestió com si foren un, mitjançant els sistemes integrats de gestió. Amb aquests, les empreses poden ajudar-se de les sinergies que presenten en comú per obtenir una gestió més eficient i senzilla que si s'administraren per separat cada sistema de gestió. No obstant això, en dur a terme una revisió literària completa, es va apreciar que cap sistema integrat de gestió està relacionat conjuntament amb els aspectes de qualitat, millora contínua, riscos i que ajude a eliminar aquelles activitats que no aporten valor afegit a l'empresa. És per aquest motiu pel que el principal objectiu de la present Tesi Doctoral és crear una metodologia que integre les normes ISO 9001: 2015 i ISO 31000: 2009, la filosofia Kaizen i l'eina Lean Manufacturing. Amb aquesta metodologia es pretén ajudar a les empreses a millorar la qualitat dels seus productes, afrontar els riscos que poden trobar-se diàriament i, a la vegada, millorar contínuament i prescindir d'aquelles eines i activitats que no generen valor per a l'empresa. Per poder desenvolupar aquesta metodologia d'integració, una vegada acabada la revisió literària, s'ha realitzat una anàlisi empírica univariant i bivariant en la que s'utilitza una mostra de trenta pimes de la Comunitat Valenciana i una mostra de nou pimes espanyoles situades a la República Txeca amb dos o més sistemes de gestió implementats. D'aquests anàlisis es conclou que la majoria de les pimes estudiades han integrat els seus sistemes de gestió analitzant els elements comuns dels sistemes de gestió que volien integrar i mitjançant el seu propi mapa de processos. Aquest procés d'integració va durar entre un i dos anys i en el que van afrontar barreres com "Falta de recursos humans", "Falta de col·laboració entre els departaments" i "Empleats poc motivats". Però gràcies al sistema integrat de gestió, les empreses van aconseguir millorar la seua imatge externa, perfeccionar la qualitat dels seus productes i augmentar el seu avantatge competitiu en el mercat i la seua eficiència organitzacional. També s'ha observat que, abans de començar amb el procés d'integració i en un pla d'integració, la majoria de les pimes valencianes de la mostra van determinar "els objectius de qualitat i la planificació per a aconseguir-los", la "Gestió de la Infraestructura" i el "Control de les no-conformitats". Mentre que les pimes espanyoles situades a la República Txeca van crear un pla d'integració en el que van determinar el "Control de les no conformitats", la "Informació documentada (documentació, registre)", els "Rols, responsabilitats, autoritats" de cada treballador, la "Revisió del sistema" i les "Accions preventives i correctives". / [EN] Due to globalisation and the current competitive market, the wide variety of products and services, customers are increasingly demanding and ask for high-quality products at the best price and technology is continuously improving; most industrial SMEs decided to implement management standards and systems in their facilities to improve processes and their level of competitiveness, to ensure their permanence in their market sector. This led many companies to implement management systems in their facilities. Which in turn, caused the need and urgency to create new management systems related to different aspects that could affect organisational performance and, therefore, the company competitiveness. All this means that many companies have several independent management systems to manage aspects as diverse as quality, the environment, or the health and safety of its workers. However, there is a possibility of running several management systems as if they were only one, through integrated management systems. With them, companies can benefit from the common synergies presented by the systems to obtain more efficient and simple management than if they ran each management system separately. Nevertheless, after conducting a complete literary review, it was found that no integrated management system is related to aspects of quality, continuous improvement, risks and, simultaneously, helps eliminate those activities that do not add value to the company. This reason motivates that the principal purpose of this essay is to design a method that integrates the ISO 9001:2015 standard, the Lean Manufacturing tool, the Kaizen philosophy of continuous improvement, and the ISO 31000:2009 standard. This methodology can help companies to improve the quality of their products and face the risks that can be found daily and, at the same time, continuously improve and disregard those tools and activities that do not generate value for the company. To develop the integration methodology after the literary review is conducted did a univariate and bivariate empirical analysis was done using a sample of thirty SMEs from the Valencian Community and a sample of nine Spanish companies located in the Czech Republic, in all cases implementing two or more management systems. The conclusion from this study is that most of the SMEs in the sample have integrated their management systems analysing the common elements of the management systems that they wanted to integrate and through their own process map. This process of integration lasted between one and two years and in which they encountered barriers such as "Lack of human resources", "Lack of collaboration between the departments" and "Employees with little motivation". Thanks to the integrated management system, the companies managed to improve their external image, the quality of their products and increase their competitive advantage in the market, and their organizational efficiency. It was also observed that, before starting the process of integration and in an integration plan, most of the Valencian SMEs from the sample determined "the objectives of quality and the planning to achieve them", "Infrastructure Management" and "Control of non-conformities". While the Spanish SMEs located in the Czech Republic created an integration plan in which they determined the "Control of non-conformities", the "Documented information (documentation, registration)", the "Roles, responsibilities, authorities" of each worker, the "System Review" and the "Preventive and Corrective Actions". / Palacios Guillem, M. (2021). Propuesta de un nuevo procedimiento basado en la norma ISO 9001 para la gestión conjunta de la norma ISO 31000, la filosofía Kaizen y la herramienta Lean Manufacturing en pymes industriales de la Comunidad Valenciana [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/178979