Today's modern aerospace systems exhibit strong interdisciplinary coupling and require a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach. Analysis methods that were once considered feasible only for advanced and detailed design are now available and even practical at the conceptual design stage. This changing philosophy for conducting conceptual design poses additional challenges beyond those encountered in a low fidelity design of aircraft. This thesis takes some steps towards bridging the gaps in existing technologies and advancing the state-of-the-art in aircraft design. The first part of the thesis proposes a new Pareto front approximation method for multiobjective optimization problems. The method employs a hybrid optimization approach using two derivative free direct search techniques, and is intended for solving blackbox simulation based multiobjective optimization problems with possibly nonsmooth functions where the analytical form of the objectives is not known and/or the evaluation of the objective function(s) is very expensive (very common in multidisciplinary design optimization). A new adaptive weighting scheme is proposed to convert a multiobjective optimization problem to a single objective optimization problem. Results show that the method achieves an arbitrarily close approximation to the Pareto front with a good collection of well-distributed nondominated points. The second part deals with the interdisciplinary data communication issues involved in a collaborative mutidisciplinary aircraft design environment. Efficient transfer, sharing, and manipulation of design and analysis data in a collaborative environment demands a formal structured representation of data. XML, a W3C recommendation, is one such standard concomitant with a number of powerful capabilities that alleviate interoperability issues. A compact, generic, and comprehensive XML schema for an aircraft design markup language (ADML) is proposed here to provide a common language for data communication, and to improve efficiency and productivity within a multidisciplinary, collaborative environment. An important feature of the proposed schema is the very expressive and efficient low level schemata. As a proof of concept the schema is used to encode an entire Convair B58. As the complexity of models and number of disciplines increases, the reduction in effort to exchange data models and analysis results in ADML also increases. / Ph. D.

[EN] The research work presented below tries to advance the explanation of an empirically contrasted phenomenon: the assymetric behaviour of the distribution of the size of companies. Empirical evidence in this regard has shown that, in most cases, economies are supplied by companies of all sizes. The assymetric behaviour of the distribution indicates us that markets are generally made up of very few large-size companies next to a high number of small-size companies. This behaviour, far from being an exclusive characteristic of the distribution of the size of companies, is present in other phenomena not only economic – for instance, the distribution of a population’s income or the localisation of activities in space – but also belonging to other very different fields. In 1949, linguistic George Kingley Zipf published a work in which he talked about various phenomena, distributed in an assymetric way, where you could see a mathematic relation between the size of an event and the frequency of its appearance. This relation, today known as Zipf’s law, indicates us that the appearance frequency of a certain event inversely depends on its size or intensity. Applied to the distribution of the size of companies, the compliance of the law implies that the appearance frequency of companies of a certain size inversely depends on the size achieved by them raised to a power. This behaviour was already discovered by Pareto in 1896 in a controversial question: the distribution of income in a population. Since Zipf’s work was published, many others have discovered the presence of potential laws in the distribution of different phenomena: the intensity of earthquakes, the frequency of words occurrence, the avalanches of species in danger of extinction, or the visits to web pages, among others. Nowadays, the ubiquitous character of this behaviour known as distributions of potential law is recognized. In spite of the important empiric evidence in this regard, theoretical explanations about the abundant appearance of phenomena that are distributed as potential laws have not been very successful. This research, centered in adjusting the distribution of the size of companies to the Zipf law, widens the empirical evidence in this regard: it checks compliance thereof for Spanish companies. Nontheless, beyond empirical work, the aim of the research is to advance the possible theoretical explanations of the phenomenon. In this sense, the researches carried out consider that the paradigme of complexity and Selforganization is the most suitable approach to deal with this matter. The conclusion is that potential laws observed in complex systems are a characteristic of the architecture of selforganized systems. Specifically, Zipf law observed for the distribution of the size of companies is a sign of the selforganization of the system, in our case of the market. Potential laws are considered as a macrobehaviour which spontaneously emerges in systems and derives form the multiple interactions between the agents involved. From these interactions, the statistic behaviour or guideline comes out; it can only be observed at the level of the system. The research recognizes the relation between the appearance of potential laws and the selforganization processes; from now on, the challenge is to try to determine which type of processes give place to the emergence of these laws. Although there are some theoretical explanations and models in this regard, they do not seem to be sufficiently satisfactory; there is still much to advance in the search of underlying mechanisms that generate the appearance of potential laws in the distribution of the size of companies. / [ES] El trabajo de investigación, que se presenta a continuación, trata de avanzar en la explicación de un fenómeno contrastado empíricamente: el comportamiento asimétrico de la distribución del tamaño de las empresas. La evidencia empírica al respecto, ha mostrado que, en la mayor parte de los casos, las economías son abastecidas por empresas de todos los tamaños. El comportamiento asimétrico de la distribución nos indica que los mercados están formados, generalmente, por muy pocas empresas de gran tamaño junto a un número elevado de empresas de pequeño tamaño. Este comportamiento, lejos de ser una característica exclusiva de la distribución del tamaño de las empresas, está presente en otros fenómenos tanto de carácter económico -por ejemplo, la distribución de los ingresos de una población o la localización de actividades en el espacio- como pertenecientes a otros campos muy diversos. En 1949, el lingüística George Kingley Zipf publicó un trabajo en el que dio a conocer diversos fenómenos, distribuidos de forma asimétrica, en los que se podía observar una relación matemática entre el tamaño de un suceso y su frecuencia de aparición. Esta relación, hoy conocida como ley de Zipf, nos indica que la frecuencia de aparición de un determinado suceso depende inversamente de su tamaño o intensidad. Aplicado a la distribución del tamaño de las empresas, el cumplimiento de la ley implica que la frecuencia de aparición de empresas con un determinado tamaño depende inversamente del tamaño alcanzado por ésta elevado a una potencia. Este comportamiento ya fue descubierto por Pareto en el año 1896 en una cuestión polémica: la distribución de los ingresos de la población. Desde la publicación del trabajo de Zipf muchos han descubierto la presencia de leyes potenciales en la distribución de diversos fenómenos: la intensidad de los terremotos, la frecuencia de aparición de las palabras, las avalanchas de extinción de especies, o las visitas a las páginas web, entre otros. Hoy por hoy, se reconoce el carácter ubicuo de este comportamiento conocido como distribuciones de ley potencial. Pese a la importante evidencia empírica al respecto, las explicaciones teóricas sobre la abundante aparición de fenómenos que se distribuyen como leyes potenciales no han tenido demasiado éxito. Esta investigación, centrada en el ajuste de la distribución del tamaño de las empresas a la ley de Zipf, amplia la evidencia empírica al respecto: comprueba su cumplimiento para las empresas españolas. Ahora bien, más allá del trabajo empírico, el objetivo de la investigación es avanzar en las posibles explicaciones teóricas del fenómeno. En este sentido, las investigaciones realizadas consideran que el paradigma de la complejidad y la autoorganización es el enfoque más adecuado para abordar la cuestión. Se concluye que las leyes potenciales observadas en sistemas complejos son una característica de la arquitectura de los sistemas autoorganizados. Concretamente, la ley de Zipf observada para la distribución del tamaño de las empresas es una manifestación de la autoorganización del sistema, en nuestro caso del mercado. Las leyes potenciales son consideradas como un macrocomportamiento que emerge de forma espontánea en los sistemas y que se deriva de las múltiples interacciones entre los agentes que lo forman. De estas últimas, surge la pauta o comportamiento estadístico que sólo es observable a nivel del sistema. La investigación reconoce la relación entre la aparición de leyes potenciales y los procesos de autoorganización, a partir de aquí, el reto es tratar de determinar qué tipo de procesos dan lugar a la emergencia de estas leyes. Aunque existen algunas explicaciones y modelos teóricos al respecto, no parecen ser suficientemente satisfactorios, aún queda mucho por avanzar en la búsqueda de los mecanismos subyacentes que generan la aparición de leyes potenciales en la distribución del tamaño de las empresas. / [CA] l treball d’investigació presentat a continuació tracta d’avançar en l’explicació d’un fenomen contrastat empíricament: el comportament asimètric de la distribució del tamany de les empreses. L’evidència empírica al respecte ha mostrat que, en la majoria dels casos, les economies són abastides per empreses de tots els tamanys. El comportament asimètric de la distribució ens indica que els mercats estan formats, generalment, per molt poques empreses de gran tamany juntament amb una xifra elevada d’empreses de tamany xicotet. Aquest comportament, lluny de ser una característica exclusiva de la distribució del tamany de les empreses, és present en uns altres fenòmens tant de caràcter econòmic – per exemple, la distribució dels ingressos d’una població o la localització d’activitats a l’espai – com pertanyents a uns altres camps molt diversos. El 1949, el lingüista George Kingley Zipf va publicar un treball en què va donar a conéixer diversos fenòmens, distribuïts de manera asimètrica, en els quals es podia observar una relació matemàtica entre entre el tamany d’un succés i la seua freqüència d’aparició. Aquesta relació, hui coneguda com la llei de Zipf, ens indica que la freqüència d’aparició d’un determinat succés depén inversament del seu tamany o intensitat. Aplicat a la distribució del tamany a les empreses, el compliment de la llei indica que la freqüència d’aparició d’empreses amb un determinat tamany depén inversament del tamany aconseguit per aquesta elevat a una potència. Aquest comportament ja va ser descobert per Pareto l’any 1896 en una qüestió polèmica: la distribució dels ingressos de la població. D’ençà de la publicació del treball de Zipf molts han descobert la presència de lleis potencials en la distribució de diversos fenòmens: la intensitat dels terratrèmols, la freqüència d’aparició de les paraules, les allaus d’extinció d’espècies, o les visites a les pàgines web, entre d’altres. Ara per ara es reconeix el caràcter ubic d’aquest comportament conegut com a distribucions de llei potencial. Malgrat la important evidència empírica al respecte, les explicacions teòriques sobre l’abundant aparició de fenòmens que es distribueixen com a lleis potencials no han tingut gaire èxit. Aquesta investigació, centrada en l’ajustament de la distribució del tamany de les empreses a la llei de Zipf, amplia l’evidència empírica al respecte: comprova el seu compliment per a les empreses espanyoles. Ara bé, més enllà del treball empíric, l’objectiu de la investigació és avançar en les possibles explicacions teòriques del fenomen. En aquest sentit, les investigacions realitzades consideren que el paradigma de la Complexitat i l’Autoorganització és l’enfocament més adequat per abordar la qüestió. Es conclou que les lleis potencials observades en sistemes complexos són una característica de l’arquitectura dels sistemes autoorganitzats. Concretament, la llei de Zipf observada per a la distribució del tamany de les empreses és una manifestació de l’autoorganització del sistema, en el nostre cas del mercat. Les lleis potencials són considerades com un macrocomportament que emergeix de manera espontània en els sistemes i que es deriva de les múltiples interaccions entre els agents que el formen. D’aquestes últimes sorgeix la pauta o comportament estadístic que només és observable en l’àmbit del sistema. La investigació reconeix la relació entre l’aparició de lleis potencials i els processos d’autoorganització. A partir d’ací, el repte és tractar de determinar quin tipus de processos donen lloc a l’emergència d’aquestes lleis. Encara que hi ha algunes explicacions i models teòrics al respecte, no semblen ser suficientment satisfactoris. Encara queda molt per avançar en la recerca dels mecanismes subjacents que generen l’aparició de lleis potencials en la distribució del tamany de les empreses. / Llorca Ponce, A. (2007). Aplicación de la teoría de los sistemas complejos y la autoorganización al estudio de la distribución del tamaño de las empresas [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/136194

Significant stray magnetic field exists around the coils when charging the electric vehicles (EVs) with inductive power transfer (IPT), owning to the large air gap between the transmitter and receiver. The methods for field attenuation usually introduce extra losses and reduce the efficiency. This study focuses on the synergetic attenuation of stray magnetic field which is optimized simultaneously with the efficiency. The optimization is realized with Pareto front. In this dissertation, three methods are discussed for the field attenuation. The first method is to tune the physical parameters of the winding, such as the inner radii, outer radii, distribution of the turns, and types of the litz wires. The second method is to add metal shields around the IPT coils, in which litz wires are used as shields to reduce the shielding losses. The third method is to control the phases of winding currents, which avoids increasing the size and weight of the IPT coils. To attenuate the stray magnetic field by tuning the physical parameters, the conventional method is to sweep all the physical parameters in finite-element simulation. This takes thousands of simulations to derive the Pareto front, and it's especially time-consuming for three-dimensional simulations. This dissertation demonstrates a faster method to derive the Pareto front. The windings are replaced by the lumped loops. As long as the number of turns for each loop is known, the efficiency and magnetic field are calculated directly from the permeance matrices and current-to-field matrices. The sweep of physical parameters in finite-element simulation is replaced by the sweep of the turns numbers for the lumped loops in calculation. Only tens of simulations are required in the entire procedure, which are used to derive the matrices. An exemplary set of coils was built and tested. The efficiency from the matrix calculation is the same as the experimental measurement. The difference for stray magnetic field is less than 12.5%. Metal shields attenuate the stray magnetic field effectively, but generates significant losses owning to the uneven distribution of shield currents. This dissertation uses litz wires to replace the conventional plate shield or ring shield. Skin effect is eliminated so the shield currents are uniformly distributed and the losses are reduced. The litz shields are categorized to two types: shorted litz shield and driven litz shield. Circuit models are derived to analyze their behaviors. The concept of lumped-loop model is applied to derive the Pareto front of efficiency versus stray magnetic field for the coils with litz shield. In an exemplary IPT system, coils without metal shield and with metal shields are optimized for the same efficiency. Both the simulation and experimental measurement verify that the shorted litz shield has the best performance. The stray magnetic field is attenuated by 65% compared to the coils without shield. This dissertation also introduces the method to attenuate the stray magnetic field by controlling the phases of winding currents. The magnetic field around the coils is decomposed to the component in the axial direction and the component in the radial direction. The axial component decreases with smaller phase difference between windings' currents, while the radial component exhibits the opposite property. Because the axial component is dominant around the IPT coils, decreasing the phase difference is preferred. The dual-side-controlled converter is applied for the circuit realization. Bridges with active switches are used for both the inverter on the transmitter side and the rectifier on the receiver side. The effectiveness of this method was verified both in simulation and experiment. Compared to the conventional series-series IPT with 90° phase difference between winding currents, stray magnetic field was attenuated by up to 30% and 40% when the phase differences of winding currents are 50° and 40°, respectively. Furthermore, an analytical method is investigated to calculate the proximity-effect resistance of the planar coils with ferrite plate. The objective of this method is to work together with the fast optimization which uses the lumped-loop model. The existence of the ferrite plate complicates the calculation of the magnetic field across each turn which is critical to derive the proximity-effect resistance. In this dissertation, the ferrite plate is replaced by the mirrored turns according to the method of image. The magnetic fields are then obtained from Ampere's Law and Biot-Savart Law. Up to 200 kHz, the difference of the proximity-effect resistance is less than 15% between calculation and measurement. / Ph. D. / Inductive power transfer for the battery charging of electric vehicles uses loosely coupled coils to replace the cables and plugs. The power is transferred from transmitter to receiver across tens of centimeters. Significant stray magnetic field exists around the coils owning to the large gap, which should be attenuated for the safety consideration of human beings. Three methods are discussed for the field attenuation. The first method is to tune the physical parameters of the winding, such as the inner radii, outer radii, distribution of the turns, and types of the litz wires. The second method is to add metal shields around the IPT coils, in which litz wires are used as shields to reduce the shielding losses. The third method is to control the phases of winding currents, which avoids the increase of the size and weight of the IPT coils. However, the field attenuation usually comes with reduced efficiency of the system. The work in this dissertation is focused on the synergetic attenuation of stray magnetic field in inductive power transfer for electric vehicles. The optimization is realized with Pareto front. The coils are optimized for low stray magnetic field and high efficiency simultaneously.

This thesis consists of five papers related to the theory of unequal probability sampling from a finite population. Generally, it is assumed that we wish to make modelassisted inference, i.e. the inclusion probability for each unit in the population is prescribed before the sample is selected. The sample is then selected using some random mechanism, the sampling design. Mostly, the thesis is focused on three particular unequal probability sampling designs, the conditional Poisson (CP-) design, the Sampford design, and the Pareto design. They have different advantages and drawbacks: The CP design is a maximum entropy design but it is difficult to determine sampling parameters which yield prescribed inclusion probabilities, the Sampford design yields prescribed inclusion probabilities but may be hard to sample from, and the Pareto design makes sample selection very easy but it is very difficult to determine sampling parameters which yield prescribed inclusion probabilities. These three designs are compared probabilistically, and found to be close to each other under certain conditions. In particular the Sampford and Pareto designs are probabilistically close to each other. Some effort is devoted to analytically adjusting the CP and Pareto designs so that they yield inclusion probabilities close to the prescribed ones. The result of the adjustments are in general very good. Some iterative procedures are suggested to improve the results even further. Further, balanced unequal probability sampling is considered. In this kind of sampling, samples are given a positive probability of selection only if they satisfy some balancing conditions. The balancing conditions are given by information from auxiliary variables. Most of the attention is devoted to a slightly less general but practically important case. Also in this case the inclusion probabilities are prescribed in advance, making the choice of sampling parameters important. A complication which arises in the context of choosing sampling parameters is that certain probability distributions need to be calculated, and exact calculation turns out to be practically impossible, except for very small cases. It is proposed that Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are used for obtaining approximations to the relevant probability distributions, and also for sample selection. In general, MCMC methods for sample selection does not occur very frequently in the sampling literature today, making it a fairly novel idea.

Many concrete problems may be cast in a multi-objective optimisation framework. The redundancy of existing methods for solving multi-objective programming problems susceptible to inconsistencies, coupled with the necessity for making in- herent assumptions before using a given method, make it hard for a nonspecialist to choose a method that ¯ts the situation at hand well. Moreover, using a method blindly, as suggested by the hammer principle (when you only have a hammer, you want everything in your hand to be a nail) is an awkward approach at best and a caricatural one at worst. This brings challenges to the design, development, implementation and deployment of a Decision Support System able to choose a method that is appropriate for a given problem and to apply the chosen method to solve the problem under consideration. The choice of method should be made according to the structure of the problem and the decision maker's opinion. The aim here is to embed a sample of methods representing the main multi-objective programming techniques and to help the decision maker find the most appropriate method for his problem. / Decisions Sciences / M. Sc. (Operations Research )

In this thesis, we present and analyze three algorithms that are designed to make computer simulation more efficient, valid, and/or applicable. The first algorithm uses simulation cloning to enhance efficiency in transient simulation. Traditional simulation cloning is a technique that shares some parts of the simulation results when simulating different scenarios. We apply this idea to transient simulation, where multiple replications are required to achieve statistical validity. Computational savings are achieved by sharing some parts of the simulation results among several replications. We improve the algorithm by inducing negative correlation to compensate for the (undesirable) positive correlation introduced by sharing some parts of the simulation. Then we identify how many replications should share the same data, and provide numerical results to analyze the performance of our approach. The second algorithm chooses a set of best systems when there are multiple candidate systems and multiple objectives. We provide three different formulations of correct selection of the Pareto optimal set, where a system is Pareto optimal if it is not inferior in all objectives compared to other competing systems. Then we present our Pareto selection algorithm and prove its validity for all three formulations. Finally, we provide numerical results aimed at understanding how well our algorithm performs in various settings. Finally, we discuss the estimation of input distributions when theoretical distributions do not provide a good fit to existing data. Our approach is to use a quasi-empirical distribution, which is a mixture of an empirical distribution and a distribution for the right tail. We describe an existing approach that involves an exponential tail distribution, and adapt the approach to incorporate a Pareto tail distribution and to use a different cutoff point between the empirical and tail distributions. Then, to measure the impact, we simulate a stable M/G/1 queue with a known inter-arrival and unknown service time distributions, and estimate the mean and tail probabilities of the waiting time in queue using the different approaches. The results suggest that if we know that the system is stable, and suspect that the tail of the service time distribution is not exponential, then a quasi-empirical distribution with a Pareto tail works well, but with a lower bound imposed on the tail index.

自從十八世界的自由放任思想興起之後，經由市場價格機能的運作以調配資源的論點 ，已廣植人心。而且經濟學家們根據柏拉圖（Pareto）的判斷準則，所導衍出來的三 個邊際效率條件，剛好和完全競爭的一般均衡解相同。故認為只要在競爭的市場裡， 價格機能就可像一隻看不見的手（Invisible Hnad）指導著經濟活動，從而人們透過 自利的動機，可以達成提高全體社會福利的目標。 但卻忽略了競爭性場存在的真實性，以致忽略了市場機能的不具效率；或稱市場失靈 （Market Failure）的現象。 價格機能的失靈，導因於社會價值和個人價值的歧異，在眾多的原因中，本文將之歸 納成下列五個原因： 一、非凸性（non-convex） 二、非競爭性（non-competitive ） 三、外部性（Externality ） 四、公共財的不具排他性（non-exclusive ） 五、資料的不對稱（Asymetric Information ） 所謂資訊不對稱是指買方與賣方所擁有的市場資訊不一樣。當市場裡有此不對稱現象 時，也就容易造成一方欺騙另一方，這種欺騙行為可能產生逆選擇（Aderse Select- ion ）和道德淪落（Moral Harzard ）的問題。 本文中除針對此一問題加以說明外並擬對此一資訊不對稱的市場，提出一套健全的遊 戲法則以正常市場的運作。另在第四章中欲就資訊不對稱較為嚴重的服務業市場中的 旅行業為例；就其經營環境惡化的癥結所在，配合所提的經濟理論加以分析，並找出 健全市場運作的方法。

Le développement économique d'une région urbaine est lié à son accessibilité. Le rôle des taxis est reconnu mondialement mais c'est un moyen très coûteux, pas abordable quotidiennement par tous. Pour abaisser les coûts, il faudrait faire partager le service par plusieurs utilisateurs tout en préservant ses qualités essentielles (trajet presque direct, service porte à porte) en accroissant la productivité de ses véhicules devenus "collectifs". Cette idée a été étudiée en 1971, par P.H. Fargier et G. Cohen, considérée toujours comme révolutionnaire et prématurée par un marché strictement réglementé. Avec une révision de la réglementation, cette extension du service des taxis, si on lui donnait l'opportunité de se mettre en place, pourrait permettre aux taxis de prendre leur part du transport public en s'adressant à la majorité de la population et pas seulement à une minorité de privilégiés pouvant assumer le prix d'un transfert individuel.

<p>In this thesis are extreme value theory used to estimate the probability that large insuranceclaims are exceeding a certain threshold. The expected claim size, given that the claimhas exceeded a certain limit, are also estimated. Two different models are used for thispurpose. The first model is based on maximum domain of attraction conditions. A Paretodistribution is used in the other model. Different graphical tools are used to check thevalidity for both models. Länsförsäkring Kronoberg has provided us with insurance datato perform the study.Conclusions, which have been drawn, are that both models seem to be valid and theresults from both models are essential equal.</p> / <p>I detta arbete används extremvärdesteori för att uppskatta sannolikheten att stora försäkringsskadoröverträffar en vis nivå. Även den förväntade storleken på skadan, givetatt skadan överstiger ett visst belopp, uppskattas. Två olika modeller används. Den förstamodellen bygger på antagandet att underliggande slumpvariabler tillhör maximat aven extremvärdesfördelning. I den andra modellen används en Pareto fördelning. Olikagrafiska verktyg används för att besluta om modellernas giltighet. För att kunna genomförastudien har Länsförsäkring Kronoberg ställt upp med försäkringsdata.Slutsatser som dras är att båda modellerna verkar vara giltiga och att resultaten ärlikvärdiga.</p>

The primary goal of this study was to determine the impact of price discrimination on tourism demand. Four objectives were defined with reference to the primary research goal. The first objective was to analyse the concept of price discrimination and relevant theories by means of a literature study. In this regard it was found that price discrimination between markets is fairly common and that it occurs if the same goods were sold to different customers at different prices. Price discrimination is also possible as soon as some monopoly power exists and it is feasible when it is impossible or at least impractical for the buyers to trade among themselves. Three different kinds of price discrimination can be applied, namely first-degree, second-degree and third-degree price discrimination. The data also indicated that price discrimination is advantageous (it mainly increases profit) and that it has several other effects too. The second objective was to analyse examples of price discrimination by means of international case studies. In these different case studies it was found that demand and supply, therefore consumer and product, formed the basis of price discrimination. If demand did not exist, it would be impossible to apply price discrimination. The findings also indicated that, for an organisation to be able to practice price discrimination, the markets must be separated effectively and it will only be successful if there is a significant difference in demand elasticity between the different consumers. Furthermore, the ability to charge these different prices will depend on the consumer's ability and willingness to pay. If an organisation should decide to price discriminate, it would lead to a higher profit, a more optimal pricing policy and also to an increase in sales. The third objective was to analyse national case studies. This was done through comparing the data of a tourism organisation price discriminating (Mosetlha Bush Camp, situated in the North West) to two organisations that did not implement price discrimination (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the Northern Cape and Golden Leopard Resort, also situated in the North West). It was found that a customer with low price elasticity is less deterred by a higher price than a customer with a high price elasticity of demand. As long as the customer's price elasticity is less than one, it will be very advantageous to increase the price: the seller will in this case get more money for less goods. With the increase in price the price elasticity tends to rise above one. The fourth objective was to draw conclusions and make recommendations. It was concluded that price discrimination could be applied successfully in virtually any organisation or industry. Furthermore, price discrimination does not always have a negative effect; but can have a positive ass well. It can have a positive effect on tourism demand. The findings emphasised that the main reason for implementing price discrimination is to increase profit at the cost of reducing consumer surplus. From the results it was recommended that more research on this topic should be conducted. / Thesis (M.Com. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.