The amounts of data collected from each sample of e.g. chemical or biological materials have increased by orders of magnitude since the beginning of the 20th century. Furthermore, the number of ways to collect data from observations is also increasing. Such configurations with several massive data sets increase the demands on the methods used to analyse them. Methods that handle such data are called multiblock methods and they are the topic of this thesis. Data collected from advanced analytical instruments often contain variation from diverse mutually independent sources, which may confound observed patterns and hinder interpretation of latent variable models. For this reason, new methods have been developed that decompose the data matrices, placing variation from different sources of variation into separate parts. Such procedures are no longer merely pre-processing filters, as they initially were, but have become integral elements of model building and interpretation. One strain of such methods, called OPLS, has been particularly successful since it is easy to use, understand and interpret. This thesis describes the development of a new multiblock data analysis method called OnPLS, which extends the OPLS framework to the analysis of multiblock and path models with very general relationships between blocks in both rows and columns. OnPLS utilises OPLS to decompose sets of matrices, dividing each matrix into a globally joint part (a part shared with all the matrices it is connected to), several locally joint parts (parts shared with some, but not all, of the connected matrices) and a unique part that no other matrix shares. The OnPLS method was applied to several synthetic data sets and data sets of “real” measurements. For the synthetic data sets, where the results could be compared to known, true parameters, the method generated global multiblock (and path) models that were more similar to the true underlying structures compared to models without such decompositions. I.e. the globally joint, locally joint and unique models more closely resembled the corresponding true data. When applied to the real data sets, the OnPLS models revealed chemically or biologically relevant information in all kinds of variation, effectively increasing the interpretability since different kinds of variation are distinguished and separately analysed. OnPLS thus improves the quality of the models and facilitates better understanding of the data since it separates and separately analyses different kinds of variation. Each kind of variation is purer and less tainted by other kinds. OnPLS is therefore highly recommended to anyone engaged in multiblock or path model data analysis.

The e-government phenomena has become more important with the ever increasing number of implementations world wide. A model explaining the e-government adoption and the related measurement instrument a survey had been developed and validated in this study. In a post technology acceptance model (TAM) approach, theory of planned behavior (TPB) was extended to t the requirements of e-government context. The adoption of student loans service of the higher education student loans and accommodation association (KYK) was investigated to obtain data for empirical validation. The instrument was administered to over four-hundred students and partial least squares path modeling was employed to analyze the data. The results indicate that the model was an improvement over TAM in terms of predictive power. The constructs investigated in the study successfully explained the intention to use an e-government service.

Abstract available on PDF file. / Ph.D.--University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

Customers adoption of Internet banking has become a widely-researched topic, although it is fair to state that some research gaps still exist. This research aims to fill some of the research gaps by examining the factors that determine the relevant behaviour of three different categories of Internet banking customers in China (i.e. current users, non-users, and discontinued users), and by developing two conceptual models that are derived from different, but complementary, theoretical approaches. The Decision Making Model and the Service and Relationship Evaluation Model are developed in this research. The Decision Making Model is grounded in the technology acceptance model (TAM) and it incorporates an additional construct of perceived value of using Internet banking. Additionally, the Service and Relationship Evaluation Model is derived from the service quality evaluation and relationship quality evaluation literature. Unlike in most other Internet banking adoption studies, these two conceptual models are used complementarily to deliver a comprehensive understanding of customers Internet banking adoption in China. The models are tested using a sample of 614 Chinese Internet banking customers collected via mall-intercept personal interviews based on questionnaires. Partial Least Square (PLS) path modelling and mediation analysis are applied to test the hypotheses advanced in the two models. The key findings of this research show that perceived value is a major factor for explaining customers Internet banking adoption, thus indicating to the banks that they should reduce costs associated with using Internet banking while providing more (perceived) benefits to customers; the importance of incorporating perceived value in Internet banking adoption model(s) is also demonstrated. The findings also confirm that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are important factors that determine the adoption of Internet banking by all categories of customers. Current users and non-users perceptions of their behavioural control over using Internet banking contribute to their adoption of Internet banking, and such control perceptions are shaped by self-efficacy, perceived government support and technological support. Additionally, it is demonstrated that both current users and discontinued users perceived value and perceived service quality of Internet banking have positive associations with their satisfaction with Internet banking, which lead to their Internet banking adoption. Moreover, the findings reveal that current users are more likely to continue with Internet banking if they are affectively committed to their banks; they are less likely to continue with Internet banking if they are calculatively committed to their banks due to the costs associated with leaving the banks. These therefore indicate the importance of establishing high-quality customer-bank relationships and placing less strict switching cost barriers that impose less pressure on their existing customers. This research contributes to the Internet banking adoption literature by (i) identifying the important category of Internet banking discontinued users, apart from current users and non-users; and (ii) using two complementary conceptual models, which are grounded in different theoretical streams, to investigate the relevant adoption behaviour of all three categories of Internet banking customers. It hence delivers a comprehensive understanding of personal customers adoption of Internet banking in China.

In this work we explore online secondary path modelling (SPM) in the context of spatial active noise control (ANC). Specifically, we are interested in the reduction of broadband noise over a three-dimensional region, without restrictions on microphone and loudspeaker array placement. As spatial ANC generally requires many channels, both ANC and SPM methods must have low computational cost. The SPM methods are intended to be used with a specific spatial ANC algorithm based on kernel interpolation. By incorporating SPM, the spatial ANC method is enabled to operate under timevarying secondary paths. Four SPM methods are considered in detail, of which three are based on the auxiliary noise technique. Descriptions of the algorithms are presented for the multichannel case, in addition to block-based implementations taking advantage of the fast Fourier transform to drastically reduce computational cost. Impulse responses to simulate a soundfield are recorded using a programmable robot arm. The algorithms are evaluated through simulations to show their respective strengths and weaknesses. It is found that the auxiliary noise based SPM methods have good convergence properties for both control filter and secondary path estimate, although the auxiliary noise’s degrading effect on the residual noise leads to a similar total noise reduction as the auxiliary noise free method. For all algorithms, the noise control performance worsens, and the convergence time increases by more than an order of magnitude, compared to when the secondary paths are known. It is verified that the kernel interpolation based spatial ANC method successfully reduces noise over a region even when used with online SPM. / I detta projekt undersöks sekundärvägsmodellering för spatial aktiv brusreducering. Fokus ligger på minskning av brus över en tredimensionell region, för metoder utan några restriktioner när det gäller mikrofon- och högtalarplacering. Efterssom spatial brusreducering generellt kräver många kanaler, behöver både sekundärvägsmodellering samt brusreducering ha mycket låg beräkningskostnad. Metoderna för sekundärvägsmodellering är menade att användas tillsammans med en specifik spatial brusreduceringsalgoritm baserad på kärninterpolation. Genom att inkludera sekundärvägsmodellering kan den spatiala brusreduceringsmetoden operera även då sekundärvägarna är tidsvarierande. Fyra metoder för sekundärvägsmodellering är undersökta i detalj, tre av vilka är baserade på auxiliärbrusprincipen. Dessa algoritmer är beskrivna för multikanalsfallet, tillsammans med blockbaserade implementationer som utnyttjar den snabba Fouriertransformen för att drastiskt minska sina beräkningskostader. Impulssvar som kan användas för att simulera ett ljudfält är inspelade med hjälp av en programmerbar robotarm. Algoritmerna är utvärderade genom simuleringar för att visa deras respektive styrkor och svagheter. Experimenten visade att de algoritmer som använder sig av auxiliärbrus har bra konvergenskaraktäristik för både kontrollfilter och sekundärvägsestimat. Däremot, på grund av auxiliärbrusets negativa inverkan på residualbruset i rummet, är den totala brusreduceringen snarlik det den auxiliärbrusfria metoden ger. För alla algoritmer blir brusreduceringen försämrad och konvergenstiden ökad med mer än en storleksordning när sekundärvägsmodellering används, jämfört med när sekundärvägarna är kända. Det verifierades också att den spatiala brusreduceringsmetoden baserad på kärninterpolation kan reducera brus över en region även när den används tillsammans med sekundärvägsmodellering.