The thesis concerns mainly the construction of a pipeline that enables the analyzing,visualizing, and forecasting of time-series data in an intuitive and streamlined process.The main data set consists of four measurements: purchased heating, purchasedelectricity, and purchased cold water from select buildings at the Lule ̊a Universityof Technology campus as well as the outside temperature of the campus. This isused to establish a proof of concept, demonstrating the validity of this pipeline andits subsystems. Using this pipeline you are able to upload data, visualize data andanalyze data online and also create future forecasts of these measurements which arealso displayed online.As the global demand for energy efficiency increases, tools, like this one, is moreimportant than ever in order to give the decision-makers more insight. In the caseof the campus buildings, you might be able to more easily identify anomalous valueswhich point to some oversight that can then be amended. For instance, if two identicalbuildings exist and one of them consumes 50% more heating, you can conclude thata problem exists and now you know where the problem lies so you can amend theissue.Forecasting future consumption is also helpful since it would allow you to reducethe purchasing of fossil fuels, such as gas, which is the case at La Trobe Universityin Melbourne. Using forecasting they can better predict how much gas they need topurchase and when the peak consumption hours are so that they can adjust their solarproduction accordingly. Thus, forecasting future consumption can further reduce theglobal need and impact of fossil fuels.To conclude, this pipeline can be used as a tool to reduce the environmental impactof the Lule ̊a University of Technology campus buildings. The pipeline can then beapplied to other areas to help them solve their problems. Some of the findings ofthis thesis include comparisons of common forecasting algorithms and the benefits ofusing weekday/weekend models.In the future, this might also inspire others to make similar projects, just like LaTrobe University inspired us at the Lule ̊a University of Technology.

Background: Today, women and men do not share leadership positions equally within the organizational context. In turn, leadership, particularly transformational leadership, which is mainly used by female leaders, is essential for organizations. Within the organization, the leaky pipeline is a reason why female leaders face gender-specific challenges in their roles as leaders. Further, some aspects provide support for women in the organizational context. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding how these female leaders can overcome these gender-specific challenges.   Purpose: This thesis aims to investigate how Swedish female middle managers can navigate the hinders and helpers they experience within the organizational context.    Method: The thesis was conducted in a qualitative approach with an interpretivist paradigm. The findings were collected through semi-structured interviews with a sample of Swedish female middle managers in the context of private companies and the municipal sector. The empirical findings were analyzed and coded systematically using Gioia’s et al. (2013) method. As a result, a framework emerged based on the existing literature in line with an inductive approach.    Conclusion: This study proposes the Female Leaders Navigation Framework as a help for the female leaders to navigate in the organizational context. Four navigations: 1) Mindset, 2) Awareness, 3) Preparation, and 4) Communication can be implemented by the female leader to navigate the perceived hinders and helpers in the organizational context.

Continuous delivery is a software development methodology that aims to reduce development cycle time by putting a strong emphasis on automation, quality and rapid feedback. This thesis develops an automated method for detecting performance regressions as part of a continuous delivery deployment pipeline. The chosen method is based on control charts, a tool commonly used within statistical process control. This method is implemented as part of a continuous delivery deployment pipeline and its ability to detect performance regressions is then evaluated by injecting various performance bottlenecks in a sample application. The results from this thesis show that using a control chart based approach is a viable option when trying to automate verification of load test results in the context of continuous delivery. / Kontinuerlig leverans är en utvecklingsmetodik för mjukvara med målet att reducera ledtid genom att fokusera på automatisering, kvalitet och snabb återkoppling. I det här examensarbetet utvecklas en automatiserad metod för att upptäcka försämringar i prestanda i en deployment pipeline för kontinuerlig leverans. Den valda metoden baseras på kontrolldiagram, ett verktyg som ofta används inom statistisk processkontroll. Metoden implementeras som en del av en deployment pipeline för kontinuerlig leverans och dess förmåga att upptäcka prestandaförsämringar utvärderas genom att olika prestandarelaterade flaskhalsar implementeras i en testapplikation. Resultaten från arbetet visar att en metod baserad på kontrolldiagram är ett tänkbart alternativ för att automatisera verifiering lasttestresultat inom kontinuerlig leverans.

This article examines predictors of the future market value of microcap pharmaceutical companies. This is problematic since the large majority of these firms seldom report positive net income. Their value comes from the potential of a liquidity event such as occurs when a key drug is approved by the FDA. The typical scenario is one in which the company is either acquired by a larger pharmaceutical firm or enters into a joint venture with another pharmaceutical firm. Binary logistic regression is used to determine the impact of the firm's drug treatment pipeline and its investment in research and development on the firm's market cap. Using annual financial data from 2007 through 2010, this study finds that the status of the firm's drug treatment pipeline and its research and development expenses are significant predictors of the firm's future stock value relative to other microcap pharmaceutical firms.

This thesis is concerned with the Canadian state’s rhetoric of reconciliation, the logic of exceptionality that supports it, and the ways this logic helps soften Indigenous communities for resource development. In formulating my theoretical framework, I draw from Agamben’s theories of sovereignty and states of exception, Mark Rifkin’s reworking of Agamben’s theories to accommodate a settler-colonial context, Pauline Wakeham’s application of the logic of exceptionality to rhetorics of apology and terrorism, and Glen Coulthard’s concepts of translation (as the attempt to bring Indigenous discourses and life ways into the realm of a Western/settler-colonial discourse of state sovereignty) and grounded normativity (as a way of making visible the contingency of such narratives of state sovereignty). Following the work of James Tully and John Borrows in Resurgence and Reconciliation, particularly the argument that transformative reconciliation must involve reconciliation with the living earth, my project aims to show that official reconciliation actually prevents the possibility of transformative reconciliation because of the role it plays in furthering an extractivist agenda by “exceptionalizing" Indigenous peoples and life-ways to rhetorically contain Indigenous anti-colonial or anti-industry actions, physically contain Indigenous dissenters during moments of crisis (i.e. states of exception), pre-emptively frame Indigenous dissenters as terroristic, and foreclose discussions of ongoing colonialism. / Graduate

Inconsistent findings within the existing literature tend to confuse the ability of behavior-focused alternative schools to address behavior problems of at-risk juveniles. Recent studies have suggested that juveniles who successfully commit to greater self-regulation skills display both academic success and positive classroom behavior. Although self-regulation skills have been positively associated with behavioral success among juveniles placed in behavior-focused alternative schools, it remains unclear as to what aspects of these programs that juveniles experience as facilitating the development of such skills. This phenomenological study used semistructured interviews of 5 students in Grades 10 through 12 enrolled in a behavior-focused alternative school to improve the understanding of how juveniles experience and perceive alternative school programs as facilitating the development of self-regulation skills in promotion of positive behavior outcomes. Structural functionalist theory provided an appropriate lens through which data of juvenile experiences and perceptions of the functions of an alternative school program could be interpreted. Data analysis consisted of a process of open coding, categorizing, and interpreting data for meaning. The findings of the current study revealed that when aspects of alternative schools function to develop reasoning skills and a willingness to adhere to school standards, such functions may be beneficial in juvenile commitment to behavioral self-regulation. The data provided by this study may be valuable for stakeholders and policymakers in assessing the influence of behavior-focused alternative schools.

Firms lose strategic business opportunities to create sustainable growth because leaders do not establish talent pipelines. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies used by the leaders of Saudi firms to develop talent pipelines. The conceptual framework for this study was the resource-based view. The overarching question that guided this study explored strategies business leaders in small and medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia used to establish talent pipelines to create sustainable growth. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 8 business leaders of 4 firms operating in western Saudi Arabia and a review of company documents. The business leaders had successful experience and knowledge in talent and performance management. Data were analyzed using inductive and deductive content analysis. The results revealed 4 strategies business leaders in small and medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia used: hiring the right people, establishing a performance management system, differentiating employees based on performance, and implementing employee retention strategies. The implications of this study for positive social change include reducing unemployment rates among Saudi nationals, growing Saudi workers' capabilities, and increasing Saudi families' standard of living.

Space instrumentation technology is an essential tool for rocket and satellite research, and is expected to become popular in commercial and military operations in fields such as radar, imaging, and communications. These instruments are traditionally implemented on printed circuit boards using discrete general-purpose Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) devices and other components. A large circuit board is not convenient for use in micro-satellite deployments, where the total payload volume is limited to roughly one cubic foot. Because micro-satellites represent a fast growing trend in satellite research and development, there is motivation to explore miniaturized custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs to reduce the volume and power consumption occupied by instrument electronics. In this thesis, a model of a new Plasma Impedance Probe (PIP) architecture, which utilizes a custom-built ADC along with other analog and digital components, is proposed. The model can be fully integrated to produce a low-power, miniaturized impedance probe.

The school-to-prison pipeline is an expansive issue that impacts the educational and criminal justice systems in the United States. Traditionally, the research has linked the prevalence of the pipeline to factors based within school systems. These systemic factors include the use of zero tolerance policies, exclusionary disciplinary practices, and the presence of school resource officers. The proposed study aims to assess the impact of factors that perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline that are non-systemic in nature. For the purposes of this study, the non-systemic contributors to the school-to-prison pipeline to be assessed are parental socialization, child self-control, learned noncompliance, child resilience, child problem behaviors, and child deviance. Scales for each non-systemic contributor were created and complied into a survey instrument. The study utilized an exploratory, quantitative methodology and non-experimental research using a survey approach in a cross-sectional design to assess the perceptions of non-systemic contributors of the school-to-prison pipeline among mental health professionals who service youth at risk for justice system involvement. A sample of 71 mental health professionals participated in the study. Results indicated that resilience predicted behavior problems in schools above and beyond any other non-systemic contributor. This finding produced wide-ranging implications for the manner in which children are socialized at home and disciplined at school.

ABSTRACT Many aspects of speculative multithreading have been under constant and crucial research in the recent times with the increased importance in exploiting parallelism in single thread applications. One of the important architectural optimizations that is very pertinent in this scenario is branch prediction. Branch Prediction assumes increased importance for multi-threading systems that execute threads speculatively, since wrong predictions can be much costlier here, in terms of threads, than a few instructions that occupy the pipeline in a uni-processor. Conventional branch prediction techniques have provided increasingly better prediction accuracies for uni-core processing. But the branch prediction itself takes on a whole new dimension when applied to multi-core architectures based on Speculative Multithreading. Dependence on global branch history has helped branch predictors to achieve high prediction accuracy in single thread applications. The discontinuity of global history created at the thread boundaries cripple the performance of branch predictors in a multi-threaded environment. Many studies in the past have tried to address the branch history problem to improve the prediction accuracy. Most of these have been found either to be architecture specific or complex in terms of the hardware needed to recreate or approximate the right history to be given to the threads when they start executing out of order. This hardware overhead increases as the number and size of threads increase thereby limiting the scalability of the algorithms proposed so far. The current thesis takes a different direction and proposes a simple and scalable solution to effectively reduce the misprediction rates in Speculative Multithreaded systems. This is accomplished by making use of a synergistic interaction between threads to boost the inherent biased nature of branches and using less complex hardware to reduce aliasing between branches in the threads. The study proposes a new scheme called the Global Broadcast Buffer scheme to effectively reduce branch mispredictions in Speculative Multithreaded architectures.