Klimatkrisen är idag en stor samhällsfråga som berör den hållbara utvecklingen i världen och Sverige. Bostäder och service står för 40% av Sveriges slutliga totala energianvändning. På senare tid har det blivit vanligare att miljöcertifiera byggnader, där certifieringen Miljöbyggnad är den mest förekommande. I Sverige är det totala marknadsvärdet för fastighetsbeståndet cirka 10 804 miljarder kronor. En betydande storlek om jämförelse görs med Sveriges BNP år 2017 på cirka 4 600 miljarder kronor. Vidare har det framgått från tidigare studier att miljöcertifierade byggnader har ett högre marknadsvärde kontra konventionella byggnader. Värderare har med andra ord ett stort ansvar att prissätta fastigheter korrekt där flera tidigare studier gjorts kring dem bakomliggandende hårda faktorerna som hyresnivå, vakans, driftkostnad, riskpremie och deras påverkan på marknadsvärdet. Vidare finns studier som indikerar att mjuka faktorer som inomhusklimat, strävan efter minskad klimatpåverkan, hälsa, estetik, social status, kvalitet på byggnad, varumärke och säkerhet har en inverkan på marknadsvärdet. Vad som inte undersökts är hur dessa faktorer prioriteras av fastighetsvärderarna. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka dem mjuka värdena med inverkan på värderingen avMiljöbyggnads-certifierade fastigheter samt hur fastighetsvärderare prioriterar dessa vid en värdering. Genom att först granska tidigare studier skapades en förståelse för dem mjuka faktorerna och dess kopplingar till värdering. Därefter utgjordes studien av en enkätundersökning som besvarades av fastighetsvärderare från banker samt olika fastighets- och rådgivningsbolag. Där värderarna fick poängsätta de olika mjuka faktorernas prioritet. Enkätsvaren jämfördes därefter genom medelpoäng och korrelation för att få en generell uppfattning av fastighetsvärderarnas inställning och likheterna mellan de mjuka faktorernas prioritering. Resultatet från enkätstudien visar att den genomsnittliga fastighetsvärderaren prioriterar de mjuka faktorerna enligt följande, 1) kvalitet på byggnad, 2) varumärke, 3) estetik, 4) säkerhet,5) strävan efter minskad klimatpåverkan, 6) social status, 7) ljuskvalitet, luftkvalitet och termisk kvalitet (delad prioritering) och sist 8) hälsa. / The climate crisis is today a major societal issue that affects sustainable development in the world and Sweden. Housing and services account for 40% of Sweden’s final total energy use.In recent times, it has become more common to certify buildings environmentally, where the certification Miljöbyggnad is the most common. In Sweden, the total market value of the property portfolio is approximately SEK 10,804 billion. A significant size if we were to compare with Sweden's GDP in 2017 of approximately SEK 4,600 billion. It has emerged from previous studies that environmentally certified buildings have a higher market value compared to conventional buildings. In other words, valuers have a great responsibility to appraise properties correctly where several previous studies have been done on the underlying hard factors such as rent level, vacancy, operating costs, risk premium, and their impact on market value. Furthermore, some studies indicate that soft factors such as indoor climate, the pursuit of reduced climate impact, health, aesthetics, social status, quality of building, brand and safety have an impact on the market value. What has not yet been investigated is how these factors are prioritized by the property valuers. This study aims to examine those soft values with an impact on the valuation of Miljöbyggnad certified properties and how property valuers prioritize these in a valuation. By first reviewing previous studies an understanding of the soft factors and their links to valuation was created. Subsequently the study consisted of a survey that was answered by property valuers from banks and various real estate and consulting companies. Where the valuers had to score the priority of the various soft factors. The survey results were then compared through average scores and correlation to get a general idea of the property valuers attitude and the similarities between the prioritization of the soft factors. The result of the survey shows that the average property appraiser prioritizes the soft factors as follows: 1) quality of building, 2) brand, 3) aesthetics, 4) safety, 5) the pursuit of reduced climate impact, 6) social status, 7) light quality, air quality and thermal quality (shared priority) and finally 8) health.

Current communication and network systems are not built for delay-sensitive applications. The most obvious fact is that the communication capacity is only achievable in theory with infinitely long codes, which means infinitely long delays. One remedy for this is to use shorter codes. Conceptually, there is a deeper reason for the difficulties in such solutions: in Shannon's original 1948 paper, he started out by stating that the "semantic aspects" of information is "irrelevant" to communications. Hence, in Shannon's communication system, as well as every network built after him, we put all information into a uniform bit-stream, regardless what meanings they carry, and we transmit these bits over the network as a single type of commodity. Consequently, the network system can only provide a uniform level of error protection and latency control to all these bits. We argue that such a single measure of latency, or Age of Information (AoI), is insufficient for military Internet of Things (IoT) applications that inherently connect the communication network with a cyber-physical system. For example, a self-driving military vehicle might send to the controller a front-view image. Clearly, not everything in the image is equally important for the purpose of steering the vehicle: an approaching vehicle is a much more urgent piece of information than a tree in the background. Similar examples can be seen for other military IoT devices, such as drones and sensors. In this work, we present a new approach that inherently extracts the most critical information in a Military Battlefield IoT scenario by using a metric - called H-Score. This ensures the neural network to only concentrate on the most important information and ignore all background information. We then carry out extensive evaluation of this a by testing it against various inputs, ranging from a vector of numbers to a 1000x1000 pixel image. Next, we introduce the concept of Manual Marginalization, which helps us to make independent decisions for each object in the image. We also develop a video game that captures the essence of a military battlefield scenario and test our developed algorithm here. Finally, we apply our approach on a simple Atari Space Invaders video game to shoot down enemies before they fire at us. / Master of Science / The IoT is transforming military and civilian environments into truly integrated cyberphysical systems (CPS), in which the dynamic physical world is tightly embedded with communication capabilities. This CPS nature of the military IoT will enable it to integrate a plethora of devices, ranging from small sensors to autonomous aerial, ground, and naval vehicles. This results in huge amount of information being transferred between the devices. However, not all the information is equally important. Broadly we can categorize information into two types: Critical and Non-Critical. For example in a military battlefield, the information about enemies is critical and information abouut the background trees is not so important. Therefore, it is essential to isolate the critical information from non-critical informaiton. This is the focus of our work. We use neural networks and some domain knowledge about the enemies to extract the critical information and use the extracted information to take control decisions. We then evalue the performance of this approach by testing it against various kinds of synthetic data sets. Finally we use an Atari Space Invaders video game to demonstrate how the extracted information can be used to make crucial decisions about enemies.

Conservation strategies frequently require prioritization of targets due to limited budgets and personnel. Prioritization involves choosing those areas that return the most conservation value for the time and money invested. Hence, the process of prioritization involves evaluating multiple conservation values and the uneven spatial distribution of those values across a landscape of concern. The goal of this study was to help conservation organizations improve decision making for implementation of prioritization-based strategies for land protection using a GIS-based, multi-criteria decision support system (GIS-MCDS). Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can assist conservation planners in quantifying the relative desirability of one area over another, therefore enabling better business and ecological decisions. GIS analyses for planning are routinely undertaken over large geographic extents such as ecoregions to identify priority areas. These analyses often summarize priority by pixel values in a raster image. Implementation of conservation strategy often takes place at the much larger parcel level. Therefore, aggregating pixel-based results by parcels is a prerequisite to implementation of a purchase or easement strategy. I developed a spatial decision support system in an attempt to quantify private land holdings in the High Knob area of Virginia for their relative conservation value, as defined by the Clinch Valley Program of The Nature Conservancy. It utilizes a proxy approach for measuring conservation values and an analytical hierarchy process to aggregate the results by privately held real estate parcels. Simple prioritizations are often based on parcel size alone, rather than consideration of the many conservation values that characterize land parcels. Though it is much quicker and easier to prioritize parcels in this manner, such simplicity risks missing important smaller areas for conservation while prioritizing larger parcels with less value. I compared this simple "bigger is better" ranking method to the GIS-based multi-criteria method developed for TNC. There was a 0.57 correlation between the ranked lists produced by the two models, suggesting that parcel size alone does partially explain the complexity modeled by the multi-criteria method. However, the more complex method did produce different top priority parcels, which could significantly change an organization's implementation strategy. I conclude that both methods have their applications, though the multi-criteria method is better for long-term implementations of strategic acquisition and easement. A secondary goal was to identify to what extent land trust organizations are prepared to implement a multi-criteria type analysis like the one considered in this study. I conducted an online survey of conservation professionals on how their organization currently uses GIS and their satisfaction with GIS analyses to meet their organizational mission. Sixty-one responses were collected and analyzed. The overwhelming majority of conservation organizations recognize the benefits that GIS bring and have already developed some level of internal expertise, though many barriers to using GIS were also identified. From these results, I conclude that most land trust conservation organizations are not currently utilizing the insights that multi-criteria GIS prioritization is capable of offering, but that their previous positive experience with GIS makes such analyses an attractive proposition for those on the cutting edge of the land conservation movement. / Master of Science

Evaluation of critical transportation infrastructure and their operation is vital for continuous evolution to meet the growing needs of the society with time. The current practice of evaluating signalized intersections has two steps. The first is to determine the level of service at which the intersection is performing. Level of Service (LOS) is based on the average delay per vehicle that gets past the particular intersection under consideration. The second step is to do a capacity analysis. This considers the number of lanes and other infrastructure related factors and also includes the influence of the control strategies. The above-described procedure evaluates any one intersection at a time. It is necessary to compare and rank a given set of intersections for planning purposes such as choosing the sites for improvements. The research work presented in this thesis demonstrates how Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be used as a tool to achieve the purpose of comparing and ranking a given set of comparable intersections. This study elaborates on various ways of representing different characteristics of an intersection. The demonstration has been restricted to four way signalized intersections. The intersections that were used for demonstration as part of this research were created in a controlled random fashion by simulation. / Master of Science

A comparison of two methods to deal with allocating controls for unattainable moments in an aircraft was performed using a testbed airframe that resembled an F/A-18 with a large control effector suite. The method of preserving the desired moment direction to deal with unattainable moments is currently used in a specific control allocator. A new method of prioritizing the pitch axis is compared to the moment-direction preservation. Realtime piloted simulations are completed to evaluate the characteristics and performance of these methods. A direct comparison between the method of preserving the moment direction by scaling the control solution vector and prioritizing the pitching moment axis is performed for a specific case. Representative maneuvers are flown with a highly unstable airframe to evaluate the ability to achieve the specific task. Flight performance and pilot interpretation are used to evaluate the two methods. Pilot comments and performance results favored the method of pitch-axis prioritization. This method provided favorable flight characteristics compared to the alternative method of preserving the moment direction for the specific tasks detailed in this paper. NOTE: An updated copy of this ETD was added on 09/28/2010. / Master of Science

This thesis consists of two projects in which various machine learning approaches and statistical analysis for the integration of biomedical data analysis were explored, developed and tested. Integration of different biomedical data sources allows us to get a better understating of human body from a bigger picture. If we can get a more complete view of the data, we not only get a more complete view of the molecule basis of phenotype, but also possibly can identify abnormality in diseases which were not found when using only one type of biomedical data. The objective of the first project is to find biological pathways which are related to Duechenne Muscular Dystrophy(DMD) and Lamin A/C(LMNA) using the integration of multi-omics data. We proposed a novel method which allows us to integrate proteins, mRNAs and miRNAs to find disease related pathways. The goal of the second project is to develop a personalized recommendation system which recommend cancer treatments to patients. Compared to the traditional way of using only users' rating to impute missing values, we proposed a method to incorporate users' profile to help enhance the accuracy of the prediction. / Master of Science / There are two existing major problems in the biomedical field. Previously, researchers only used one data type for analysis. However, one measurement does not fully capture the processes at work and can lead to inaccurate result with low sensitivity and specificity. Moreover, there are too many missing values in the biomedical data. This left us with many questions unanswered and can lead us to draw wrong conclusions from the data. To overcome these problems, we would like to integrate multiple data types which not only better captures the complex biological processes but also leads to a more comprehensive characterization. Moreover, utilizing the correlation among various data structures also help us impute missing values in the biomedical datasets. For my two research projects, we are interested in integrating multiple biological data to identify disease specific pathways and predict unknown treatment responses for cancer patients. In this thesis, we propose a novel approach for pathways identification using the integration of multi-omics data. Secondly, we also develop a recommendation system which combines different types of patients’ medical information for missing treatment responses’ prediction. Our goal is that we would find disease related pathways for the first project and enhance missing treatment response’s prediction for the second project with the methods we develop. The findings of my studies show that it is possible to find pathways related to muscular dystrophies using the integration of multi-omics data. Moreover, we also demonstrate that incorporating patient’s genetic profile can improve the prediction accuracy compared to using the treatment responses matrix alone for imputation.

Prioritering av systemkrav är en viktig fråga vid utnyttjandet av resurserna på systemutvecklingsavdelningar. Problem uppstår när antalet krav som ska prioriteras är fler än de systemutvecklingsresurser som finns tillgängliga. Således måste de systemkrav som företag vill få utfört av sin systemutvecklingsavdelning prioriteras på ett strukturerat sätt. För att göra det strukturerat behövs stöd i form av regelverk, ramverk och metoder för prioriteringsarbetet. Problemet är att det finns inga ramverk som ger detta stöd idag. Examensarbetsrapporten utforskar vilka beståndsdelar ett ramverk ska bestå av för att stödja prioritering av systemkrav. Syftet är att skapa ett ramverk för att införa ett strukturerat beslutsstöd med prioriteringsmetoder. En väl utformad forskningsstrategi tillämpas innehållande tre olika forskningsfaser: utforskande, utformande och utvärderande. Forskningsfaserna vägleder arbetet i rätt riktning och ser till att motverka validitetshot som riskerar uppstå. Forskningsmetoden är av kvalitativ och induktiv karaktär. Fakta inhämtas genom litteraturstudier, intervjuer och förstudie, som analyserades ur vilket en första version av ramverkets beståndsdelar utformas. Utvärderingsintervjuer görs med respondenter som har mångårig erfarenhet av prioritering inom systemutveckling. Intervjuerna visar på att företag, oavsett bransch, har liknande förutsättningar och strukturer för att applicera ramverket. Det framtagna ramverkets första version valideras som relevant, lämpligt samt funktionellt för prioritering av systemkrav med mindre justering. Efter en analys av utvärderingen skapades en slutgiltig version av ramverket för prioritering av krav i systemutvecklingsprojekt benämnt PaKS. Resultatet från utvärderingen visar att PaKS är lämpligt, fullständigt och användbart i sin generella utformning där respondenterna bidragit med förslag för ytterligare utformning. / Prioritizing system requirements is an important issue for utilizing resources in system development departments. Issues arise when the number of requirements to prioritize are more than there are resources available in the system development department. Thus, the system requirements that a company want carried out by the system development department must prioritized in a structured way. To make prioritization structured, support is required in the form of regulations, framework and methods for prioritizations. Today there are no frameworks that provide this support. This study explores which components a framework should consist of to support the prioritization of system requirements. The aim is to create a framework for implementing structured decision support with prioritization methods. A well designed research strategy containing three different research phases is used: exploration, design and evaluation. The research phases guide the work in the right direction and aim to counteract validity threats that may occur. The research method is of a qualitative and inductive nature. Facts are obtained through literature studies, interviews and preliminary studies, which were analyzed from which a first version of the framework's components is designed. Evaluation interviews are conducted with respondents who have many years of experience of prioritization in system development. The evaluation show that companies, regardless of industry, have similar conditions and structures to apply the framework. The first version of the framework is validated as relevant, appropriate and functional for prioritizing system requirements with minor adjustments. Following an analysis of the evaluation, a final version of the framework for prioritization of requirements in system development projects, called PaKS, was created. The outcome of the evaluation shows that PaKS is useful in its overall design, in which respondents contributed proposals for further design.

Volvo’s plant in Umeå has a constant need for development, where to start new activities like projects and investments are important tools, where the competition on the market is increasing. The need for investments are major compared to the resources available, both in terms of human resources and economic resources. The plant needs to prioritize trying to choose what kind of investments are the best for the plant’s future. The problem is that there is a lack of reliable priority model for investments that consider several different parameters. To solve this issue the goal is to create a useful model that can work as a tool to prioritize projects and investments in an appropriate and reliable way. The study began with a literature review to make the researcher approach the subject and gather the knowledge needed for this study. After this, qualitative semi-structured interviews were made with different managers at the plant, to acquire their expertise and knowledge regarding the selection of criteria and their preferences of how the model should work. The next step was to analyze the old model used at the plant, its strengths, and weaknesses. At the same time, constant discussions were held with the supervisor and his manager but as well with the university, mainly through seminars. When the researcher felt he was ready he started to create the new model. There were 30 criteria included in the model, mainly collected through interviews. The large number of criteria collected were sorted into Volvo’s catchwords SQDCEP (Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, Environmental, People). These were decided to function as the main criteria in the model, and all the 30 criteria were called sub-criteria. The model itself originates from a process called the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). It is an established and wellknown methodology to make prioritizations. Its main idea is to compare every single project against each other which makes the method very thoughtful, solid and probably better than other ones. The conclusion is that the model is complete and should work perfectly to be used for Volvo and other companies in the complex manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the criteria chosen for the model should also be applicable for other similar companies to Volvo, as the criteria are not unique.

La démarche d'évaluation des risques sanitaires inclue dans ses étapes l'évaluation de l'exposition professionnelle. S'agissant de l'exposition par inhalation, différents modèles sont disponibles pour caractériser ou estimer les niveaux d'exposition. Les objectifs de cette thèse sont d'étudier et comparer les principales démarches existantes, voire d'en développer de nouvelles, afin de participer à leur validation et de définir leur places respectives en complément de la métrologie quantitative. Un premier chapitre présente les modèles existants et décrit leurs principes et applications. Une méthode qualitative est développée puis comparée à d'autres démarches similaires ainsi qu'à des modèles empiriques afin d'étudier leurs performances dans la caractérisation ou la prédiction des expositions aux solvants de laboratoire (chapitre 2). Nous suggérons l'utilisation en première intention des méthodes qualitatives afin de définir les situations d'exposition prioritaires vis-à-vis desquelles les modèles empiriques peuvent secondairement servir à estimer un niveau d'exposition. Les modèles statistiques de régression linéaire sont étudiés à travers une application dans le secteur du compostage des déchets, confirmant leur capacité à caractériser des déterminants spécifiques de l'exposition (chapitre 3). Les modèles physiques mécanistiques sont testés afin de reproduire des profils temporels de concentration, puis utilisés de façon probabiliste pour estimer la distribution des expositions et des risques sanitaires (chapitre 4). Ces modèles permettent d'approcher la variabilité spatio-temporelle des expositions et d'identifier les mécanismes à l'origine des expositions. Les forces et limites de ces différentes approches sont comparées et des préconisations d'utilisation sont définies, assorties de perspectives de travail (chapitre 5). Mots clefs : exposition, risques, modèles, déterminants, prédictions, variabilité, incertitude. / The health risk assessment method involves the assessment of occupational exposure to pollutants. Restricted to inhalation exposure, several models can be used in order to either characterize or estimate exposure levels. The objectives are to study and compare the main existing models, and eventually to develop new ones, in order to help validating them and also to define their usefulness in addition to traditional individual monitoring. In a first chapter we present the existing models and describe their applications. A qualitative method is developed then compared to both other similar methods and empirical models in order to compare their performances in characterizing or predicting exposure to solvents in laboratories (chapter 2). From this work, we suggest the initial use of qualitative methods to define priority exposure scenarios, then the use of empirical models to predict inhalation exposure. Linear regression statistical models are studied in the field of waste composting, confirming their ability to identify specific determinants of exposure (chapter 3). Physical models are tested in order to reproduce observed time-varying exposure profiles, and then used to estimate the distribution of exposure and health risks (chapter 4). Such models are useful to describe the spatial and temporal variability of exposure, and help understanding the mechanisms of exposure. Strengths and weaknesses of all tested models are then compared and suggestions of use are made as well as work perspectives (chapter 5). Keywords: exposure, risks, models, determinants, predictions, variability, uncertainty.

O interesse em valorizar os serviços ecossistêmicos fornecidos pela vegetação natural aumentou em um esforço para mitigar os efeitos da mudança do uso da terra. Nesta linha de pensamento, desenvolvemos um índice para valorar as comunidades de árvores - do ponto de vista antropocêntrico - da savana brasileira (Cerrado). O índice e a cartografia produzida servirão como ferramenta para a priorização da conservação, bem como para revelar como a colonização e a expansão da agricultura tem ocorrido. Para desenvolver o índice, foram produzidas novas camadas ambientais com resolução de 90m; A distribuição das 93 espécies mais comuns foi modelada; e a cartografia da distribuição de cada uso humano das árvores (alimentos, aromáticos, fibras, cosméticos, cortiça, etc., totalizando 20 usos) e um índice de valor total fo desenvolvido. O novo índice de valor, nomenado a Soma de Usos (SoU, Sum of Uses), representa o número esperado de usos para a montagem de espécies potenciais que poderia estar ocorrendo no lugar em condições ideais. O impacto da agricultura foi avaliado pela contabilização da área que foi convertida em lavouras. Nossos resultados indicam fortemente que a colonização humana e a expansão de terras cultivadas eliminaram as árvores de áreas que antes eram melhores prestadores de serviços ambientais. Por outro lado, observamos também que as áreas protegidas no Cerrado estão localizadas onde esperamos encontrar valor marginal para as espécies ótimas. Esses resultados nos levam a pensar que a estratégia de conservação pode estar longe de ser ideal para o maior remanescente arável do mundo. / The interest in valuing the ecosystem services provided by the natural vegetation has increased in an effort to mitigate the effects of land use change. In this line of thinking, we developed an index to value the tree communities -from an anthropocentric point of view- of the Brazilian savannah (Cerrado). The index and the cartography produced will serve as a tool for prioritization of conservation, has well as to unveil how colonization and agriculture expansion has taken place. In order to develop the index: new environmental layers at 90m resolution were produced; the most common 93 species’ distribution was modelled; and cartography for each use humans derive from the trees (food, aromatic, fiber, cosmetic, cork, etc., totaling 20 uses) and a total value index were developed. The new index of value, namely the Sum of Uses (SoU), represent the expected number of uses for the potential species assemblage that could be taking place under optimal conditions. The impact of agriculture was assessed by accounting for the area that has been converted to croplands. Our results strongly indicate that human settlement and cropland expansion have cleared the trees of areas that once were better than average ecosystem service providers. On the other hand, we also observe that protected areas in the Cerrado are located where we expect to find marginal value for the optimal communities. These results lead us to think that the conservation strategy might be far from optimal for the largest remaining arable patch in the world.