Unfavorable thermal comfort conditions are common in the non-conditioned apartment buildings typical of Dhaka (Ali, 2007; Hafiz, 2004). Causes behind such unfavorable thermal comfort conditions include (but are not limited to) Dhaka?s climate, microclimate in Dhaka's typical residential neighborhood, its socio-economic context, housing type, and its inadequate planning regulations. Dhaka's climate is hot humid but it can be tackled with well designed buildings as well as well as designed neighborhoods, both of which demands ample open space. However, due to land scarcity and high population density, building developments lack open spaces and that results in unfavorable thermal comfort conditions in apartment buildings. Dhaka?s previous zoning regulations were unable to control this dense development, and therefore, a new set of zoning regulations were enacted (2008). However, no post-evaluation study was conducted to research the effect of this new set of regulations. The intention of this research is to first evaluate the existing regulations, and second, to suggest appropriate zoning regulation schemes for Dhaka's non-conditioned apartment buildings (for a lot size of 1/3 acre), which would provide favorable thermal comfort conditions without changing its existing density. To accomplish the first goal, this research analyzed two existing zoning schemes (one based on regulations of 1996, and the other based on the regulations of 2008). To accomplish the second goal, this research analyzed two hypothetical zoning schemes. The hypothetical ones were studied because this research finds 1996 and 2008 regulations to be two extremes (in terms of allowing open space and building height), and therefore examination of in-between alternative zoning schemes seemed essential for this study. To analyze the four zoning regulation schemes' impact on thermal comfort in apartment buildings, four sets of built environment were created in EnergyPlus (Energy Simulation software) as well as in Fluent (Computational Fluid Dynamics software). Each set of built environment is a cluster of nine buildings; and each set is different from each other in terms of their building footprints and building heights. The building on the center was modeled implicitly, and remaining buildings were modeled as solid blocks (to act as neighboring buildings) for blocking sun and wind. The ES and CFD software simulated possible solar, daylight, and wind availability inside the central building, and consequently produce data on thermal comfort conditions, namely indoor temperature and air velocity. The simulation results were compared to see which zoning schemes provided the most favorable thermal comfort conditions. This research found one of the in-between schemes (60% allowable footprint, 9-story height limit) to be more appropriate in terms of thermal comfort conditions than the other three schemes; because it provides better solar protection and better natural ventilation and consequently it reduces indoor temperature and increases indoor air velocity.

Entrepreneurship as playing a important role for economic growth has been discussed by a number of theorists such as Joseph Schumpeter and Israel M. Kirzner. William J. Baumol developed these theories as he considered that all entrepreneurship doesn’t lead to economic growth, some entrepreneurial activities may even lead to stagnation. The distribution of entrepreneurship activities according to Baumol depend on the rules of the game, formal and informal institutions that can be seen as the incentive structure of the economy and their by affecting people’s choice. Previous studies have focused on entrepreneurship as a homogeneous activity but this study tries only to examine the productive entrepreneurship that leads to economic growth. Secondary data used in this study in which 68 countries was examined to study business regulations effect on productive entrepreneurship. The study came to the conclusion that business regulation had a negative impact on productive entrepreneurship as the regression found significant results that administrative requirements, bureaucratic costs and bribes/favoritism had a negative impact on patent applications per capita proxy for productive entrepreneurship.

This senior thesis is a study of federal forestry policy in Oregon and its effects on rural communities and the urban-rural division in the state. Looking specifically at the “Timber Wars” of the early 1990s, it delves deeper into the controversy over the protection of the northern spotted owl, the Northwest Forest Plan, and President Clinton’s efforts to solve the conflict between grassroots environmental activists and those with a vested interest in the timber industry. It also analyzes the federal timber payment system created by Congress to solve the problems for rural communities caused by forestry regulations. Lastly, it looks at the divisions between urban Oregonians and rural Oregonians on all issues, including environmental policy, in order to understand why Oregon is so divided and how this issue and conflict can be used as an example of a greater national conflict and recent trends of urban rural division across the country.

Due to a lack of knowledge and experience the best approach to deal with wind farm decommissioning has yet to be determined. To fill this void, this paper analyzed the current status in terms of regulations and cost, regarding the decommissioning in Italy and Sweden.   In order to make a comparison between these two countries, the available research papers and reports on the decommissioning cost assessment, removal methods and regulations were thoroughly investigated. Moreover, detailed estimated dismantling cost data was obtained from a wind farm in Italy.   The Italian cost data were compared with data collected in Sweden and along with them, the regulations and legislations related to how these costs have to be assessed as well as what developers are required to do regarding the decommissioning in the permit issuance were included.   The results of this research show that in decommissioning cost assessment both countries does not allow developers to include the possible revenues due to the scraps and to the recycling of components, although totally different methods are pursued.   Some kind of security to ensure that decommissioning occurs is required, normally a bond. The bond amount is a debt investment in which an investor loans money to an entity (corporate or governmental) that borrows the funds for a defined period of time at a fixed interest rate. In Italy the bond requirements are generally high and it has to be paid completely for the permit issuance. In order to develop significant projects, this kind of approach leads to discourage small investors.   On the contrary, in Sweden the current amount of 300.000 SEK per turbine according to the court precedent, the most widespread during the approval of the permit, is definitely low and represent a level playing field for every investor. Swedish regulations are also more flexible and only in the 28% of the cases studied between the years 2009 and 2012, the entire amount of the bond had to be assured before the installation. However, the malleability with regard to wind farms that do not need to provide any security, together with the low bond amount might endanger the decommissioning accomplishment.

Abstract Energy is one of the most important factors that continue to influence the shape of civilization in the 21st Century. The cost and availability of energy significantly impacts our quality of life, the health of national economies and the stability of our environment. In recent years there has been a significant global commitment to develop clean and alternative forms of energy resources and it is envisioned that by 2020 10% of world energy will be supplied from renewable resources, and there is an expectation that this value will grow to 50% by 2050. Among renewable energy resources, wind generation technology has matured considerably, and wind is fairly distributed around the globe and therefore available to world communities. In the last decade, wind generation has been the fastest growing energy source globally. However more penetration of wind energy into existing power networks raises concern for power system operators and regulators. Traditionally wind energy convertors do not participate in frequency regulation or Automatic Generation Control (AGC) services, and therefore large penetration of wind power into the power systems can result in a reduction of total system inertia and robustness of the frequency response to the disturbances. The research presented in this thesis covers some of the operational and design aspects of frequency control and AGC services in power systems with mixed generation resources. The thesis examines the operation of the Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) with a modified inertial loop control considering single-area and two-area frequency control, both primary control and AGC. The thesis presents new, small-perturbation, linear, dynamic, mathematical models for the simulation of primary regulation services and AGC services for single-area and two-area power systems with a mix of conventional and non-conventional DFIG-based wind generators. In order to improve the performance of the frequency regulation and AGC services of the above systems, a parameter optimization technique based on the minimization of the Integral of Squared Errors (ISE) is applied to determine the optimal settings for the proportional-integral (PI) controller gains of the DFIG machines. The thesis presents analytical studies with various perturbations to demonstrate the effectiveness and participation of DFIG-based wind generators in frequency support services and draws some important conclusions. Variation in DFIG penetration levels, and wind speed levels (strong wind and weak wind) on system frequency control performance, has also been examined in the thesis.

Privacy is becoming increasingly important due to the advent of e-commerce, but is equally important in other application domains. Domain applications frequently require customers to divulge many personal details about themselves that must be protected carefully in accordance with privacy principles and regulations. Here, we define a privacy ontology to support the provision of privacy and help derive the level of privacy associated with transactions and applications. The privacy ontology provides a framework for developers and service providers to guide and benchmark their applications and systems with regards to the concepts of privacy and the levels and dimensions experienced. Furthermore, it supports users or data subjects with the ability to describe their own privacy requirements and measure them when dealing with other parties that process personal information. The ontology developed captures the knowledge of the domain of privacy and its quality aspects, dimensions and assessment criteria. It is composed of a core ontology, which we call generic privacy ontology and application domain specific extensions, which commit to some of application domain concepts, properties and relationships as well as all of the generic privacy ontology ones. This allows for an evaluation of privacy dimensions in different application domains and we present case studies for two different application domains, namely a restricted B2C e-commerce scenario as well as a restricted hospital scenario from the medical domain.

Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2005.

Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2003.

The focus of this thesis is the regulatory aspects of environmental hazard and risk assessment of chemicals, with a particular emphasis on whether current regulatory requirements are sufficient for assessing the risks chemicals pose to the environment. Since the way that chemicals are currently regulated on a global, regional or national level is complex and challenging, it is not surprising that there are faults with the current system. Legislations and regulations, such as the European regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restrictions of Chemicals (REACH), specifically indicates that unnecessary testing should be avoided wherever possible. However, this has not been the case for all hazard evaluations and some substances may have been assessed unnecessarily, or incorrectly resulting in significant underestimation of the potential effects to the environment. The aim of this research was to identify the major pitfalls and flaws with how environmental risk assessments are being performed, and to find a more harmonious approach to properly ensure that chemicals are regulated more appropriately. Within this thesis, there are examples of ecotoxicity studies for substances that should have little or minimal environmental consequences but which have been required for regulatory reasons. Such an example highlighted in this thesis is the artificial sweetener sucralose or silica fume. Conversely, other substances which are likely to have severe adverse environmental impacts could have been authorised for use inappropriately without the additional research that was carried out. Examples of potentially harmful chemicals not being regulated sufficiently, detailed in this thesis, include benzoylurea pesticides, used in aquaculture, and novel antifoulant substances such as thiophenones used in industrial processes. The papers in this thesis indicate that there is a large disparity between how some substances are being regulated. In order to improve the current situation and to aid environmental risk assessors and regulatory authorities, integrated strategies have been proposed incorporating all available data to collectively inform on for example the bioaccumulative properties of a substance. In addition, recommendations for improving the risk assessment processes are discussed with the aim of better regulating chemicals and harmonizing future environmental risk assessments.

abstract: This dissertation explores the discursive construction of work and family identities in the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulatory rulemaking process. It uses dramatism and public sphere theory along with the critical legal rhetoric perspective to analyze official FMLA legal texts as well as over 4,600 public comments submitted in response to the United States Department of Labor's 2008 notice of proposed rulemaking that ultimately amended the existing FMLA administrative regulations. The analysis in this dissertation concludes that when official and vernacular discourses intersect in a rulemaking process facilitated by the state, the facilitated public that emerges in that discourse is bounded by official discourses and appropriated language. But individuals in the process are able to convey and contest a range of work and family identities that include characteristics of public, private, abuse, accountability, sacrifice, and struggle. It further demonstrates that different circumferences for crafting work and family identities exist in the regulatory rulemaking process, including national, international, and time-bounded circumferences. Because the law is a discourse that has far-reaching rhetorical implications and the intersect between vernacular discourses and legal discourses is an underexplored area in both communication and legal studies, this dissertation offers a contribution to the ongoing work of scholars thinking about work and family identities, the material consequences of the intersect of work and family, and the rhetorical implications of legal discourse. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication 2012