The purpose of this thesis is to predict the lifespan of a battery using a predictive model, utilizing data from early cycles. The goal is to minimize both time and costs for the company by reducing the number of cycles needed for testing. Currently, the company tests a diverse set of batteries, which is both time and resource-consuming. To investigate which data-driven predictive model should be used by the company to predict battery capacity at XX cycles, a thorough literature study has been conducted. In summary, a variety of variables from specific cycles have been calculated based on inspiration from Fei et al. (2021), Severson et al. (2019), Enholm et al. (2022) and an internal project from the company. Following this, two different predictive models, Gaussian Process Regression and Ordinary Least Squared Regression, are applied and compared.  Based on the obtained results, Gaussian Process Regression had a slight better results but a significantly higher complexity compared to Ordinary Least Squared Regression. Therefore, the data-driven model that should be implemented at the company is an Ordinary Least Squared Regression with variables related to different phases during a cycle. This result is primarily based on the varying degrees of complexity of the models. / Syftet med detta examensarbete är att med hjälp av en datadriven prediktionsmodell kunna prediktera livslängden på ett batteri genom att använda data från tidiga cykler. Målet är att minimera både tid och kostnader för företaget genom att minska antalet cykler som behövs för testning. I dagsläget testar företaget en mängd batterier vilket både är tids- samt resurskrävande. För att undersöka vilken datadriven prediktionsmodell som bör användas av företaget för att prediktera batteriekapacitet vid XX cykler har en gedigen litteraturstudie utförts. Sammanfattningsvis har en mängd variabler av de mätningar som finns från specifika cykler beräknats utifrån inspiration från Fei med flera (2021), Severson med flera (2019), Enholm med flera (2022) samt ett internt projekt från företaget. Efter detta applicerades och jämfördes två olika prediktionsmodeller: Gaussian Process Regression och Ordinary Least Squared Regression.  Baserat på de erhållna resultaten hade Gaussian Process Regression något bättre resultat men en betydligt högre komplexitet jämfört med Ordinary Least Squared Regression. Därför är den datadrivna modell som bör implementeras på företaget en Ordinary Least Squared Regression med variabler relaterade till olika faser under en cykel. Detta resultat grundar sig framför allt i olika grad av komplexitet hos modellerna.

New numerical methods are proposed for computing with smooth scalar and vector valued functions of two variables defined on rectangular domains. Functions are approximated to essentially machine precision by an iterative variant of Gaussian elimination that constructs near-optimal low rank approximations. Operations such as integration, differentiation, and function evaluation are particularly efficient. Explicit convergence rates are shown for the singular values of differentiable and separately analytic functions, and examples are given to demonstrate some paradoxical features of low rank approximation theory. Analogues of QR, LU, and Cholesky factorizations are introduced for matrices that are continuous in one or both directions, deriving a continuous linear algebra. New notions of triangular structures are proposed and the convergence of the infinite series associated with these factorizations is proved under certain smoothness assumptions. A robust numerical bivariate rootfinder is developed for computing the common zeros of two smooth functions via a resultant method. Using several specialized techniques the algorithm can accurately find the simple common zeros of two functions with polynomial approximants of high degree (≥ 1,000). Lastly, low rank ideas are extended to linear partial differential equations (PDEs) with variable coefficients defined on rectangles. When these ideas are used in conjunction with a new one-dimensional spectral method the resulting solver is spectrally accurate and efficient, requiring O(n²) operations for rank $1$ partial differential operators, O(n³) for rank 2, and O(n⁴) for rank &geq,3 to compute an n x n matrix of bivariate Chebyshev expansion coefficients for the PDE solution. The algorithms in this thesis are realized in a software package called Chebfun2, which is an integrated two-dimensional component of Chebfun.

In this paper, we provide a mathematical model of the effect of aspirin on blood clotting. The model tracks the enzyme prostaglandin H synthase and an important blood clotting factor, thromboxane A2, in the form of thromboxane B2. Through model analysis, we determine conditions under which the reactions of prostaglandin H synthase are self-sustaining. Lastly, through numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the model accurately captures the steady-state chemical concentrations of interest in blood, both with and without aspirin treatment.

A multiple-valued function is a "function" that assumes two or more distinct values in its range for at least one point in its domain. While these "functions" are not functions in the normal sense of being single-valued, the usage is so common that there is no way to dislodge it. This thesis is devoted to a particular class of multiple-valued functions: Q-valued functions. A Q-valued function is essentially a rule assigning Q unordered and not necessarily distinct points of R^n to each element of R^m. This object is one of the key ingredients of Almgren's 1700 pages proof that the singular set of an m-dimensional mass minimizing integral current in R^n has dimension at most m-2. We start by developing a decomposition theory and show for instance when a continuous Q-valued function can or cannot be seen as Q "glued" continuous classical functions. Then, the decomposition theory is used to prove intrinsically a Rademacher type theorem for Lipschitz Q-valued functions. A couple of Lipschitz extension theorems are also obtained for partially defined Lipschitz Q-valued functions. The second part is devoted to a Peano type result for a particular class of nonconvex-valued differential inclusions. To the best of the author's knowledge this is the first theorem, in the nonconvex case, where the existence of a continuously differentiable solution is proved under a mere continuity assumption on the corresponding multifunction. An application to a particular class of nonlinear differential equations is included. The third part is devoted to the calculus of variations in the multiple-valued framework. We define two different notions of Dirichlet nearly minimizing Q-valued functions, generalizing Dirichlet energy minimizers studied by Almgren. Hölder regularity is obtained for these nearly minimizers and we give some examples showing that the branching phenomena can be much worse in this context.

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共同基金是由投資信託公司向大眾募集資金，再轉投資到股票、債券、不動產等標的上，最後再分配投資收益的的一種工具。從自有共同基金開始至今已超越百年，而台灣地區方面，目前也是全民理財不可或缺的一項標的。 共同基金雖號稱是懶人投資，不用花費大量心思。但實際上，天下沒有白吃的午餐，投資人仍需投注精力了解趨勢，並從中挑選適當的標的。但儘管有許多理財專家提出經驗談，就一般投資大眾而言，如何挑選共同基金仍是具有挑戰性的工作。  為協助投資人以現有資訊，找出適當的投資標的，因此利用投信公會公布的資料，將基金依照Jensen值進行區分為大於零及小於零兩個群組，再以最小平方法探討兩個群組中，影響各種類型基金績效持續性的因素，以期能利用簡單的資訊，找出值得長期投資的標的。

The objective of this study is to estimate advertising effects on international tourismdemand for the leading Swedish winter destination, Åre. The increasing share of foreigninbound tourists in this destination region creates a strong interest by shareholders toidentify the factors responsible for this trend. According to traditional micro-economictheory, economic factors, such as income and price, are considered as main determinantsfor tourism demand (Song and Witt 2000). However, according to advertising theories(Comanor and Wilson, 1974) and previous tourism research (Bhagwat and Debruine, 2008;Divisekera and Kulendran, 2006), this study additionally focuses on the brand awarenessof Åre as perceived by international tourists. More concretely, advertising theoriesdistinguish between the brand and the information function of advertising (Nelson, 1974).The former function follows the idea that advertising increases the level of productdifferentiation to build up a base of loyal customers. By contrast, the information functionimplies that advertising primarily provides information about products in order to increasethe market transparency. Accordingly, in order to estimate the impact of advertisingexpenditures for off- and online channels as well as promotional activities, furtherexplanatory variables, e.g. mega events, are considered in this study (Salman, 2003; Songet al., 2010). By applying ordinary least square (OLS) methods, demand elasticitycoefficients are estimated for each of the sending countries Norway, Finland, Russia,Denmark and the UK. Results show that advertising is the main significant driver oftourism demand from the UK, Russia and Finland, while a comparably weak advertisingleverage can be shown for Denmark and Norway. Interestingly, in contrast to microeconomictheories tested in previous research, income and tourism price levels reveal asbeing less significant drivers for demand in all analysed tourism markets. In turn, theresults provide evidence that the increased usage of online channels most significantlyaffects consumers’ buying behaviour. Finally, with respect to brand image perception,results reveal that the destination of Åre is perceived as a brand by tourists from Denmark.Moreover, for customers from the countries Norway and Finland, Åre indicates a weakbrand perception, while tourists from Russia and the UK don’t perceive Åre as a brand atall. The results gained by this research conducted at the level of the tourism destinationprovide useful hints about the factors influencing travel behaviour of tourists from maininternational markets. The study supports destination managers to appropriately adjustmarketing campaigns according to the predominant level of brand perception in respectivesending countries. / KK-Foundation project ‘Engineering the Knowledge Destination’ (no. 20100260; Stockholm, Sweden).

In this study we seek to understand how ordinary Chinese people perceive Westerners as the Other through examining their intercultural experiences. In contrast to the numerous studies of social elites’ Occidentalism, this study shifts the attention to ordinary people’s perceptions in a fast changing Chinese society. From an interpretive perspective, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 participants living in a coastal city in Mainland China. The key findings suggest that the Chinese public has its own way of perceiving and presenting the Western Other. Also, this Other, being defined in an on-going process of intercultural interaction, connotes a wider meaning – a unity of opposition and complementarity, exclusion and inclusion. Thus this study has deepened our understanding of the Chinese construction of the Western Other. The findings can be used in developing intercultural communication training programs to facilitate deeper contact and better dialogue between the Chinese and Westerners.

This thesis studies consumption among young people who identify as mainstreamers in a Swedish small town. In order to map patterns of clothing consumption and to understand what was central in the young people’s self-identification, the research was conducted using a mix of ethnographic methods and wardrobe studies. This is an inverted study of the subcultural, that problematizes the assumption that the majority (the mainstream) and the minority (the countercultural) are opposites when it comes to identity creation. The central concepts used here are ordinary (vanlig), mainstream, and subculture. One of the main findings is that the youth studied self-identify as ordinary. This finding is used to problematize not only the traditional markers of masculinity and femininity as they present themselves in this context, but also what is characterized as new patterns of consumption. There are two main conclusions. First, being mainstream and ordinary was not a static identity position, as the literature would have it; instead, being an ordinary mainstreamer required constant work in order to stay within certain culturally negotiated boundaries. Second, the ethnographic findings contribute in the field of subcultural studies by questioning the convention of portraying the mainstream and the subcultural as polar opposites: contrary to the literature, it is argued that neither is so very different from the other, making it an unhelpful dichotomy in understanding young people today.

This thesis examines the appeal to ordinary language as a distinctive methodological feature in the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the work of J. L. Austin. This appeal situates our language and concepts within the broader forms of life in which we use them, and seeks to ‘disenchant’ idealizations that extract our language and concepts from this broader context. A disenchanted philosophy recognizes our forms of life as manifestations of attunement: a shared common ground of understanding and behaviour that cannot itself be further explained or justified. By working through the consequences of seeing our forms of life as ultimately ungrounded in this way, the thesis illuminates the underlying importance of play to shared practices like language. The first two chapters consider the appeal to ordinary language as it features in the work of Austin and Wittgenstein, respectively. By placing each author in turn in dialogue with Jacques Derrida, the thesis draws out the importance of seeing our attunement as ungrounded, and the difficulty of doing so. Austin’s appeal to a ‘total context’ betrays the sort of idealization Austin himself opposes, whereas Wittgenstein and Derrida must remain self-reflexively vigilant in order to avoid the same pitfall. Chapter Three explores connections between the appeal to ordinary language and Martin Heidegger’s analysis of ‘average everydayness’ in Being and Time. Heidegger takes average everydayness to be a mark of inauthenticity. However, in acknowledging the ungroundedness of attunement, the appeal to ordinary language manifests a turn similar to Heidegger’s appeal to authenticity. Furthermore, Wittgenstein’s use of conceptual ‘pictures’ also allows him to avoid some of the confusions in Heidegger’s work. Chapter Four considers the nature of our ungrounded attunement, and argues that we both discover and create this attunement through play, which is unregulated activity that itself gives rise to regularity.