Since the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda and introduced its 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, governments all over the world are working on implementing the framework into national, regional and local levels of administration to reach its targets. Climate-related challenges, including the reduction of CO2 emissions, are often met by using climate mitigation tools such as electric vehicles in sustainable transport matters. Due to this international endeavor, comparisons between partaking member states demonstrate achievements and failures of regulations and contribute to a better understanding and learning from other’s experience. In this thesis, the situation in Norway and Germany is analyzed by addressing the differences and similarities in both countries in establishing battery-driven cars on the markets. The political and socio-economic factors, including the associated variables political structure and policies, the energy and car market, the efforts in developing a sufficient infrastructure with charging stations, the consumers’ behavior and the share of renewable energy sources in the overall electricity production, are described. The framework of policy transfer as well as the comparative analysis assist to conceive the link between political structures and policies in both countries and the outcomes of their political decision-making processes. The analysis shows immense disparities in the implementation of electric vehicles due to the countries’ histories and developments of climate-related policies. Furthermore, the transition of transport not only depends on political stakeholders and advocacy groups but also on the willingness of the citizenry to adopt the new technology.

This graduate thesis comparatively analyzes key features of political systems of Malaysia and Singapore using the chosen concepts of hybrid regimes theory. In the first part, main conceptualizations of this theory are presented to be later critically assessed. What follows is a thorough comparative analysis of political systems of the countries in question using the concept of "chain of democratic choice" introduced by Andreas Schedler as a framework for analysis. Subsequently, operationalized concept of competitive authoritarianism by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way is applied. The outcome of the analysis is the classification of Malaysia as competitive authoritarian while Singapore is classified as a case of hegemonic electoral authoritarian regime. As far as theory is concerned, the thesis argues that although hybrid regimes themselves cannot provide for a unique mid-range regime type, some concepts connected to the paradigm offer an appropriate tool for the study of nondemocratic regimes.

The aim of the master thesis is to determine factors that contribute to peace settlement of separatist conflicts. It compares two separatist conflicts with different forms of termination. The Indonesian government signed a peace agreement with separatists in province of Aceh and offered them greater autonomy, whereas the government of Sri Lanka decided on military suppression of Tamil separatists. The analysis of the conflicts is based on six factors that are built on the study of Barbara Walter about the concept of reputation building. According to the concept, governments are less likely to go for peace settlement when facing more imperilling separatist groups, seeing that governments have to invest in reputation building. The comparative case study is based on following factors: potential future separatists, value of land currently under dispute, proportion of total population and territory, balance of power between separatists and government, political system with focus on democracy, degree of centralization/ federalism. The evidence seems to be strong that the theory of reputation building does not apply to selected cases because the peace settlement was achieved in Indonesia which has far more potential separatist groups than Sri Lanka. In conclusion, the thesis identifies following factors...

This work focuses on approach of security policy toward foreign missions and interventions. I focused on the application of the theory of comparative analysis in the social sciences . The aim of this work is to analyze the development of security policies in Canada and the Czech Republic in relation to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Across-case comparative research metho emphasising the contrast of context separated the timeline of my work into two period: 2001-2006 and 2006-2014 . This paper examines the official positions of the Government of Canada and the Czech Republic as different context's members within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization . The data I worked with using techniques text-by-text, completed by point-by-point scheme. The idea is to demonstrate motivation of the States before joining the ISAF mission (2001) and the current reflection of the so-called exit strategy - only the Canadian ISAF mission has been terminated.. The result of this work is to understand the formation of security policy in the country from the Old continent as a new member of the NATO and long-term Alliance's member with different geographical and political environment. Different internal political developments in both countries had an influence on the shift in the priorities of the foreign.security...

<p>The tribe Edrotini is the largest component group of the largest tenebrionid subfamily, Pimeliinae, in the Americas, with 427 described species/subspecies in 55 genera. However, the group is taxonomically impeded, with the last comprehensive revision published nearly 115 years ago. This is particularly regrettable since members of this tribe are ubiquitous in arid regions throughout the Americas and are exceptionally diverse in their morphology and behaviors. To provide phylogenetic context and a foundation for taxonomic work, in Chapter 1 I sample a majority of genera and reconstruct the first phylogeny of the Edrotini, using targeted enrichment sequencing. My results indicate major changes are required to both edrotine tribal composition and generic concepts. In combination with a suite of eight morphological characters I use this phylogeny to reconstruct ancestral states and test for characters correlated with stridulation the tribe. I find stridulation is strongly correlated with two morphological characters and propose a defensive function for these structures</p> <p>In Chapter 2, I use the molecular phylogeny in combination with 100 morphological characters to evaluate all Edrotini genera and members of five related tribes with constrained parsimony analyses. Based on the results thirteen genera are transferred from the Edrotini and the tribal classification is revised, with 35 genera recognized and description of a further five recommended. One neotype and seven lectotypes are designated for type species. A dichotomous key to genera is provided. Thirty-one current genera are redescribed; two species described; and four genera described, including four species. One subgenus is elevated to genus and three genera are placed as subgenera pending a species-level revision of the clade. Six genera, four subgenera, and one species are synonymized. Eleven species are transferred to the correct genus and one replacement name proposed. </p> <p>And in Chapter 3, I revise the genus <em>Edrotes</em> LeConte to include eight species distributed across arid southwestern North America. All species are redescribed, of which three are brought out of synonymy. A neotype for <em>E. rotundus</em> (Say) is designated. The synonymic position of five species is amended. An illustrated key to <em>Edrotes</em> species is included. A molecular phylogeny of all species is generated and used to infer divergences dates and historical biogeography for the genus. The most recent common ancestor of <em>Edrotes</em> is dated to the late Miocene or early Pliocene and inferred to have inhabited the Sonoran Desert. </p>

No description available.

<p><br></p> <p>Thrips, Thysanoptera, represent an ancient (~407 m.y.a.) order of ~6000 tiny insects from 9 families. Despite the small size of the order, thrips have a diversity of life histories, diets, and survival strategies. Thrips represent a challenge to fieldworkers and axonomists alike due to the morphological similarity between species and the lack of homologies between families. Recent </p> <p>molecular evidence has reopened debate over the phylogenetic relationships of the families of Thysanoptera.</p> <p>In this thesis we use genomic approaches to elucidate and clarify the early nodes in order to answer evolutionary questions about the Thysanoptera, their mitochondrion symbiotes, and their </p> <p>coevolutionary interactions with a group of economically important viruses; tospoviruses. Our results support previous ordinal hypotheses and show families in both sub-orders radiating </p> <p>around the emergence of the angiosperms ~120 m.y.a. We show that all thrips lineages likely have highly rearranged mitochondrial genomes, even on an intraspecies level, and that this rearrangement phenomena occurs very quickly in evolutionary time. We provide comment on the caution that must be taken with mitochondrial loci in any phylogenetic analysis with this new </p> <p>evidence and argue for the impact of among-site-rate-heterogeneity to be further investigated within thrips hylogenetics. We show that much more data is needed before thrips and tospovirus relationships can be fully elucidated but that two dueling hypotheses are emergent from our studies: either 5 very new separate vector/virus relationships, or one very old relationship that has been lost by the vast amount of thrips. We call for targeted taxa selection and show how new genomic methods can target certain taxa based upon the identification of </p> <p>assembled proteins from illumine shotgun read data.</p>

Aggressive demands for high power density and low-cost power modules in the automotive sector pose significant challenges to the thermal management systems. These challenges necessitate adopting highly effective cooling technologies in power modules to remain competitive in the semiconductor industry. Furthermore, the thermal management strategy must be simple, easy to integrate, compact, effective, efficient, reliable, and economical. This thesis is an effort to investigate the impact of fin geometry on the overall performance of finned-type liquid-cooled power electronic modules in electrified transportation. The cooling system's performance metrics, including thermal resistance, pressure drop, pumping power, and mass, are discussed in depth. Various cooling technologies are benchmarked. The finned-type cooling technique is chosen over other methods due to simplicity and low pressure drop. Integrated cooling or direct cooling of the module’s baseplate is selected due to considerable thermal resistance reduction because of thermal grease elimination. Potential fabrication techniques are thoroughly explored and compared in terms of mass production and prototyping suitability. Four different fin shapes, including circular (baseline), drop-shaped, symmetric convex lens, and offset strip in the staggered arrangement, are studied herein. The cooling agent is Water and Ethylene Glycol 50% volumetric mixture (WEG 50%). Typical operating conditions in electrified vehicles (EVs) such as flow rate and inlet temperature are assumed for the numerical analysis. A grid convergence study is carried out to ensure numerical solutions are within an acceptable error band. The thermal performance evaluation results showed that, on average, offset strip, drop-shaped, and the convex lens performed 39%, 20%, and 6% better than the baseline design, respectively. Additionally, the design candidates are compared in terms of mass and estimated machining cost. The results of the baseline case are verified against empirical correlations from the literature. The maximum deviation is less than 1% and 1.2% for finned-surface temperature and pressure drop, respectively. The difference is attributed to the end-wall effects. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

The real estate industry is one of the largest industries in the world and using data-driven decision-making has been shown to increase companies’ profitability. A technique to apply data-driven decision-making is machine learning. Within the real estate industry, predicting property selling prices and sale velocities (the duration a property remains on the market) are crucial factors of interest. Knowing the selling price and the sale velocity can motivate businesses to alter their plans in an effort to increase their profitability. The research conducted in this thesis employs a comparative approach to evaluate the performance of various machine learning methods in predicting both the selling price and the sale velocity of properties. The machine learning methods this study investigated are random forest, decision tree, K-nearest neighbor, support vector regression, and multilayer perceptron. After pre-processing, the data set used comprises 560,000 distinct data points from the Swedish housing market. The data set has a wide geographic scope, covering almost the entire country of Sweden. The data set was subjected to both normalization and standardization techniques in order to determine how they affected the machine learning methods. The results demonstrate that random forest oEutperforms the other machine learning methods in predicting property selling prices. However, the assessed machine learning methods encountered difficulties in predicting the sale velocity. The best-performing machine learning method for sale velocity is random forest. Notably, SVR demonstrates a lower MAE for sale velocity, but performs worse in the R² metric. / Fastighetsbranschen är en av de största industrierna i världen och att använda datadrivet beslutsfattande har visat sig öka företags lönsamhet. En teknik för att tillämpa datadrivet beslutsfattande är maskininlärning. Inom fastighetsbranschen är förutsägelser av fastigheters försäljningspriser och försäljningshastigheter viktiga faktorer av intresse. Kunskap om försäljningspriset och försäljningshastigheten kan motivera företag att ändra sina planer i syfte att öka lönsamheten. I den forskning som bedrivs i denna avhandling används en jämförande metod för att utvärdera olika maskininlärningsmetoders prestanda när det gäller att förutsäga både försäljningspriset och försäljningshastigheten för fastigheter. De metoder för maskininlärning som undersökts i denna studie är random forest, decision tree, K-nearest neighbor, support vector regression och multilayer perceptron. Efter förbehandling består den använda datamängden av 560 000 distinkta datapunkter från den svenska bostadsmarknaden. Datamängden har en stor geografisk räckvidd och täcker nästan hela Sverige. Datamängden utsattes för både normaliserings- och standardiseringstekniker för att avgöra hur de påverkade maskininlärningsmetoderna. Resultaten visar att random forest överträffar de andra maskininlärningsmetoderna när det gäller att förutsäga försäljningspriser på fastigheter. De utvärderade maskininlärningsmetoderna stötte dock på svårigheter när det gällde att förutsäga försäljningshastigheten. Den bäst presterande maskininlärningsmetoden för försäljningshastighet är random forest. I synnerhet visar SVR en lägre MAE för försäljningshastighet, men presterar sämre i R² måttet.

The ultimate aim of this work is to contribute to the knowledge of how trust influences and relates to those practices that best support student development and growth as educated and productive citizens, prepared to share in our democratic society-which is the ultimate purpose of our schools (Dewey & Dewey, 1915). Specifically, this thesis investigates the role of trust in relationships between school principals and teachers. A comparative analysis of available literature was conducted using grounded theory methodologies to inform the development of a proposed conceptual model describing the role of trust in organizational processes within the school, specifically between the principal and the teacher. There is sufficient literature in the realm of leadership theory and organizational behavior and psychology to justify the links among motivation, action, and outcomes. The intent of this treatise is not to spend an inordinate amount of time rehashing these well-established links. What is distinctive in this model is the assertion that trust relationships are a prerequisite for motivation, and therefore the subsequent actions and outcomes of a leadership process. Therefore, a large majority of this work is devoted to developing a strong understanding of trust, the components of trust, and the underlying need for trust. Examples from the literature and personal experience are then used to suggest future study to validate the groundedness of the model and to suggest ways for educational leaders to build trust within their organizations, using the model to predict outcomes of each strategy, and to promote student achievement.