Global sustainable energy and environmental policies have increased the need to understand how new energy innovations diffuse into the market. The transport sector is currently a major source of unsustainable energy use contributing ~20-25% global CO2 emissions. Although the potential benefits of alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) technologies to reduce CO2 emissions and fossil fuel dependency have been demonstrated, many uncertainties exist in their market diffusion. It is also not well understood how policy can influence rapid diffusion of AFVs. To transition to a more sustainable energy-transport system, we need to understand the market conditions and factors necessary for triggering widespread adoption of new energy innovations such as AFVs. Modelling the diffusion of innovations is one way to explain why some ideas and technologies spread through society successfully, while others do not. These diffusion processes are characterized by non-linear interactions between heterogeneous agents in complex networked systems. Diffusion theory has typically been applied to consumer durable goods but has found less application to new energy and environmental innovations. There is much scope for advanced diffusion methods to inform energy policy. This depends upon understanding how consumer behaviour and technologies interact and can influence each other over time. There is also need to understand the underlying mechanisms that influence adoption behaviour among heterogeneous agents. This thesis tackles the above issues using a combination of empirical data analysis, scenarios, and simulation modelling as follows: 1) We first develop the empirical basis for assessing innovation diffusion from a technology-behavioural perspective, where we explicitly account for interactions between consumer preferences and technological performance across different spatial and temporal scales; 2) Scenarios are then used to disaggregate consumer markets and analyze the technological and behavioural factors that might trigger large-scale adoption of AFVs; 3) We then case-analyze the UK transport sector and develop a model of the dynamics between how vehicle technologies and consumer preferences can change and influence the diffusion process; 4) Finally, we develop exploratory simulations to assess how social network effects can influence individual adoption behaviour; 5) We close with policy implications of our findings, contributions and limitations of the thesis, and possible avenues for taking the research forward.

Despite the increased attention directed toward high potential and talent in the world of work, conceptual and empirical research is lagging and is needed to better understand what these concepts represent and how they can be predicted (Dries, 2013; Silzer & Church, 2009). The present dissertation sought to address these gaps using discursive and psychological approaches. In Study 1, semi-structured interviews were conducted with executive and senior leaders from a Canadian post-secondary institution to understand how they made sense of and gave sense to high potential and talent. I analyzed transcripts from 20 participants using discourse analysis. The analysis revealed that ‘high potential’ was in the initial stages of entering the focal institution’s discourse and tied to the concept of ‘leadership.’ Talent was used in a general sense to depict successful, skilled, or accomplished individuals. Leadership books and their corresponding ideas served as discursive resources that were used by participants to reshape, legitimate, and contest the shifting meaning of leadership that was occurring in the focal institution and to define the meaning of ‘high potential leadership.’ Moreover, the leadership books (and the associated ideas) were embedded within leadership development programming and other HR practices in the institution. In Study 2, associations between distinct dimensions of cognitive complexity (i.e., differentiation and integration) with leadership level and high potential recommendations were examined in a sample of mid- and senior-level leaders from the aforementioned post-secondary institution. Using two novel computer-assisted software programs (i.e., Profiler Plus & Automated Integrative Complexity), participants’ responses to six questions on the topic of leadership were content analyzed to assess the extent to which their cognitive representations were differentiated and integrated. As expected, participants holding senior leadership positions possessed lower differentiation and higher integration than mid-level leaders. Furthermore, mid-level leaders possessing higher differentiation and lower integration were provided with more high potential recommendations from senior leaders. I discuss the findings of this work within the context of how cognitive complexity may be a valid predictor of high potential leadership across its shifting conceptions. / February 2017

The purpose of this study was to determine if task type, task complexity, and search mechanism would have a significant affect on task performance. The problem motivating this study is the potential for systems online help designers to construct systems that can improve the performance of computer users when they need help.

In northern hardwood-conifer forests, alternatives to conventional forest management practices are being developed in order to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning while providing for timber revenue generation. The understory layer of vegetation encompasses the majority of plant species diversity in forested ecosystems and may be sensitive to timber harvest disturbance. Thus, monitoring the response of forest understories to new silvicultural techniques may provide a means for evaluating their intensity. In this study, we hypothesize that i) uneven-aged, low-intensity silvicultural systems can maintain understory plant diversity and support latesuccessional species through harvest disturbance; ii) retaining and enhancing stand structural complexity can increase understory plant diversity in northern hardwoodconifer forests; and iii) plant responses are influenced by interactions between canopy structure, soils, and exogenous climate processes. Experimental treatments include two conventional uneven-aged prescriptions (single-tree selection and group selection) modified to increase structural retention, and a third technique designed to promote late-successional forest structure and function, termed structural complexity enhancement (SCE). Four replications of each treatment were applied to 2 ha management units at three sites in Vermont and New York, U.S.A. Understory vegetation was monitored over 2 years pre- and 4 years post-treatment. We used a linear mixed effects model to evaluate the effects of treatment, soil properties, and drought stress on understory diversity and abundance. Compositional changes among treatments were assessed with non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS), an ordination technique. Model results show that over time, understory responses were strongly affected by overstory treatment and less influenced by soil chemistry and drought stress. All treatments were successful in maintaining overall composition and diversity. However, late-successional diversity increased significantly in SCE units compared to group selection units. These results indicate that while conventional uneven-aged systems are capable of maintaining understory plant diversity, variations that retain or enhance structural complexity may be more efficient at retaining latesuccessional species. Increased microsite heterogeneity as a result of these techniques may also increase understory plant diversity, at least during the initial post-harvest recovery period.

These compositions explore concepts based on processes and polymeter. Drawing on influences ranging from Steve Reich to Conlon Nancarrow and Nik Bärtsch they use and develop an approach to rhythmic thinking based on ostinati constructed of layers of different speeds. Through the use of click tracks, they look at how an ensemble can be enabled to perform rhythms that, without the electronic support, would be unplayable – crossing a line between the possible and the impossible. By means of processes built on a number of different ideas, the pieces explore how these can be used to affect both the behaviour and evolution of musical material, as well as using them to create fixed structures within which I then move subjectively and more intuitively. The question of balance, of moving between two points or approaches that are seemingly opposites, has also been examined: looking at how the journey affects the destination, where the simple becomes complex, and where personal meets impersonal.

This thesis aims to contribute new understandings of community sustainability through a detailed case study of public sector and community relations within Cornwall. The Look Group Network is a multi-layered public sector and community adult informal learning partnership project which sought to connect Tate St Ives, a national art gallery operating in the far west of the UK, with new audiences. The case study situates together informal learning, community and sustainability and explores their interdependence. The study comprised participant observation with the Look Group members, semi-structured partner interviews, contextual research including a review of the social and political theory of community and an evaluation of relevant sustainable community and informal learning policy. The research aims to identify the underlying conditions which contributed to the sustainability of the Look Groups over a four year period and to assess to what extent these conditions could be transferred to other communities. The original contribution of this project to the existing research literature is in the application of Complexity Theory to empirical data to enable an understanding of the systemic dynamics that contribute to sustainability and in the development of method in the consideration of community and group dynamics.

An online Ramsey game is a game between Builder and Painter, alternating in turns. In each round Builder draws an edge and Painter colors it either red or blue. Builder wins if after some round there is a monochromatic copy of the fixed graph H, otherwise Painter is the winner. In this thesis we investigate the computational complexity of the related decision problem and we show that it is PSPACE-complete. Moreover, we study a version of the game when Builder can draw only planar graphs and a generalization of the game for hypergraphs. We found a new class of graphs unavoidable on planar graphs. We provide a result showing that Builder wins the online Ramsey game on 3-uniform hyperforests when the goal graph H is 1-degenerate. 1

Title: NP search problems Author: Tomáš Jirotka Department: Department of Algebra Supervisor: Prof. RNDr. Jan Krajíček, DrSc. Abstract: The thesis summarizes known results in the field of NP search pro- blems. We discuss the complexity of integer factoring in detail, and we propose new results which place the problem in known classes and aim to separate it from PLS in some sense. Furthermore, we define several new search problems. Keywords: Computational complexity, TFNP, integer factorization. 1

We study the complexity of the λ−L(p, q)-labelling problem for fixed λ, p, and q. The task is to assign vertices of a graph labels from the set {0, . . . , λ} such that labels of adjacent vertices differ by at least p while vertices with a common neighbor have different labels. We use two different reductions, one from the NAE-3SAT and the second one from the edge precoloring extension problem. 1

Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / The Department of Defense looks increasingly towards an interoperable and integrated system-of-systems to provide required military capability. Non-essential software complexity of a system-of-systems can have a greater negative impact in system behavior than a single system. Our current systems-of-systems tend to require a great deal of software maintenance and to be intolerant of even the most minor of changes with respect to negative perturbations in system behavior. In this thesis, we explore the benefits of developing a conceptual framework as the basis for the system-of-systems development. We examine the application of accepted software engineering practices for single-system developments to the more complex problem of system-of-systems development. Using the Ballistic Missile Defense System as a case study, we present an abstract framework from which we can reason about the system-of-systems. We develop a conceptual software architecture that represents a logical organization of proposed software modules. We map the functionality of the system to conceptual software components with coordination and data exchanges handled by conceptual connectors. Finally, we assess our work to determine the feasibility of applying the conceptual framework techniques described in this thesis to system-of-systems acquisitions with the objective of reducing accidental complexity and controlling essential complexity. / Civilian, Missile Defense Agency, Washington, D.C.