Religion consists of humanity's beliefs, cultural systems, and worldviews of existence (Geertz, 1973). Its function is not merely a system of symbols that people act according to, but also the establishment of powerful, pervasive motivations in the society. This study intends to analyze the connection of religion and culture by using one of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, power distance (the extent of how power is accepted and expected to be distributed in the society). In this analysis, the researcher investigated the PDI (Power Distance Index) within the Utah Mormon culture. Researcher also compared the PDI scoring of Utah Mormon culture to the general US culture, as well as the PDI in Catholicism and Protestantism culture. The results showed that the unique Mormon cultural region in Utah has the lowest PDI in comparison to the US national culture and that of general Protestant and Catholic communities. This outcome is contrary to the general characterization of power in Utah Mormon culture. The result of this study raised more questions than answers. Although several factors and characteristics that contribute to the low PDI in Utah Mormon society, as well as its implications have been analyzed, the researcher found that this contradiction of the PDI scoring is related to Hofstede's original work. This study is challenging Hofstede's way in treating culture and its components as homogenous. Thus, each fragment of culture needs to be investigated as a separate entity. The study of power distance in Utah Mormon culture indicates how a society can understand its own characteristics and how it can communicate more effectively with other societies with different backgrounds or different PDI based on these characteristics. This study can educate people concerning how Mormons interact and perhaps might even, to a certain extent, at least, explain the conflicts in the society itself. Additionally, the results of this research can be a new contribution to the literature for this field and can further the research in verifying the characteristics of a given society.

The mining industry is an important part of the society’s green transition by providing the metals and minerals necessary for an increased electrification. One downside of the mining industry is that the mining operation typically contaminates the land to some degree. Excavation-and-refill is a traditional remediation approach for soil contaminations, a method that often could be very expensive and cause a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. This study aims to compare different excavation strategies to find out how they affect the sustainability dimensions and the climate. This is done by using two measuring tools: SAMLA for contaminated sites and Carbon footprint of remediations and other groundworks. The results show that the largest greenhouse gas emissions occur when transporting the contaminated soils to the designated landfill. The different excavation approaches have a positive impact primarily on the ecological and social sustainability dimensions, including reducing the risks for the environment and people’s health. To make excavation-and-refill remediations more sustainable the main focus should be towards the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, together with developing the knowledge regarding the climate impact of remediation methods and to improve the knowledge of alternative, more sustainable, remediation methods. Implementation of environmental regulations focusing on remediations could also be an important factor in the transition towards more sustainable remediation methods.

The emergence of the Internet in business as a marketing tool and as a communication medium is one of the existing challenges for the banking industry. Because of this evolution, the banking industry has adopted Internet banking both for financial transactions and for the provision of information about products and services. Based on the ideas mentioned, this study aimed to examine the factors which may affect the intention to use Internet banking in the Kingdom of Bahrain with the following research objectives to be achieved: first, to identify the factors which affect the intention to use and adopt Internet banking in the Kingdom of Bahrain; second, to develop a model based on the identified factors that affect the intention to use Internet banking in the Kingdom of Bahrain; and third, to test the reliability and validity of the proposed model and find its implications on the intention to use and adopt Internet banking. In this study, five variables were initially chosen, namely, perceived privacy protection, perceived security protection, perceived trust, perceived information quality and perceived risks/benefits that may affect the intention to use Internet banking. Besides the five variables, two more variables were included: cultural dimension and biometric technology to measure a significant relationship with any of the five variables that might affect the intention of bank customers to use Internet banking in Bahrain. As a quantitative method of research, the study focused on assessing the co-variation among naturally occurring variables with the goal of identifying predictive relationships by using correlations or more sophisticated statistical techniques. In analysing the data, the descriptive statistics were used. In addition, construct reliability and discriminant validity tests were conducted and structural equation modelling were used to test the research model and verify the hypotheses. The cultural context has rarely been commented on in previous research, but as a result of taking this factor into account in addition to the more technical issues, a number of practical implications became evident for banking in Bahrain that may have applicability elsewhere in the Arab world. These include both a focus on relationship management as well as the need for additional levels of security through biometric fingerprinting to be implemented by banks wishing to increase the adoption of Internet banking amongst existing customers. These strategies also have potential to attract new market segments.

<p> The symmetries and unit cell dimensions of crystals of Na4P2O7, δ-Ba2P2O7 and H4P2O7 have been determined by X-ray diffraction methods. Changes in symmetry and unit cell dimensions of Na4P2O7 as a function of temperature have been described and a model has been proposed describing the statistics of these changes. The existence of disorder in the crystal structure of δ-Ba2P2O7 has been established and the unit cell dimensions of a previously unreported low temperature form are reported.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

<p> An exact analysis for the state of strain in a three dimensional rod continuum is presented. The exact geometrical description of the rod involves the evaluation of a power series expansion of the radius vector. It is shown however, that by a suitable choice of coordinates in the reference configuration and an interpretation of the deformation gradient as a material transformation, the strain tensor may be evaluated to the degree of accuracy inherent in using the full power series expansion of the radius vector without necessitating the explicit evaluation of the power series. Some concepts from the theory of multipolar media are used in order to make this three dimensional analysis compatible with the exact analysis of one dimensional rods.</p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)

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