Measuring the success of Activity Based Costing (ABC) is part of a more general challenge of measuring the success of any major change in managerial methods. The past thirteen years have seen accelerated rates of change in the South African Post Office (SAPO). However little is known about `'Measuring the successful implementation of ABC in (SAPO)''. The objectives of this study is to research the perceptions of staff regarding the successful implementation of ABC, the benefits of ABC implementation and the conditions that affect the potential benefits from the successful implementation of ABC. This will allow organisations and provide them with relevant information that will enable them to make better decisions with regard to measuring the successful implementation of ABC. To achieve these objectives a questionnaire was prepared and handed out to the finance staff of the SAPO. They were asked to respond to the questionnaire on their experience and their perceptions on the implementation of ABC. 121 questionnaire were returned generating a 38% response rate. The findings in this study highlighted that top management fails in giving active support to the implementation of ABC and the technical factors were perceived as standing in the way of the successful implementation of ABC. These were training, the high cost of implementing ABC, the lack of software packages, the lack of data requirements and co-operation between departments. From the finding the recommendation was made were general strategies were suggested for the SAPO for measuring the successful implementation of ABC. / Business Management / M.Tech. (Business Administration)

Measuring the success of Activity Based Costing (ABC) is part of a more general challenge of measuring the success of any major change in managerial methods. The past thirteen years have seen accelerated rates of change in the South African Post Office (SAPO). However little is known about `'Measuring the successful implementation of ABC in (SAPO)''. The objectives of this study is to research the perceptions of staff regarding the successful implementation of ABC, the benefits of ABC implementation and the conditions that affect the potential benefits from the successful implementation of ABC. This will allow organisations and provide them with relevant information that will enable them to make better decisions with regard to measuring the successful implementation of ABC. To achieve these objectives a questionnaire was prepared and handed out to the finance staff of the SAPO. They were asked to respond to the questionnaire on their experience and their perceptions on the implementation of ABC. 121 questionnaire were returned generating a 38% response rate. The findings in this study highlighted that top management fails in giving active support to the implementation of ABC and the technical factors were perceived as standing in the way of the successful implementation of ABC. These were training, the high cost of implementing ABC, the lack of software packages, the lack of data requirements and co-operation between departments. From the finding the recommendation was made were general strategies were suggested for the SAPO for measuring the successful implementation of ABC. / Business Management / M.Tech. (Business Administration)

In Sweden housing shortage is a rising issue. Within a ten year period scientists predict that the Swedish population will increase from 10 to approximately 11 million people. Due to this increase in the Swedish population, the production of multi-dwelling buildings should be expanding, though instead building development is now decreasing. The Swedish government recently stated upon a climate strategy, to have no excessive emissions of greenhouse gases until the year of 2045. Regarding this climate strategy and the increasing need for housing, the need to build time-efficient, low cost buildings that have minimal environmental impact is in a greater demand than ever before. The purpose of this degree project is to elucidate the environmental effects, costs and assembly time for multi-dwelling buildings with prefabricated wooden and concrete frames. The study, based on literature and interviews, displays that prefabricated cross-laminated timber frames are more expensive than prefabricated concrete frames. However, choosing a timber frame does not necessarily result in a higher production cost compared to a concrete frame. Due to the dehydration time with concrete frames, wooden frames are almost 20 % more time efficient to assemble. Although wooden frames take less time to assemble, they often need more post-production work to withhold quality demands in comparison to concrete frames. The difference in environmental effect between the two materials is significant. Wood is an organic and renewable material and therefore has a low environmental impact. Concrete, which is a non-renewable material, has a higher environmental impact because of its cement component. Today 90 % of the newly developed multi-dwelling buildings are constructed with concrete. To reach the climate strategy in 2045, an increase of wooden constructions is one solution to lower the greenhouse gas emissions. Regarding that most of today’s construction building companies are using concrete as their primary frame material, this way of construction will have to change. Due to this future change, a decisionmaking model for selecting framework material has been developed. The model aims to guide clients and construction companies in an early process to get a first indication on what type of material that would be most beneficial to use in a project. The model is based on three different key factors; environmental effect, investment cost and time. When using the model, these key factors will be compared to each other and prioritized in a hierarchy setting. The outcome specifies the most preferable material to use in a project.

Les forêts néotropicales accueillent une importante biodiversité encore méconnue. L’intégrité des écosystèmes naturels est menacée par les changements environnementaux (e.g., réchauffement climatique, destruction des habitats), par conséquent, identifier les facteurs structurants, naturels et anthropiques, du fonctionnement des écosystèmes, représente un défi scientifique crucial. L’inhérente complexité de ces milieux diversifiés pose de nombreux problèmes conceptuels et logistiques comme un échantillonnage exhaustif et/ou l’identification des espèces. Les broméliacées à réservoirs sont des écosystèmes miniatures adéquats pour pallier ces difficultés, car elles retiennent de l’eau de pluie et accumulent de la matière organique au creux de leurs feuilles, permettant ainsi de supporter des réseaux trophiques simples d’invertébrés aquatiques. Elles peuvent être échantillonnées exhaustivement, ont une forte abondance locale, et une large aire de répartition. De l’échelle locale à biogéographique, les travaux de cette thèse visent d’abord à comprendre comment ces communautés se structurent en réponse à l’hétérogénéité naturelle des forêts amazoniennes (e.g., ouverture de la canopée, fluctuations climatiques saisonnières), puis tente de prédire, par le biais d’expérimentations in situ et au laboratoire les réponses structurelles et fonctionnelles de ces communautés à divers scénarios de changement climatique. Une attention particulière a été portée sur l’impact de la température et des précipitations sur la physiologie et le comportement d’espèces clefs, et sur les interactions trophiques au sein des communautés. / Neotropical forests shelter an astonishing and underrated biodiversity. The integrity and stability of these natural ecosystems are threatened by human-induced environmental changes. Therefore, highlighting the determinants of ecosystem functioning, be they natural or anthropogenic, is a daunting but paramount scientific challenge. The intrinsic complexity of highly diversified ecosystems arouses both conceptual and logistical difficulties, which we handle, by manipulating tiny ecosystems, the tank bromeliads. The leaves of tank bromeliads form wells that hold rainwater and intercept leaf litter, allowing for a simple invertebrate aquatic community to thrive. These plants can be exhaustively sampled, are naturally replicated, and widely distributed.From local to biogeographic scales, this thesis aims at understanding how these communities respond to the natural heterogeneity of Amazonian forests, and at predicting the impacts of human-induced disturbances on the structure and functioning of these communities, using in situ and lab experiments. Particular focus is attributed to the influence of some aspects of climate changes (e.g., warming, and various precipitations scenarios) on individual physiology, behavior, and trophic interactions.

Väldesignade spel är naturligt motiverande för att hålla kvar sina spelare. För att ett spel ska bli framgångsrikt är det viktigt att det innehåller motivationsförstärkare. På senare år har element hämtade från speldesign även använts inom andra områden, utanför sin vanliga kontext. Detta sammanfattas i begreppet gamification (sv. spelifiering).  Syftet med vår studie var att undersöka hur gamification kan påverka användandet av en applikation som är skapad i syfte att uppmuntra en miljövänlig livsstil. Detta gjorde vi genom att låta två testgrupper med studenter från programmet för Medieteknik vid Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan använda varsin applikation under åtta dagar. Applikationerna var identiska sånär som på en komponent: en av dem innehöll en topplista, vilket är en vanlig motivationsförstärkare inom speldesign. Utöver de data som vi samlade in genom applikationerna så lät vi även användarna svara på ett antal enkäter för att få kvalitativa svar angående deras användning av applikationen.  Resultaten visar att topplistan inte har fungerat som en motivationsförstärkare i det här fallet, men att många användare funnit motivation i att se sin personliga statistik. Införandet av topplistan krävde också att vi införde ett underliggande poängsystem. I diskussionen och analysen för vi resonemang om möjliga orsaker till undersökningens utfall. En möjlig förklaring till varför topplistan inte har höjt användarnas motivation kan vara poängsystemets utformning. Vidare visar resultatet att användare från olika årskurser visat på varierad motivation att använda applikationen. Studenter i årskurs ett och två har generellt presterat bättre än studenter i högre årskurser. / Well-designed games are naturally motivational to keep the players interested. For a game to be successful, it has to contain motivators. Recent years have seen elements from games used in other areas, out of their normal context. This is what is called gamification.  The purpose of our study is to examine how we can use common gamification elements to motivate our users to be more environmentally friendly. We have done this by letting two groups of students from the Programme of Media Technology at The Royal Institute of Technology use two separate applications. The study lasted for eight days and the two applications were identical except for one component – one of them contained a leaderboard, which is a common motivator in game design. We can see from our results that the leaderboard has not motivated our participants to be more considerate of the environment. A lot of people did however find motivation in their personal statistics. The use of a leaderboard required us to also implement an underlying points-system, one explanation to our outcome could be how this system was designed.

Införandet av byggnadsstadgan 1874 medförde ett förbud mot byggande av flerbostadshus i trä om högre än två våningar på grund av omfattande bränder. Detta hämmande utvecklingen av trä då de större företagen byggde flervåningshus högre än två våningar vilket ledde till byggande av annat material än trä. I dagsläget är byggnadsmaterialet betong det dominerande materialet inom byggbranschen, speciellt inom byggandet av flerbostadshus. De senaste 15 åren har andelen byggda flerbostadshus med en stomme av betong varierat mellan 80 och 91 procent. Byggnad- och fastighetsbranschen står idag för cirka 21 % av Sveriges totala utsläpp av växthusgaser, en totalsiffra på cirka 21 miljoner ton koldioxidekvivalenter. Under de senaste åren har både företag och privatpersoner i både Sverige och länder runt om i världen fått upp ögonen för de miljöproblem som världen står inför och har blivit mer miljömedvetna och letar oavbrutet efter lösningar på hur samhället kan minska koldioxidutsläppen. Resultaten i detta examensarbete för de tillhandahållna projekten som detta arbete utgått från är att byggnaden konstruerad i korslimmat trä är det material som är att föredra ur ett miljö- och kostnadsperspektiv. Dock har detta arbete enbart avhandlat bärande inner- och ytterväggar samt bjälklag. / With the introduction of the 1874 building code, a prohibation against multi-storey apartment buildings built in wood was implemented, mainly because of the widespread fires throughout the years. Since most of the bigger companies built their apartment complexes in levels higher than two, it meant they had to build in construction material other than wood - thus hampering woods’ development in the field of construction. As of today, concrete is still the dominating material within construction industry, especielly when it comes to building apartment complexes. Theamount of partment buildings built with its framework consisting mostly of concrete has varied between 80 to 91 percent the past 15 years. The building industry and real estate industry represent approximately 21 % of Swedens greenhouse gas emissions, a total figure of about 21-million-ton carbon dioxide equivalents. In recent years, people and companies in Sweden and countries around the globe have become more aware of the environmental issues and its consequences that we’ll soon face and are therefore working on finding solutions on how society can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The results presented in this thesis, which represents the projects that were provided, shows that the building built with its framing in CLT is the more sustainable material from an environmental perspective and more profitable economically. It should however be mentioned that calculations were only done for the load-bearing inner and outer walls and the floor joist.

Human activities have increased the concentration of CO2 into the atmosphere, thus it has caused global warming. Construction equipment are semi-stationary machines and spend at least 30% of its life time during idling. The majority of the construction equipment is diesel powered and emits toxic emission into the environment. In this work, the idling will be investigated through adopting several statistical regressions models to quantify the fuel consumption of construction equipment during idling. The regression models which are studied in this work: Multivariate Linear Regression (ML-R), Support Vector Machine Regression (SVM-R), Gaussian Process regression (GP-R), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Partial Least Square Regression (PLS-R) and Principal Components Regression (PC-R). Findings show that pre-processing has a significant impact on the goodness of the prediction of the explanatory data analysis in this field. Moreover, through mean centering and application of the max-min scaling feature, the accuracy of models increased remarkably. ANN and GP-R had the highest accuracy (99%), PLS-R was the third accurate model (98% accuracy), ML-R was the fourth-best model (97% accuracy), SVM-R was the fifth-best (73% accuracy) and the lowest accuracy was recorded for PC-R (83% accuracy). The second part of this project estimated the CO2 emission based on the fuel used and by adopting the NONROAD2008 model.  Keywords:

Multi-story wood frame construction is a highly relevant topic today because of the need to continue to develop the relatively new building technique to create a sustainable way to keep constructing new buildings. Because the use of wood as a frame material in multi-story buildings is still new, there are still issues that come with the choice to use it. One of these issues is in the detailed technical solutions that are constructed, they often have faults that may lead to problems with moisture. The purpose of this degree project is to investigate these problems and more importantly the process behind constructing them. This work is also examining what can be done to counteract or minimize the issues in the planning phases of the construction as well as look at why it is important to continue developing wood construction. There are two parts of the method used in this degree project. The first part is a literature study which brings up the attributes of wood, factors for using and not using wood, the techniques used to build multi-story buildings in wood, as well as a look into the detailed technical solutions that are used and the planning process behind them. The second part is the interview study where experts in the field are interviewed to get answers about the issues that this work brings up. The interviews provided a lot of information that is relevant for this work and the result consists of the most important answers from them. The biggest factor for continuing to develop the use of wood as a frame material, from the interviews, was about the eco-friendliness of the material. The attitude to use wood in multi-story buildings varies quite a bit depending on which part of the construction sector is asked. The developers are curious but still a bit worried, because of this they have not yet taken the next step in using it more. The entrepreneurs are still sceptical about the use in multi-story constructions and there is not enough knowledge about it for them to earn the same amounts of money as if they were to use concrete or steel. Because of that they are also worried about taking the next step towards using wood more. The consultants, like the architects and construction engineers, are more positive to the use of wood and are inclined to use it more and more. The issues that come up the most are different types of attachments of balconies and exterior corridors, parts that are installed too close to the ground and solutions where the end grain of the wood is in water. There were three main problems that came up repeatedly. The biggest one was the lack of knowledge in the planning and the production phases. The second one was about how there is often no one who looks at the bigger picture in the projects which entails mistakes that could be caught. The last issue was in the installation where the construction workers might not do it according to the construction drawings or a lack of drawings which leads to improvisation at the construction site. Recommended improvements could be a standardisation of the solutions that are proven to work for everyone to use. There is also a need for better communication which provides feedback to the designers of the solutions, that way they will know what to do better in the future. More relevant education within the topic and better coordination will also prove vital in the continued development of multistory wooden constructions.