The Finnish electoral system was introduced in 1906 and elections were held the following year. Since 1906, all women and men have been eligible to vote and to be nominated in elections. The age of eligibility has been successively lowered from 24 in 1906 to 21 in 1944, to 20 in 1969 and to 18 in 1972. The Finnish parliament (Eduskunta) consists of 200 MPs elected from 15 districts. Except the Åland Island district elects a single member, the other 14 districts are all multi-member (the district magnitude is determined by the population size). Basically, the Finnish electoral system is a list system of proportional representation with multi-member constituencies. The allocation of seats to parties (including party alliance) is following the d'Hondt method. The Finnish electoral system has undergone some transformations since it was originally introduced in 1906. As it works today, general elections are held every four years (there is a provision for premature dissolutions of parliament¡Va presidential prerogative). There is no predetermined order of the candidates within each list. The names of the candidates are normally printed on large sheets of paper, where each candidate has a number, and the names may be organized within each list for example in alphabetical order. The ballot paper is a small slip of paper, where the voter has to write the number of the candidate for whom he or she is voting. The individual votes thus received by different candidates within each list (normally each list corresponds to one party or a coalition of several smaller parties) will determine their final order. In other words, the voter has the duty to vote for a single candidate, and the electoral campaign is very much oriented accordingly, as a competition between individuals, although the voters presumably are also aware of the party affiliation of the candidates and of the fact that their votes will benefit not only the individual candidate but also the party in question. When the votes have been counted and the order of the candidates within each list thus has been established, the final allocation of seats to the lists is carried out by the election board on the basis of comparison numbers, using the d'Hondt method. At the allocation stage, the individual votes of candidates are no longer relevant, as the order has already been established, and the lists compete with each other on the basis of the total votes received for each list. Therefore, the election is not exclusively a competition between parties; it is also a competition between single candidates on the party list. Because of the deadlock at present on Taiwan's electoral reformation, I personally think that Finland's electoral system will probably be a good solution to the problems of electoral system in Taiwan, and should be included in the discussion of improving our electoral system. Hence, I recommend that Finland's model will probably be suitable to Taiwan and deserve more attention in the current discussion on Taiwan's electoral reformation.

In this thesis, we propose a dynamic traffic adjustment scheme for end-to-end proportional differentiated services (EEPDS) on MPLS networks. When the Egress LSR (Label Switch Router) first observes that the proportional ratio of multiple flows could not be maintained, it will locate the performance bottlenecks by sending control messages to all the traversed LSR. In the proposed scheme, the identified bottleneck routers may have to drop the packets of traffic flows that do not require any QoS assurance (for example, the best-effort flows). Moreover, if dropping packets of the best-effort flows could not meet the goals of maintaining proportional ratios, the Ingress LSR would have to shape the traffic rates of sending flows proportionally based on the throughput values observed by the Egress LSR. Once a bottleneck router regains its sufficient bandwidth released by other traffic flows, it will send out control packets to notify the Ingress LSR to recover the original sending rates. Eventually, the proposed EEPDS mechanism can meet the goals of maintaining the proportional ratios by dynamically tuning the traffic flows. For the purpose of demonstration, we implement the EEPDS scheme by using MNS simulator. According to the experimental results, the EEPDS scheme has shown that it can meet the proportional ratios of multiple traffic flows even under severe network congestions, where multiple performance bottlenecks may occur. Finally, we observe that the processing overhead of the proposed EEPDS scheme is very small, since it is triggered only when the Egress LSR detects the situation of unsatisfied proportional ratios.

Existing edge and core routers in DiffServ networks require an effective scheduling mechanism. In this thesis, we design and implement a DiffServ scheduler on Linux platform to provide QoS for different PHB requirements. We first modify the PDD model proposed by Dovrolis, and then develop two new scheduling algorithms. The first algorithm is referred to as Priority Queue with Quantum (PQWQ) and the second one is referred to as Average Delay Queue (ADQ). PQWQ can provide lower delay for EF traffic than Deficit Round Robin (DRR), and higher network utilization than Priority Queue (PQ) with EF Token Bucket. In addition, PQWQ can guarantee a minimum bandwidth for AF and Default PHBs and avoid starvation in case of low priority PHBs. The second scheduler, ADQ, is designed to provide different levels of delay for AF classes. The average delays of the four AF classes can be proportional by adjusting the Delay Differentiation Parameter (DDP). This proportional scheme may allow the higher priority class to send packets more quickly, and therefore achieve higher QoS. Finally, we implement the two schedulers, PQWQ and ADQ, on Linux platform. We adopt share buffer scheme for AF PHB. Share buffer management can effectively improve the buffer utilization and avoid the unnecessary packet dropping due to the unfair buffer allocation. From the experimental results, we can observe that the new DiffServ schedulers not only provide lower delay and higher bandwidth utilization for EF PHB, but also achieve proportional delay among different AF classes.

Tissue equivalent proportional counters are frequently used to measure dose and dose equivalent in mixed radiation fields that include neutrons; however, detectors simulating sites 1?m in diameter underestimate the quality factor, Q, for low energy neutrons because the recoil protons do not cross the detectors. Proportional counters simulating different site-sizes can be used to get a better neutron dose equivalent measurement since the range and stopping power of protons generated by neutrons in the tissue-equivalent walls depend on the energy of the primary neutrons. The differences in the spectra measured by different size detectors will provide additional information on the incident neutron energy. Monte Carlo N-particle extended (MCNPX) code was used to simulate neutron transportation in proportional counters of different simulated tissue diameter. These Monte Carlo results were tested using two solid walled tissue equivalent proportional counters, 2mm and 10mm in diameter, simulating tissue volumes 0.1?m and 0.5?m in diameter, housed in a single vacuum chamber. Both detectors are built with 3mm thick tissue equivalent plastic (A-150) walls and propane gas inside for dose measurement. Using these two detectors, the spectra were compared to determine the underestimation of y for large detector, and thereby obtain more information of the incident neutron particles. Based on the MCNPX simulation and experimental results, we can see that the smaller detector produces a larger average lineal energy than the larger detector, which means the larger detector (0.5?m diameter tissue equivalent size) underestimates the Q value for the low energy neutron, therefore underestimates the effective dose. These results confirm the results of the typical analysis of lineal energy as a function of site size.

The response surface methodology is a useful method to find the optimum response in an experiment. In this work, a new test statistic with only few replicates at the center point for curvature detection is discussed. The performance of the new statistic is investigated through simulation. In the second part of this work, when the response variable is of the proportional type taking only values between 0 and 1, some analysis methods are compared based on the predicted variances on the design region.

It is common practice to use Cox-Snell residuals to check for overall goodness of tin survival models. We evaluate the presumed relation of unit exponentially dis-tributed residuals for a good model t and evaluate under some violations of themodel. This is done graphically with the usual graphs of Cox-Snell residual andformally using Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of t test. It is observed that residu-als from a correctly tted model follow unit exponential distribution. However, theCox-Snell residuals do not seem to be sensitive to the violations of the model.

Time-to-event data is used in this thesis to analyze private cars’ longevity in Sweden. Thedataset is provided by Trafikanalys and contains all registered, deregistered or temporary deregisteredcars in Sweden during the time period 2000 - 2012.A Cox proportional hazards model is fitted, including variables such as car manufacturer andcar body. The results show that directly imported cars have a much shorter median survivalcompared to non-imported cars. The convertible cars have the longest median survival amongthe five different car bodies. Sedan and station wagon body types have the shortest mediansurvival. Volvo and Mercedes have the longest survival while Renault, Ford and Opel have theshortest survival. The model fits the data reasonably well, and the assumption of proportionalhazards holds for most of the variables.

Erratum pasted on front fly leaf. / Bibliography: leaves 204-214. / xxi, 214 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This thesis investigates a novel guidance law dubbed "observable proportional navigation". Two distinct forms of this guidance law are considered, based on the nature of the associated noise and state estimator. Closed-form solutions are given and necessary limits on the co-efficient of observability are determined. Both forms of the new law are applied to a two-dimensional missile-target bearing-only-measurement problem. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 1995

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1989. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references ([217]-228).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [135]-138).