<p> </p><p>This thesis examines the subprime crisis in a Kindleberger framework as well as how the major banks in Sweden were affected. The thesis ties different events to the framework of Kindleberger and follows the stages he sees in a financial crisis, from the origination of the crisis due to speculation to suggested structural changes in the financial market. The effects upon Swedish banks are followed through the crisis and the effects upon the banks. Conclusions drawn are that the Kindleberger model is applicable to the subprime crisis in terms of components and not always chronologically. Swedish banks have regarding the magnitude of the crisis faired well, the problems causing the crisis are related to Moral hazard problems, regulators and rating institution.</p><p> </p>

This thesis examines the subprime crisis in a Kindleberger framework as well as how the major banks in Sweden were affected. The thesis ties different events to the framework of Kindleberger and follows the stages he sees in a financial crisis, from the origination of the crisis due to speculation to suggested structural changes in the financial market. The effects upon Swedish banks are followed through the crisis and the effects upon the banks. Conclusions drawn are that the Kindleberger model is applicable to the subprime crisis in terms of components and not always chronologically. Swedish banks have regarding the magnitude of the crisis faired well, the problems causing the crisis are related to Moral hazard problems, regulators and rating institution.

Pastaruoju metu ekonomikos perkaitimas tapo daugumos ekonomikos analitikų svarstoma tema. Šio mokslinio darbo pagrindinis tikslas – patikslinti ekonomikos perkaitimo apibrėžimą ir pasiūlyti prie apibrėžimo adaptuotą ekonomikos perkaitimo vertinimo metodiką. Pirmoje šio mokslinio darbo dalyje, remiantis ekonomikos mokslinės literatūros analize, atskleistas nepakankamas ekonomikos perkaitimo problematikos ištyrimo lygis – trūksta ekonomikos perkaitimo konkretaus apibrėžimo ir jo vertinimo tikslumo. Šios problematikos sprendimo sritys bus tobulinamos tolesniuose šio darbo skyriuose. Antroje šio mokslinio darbo dalyje pagal pirmoje darbo dalyje išanalizuotas ekonomikos perkaitimo metodikas pasirenkami perkaitimo rodikliai, susiję su paklausa, atliekama naujausia jų analizė ir įvertinama Lietuvos ekonomikos perkaitimo grėsmė. Perkaitimo rodiklių analizės eigoje atskleistas nepakankamas ekonomikos perkaitimo įvertinimas, nes akcentuojami tik paklausos veiksniai, netiriamas pasiūlos vaidmuo. Atsižvelgiant į ekonomikos perkaitimo problematikos ištyrimo lygį ir neįvertintą pasiūlos vaidmenį, paskutinėje šio mokslinio darbo dalyje pateikiamas ekonomikos perkaitimo mechanizmas pasiūlos aspektu ir pasiūlomas pakoreguotas ekonomikos perkaitimo metodas, kurio pagalba įvertinama Lietuvos ekonomikos perkaitimo grėsmė. / The economic overheating recently became a topic of discussions among majority of economic analysts. The purpose of this scientific work is to present the definition of economic overheating in the aspect of supply and to propose the evaluation methodic of economic overheating. In the first part of this work, referring to the analysis of scientific literature, the insufficient level of investigation of economic overheating topic is revealed – there is a lack of concrete economic overheating definition and it‘s precise evaluation. The fields of solutions for these topics will be developed in further chapters. In the second part of this scientific work according to the analyzed economic overheating methodology in the first part the overheating indexes, bounded to demand, are chosen, the newest analysis of these indexes is implemented and the evaluation of economic overheating risk in Lithuania is done. In the progress of analysis of economic overheating indexes the insufficient evaluation of economic overheating is revealed, because only the demand‘s factors are being highlighted, the impact of supply was not investigated. Taking into consideration the level of economic overheating problem‘s evaluation and the fact that the supply‘s impact was not estimated, in the last part of this scientific work the economic overheating mechanism in the aspect of supply is presented and the improved economic overheating method is offered, with which help the evaluation of economic... [to full text]

This research concerns the in-use performance of light-gauge steel modular construction used for residential purposes. The aim was to investigate ways to reduce the in-use energy consumption of new buildings, while ensuring thermal comfort. Data were collected from two case study buildings in the UK, one in Loughborough and the other in London, using a variety of methods including building measurement, building monitoring, inspections, and a detailed review of the construction documentation. The case study buildings were monitored using EnOcean enabled wireless sensor networks and standalone temperature sensors. Monitoring data included electricity consumption in individual rooms, often by end use, space heating use, internal temperature and relative humidity, and external temperature. Building measurements included blower door tests to measure fabric air leakage rates, infrared thermal imaging to identify fabric defects and weaknesses, and ventilation system flowrate measurements. Inspections and the review of documentation allowed problems with design, manufacture and construction to be identified. A particular concern for thermally lightweight construction is the risk of overheating, therefore overheating analyses were undertaken. The research identified weaknesses in the design, construction and operation of the case study buildings resulting in increased energy use and poor thermal comfort, particularly overheating. The modular construction studied requires specific design changes to improve the fabric and building services, in order to reduce energy use. There are also specific recommendations for quality control on site to ensure critical stages are correctly completed, such as installing rigid insulation. There are also more general recommendations for how a company operates because this can influence performance; there ought to be greater attention to holistic design and greater collaboration with suppliers and contractors to determine robust solutions. Overheating was a problem in the London case study, and more research is required to understand the scale of the problem. Avoidance of overheating must be a focus in the design of new buildings. The findings suggest that once the problems with the design and quality control on site are rectified, offsite modular construction can be used to consistently and reliably provide low energy homes.

Climate change temperatures expected to rise and extreme heat events (HW) canbe intensified. The influence of climate change on the built environment willbecame more apparent over the coming years. For example, there would be ashift in the risk of overheating in buildings, as well as the cooling and heatingneeds.Studies found that design strategies used to optimize buildings for winter like:good thermal insulation, high airtightness, and extra heat gains increase the riskof overheating. Thus, because of climate change, there is a need for checking thebuildings for summer conditions even in heating dominated countries.This study aims to investigate the potential of two main passive design strategiesto mitigate indoor overheating: ventilation and shading. The main focus of thisstudy is on single-family homes within the Swedish context. Bysjöstrand EkobyAssociation’s Bysjöstrand eco-village project is used as case study. 30 singlefamilyhomes are simulated using Honeybee to run EnergyPlus for calculatingindoor mean air temperature values, extracting the number of hour andpercentages of overheating for each building.Six alternative scenarios were used to evaluate the eco-village. The firststructures were assessed to determine the hours and percentage of time spentoverheating in the present and future situations. The second scenarios, whichinvolved utilizing natural ventilation, was tested to determine if and to what extentit can help to reduce the overheating risk in present and future.A combination of natural ventilation and shading was used for the last scenariosboth for current and future climate.According to the findings, natural ventilation has the greatest influence in reducingoverheating. Combining these two strategies in 2020 and 2070 can lower theaverage percentages of overheating from 17.5 % to 0.6 % and 52.8 % to 12.4%,respectively.The majority of the overheating risk may be addressed using passive strategies,based on the results. More detailed building design is likely be able to eliminateoverheating in single family homes, however, as this study showed it is importantto consider passive strategies from the early stage on the design process.

<p>Electric arc furnace (EAF) is a furnace that utilizes electric energy and chemical energy to melt scraps and produce liquid steel. During the industrial process of EAF, an electric arc will be generated around the electrode located at the center of the furnace, and this phenomenon will generate a lot of heat. If any part of the electric arc is exposed to the freeboard region, a region above the slag layer inside the furnace, the heat emitted by this exposed arc can significantly heat on side wall temperatures, resulting in an overheating issue of side wall. Water-cooling panels (WCP) have been used to cool down the side wall, but the concentrated overheating area, may damage the water-cooling panel. In this study, a combination of slag foaming phenomenon and electric arc has been considered. A calculator is developed based on several arc models to calculate the parameters about slag foaming and arc power. The parameters can be used as input in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The commercial software, ANSYS FLUENT^®, was utilized to give a prediction of the side wall temperature distribution of an EAF. Data from the plant has been used to validate the calculation results. Furthermore, a series of parametric studies has been investigated to study the influence of operating conditions. The developed model can help to predict the risk of overheating from given electrode conditions and slag compositions.</p>

Due to climate change, extreme weather and heatwaves will become more frequent inSweden. Heatwaves have been proven all around the world to cause increased sickness and death rates in populations. Even in the Nordic countries heatwaves can cause negative health effects and sickness already in the current climate. Because of this, it´s important to know what building companies are doing to prevent overheating in their buildings and how they adapt their buildings for a changed future climate. The purpose of this study was to examine how Swedish building companies adapt their buildings to prevent future overheating and what method they are using to do so. The result showed that most of the interviewed companies prioritized adapting their buildings to prevent overheating. Companies which did not prioritize this issue argued that they follow customer demands or that they have not perceived overheating as a problem. There were no significant differences between companies in southern and northern Sweden in which methods the companies decide to use to lower temperatures inside buildings. To avoid risks related to overheated apartments in the future every company in the building sector needs to prioritize these problems and government agencies needs to construct stricter laws regarding indoor temperatures. Thus, the companies that are working based on customer request would also need to adapt to a changed future climate.

It is believed that the extremely hot European summer in 2003, where tens of thousands died in buildings, will become the norm by the 2040s, and hence there is the urgent need to accurately assess the risk that buildings pose. Thermal simulations based on warmer than typical years will be key to this. Unfortunately, the existing warmer than typical years, such as probabilistic Design Summer Years (pDSYs) are not robust measures due to their simple selection method, and can even be cooler than typical years. This study developed two new summer reference years: one (pHSY-1) is suitable for assessing the occurrence and severity of overheating while the other (pHSY-2) is appropriate for evaluating the thermal stress. Both have been proven to be more robust than the pDSYs. In addition, this study investigated the spatial variation in overheating driven by variability in building characteristics and the local environment. This variation had been ignored by previous studies, as most of them either created thermal models using building archetypes with little or no concern about the influence of local shading, or assumed little variation in climate across a landscape. For the first time, approximately a thousand more accurate thermal models were created for a UK city based on the remote measurement including building characteristics and their local shading. By producing overheating and mortality maps this study found that spatial variation in the risk of overheating was considerably higher due to the variability of vernacular forms, contexts and climates than previously thought, and that the heat-related mortality will be tripled by the 2050s if no building and human thermal adaptations are taken. Such maps would be useful to Governments when making cost-effective adaptation strategies against a warming climate.

Buildings can play an essential role in the transition to a sustainable society. Different strategies, including improved energy efficiency in buildings, substitution of carbon intensive materials and fuels, efficient energy supply among others can be employed for this purpose. In this thesis, the implications of different insulation materials, modelling and design strategies on primary energy use of residential buildings are studied using life cycle and system perspective. Specifically, the effects of different insulation materials on production primary energy and CO2 emission of buildings with different energy performance are analysed. The results show that application of extra insulation materials to building envelope components reduces the operating primary energy use but more primary energy is required for the insulation material production. This also slightly increases the CO2 emissions from material production. The increases in primary energy use and CO2 emissions are mainly due to the variations in the quantities, types and manufacturing processes of the insulation materials. Thus, choice of renewable based materials with energy efficient manufacturing is important to reduce primary energy use and GHG emissions for building material production. Uncertainties related to building modelling input parameters and assumptions and how they influence energy balance calculations of residential buildings are explored. The implications on energy savings of different energy efficiency measures are also studied. The results show that input data and assumptions used for energy balance simulations of buildings vary widely in the Swedish context giving significant differences in calculated energy demand for buildings. Among the considered parameters, indoor air temperature, internal heat gains and efficiency of ventilation heat recovery (VHR) have significant impacts on the simulated building energy performance as well as on the energy efficiency measures. The impact of parameter interactions on calculated space heating of buildings is rather small but increases with more parameter combinations and more energy efficient buildings. Detailed energy characterisation of household equipment and technical installations used in a building is essential to accurately calculate the energy demand, particularly for a low energy building. The design and construction of new buildings present many possibilities to minimise both heating and cooling demands over the lifecycle of buildings, and also in the context of climate change. Various design strategies and measures are analysed for buildings with different energy performance under different climate scenarios. These include household equipment and technical installations based on best available technology, bypassing the VHR unit, solar shading of windows, combinations of window u- and g-values, different proportions of glazed window areas and façade orientations and mechanical cooling. The results show that space heating and cooling demands vary significantly with the energy performance of buildings as well as climate scenarios. Space heating demand decreases while space cooling demand and the risk of overheating increase considerably with warmer climate. The space cooling demand and overheating risk are more significant for buildings with higher energy performance. Significant reductions are achieved in the operation final energy demands and overheating is avoided or greatly reduced when different design strategies and measures are implemented cumulatively under different climate change scenarios. The primary energy efficiency of heat supply systems depends on the heat production technology and type of fuel use. Analysis of the interaction between different design strategies and heat supply options shows that the combination of design strategies giving the lowest primary energy use for space heating and cooling varies between heat supply from district heating with combined heat and power (CHP) and heat only boilers (HOB). The primary energy use for space heating is significantly lower when the heat supply is from CHP rather than HOB. Operation primary energy use is significantly reduced with slight increase in production primary energy when the design strategies are implemented. The results suggest that significant primary energy reductions are achievable under climate change, if new buildings are designed with appropriate strategies.

Overheating in buildings is predicted to increase as a result of a warming climate and urbanisation in most cities. With regards to responding to this challenge, decision makers ranging from_ design teams, local authorities, building users, national programs and market innovators; and during the different stages of a building’s service life, want to know a few pertinent matters: What space characteristics and buildings are at a higher risk and by how much?; What are the tradeoffs between alternative design and/or user-based actions?; What are the likely or possible consequences of their decisions?; What is the impact of climate change to indoor overheating?; among other decision support questions. However, such decision appraisal information still remains buried and dispersed in existing simulation models, and empirical studies, and not yet been clearly articulated in any existing study or model. Especially decision support information articulated in a way that gives each decision maker maximum capacity to anticipate and respond to thermal discomfort in different spaces and through the lifetime of a building. There is a need for an integrated and systematic means of building adaptation decision-support, which provides analytical leverage to these listed decision makers. A means that: 1) assimilates a range of indoor thermal comfort's causal and solution space processes; 2) reveals and enhances the exploration of the space and time-dependent patterns created by the dynamics of the indoor overheating phenomenon through time; and one that 3) imparts insight into decision strategy and its synthesis across multiple decision makers. This study recognises the lack of an overarching framework attending to the listed concerns. Therefore, the key aim of this thesis is to develop and test a building adaptation decision-support framework, which extends the scope of existing frameworks and indoor overheating risk models to facilitate trans-sectional evaluations that reveal temporal decision strategies. The generic framework frames a multi-method analysis aiming to underpin decision appraisal for different spaces over a 50 to 100-year time horizon. It constitutes an underlying architecture that engages the dimensions of decision support information generation, information structuring, its exploration and dissemination, to ease in drawing decision strategy flexibly and transparently. The multi-method framework brings together: 1) Systems thinking methods to a) facilitate the systematic exposure of the elements that shape indoor overheating risk, and b) reveal the processes that shape multi-stakeholder decision-making response over time; 2) The use of normative, predictive and exploratory building scenarios to a) examine the overheating phenomenon over time, and b) as a lens through which to explore the micro-dynamics brought about by aspects of heterogeneity and uncertainty; and 3) The application of both computational and optimization techniques to appraise potential routes towards indoor thermal comfort over an extended time scale by a) tracking shifts in frequency, intensity and distribution of indoor overheating vulnerability by causal elements over time and space; and b) tracking shifting optima of the heat mitigation solution space, with respect to time, climate futures, heterogeneity of spaces, and due to thermal comfort assumptions. The framework’s potential has been demonstrated through its application to office buildings in Nairobi.