Assimilable organic carbon (AOC) is a suspected contributor to growth of microbes, including pathogens, in plumbing systems. Two phases of research were completed to improve knowledge of AOC and other forms of organic carbon in premise plumbing. In the first phase, the AOC Standard Method 9217B was compared to a new luminescence-based AOC in terms of time, cost, convenience, and sources of error. The luminescence method was generally more accurate, as it better captured the peak growth of the test organisms. It was also less expensive and less time-consuming. A few approaches to improving the accuracy of the method and detect possible errors were also presented. In the second phase of research, the possibility of AOC generation in premise plumbing was reviewed and then tested in experiments. It has been hypothesized that removal of AOC entering distribution systems might be a viable control strategy for opportunistic premise plumbing pathogens (OPPPs), but if AOC was generated in premise plumbing systems this approach would be undermined. Possible sources of AOC creation in premise plumbing, which is herein termed "distribution system derived biodegradable organic carbon (DSD-BDOC)," include: leaching of organic matter from cross linked polyethylene (PEX) pipes, autotrophic oxidation of H2 generated from metal corrosion (e.g. sacrificial magnesium anode rods and iron pipes), rendering of humic substances more biodegradable by sorption to oxides such as Fe(OH)3, and accumulation of AOC on filters and sediments. The potential for various plumbing and pipe materials to generate AOC was compared in controlled simulated water heater experiments. Under the worst-case condition, generation up to 645 µg C/L was observed. IT was not possible to directly confirm the biodegradability of the generated organic carbon, and there were generally no correlations between suspected generation of organic carbon and either heterotrophic plate counts (HPC) or of bacterial 16S rRNA genes. DSD-BDOC was also explored in a simulated distribution system with two disinfectant types (chlorine and chloramine) and three pipe materials (PVC, cement, and iron). TOC increased with water age, probably due to leaching of organics from PVC and possibly the aforementioned DSD-BDOC due to autotrophic reactions of nitrifiers and iron-related bacteria. As before, relationships between the higher levels of organic carbon and either HPC or 16S were not observed. / Master of Science

Reasoners can be used to derive implicit consequences from an ontology. Sometimes unwanted consequences are revealed, indicating errors or privacy-sensitive information, and the ontology needs to be appropriately repaired. The classical approach is to remove just enough axioms such that the unwanted consequences vanish. However, this is often too rough since mere axiom deletion also erases many other consequences that might actually be desired. The goal should not be to remove a minimal number of axioms but to modify the ontology such that only a minimal number of consequences is removed, including the unwanted ones. Specifically, a repair should rather be logically entailed by the input ontology, instead of being a subset. To this end, we introduce a framework for computing fixed-premise repairs of $\mathcal{EL}$ TBoxes. In the first variant the conclusions must be generalizations of those in the input TBox, while in the second variant no such restriction is imposed. In both variants, every repair is entailed by an optimal one and, up to equivalence, the set of all optimal repairs can be computed in exponential time. A prototypical implementation is provided. In addition, we show new complexity results regarding gentle repairs. / This is an extended version of an article accepted at the 45th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI 2022).

<p>Significant seasonal changes in chemical and microbiological water quality can occur in buildings at different fixture locations due to temperature and time dependent reaction rates. Here, a series of calibrated plumbing hydraulic-water quality models were developed for the extensively monitored Retrofitted Net-zero Energy, Water & Waste (ReNEWW) house in West Lafayette, Indiana USA. Knowledge gaps that inhibited higher resolution water quality modeling were also identified. The eight new models predict the absolute level of free chlorine, total trihalomethanes (TTHM), Cu (Copper), Fe (Iron), Pb (lead), NO₃^–(nitrate-nitrogen), heterotrophic plate count (HPC), and <i>Legionella spp.</i> concentration at each fixture for plumbing use, operational characteristics, and design layouts of the plumbing system. Model development revealed that the carrying capacity to describe Legionella spp. growth (and other organisms) under water usage and plumbing design conditions is lacking in the literature. This information needed for higher resolution modeling. Reducing building water use by 25% prompted increased absolute concentrations of HPC and Legionella, each increasing by a factor of about 10⁵. When the service line length was increased, Legionella spp. concentrations increased by up to 10⁶gene copies /L in the Summer season. The proposed modeling framework can be used to support better planning, design, analysis, and operational decision-making.</p>

Cloud services and solutions have served as a shift in the computer industry and create new opportunities for users. Clouds have been described as easily usable and fluid in terms of expansion and contraction depending on the real-time needs. Although the cloud is promoted with several benefits, it is not always apparent for the users that this is the case. Understanding both the benefits and challenges that exist is substantial for a successful adoption to cloud. This master’s thesis is conducted in collaboration with Exsitec ABand aims to investigate how the adoption of the cloud service Microsoft Azure will affect the development process. Also, it aims to provide a best practice for potentially needed updated working procedures, in terms of satisfaction and learnability. The investigation was performed through interviews and the System Usability Scale, to assess how the end users experienced development in a cloud environment. The thesis revealed that the Azure portal has low overall usability, but that there also exists an inconsistency of that perception. Two major factors that contributed to the satisfaction and learnability was the lack of documentation and that the Azure portal was considered hard to master. The SUS score revealed that the mean value was below an acceptable level, and thus changes in the company’s working procedures need to be implemented. Internal documentation regarding how the company should use both cloud in general, as well as the portal in particular, are required in order to increase the learnability and subjective satisfaction.

In this exegesis I have attempted to formulate a primary toolset for dramatic writing that I can apply to create dramatic structure in plays, the chief example being my play Albatross (included herein). This toolset is contingent upon Aristotle's basic tenet of drama, that "tragedy is an imitation of an action" (2002: 10). This exegesis theorises that the work of modern writers on drama such as Spencer, Packard, Catron, Lamott, See, Hicks and many others, fundamentally accords with Aristotle on this point, such that the tools they espouse can collectively be considered a standard set for dramatic writing. Beyond this, my research has led me to believe that there is a primary subset of tools specific to creating dramatic structure. These tools, formulated from dramatic theory, best capture my own way of thinking about my writing practice. I divide them into two types: the first, tools of creation, comprise Theme and Values; Character and their Values; Characters and Action; Character Orchestration and Obstacles; and Event and Significant Change. The second, tools of evaluation, are Passivity; Stakes; and Premise. Together these eight tools have been responsible for creating dramatic structure in the play, Albatross.

This thesis focuses on the ubiquitous cloud computing trend and particularly Software as a Service. The main goal is to specify all pros and cons of this concept for its customers and also cloud providers. The global perspective is then specified to Software as a Service and deployment of SaaS ERP products. The next goal is to define an appropriate method to analyze a company's needs prior to switching to the cloud. Furthermore, recommendations as to whether the cloud is better than an on-premise version should result from the previous analysis. Another aim is to form a process for successful switch to the cloud and ensure all important aspects of using cloud services are covered. Theoretical findings and recommendations are used in a practical example of SaaS ERP deployment. To reach all goals, a theoretical analysis of all available monograph and electronic sources, covering cloud computing and consultations with experts from the company; Algotech BSC, were used. The main added value is in the dual point of view on the topic, from customer's and provider's viewpoints with a more detailed focus on ERP. The author suggests the right procedure for switching to the cloud, guidance with calculating ROI, TCO and preparing all necessary contracts and agreements.

Idag tillämpar nästan alla verksamheter någon form av affärssystem och har kommit att bli ett betydande system för verksamheter. Under de senaste åren har även molnbaserade affärssystem vuxit fram vilket möjliggör verksamheter att använda hela eller delar av sitt affärssystem över internet istället för att behöva sköta all hantering av det fysiska lokalt. Det molnbaserade affärssystemet kan leda till flera fördelar för verksamheter då det kan öka flexibiliteten, skalbarheten och minska kostnader. Det blir bara fler verksamheter som väljer att gå över till det molnbaserade dock finns det vissa som arbetar kvar med det traditionella. Med utgångspunkt från detta är syftet med denna studie att se vilka aspekter det är som påverkar valet att gå från det traditionella affärssystemet till ett molnbaserat. För studien har tidigare litteratur studerats och intervjuer har genomförts för insamling av empiri. Tidigare forskning ligger till grund för det teoretiska ramverk som ligger till grund för de intervjufrågor som tagits fram. Det har intervjuats tre olika respondenter där alla har god förståelse kring ämnet och antingen arbetar i ett affärssystem eller arbetar som leverantör av dem. Det har främst ställts frågor kring de fem olika aspekter som vi anser varit betydelsefulla i denna studie. Men även frågor kring fördelar och nackdelar av de olika affärssystemen. Detta har krävts för att vi författare ska få en så god förståelse kring ämnet som möjligt. Utifrån det insamlade teoretiska material och empiri utfördes en analys där den tidigare litteraturen framfördes mot den insamlade empirin för att kunna få fram en helhetsbild över hur verksamheten förhåller sig kring ämnet och vilka aspekter det ser är betydande vid valet av affärssystem. Avslutningvis leder detta fram till en slutsats som presenteras med de allra mest väsentliga aspekter som har kommit fram i studien.

Implementering av affärssystem inom verksamheter kan ge många fördelar, exempelvis effektivisering och automatisering. Hur systemet levereras till kunden kan påverka förtroendet hos kunden. Förtroendet är viktigt för att bibehålla en god relation mellan kund och leverantör och för att kunden inte ska känna osäkerhet kring att implementera affärssystem. Affärssystem kan implementeras lokalt hos kunden On-Premise eller i molnet  vilket tillhandahålls hos leverantören i form av Software as a Service (SaaS). Syftet för studien var att undersöka skillnader i kunders förtroende till On-Premise och SaaS-system och kartlägga faktorer vilket kan påverka förtroendet som testades med en modell för att mäta förtroende skapad av McKnight (2009). Utifrån modellen samt tidigare forskning inom området formulerades åtta hypoteser. Hypoteserna testades med hjälp av svar från en enkät som skickades ut till kunder av On-Premise och SaaS-system. Totalt blev det 72 svar som analyserades med hjälp av ett ANOVA test vilket slutligen bekräftade fyra av åtta hypoteser. Resultatet indikerade att det inte föreligger någon signifikant skillnad mellan de två urvalsgrupperna. Resultatet tyder på ett ökat förtroende för SaaS vilket tidigare inte innehaft ett lika högt förtroende, dessutom visar det på att digitaliseringen rör sig framåt med ett ökat förtroende för molntjänster trots de risker som tillkommer. Studiens resultat har potentiell relevans för leverantörer av både On-Premise- och SaaS-system genom att öka förståelsen för kundernas förtroende. Slutligen kan leverantörer anpassa system efter kundernas behov, förbättra säkerhet och kvalitet samt främja en gynnsam och långsiktig relation mellan leverantör och kund. / Implementation of business systems within organizations can provide many advantages, such as efficiency and automation. How the system is delivered to the customer can impact the trust of the customer. Trust is crucial for maintaining a good relationship between the customer and the supplier and for preventing the customer from feeling uncertainty about implementing business systems. Business systems can be implemented locally at the customer's site On-Premise or in the cloud, provided by the supplier in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS). The purpose of the study was to examine differences in customer trust in On-Premise and SaaS systems and to identify factors that may affect trust, tested with a model to measure trust created by McKnight (2009). Based on the model and previous research in the field, eight hypotheses were formulated. The hypotheses were tested using responses from a survey sent to customers of On-Premise and SaaS systems. In total, there were 72 responses that were analyzed using an ANOVA test, which ultimately confirmed four out of eight hypotheses. The results indicated that there is no significant difference between the two sample groups. The results suggest an increased trust in SaaS, which previously did not have as high trust. Additionally, it shows that digitization is progressing with increased trust in cloud services despite the associated risks. The study's results have potential relevance for providers of both On-Premise and SaaS systems by increasing understanding of customer trust. Ultimately, providers can tailor systems to customer needs, improve security and quality, and promote a favorable and long-term relationship between supplier and customer.

No / The development of the IEEE 802.22 standard is aimed at providing broadband access in rural areas by effectively utilizing the unused TV band, provided no harmful interference is caused to the incumbent operation. The motivation behind TV band selection is of having lower frequencies compared to other licensed bands, which, therefore, results in lower propagation path loss. Due to this quality, the spectral power density of the radio signal reduces slowly, which results in a high coverage area. Further, it has been observed that many TV channels largely remain unoccupied, as most households and businesses rely on cable and satellite TV services. This is the first international standard for a wireless regional area network (WRAN) based on cognitive radio technologies. This standard provides both PHY and MAC layer functionalities in an infrastructure based network for communication between customer premise equipments (CPEs) through a base station (BS). The Spectrum Manager is the central part of the BS, which plays a significant role in maintaining spectrum availability information, channel selection, channel management, scheduling quiet periods for spectrum sensing, accessing to the database and implementing IEEE 802.22 policies. A WRAN can particularly accommodate up to 512 CPEs in a cell. Contention may occur during initial ranging, periodic ranging, bandwidth request and urgent coexistence situation notification. The medium access control (MAC) incorporates several schemes to control contention between CPEs within a cell and overlapping cells sharing the same channel. A CPE has to make decision to resolve collisions in the upstream direction. In the case of initial ranging and periodic ranging, code division multiple access (CDMA) is employed to resolve collisions. For bandwidth and UCS notification, either a CDMA or exponential time backoff approach can be applied for collision resolution. This paper presents the analytical framework to evaluate the number of active CPEs in a cognitive radio network, It is important to note that when the arrival rate becomes equal to the service rate, the active CPEs curve attains a constant value. Further, the active CPEs length is highly dependent on service rate. The different special cases have been addressed and the effectiveness of the proposed framework has been validated through various evaluation results.

The development of the IEEE 802.22 standard is aimed at providing broadband access in rural areas by effectively utilizing the unused TV band, provided no harmful interference is caused to the incumbent operation. This thesis presents the analytical framework to evaluate the number of active customer premise equipments (CPEs) in a wireless regional area network. Initial ranging is the primary process in IEEE 802.22 networks for CPEs to access the network and establish their connections with the base station (BS). A comprehensive analysis of initial ranging mechanism is provided in this work and initial ranging request success probability is derived based on the number of contended CPEs and the initial contention window size. Further, the average ranging success delay is derived for the maximum backoff stages. The collision probability is highly dependent on the size of the initial contention window and the number of contended CPEs. To keep it at a specific level, it is necessary for the BS to schedule the required size of the initial contention window to facilitate the maximum number of CPEs to establish their connections with reasonable delay. Therefore, the optimized initial window size is proposed that meets the collision probability constraint for a particular number of contended CPEs. An analytical model is also developed to estimate the ranging request collision probability depending upon the size of initial contention window and the number of contended CPEs. Moreover, this approximation provides the threshold size for contention window to start the initial ranging process in the IEEE 802.22 network.