We are at a time when energy efficiency and the reduction in the use of non-renewable energy is an important objective in all aspects and will continue to be so, therefore it is necessary to try to reduce energy and heat losses in the systems used in homes and, in particular, in the domestic hot water (DHW) system. This study aims to find out the advantages and disadvantages of an innovative pipe-in-pipe (PIP) system for DHW circulation with respect to the conventional system of two separate pipes. Previous studies have shown that DHW circulation is indeed an important point of energy losses in the home and that it is possible to reduce these losses by using the innovative system under study. The properties and coefficients defining the heat transfer system have been obtained for both the traditional and innovative systems by using empirical equations and iterative processes, indicating a 32% reduction in heat losses in favour of the pipe-in-pipe system. However, this result has been obtained in a kind of case study, using some simplifying assumptions, needed to accomplish to work within limited time. So the result could vary if a somewhat different system is studied, which is why it is necessary to carry out further studies and research on this subject in order optimize DHW systems in buildings.

This study used secondary data to analyze the Saving for Change (SfC) program of Oxfam America in Mali. SfC uses a model of microfinance that is based on education and savings-led approach and self-help methodology. The program teaches the poorest women how to form and manage a group to handle savings and credit related needs. The group learns to systematically collect savings from its members; lend the money to its members with interest and keep a record of all transactions. SfC has created an oral recordkeeping system which is helpful for groups that have mostly or all illiterate women. The SfC women also learn about other social components such as malaria through their participation in the program. This study, however, focused only on the financial activities of the women. The secondary data analyzed in this study were collected by Oxfam America in two rounds of surveys that used mixed methods instruments. Both surveys were conducted in October and November, one in 2005 and the other in 2006. Most of the data collected from the surveys were quantitative. They were collected for Oxfam America's own purposes and only some of them were used for this study. The study used three aspects of outreach--depth, scope and worth to the user--as the framework to explore the extent to which SfC had reached the poorest women. Three overarching questions were constructed, one to explore each of these aspects of outreach. They were: Were the women served by SfC poorer than other women who were not served? Did the SfC women utilize the program benefits? Did the utilization of the program benefits vary based on the women's economic levels? Each overarching question also had a set of main and specific questions. Some key economic indicators such as the women's literacy and schooling at the individual level and the ratio of school age children in school, food security, assets and the ratio of income contributors at the household level, as well as select program benefits such as savings and loans were used for determining the main and specific questions. Various statistical tests including one-way ANOVA, paired samples t-tests and bivariate correlations were performed to answer those questions. Most of the results of the statistical tests did not provide a clear answer whether or not SfC reached the poorest of the poor. Out of the four indicators, three showed that the women reached by SfC were as poor as the women in the control group. The SfC women were statistically significantly better off, as measured by household assets, compared to the other women in the area. The results of the paired samples t-tests showed that the SfC women utilized the benefits offered by the program, and their utilization was higher in 2006 than in 2005. Except for a few instances, the women's utilization of the program benefits did not appear to have been influenced by their economic levels. None of their saving activities were significantly affected by their household economic levels. Their willingness to take loans also did not appear to be influenced by the difference in their household economic levels in a meaningful way. Although mixed, these findings adequately rejected the notion that Oxfam America had failed to reach the poorest of the poor. However, the results did not show that the women reached by SfC were the poorest. Future studies and collection of additional data may provide more conclusive findings about the level of poverty of the women reached by the program and the extent to which the very poorest benefitted equally from the services. Whether or not the results were statistically significant and all women were the poorest, the experiences gained by the women and the groups from their participation in SfC spoke directly to the core purpose of the program and to the economic benefits for the clients by any international standard. When their context was taken into consideration, poor women of one of the world's poorest countries in the villages where there are very few or no opportunities became economically active in the SfC program. The level of engagement of the women was an important step forward toward reducing poverty. Regardless of their economic levels, those poor women saved a remarkable amount of money; borrowed money from the group; repaid loans with interest; and, most importantly, managed a financial system as a group to serve their financial needs.

Исследование влияния отопительных систем и конструктивных особенностей на энергетическую и экономическую эффективность индивидуальных жилых зданий. / The most effective variant of a heating system and a constructive system for increasing the energy and economic efficiency of an individual residential building are proposed.

Due to global warming, all industries must do everything they can to prevent temperature increases. In this bachelor thesis, the reader will get a description of how the marine industry is tackling the environmental problem and more precisely what a vessel can be equipped with to reduce fuel consumption.   The thesis deals with how different energy saving devices (ESD) affect the propulsion efficiency of a chemtanker sailing on the sea. The thesis will address the following three different concept: Pre-swirl stator, Pre-swirl duct, Pre-duct. The work will step-by-step describe the different optimization parameters that need to be adjusted and what impact these parameters have on the wake field of the propeller plane.  The work addresses some different devices that will reduce the fuel consumption of ships and that these devices not only reduce fuel consumption, but also have a positive impact on cavitation. The result of this thesis was that ESD will reduce the power needed to reach the desired speed of the vessel and after post-processing was made, the best result, which was Pre-swirl stator, showed an energy saving percentage of as much as 3.15% and the risk of cavity occurring at the propeller tip was also reduced.

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Can a tool effectively aid user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) designers, along with frontend developers, in implementing more energy efficient websites? The foundation for formulating the thesis questions and identifying the issue was laid through an exploration of related work. This study aims to present the development of a tool encompassing recommendations and practices from existing research, providing valuable support for designers and developers.  Several methods, namely six, were established to better define and concretise the problems. The idea phase continued exploring potential solution both through looking at similar solutions as well as doing workshops together with potential users. In this phase the guidelines, now named SCOPES - System Conscious of Potential Energy Saving, started taking shape. The prototype was designed to assist web designers and developers in reducing energy consumption during website development. The study and especially the test phase found that guidelines empowered web designers to create energy efficient web pages, and users accept lower energy pages when aware of their efficiency, given that essential functionalities are retained.  The results of this thesis, supported by a total of 16 methods and 64 users with various backgrounds, ethnicities, and genders, emphasize the importance of addressing the challenges, posed by our energy-demanding society, pointing to potential pathways for a more sustainable and efficient future.

This thesis deals with the energy saving in smart building with focus on the impact of the user behaviour on the energy consumption. The problem of human behaviour modelling has been widely studied in the state of the art, but it is still an open problem in the field of smart building since the stochastic nature of the behaviour is difficult to be accurately represented by numerical tools. An interdisciplinary approach is proposed in order to identify the suitable user features from the psychological and social point of view and to integrate such a representation into a DSS for appliance scheduling and energy cost reduction. The proposed method has exploited location-based features of the users in order to represent their habits and needs and to compute the schedules that maximize the user acceptance toward an “energy-aware” behaviour. The obtained results point out a reduction of the peak-to-average ratio higher than 40% also considering the user constraints imposed by their presence into the building.

In order to provide enough economic growth so that the majority of individuals within the jurisdiction are satisfied with government services, state governments typically pursue two budgetary choices for economic growth: overall increased production and stabilization (Bivens, 2014). According to two budgetary choices as a path to economic growth, this research investigates the relationship between capital expenditure or savings and economic growth. It covers the years 1990 through 2013 and uses a paneled data set at the state level in the United States. The first model for this study is the structural equation model (SEM), which examines the direct and indirect effects of capital expenditure and state government savings on economic growth by including the volatility of the total expenditure as a mediating factor. Then, this dissertation investigates the relationships among capital expenditures, the total expenditure volatility and savings by using the endogenous growth or the OLS regression model. This dissertation can conclude that both of the two budgetary choices for state governments are effective for economic growth. Under controlling state characteristics, they are positively related to economic growth, which supports the allocation role of government for economic growth. However, this study finds that state governments do not find any supportive evidence on the fact that they can attain the stabilization role of government for economic growth. Even though they spend money on savings or capital expenditure from Keynesian macroeconomic theory, it does not lead to budgetary stabilization of the total expenditure. Thus, this dissertation leaves the missing links of the relationship between both fiscal policies and volatility inconclusive while it supports that volatility can negatively affect economic growth.

Energy consumption is one of the major concerns in the current environment, not only because of the limited availability of non-renewable fuels, but also due to the high cost and the pollution generated by energy production. In general, industries consume large quantities of electricity, fuels and other types of energy. Among the industries, the chemical industry is one of the highest energy consumers because of the nature of its processes. This fact makes the chemical industry one of the best candidates for the study and evaluation of different technologies to improve the efficiency of the energy use without affecting the productivity and quality of their processes and products. This thesis analyzes the energy consumption in the chemical industry and provides recommendations to increase the energy efficiency of the critical systems utilized in this industry. Different methods to reduce the energy losses during generation and transmission, the use of waste heat for improving energy efficiency, and several analysis tools to help in evaluating the potential energy and cost savings for each facility are also discussed in this thesis. Several case studies are reviewed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the energy savings recommendations and tools presented in this investigation.

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