Mapping between many different applications and many different underlying technologies is very complicated. Moreover, since users need service continuity and want to get the service in a satisfactory level, firstly, their perception of the service should be measured and secondly, the changes in the underlying technologies should be transparent to users. As a result, there should be ”virtualization layer” between application layer and underlying access technologies whose job is to abstract user perception of the application in terms of network parameters and transfer these requirements to underlying layers. In this thesis, we propose a generic mathematical expression to abstract user perception of application in a unified way for different applications. Since today applications are composite applications, having a generalized expression that has the same form for various applications can ease resource management calculations. We use application service map which is based on quality of experience for resource management.

Mapping between many different applications and many different underlying technologies is very complicated. Moreover, since users need service continuity and want to get the service in a satisfactory level, firstly, their perception of the service should be measured and secondly, the changes in the underlying technologies should be transparent to users. As a result, there should be ”virtualization layer” between application layer and underlying access technologies whose job is to abstract user perception of the application in terms of network parameters and transfer these requirements to underlying layers. In this thesis, we propose a generic mathematical expression to abstract user perception of application in a unified way for different applications. Since today applications are composite applications, having a generalized expression that has the same form for various applications can ease resource management calculations. We use application service map which is based on quality of experience for resource management.

This study is aimed to unpack the ‘black box’ that connects the grade-3 test-based retention policy with students’ academic outcomes. I theorized that the policy effects on teaching and learning may be modified by instructional capacity, but are unlikely to occur through enhancing teachers’ capability to teach. Analyzing the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K) dataset, I first explored the relationship between the test-based retention policy and instructional capacity as indicated by teacher expectations of students’ learning capability and then investigated whether and how the expectations moderated the policy effects on instructional time reallocation, student academic performance, and student self-perceived academic competence and interests. To remove the selection bias associated with the non-experimental data, I applied a novel propensity score-based causal inference method, the marginal mean weighting through stratification (MMW-S) method and extended it to a causal analysis that approximates a randomization of schools to the test-based retention policy followed by a randomization of classes to teachers with different levels of expectations. Consistent with my theory, I found that the test-based retention policy had no effects on teacher expectations. Although the policy uniformly increased the time allocated to math instruction, it produced no significant changes in students’ overall performance and overall self-perception in math. In addition, I found that students responded differently to the test-based retention policy depending on the expectations they received from the grade-3 teachers. The results suggested some benefits of positive expectations over negative and indifferent expectations in moderating the policy effects, including more access to advanced content, higher learning gains of average-ability students, and more resilient student learning over a long term. However, the results also showed that having positive expectations alone is not sufficient for academic improvement under the high-stakes policy. If implemented by a positive-expectation teacher, the policy could be detrimental to students’ learning in the nontested subject or to their learning of basic reading/math skills. It would as well place the bottom-ability students at a disadvantage. The findings have significant implications for the ongoing high-stakes testing debate, for school improvement under the current accountability reform, and for research of teacher effectiveness.

The goal of this essay was to study if the way gaming review sites presented their review evaluation has any influences the level of product involvement in the users it attracts. The assumption we did during the essay was that there was a connection between user’s level of product involvement and the quality of the community. To test this assumption we started out by performing observations on the comment sections in three gaming news sites which varied in their method for evaluating games. The result of these observations showed a significantly higher community quality in one of the websites. To see if this had any connection to the level of product involvement in the users and their preferences regarding evaluation method in reviews we distributed a questionnaire in gaming forums. The overall result of this essay showed that the review site which didn’t show a number in its scoring had the higher community quality but no connections could be found between this and level of involvement users had regarding gaming.

This thesis consists of four self-contained papers related to energydemand and household cooking energy.Paper [I] examine the impact of price, income and non-economicfactors on gasoline demand using a structural time series model. Theresults indicated that non-economic factors did have an impact ongasoline demand and also one of the largest contributors to changes ingasoline demand in both countries, especially after the 1990s. Theresults from the time varying parameter model (TVP) indicated thatboth price and income elasticities were varying over time, but thevariations were insignificant for both Sweden and the UK. Theestimated gasoline trend also showed a similar pattern for the twocountries, increasing continuously up to 1990 and taking a downturnthereafter.Paper [II] studies whether the commonly used linear parametricmodel for estimating aggregate energy demand is the correctfunctional specification for the data generating process. Parametricand nonparametric econometric approaches to analyzing aggregateenergy demand data for 17 OECD countries are used. The resultsfrom the nonparametric correct model specification test for theparametric model rejects the linear, log-linear and translogspecifications. The nonparametric results indicate that the effect of theincome variable is nonlinear, while that of the price variable is linearbut not constant. The nonparametric estimates for the price variable isrelatively low, approximately −0.2.Paper [III] relaxed the weak separability assumption betweengasoline demand and labor supply by examining the effect of laborsupply, measured by male and female working hours on gasolinedemand. I used a flexible semiparametric model that allowed fordifferences in response to income, age and labor supply, respectively.Using Swedish household survey data, the results indicated that therelationship between gasoline demand and income, age and laborsupply were non-linear. The formal separability test rejects the null ofseparability between gasoline demand and labor supply. Furthermore,there was evidence indicating small bias in the estimates when oneignored labor supply in the model.Paper [IV] investigated the key factors influencing the choice ofcooking fuels in Ghana. Results from the study indicated thateducation, income, urban location and access to infrastructure werethe key factors influencing household’s choice of the main cookingfuels (fuelwood, charcoal and liquefied petroleum gas). The study alsofound that, in addition to household demographics and urbanization,the supply (availability) of the fuels influenced household choice forthe various fuels. Increase in household income was likely to increasethe probability of choosing modern fuel (liquefied petroleum gas andelectricity) relative to solid (crop residue and fuelwood) and transitionfuel (kerosene and charcoal).

El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar si la escala CURB-65, índice de mortalidad validado en neumonía comunitaria, podía aplicarse también en pacientes hospitalizados en Medicina Interna, donde no se han desarrollado escalas pronósticas. Para ello estudiamos prospectivamente una cohorte de 539 pacientes (51% varones; media de edad: 78 años; mortalidad: 12%) ingresados en el Hospital Sierrallana (Cantabria). Se recogieron diversos datos clínicos, epidemiológicos y analíticos. La puntuación en la escala CURB-65 fue significativamente más alta en los pacientes fallecidos (86% vs 30%; p<0,001), asociándose la puntuación alta con una mortalidad más elevada (RR 38,16 (5,16-281,5). La sensibilidad y especificidad de la puntuación alta fueron 85% y 69% respectivamente, y el valor predictivo negativo del 100%. También se calculó la curva ROC (área bajo la curva: 0,79). Nuestros resultados sugieren que la escala CURB-65 puede ser útil para predecir la mortalidad en pacientes hospitalizados en Medicina Interna. / The aim of this study was to evaluate if CURB-65 score, validated as mortality index in Community Acquired Pneumonia, could also be used in patients admitted to an Internal Medicine Service, where prognostic scores have not been developed. We analyzed prospectively a cohort of 539 patients (51% males; mean age: 78; mortality: 12%) admitted to Hospital Sierrallana (Cantabria). Clinical and epidemiological data and laboratory findings were examined. CURB-65 score was significantly higher in patients who died (86% vs 30%; p<0,001), and high CURB-65 score was associated with higher mortality (RR 38,16 (5,16-281,5)). Sensitivity and specificity for high CURB-65 score were 85% and 69%, respectively, and negative predictive value was 10%. Curve ROC was also calculated (area under the curve: 0,79). Our findings suggested that CURB-65 score can be an useful tool for predicting mortality in patients admitted to an Internal Medicine Service.

Today a standard procedure to analyze the impact of environmental factors on productive efficiency of a decision making unit is to use a two stage approach, where first one estimates the efficiency and then uses regression techniques to explain the variation of efficiency between different units. It is argued that the abovementioned method may produce doubtful results which may distort the truth data represents. In order to introduce economic intuition and to mitigate the problem of omitted variables we introduce the matching procedure which is to be used before the efficiency analysis. We believe that by having comparable decision making units we implicitly control for the environmental factors at the same time cleaning the sample of outliers. The main goal of the first part of the thesis is to compare a procedure including matching prior to efficiency analysis with straightforward two stage procedure without matching as well as an alternative of conditional efficiency frontier. We conduct our study using a Monte Carlo study with different model specifications and despite the reduced sample which may create some complications in the computational stage we strongly agree with a notion of economic meaningfulness of the newly obtained results. We also compare the results obtained by the new method with ones previously produced by Demchuk and Zelenyuk (2009) who compare efficiencies of Ukrainian regions and find some differences between the two approaches. Second part deals with an empirical study of electricity generating power plants before and after market reform in Texas. We compare private, public and municipal power generators using the method introduced in part one. We find that municipal power plants operate mostly inefficiently, while private and public are very close in their production patterns. The new method allows us to compare decision making units from different groups, which may have different objective schemes and productive incentives. Despite the fact that at a certain point after the reform private generators opted not to provide their data to the regulator we were able to construct tree different data samples comprising two and three groups of generators and analyze their production/efficiency patterns. In the third chapter we propose a semiparametric approach with shape constrains which is consistent with monotonicity and concavity constraints. Penalized splines are used to maintain the shape constrained via nonlinear transformations of spline basis expansions. The large sample properties, an effective algorithm and method of smoothing parameter selection are presented in the paper. Monte Carlo simulations and empirical examples demonstrate the finite sample performance and the usefulness of the proposed method.

The persistence of grizzly bears (<i>Ursus arctos</i>) in western Alberta is threatened by increasing human activities on the landscape. The Foothills Research Institute Grizzly Bear Program (FRIGBP) hypothesizes human-caused landscape change in Alberta causes long-term stress in individual bears, resulting in impaired biological functions and, when many bears are affected, decreased population performance. To facilitate the evaluation of individual grizzly bear health within the FRIGBP, the objective of my research was to develop and assess the usefulness of a health function score system for grizzly bears. From a large set of complex biological data collected from grizzly bears from 1999 to 2007, I merged 14 � constituent� variables into four health functions; growth, immunity, movement, and stress. For each health function, I calculated individual scores by adding ranked and weighted variable percentiles. I found that health function scores corresponded well with health status of individual bears based on values for multiple constituent variables. The score system facilitated quick screening of health in individual bears, identification of bears with reduced health, and comparison of health profiles between bears. I examined the usefulness of the score system by evaluating relationships presumed to exist under the working hypothesis of the FRIGBP. Results generated from health function scores were compared with those from constituent variable values using statistical and graphical techniques. I concluded that scores likely provided clearer depiction of wildlife health relationships than did constituent variables because they were not influenced by capture method, sex, or outlying observations. By using the score system, I found support for the proposed positive relationship between human-affected landscape condition and stress, but not for inverse relationships between stress and other health functions. The usefulness of the score system could be increased by minimizing use of redundant constituent variables, e.g., in growth and immunity, and removing the influence of potential confounding factors, e.g., capture.

Prior research on covenants show that they are frequently included in corporate debt agreements as means of mitigating bondholder-stockholder conflicts. As covenants should be more frequently included when there is a higher degree of bondholder-stockholder conflict, what is then the relation between covenants and spread? Our results show that on the Norwegian corporate debt market, bonds that include covenants have a higher spread than those that do not. The results of an OLS-regression using some of the most common covenants, Z’-score and bond spread shows that the 43 % of bond spread can be explained by whether the bond includes dividend restrictions, equity restrictions and poison puts, and the Z’-score of the issuer.

The aim of the paper is to investigate to what extent political parties in the Scandinavian parliaments express opinions on labor immigration in line with the policy preferences predicted by the Stolper-Samuleson theorem. A hypothesis derived from the theorem suggests that left wing parties traditionally connected to labor interests should favor restrictions on labor immigration to a greater extent than right wing parties traditionally connected to businesses and market interests. To establish any such trend, parties are placed on a left-right axis according to their given Rile scores. The findings indicate that there is some evidence for a left-right divide regarding parties' assumed factor interests labor and capital, but the basis for these findings are limited and inferences should be made with care.