Executive function (EF) is a central aspect of cognition that undergoes significant changes in early childhood. Changes in EF in early childhood are robustly predictive of academic achievement and general quality of life measures later in adulthood. I develop a dynamic neural field (DNF) model which provides a process-based account of behavior and developmental change in a key task used to probe the early development of executive function--the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task. In the DCCS, children must flexibly switch from sorting cards either by shape or color to sorting by the other dimension. Typically, 3-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, lack the flexibility to do so and perseverate on the first set of rules when instructed to switch. In Study 1, I use the DNF model to integrate behavioral and neural processes by simulating hemodynamics associated with the early emergence of flexible rule-use. I then test predictions of the model using near-infrared spectroscopy. In Study 2, I develop a DCCS that can be used with adults that sheds light on key aspects of the task as they have been revealed with children. Using fMRI, a pattern of behavioral and neural effects shed light on the central processes involved in flexible rule-use. These two studies demonstrate that performance emerges as a property of system-wide interactions and that common neurocognitive effects .can be found between childhood and adulthood.

Systems Psychodynamics is unique as an approach to consulting to organisations in the way it integrates three theory streams: psychoanalysis; group relations and open systems theory. Consultants who work in this way focus on the many layers of interactions and exchanges taking place both within organisations and at the interface between an organisation and its external environment. The territory for collaborative exploration with clients extends from interpersonal and group dynamics to service and product- related systems and processes. It is a holistic approach that creates opportunities for transformational learning at every level of the organisation. As a practice, consulting with a systems psychodynamics approach is complex and difficult to master. Arguably, the most challenging dimension of this work for consultants is developing a capacity to think within a psychoanalytic conceptual framework: to discern and hypothesise about unconscious processes in organisations. But what precisely does this mean and what is this experience like for the consultants? This research project was designed to explore and describe the experience of working with a systems psychodynamic approach from the consultants' perspectives within the Australian context. To this end, 20 consultants who self-selected as working with a systems psychodynamic approach were involved in this research. From the data created in this process, what is documented in this thesis is the first detailed description of the experience of 'working in this way' taken from the combined perspectives of these 20 consultants. Further, a systems psychodynamic approach to research is defined and applied in this thesis. In this way, the systems psychodynamics within the temporary 'system' created by the research was part of the territory under investigation. This process led to an important discovery. 18 of 20 consultants strongly asserted the importance of working with colleagues in pairs or teams when adopting a systems psychodynamic approach. However, at the time of interviewing, all 20 consultants were working alone and only 3 had immediate plans to work with others. An exploration of the reasons for this gap between beliefs about best practice and actual practice became the focus for the analysis of the data. What is discovered through this analysis is that the reasons why consultants are predominantly choosing to work alone are likely to be complex and irreducible. An exploration of the issues that working together can surface for consultants who apply a systems psychodynamic approach is presented under four sub-topics: system domain issues; theory-related issues; interpersonal issues and intrapsychic issues. In this detailed analysis, what is revealed is an absence of 'good enough' containment for the anxieties that are likely to be aroused when consultants work together. To this end, four 'containers' are proposed: organisation/brand-as-container; management-as-container; supervision-as-container and theory/praxis-as container. This research has uncovered some important challenges facing the community of practitioners in Australia. It is the contention in this thesis that they need to be addressed if the practice of consulting with a systems psychodynamic approach is to flourish and continue to grow.

<p>The harsh competition in the airline industry continuously forces airline carriers to streamline their production and cut back on costs. Manpower constitutes the largest expense in Scandinavian Airline System, closely followed by fuel costs. Thus effective crew planning is vital to face the competition from international actors and low cost carriers.</p><p>Creating efficient schedules for airline crew is a very complex combinatorial task and the process is heavily dependent on optimization. A large set of constraints comprised of union- and governmental rules as well as company policies and quality factors must be taken into consideration when the schedules are created.</p><p>This master thesis examines how the distribution of rank in the SAS international pilot corps affects the total cost associated with flight deck crew.</p><p>Long haul flights at SAS intercontinental are manned with a captain, a first officer and a relief pilot. Pilots may man lower ranking positions on any given flight in order to make efficient use of the pilot corps and to minimize the need of full time equivalents.</p><p>This work discusses the development and evaluation of a simulation environment developed in order to create and analyze fictitious crew populations with different distributions of rank. Furthermore the solution methods to the scheduling problem implemented at SAS and the optimization theory associated with them are discussed.</p><p>The project has resulted in an evaluation of the developed simulation environment and a discussion about the difficulties of analyzing crew populations with the systems currently in use at SAS.</p>

<p>Syftet med detta examensarbete var att på uppdrag av Skellefteå Kraft AB studera produktionsplanering för regleringsbar vattenkraft och avgöra hur vatten i ett magasin kan värderas. Vidare skulle även en applikation skapas för att kunna beräkna dessa vattenvärden.</p><p> </p><p>Produktionsplanering för vattenkraft visade sig oftast delas upp i tre nivåer, i en lång-, säsong- och korttidsplaneringsdel, där detaljrikedomen i modellbeskrivningarna ökar med minskande tidshorisont. Anledningen till uppdelningen är en följd av att både noggrannhet och långsiktighet önskas, tanken är därmed att låta den högre nivån ge den lägre en långsiktighet den annars saknat. Möjliga kopplingar mellan nivåerna diskuterades, där en priskoppling genom vattenvärden argumenterades för att vara den bästa.</p><p> </p><p>Därefter studerades metoder för vattenvärdeberäkningar och matematiska villkor för optimal produktion, varvid ett eget program i Matlab kunde skrivas. Programmet beräknar vattenvärden vid en enmagasinmodell utifrån tillrinnings- och prisprognoser, där prognoserna tillåts att delas upp i ett valfritt antal scenarion.</p><p> </p><p>Testkörningar av programmet visar att vattenvärdena går ned inför en prognostiserad vårflod, för att på så vis skapa plats åt det inkommande vattnet. Det visas även att vattenvärdenas ISO-kurvor, som markerar var i tid och magasinsnivå ett visst vattenvärde gäller, blir flackare vid större magasin och djupare vid mindre inför den kommande vårfloden. Men även att ISO-kurvorna påverkas av produktionskapaciteten.</p><p> </p><p>Vidare visar testkörningarna att vattenvärdena är starkt kopplade till både tillrinningarnas- och prisprognosernas form och nivå, eftersom att spill vill undvikas samtidigt som produktionen önskas styras till perioder av höga priser.</p><p> </p><p>Innan vattenvärdena från programmet används i praktiken bör ytterligare testkörningar göras för att jämföra ekonomiskt utfall i förhållande till nuvarande arbetssätt. Därför är detta också ett förslag på vidare arbete, tillsammans med en eventuell utvidgning av programmet till en flermagasinsmodell.</p> / <p>The purpose of this master's thesis was to study hydropower production scheduling on behalf of Skellefteå Kraft AB and to determine how water in a reservoir could be priced. Furthermore an application for calculating these water values was to be made.</p><p> </p><p>Hydropower production scheduling was found most often divided into three levels, into a long-, medium- and short-term scheduling part, where the degree of detail increases with decreasing time horizon. The reason for this breakdown into levels are that a high detail in the model descriptions is desired, while still maintaining a good long-term planning. The idea is thus to let the higher level give the lower one an insight for future events it would otherwise lack. Possible couplings between the levels was discussed, where a coupling through price and water values was argued to be the best.</p><p> </p><p>Subsequently methods for water value calculations and mathematical conditions for optimal production was studied, in which an own program in Matlab could be written. The program calculates water values at a single reservoir model by the help of forecasts of future inflow and price, where the forecasts are allowed to be divided into any number of scenarios.</p><p> </p><p>Test runs of the program shows that water levels are reduced before the spring flood, thus to make room for the incoming water. It is also shown that the ISO-curves for the water values, which indicates where in time and reservoir level a certain water value is located, becomes flatter at larger reservoirs and steeper at smaller reservoirs before the incoming spring flood. But also that the ISO-curves are affected by the production capacity.</p><p> </p><p>The test runs further shows that the water values are strongly linked to both the shape and level of the inflow and price forecasts, since it is desired to avoid spill while directing the production to periods of high prices.</p><p> </p><p>Additional runs to compare the economic outcomes relative to current practice should be made before using the water values of the program in practice. Therefore this is also a proposal for further work, along with a possible extension of the program into a multi-reservoir model.</p>

The ability to analyze system properties for large scale systems is an important part of modern engineering. Although computer power increases constantly, there is still need to develop tailored methods that are able to handle large scale systems, since sometimes standard methods cannot handle the large scale problems that occur. In this thesis the focus is on system analysis, in particular analysis methods that result in optimization problems with a specific problem structure. In order to solve these optimization problems, primal-dual interior-point methods have been tailored to the specific structure. A convergence proof for the suggested algorithm is also presented. It is the structure utilization and the use of an iterative solver for the search directions that enables the algorithm to be applied to optimization problems with a large number of variables. However, the use of an iterative solver to find the search directions will give infeasible iterates in the optimization algorithm. This make the use of an infeasible method desirable and hence is such a method proposed. Using an iterative solver requires a good preconditioner. In this work two different preconditioners are used for different stages of the algorithm. The first preconditioner is used in the initial stage, while the second preconditioner is applied when the iterates of the algorithm are close to the boundary of the feasible set. The proposed algorithm is evaluated in a simulation study. It is shown that problems which are unsolvable for a standard solver are solved by the proposed algorithm. / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2008:25

This dissertation examines the socio-cultural conditions of Japanese society as reflected in factors that induce recent Japanese immigration to Canada. The examination is based on interview research done with six female and six male Japanese immigrants living in Vancouver, who arrived in Canada after the mid-1990s. While previous migration studies emphasized political-economic conditions as the causes of migration flow, the narratives of these interviewees reveal a different migratory pattern that is motivated by spiritual well-being and life values. In order to encapsulate the complexity of contemporary migration flow, the push/pull factors that induced interviewees' emigration are thematically categorized and analyzed within a frame that emphasizes both these factors' interdependence with the interrelationships of Japanese social systems that have swayed the interviewees' decision to emigrate from Japan, and the nature of complexity in Japanese society. Showing the pluralism of these factors, they are categorized into nine themes: 1)physical environment; 2) spiritual enrichment and a stress-reduced life style; 3) socio-cultural constraints; 4) family life; 5) education; 6) age restrictions; 7) gender roles; 8)diversification, and 9) self-actualization. Luhmann's theory of social systems and Foucault's notion of governmentality serve as touchstones for the re-interpretation of the push/pull factors based on the examination of the interrelations among three Japanese social systems of family, education, and employment. The analysis reveals the complexity of the push/pull factors. Moreover, the interviewees' image of a "simple Canada," which also contributes to their decision to immigrate, is explained in terms of the "double complexity" of Japanese society stemming from both the complexity of modern society and the complexity of an amalgam of "modern" and "pre-modern" elements in Japanese society. Through an extensive examination of the correlations between the experiences of contemporary Japanese migrants and Japanese social systems, this study brings new insights to discussions on tensions between human agency and social structure, and the importance of intangible, mental images in the ways people shape their lives.

The harsh competition in the airline industry continuously forces airline carriers to streamline their production and cut back on costs. Manpower constitutes the largest expense in Scandinavian Airline System, closely followed by fuel costs. Thus effective crew planning is vital to face the competition from international actors and low cost carriers. Creating efficient schedules for airline crew is a very complex combinatorial task and the process is heavily dependent on optimization. A large set of constraints comprised of union- and governmental rules as well as company policies and quality factors must be taken into consideration when the schedules are created. This master thesis examines how the distribution of rank in the SAS international pilot corps affects the total cost associated with flight deck crew. Long haul flights at SAS intercontinental are manned with a captain, a first officer and a relief pilot. Pilots may man lower ranking positions on any given flight in order to make efficient use of the pilot corps and to minimize the need of full time equivalents. This work discusses the development and evaluation of a simulation environment developed in order to create and analyze fictitious crew populations with different distributions of rank. Furthermore the solution methods to the scheduling problem implemented at SAS and the optimization theory associated with them are discussed. The project has resulted in an evaluation of the developed simulation environment and a discussion about the difficulties of analyzing crew populations with the systems currently in use at SAS.

This study departs from the notion that permaculture is a method for implementing systemic change, with the objective of curbing the negative trends associated with industrial food production on a local level. Thereafter, the city of Uppsala, Sweden is examined in order to determine the opportunities and constraints in establishing and supporting a public permaculture park. This is accomplished by identifying to what extent permaculture currently is being used in Uppsala. In addition, the municipality’s priorities and vision for the future of the city, as well as their policies and goals concerning the use and development of public green spaces, are examined. Furthermore, the ways in which the city‘s legislation facilitates and/or hinders such a project and the start-up and continuation costs of such a project in the short term are determined. These factors are then used to examine two case studies, which were conducted on potential locations for such an initiative. Upon analysis it is determined that creating a public permaculture park in Uppsala is feasible, though obstacles exist. The study also provides suggestions for improving existing infrastructural hurdles in order to facilitate implementation.

A comprehensive model of enterprise transformation is developed, along with a more specific model that includes multiple process factors inherent in transformation. The process factors are drawn from literature as well as primary research conducted for the dissertation. Specific considerations of time, cognitive attention, control and leadership are proposed to affect various outcome measures of transformation. This dissertation is conducted within the context of the retail industry. Financial analyses are included in order to provide an empirical basis for choice of retail industry context. Interviews with multiple retail executives acted as a source of primary, qualitative data with which to develop the model and inform the creation of a survey. A broad based empirical survey provided a second source of data with which to test the hypotheses about the impacts of multiple transformation factors on success metrics. Results indicate a large percentage of the variance in the outcomes of transformation can be explained with specific, actionable measures. Clarity of goals and plans, and strong leadership support are all shown to be important in affecting successful change. Additional factors, including flexibility in plans and goals, and leadership communication levels provide additional support for the hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice are elaborated, and future considerations for the research are discussed.

<p>The ability to analyze system properties for large scale systems is an important part of modern engineering. Although computer power increases constantly, there is still need to develop tailored methods that are able to handle large scale systems, since sometimes standard methods cannot handle the large scale problems that occur.</p><p>In this thesis the focus is on system analysis, in particular analysis methods that result in optimization problems with a specific problem structure. In order to solve these optimization problems, primal-dual interior-point methods have been tailored to the specific structure. A convergence proof for the suggested algorithm is also presented.</p><p>It is the structure utilization and the use of an iterative solver for the search directions that enables the algorithm to be applied to optimization problems with a large number of variables. However, the use of an iterative solver to find the search directions will give infeasible iterates in the optimization algorithm. This make the use of an infeasible method desirable and hence is such a method proposed.</p><p>Using an iterative solver requires a good preconditioner. In this work two different preconditioners are used for different stages of the algorithm. The first preconditioner is used in the initial stage, while the second preconditioner is applied when the iterates of the algorithm are close to the boundary of the feasible set.</p><p>The proposed algorithm is evaluated in a simulation study. It is shown that problems which are unsolvable for a standard solver are solved by the proposed algorithm.</p> / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2008:25