For the last decades, numerous researchers have studied housing preferences of populations. However, very few researchers put highlight on young adults in Sweden and their housing preference. From a Swedish perspective, it is worthwhile to investigate housing preferences of young adults as the populationof young adults is consistently growing and their roles as dynamic consumers are crucial in the housing market. This thesis aims to examine housing preference of young adults aged 18 to 30 in largest cities in Sweden by comparison to older age groups. By identifying housing attributes highly valuedby the young adults, the research shall provide guideline to practitioners withfuture housing development to attract the young generation. The research is a quantitative study with application of a survey method. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method forms a foundation of thequestionnaire design, enabling to observe young adults’ trade-off decisionsamong multiple housing attributes. Total 767 responses are collected and the responses with valid consistency ratio (CR) are selectively used in the analysis.The result demonstrates that young adults have high preference for ‘low price’,‘proximity to public transportation’, ‘balcony’, ‘feeling of safety’ and ‘proximity to work or school’ in a housing decision. On the contrary, they show little interest in ‘neighborhood environment’ and ‘sustainable aspects’ of an apartment in general. In comparison with older age groups, young adults have higher preference for the proximity of an apartment and having a dishwasher;yet their preferences for ‘cleanliness’, ‘green space’ and ‘separate kitchen’ of adwelling are lower than the older generation. The practitioners shall keep these findings in mind when planning and designing apartments for the young consumers. / De senaste decennierna har åtskilliga forskare undersökt boendepreferenser hos befolkningen i ett flertal olika länder. Trots detta finns det väldigt fåforsknings-rapporter som sätter fokus på unga vuxna i Sverige och derasboendepreferenser. Ur ett svenskt perspektiv är det viktigt att undersökaboendepreferenserna för denna folkgrupp. Detta eftersom unga vuxnas befolkningen konstant växer och deras dynamiska roll som konsumenter är livsviktiga för bostadsmarknaden. Denna rapport siktar på att, genomjämförelse med äldre åldersgrupper, undersöka boendepreferenser hos unga vuxna mellan 18 och 30 som bor i Sveriges största städer. Genom att identifierade egenskaper som är högt värderade av de unga vuxna, ämnar forskningen attge riktlinjer till framtida bostadsutveckling för att attrahera den unga generationen. Denna studie är av typen kvantitativ forskning, med surveyundersökning som vetenskaplig metod. Den metod som utformningen av frågeformulären bygger på är analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Metoden används för att observera unga vuxnas avvägning kring många olika boendeegenskaper. Totalt är 767 svarinsamlade varav de svar som har en giltig consistency ratio används i analysen.Resultatet visar att unga vuxna starkt föredrar egenskaper som ‘lågt pris’,‘närhet till kollektivtrafik’, ‘balkong’, ‘säkerhetskänsla’ och ‘närhet till skola eller jobb”. Vidare visar undersökningen att egenskaper som ”grannskapsmiljö”och ”hållbarhetsaspekter” generellt inte prioriteras högt. Vid jämförelse medäldre åldersgrupper har unga vuxna större intresse av lägenhetens läge samt ifall lägenheten har diskmaskin. Unga vuxnas preferenser för ‘renhet’, ‘grönaytor’ och ‘separat kök’ är däremot lägre än preferenserna kring sammaegenskaper hos de äldre generationerna. Bostadsutvecklare borde väga in dessa upptäckter vid planering och design av lägenheter för unga konsumenter.

A global outbreak of a new strain of H1N1 influenza virus caused the 2009 flu pandemic. Taiwan was one of the 12 countries in the world capable of producing H1N1 vaccine domestically. The domestic vaccine manufactured by Adimmune Corporation proved to be safe and effective. However, the public opinion generally criticized negatively toward this H1N1 prevention work. This study explored the various entities and relations surrounding the prevention. The first experiment looked into people¡¦s recall toward government¡¦s promotion. This experiment used EyeLink to track subjects¡¦ eye movements on the promotional posters. The data showed the correlation between eye movement and recall, as well as the amount of information received by the subjects. The second experiment looked into people¡¦s decision toward H1N1 prevention. This experiment constructed an AHP model to study the problem. The subjects from various fields answered their view toward H1N1 prevention alternatives, and reported the actual inoculation rate of H1N1 vaccine. The goal aimed to choose a prevention method. The criteria included convenience, confidence, safety, and comfort. The alternatives included vaccination, medication, and sanitation. The experiment outcome summarized the inoculation statistics, attention distribution, involvement correlations, and decision priorities. The experiment result shows the subjects do not receive government¡¦s promotion well. The result also shows the subjects prefer sanitation for prevention. In addition, this study investigates Taiwan¡¦s vaccine and disease prevention development status. The analysis examines Adimmune Corporation and the vaccine market from different aspects. Finally, the conclusion provides recommendations for the people, the vaccine factory, and the government.

Taiwan is a typical island. Taiwan lacks natural resources and needs to rely on import and export of goods for living. International trade plays a crucial role in Taiwan's economy. In recent years, the government promotes actively integration with the global free trade agreement, relaxation of national barriers to trade, promotion clearance simplify, shortened the customs clearance of goods aging. The government promotes actively the custom broker industries transformation into logistics industries. Therefore, the study invests to raise the rate of success in business only by way of finding out the key success factors (KSF). That is my study motivation. This study refers strategy, competitive advantage, resource based view, the key success factors of the theories to construct a framework which focuses on members of customs broker association of Kaohsiung, actual operators owner and people belong more than ten years related-experience .The main purpose which custom broker businesses need to control what are important business operating variables. They would be success and achieve sustainable operation in this industry. The conclusions of this study provide the reference which developing key operation strategies and an overall arrangement for the customs broker industries.

In order to host The World Games 2009 in Kaohsiung, all public facilities had been reconstructed in Kaohsiung city. The image of harbor industry Kaohsiung city has been changed and delivered to all over the world through the world media by The World Games. Meanwhile, it promotes the harbor real estates in Kaohsiung as well. In addition to Kaohsiung city¡¦s unique characteristics and public artistic infrastructures, the future development of harbor real estate will become an interesting and valuable issue in Kaohsiung city. This study is based on city marketing, using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Authorities Survey, and Scenarios Analysis by interviewing 22 authorities of construction companies, real estate brokers, land brokers and real estate developers. To develop a whole process of an assessment of real estate development in Kaohsiung harbor areas by inducing an assessment of real estate development in Kaohsiung harbor areas into three criteria and nine secondary criteria. Furthermore, analyze the future development of three harbor areas, include: Love Pier(which used to be called Pier 12), Glory Pier(which used to be called Pier 13), and Singuang Pier(which used to be called Pier 21). This study finds out that location is the first criterion, value is the second, and construction style is the last in assessment of real estate development in harbor areas. On secondary criteria, integration is the most important issue, convenience is the next; the subject of a talk and plasticity are the last two issues. Base on the whole assessment, Singuang Pier is the most potential area of real estate development in Kaohsiung harbor areas; Love Pier is the next consideration area. This conclusion provides real estate developers an important reference on assessment and decision-making in Kaohsiung harbor areas.

Prioritizing software requirements helps to determine which requirements that are most important,and in which order requirements should be developed and tested throughout the development lifecycle. By prioritizing the requirements, software engineers can put focus on a subset of all requirements, and implement these in a particular release. This thesis aims to analyze two ratio scale prioritization techniques in a controlled experiment.The experiment was designed to compare time consumption, scalability, accuracy, ease of use, and ease to learning between the two techniques. All these evaluation parameters are combined together to find out which technique is more suitable to use when prioritizing software requirements. The two techniques investigated in the study presented in this thesis are: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is based on pair-wise comparisons; and Cumulative Voting (CV) which is based on distributing points between requirements. The results of the experiment indicate that CV is less time consuming than AHP, which makes it more scalable. Further, CV is regarded as easier to use, and easier to learn than AHP. In addition, the results show that CV is more accurate than AHP while measuring the perceived accuracy. However, no conclusions could be made regarding actual accuracy due to misinterpretations by the study participants.

The Allium tricoccum Aiton (ramps, aka wild leeks), a native spring ephemeral, is a cultural keystone species in Appalachia, a mountainous physiographic region encompassing 205,000 square miles of the eastern United States. People in Appalachia have long harvested ramps in the wild. However, growing demand for the plant in and outside the region has increased harvesting, resulting in threats to native populations. Agroforestry cultivation techniques and technical support for sustained-yield forest farming practices are needed to conserve ramps and meet increasing demand. Various techniques for assessing suitable production practices for ramps were explored in this dissertation, particularly examining best-suited ramp ecotypes, mycorrhizal treatment, and habitat suitability determination. In the first study, bulbs and seeds from diverse Appalachian locations were gathered and transplanted to a common experimental site to investigate the effects of different ramp ecotypes on growth, survival, and stress responses. Plant characteristics and stress measurements were recorded before transplantation and post-transplantation assessments. Specifically, the study investigated the germination rate of three ramp seed ecotypes and the growth, survival, and stress responses of eight native ramp bulb ecotypes and three commercially obtained seedling samples. Results indicated that above-ground growth, survival, and stress response on the ramp ecotypes differed significantly. The second study explored the impact of mycorrhizae on ramps and was evaluated by assessing the impact of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) inoculation on Allium tricoccum. Four measurements, collectively referred to as parameter categories, were assessed. These included measures of 1) above-ground plant growth: leaf length, and leaf width; 2) stress measurement: transplant stress after a few days of transplant, and photosynthetic performance stress after a year of transplant; 3) survival analysis; and 4) mycorrhizal colonization rate. For each parameter category, three treatment comparison categories were conducted: 1) Positive control treatments: bulbs were planted from their native environment without treatment; 2) Negative controls: bulbs were treated with fungicide before planting to eradicate existing AMF in roots; and 3) The test group: bulbs were inoculated with commercial AMF (Atriva 500). Results indicated that mycorrhizal inoculation could increase ramp leaf length (P≤0.03). However, the impact varied by ecotype, highlighting the importance of considering local environmental conditions and ramp ecotype. Mycorrhizal inoculation did not impact ramp growth at the seedling stage. Mycorrhizal treatment increased the transplanted ramp's survival and stress tolerance (P≤0.001). The third study used multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), the Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP), and weighted linear combinations to model suitable habitats for ramps production. Ten habitat criteria were chosen (including five soil properties, three topographic parameters, and two land use properties) to assess the potential for growing ramps in seven counties in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. The percentage of highly suitable areas for ramps production in the studied counties ranges from 21.5% in Haywood County to 49.6% in Macon County. Similarly, moderately suitable areas range from 36.7% in Macon County to 54.5% in Lawrence County. Ground truthing was performed to validate the model. Ramp patch locations within each county were geocoded in the final suitability maps. Existing ramp patches were within the model's estimate of moderate to high site suitability ranges, suggesting the model is valid. Results of the study suggest that site suitability modeling could be useful for producers interested in growing ramps in forest farm settings across Appalachia. / Doctor of Philosophy / The ramp, also known as the wild leek, is an important food, medicinal and cultural resource for the people of Appalachia. However, increasing demand for ramps beyond this region has led to over-harvesting and threatens the plant's native populations. Appropriate cultivation techniques and technical support for sustained-yield forest farming practices are needed to conserve ramps and meet growing demand. This dissertation explores various techniques for assessing suitable production practices for ramps, including examining ramp ecotypes, mycorrhizal treatments, and habitat suitability determination. The first study evaluated the ecotypic variation among ramps collected from different geographic regions and their impact on plant performance. Ramp ecotypes displayed differences in above-ground growth, survival, and stress response. The second study examined the impact of mycorrhizae on ramps and found that mycorrhizal inoculation can increase ramp leaf length and survival and stress tolerance of transplanted ramps. However, this impact varied by ecotype, highlighting the importance of considering local environmental conditions and ramp ecotype. The third study involved developing a model to identify suitable habitats for growing ramps. The model was tested for seven counties across Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. The percentage of land predicted as highly suitable for ramps production ranged from 21.5% in Haywood County, NC, to 49.6% in Macon County, NC. Moderately suitable lands ranged from 36.7% in Macon County, NC to 54.5% in Lawrence County, PA. Ground truthing confirmed the model's accuracy as geocoded existing ramp patch locations fell within the estimated suitable ranges. Site suitability modeling could be useful for people interested in growing ramps in forest farm settings across Appalachia. Overall, this research provides insights into best practices for ramp cultivation that help conserve a cultural keystone species and meet the growing demand for ramps.

Addressing environmental burdens associated with the operation and infrastructure of the electrical transmission system products is imperative. Implementing Ecodesign practices in the early stages of product development and adopting circularity approaches throughout the product value chain is crucial to mitigate adverse impacts. However, transitioning from a traditional to a circular business model necessitates a well-defined strategic plan enabling organisations to assess their current situation and develop effective tactics. Nevertheless, trade-offs between circularity and sustainability must be carefully considered, as circular practices may not always align with the triple bottom line. Therefore, accurately prioritising circular strategies is essential for establishing a circular and sustainable product life cycle. This research evaluates business practices of Grid Solutions and proposes priority strategies, guidelines and KPIs to enhance product circularity. For this purpose, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methodology based on expert’s judgment, is implemented. The prioritised strategies are analysed using an Importance vs Difficulty matrix to identify high-value and strategic actions. Simultaneously, product circularity indicators are evaluated and ranked based on the AHP outcomes. Subsequently, the most relevant indicator is assessed through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the prioritised guidelines, through High Voltage (HV) equipment. Results highlight that minimising energy consumption is essential for improving product circularity, as LCA analysis confirms. The chosen circular indicator is tested by comparing an HV product version with lower energy losses to the product baseline, exhibiting a 51.45% increase in sustainable circularity and approximately 20% reduction in adverse environmental impacts. Additionally, prioritising efforts to minimise non-conformities, promote repairability, and enable upgrades are also of high relevance. Finally, the research provides recommendations for New Product Introduction (NPI) frameworks and sustainable reporting.

This thesis investigates Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) adoption and implementation in Service Sector Organisations (SSOs). ERP is a business management system that has emerged to support organisations to use a system of integrated applications to enhance their Information Technology (IT) infrastructures, enhance business processes and deliver high quality of services. Regardless of the fact that several other sector organisations have adopted and implemented ERP systems, its application in SSOs is rather inadequate. Among other reasons, two core rationales can be attributed to the latter fact – firstly, SSOs lack the sufficient knowledge, expertise and training to implement such sophisticated integrated systems and secondly, the top management lacks the ability to take appropriate decisions for ERP adoption and implementation. However, merely focusing on a number of factors influencing ERP adoption and implementation may not be suffice, as there is a need for a systematic decision-making process for adopting and implementing ERP systems in SSOs. The limited number of ERP systems’ applications in SSOs has resulted in inadequate research in this area with many issues, like its adoption and implementation requiring further exploration. Despite, the implications of ERP systems have yet to be assessed in SSOs, leaving ample scope for relevance and producing a unique piece of research work. Thus, the author demonstrates that it is of high importance to investigate this area within SSOs and contribute towards successful ERP adoption and implementation. This thesis makes a step forward and contributes to the body of knowledge as it: investigates factors influencing the decision-making process for ERP adoption and implementation in SSOs, prioritises the importance of factors influencing ERP adoption and implementation, evaluates ERP lifecycle phases and stages, maps the ERP factors on different phases and stages of the ERP lifecycle, and in doing so, to propose a model for ERP adoption and implementation in SSOs. The author claims that such an ERP adoption and implementation process in SSOs is significant and novel as: it extends established norms for ERP adoption and implementation, by including Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique for prioritising the importance of factors, thus, facilitating SSOs to produce more robust proposals for ERP adoption and implementation. The author further assess the proposed ERP adoption and implementation model by using a qualitative, interpretive, multiple case study research strategy. Findings from two case studies demonstrate that such a systematic approach contributes towards more robust decisions for ERP adoption and implementation and indicates that it is acceptable by the case study organisations. The thesis proposes, assesses and presents a novel model for ERP adoption and implementation in SSOs and contributes to the body of knowledge by extending the literature.

Construction activity is known to have a major impact on the environment and is a major consumer of a wide range of naturally occurring and synthesized resources. Despite the recognition that environmental issues are important to the survival of the construction industry, the industry continues to degrade the environment, exploiting resources and generating waste, and is slow to change its conventional practices to incorporate environmental matters as part of its decision making process. With increased awareness and knowledge of these impacts, efforts are being made to avoid these adverse effects and to work towards impact mitigation. Among these is sustainable building material selection. Building material selection is an important issue in building design and construction decision-making and environmental issues need to be incorporated into the evaluation process. The research reported in this thesis was initiated to address these issues in the UK, towards developing an assessment model for incorporating sustainability into building material selection process. A questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the level of awareness, knowledge and implementation of sustainable practices among architects and designers and how this impacts on their design decisions. To facilitate the implementation of sustainable practices into building material selection, a set of sustainable assessment criteria (SAC) for modeling and evaluating sustainability performance of building materials was developed. Building material can be assessed using an index system that combines the principal criteria of sustainable development. The derived criteria were assessed and aggregated into a composite sustainability index using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique which has been praised for its ability to incorporate both objective and subjective considerations in the decision process. The development of a sustainability index is a way of supporting decision makers faced with making numerous and sometimes conflicting evaluation as with building material selection. The methodology adopted in undertaking this research was the mixed method approach involving a detailed review of the relevant literature, followed by an industry-wide survey of UK architects and designers. Following this, case study was conducted to collect data for sustainability criteria used in the assessment model. The data collected were analyzed, with the aid of SPSS, Excel and expert choice software using a variety of statistical methods including descriptive statistics analysis, relative index analysis, Kendall’s concordance and factor analysis. The key finding was the existing gap between awareness and implementation of sustainable construction practices, which has led to failure of realizing the benefits of a sustainable approach to construction. The study showed a discrepancy between what architects and designers claim to be convinced about, and knowledgeable in, and their commitment and practices; they seem to be unable to translate their environmental awareness and knowledge into appropriate design decisions and are in need of a decision support system that can aid the incorporation of sustainability into building design. The model developed satisfy this gap and was validated by application to a roof covering material selection decision process for a case study building project by means of experts’ review via a survey and the findings obtained suggest that the model is valuable and suitable for use in practice. Finally, areas for further research were identified.

Orientadores: Carlos Roberto de Souza Filho, Jener Fernando de Morais Leite / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociencias / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T08:21:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Picolo_ConradoEugenioBorges_M.pdf: 3955298 bytes, checksum: cfe9d59f8c1d2f4be316895c7d4a394d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: A bacia do Rio Jundiaí Mirim, compreendida nos municípios de Jundiaí, Jarinu e Campo Limpo Paulista, embora seja considerada, na sua maior parte, como uma área de conservação ambiental, tem sido atingida por pressões antrópicas, incluindo ocupação desordenada, operações mineiras, práticas agrícolas inadequadas, desmatamento, entre outras. Cerca de 97% do abastecimento de água da cidade de Jundiaí, o principal pólo consumidor local, é captado dessa bacia. Apesar dessa situação preocupante do uso da terra na área da bacia, nenhum estudo consistente foi realizado até hoje sobre seu impacto potencial sobre o abastecimento de água na região. Nesse contexto, esta pesquisa teve como principal objetivo traçar uma metodologia de análise do risco a perda da capacidade hídrica da bacia do Rio Jundiaí Mirim em função da impermeabilização do solo ocasionada pela ação antrópica, relacionando características morfométricas da bacia à informações pedológicas e ocupacionais. Dois métodos básicos foram utilizados para integração e análise espacial dos dados: o Processo Analítico Hierárquico (PAR) (método dirigido pelo conhecimento) e a Regressão de Multivariáveis (RM) (método dirigido pelos dados). Mapas de favorabilidade da manutenção da capacidade hídrica da bacia foram gerados através do método PAR, retro-ajustado pelo método RM, para dois cenários: (i) ocupação atual da bacia e, (ü) ocupação máxima para manutenção da capacidade hídrica dos canais principais da bacia. A análise cruzada nem os mapas gerados para esses dois cenários permitiu a derivação do produto-alvo desse estudo: um mapa de classes de risco a perda da capacidade hídrica da bacia. Dez Cinco sub-bacias foram classificadas como de muito baixo e baixo risco a perda de suas capacidades hídricas. Segundo os critérios utilizados na análise e considerando as condições atuais de ocupação, a bacia do rio Jundiaí Mirim não apresenta áreas de alto risco quanto a sua capacidade de fornecer água para as cidades da região / Abstract: The Jundiai Mirim river watershed (JMRW) is comprised within the cities of Jundiaí, Jarinu and Campo Limpo Paulista. Although a large portion of this watershed is considered a site of environmental protection, the area has been increasingly submitted to anthropic-related changes, including intricate house settlement, mining operations, damaging farming practices, deforesting, etc. Some 97% of the city of Jundiaí water supply, the main consuming center in the area, comes :&om the JMRW. Albeit this improper land use within the watershed is widely acknowledged, there have been no comprehensive scientific investigations as regards the potential impacts and threats that such anthropic changes may inflict in the water supply of the region. In this context, the main objective of this project is to develop a method for risk assessment of the potential loss of the JMRW hydric capacity, focusing on the effects of soil impermeability driven by antropic events and considering the synergy between morphometric, pedological and landuse characteristics of the watershed. Two basic methods were employed for data integration and spatial analysis: the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP - a knowledge-driven method) and the Multivariables Regression (MR - a data-driven method). Maps of favorability of hydric capacity maintenance were produced through AHP, and the mo deI was retro-adjusted by MR calculations. Two scenarios were considered: (i) present occupation of the watershed; and (ii) maximum possible occupation within a protective limit to maintain the hydric capacity of the main rivers of the watershed. Cross analysis of the favorability maps created for these two scenarios yielded the aimed risk assessment map for the JMRW. Five sub-basins were classified within very low and low risk to loose their hydric capacity. Considering the criteria employed in this work and the existent pattern of landuse, the JMRW shows a situation of overall low risk and it has the necessary resources to keeping the water supply of the region / Mestrado / Metalogenese / Mestre em Ciências