The built environment contributes extensively to the overall environmental impact of society. An increasing number of tools have been developed worldwide for comprehensive environmental assessment and rating of buildings in order to make the building sector more sustainable. These tools are expected to drive and facilitate future environmental improvements and market transformation in the sector. This thesis explores different methodological aspects in tool development using experiences from two large Swedish projects, the EcoEffect and ByggaBo tools, which were developed with a high level of stakeholder participation in order to be of practical use in the building sector.   The methodological aspects explored and discussed here include an approach for systematic selection of assessment aspects (energy use, indoor air quality, etc.) in tools (Paper 3), and a systematic procedure for selecting practical indicators using theoretical (e.g. validity/environmental relevance) and practical (e.g. costs) criteria (Papers 2 and 3). An approach for simple communication of complex results is presented with examples from 26 multi-family buildings (Paper 4). This approach allows a building’s ‘environmental efficiency’ to be presented in one diagram, without weighting the two distinct assessment areas energy use and indoor environmental quality. Paper 5 discusses the contextual issue of internal use of environmental indicators in property management organisations through reviews of environmental performance evaluation and organisation theory literature and comparisons with actual case studies. The EcoEffect (Paper 1) and the ByggaBo tools are also compared and summarised.   The case studies of real buildings and experiences from the EcoEffect and ByggaBo projects allowed data collection, calculation procedures and different practical applications of such tools to be evaluated. Poor data availability sometimes limits assessments, and improved internal routines and database developments in the building sector would allow more reliable environmental assessments.   Reviews of numerous indicators in Paper 3 (and 2) and literature revealed that environmental relevance was not a key aspect when current environmental performance indicators and building rating tools were constructed. This thesis suggests that environmental relevance and systematic procedures be prioritised in order to provide robust and trustworthy tools for environmental assessment of buildings.  Recommendations, some of which are generally applicable to other environmental assessments, include selection of environmentally relevant indicators, systematic procedures for handling theoretical and practical considerations in tool development, aggregation and weighting methods, use of a life cycle perspective and inclusion of performance-based rather than feature-based indicators. Since it is likely that the information these tools provide will increasingly be used by authorities, building users, economic incentive providers such as banks, etc., the methodological developments suggested here to strengthen tool rigour are important for future tool development processes. / Utvecklingen av verktyg för miljöbedömning av byggnader är ett område som expanderat kraftigt sedan 1990-talets början. Den ökande medvetenheten om den byggda miljöns omfattande bidrag till samhällets miljöpåverkan i stort har spelat stor roll för denna utveckling. Verktygen förväntas ha en betydelsefull roll i att driva på och underlätta miljöförbättringar och omdaning av marknaden i bygg- och fastighetssektorn. Denna avhandling utforskar olika metodaspekter för verktygsutveckling och bygger på erfarenheterna från två stora svenska metodutvecklingsprojekt för miljöbedömning av byggnader, EcoEffect och ByggaBo:s miljöklassning av byggnader. Båda dessa verktyg togs fram i samarbete med ett stort antal representanter från bygg- och fastighetssektorn, då verktygen syftade till praktisk användning.   Ett antal metodaspekter utforskas och diskuteras i avhandlingen. I artikel 3 föreslås och testas ett angreppssätt för systematiskt urval av miljöaspekter som ska bedömas av ett verktyg och dessutom föreslås här och i artikel 2 ett systematiskt tillvägagångssätt för att välja indikatorer för praktiskt användning utifrån både teoretiska (t ex. validitet) och praktiska (t ex. kostnad) kriterier. Ett angreppssätt för att underlätta kommunikation av komplexa miljöbedömningsresultat presenteras genom exempel från 26 flerfamiljshus i artikel 4. Detta angreppssätt möjliggör att redovisa en byggnads ‘miljöeffektivitet’ i ett diagram utan att behöva vikta de två disparata miljöaspekterna energianvändning och innemiljö. Artikel 5 tar upp användning av miljöindikatorer för internt arbete i fastighetsförvaltande organisationer genom litteraturöversikter inom områdena utvärdering av miljöprestanda och organisationsteori samt genom jämförelser med praktiska fallstudier. Verktygen EcoEffect (artikel 1) och nuvarande version av ByggaBo:s miljöklassningssystem sammanfattas också och jämförs i avhandlingen.   Genom ett antal fallstudier av verkliga byggnader och erfarenheterna från EcoEffect- och ByggaBo-projekten utvärderas frågor som insamling av indata, beräkningsmetoder och olika praktiska tillämpningar i avhandlingen. Dålig tillgång på indata begränsar ibland möjligheterna att göra miljöbedömningar. Förbättrade interna rutiner samt utveckling av nya typer av databaser inom bygg- och fastighetssektorn kommer med största sannolikhet att underlätta miljöbedömningar i framtiden.   Granskning av ett stort antal miljöindikatorer i artikel 3 (och 2) och litteratur på området visade att när miljöindikatorer och miljöklassningsmetoder tagits fram, har miljörelevansen hos dessa sällan haft högsta prioritet. Ett övergripande mål för denna avhandling har därför varit att bidra med rekommendationer som kan stärka miljörelevansen och trovärdigheten hos liknande indikatorer och verktyg. Några av de angreppssätt som föreslås är tillämpliga mer generellt också för andra typer av miljöbedömningar; t ex. hur miljörelevanta miljöindikatorer kan väljas, hur både teoretiska och praktiska överväganden kan hanteras på ett systematiskt sätt vid liknande verktygsutveckling, angreppssätt för viktning och aggregering av resultat samt användning av ett livscykelperspektiv. Vid miljöbedömning av byggnader bör också funktionsbaserade indikatorer i första hand väljas snarare än sådana som baseras på specifika tekniska utföranden. En trolig utveckling är att nya typer av användare i större utsträckning kommer att efterfråga den information som miljöbedömningsverktyg för byggnader kan tillhandahålla. Det kan handla om t ex. myndigheter, husköpare och ekonomiska incitamentsgivare såsom banker. Av denna anledning är de frågor som rör metodutveckling och tas upp i avhandlingen, klart betydelsefulla för att stärka noggrannhet, robusthet och trovärdighet i framtida utveckling av miljöbedömningsverktyg för byggnader. / QC 20100601 / Miljöklassning av byggnader / EcoEffect - miljövärdering av byggnader / Miljöstyrning med miljöindikatorer i fastighetsförvaltning

The presence of different types of defects is an important reality for manufacturers and users of engineering materials. Generally, the defects are either considered to be the unwanted products of impurities in the raw materials or to have been introduced during the manufacturing process. In high-quality steel materials, such as tool steel, the defects are usually non-metallic inclusions such as oxides or sulfides. Traditional methods for purity control during standard manufacturing practice are usually based on the light optical microscopy scanning of polished surfaces and some statistical evaluation of the results. Yet, as the steel manufacturing process has improved, large defects have become increasingly rare. A major disadvantage of the traditional quality control methods is that the accuracy decreases proportionally to the increased rarity of the largest defects unless large areas are examined. However, the use of very high cycle fatigue to 109 cycles has been shown to be a powerful method to locate the largest defects in steel samples. The distribution of the located defects may then be modelled using extreme value statistics. This work presents new methods for determining the volume distribution of large defects in high-quality steels, based on ultrasonic fatigue and the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution. The methods have been developed and verified by extensive experimental testing, including over 400 fatigue test specimens. Further, a method for reducing the distributions into one single ranking variable has been proposed, as well as a way to estimate an ideal endurance strength at different life lengths using the observed defects and endurance limits. The methods can not only be used to discriminate between different materials made by different process routes, but also to differentiate between different batches of the same material. It is also shown that all modes of the GEV are to be found in different steel materials, thereby challenging a common assumption that the Gumbel distribution, a special case of the GEV, is the appropriate distribution choice when determining the distribution of defects. The new methods have been compared to traditional quality control methods used in common practice (surface scanning using LOM/SEM and ultrasound C-scan), and suggest a greater number of large defects present in the steel than could otherwise be detected.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the process of creating of the marketing mix model as well as to investigate whether the participation can be a possible new concept for this model. The empirical material is based on eight interviews conducted on Gotland with the companies that have contributed with their views on the issue. The respondents were selected due to their background in the professional marketing field. The method is qualitative and is based on semi-structured interviews. The conclusions of the research demonstrate that the concept participation could be ranked as the most important concept in comparison to the four concepts of the marketing mix model. The authors consider the most interesting suggestion for the future studies to be the investigating whether the concept Participation can be considered to be the fifth P in the traditional marketing mix model.

Condition monitoring of critical machine tool components and machining processes is a key factor to increase the availability of the machine tool and achieving a more robust machining process. Failures in the machining process and machine tool components may also have negative effects on the final produced part. Instabilities in machining processes also shortens the life time of the cutting edges and machine tool. The condition monitoring system may utilise information from several sources to facilitate the detection of instabilities in the machining process. To avoid additional complexity to the machining system the use of internal sensors is considered. The focus in this thesis has been to investigate if information related to the machining process can be extracted directly from the internal sensors of the machine tool. The main contibutions of this work is a further understanding of the direct response from both linear and angular position encoders due the variations in the machining process. The analysis of the response from unbalance testing of turn tables and two types of milling processes, i.e. disc-milling and slot-milling, is presented. It is shown that operational frequencies, such as cutter frequency and tooth-passing frequency, can be extracted from both active and inactive machine axes, but the response from an active machine axis involves a more complex analysis. Various methods for the analysis of the responses in time domain, frequency domain and phase space are presented. / QC 20100518

To survive in today's manufacturing environments companies must push the standards of accuracy and speed to the highest levels possible. Electro Discharge Machining (EDM) has been used for over 50 years and recent developments have seen the use of EDM become much more viable. The goal of this research is to produce and evaluate electrodes produced by different manufacturing methods. The use of electroforming and spray-metal deposition has only recently become viable methods of producing usable rapid tooling components. The speed and accuracy as well as the cost of manufacture play a vital role in the tool and mould manufacturing process. Electroforming and spray-metal deposition offer an alternate option to traditional machining of electrodes. Electroforming is one method of producing electrodes for EDM. The fact that electroforming can be used to produce multiple electrodes simultaneously gives it the advantage of saving on costs when multiple electrodes are needed. Spray-metal deposition offers another alternative that is much cheaper and relatively faster to manufacture. The used of these non-traditional manufacturing methods in this research are compared to the performance of traditional solid electrodes in terms of machining time, material removal rate, tool wear rates and surface roughness at several standard machining settings. The results of this research are presented in this thesis along with conclusions and comments on the performance of the different methods of electrode manufacture. The major findings of the research include the solid electrodes performed better than the electroformed electrodes in Material Removal Rate (MRR), Tool Wear Rate (TWR), and Surface Roughness (Ra) at all machine settings. However it was found that the production cost of the solid electrodes was six times that of the electroformed electrodes. The production of spray metal electrodes was unsuccessful. The electrode shell walls were not an even thickness and the backing material broke through the shell making them unusable. It is concluded that with further refinements and research, electroforming and spray metal processes will become an extremely competitive method in electrode manufacture and other rapid tooling processes.

Undoubtedly one of the most significant developments to affect marketing worldwide in the 21st century has been the development of the Internet. As a communication tool the Internet is emerging as a new challenge to mass media advertising. As a result advertising agencies need to readdress their techniques, services and agency structure. Additionally, the shape and form of the traditional advertising agency will need to change along with the adoption and usage of this new interactive media channel. Agencies are now being forced to consider broadening their service offerings to clients. Apart from widening their service offerings, advertising agencies are being driven to invest in building and sustaining valuable client relationships to establish client loyalty, with profit and a healthy bottom-line being the ultimate objectives. Bush, Bush and Harris (1998) point out however, that whilst a growing number of companies are interested in developing an online presence, significant confusion remains about what this new medium will offer stakeholders in the advertising industry. The study undertaken in this thesis explores the relationship between two influential stakeholders in the advertising industry - advertising agencies and their clients. To explore this relationship, the study modified Parasuraman, Zeithamal and Berry's (1988) SERVQUAL model to explore whether gaps exist between agency-client expectations of the value of the Internet as a promotional tool. The SERVQUAL model, which was designed for measuring gaps between service expectations and perceptions, was adapted for use in the business-to-business environment (B2B). In the marketing literature there is little evidence of B2B research in relation to agency-client relationships, nor has there been significant scholarly work exploring the effect of the introduction of the Internet as a promotional tool on the agency-client relationship. The research undertaken in this study aims to respond to this gap in the marketing literature by addressing the broad research question: &quotHow will the introduction of the Internet as a promotional tool impact agency-client relationships?" Undertaking a review of agency-client expectations of the value of the Internet will ascertain whether gaps exist between agency and client expectations of the value of the Internet as a promotional tool. The discovery of gaps in the agency-client relationship in relation to Internet perceptions will indicate potential opportunities and challenges that need to be addressed by advertising agencies interested in extending their advertising services to embrace the Internet as a promotional tool. A major assumption in this inquiry was that gaps would exist between agency and client perceptions of Internet value. In particular, that advertising agencies would perceive the Internet to be a more valuable promotional tool than their clients. This assumption was informed from mass media and industry press, which indicated that advertising agencies were embracing new advertising creative in website design and strategic marketing activities using interactive media such as newsgroups and email to reach customers. However, the research of Bush et al. (1998) and Ducoffe (1996) suggests that little is known about the value of these Internet-based activities. Such thinking raises questions, such as: are advertisers feeling compelled to jump on the Internet bandwagon because of its popularity, or are businesses' desires to use Internet advertising a manifestation of Internet hype? To begin to answer these questions advertising industry stakeholders need to identify whether gaps do exist between agency and client perceptions of the value of the Internet as a promotional tool. The existence of such gaps could lead to tension in the agency-client relationship, which may ultimately mean a loss of client accounts for the advertising agency. Identifying and remedying such gaps could therefore aid in ensuring long-term and profitable working relationships with the agency's clients. To undertake this advertising industry research and respond to the research questions in this study an international advertising agency network, made up of 206 offices in 90 countries and a selection of their clients, were recruited to participate in the study. A two stage survey method approach was adopted because it was a time-efficient and affordable method for collecting detailed information from a dispersed network of professionals. The survey tool was a web-based questionnaire which was firstly submitted to a selection of advertising agencies within the international agency network. On completion of the questionnaire, agencies were asked to provide contact details for their top three billing clients. The second stage of the survey research involved the submission of a client questionnaire to the client contacts provided by the advertising agency. Both questionnaires used a modified SERVQUAL multi-item scale to measure service expectations. Discrete agency and client questions were also included in the respective questionnaires to situate the SERVQUAL analysis within the context of Internet usage, value perceptions and organisational characteristics (e.g. agency size, advertising spend, experience in using interactive media). The major finding of this study is that within the international advertising agency network there were no significant gaps in agency-client expectations concerning the value of the Internet as a promotional tool. Whilst several statistical analyses were undertaken, including bivariate and multivariate techniques such as Pearson's Chi-Square cross-tabulations, independent t-tests and ANOVAs, no statistically significant results are reported. In fact, it was found that advertising agencies and clients have similar expectations of the value of the Internet as a promotional tool. Gaps actually exist in relation to the clients who use the Internet as a promotional tool and agencies who supply Internet advertising services. Many agencies within this international agency network were found to be actively using the Internet, but their Internet advertising functions were not being provided by their traditional advertising agency. Descriptive analyses reported in the findings from this research study indicate that advertising agencies in this international network need to better understand their clients' Internet promotion needs. This will ensure the establishment of healthy, profitable and long-term agency-client relationships in the future. The research findings from this study offer advertising agencies worldwide insight into client expectations of the Internet, as well as other agency services. Furthermore, the findings reported contribute to the current small body of research in relation to B2B relationships in the advertising industry. The groundwork is set for future analysis of agency-client relationships in the advertising industry. In summary, while gaps between agency and client expectations of the value of the Internet as a promotional tool were expected, this research study found that agency and client expectations are quite similar. Analysis did reveal that one important factor, which influences the agency-client relationship, relates to the provision of Internet advertising services. Specifically, when an agency is not responsible for developing and maintaining clients' Internet advertising, these clients are utilising services from external providers of Internet services. These new stakeholders, who provide specialist services (i.e. graphic design houses, Internet advertising specialists and client's in-house Internet services), are changing the competitive environment of advertising services in the industry. Another interesting discovery, specific to the sample population, was that one third of agencies within the study did not provide Internet advertising services to current clients. However, these agencies have clients that use Internet advertising. On the one hand, this finding indicates that opportunities exist for these agencies to extend their service portfolio to embrace Internet advertising. However, it also raises an important question: that is, have these agencies created greater competition by not providing a full service communication portfolio for clients? These factors, and other methodological issues will inform directions for future research to explain the influential role of the Internet within the agency-client relationship in the advertising industry.

Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2002.

This thesis is an exploration of professional behaviour in health care settings, using a Model of Treatment Engagement that is developed as a tool for ethics critique. The Model is tested and refined using data on: a psychiatric ???treatment??? carried out on over 1,127 occasions in a 15 - 40 bed non-acute hospital during the period 1961-1979; the problematic withdrawal of all life-support from a 37 year old man who had suffered acute brain trauma some five days previously, in a tertiary hospital in March 2000; and a clinical experiment recently proposed for the emergency setting and intended to encompass five hospitals and the NSW Ambulance Service. In each case, the Model proves useful in identifying the shift from the treatment paradigm and the ethical imperative of ensuring the patient (or his/her agent) appreciates the difference between what is proposed and what would normally be done. It reveals how doctors who dealt with the patient but did not decide on treatment contributed to ethically troublesome practice. It clarifies how having multiple doctor players in the treatment situation gave rise to the need to suppress dissenting views. Doctors who were close enough to the action to comprehend its nature, by not dissenting, reinforced the problematic choice for the actor and validated it in the eyes of observers. The lack of dissent at the level of doctors working under supervision, appeared to be a function of institutional arrangements. At the consultant level, there was evidence of pressure to concur from other consultants and indirect evidence of a fear of ostracism. The public responses in the two modern cases point to there being a strong idea in Sydney???s medical community that dissent should not be publicly displayed once a decision on how to treat has been made. I conclude there are two steps to reviewing ethically problematic treatment situations. The first consists of identifying the shift from the treatment paradigm. The second consists of establishing why the problematic choice is translated into action. The Treatment Engagement Model is put forward as a useful tool for both these analyses.

In recent years, there has been a strong interest in developing Creativity Support Tools for many exciting areas of research such as art and music. Yet few such tools have been developed to support creativity in advertising. This is unusual since advertising, like art and music, is a highly creative endeavour of the human mind. The goal of advertising is to transform a communicational objective of a product or a service into a creative idea. A tool that would enhance the development of creative ideas in advertising would be highly beneficial for the advertising industry and possibly shed light on the mystery behind creativity. In this thesis, I developed Creative Pad, a new Creativity Support Tool to assist advertising creative in generating creative ideas for advertising. In developing Creative Pad, I studied advertising creativity and human creative thinking. I developed a framework for analysing the advertising process, in which the process is viewed as having three distinct phases: a message, an idea, and an execution. A significant implication of this view is that the process for developing ideas for new advertisements and the process of executing those ideas and turning them into creative products are independent. Each step is the result of a significant creative process. Creative Pad is developed to assist in the development of creative ideas for new advertisements. To assist this creativity, relevant triggers are needed. Research has shown that individuals with high associative skills produce more creative advertising. Creative Pad supports the associative skills of the advertising creative and exploits the use of the Internet as a dynamic database. It finds words and sentences related to the original communicational objective, providing relevant triggers for the associative creative process in the minds of the advertising creative. Several experiments using Creative Pad were conducted with advertising creative and students with no advertising background. The results show that Creative Pad supports the generation of new ideas in two ways. First, and most important, all the subjects were able to develop interesting new ideas. In particular, the advertising creative were able to design a sketch of the advertisement from ideas generated using Creative Pad. Second, I was able to find a connection between the triggers, the words and sentences selected by the user during the creative process, and the ideas generated. Although the connection might be considered a weak one, it nonetheless demonstrates that a connection exists between the ideas developed by the advertising creative and those suggested by Creative Pad.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. School of Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-79).