Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Stabilität/ Flexibilität'

Eine phasische Ausschüttung des Neurotransmitters Dopamin wird u.a. mit positivem Affekt, der Reaktivität auf Neuheit und kognitiver Handlungssteuerung in Verbindung gebracht. In der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit wurde der dopaminerge Einfluss auf die Flexibilität und Stabilität der Handlungssteuerung untersucht. Für eine zielgerichtete Handlung sind beide antagonistischen Anforderungen notwendig. Einerseits müssen gewählte Handlungsabsichten gegenüber irrelevanten Ablenkungsreizen abgeschirmt und somit stabilisiert werden. Andererseits müssen diese Absichten im Falle handlungsrelevanter Änderungen der Situation flexibel angepasst werden. Als theoretische Grundlage für die vorliegende Arbeit dienten in diesem Zusammenhang folgende Kernthesen von Miller und Cohen (2001): (1) Der präfrontale Kortex (PFC) ist entscheidend an der Regulation der Handlungssteuerung beteiligt. (2) Eine phasische Dopaminausschüttung ermöglicht die Aufnahme neuer Reize im PFC und damit die Möglichkeit, gegebenenfalls aktuelle Regeln und Ziele zu ändern. (3) Eine phasische Dopaminausschüttung verschiebt demnach die Balance zwischen einer flexiblen und stabilen Handlungssteuerung in Richtung Flexibilität. In den ersten beiden Studien der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde der Einfluss interindividueller Unterschiede dopaminerger Aktivität auf die Flexibilität der Handlungssteuerung untersucht. Als Prädiktoren wurden die spontane Lidschlagrate (EBR), die Polymorphismen COMT Val-158-Met und DRD4 Exon III sowie das Geschlecht eingesetzt. In der dritten Studie sollte eine Dopaminausschüttung experimentell durch die Darbietung von Signalen einer potenziellen Belohnung (Geldgewinn) stimuliert werden. Hierdurch sollten die beobachteten Zusammenhänge aus den ersten beiden Studien erhärtet und in einem erweiterten theoretischen Kontext untersucht werden. In allen drei Studien zeigte sich ein signifikanter Zusammenhang von Lidschlagrate und kognitiver Flexibilität (mittleres η²=8%). Entsprechend der Vorhersage wurde mit steigender Lidschlagrate eine erhöhte Flexibilität beobachtet. Ferner ergaben sich Interaktionseffekte zwischen EBR und DRD 4 Exon III Polymorphismus bzw. EBR und Geschlecht, sowie ein Geschlechtshaupteffekt. Zur Stabilität dieser Effekte konnte jedoch jeweils keine abschließende Aussage gemacht werden. In der dritten Studie zeigte sich bei Darbietung des Belohnungssignals eine erhöhte kognitive Stabilität (η²=7%). Dieser Zusammenhang wurde vom subjektiven Erlebens des Experiments moderiert (η²=11%): Personen, die den Eindruck hatten, ohne große Anstrengung viel zu gewinnen, zeigten eine erhöhte kognitive Flexibilität. Diese beiden Befunde können innerhalb einer integrativen Theorie von Cohen et al. (2004) plausibel erklärt werden. Der Belohnungs-Haupteffekt könnte auf die Dominanz eines (noradrenergen) Wirkungspfades im Kontext der Wettkampfsituation hinweisen. Der moderierende Effekt des subjektiven Erlebens könnte gemäß der oben erläuterten Kernthesen von Miller und Cohen (2001) als gleichzeitige Flexibilisierung über den dopaminergen Wirkungspfad interpretiert werden, die insbesondere bei geringer wahrgenommener Anstrengung dominieren kann. Als wichtigstes Ergebnis der vorliegenden Arbeit kann zusammenfassend festgestellt werden, dass die Hypothese einer dopaminergen Beeinflussung der Flexibilitäts-Stabilitäts-Balance der kognitiven Handlungssteuerung durch die Ergebnisse der drei Studien unterstützt werden konnte. Dabei erwies sich insbesondere die spontane Lidschlagrate als zuverlässiger non-invasiver und effizient zu erhebender Prädiktor dopaminerger Aktivität. Der flexibilisierende Einfluss von Dopamin kann von einem stabilisierenden Einfluss überlagert werden. Dies ist insbesondere dann der Fall, wenn eine erforderliche Leistung zur Erreichung einer Belohnung als nützlich eingeschätzt und subjektiv als anstrengend wahrgenommen wird
Converging evidence suggests a modulatory role of the neurotransmitter dopamine concerning reward, positive affect, novelty, and cognitive control. According to Miller and Cohen (2001) a phasic burst of dopamine shifts the balance between cognitive flexibility versus stability towards increased flexibility. Based on this assumption the current dissertation aimed at revealing associations between correlates of dopaminergic activity and the cognitive flexibility in an attentional set-shifting paradigm. In the first two studies we examined individual differences in the spontaneous eyeblink rate (EBR), the polymorphisms DRD4 exon III and COMT Val158Met polymorphism, as well as gender. In the third study we examined the impact of prospective monetary gains. Through this the findings of the first two studies should be validated and tested in an extended theoretical background. In all three studies an association between high EBR and increased cognitive flexibility was observed (mean η²=8%). Thus the main thesis of Miller and Cohen (2001) could be confirmed. Furthermore we observed interactions between EBR and DRD4 and EBR and gender, as well as a gender main effect on cognitive flexibility. In the third study we observed increased cognitive stability in the face of prospective gains (η²=7%). However, this effect was modulated by the subjective evaluation of the reward cues: participants who reported increasing their effort in response to reward cues showed increased cognitive stability whereas those who reported a positive and relaxed attitude towards the reward cues showed increased flexibility (η²=11%). The results thus suggest that the flexibility-stability-balance is modulated by the perceived effort needed to receive the potential reward

Eine phasische Ausschüttung des Neurotransmitters Dopamin wird u.a. mit positivem Affekt, der Reaktivität auf Neuheit und kognitiver Handlungssteuerung in Verbindung gebracht. In der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit wurde der dopaminerge Einfluss auf die Flexibilität und Stabilität der Handlungssteuerung untersucht. Für eine zielgerichtete Handlung sind beide antagonistischen Anforderungen notwendig. Einerseits müssen gewählte Handlungsabsichten gegenüber irrelevanten Ablenkungsreizen abgeschirmt und somit stabilisiert werden. Andererseits müssen diese Absichten im Falle handlungsrelevanter Änderungen der Situation flexibel angepasst werden. Als theoretische Grundlage für die vorliegende Arbeit dienten in diesem Zusammenhang folgende Kernthesen von Miller und Cohen (2001): (1) Der präfrontale Kortex (PFC) ist entscheidend an der Regulation der Handlungssteuerung beteiligt. (2) Eine phasische Dopaminausschüttung ermöglicht die Aufnahme neuer Reize im PFC und damit die Möglichkeit, gegebenenfalls aktuelle Regeln und Ziele zu ändern. (3) Eine phasische Dopaminausschüttung verschiebt demnach die Balance zwischen einer flexiblen und stabilen Handlungssteuerung in Richtung Flexibilität. In den ersten beiden Studien der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde der Einfluss interindividueller Unterschiede dopaminerger Aktivität auf die Flexibilität der Handlungssteuerung untersucht. Als Prädiktoren wurden die spontane Lidschlagrate (EBR), die Polymorphismen COMT Val-158-Met und DRD4 Exon III sowie das Geschlecht eingesetzt. In der dritten Studie sollte eine Dopaminausschüttung experimentell durch die Darbietung von Signalen einer potenziellen Belohnung (Geldgewinn) stimuliert werden. Hierdurch sollten die beobachteten Zusammenhänge aus den ersten beiden Studien erhärtet und in einem erweiterten theoretischen Kontext untersucht werden. In allen drei Studien zeigte sich ein signifikanter Zusammenhang von Lidschlagrate und kognitiver Flexibilität (mittleres η²=8%). Entsprechend der Vorhersage wurde mit steigender Lidschlagrate eine erhöhte Flexibilität beobachtet. Ferner ergaben sich Interaktionseffekte zwischen EBR und DRD 4 Exon III Polymorphismus bzw. EBR und Geschlecht, sowie ein Geschlechtshaupteffekt. Zur Stabilität dieser Effekte konnte jedoch jeweils keine abschließende Aussage gemacht werden. In der dritten Studie zeigte sich bei Darbietung des Belohnungssignals eine erhöhte kognitive Stabilität (η²=7%). Dieser Zusammenhang wurde vom subjektiven Erlebens des Experiments moderiert (η²=11%): Personen, die den Eindruck hatten, ohne große Anstrengung viel zu gewinnen, zeigten eine erhöhte kognitive Flexibilität. Diese beiden Befunde können innerhalb einer integrativen Theorie von Cohen et al. (2004) plausibel erklärt werden. Der Belohnungs-Haupteffekt könnte auf die Dominanz eines (noradrenergen) Wirkungspfades im Kontext der Wettkampfsituation hinweisen. Der moderierende Effekt des subjektiven Erlebens könnte gemäß der oben erläuterten Kernthesen von Miller und Cohen (2001) als gleichzeitige Flexibilisierung über den dopaminergen Wirkungspfad interpretiert werden, die insbesondere bei geringer wahrgenommener Anstrengung dominieren kann. Als wichtigstes Ergebnis der vorliegenden Arbeit kann zusammenfassend festgestellt werden, dass die Hypothese einer dopaminergen Beeinflussung der Flexibilitäts-Stabilitäts-Balance der kognitiven Handlungssteuerung durch die Ergebnisse der drei Studien unterstützt werden konnte. Dabei erwies sich insbesondere die spontane Lidschlagrate als zuverlässiger non-invasiver und effizient zu erhebender Prädiktor dopaminerger Aktivität. Der flexibilisierende Einfluss von Dopamin kann von einem stabilisierenden Einfluss überlagert werden. Dies ist insbesondere dann der Fall, wenn eine erforderliche Leistung zur Erreichung einer Belohnung als nützlich eingeschätzt und subjektiv als anstrengend wahrgenommen wird.
Converging evidence suggests a modulatory role of the neurotransmitter dopamine concerning reward, positive affect, novelty, and cognitive control. According to Miller and Cohen (2001) a phasic burst of dopamine shifts the balance between cognitive flexibility versus stability towards increased flexibility. Based on this assumption the current dissertation aimed at revealing associations between correlates of dopaminergic activity and the cognitive flexibility in an attentional set-shifting paradigm. In the first two studies we examined individual differences in the spontaneous eyeblink rate (EBR), the polymorphisms DRD4 exon III and COMT Val158Met polymorphism, as well as gender. In the third study we examined the impact of prospective monetary gains. Through this the findings of the first two studies should be validated and tested in an extended theoretical background. In all three studies an association between high EBR and increased cognitive flexibility was observed (mean η²=8%). Thus the main thesis of Miller and Cohen (2001) could be confirmed. Furthermore we observed interactions between EBR and DRD4 and EBR and gender, as well as a gender main effect on cognitive flexibility. In the third study we observed increased cognitive stability in the face of prospective gains (η²=7%). However, this effect was modulated by the subjective evaluation of the reward cues: participants who reported increasing their effort in response to reward cues showed increased cognitive stability whereas those who reported a positive and relaxed attitude towards the reward cues showed increased flexibility (η²=11%). The results thus suggest that the flexibility-stability-balance is modulated by the perceived effort needed to receive the potential reward.

Fundamental economic and social changes have strongly influenced the conditions under which companies have to operate during the last couple of years. The dynamics of the business environment, which are among other things increasingly forced by the globalization of markets, development of new technologies and subsequently growing competitive pressure, requires that companies adapt to their environment not only reactive, but rather act proactively to exist on the market permanently. This means, that in companies radical change processes are not even uncommon in addition to permanent changes. Regarding the success of any change process it is of vital importance that the concerned employees and departments are involved in the success of the project and cooperate closely. For this reason trust is becoming more and more important in business environment, especially against the backdrop of economic crisis, of mergers, outsourcing, short-time work and job loss. The setup and permanent care of a trustworthy corporate culture, the content of which includes the constructive handling through management of the anxieties and emotions of the employees concerning upcoming changes, finally provides the basis for successful cooperation. Currently there is no scientific consensus about what trust is, how it can be measured, evaluated and influenced. These issues are now being investigated by empirical studies. Thus, the meaning of "professional" trust was determined by means of a quantitative questionnaire. One aim of the empirical study was to investigate the existence of trust-promoting and trust-inhibitory factors in companies and to generate rankings regarding their importance for the employees. The perceptions should be the basis to build and maintain a reliable culture of trust in companies, especially during the implementation of change processes.

Der Gegenstand dieser Dissertation sind Situationen, in denen die Aufgabe nicht durch einen Hinweisreiz vorgegeben wird. Die Idee besteht darin, die Reaktion der Versuchsperson (anders als beim klassischen Aufgabenwechselparadigma[TS] bzw. beim Wisconsin Card Sorting Test[WCST]) bei verschiedenen gleichzeitig gültigen Antwortalternativen zu untersuchen. Dafür gibt es methodische und empirische Gründe. Zum einen wurde kritisiert, dass ein Teil der Wechselkosten durch die Verarbeitung des Hinweisreizes entsteht. Zum anderen stellt sich die empirische Frage, ob es auch dann zu Wechselkosten kommt, wenn Wechsel und Wiederholung nicht durch Hinweisreize oder Rückmeldungen vorgegeben werden, sondern wenn die Versuchsperson frei entscheiden kann, ob sie die Regel wechselt oder bei der eben ausgeführten Regel bleibt. Im experimentellen Paradigma der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden den Versuchspersonen entweder nur eine oder zwei alternative Reaktionsmöglichkeiten vorgegeben. Zu diesem Zweck wurde der WCST so modifiziert, dass in der Hälfte aller Durchgänge die zum Lösen der Aufgabe relevante Merkmalsdimension gewechselt oder wiederholt werden musste, während in der anderen Hälfte aller Durchgänge gleichzeitig zwei unterschiedliche, jedoch gleichermaßen gültige Merkmalsdimensionen dargeboten wurden. Auf diese Art war es möglich, freie Wechsel unangekündigten gleichsam erzwungenen (forcierten) Wechseln gegenüberzustellen. Eine Besonderheit dieser Dissertation besteht ferner darin, dass neben den manuellen Reaktionen die Blickbewegungen analysiert wurden. Dabei eröffnete die Analyse von Blickbewegungen ein Fenster in die Prozessdynamik während eines Durchgangs und ermöglichte es, Hypothesen über Aufmerksamkeitsprozesse eingehender zu untersuchen. Mit dem Experiment 1 wird das Paradigma und der Basisbefund vorgestellt. Im Einzelnen wurde der WCST so modifiziert, dass Reaktionszeit, Fehlerrate und relative Häufigkeiten von Wiederholungen und Wechseln erhoben werden konnten. In jedem Versuchsdurchgang wurden gleichzeitig vier Einzelreize (drei Referenzreize und ein Target) dargeboten. Jeder Reiz bestand aus den Merkmalsdimensionen Farbe, Form, Anzahl, wobei jede Dimension jeweils eine von vier Ausprägungen annehmen konnte. Die Aufgabe der Versuchsperson bestand darin, aus drei dargebotenen Referenzreizen denjenigen zu identifizieren, der mit dem Target in einem von drei möglichen Reizmerkmalen übereinstimmte. Von besonderem Interesse war hierbei die Frage, ob es auch dann zu Wechselkosten bzw. einer Perseverationstendenz kommt, wenn die Versuchspersonen zwei in unterschiedlichen Merkmalsdimensionen mit dem Target übereinstimmende Referenzreize dargeboten bekommen. Der Ort, die Merkmalsdimension, die Merkmalsausprägung der mit dem Target übereinstimmenden Referenzreize, sowie die Anzahl der mit dem Target übereinstimmenden Referenzreize wurden randomisiert und waren für die Versuchspersonen nicht vorhersehbar. In den forcierte Wahl-Durchgängen stimmte ein Referenzreiz mit dem Target überein, während in den freie Wahl-Durchgängen zwei Referenzreize in unterschiedlichen Merkmalsdimensionen (zum Beispiel Farbe und Form) mit dem Target übereinstimmten. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass es auch dann zu Wechselkosten kam, wenn die Versuchsperson in den freie Wahl-Durchgängen denjenigen von zwei mit dem Target übereinstimmenden Referenzreizen wählte, bei dem die Übereinstimmung auf einer anderen Merkmalsdimension lag als im unmittelbar vorhergehenden Durchgang (Wechsel), im Vergleich dazu, dass sie den Referenzreiz wählte, der mit dem Target auf der gleichen Merkmalsdimension übereinstimmte, auf der auch im vorhergehenden Durchgang die Übereinstimmung lag (Perseveration). Im Einzelnen kam es bei den freie Wahl-Durchgängen zu einer Perseverationstendenz von etwa P = 2/3. Ferner führten Wechsel sowohl bei den forcierte als auch bei freie Wahl-Durchgängen zu längeren durchschnittlichen Reaktionszeiten als Perseverationen. Damit konnte gezeigt werden, dass Wechselkosten auch in einem Paradigma ohne Hinweisreize bei „freier Wahl“ entstehen, und zwar auch dann, wenn gleichzeitig die Möglichkeit zur Wiederholung und zum Wechsel bestand. Die durchgeführte Computersimulation eines neuronalen Netzes, mit dem die vermuteten kognitiven und aufmerksamkeitsbezogenen Prozesse in dieser Aufgabe modelliert wurden, unterstützte die Hypothese, dass die in den Experimenten gemessene Perseverationstendenz und die Wechselkosten durch eine intensivierte Enkodierung der zuvor relevanten Übereinstimmungsdimension erklärt werden kann. Experiment 2 untersuchte die Hypothese, dass Aufmerksamkeitseinstellungen aus dem vorherigen Durchgang einen bahnenden Effekt auf den Selektionsprozess und die Reaktionszeit von verschiedenen Antwortalternativen haben. Es wurde angenommen, dass ein Merkmal einer Dimension dann mehr Aufmerksamkeit auf sich zieht, wenn diese Dimension kurz zuvor relevant war. Dazu wurde das Paradigma aus Experiment 1 mit der Messung von Blickbewegungen kombiniert. Die Ergebnisse replizierten die in Experiment 1 gemessene Perseverationstendenz und die Wechselkosten in den Reaktionszeiten. Die Blickbewegungsanalysen klärten die Mikrostruktur der zugrunde liegenden Aufmerksamkeitsprozesse auf, indem neben den durchschnittlichen Fixationszeiten und der Fixationsanzahl eines Reizes auch der zeitliche Verlauf der Fixationswahrscheinlichkeit der Reize untersucht wurde. Wie vorhergesagt, war es in einem frühen Zeitbereich sowohl bei den freie als auch bei den forcierte Wahl-Durchgängen bei einer Perseveration wahrscheinlicher als bei einem Wechsel, dass derjenige Referenzreiz fixiert wurde, der eine Übereinstimmung zum Target enthielt und auf den am Ende des Durchgangs mit einem Tastendruck reagiert wurde. Ferner war die durchschnittliche Anzahl der Fixationen auf das Target und den gewählten Referenzreiz bei einem Wechsel höher als bei einer Perseveration. Dieser Befund ist konsistent mit Annahmen aus Theorien dimensionsbasierter Aufmerksamkeit, nach denen eine zuvor relevante Merkmalsdimension höher gewichtet verarbeitet wird, wodurch andere Merkmalsdimensionen in ihrer Verarbeitung beeinträchtigt werden. Des Weiteren gelang es mithilfe der Blickbewegungsdaten, die Wechselkosten in Such- und Verarbeitungszeit zu dekomponieren: Bei einem Wechsel war nicht nur die Zeit bis zur ersten Fixation des gewählten Referenzreizes, sondern auch die Zeit von dieser Fixation bis zum Tastendruck länger als bei einer Perseveration. Mit Experiment 3 wurde die Dynamik der Abschirmung gegenüber irrelevanten Reizmerkmalen während Perseveration und Wechsel untersucht. Wie in den vorangehenden Experimenten enthielt jeder Einzelreiz verschiedene Ausprägungen einzelner Merkmalsdimensionen. Im Gegensatz zu den vorangehenden Experimenten wurden den Einzelreizen drei weitere Merkmalsdimensionen hinzugefügt, so dass jeder Einzelreiz sechs Merkmalsausprägungen auf verschiedenen Merkmalsdimensionen enthielt. Gleichzeitig wurden die Versuchspersonen instruiert, innerhalb welcher von zwei zuvor definierten Klassen von relevanten Merkmalsdimensionen die Übereinstimmung zwischen Target und Referenzreiz in einer Abfolge von Versuchsdurchgängen gesucht werden sollte. Je nach Instruktion sollte entweder auf Merkmale der Klasse Symbole (Form, Farbe, Anzahl) oder auf Merkmale der Klasse Hintergrund (Textur, Ecke, Balken) reagiert werden. Neben der Replikation der Ergebnisse in Bezug auf die Wechselkosten (Experiment 1) und die damit einhergehenden Unterschiede in der aktiven visuellen Verarbeitung (Experiment 2) zeigte sich ferner, dass der Moment des Wechsels einer Merkmalsdimension durch eine geringere Abschirmung gegenüber irrelevanten Reizmerkmalen charakterisiert war als eine Wiederholung. Dies war insbesondere dann der Fall, wenn die irrelevanten Reizmerkmale, die intentional ausgeblendet werden sollten, der leichten, d.h. einfach zu verarbeitenden Klasse von Merkmalsdimensionen (Symbole) angehörten. Dabei waren die Reaktionszeiten auf die Merkmale der Klasse Hintergrund fast doppelt so lange wie die Reaktionszeiten auf die Merkmale der Klasse Symbole. Neben den Reaktionszeiten wurde auch die aktive visuelle Verarbeitung durch die unterschiedliche Dynamik von Aufrechterhaltung und Abschirmung bei Perseveration und Wechsel beeinflusst, was sich u.a. darin zeigte, dass die irrelevanten Reize während eines Wechsels verstärkt die Aufmerksamkeit auf sich lenkten und fixiert wurden. Die Ergebnisse der Experimente demonstrieren, dass die Verwendung eines Aufgabenwechselparadigmas mit zwei gleichzeitig richtigen Antwortalternativen einen wertvollen Beitrag zum Verständnis der kognitiven und aufmerksamkeitsbezogenen Prozesse leisten kann, die den Wechseln zwischen Reizdimensionen bzw. Zuordnungsregeln zugrunde liegen. Die Analyse der Blickbewegungen erwies sich dabei als besonders nützlich, um die Mikrostruktur der zugrunde liegenden Prozesse in ihrem Zeitverlauf aufzuklären. Die Ergebnisse der Experimente zeigen ferner, dass sich die Aufgabenträgheit im Sinne von persistierenden Aufmerksamkeitseinstellungen auch in Situationen widerspiegelt, in denen die Versuchspersonen zwischen zwei Reaktionsalternativen wählen können (in den Experimenten die Wahl der zuvor relevanten vs. nicht relevanten Merkmalsdimension). Weiterhin spiegeln die Ergebnisse zwei zentrale Organisationsprinzipien des kognitiven Systems wider. Zum einen wurde eine zuvor erfolgreiche Strategie (die zuvor relevante Übereinstimmungsdimension) in etwa 2/3 aller Durchgänge stabil erneut angewandt und zum anderen wurde in etwa 1/3 aller Durchgänge mit zwei Reaktionsalternativen flexibel auf eine zuvor nicht relevante Übereinstimmungsdimension gewechselt. Möglicherweise ist dieses Ungleichgewicht von Wechsel und Perseveration eine Art Kompromiss zwischen Stabilität/ exploitation und Flexibilität/ exploration. Es ist auch denkbar, dass diese gleichzeitig zu erfüllenden ‚Randbedingungen’ (constraints) kognitiver Kontrolle auch zu der unterschiedlichen Abschirmungsdynamik bei Perseveration und Wechsel führen, indem das System bei einem Wechsel anfälliger für Ablenkungen wird als bei einer Perseveration.

The issue of rapid change in environmental conditions under which ecosystem processes and human interventions will take place in the future is relatively new to forestry, whereas the provision of ecosystem services, e.g., timber or fresh water, is at the very heart of the original concept of forest management. Forest managers have developed ambitious deterministic approaches to provide the services demanded, and thus the use of deterministic approaches for adapting to climate change seem to be a logical continuation. However, as uncertainty about the intensity of climate change is high, forest managers need to answer this uncertainty conceptually. One may envision an indeterministic approach to cope with this uncertainty; but how the services will be provided in such a concept remains unclear. This article aims to explore the fundamental aspects of both deterministic and indeterministic approaches used in forestry to cope with climate change, and thereby point out trade-offs in service provisioning and adaptability. A forest owner needs to be able to anticipate these trade-offs in order to make decisions towards sustainable forest management under climate change.

In today´s flexible working sphere trust takes a central place in relations to customer, supplier and institutions as well as between coworkers and executives. Therefore, co-operation is not thinkable at all without a certain amount of trust. A low amount of trust is not an adequate basis for obtaining quality of living or realization of business success. In the everyday life it is to be also experienced that the structure of trust requires very much time, power, money and patience. The effects, on which an employer has to count with loss of trust by unmotivated and unproductive coworkers, can mean enormous economic damage for the enterprise and entail the loss of a market projection. So trust was determined by means of a quantitative questionnaire. The aim was to investigate the existence of trust promoting and trust inhibiting factors and to generate rankings in regard to their importance.

In this case study I research how three archivists at a Swedish municipal experience how the Corona pandemic have affected their work related to providing citizens with access to public records. In the answers from three qualitative interviews with two archivists at the municipal archive and one archivist working in the municipals’ intermediate archive for social services I interpret expressions of flexibility and stability, defined as an ability to adapt to change and usage of existing resources within the organization. The key findings of the study show that the aspect of digitalization, and the already existing digitalized grades, have afforded the archivists' work with some stability. Organizational planning has in turn enabled them a flexible approach to the changes brought by the pandemic. Furthermore, I analyze these findings through the democratic aspect of archives - the right to access public records to gain insight to governmental decisions – and find that some challenges are apparent. But overall, under current circumstances, the effect of the Corona pandemic on the municipals’ archival work with access to public records have been minimal.

This thesis is concerned with queueing models where demand is allowed to exceed the system capacity, and also with the capacity sizing and pricing problem for heterogeneous products and resources under demand uncertainty. Our aim is to improve productivity and profitability. In the first part of the thesis, we consider the dynamic assignment of servers to tasks in queueing networks where demand may exceed the capacity for service. The objective is to maximize the system throughput. We use fluid limit analysis to show that several quantities of interest, namely the maximum possible throughput, the maximum throughput for a given arrival rate, the minimum arrival rate that will yield a desired feasible throughput, and the optimal allocations of servers to classes for a given arrival rate and desired throughput, can be computed by solving linear programming problems. We develop generalized round robin policies for assigning servers to classes for a given arrival rate and desired throughput, and show that our policies achieve the desired throughput as long as this throughput is feasible for the arrival rate. We conclude with numerical examples that illustrate the points discussed and provide insights into the system behavior when the arrival rate deviates from the one the system is designed for. In the second part of the thesis, we consider the effects of inspection and repair stations on the production capacity and product quality in a serial line with possible inspection and repair following each operation. We consider multiple defect types and allow for possible inspection errors that are defect dependent. We construct a profit function that takes into account inspection, repair, and goodwill costs, as well as the capacity of each station. Then we compare the profitability of different inspection plans and discuss how to identify the optimal inspection plan. Finally, in the third part of the thesis, we consider the capacity and pricing decisions made by a monopolistic firm producing two heterogeneous products under demand uncertainty. The objective is to maximize profit. Our model incorporates dedicated and flexible resources, product substitutability, and processing rates that may depend on the product and on the resource type. We provide the optimum prices and production quantities as functions of resource capacities and demand intercepts. We also show that investment in flexible capacity is only desirable when it is optimal to invest in dedicated capacities for both products, and obtain upper bounds for the costs of the dedicated capacities that need to be satisfied for investment in the flexible resource. We conclude with numerical examples that illustrate the points discussed and provide insights into how the optimal capacities and expected production quantities, prices, and profit depend on various model parameters.

Les électrodes transparentes sont des éléments essentiels pour de nombreux dispositifs tels que les cellules solaires, les OLEDs, les écrans tactiles ou les films chauffants transparents. Au regard de la croissance forte du marché des dispositifs flexibles, le remplacement de l’ITO, matériau de référence dans l’industrie, s’avère nécessaire. Les réseaux percolants à base de nanofils(NF) métalliques sont une alternative de choix pour ce qui est des performances optoélectroniques, du coût et de la flexibilité. En particulier, les NF d’argent, fortement étudiés ces dernières années, offrent probablement le meilleur potentiel. L’objectif de cette thèse est de développer de nouvelles électrodes transparentes à NF avec un métal de substitution. Le cuivre est un candidat intéressant car à conductivité électrique équivalente, son prix est environ cent fois moins élevé que celui de l’argent. Dans ce manuscrit, différentes voies de synthèse des nanofils de cuivre (CuNF) sont abordées. Des électrodes sont fabriquées à partir de ces nanofils, notamment par impression, et des études sont rapportées sur l’évaluation de leurs performances. L’étude de la stabilité des électrodes à CuNF sous différents stress environnementaux (air sec, soleil, humidité) a été effectuée et met en évidence la stabilité moindre des NF de cuivre par rapport aux NF d’argent. Pour pallier cela, deux stratégies de protection des réseaux de nanofils ont été mises en place à base, soit d’une couche encapsulante sur le réseau, soit d’un système coeur-coquille à l’échelle du NF. La stabilité de ces systèmes a été mesurée lors du fonctionnement de ces électrodes lorsqu’elles sont utilisées pour la fabrication de films chauffants transparents
Transparent electrodes are implanted in a lot of devices such as solar cell, OLED, touch screen or transparent film heater. Market trends toward flexible devices lead replacement of the well known brittle ITO. Metallic nanowire (NW) based percolative networks are a promising alternative in terms of performances, cost and flexibility. Indeed, the widely reported silver NWs exhibited really high optoelectrical performances. The objective of this thesis is to develop new NW based transparent electrodes with other metal. Among metals, copper is the most promising because of its high conductivity and its price one hundred times cheaper. In that manuscript, we detail different synthesis of copper nanowire (CuNW), their printing to get the related performances. Then ageing under environmental stresses (dry air, sun and humidity) will be studied. Stability of CuNW into networks is very low compared to silver, to improve stability of CuNW two strategies based on capping layer on top of CunW and on core-shell nanostructure will be presented. Operating stability into transparent film heater will also be reported

Traditionnellement, le droit est perçu comme devant assurer la stabilité de la norme et des situations régies afin de garantir la sécurité juridique des sujets de droit. Mais ceci n'est pas une vérité absolue, il ne s'agit que d'une apparence fondée sur l'approche classique de la théorie de l'Etat de droit. Pourtant, une temporalité a été mise en place afin de répondre à ce besoin. Elle se caractérise par un instant pérennisé. La temporalité juridique est une suite de séquences immobiles juxtaposées conduisant à des arythmies lors d'un passage d'un état du droit à un autre. Ainsi se révèle un temps juridique fictif hors temps réel, enfermé dans une bulle de stabilité entre deux instants déterminés. Or cette politique s'avère inefficace et dépassée face aux atteintes portées à la force obligatoire du contrat, à la permanence des lois, et face au désordre régnant au sein du système juridique. Nous pensons que les changements intervenus au sein des mécanismes juridiques et au sein du système juridique lui-même ne peuvent être traités comme de simples dérèglements ou maux à traiter. Les actes normatifs en acceptant de prendre en compte l'évolution des situations juridiques ont changé de nature. Ils sont devenus des processus intégrant en leur sein l'incertitude du temps, ses effets créateurs, et donc une certaine flexibilité. Le temps du droit n'est plus un hors temps fictif, il est un temps "contextualisé". Cette nouvelle politique du temps se révèle être remarquablement efficace en permettant de réassurer une séparation des pouvoirs par la réorganisation des sphères temporelles
Traditionally, the right is perceived as that must assure the stability of the legal rule and the situations governed to guarantee the legal security of the subjects of right. But this is not the absolute truth; it is only about an appearance established on the classic approach of the theory of the Rule of law. Nevertheless, a temporality was organized to answer this need. It is characterized by perpetuated moment. The legal temporality is a suite of leading juxtaposed immovable sequences drives to arrhythmias during a passage of a state from the right to the other one. So shows itself a fictitious legal time except real time, locked into a bubble of stability between two definite moments. Now this politics turns out ineffective and exceeded in front of carried infringements on the binding effect of the contract, on the durability of the laws, and in front of disorder reigning within the legal system. We think that the changes intervened within the legal mechanisms and within the legal system itself cannot be treated as simple disorders or troubles to be treated. The normative acts by agreeing to take into account evolutions the situations which they govern so changed nature. They became processes integrating within them the uncertainty of time, its creative effects, and thus certain flexibility. The time of the right is not any more one except fictitious time; it is a time "contextualisé ". This new politics of time shows to be outstandingly effective by allowing to re-assure a division of powers by the reorganization of the temporal spheres

Changes of Mind' can provide insights into the dynamic and continuous processes underlying decision making and action selection. Previous studies on Changes of Mind have exclusively focused on either perceptual or value-based choice. This thesis investigates the flexible neurocognitive mechanisms that shape voluntary actions, which require integration of internally-generated (endogenous) intentions and externally-cued (exogenous) sensory or value-based information. When information is noisy or changes dynamically, agents sometimes change their voluntary intentions and/or change the movements that are required to implement intentions into action. Continuous movement trajectories were used to capture both types of Change of Mind during ongoing action execution, revealing that 'Changes of Intention' are more frequent when intentions are weak or when the cost of pursuing an intention is high. These findings could be qualitatively reproduced by an attractor network model that continuously integrates endogenous and exogenous information over time, occasionally switching from one attractor state to a different one later on. In an fMRI study, the neural dynamics of intention reversals were investigated, providing evidence that neural patterns in a fronto-parietal network change dynamically to incorporate new decision- and action-relevant evidence after action onset. Finally, while behavioural flexibility is advantageous in many situations, an important hallmark of voluntary control is intention pursuit despite external changes or challenges. For example, people often need to persevere in the face of effort. Patients with post-stroke fatigue showed reduced perseverance compared to healthy controls when goal pursuit required continuous effort, which may cause adverse health-related outcomes. In conclusion, this thesis provides new insights into the continuous neurocognitive mechanisms that shape voluntary actions as they unfold. Reversibility of intentions allows agents to adjust their own actions to the current context, while stability of intentions is necessary for successful goal pursuit. Hence, volition requires balanced integration of endogenous intentions with dynamically-changing exogenous information.

Power generation gas turbine manufacturers and operators are tasked increasingly with expanding operational flexibility due to volatility in global gaseous fuel supplies and increased renewable power generation capacity. Natural gas containing high levels of higher hydrocarbons (e.g. ethane and propane) is typical of liquefied natural gas and shale gas, two natural gas sources impacting gas turbine operations, particularly looking forward in the United Kingdom. In addition, hydrogen-blending into existing natural gas infrastructure represents a potential energy storage opportunity from excess renewable power generation, with associated combustion impacts not fully appreciated. This thesis aims to address the specific operational problems associated with the use of variable gaseous fuel compositions in gas turbine combustion through a combination of experimental and numerical techniques, with a focus on natural gas blends containing increased levels of higher hydrocarbons and hydrogen. Parametric experimental combustion studies of the selected fuel blends are conducted in a new fully premixed generic swirl burner at elevated ambient conditions of temperature and pressure to provide representative geometry and flow characteristics typical of a can-type industrial gas turbine combustor. New non-intrusive diagnostic facilities have been designed and installed at Cardiff University’s Gas Turbine Research Centre specifically for the characterization of the influence of fuel composition, burner geometry, and operating parameters on flame stability, flame structure, thermoacoustic response, and environmental emissions. Experimental measurements are supported through the use of numerical chemical kinetics and acoustic modelling. Results from this thesis provide an experimental validation database for chemical kinetic reactor network and CFD modelling efforts. In addition, it informs gas turbine manufacturers on potential burner design modifications for future fuel flexibility and provide enhanced empirical tools to power generation gas turbine operators for increased operational stability, reduced environmental impact, and increased utilization.

Mes travaux de thèse ont porté sur les matériaux hybrides organiques-inorganiques (MOFs) qui constituent une nouvelle classe de matériaux cristallins et nanoporeux, formés de centres métalliques interconnectés par des ligands organiques, dont les applications pour la séparation de gaz d'intérêt industriel ou la catralyse sont très prometteuses. Je me suis particulièrement intéressée aux Soft Porous Crystals, qui présentent une flexibilité structurale de grande amplitude en réponse à des stimuli externes tels que la température, la pression mécanique ou l'adsorption de molécules. Afin de mieux comprendre la très large gamme des comportements observés pour la flexibilité des MOFs, j'ai développé au cours de ma thèse une méthodologie complète de ces matériaux en combinant différentes méthodes de simulation moléculaire classique et quantique.Dans un premier temps, j'ai étudié les propriétés mécaniques de ces nouveaux matériaux flexibles dans le régime élastique. J'ai identifié la signature élastique des SPC et mis en évidence l'origine microscopique de la flexibilité structurale de ces matériaux hybrides. Ensuite j'ai étudié la stabilité mécanique de ces matériaux en fonction de la température, de la pression mécanique et de l'adsorption de molécules. Et notamment au phénomène d'amorphisation sous pression et au polymorphisme induit par l'intrusion de fluide de certaines MOFs. Dans un dernier temps, j'ai étudié l'influence de la géométrie, de la topologie structurale et de la fonctionnalisation des matériaux de la famille des ZIFs sur leurs propriétés d'adsorption d'eau. J'ai alors montré comment les propriétés d'hydrophobicité de ces matériaux peuvent être modulées
The topic of this thesis is the thermodynamical, mechanical and adsorptive behavior of Soft Porous Crystals (SPCs). Porous metal-organic frameworks (MOF) are a novel class of crystalline materials with promising industrial applications such as gas adsorption and separation processes. The Soft Porous Crystals feature dynamic frameworks displaying reversible structural deformations of large amplitude in response to external physical constraints such as temperature, mechanical pressure or gas adsorption. I have developed a new methodology based on classical and quantum calculations in order to study these flexible metal-organic frameworks. I first studied the mechanical properties of different SPCs in order to link the local elastic behaviour of these materials and the structural flexibility. These results shed light onto the microscopic origin of stimuli-induced structural transitions in flexible MOFs, showing that the framework flexibility and existence of structural transition are clearly visible in their local elastic propertiesThen, I looked the mechanical stability of hybrid organic-inorganic frameworks under mechanical pressure and gas adsorption. In particular, I studied the pressure-induced amorphization of ZIF-8 and the polymorphism phenomenon induced by fluid intrusion. Finally, I was interested in the impact of geometry and functionalization on water adsorption properties of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs). I demonstrated how topology, geometry, and linker functionalization drastically affect the water adsorption properties of these materials, tweaking the ZIF materials from hydrophobic to hydrophilic

Ce mémoire de thèse s'intéresse à la coordination des bras en crawl en relation avec l'expertise. L'analyse de la flexibilité et de la stabilité de la coordination des bras est réalisée respectivement lors d'un protocole incrémenté en vitesse et à travers une épreuve chronométrée de 100 m. Différents modes de coordination et différentes modalités d'adaptation de la coordination apparaissent en fonction des contraintes et de la population, indiquant qu'il n'existe pas un mode de coordination vrai et exclusif, mais des modes de coordination et différentes façons de s'adapter. L'analyse de la symétrie de coordination montre quel que soit le niveau d'expertise une asymétrie qui est en relation avec la dominance d'un bras et l'existence d'un côté préférentiel de respiration. A l'inverse la symétrie de coordination correspond à une respiration bilatérale et à l'absence de côté préférentiel. L'asymétrie apparaît comme une autre modalité de coordination des bras et non comme une erreur fonctionnelle, qui est pourtant néfaste pour la propulsion chez les non-experts car elle est amplifiée par la respiration. Pour toutes ces études, l'index de coordination est utilisé et détermine le mode de coordination adopté. L'adaptation de la méthodologie de l'approche dynamique permet une analyse spatio-temporelle de la coordination en établissant la phrase relative entre les deux bras aux différents points clés et phases du cycle de bras montrant que la coordination des bras fluctue au niveau intra-cyclique. Ces fluctuations de phase relative apparaissent grâce à une analyse continue de la phase relative, obtenue à partir de la différence de phase du bras droit et de celle du bras gauche et basée sur l'angle du bras (poignet-épaule-hanche). L'estimation ponctuelle de la relation de phase apparaît insuffisante car comme l'index de coordination, elle se base sur un écart temporel et ne fournit qu'une mesure ponctuelle. Les mesures de fluctuations critiques de la phase relative et du temps de relaxation permettrait de compléter l'analyse de la stabilité et de la flexibilité de la coordination des bras en crawl
This research focused on arm coordination during the front crawl in relationship with skill level. The analyses of the stability and flexibility of arm coordination were respectively made during an incremental velocity protocol and throughout a 100-m sprint race. Different coordinationmodes and different modalities of adapting coordination were observed in relationship with constraints and subject characteristics, showing there is no single right coordination mode, but several modes and several modalities for adaptation. The analysis of coordination symmetry showed an asymmetry at all skill levels, which was related to the dominant arm and preferred side of breathing. Conversely, coordination symmetry was observed with bilateral breathing and no arm dominance. Asymmetry was found to be another arm coordination mode and not a functional mistake, although it may be costly for the propulsion of non-elite swimmers because it is amplified by breathing. The index of coordination was used to determine the coordination mode in these studies. The methodology of the dynamical approach was adapted to analyze the spatial-temporal coordination by indicating the relative phases of the two arms at four key points and at eachof the four stroke phases. This revealed the intra-stroke fluctuations. Thes relative phase fluctuations were observed by continuous analyis and were obtained by subtracting between the right and left arm phases based on the arm angle (wrist-shoulder-hip). The instantaneous analysis of the relative phase was not sufficient because, like the index of coordination, it is based on a time lag and only provides discrete measures. Measures of both the critical fluctuations in relative phase and the relaxation time would complete the analyses of the stability and flexibility of arm-coordination in the front crawl

Service companies in the temporary work and recruitment industry are expanding and creating the conditions for good growth. In line with the rapidly changing environment, demands are made for internal change and adaptation to the new. Leading roles must communicate in a way that reaches the entire organization in order for all employees to have a common goal image to ensure that they work in the same direction.The purpose of this study was to understand how growth in a temporary work and recruitment agency changes the information structure and places new demands on communication of goals and strategies and also explain the effects this could have on the company.For the study's analysis, the contingency theory was applied, which describes organizations as open systems that have to balance the internal needs in order to be able to adapt to the environment as it changes.A qualitative study was applied to gain a deeper understanding for the communication of goals and strategies in a growth company. Semi-structured interviews with six employees at the case company form the basis for the study's collected empirics.The results of the study showed that with the prevailing growth, demands are changing for the internal communication where the balance between stability and flexibility must be adapted to its context and increased complexity. Economically set goals have no increased motivation among the organisation's employees but promote flexibility and innovation.Service companies that has a strong dependence on its enviroment must adapt its internal communication to changing conditions in order to create security while at the same time promoting flexibility to achieve set goals. A common understanding at the operational and strategic level that relates to the changing world and the internal development of the business where communication becomes crucial to explain how, when and why the organization acts as they do.The conclusions of the study shows that the balance between the organization's structure and its flexibility is dependent on the context and in line with the internal growth, the information structure that will relate to the changing demands of the world changes. Clear goals and strategies can limit the company if there is no room for flexibility. Lack of goals and strategies can lead to reduced motivation and uncertainty at the operational level, but from a strategic perspective freedom is given to the employees but also high expectations. Internal communication and dissemination of information play a central role in creating room for flexibility and innovation, but at the same time it creates a sense of security in the organization.

Adaptive governance must work "on the ground," that is, it must operate through structures and procedures that the people it governs perceive to be legitimate and fair, as well as incorporating processes and substantive goals that are effective in allowing social-ecological systems (SESs) to adapt to climate change and other impacts. To address the continuing and accelerating alterations that climate change is bringing to SESs, adaptive governance generally will require more flexibility than prior governance institutions have often allowed. However, to function as good governance, adaptive governance must pay real attention to the problem of how to balance this increased need for flexibility with continuing governance stability so that it can foster adaptation to change without being perceived or experienced as perpetually destabilizing, disruptive, and unfair. Flexibility and stability serve different purposes in governance, and a variety of tools exist to strike different balances between them while still preserving the governance institution's legitimacy among the people governed. After reviewing those purposes and the implications of climate change for environmental governance, we examine psychological insights into the structuring of adaptive governance and the variety of legal tools available to incorporate those insights into adaptive governance regimes. Because the substantive goals of governance systems will differ among specific systems, we do not purport to comment on what the normative or substantive goals of law should be. Instead, we conclude that attention to process and procedure (including participation), as well as increased use of substantive standards (instead of rules), may allow an increased level of substantive flexibility to operate with legitimacy and fairness, providing the requisite levels of psychological, social, and economic stability needed for communities to adapt successfully to the Anthropocene.

This dissertation examines the historical progression of the Rush-Bagot Agreement through the fundamental change versus transitory modernization debate that has emerged in North America as a result of the reorganization of continental security and defence since 2001. The Agreement, which was signed by Britain and the United States in 1817 and subsequently embraced by Canada upon its independence, has acted as a stable measure of the security and defence relationship on the continent throughout its entire history. It has persisted through nearly two centuries of industrialization, expansionism, war, and modernization, and remains relevant in governing security and defence relations on the Great Lakes. By tracing the development of this Agreement and relations on the Lakes through previous periods of continental and international discord, this paper suggests that the changes to continental security and defence since 2001 represent little more than the refurbishing of relations to address a new threat, and thus are consistent with past defence modernizations during periods of continental vulnerability.

Modeling molecular structures is critical for understanding the principles that govern the behavior of molecules and for facilitating the exploration of potential pharmaceutical drugs and nanoscale designs. Biological molecules are flexible bodies that can adopt many different shapes (or conformations) until they reach a stable molecular state that is usually described by the minimum internal energy. A major challenge in modeling flexible molecules is the exponential explosion in computational complexity as the molecular size increases and many degrees of freedom are considered to represent the molecules' flexibility. This research work proposes a novel generic computational geometric approach called enhanced BioGeoFilter (g.eBGF) that geometrically interprets inter-atomic interactions to impose geometric constraints during molecular conformational search to reduce the time for identifying chemically-feasible conformations. Two new methods called Kinematics-Based Differential Evolution (kDE) and Biological Differential Evolution (BioDE) are also introduced to direct the molecular conformational search towards low energy (stable) conformations. The proposed kDE method kinematically describes a molecule's deformation mechanism while it uses differential evolution to minimize the inta-molecular energy. On the other hand, the proposed BioDE utilizes our developed g.eBGF data structure as a surrogate approximation model to reduce the number of exact evaluations and to speed the molecular conformational search. This research work will be extremely useful in enabling the modeling of flexible molecules and in facilitating the exploration of nanoscale designs through the virtual assembly of molecules. Our research work can also be used in areas such as molecular docking, protein folding, and nanoscale computer-aided design where rapid collision detection scheme for highly deformable objects is essential.

Lagen om kommuners och regioners åtgärder inför och vid extraordinära händelser i fredstid och höjd beredskap (LEH, SFS 2006:544) är den lag som är till förfogande för kommunal och regional verksamhet vid krishantering. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka för- och nackdelar som kommunerna i Västmanlands län ser med LEH med utgångspunkt i Covid-19. Målet är att besvara huruvida det nya lagförslaget som ersätter LEH kan hjälpa till att möta de utvecklingsbehov som kommunerna ser för förbättrad krishantering. I bakgrunden till studien finns en sammanfattad förklaring över kommuner, regioner, länsstyrelser och myndigheters övergripande ansvar, samt en överblick över gemensamma grunder för samverkan vid samhällsstörning. Överskådligt presenteras också LEH och det nya lagförslaget. Teorierna som används är kommunalt självstyre, resiliens, stabilitet, flexibilitet ochflexibilitet under krishantering. Studien använder det insamlade empiriska materialet med stöd av teorierna och är därför inte en teoriprövande studie. Teorin om resiliens diskuteras och knyts an till de fyra riktlinjerna: robusthet, redundans, resursfullhet och rapiditet. Stabilitet, flexibilitet och flexibilitet under krishantering används i anknytning till kommunernas arbetssätt, där vissa kommuner valt att frångå lagen under Covid-19pandemin. Kommunalt självstyre används för att diskutera en eventuell problematisering av inskränkning på kommunalt självstyre vid tillämpning av det nya lagförslaget. Studien baseras på semistrukturerade intervjuer där strategiskt urval i kombination med snöbollsurval applicerats som metod. Ur resultatet framkommer att respondenterna inte anser att lagförslaget tillgodoser de utvecklingsbehov som finns. En del ändringar som tillkommer med förslaget upplevdes dock som positiva av majoriteten av berörda kommuner.Dessutom framkommer en argumentation om att Västmanlands län anser sig ha en stark grundkapacitet och organisatorisk förmåga till följd av skogsbranden 2014

Asfaltsvägar har funnits och används i flera hundra år men tekniken man använde sig av förranvänds inte idag, utan den är utvecklats och blivit mer miljövänlig. Både vid tillverkningenav asfalten men också hur man lägger den. Idag är det både fler och tyngre fordon som kör påvägarna vilket leder till frågor kring asfaltens hållbarhet, hur företagen tänker kring miljön vidtillverkningen av asfalt, samt om det finns nya bättre tekniker som helt kan ersätta de gamla.Undersökningen är ämnad att jämföra hållbarheten mellan olika asfaltsbeläggningar pålågtrafikerande vägar, samt ta reda på vilket material som skiljer olika asfaltsmassorna åt.Frågan kommer att besvaras genom litteratur via internet samt genom intervjuer med olikaföretag i Örebro kommun.Undersökningen visade att det finns olika egenskaper som kännetecknar olikaasfaltsbeläggningar och beroende på vilka krav och förutsättningar en väg har, kommer enviss typ av beläggning att appliceras på just den vägen.En mjukgjord asfaltbetong är bra på en väg där flexibiliteten är ett krav, men denna typ avasfalt har en dålig miljöpåverkan eftersom man använder sig av fluxmedel, som är ettoljedestillerande produkt. Dock tillverkas dessa asfaltsmassor i en lägre temperatur och därföranvänds inte lika mycket energi och resurser på upphettningen, vilket man gör på en tätasfaltbetong då temperaturen bör vara kring 150 grader Celsius.PEAB och NCC sa att de använder sig av bio olja eller neutralt koldioxidbränsle vidtillverkningen av varmtillverkade asfaltsmassor för att minska miljöpåverkan. Ett annat sättatt för företagen att tänka på miljön är att återanvända gammal asfalt.Bitumen är ett bindemedel som används när man blandar asfalten, upphettningen av bitumenär dock skadligt för miljön. Det finns ett miljövänligare alternativ som heter lignin och somman tror kan likställas med bitumen, men detta är inte är aktuellt i dagsläget. Delvis för att detinte är testat på bilvägar än men också för att man använt sig av bitumen en längre tid ochföretagen känner sig säkra med egenskaperna och hållbarheten. Tills man testat ligninet ochvet att det är hållbart har man istället gjort andra små förändringar för att tänka på miljön, somtill exempel att transportera asfalten i ekovänliga fordon. Trafikverket har tillsammans medNCC utvecklat verktyg som heter EKA, som ska kontrollera koldioxidutsläppen vidtillverkningen.Sammanfattningsvis så skiljer sig olika asfaltsbeläggningar från varandra, vilket är positivt dåde ställs olika krav på vägarna beroende på vart de ska användas, så det finns olika alternativatt välja mellan. Företagen har miljön i åtanke vid asfaltstillverkningen även fast det ännu inteär aktuellt att ersätta bitumen med något annat medel. De har vidtagits andra åtgärder för attminska miljöpåverkan så som att använda sig av bensinsnålare fordon samt använda deverktyg som ska kontrollera koldioxidutsläppen.
Asphalt roads have been around and used for hundreds of years, but the technology used atthat time is no longer relevant and used today, but it has been developed and become moreenvironmentally friendly. Both in the manufacture of the asphalt but also how to lay it. Today,there are both more and heavier vehicles driving on the roads, which leads to questions aboutthe sustainability of asphalt, how companies think about the environment in the production ofasphalt, and whether there are new, better technologies that can completely replace the oldones.The study is intended to compare the durability of different asphalt coatings on low-trafficroads and to find out how the material in these asphalt coatings differentiates from one andanother. The question will be answered through literature via the Internet and throughinterviews with various companies in the municipality of Örebro.The study showed that different qualities characterize different asphalt coatings anddepending on the requirements and conditions a road has, a certain type of coating will beapplied to that road. Softened asphalt concrete is good on a road where flexibility is arequirement, but this type of asphalt has a bad environmental impact because of the use offlux oil, which is an oil distilling product. However, these asphalt masses are produced at alower temperature and therefore less energy and resources are used during the heating, incomparison to a dense asphalt concrete where the temperature should be around 150 degreesCelsius when heating up. PEAB and NCC said they use bio-oil or neutral carbon dioxide fuelin the production of hot-made asphalt pulp to reduce environmental impact. Another way forcompanies to think about the environment is to reuse old asphalt.Bitumen is a binder used when mixing the asphalt, but the heating of bitumen is harmful tothe environment. There is a more environmentally friendly alternative called lignin, whichbeliefs can be compared with bitumen, but this is not currently used today. Partly because ithas not been tested on car roads yet but also because bitumen has been used for a long timeand companies feel secure with the quality and durability of bitumen. Until lignin has beentested on roads and knows that it is durable, there have been other small changes instead tothink about the environment, such as transporting the asphalt in eco-friendly vehicles.Together with NCC and the Swedish Transport Administration, they have developed a toolcalled EKA, which will control carbon dioxide emissions during manufacture.In summary, different asphalt coatings differ from one another, which is a positive thing whenthere are different requirements on the roads depending on where they are to be used, so thereare different alternatives to choose from. The companies have the environment in mind whenmaking asphalt, although it is not yet relevant to replace bitumen with any other means. Theyhave taken other measures to reduce the environmental impact, such as using environmentallyfriendly vehicles and using the tools to control carbon dioxide emissions.

Psychology
Ph.D.
The ability to recall a spatial layout from multiple orientations – spatial flexibility – is a challenging cognitive process, especially when the global configuration cannot be viewed from a single vantage point, as spatial information must first be integrated before it can be flexibly recalled. The current study examined if experiencing the transition between multiple viewpoints enhances spatial flexibility for both non-integrated (Exp. 1) and integrated environments (Exp. 2), if the type of transition matters, and if action provides an additional advantage over passive visual flow. In Experiment 1, participants viewed an array of dollhouse furniture from four viewpoints that presented the global configuration from multiple orientations. In Experiment 2, the array was viewed piecemeal, from four viewpoints that presented the global configuration in partial chunks. The control condition presented the dollhouse as a series of static views, whereas in the remaining conditions, visual flow was continuous. Participants viewed the natural transition between viewpoints, and either passively experienced the transitions (i.e., by watching the dollhouse rotate or being rolled around it), or actively generated them (i.e., by rotating the dollhouse or walking around it). Across both experiments, continuous visual flow significantly enhanced spatial flexibility when paired with observer movement around the dollhouse, either active or passive. Furthermore, when participants had to integrate spatial information across discrete learning experiences (Exp. 2), active movement provided a significant advantage above passive experience. These findings suggest that array stability is key to flexible spatial memory, with action providing an additional boost to spatial integration.
Temple University--Theses

I dagens snabbt utvecklande samhälle krävs det av att organisationer arbetar aktivt med att vara och förbli konkurrenskraftiga. Att använda sig av strategiskt ledarskap kan ses som ett hjälpande verktyg för att hantera den dynamiska omgivningen. Mediebranschen är en av de branscher som ständigt präglas av innovation och förändring. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka hur ledningen arbetar strategiskt för att kunna föregripa den dynamiska och oförutsägbara omvärlden. Kvalitativ metod har tillämpats och empiri har samlats in genom tio semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju chefer på små medieföretag i Malmöregionen. Studien grundar sig i ett flertal teorier som behandlar strategi och strategiskt ledarskap sett ur ett chefsperspektiv. Cheferna beskriver hur de förhåller sig till den yttre omgivningen respektive den inre organisationen vid utformandet av strategier och hur de ser på strategiskt ledarskap i branschen. Företag som strävar efter att utvecklas bör med fördel skapa sig en balans mellan stabilitet inåt i organisationen och en flexibilitet utåt där de vågar anpassa sig efter marknadens förutsättningar och krav.

For last years, a number of research investigations on task planning and scheduling under uncertainty have been conducted. This research domain comprises a large number of models, resolution techniques, and systems, and it is difficult to compare them since the existing terminologies are incomplete. However, we identified general families of approaches that can be used to structure the literature given three perpendicular axes. This new classification of the state of the art is based on the way decisions are taken. In addition, we propose a generation and execution model for scheduling under uncertainty that combines these three families of approaches. This model is an automaton that develops when the current schedule is no longer executable or when some particular conditions are met. The third part of this thesis concerns our experimental study. On top of ILOG Solver and Scheduler, we implemented a software prototype in C++ directly instantiated from our generation and execution model. We present new probabilistic scheduling problems and a constraintbased approach combined with simulation to solve some instances thereof.

Issue de l'Archaea extrêmophile Sulfolobus solfataricus, SsoPox est une enzyme à fort potentiel biotechnologique du fait de son extrême stabilité. Nous avons caractérisé son activité lactonase naturelle ainsi que son activité de promiscuité phosphotriestérase. Elle est capable d'hydrolyser les organophosphorés (OPs), des agents neurotoxiques utilisés en tant qu'insecticide et arme chimique de guerre dont les méthodes actuelles de décontamination restent insatisfaisantes. Non optimale, l'activité phosphotriestérase de SsoPox a été améliorée en redessiné in silico son site actif de afin qu'il ressemble à celui des PTEs, hydrolysant très efficacement les OPs. L'enzyme ainsi développée offre des perspectives d'utilisation pour la décontamination des pollutions aux OPs. L'activité lactonase de l'enzyme a également été améliorée envers certaines N-Acyl Homosérine Lactones (AHLs), des molécules impliquées dans la communication inter-bactérienne (quorum sensing). Or, le quorum sensing régule notamment la virulence bactérienne (e.g. Pseudomonas aeruginosa). Ainsi, l'utilisation de lactonases telles que SsoPox constituerait une alternative aux antibiotiques par interférence au quorum sensing (i.e. quorum quenching). L'ensemble de ces travaux a conduit au dépôt d'un brevet protégeant les séquences des variants améliorés ainsi que leurs domaines d'applications. Ils permirent également d'étudier des phénomènes clés dans l'évolution des enzymes tels que l'épistasie, la promiscuité et la flexibilisation. Ce projet, mêlant Sciences fondamentales et appliquées, pourrait, in fine, mener à la valorisation d'un projet de recherche académique
Issued from the extremophilic Archaea Sulfolobus solfataricus, SsoPox exhibits an important biotechnological potential because of its extreme stability. Belonging to the phosphotriesterase-like lactonase family, its natural lactonase and promiscuous phosphotriesterase activities were characterized. The enzyme is able to hydrolyze organophosphates (OPs), i.e. nerve agents used as insecticides and chemical warfare agents for which current methods of decontamination are unsatisfactory. The phosphotriesterase activity of SsoPox is suboptimal unlike some mesophilic enzymes (PTEs). To develop a robust bio-decontaminant of OPs, we redesigned, in silico, SsoPox active site in the aim to mimic that of PTEs. Using a mutation database in an in vitro evolution protocol, we screened, selected and characterized efficient enzymes for OPs insecticides hydrolysis, offering prospects in OPs decontamination. SsoPox lactonase activity was also improved for some N-Acyl Homoserine Lactones (AHLs), molecules involved in the inter-bacterial communication (quorum sensing). Quorum sensing regulates several functions such as virulence of some pathogens (e.g. Pseudomonas aeruginosa). The use of lactonases such as SsoPox could constitute an alternative to antibiotics by quorum sensing (and thus virulence) inhibition (i.e. quorum quenching). These works were patented, protecting the sequences of improved variants and their fields of application. They also allowed to study key phenomena in enzyme evolution such as epistasis, promiscuity and flexibility. This project, combining basic and applied Sciences, could lead, in fine, to the promotion of an academic research project

This thesis studies different aspects of Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) devices which are used to improve the power transfer capability and increase the controllability in electric power systems. In the thesis, different aspects on the usage and control of Dynamic Power Flow Controllers (DPFC) and related FACTS devices are studied. The DPFC is a combination of a Phase Shifting Transformer (PST) and a Thyristor Switched Series Capacitor (TSSC)/Thyristor Switched Series Reactor (TSSR). The thesis proposes and studies a new method, the Ideal Phase-Shifter (IPS) method, for selection and rating of Power Flow Controllers (PFC) in a power grid. The IPS method, which is based on steady-state calculations, is proposed as a first step in the design process for a PFC. The method uses the Power controller plane, introduced by Brochu et al in 1999. The IPS method extends the usage of decoupling methods in the Power controller plane to a power system of arbitrary size. The IPS method was in the thesis used to compare the ratings of different PFC:s required to improve the power transfer capability in two test systems. The studied devices were here the PST, the TSSC/TSSR and the DPFC. The thesis treats control of ideal Controlled Series Capacitors (CSC), TCSC, TSSC/TSSR, and DPFC. The goals of the FACTS controllers which are developed are Power Oscillation Damping (POD), fast power flow control, and transient stability improvement in the power system. New adaptive control strategies for POD and power flow control are proposed and studied in different models of power systems by time-domain simulations. A strategy for transient stability improvement is also proposed and studied. Additionally, different methods for study of Subsynchronous Resonance (SSR), which is associated with series compensation in power systems, are investigated. Here, four of the most common methods for frequency scanning to determine the electrical damping of subsynchronous oscillations in a power grid are studied. The study reveals significant differences of the electrical damping estimates of the studied standard methods when applied to a four-machine test system.
QC 20110819

Towards a new labor model in SpainThe article starts with confirming the acceleration process in reforms of labor regulations-intensive and extensive-which is faced bySpain that has considered even the reform of constitutional framework. It should be noted that measures taken in the Spanish reform are aimed at increasing the employability of workers and with regard to promotion of employment stability; we find the incorporation of a new contractual modality, literally called “employment contract for indefinite time to support entrepreneurs”.Meanwhile, as the most important novelties are located the following: elimination with general character of administrative authorization for collective dismissals, the expansion of the proper reasons of economic dismissals, with the corresponding reduction effect of the judicial control as justification for business measure and the possible reduction in the practice of dismissal cost, the generalization of compensatory amount for unfair dismissal after 33 days of salary per year of seniority with limit of the 24 monthly salary, the complete suppression of processing salaries when the employer chooses indemnified extinction in case of unfair dismissal, among others. All this range of regulatory changes is analyzed critically by the author who, starting from the Spanish legislation, studies the most relevant legal concepts.
El artículo analiza el proceso acelerado de las reformas en la normativa laboral —intenso y extenso— que ha contemplado incluso la reforma del entramado constitucional. Entre las medidas adoptas en la reforma española se encuentran las dirigidas a incrementar la empleabilidad de los trabajadores y respecto del fomento de la estabilidad en el empleo encontramos la incorporación de una nueva modalidad contractual, literalmente denominada «contrato de trabajo por tiempo indefinido de apoyo a los emprendedores». Mientras que, como las novedades más destacadas se ubican las siguientes: la eliminación con carácter general de la autorización administrativa para los despidos colectivos; la ampliación de las causas justificativas de los despidos económicos, con el correlativo efecto dereducción del control judicial de justificación de la medida empresarial y la posible reducción en la práctica del coste del despido; la generalización de la cuantía indemnizatoria por despido improcedente a los 33 días de salario por año de antigüedad con el tope de las 24 mensualidades; la supresión completa de los salarios de tramitación cuando el empresario opta por la extinción indemnizada en caso de despido improcedente; entre otras. Todo este abanico de cambios normativos es analizado críticamente por el autor quien, partiendo de la legislación española, estudia los conceptos jurídicos más relevantes.

Employment flexibility and employment stability are concepts that, historically, have been found to be opposite to one another within Labor Law. It is in the middle of this context that Flexisecurity is born, being a concept that unifies the two notions with theaim of protecting both sides of the employment relationship: The employer and the employee.The authors undertake a critical review of the concept of flexisecurity based on the definition established by multinational organisms, especially the Community institutions of the European Union. To do so, they take off from the concept of “flexisecurity” and the different opinions it has raised within the Community level, always taking into account the common flexisecurity principles as they have be endeveloped by the European Commission.
La flexibilidad y la estabilidad laborales son conceptos que, históricamente, se han encontrado en oposición al interior del Derecho del Trabajo. Es en este contexto de oposición que nace la flexiseguridad, término que logra unira ambos conceptos en la búsqueda de tutelarlos intereses de las dos partes de toda relación laboral: El trabajador y el empleador.Los autores hacen una revisión crítica del concepto de flexiseguridad a la luz de la delimitación del mismo desarrollada por organismos multinacionales, centrándose en los órganos comunitarios de la Unión Europea. Para ello, parten de la idea de “flexiseguridad” y las distintas opiniones que esta ha suscitado en el ámbito comunitario, teniendo en cuenta los principios comunes de flexiseguridad desarrollados por la Comisión Europea.

Nucleoside 5-triphosphates are the building blocks to synthesis of nucleic acids. Nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) participate in many important biological functions in living systems, including genetic information storage, gene expression, and catalysis. Nucleoside 5- triphosphates have many important therapeutic and diagnostic applications. To understand how these triphosphates are utilized in living systems, numerous synthetic mimics have been prepared and used as active metabolites of certain drugs and molecular probes. Over the years, nucleic acids have been modified at the nucleobase, sugar moiety and phosphate backbone with the aim of understanding their structures and functions. We have site-specifically replaced selected oxygen atoms of nucleosides and nucleotides with selenium atom in order to enzymatically synthesize selenium-derivatized DNAs for obtaining insights into the DNA flexibility, duplex recognition and stability. Although triphosphates have important biological and medicinal significance, they are however, very difficult to synthesize and isolate in high purity and yield. There are many approaches to the synthesis of nucleoside 5-triphosphates, but there is no general strategy that allows simple and direct synthesis of nucleoside triphosphates. To face the challenges, we have developed a new approach in the absence of protecting groups to quickly and efficiently synthesized native deoxynucleoside 5-triphosphates and deoxynucleoside 5-(α- P-seleno)- P-seleno)triphosphates. Syntheses of the triphosphates containing selenium-derivatized nucleobases were also successfully accomplished. After replacing the oxygen atoms at the 4-position of thymidine and uridine, and the 6-position of guanosine, we observed most strikingly, a large bathrochromic shift of over 100 nm, relative to their native counterparts of UV absorbance of 260 nm. Consequently, the synthesized selenium base modified triphosphates are yellow. We also synthesized 2-selenothymidine and 5-methylseleno thymidine 5-triphosphates. We conducted stability study on the colored 4-selenothymidine and used the 5- triphosphate analog (4-SeTTP) as substrate for polymerase recognition. The Klenow polymerase incorporated the 4-SeTTP with efficiency equal to that of the native counterpart. Finally, 4-SeTTP was used to demonstrate UVdamage resistance of selenium-derivatized DNAs and plasmid.

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The present study focuses on the principle of demand stability, attempting to reflect upon its incidence in the individual and collective civil suits. After concluding that it is about a fundamental integrant principle of the legal process, the singularities of its incidence in the collective civil suit are analyzed. We seek to demonstrate that the effectiveness principle of collective custody, that is established in the art. 83 in the Brazilian Code of Consumer Defense, requires the adoption of a processual model that is able to suit the principle of demand consistency with a certain flexibility with the collective custody. The final conclusion is that the adoption of a more flexible processual system is compatible with the singularities of the collective jurisdiction and fundamental to obtain the desired effectiveness on the collective custody
O presente estudo dirige-se ao princípio da estabilidade da demanda, procurando refletir sobre sua incidência no processo civil individual e no processo civil coletivo. Após concluir que se trata de princípio fundamental integrante do devido processo legal, são analisadas as peculiaridades da sua incidência no processo coletivo. Procura-se demonstrar que o princípio da efetividade da tutela coletiva, que está consagrado no art. 83 do Código Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor, exige a adoção de um modelo processual que compatibilize o princípio da estabilidade da demanda com certa flexibilização da tutela coletiva. A conclusão final é que a adoção de um sistema processual mais flexível é compatível com as peculiaridades da jurisdição coletiva e fundamental para se obter a desejada efetividade da tutela coletiva

L'intégrase (IN) du VII 1 1 catalyse l'insertion de l'ADN viral dans le génome de la cellule infectée en deux étapes: le 3' processing et le transfert de brins. Nous avons déterminé le mode de liaison d'inhibiteurs de l'IN (des dérivés des Styrylquinoléines) au domaine central de la protéine, en corrélation avec leur mécanisme d'action in vitro. Afin de comprendre les effets d'analogues de l'ADN viral sur l'activité de 3' processing et donc sur l'interaction séquence spécifique IN/ADN, nous avons prédit la structure et la flexibilité de nucléosides modifiés en 2' et d'analogues de l'extrémité LTR U5 de l'ADN viral.

碩士
國立聯合大學
管理碩士學位學程
101
Some recent empirical studies document that the varying degree of financial flexibility will affect a firm’s payout policy. However, firms pay out funds not only to shareholders, but also to other stakeholders, for example, chief executive officer (CEO), employees or suppliers. Among the stakeholders, since the CEO plays the decision role in company operation, the pay (compensation) to CEO is an important issue. There has been an explosion in academic research on CEO compensation policy. Many prior studies have examined the determinants of CEO compensation policy and documented that firm performance, corporate governance mechanisms, company size, firm risk, industry, and operating cash flows would influence the level and structure of CEO pay. One of these determinants, operating cash flows, is the proxy variable of financial flexibility. This view implies that financial flexibility is a factor to determine the CEO pay. While prior researches investigate the influence of financial flexibility on CEO pay from the aspect of operating cash flow, this study examines it from the broad views of capital structure, liquidity, and their stabilities. In addition, there are no studies investigate the multivariate differences between compensation policies depending on the firms’ characteristics. Hence, in this research we will collect the samples of all publicly traded U.S. firms over the period from 1999 to 2011. Multinomial logistic regression models will be used to detect a variant of financial flexibility proxy variables and their stability on comparing different CEO compensation policies. The results show that firms that increase salary have excess financial flexibility and lower volatility. In addition, increasing non-salary is used by firms with higher temporary non-operating cash flows.

博士
國立臺灣大學
材料科學與工程學研究所
103
Metal-oxide thin film transistors (TFTs) are promising for display applications. However, metal-oxide TFTs usually require high-temperature processing to reduce and remedy defects produced during their manufacturing process, which increased complexity and cost of production and limit their suitability for flexible electronics applications. We developed a low-temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD) process to fabricate flexible ZnO TFTs, where defects in the TFTs were minimized by depositing the dielectric, ZnO channel and passivation layers of the devices in the integrated ALD process. The ZnO TFTs achieved high mobility (20.2 cm2/Vs), good bias-stress stability (0.2 V threshold voltage shift after 8 V bias 10800 s) and low sub-threshold swing (0.34 V/dec), and could be bended to 1.3 cm of radius for 1400 times without any degradation, which was presented for the first time. Our approaches were two-fold: (1) prevent intrinsic defects from forming in the deposition processes of the dielectric, channel, and passivation layers; (2) protect the devices from developing extrinsic defects under the influence of the surroundings by optimizing the passivation layer. Our key findings were as follows: (1) the dielectric surface should have a high concentration of hydroxyl groups to allow it to thoroughly bond with the ZnO channel; for this we found HfO2 to be superior to ZrO2 and Al2O3, and lower deposition temperatures to be superior to higher ones for the dielectric layer; (2) in the first few ALD cycles of the ZnO channel layer, soaking steps should be employed to allow the precursors to fully react with the hydroxyl groups on the dielectric surface, again to ensure complete bonding the interface; (3) the deposition temperature of the ZnO channel should be high, and the purge times of the ALD precursors should be long to obtain high crystallinity and low residual water of the ZnO channel; (4) H2O2 can be used instead of H2O for higher-temperature ZnO processes to reduce oxygen vacancies, which become abundant at higher deposition temperatures with the H2O process; (5) the typically severe passivation-process-induced degradation to ZnO TFTs can be avoided by using a ALD TiO2 passivation process with titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) and H2O as the precursors, where the low reactivity of TTIP prevented it from inducing oxygen vacancy in the ZnO channel as do other ALD precursors; (6) exceptional gas-barrier performance—WVTR ~1×10-6 g/m2-day—can be obtained by combining the TiO2 process with the Al2O3 process to form a TiO2/Al2O3 nano-laminated passivation, which effectively eliminated environment-induced degradations to the ZnO TFTs; (7) the high quality of the ALD dielectric, channel, and passivation layers allowed excellent device functions to be retained even at substantially reduced layer thicknesses (from 120-nm to54-nm), which in turn enabled the devices to obtain high mechanical flexibility.

abstract: The standard optimal power flow (OPF) problem is an economic dispatch (ED) problem combined with transmission constraints, which are based on a static topology. However, topology control (TC) has been proposed in the past as a corrective mechanism to relieve overloads and voltage violations. Even though the benefits of TC are presented by several research works in the past, the computational complexity associated with TC has been a major deterrent to its implementation. The proposed work develops heuristics for TC and investigates its potential to improve the computational time for TC for various applications. The objective is to develop computationally light methods to harness the flexibility of the grid to derive maximum benefits to the system in terms of reliability. One of the goals of this research is to develop a tool that will be capable of providing TC actions in a minimal time-frame, which can be readily adopted by the industry for real-time corrective applications. A DC based heuristic, i.e., a greedy algorithm, is developed and applied to improve the computational time for the TC problem while still maintaining the ability to find quality solutions. In the greedy algorithm, an expression is derived, which indicates the impact on the objective for a marginal change in the state of a transmission line. This expression is used to generate a priority list with potential candidate lines for switching, which may provide huge improvements to the system. The advantage of this method is that it is a fast heuristic as compared to using mixed integer programming (MIP) approach. Alternatively, AC based heuristics are developed for TC problem and tested on actual data from PJM, ERCOT and TVA. AC based N-1 contingency analysis is performed to identify the contingencies that cause network violations. Simple proximity based heuristics are developed and the fast decoupled power flow is solved iteratively to identify the top five TC actions, which provide reduction in violations. Time domain simulations are performed to ensure that the TC actions do not cause system instability. Simulation results show significant reductions in violations in the system by the application of the TC heuristics.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2016

O presente relatório foi desenvolvido no âmbito do Mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar, apresenta um estudo transversal aos dois contextos de estágio, creche e jardim de infância, realizado no âmbito das Unidades Curriculares de Estágio em Educação de Infância I, II e III durante quatro momentos de estágio, dois em cada contexto. O estudo intitulado “O Nosso Dia a Dia – Rotina e Rotinas na Creche e no Jardim de Infância” tem como objetivo compreender de que forma é que as educadoras cooperantes organizavam a rotina e rotinas das suas salas, de que forma promoviam uma rotina estável e flexível em creche e jardim de infância e desenvolver estratégias que futuramente me permitam gerir a rotina e rotinas de uma sala de educação de infância de forma a promover uma rotina estável e flexível adequada às necessidades e interesses das crianças. Foi, a partir dos objetivos anteriormente mencionados, que procurei responder à questão de investigação: “Como promover uma rotina estável e flexível em Creche e Jardim de Infância?”. A metodologia de investigação utilizada na realização desta investigação foi o paradigma interpretativo, a investigação qualitativa e a investigação-ação. Como técnicas e instrumentos de recolha de informação no desenvolvimento da investigação recorri à observação, às notas de campo, à fotografia e a entrevistas às educadoras cooperantes. A partir das técnicas e instrumentos selecionados, foram descritas e analisadas as observações e as intervenções realizadas mobilizando as conceções das educadoras cooperantes obtidas através das entrevistas. O processo da investigação, durante e após os estágios, permitiu-me compreender a importância da organização da rotina e rotinas, sendo fundamental adequar a rotina ao grupo de crianças através de uma rotina estável que lhes promova segurança e autonomia e de uma rotina flexível que respeite as necessidades e os interesses de cada criança.
This report was developed within the scope of a Masters Degree in Pre-School Education, present a cross-sectional study of the two contexts of internship, daycare and kindergarten, carried out under the Curricular Unit Internship in Early Childhood Education I, II and III during four stages of internship, two in each context. The study entitled “Our Daily Life - Routine and Routines in Daycare and Kindergarten” has aims to understand how the cooperating educators organized the routine and routines of their rooms, how they promoted a stable and flexible routine in the daycare center and kindergarten and develop strategies that will allow me in the future to manage the routine and routines of a room for early childhood education activities in order to promote a stable and flexible routine appropriate to the needs and interests of children. It was based on the objectives mentioned above that I tried to answer the research question: "How to promote a stable and flexible routine in Nursery and Kindergarten?". The research methodology used in carrying out this investigation was the interpretive paradigm, qualitative research and action research. As techniques and tools for gathering information in the development of research I used observation, field notes, photography and interviews with cooperating educators. Based on the techniques and instruments selected, the observations and interventions carried out, mobilizing the conceptions of the cooperating educators obtained through interviews, were described and analyzed. The investigation process, during and after the internships, allowed me to understand the importance of organizing the routine and routines, being essential to adapt the routine to the group of children through a stable routine that promotes safety and autonomy and a flexible routine that respect the needs and interests of each child.