Processes of feelings in a society with a violent past : A qualitative study of the communication for Societal healing in the Truth Commissions in East Timor, Sri Lanka and Ghana between 2002-2011

The research investigates in what extent and how communication for meeting feelings is provided in Truth Commission work. It examines if and in what way feelings are addressed in the communication officially published by the Truth Commissions in East Timor, Ghana and Sri Lanka, occurring between 2002-2011. The research is also looking at the healing processes in a time perspective to find out if there is a communication for Societal healing to be continued in a longer term. My conclusion is that two cases of three in my research, the TRCs in Ghana and East Timor, have communication clearly directed to meet feelings caused by the war. One of the three cases (East Timor) has a communication with a clear ambition to heal over a longer period, to continue after the existence of the Truth Commission. The research suggests that communication with a clear ambition to reach out widely in the society, a communication directed to meet and process feelings over a longer period, can make Societal healing more effective. It also concludes that, in the future, Societal healing, as a field in conflict resolution, will be more based on representational media than today, provided through web communication.

Survery and simulation of energy use in the European building stock

the work towards increased energy efficiency. In order to plan and perform effective energy renovation of the buildings, it is necessary to have adequate information on the current status of the buildings in terms of architectural features and energy needs. Unfortunately, the official statistics do not include all of the needed information for the whole building stock.   This paper aims to fill the gaps in the statistics by gathering data from studies, projects and national energy agencies, and by calibrating TRNSYS models against the existing data to complete missing energy demand data, for countries with similar climate, through simulation. The survey was limited to residential and office buildings in the EU member states (before July 2013). This work was carried out as part of the EU FP7 project iNSPiRe.   The building stock survey revealed over 70% of the residential and office floor area is concentrated in the six most populated countries. The total energy consumption in the residential sector is 14 times that of the office sector. In the residential sector, single family houses represent 60% of the heated floor area, albeit with different share in the different countries, indicating that retrofit solutions cannot be focused only on multi-family houses.   The simulation results indicate that residential buildings in central and southern European countries are not always heated to 20 °C, but are kept at a lower temperature during at least part of the day. Improving the energy performance of these houses through renovation could allow the occupants to increase the room temperature and improve their thermal comfort, even though the potential for energy savings would then be reduced.