Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Quality and efficiency'

Over the years, there has been an exponential increase in the capabilities of networks, evolving from wired networks to wireless, and finally moving towards 4G networks. This evolution has brought forth many ways in which a user can access any service, particularly accessing the Internet. From emailing and social networking to file transferring, users are on a constant venture to exploit the advantages as much as possible. Predictions show that the demand will only increase with increasing number of mobile devices and subscribers. It becomes clearer that there will be rapid growth in the demand for more energy-efficient mobile devices. However, due to relatively slow increase in the battery technologies, the mobile users' expectations were not being met. This thesis highlights few interesting points on the energy consumptions by the most common Internet browsing tasks. It then presents the measurements of energy consumption on using various network connection technologies namely Ethernet, Wi-Fi and 3G to access the Internet. The obtained data from the experiments were then analyzed to arrive at an idea on the difference in energy consumptions across various browsing tasks and access technologies. Later, it involves a survey through which critical observations with respect to power efficiency and QoE are collected. The study concludes with a picture that would help users have an insight on the technologies that they may wish to choose to connect to the Internet. It helps manufacturers understand and consider the affect of an interface on the power consumption. It also helps researchers bring better solutions of designing the network interfaces. The aim would be to reduce the energy consumption by the product components rather than struggling to design powerful batteries to meet the increasing power demands from the network components. A wise choice of networking technologies is or what is may be required to gain better energy efficiency.

Mestrado em Contabilidade, Fiscalidade e Finanças Empresariais
O objetivo deste estudo é investigar o impacto da qualidade dos resultados na eficiência de investimento em empresas Europeias, cotadas e não cotadas. A amostra, retirada da base de dados Amadeus, é composta por 6921 empresas de 19 países. A eficiência do investimento é baseada no modelo de oportunidades crescentes de Biddle et al. (2009), expandido por literatura subsequente, e a qualidade dos resultados é medida usando o modelo de Dechow e Dichev modificado por McNichols (2002). Os resultados obtidos são significativos, e mostram que uma maior qualidade dos resultados está relacionada com uma maior eficiência de investimento, medida pelos desvios do nível ótimo. Estes resultados verificam-se quer considerando o valor absoluto destes desvios, quer considerando os cenários de subinvestimento (desvios negativos) ou sobreinvestimento (desvios positivos). O efeito do nível de caixa e endividamento foi igualmente considerado nesta relação, observando-se uma influência significativa.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of earnings quality on investment efficiency in European listed and unlisted companies. The sample, collected from Amadeus database, is composed by 6921 companies from 19 countries. The investment efficiency measure is based on Biddle et al. (2009) growth opportunities model and subsequent research, and earnings quality is measured using Dechow and Dichev (2002) model modified by McNichols (2002). Results show that higher earnings quality is associated with higher investment efficiency, measured by the deviations from the optimal investment level. These results hold for both underinvestment (negative deviations) and overinvestment (positive deviations) scenarios. Results also suggest that cash and leverage levels play an important role on the relation between earnings quality and investment efficiency.
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Ces dernières années, un grand nombre de travaux ont souligné la primauté des institutions dans les processus de croissance et de développement. Dans la lignée de cette littérature, cette thèse se propose d’étudier les conséquences macroéconomiques de deux phénomènes traduisant une qualité institutionnelle dégradée : la corruption et l’évasion fiscale. Ainsi, dans le chapitre 1, nous analysons comment la qualité institutionnelle affecte de manière non-linéaire la relation entre la corruption et la croissance. Nous identifions deux canaux à travers lesquels un double effet positif et négatif peut apparaître dans un régime de second best, conditionnellement au niveau de qualité des institutions, à savoir l’investissement privé et les dépenses publiques. Dans le chapitre 2, nous prolongeons l’analyse initiée au chapitre 1 pour étudier les interactions entre la corruption fiscale, le seigneuriage et l’inflation. Nous montrons que le seigneuriage est un instrument de politique monétaire qui permet de réduire la corruption et que la corruption augmente le taux de seigneuriage optimal. Le chapitre 2 suggère également l’existence de non-linéarités entre la corruption et l’inflation. Dans le prolongement du chapitre 2, le chapitre 3 confirme empiriquement l’existence d’une relation en U entre la corruption et l’inflation. Enfin, nous examinons dans le chapitre 4 comment l’évasion fiscale affecte la dynamique d’accumulation de la dette publique. Nous montrons que la relation se caractérise par une courbe en U dans les économies à forte croissance et qu’elle négative dans les économies à faible croissance. Nous montrons également qu’en fonction du comportement du gouvernement à l’égard de l’évasion fiscale, des situations d’instabilité agrégée peuvent apparaître
In recent years, a large number of works have stressed the crucial role of institutions in the process of growth and development. As a follow-up to this literature, this thesis studies the macroeconomics of two phenomena characteristic of a poor institutional quality: corruption and tax evasion. Thus, in Chapter 1, we analyze how institutional quality nonlinearly affects the relation between corruption and growth. We identify two channels, namely private investment and public spending, through which a dual effect of corruption can appear in a second best regime, conditional on institutional quality. In Chapter 2, we pursue the analysis initiated in Chapter 1 to study the interactions between fiscal corruption, seigniorage and inflation. We show that seigniorage is a monetary policy instrument that allows reducing the aggregate level of corruption and that corruption increases the optimal seigniorage rate. Chapter 2 also suggests the existence of nonlinearities in the corruption-inflation nexus. Chapter 3 empirically confirms the existence of a U-shaped relation between corruption and inflation. Finally, we examine in Chapter 4 how tax evasion affects the dynamics of public debt accumulation. We show that the relation between tax evasion and public debt is characterized by a U-shaped curve in high-growth economies and is negative in low-growth economies. We also show that aggregate instability may appear in some circumstances, depending on the behavior of the government towards tax evasion

Propelled by the explosive increases in mobile data traffic volume, existing wireless technologies are stretched to their capacity limits. There is a tremendous need for an expansion in system capacity and an improvement on energy efficiency. In addition, wireless network will support more and more multimedia services and applications, in which user experience has been always an important factor in evaluating the overall network performance. In order to keep pace with this explosion of data traffic and to meet the emerging quality of experience needs, wireless heterogeneous networks have been introduced as a promising network architecture evolution of the traditional cellular network. In this dissertation, we explore video quality-aware spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency in wireless heterogeneous networks|the potentials and the associated technical challenges. In particular, aiming to significantly enhance spectrum efficiency, we need to tackle the interference issue, which is exacerbated in heterogeneous network due to ultra dense node deployment as well as heterogeneity nature of various nodes. Specifically, werst study an optimal intra-cell inter-tier cooperation to mitigate interference between high power nodes and low power nodes. Together with cooperation, optimal mobile association and resource allocation schemes are also intensively investigated in heterogeneous network to achieve system load balancing so that bandwidth at high power and low power nodes can be utilized in the optimal way. The proposed scheme can greatly alleviate inter-tier interference and significantly increase overall system spectrum efficiency in a heterogeneous network. We then further apply advanced algorithms such as precoding, and non-orthogonal multiple access into intra-cell inter-tier cooperation so that the overall system spectrum efficiency and user experience are even more improved. When supporting a video type application in such a heterogeneous network, considering only spectrum efficiency is far from enough as video application is bandwidth consuming, battery consuming, and quality demanding. We develop a video quality-aware spectrum and energy efficiency resource allocation scheme in a wireless heterogeneous network and propose novel performance metrics to establish fundamental relationships among spectrum efficiency, energy efficiency, and quality of experience. Extensive simulations are conducted to evaluate the trade-o performance among three performance metrics.

Las instituciones de educación superior desempeñan un papel importante en la economía de cualquier región o país, ya que contribuyen a la formación de capital humano y nuevo conocimiento; así como al emprendimiento. Debido al aumento de la competencia, las universidades están bajo presión constante para mejorar su desempeño. En este sentido, la literatura ha señalado que la calidad, productividad y orientación al cliente deben ser considerados como elementos clave para lograr un desempeño superior. Sin embargo, la evaluación de estos conceptos en el contexto de la educación superior es compleja. El propósito de esta tesis es examinar los principales factores determinantes de la calidad, la eficiencia y la orientación al cliente en la enseñanza universitaria; así como la posible relación entre estos conceptos. Los objetivos específicos de esta investigación son: examinar el impacto de los atributos de calidad y reputación en la evaluación dinámica de la productividad en una muestra de universidades en Latinoamérica (Capítulo 2); examinar la naturaleza y determinantes de las valoraciones que realizan los alumnos sobre el desempeño del profesor (Capítulo 3); y examinar la influencia de la orientación al alumno-cliente y otras variables personales en la evaluación del desempeño de los profesores (Capítulo 4). Nuestros hallazgos confirman la idea de que se obtienen resultados más fiables en la medición de la productividad de las universidades mediante la agrupación de las mismas en subconjuntos más homogéneos y que los atributos de calidad y reputación tienen un impacto en el análisis de la productividad. Los resultados también indican que la evaluación del profesorado por parte de los alumnos, es un fenómeno complejo y depende de factores relacionados con el perfil de profesores, alumnos y cursos. Los alumnos evalúan principalmente la pericia, la actitud y el comportamiento de los profesores. Los hallazgos también sugieren que la orientación al alumno-cliente mejora el desempeño de los profesores. Esta tesis integra literatura sobre marketing de servicios, administración de operaciones y educación superior, con el fin de proporcionar una visión más amplia y profunda en la evaluación del desempeño educativo. Desde un punto de vista de gestión, esta investigación puede ayudar a los administradores a generar una ventaja competitiva en las instituciones de educación superior.
Higher education institutions play an important role in the economy of any region or country as they contribute to the formation of human capital, new knowledge and entrepreneurship. Due to increased competition, universities are under constant pressure to improve their performance. In this vein, literature has long indicated that quality, productivity and customer orientation should be considered as key elements in order to achieve superior performance. However, assessing these concepts in the context of higher education is complex. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the determinants of quality, efficiency and customer orientation in higher education and the possible relationship between these concepts. Thus, the specific objectives of this research are the following: to examine the impact of attributes of quality and reputation on the dynamic evolution of productivity in a sample of Latin American universities (Chapter 2); to examine the nature and determinants of student evaluations of teaching performance (Chapter 3); and to examine the influence of the student-customer orientation and other personal variables on the assessment of university teachers’ performance (Chapter 4). Our findings reaffirm the idea that more reliable results in productivity measurement are sought by grouping universities into more homogeneous subsets of institutions. The results also indicate that attributes of quality and reputation have an impact on productivity analysis. Findings also show that student evaluation of teaching is a complex phenomenon that depends on factors related to teacher, student and course profiles. Students basically assess the expertise, attitude and behavior of teachers. Findings also suggest that student-customer orientation enhances teachers’ performance. This thesis integrates the literature on services marketing, operations management and higher education in order to provide a wider and deeper insight into the assessment of educational performance. From a practical perspective, this research may help managers to create a competitive advantage in higher education institutions.

Kyoto University (京都大学)
0048
新制・課程博士
博士(社会健康医学)
甲第11787号
社医博第8号
新制||社医||2(附属図書館)
23527
UT51-2005-F817
京都大学大学院医学研究科社会健康医学系専攻
(主査)教授 福原 俊一, 教授 白川 太郎, 教授 中原 俊隆
学位規則第4条第1項該当

Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, 2017.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 54-55).
Thermalization losses drastically reduce the efficiency of silicon solar cells. In an age where we need sustainable energy production more than ever, silicon is the best material to target due to its high stake in the sustainable energy market. An organic-inorganic solar cell hybrid of tetracene-covered silicon can reduce thermalization losses through the downconversion process of using a high energy photon to generate two lower energy electron-hole pairs. This occurs through the singlet-triplet fission process that excitons can undertake in tetracene. The effect of the interface quality between tetracene and silicon on successful triplet energy transfer is investigated. RFPCD (Radio Frequency Photoconductive Decay) is used to measure the bulk lifetime as well as the surface recombination lifetime of minority carriers in both n- and p-type Silicon of various doping concentrations. The surface recombination velocity was calculated from the measurement of surface recombination lifetime and analyzed after the silicon underwent RCA clean, RCA clean followed by an HF dip, tungsten nitride ALD, and tetracene evaporation using various combinations of these steps to form appropriate process flows. It was found that the highest surface quality was obtained by the lowest doped wafers. Additionally, similar doping levels were affected similarly by the various processing steps outlined above while the type of dopant did not seem to dictate the surface quality response. Triplet energy transfer was not fully confirmed from tetracene to silicon, but the surface quality turned out to be a very important indication for whether or not this energy transfer could occur.
by Eveline Postelnicu.
S.B.

Context: Now a day’s end users are using different types of computer applications like web browsers, data processing tools like MS office, notepad etc., to do their day-to-day works. In the real world scenario, the usage of Open Source Software (OSS) products by both industrial people and end users are gradually increasing. The success of any OSS products depends on its quality standards. ‘Efficiency’ is one of the key quality factor, which portray the standards of product and it is observed that this factor is given little importance during its development. Therefore our research context lies within evaluating the efficiency quality attribute in OSS web browsers. Objectives: As discussed earlier the context of this research lies in evaluating the efficiency of OSS web browsers, the initial objective was to identify the available efficiency measures from the current literature and observe which type of measures are suitable for web browsers. Then our next objective is to compute values for the identified efficiency measures by considering a set of predefined web browsers from all the categories. Later we proposed Efficiency Baseline Criteria (EBC) and based on this criterion and experiment results obtained, the efficiency of OSS web browsers had been evaluated. Therefore the main objective of conducting this research is to formulate EBC guidelines, which can be later used by OSS developers to test their web browsers and ensure that all the quality standards are strictly adhered during the development of OSS products. Methods: Initially Literature Review (LR) was conducted in order to identify all the related efficiency quality attributes and also observe the sub-attribute functionalities, that are useful while measuring efficiency values of web browsers. Methods and procedures which are discussed in this LR are used as input for identifying efficiency measures that are related to web browsers. Later an experiment was performed in order to calculate efficiency values for CSS & proprietary set of web browsers (i.e. Case A) and OSS web browsers (i.e. Case B) by using different tools and procedures. Authors themselves had calculated efficiency values for both Case A and Case B web browsers. Based on the results of Case A web browsers, EBC was proposed and finally an statistical analysis (i.e. Mann Whitney U-test) is performed in order to evaluate the hypothesis which was formulated in experiment section. Results: From the LR study, it is observed that efficiency quality attribute is classified into two main categories (i.e. Time Behavior and Resource Utilization). Further under the category of Time behavior a total of 3 attributes were identified (i.e. Response time, Throughput and Turnaround time). From the results of LR, we had also observed the measuring process of each attribute for different web browsers. Later an experiment was performed on two different sets of web browsers (i.e. Case A and Case B web browsers). Based on the LR results, only 3 efficiency attributes (i.e. response time, memory utilization and throughput) were identified which are more suitable to the case of web browsers. These 3 efficiency attributes are further classified into 10 sub-categories. Efficiency values are calculated to both Case A and B for these 10 identified scenarios. Later from Case A results EBC values are generated. Finally hypothesis testing was done by initially performing K-S test and results suggest choosing non-parametric test (i.e. Mann Whitney U-test). Later Mann Whitney U-test was performed for all the scenarios and the normalized Z scores are more than 1.96, further suggested rejecting null hypothesis for all the 10 scenarios. Also EBC values are compared with Case B results and these also suggest us that efficiency standard of OSS web browsers are not equivalent to Case A web browsers. Conclusions: Based on quantitative results, we conclude that efficiency standards of OSS web browsers are not equivalent, when compared to Case A web browsers and the efficiency standards are not adhered during development process. Hence OSS developers should focus on implementing efficiency standards during the development stages itself in order to increase the quality of the end products. The major contribution from the two researchers to this area of research is “Efficiency Baseline Criteria”. The proposed EBC values are useful for OSS developers to test the efficiency standards of their web browser and also help them to analyze their shortcomings. As a result appropriate preventive measures can be planned in advance.
+91 - 9491754620

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Interpretation No. 46 (FIN 46), Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities – An Interpretation of ARB No. 51, in January 2003 and revised it in December 2003, with the objective to improve the transparency of financial information. Under FIN 46, companies are required to consolidate variable interest entities (VIEs) on financial statements if they are the primary beneficiaries of the VIEs. This dissertation empirically examines whether the implementation of this new financial reporting guidance affects firms’ accruals quality and investment efficiency. A manually collected sample comprised of firms affected by FIN 46 and firms disclosing no material impact from FIN 46 is used in the empirical analyses.The first part of the dissertation investigates the effects of FIN 46 on accruals quality. By using different accrual quality measures in prior studies, this study found that firms affected by FIN 46 experienced a decrease in accrual quality compared to firms reporting no material impact from FIN 46. Among the firms affected by FIN 46, firms consolidating VIEs were compared with firms terminating or restructuring VIEs. The accruals quality of firms consolidating VIEs was found to be lower than that of firms terminating or restructuring VIEs. These results are consistent in tests using alternative control samples.The second part of this dissertation examines the effects of FIN 46 on investment efficiency. Mixed results were found from using two different proxies used in prior literature. Using the investment-cash flow sensitivity to proxy for investment efficiency, firms affected by FIN 46 experienced a decrease in investment efficiency compared to firms reporting no material impact. It was also found that higher investment-cash flow sensitivity for firms consolidating VIEs during post-FIN 46 periods compared to both the no-impact firms and the matched pair control sample. Contrasting results were found when the deviation from expected investment is used as another proxy for investment efficiency. Empirical analyses show that FIN 46 firms experienced improved investment efficiency measured by the deviation from expected investment after their adoption of FIN 46. This study also provides explanations for the opposite results from the two different proxies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-160). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Nowadays, the amount of available digital documents is rapidly growing, expanding at a considerable rate and coming from a variety of sources. Sources of unstructured and semi-structured information include the World Wide Web, news articles, biological databases, electronic mail, digital libraries, governmental digital repositories, chat rooms, online forums, blogs, and social media such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, plus many others. Extracting information from these resources and finding useful information from such collections has become a challenge, which makes organizing massive amounts of data a necessity. Data mining, machine learning, and natural language processing are powerful techniques that can be used together to deal with this big challenge. Depending on the task or problem at hand, there are many different approaches that can be used. The methods that are being implemented are continuously being optimized, but not all these methods have been tested and compared for quality after training on large size corpora for supervised machine learning algorithms. The question is what happens to the quality of methods if we increase the data size from, say, 100 MB to over 1 GB? Moreover, are quality gains worth it when the rate of data processing diminishes? Can we trade quality for time efficiency and recover the quality loss by just being able to process more data? This thesis is first attempt to answer these questions in a general way for text processing tasks, as not enough research has been done to compare those methods considering the trade-offs of data size, quality, and processing time. Hence, we propose a trade-off analysis framework and apply it to three important text processing problems: Named Entity Recognition, Sentiment Analysis, and Document Classification. These problems were also chosen because they have different levels of object granularity: words, passages, and documents. For each problem, we select several machine learning algorithms and we evaluate the trade-offs of these different methods on large publicly available datasets (news, reviews, patents). We use different data subsets of increasing size ranging from 50 MB to a few GB, to explore these trade-offs. We conclude, as hypothesized, that just because the method has good performance in small data, it does not necessarily have the same performance for big data. For the two last problems, we consider similar algorithms and also consider two different data sets and two different evaluation techniques, to study the impact of the data and the evaluation technique on the resulting trade-offs. We find that the results do not change significantly.
Avui en dia, la quantitat de documents digitals disponibles està creixent ràpidament, expandint- se a un ritme considerable i procedint de diverses fonts. Les fonts d’informació no estructurada i semiestructurada inclouen la World Wide Web, articles de notícies, bases de dades biològiques, correus electrònics, biblioteques digitals, repositoris electrònics governamentals, , sales de xat, forums en línia, blogs i mitjans socials com Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube i molts d’altres. Extreure’n informació d’aquests recursos i trobar informació útil d’aquestes col.leccions s’ha convertit en un desafiament que fa que l’organització d’aquesta enorme quantitat de dades esdevingui una necessitat. La mineria de dades, l’aprenentatge automàtic i el processament del llenguatge natural són tècniques poderoses que poden utilitzar-se conjuntament per fer front a aquest gran desafiament. Segons la tasca o el problema en qüestió existeixen molts emfo- caments diferents que es poden utilitzar. Els mètodes que s’estan implementant s’optimitzen continuament, però aquests mètodes d’aprenentatge automàtic supervisats han estat provats i comparats amb grans dades d’entrenament. La pregunta és : Què passa amb la qualitat dels mètodes si incrementem les dades de 100 MB a 1 GB? Més encara: Les millores en la qualitat valen la pena quan la taxa de processament de les dades minva? Podem canviar qualitat per eficiència, tot recuperant la perdua de qualitat quan processem més dades? Aquesta tesi és una primera aproximació per resoldre aquestes preguntes de forma gene- ral per a tasques de processament de text, ja que no hi ha hagut suficient investigació per a comparar aquests mètodes considerant el balanç entre el tamany de les dades, la qualitat dels resultats i el temps de processament. Per tant, proposem un marc per analitzar aquest balanç i l’apliquem a tres problemes importants de processament de text: Reconeixement d’Entitats Anomenades, Anàlisi de Sentiments i Classificació de Documents. Aquests problemes tam- bé han estat seleccionats perquè tenen nivells diferents de granularitat: paraules, opinions i documents complerts. Per a cada problema seleccionem diferents algoritmes d’aprenentatge automàtic i avaluem el balanç entre aquestes variables per als diferents algoritmes en grans conjunts de dades públiques ( notícies, opinions, patents). Utilitzem subconjunts de diferents tamanys entre 50 MB i alguns GB per a explorar aquests balanç. Per acabar, com havíem suposat, no perquè un algoritme és eficient en poques dades serà eficient en grans quantitats de dades. Per als dos últims problemes considerem algoritmes similars i també dos conjunts diferents de dades i tècniques d’avaluació per a estudiar l’impacte d’aquests dos paràmetres en els resultats. Mostrem que els resultats no canvien significativament amb aquests canvis.
Hoy en día, la cantidad de documentos digitales disponibles está creciendo rápidamente, ex- pandiéndose a un ritmo considerable y procediendo de una variedad de fuentes. Estas fuentes de información no estructurada y semi estructurada incluyen la World Wide Web, artículos de noticias, bases de datos biológicos, correos electrónicos, bibliotecas digitales, repositorios electrónicos gubernamentales, salas de chat, foros en línea, blogs y medios sociales como Fa- cebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, además de muchos otros. Extraer información de estos recursos y encontrar información útil de tales colecciones se ha convertido en un desafío que hace que la organización de esa enorme cantidad de datos sea una necesidad. La minería de datos, el aprendizaje automático y el procesamiento del lenguaje natural son técnicas poderosas que pueden utilizarse conjuntamente para hacer frente a este gran desafío. Dependiendo de la tarea o el problema en cuestión, hay muchos enfoques dife- rentes que se pueden utilizar. Los métodos que se están implementando se están optimizando continuamente, pero estos métodos de aprendizaje automático supervisados han sido probados y comparados con datos de entrenamiento grandes. La pregunta es ¿Qué pasa con la calidad de los métodos si incrementamos los datos de 100 MB a 1GB? Más aún, ¿las mejoras en la cali- dad valen la pena cuando la tasa de procesamiento de los datos disminuye? ¿Podemos cambiar calidad por eficiencia, recuperando la perdida de calidad cuando procesamos más datos? Esta tesis es una primera aproximación para resolver estas preguntas de forma general para tareas de procesamiento de texto, ya que no ha habido investigación suficiente para comparar estos métodos considerando el balance entre el tamaño de los datos, la calidad de los resultados y el tiempo de procesamiento. Por lo tanto, proponemos un marco para analizar este balance y lo aplicamos a tres importantes problemas de procesamiento de texto: Reconocimiento de En- tidades Nombradas, Análisis de Sentimientos y Clasificación de Documentos. Estos problemas fueron seleccionados también porque tienen distintos niveles de granularidad: palabras, opinio- nes y documentos completos. Para cada problema seleccionamos distintos algoritmos de apren- dizaje automático y evaluamos el balance entre estas variables para los distintos algoritmos en grandes conjuntos de datos públicos (noticias, opiniones, patentes). Usamos subconjuntos de distinto tamaño entre 50 MB y varios GB para explorar este balance. Para concluir, como ha- bíamos supuesto, no porque un algoritmo es eficiente en pocos datos será eficiente en grandes cantidades de datos. Para los dos últimos problemas consideramos algoritmos similares y tam- bién dos conjuntos distintos de datos y técnicas de evaluación, para estudiar el impacto de estos dos parámetros en los resultados. Mostramos que los resultados no cambian significativamente con estos cambios.

Thesis (M.H.P.A.)--Washington State University, May 2010.
Title from PDF title page (viewed on July 12, 2010). "Department of Health Policy and Administration." Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-48).

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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
Este trabalho foi conduzido com o objetivo de avaliar os efeitos da adição de cromo, ácido linoleico conjugado, e ractopamina no desempenho, características de carcaça e qualidade de carne de suínos abatidos aos 115 kg. Foram utilizados 96 suínos machos castrados com peso inicial de 70,21 ± 1,98 kg. Os animais foram distribuídos ao acaso em seis tratamentos. Foram utilizadas oito repetições por tratamento e dois animais por unidade experimental (48 baias, 2 suínos por baia). Os tratamentos consistiram de uma dieta controle (CON) formulada para atender as exigências nutricionais de suínos machos castrados de alto potencial genético. As demais dietas foram formuladas utilizando a dieta CON como base, à qual foram adicionados os aditivos a serem testados, da seguinte maneira: 400 ppb de cromo levedura (CrL); 0,5% de CLA (CLA); 400 ppb CrL e 0,5% CLA (CrL+CLA); 20 ppm de ractopamina (RAC); 400 ppb cromo levedura e 20 ppm de ractopamina (CrL+RAC). Os níveis de lisina nas dietas contendo ractopamina foram aumentados em 20% em relação à dieta CON. Os suínos alimentados com RAC e CrL+RAC receberam a dieta CON durante os primeiros 17 dias de experimento, e passaram a consumir as respectivas dietas nos últimos 28 dias de experimento. As médias entre os tratamentos contendo aditivos foram comparadas usando o teste Tukey. A média de cada tratamento contendo aditivos foi comparada à média da dieta CON utilizando o teste Dunnett. O peso médio inicial foi usado como covariável. Os suínos alimentados com RAC e CrL+RAC apresentaram maior (P < 0,01) peso final e ganho de peso médio diário do que os suínos dos demais tratamentos. A eficiência alimentar foi maior (P < 0,01) nos suínos recebendo CrL+RAC em comparação com os suínos recebendo dieta contendo aditivos, com exceção dos animais alimentados com RAC, que tiveram eficiência alimentar similar aos alimentados com CrL+RAC. Suínos alimentados com RAC e CrL+RAC apresentaram eficiência alimentar semelhantes, ambas superiores (P < 0,01) à eficiência alimentar dos animais alimentados com dieta CON. O consumo de ração foi semelhante (P = 0,89) para todas as dietas. Suínos alimentados com CrL+RAC apresentaram maior área de olho de lombo (AOL) (P < 0,01) e rendimento de carcaça (P < 0,05) do que os animais alimentados com as dietas CON, CrL, CLA e CrL+CLA. Os resultados de AOL e rendimento de carcaça de suínos alimentados com RAC foram similares aos resultados obtidos nos animais alimentados com as demais dietas. Os animais alimentados com CLA, RAC e CrL+RAC apresentaram menor (P = 0,22) espessura de toucinho quando comparados aos animais recebendo dieta CON. Os aditivos não influenciaram o pH (P > 0,05), a temperatura (P > 0,05), as perdas de água (P = 0,87) e a força de cisalhamento (P = 0,70) da carne. Menores valores de L* foram encontrados na carne de suínos alimentados com CrL+CLA em comparação aos suinos alimentados com CON (P < 0,05) e RAC (P < 0,01). Suínos alimentados com RAC apresentaram menores (P < 0,05) valores de a* em comparação aos suinos alimentados com CON. Os valores de b* foram semelhantes (P = 0,20) para todas as dietas. Não houve diferença significativa (P = 0,89) na concentração de gordura intramuscular. Não foram observadas diferenças nas concentrações séricas de glicose (P = 0,32), colesterol (P = 0,67) e triglicerídeos (P = 0,46). A concentração sérica de ureia foi menor (P = 0,03) nos suinos alimentados com CrL+RAC em comparação aos suinos alimentados com CON e RAC. A suplementação combinada de cromo e ractopamina aumenta a AOL e o rendimento de carcaça de suínos em terminação, sugerindo a existência de um sinergismo que pode estar relacionado a capacidade de cromo de aumentar a utilização de nutrientes em suinos suplementados com ractopamina. Os aditivos suplementados não apresentam efeitos importantes sobre a qualidade de carne.
This study aimed to evaluate the effects of dietary chromium, CLA, and ractopamine on performance and pork quality of finishing pigs slaughtered at 115 kg BW. Ninety-six crossbred barrows (initial BW= 70.21 ± 1.98 kg) were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 dietary treatments. A diet formulated according to the nutritional requirements of 70- to 100-kg barrows of high lean genotype gaining l.l3 kg/day was used as the control (CON). The other five diets were based on the CON and supplemented as follows: 400 ppb Cr yeast (CrY); 0.5% CLA (CLA); 400 ppb CrY and 0.5% CLA (CrY+CLA); 20 ppm RAC (RAC); 400 ppb CrY and 20 ppm RAC (CrY+RAC). Lysine levels on diets containing RAC were raised by 20% compared to CON. Pigs fed RAC and CrY+RAC were fed CON for the first 17 d, and then the respective diets for the last 28 d on trial. There were 8 replicates per treatment (48 pens; 2 pigs per pen). Means were compared using Tukey test, excluding the CON. Dunnett test was used to compare the means of each diet containing additives to the CON. Initial BW was used as covariate. Pigs fed RAC and CrY+RAC had the highest (P < 001) final BW and ADG. Pigs fed CrY+RAC had higher (P < 001) G:F than pigs fed diets containing additives, except for the RAC. Pigs fed CrY+RAC and RAC had similar G:F, both higher (P < 001) than pigs fed CON. Feed intake was similar (P = 0.89) for all diets. Pigs fed CrY+RAC had higher LM area (P 005) and carcass yield (P < 001) than pigs fed CON, CrY, CLA, and CrY+CLA. Loin muscle area and carcass yield of pigs fed RAC were not statistically different from pigs fed the others diets tested. Back fat depth was lower (P = 022) in pigs fed CLA, RAC and CrY+RAC compared to pigs fed CON. The additives did not affect pork pH (P > 005), temperature (P > 005), water losses (P = 0.87), and shear force (P = 0.70). Lower L* values were found on pork from pigs fed CrY+CLA compared to pigs fed CON (P < 005), and RAC (P < 0.01). Pigs fed the RAC had lower (P 005) a* values compared to pigs fed CON. Pork b* values were similar (P = 0.20) for all diets. There were no significant differences (P = 089) on intramuscular fat content. Serum urea nitrogen (SUN) concentration was lower (P = 003) in pigs fed CrY+RAC than in pigs fed CON and RAC. In summary, when combined, CrY and RAC increase LM area and carcass yield and reduce SUN, suggesting a synergism that might be related to the ability of Chromium to improve nutrient utilization in RAC-fed pigs. Additionally, CrY, CLA and RAC have no major effects on pork quality.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the organizational and environmental correlates of hospital EMR use and to examine the relationship between hospital EMR use and performance. Using a theoretical framework that combines resource dependence theory with Donabedian's structure, process, outcome model, a conceptual model is created. To test the hypotheses of this model, logistic regression and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) are used. The data included in this analysis come from the AHA, HIMSS, CMS, ARF, and HQA. In the analysis of hospitals correlates of EMR use, three hypotheses were supported, and one was partially supported. Hospital system affiliation, bed size, and environmental uncertainty were found to be positively associated with hospital EMR use. Hospital rurality was found to be associated with EMR use for all categories except one; at every other level of rurality, as the hospital moves on a continuum from least rural to most urban, the likelihood of hospital EMR use also increases. Hospital EMR use was not found to be associated with teaching status, environmental munificence, competition, operating margin, ownership, or public payer mix. In the hospital performance analyses, one hypothesis was supported, and one was partially supported. Regarding quality, hospitals with EMRs were found to provide higher quality than those without EMRs. In efficiency performance, only small hospitals with EMRs were found to be more efficient than hospitals without EMRs. No support was found that hospitals with EMRs improve their efficiency over time more than hospitals without EMRs. Hospital EMR use does vary by certain organizational and environmental characteristics. For this reason, hospitals and policy makers must take action that enables and encourages all hospitals to implement and use EMRs because some hospitals do not have the motivation or resources to begin using EMRs on their own. Hospital EMR use is positively associated with high quality care, thus justifying the practice. Hospital efficiency was not found to be associated with EMR use in medium or large hospitals, but it was found to be associated with EMR use in small hospitals. Interestingly, larger hospitals are more likely to use EMRs than small hospitals. It is possible that the efficiency gains of EMR use in hospitals will not be realized until a standardized, fully interoperable system is developed, allowing health care provides to quickly and easily share the medical charts of their patients.

The relationship between technical efficiency and quality of care in hospitals is studied in the context of resource availability in hospital organizations. The resource availability of hospitals is conceptualized by organizational slack. An integrated model is developed encompassing the source of organizational slack, its impact on technical efficiency and on quality of care, and its impact on the relationship between efficiency and quality. Organizational threat as an environmental factor affecting the level of slack is measured by the level of competition and regulation. Organizational slack is measured using financial and operational indicators of the hospitals. Technical efficiency is estimated by efficiency "scores generated using the Data Envelopment Analysis. Mortality rates of Medicare patients are used as the proxy for quality of care in individual hospitals. The sample is composed of 832 urban, not-for-profit hospitals in the United States. The data are compiled from the Health Care Finance Administration data set and the American Hospitals Association annual survey data set. Hypotheses are tested using ordinary least squares regression and logistic regression. The analysis reveals that the level of and change in organizational slack have a negative relationship with efficiency and a positive relationship with quality of care. The results also indicate that environmental threat has a negative effect on level of slack, and efficiency has a negative effect on quality of care. The findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical implications for the concept of organizational slack and the implications for health policy and hospital management.

Adherence to a defined process or standards is necessary to achieve satisfactory software quality. However, in order to judge whether practices are effective at achieving the required integrity of a software product, a measurement-based approach to the correctness of the software development is required. A defined and measurable process is a requirement for producing safe software productively. In this study the contribution of quality assurance to the software development process, and in particular the contribution that software inspections make to produce satisfactory software products, is addressed. I have defined a new model of software inspection effectiveness, which uses a Bayesian Belief Network to combine both subjective and objective data to evaluate the probability of an effective software inspection. Its performance shows an improvement over the existing published models of inspection effectiveness. These previous models made questionable assumptions over the distribution of errors and were essentially static. They could not make use of experience both in terms of process improvement and the increased experience of the inspectors. A sensitivity analysis of my model showed that it is consistent with the attributes which were thought important by Michael Fagan in his research into the software inspection method. The performance of my model show that it is an improvement over published models and over a multiple logistic regression model, which was formed using the same calibration data. By applying my model of software inspection effectiveness before the inspection takes place, project managers will be able to make better use of inspection resource available. Applying the model using data collected during the inspection will help in estimation of residual errors in a product. Decisions can then be made if further investigations are required to identify errors. The modelling process has been used successfully in an industrial application.

This thesis is a study of the kiln drying of radiata pine with a primary focus on the change in wood colour that occurs during this process. The energy efficiency of the drying process has also been examined using computer modelling. The aim of this work was to develop guidelines for commercial wood dryers who wish to produce high quality appearance grade timber in a competitive commercial environment. The colour change in radiata pine wood during kiln drying is mainly caused by sap compounds accumulating at the wood surface and reacting to form coloured compounds. The initial research involved drying experiments designed to determine the relationship between this colour change and the kiln schedule and also measure the accumulation of colour forming compounds. The kinetics of the colour change reaction were also measured using two methods, one in-vitro and the other using small samples of wood. From these experiments a colour change equation was developed that predicts the rate of colour formation based on the drying conditions and this was incorporated into a kiln stack model along with an energy efficiency model. The combined model was used to simulate the drying process to find schedules optimised for energy use and wood quality. The model was also used to simulate the energy efficiency of different humidity control configurations for wood drying kilns. A kiln micro-sensor system was also developed for use in kiln diagnostics and control with the particular aim of identifying areas in wood drying kilns with adverse drying conditions. The recommendation to kiln operators wishing to reduce colour change is to not exceed 70? and to use lower relative humidity schedules with a wet bulb depression of 15-20?. Operating at lower humidity can increase the energy used by the kiln so it is also recommended that kiln designers incorporate heat recovery into the humidity control mechanisms of the kiln.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2007.
Title from first page of PDF file (viewed November 21, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-166).

This study was conducted to investigate the quality and efficiency of Saudi Education, using three approaches: (1) production function, (2) comparison of outliers and (3) cost analysis, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data collected through two field trips. The main line of inquiry, production function analysis, was based on quantitative data collected during the first field visit to 37 schools (one private urban school, 17 urban public schools and 19 rural public schools) affiliated to one education district, Medina. The outcome variable was student attainment in examinations of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). The sample students were drawn randomly from among the 12th graders in schools (one science-track class; and one arts-track class, if the arts track option was available in the school). Information about teachers, principals and schools was also collected by purposefully designed questionnaires. The second approach, comparison of outliers, was based mainly on qualitative data collected during the second field trip, through interviews with principals, teachers and students from six public schools out of the 37 schools. The value-added analysis of school effects on student attainment (i. e. the effect of attending a particular school after controlling for non-school influences statistically) showed these six schools to be either unusually successful (positive outliers, three schools) or unusually failing (negative outliers, three schools). In the third approach, cost analysis, the per-student cost was estimated and decomposed to its various components. A cost function was fitted, using multiple regression, with the per-student cost as a dependent variable. In the production function analysis, the non-school variables (e. g. parents' education, education of older siblings, attainment level at 9th grade, student age, grade repetition, study time at home, and days of absenteeism) were the main influences on attainment. School-related variables accounted for a smaller proportion of the variance in student attainment, but the overall school value-added effect (shown in quality differences between schools) was notably large. The findings from production function analysis and outlier comparisons suggested rural schools were inferior in quality. School management, mainly the principal, showed notable influence on quality. The physical conditions of the school buildings were better in the positive outliers, but they are influenced by the quality of principals. Good principals could also attract good teachers, and also positively influence teacher commitment and student motivation. Experience, training, concern with the education process, and leadership skills were attributes of the good principals. The existence of adequate management staff was also important. Deputy principals and student counsellors could also play influential roles. Teachers differed remarkably in quality (value-added effects), but the attributes of good teachers could not be identified. Inefficiency was prevalent in the school system, as indicated by the production function and cost analyses. Some of the resource variables (such as teacher experience and student-teacher ratio) showed negative or non-significant effect on attainment in the production function analysis. Indications of inefficiency, however, were clearer in cost analysis, and the student-teacher ratio was the main cause of inefficiency. Improvement recommendations were made in relation to the issues of. recruiting and rewarding teachers; management staffing in schools; improving the quality of rural schools; improving the quality of school buildings; and raising the student-teacher ratio.

This paper addresses the necessity of a correct hydraulic accumulator pre-charge pressure for the optimum performance and in some cases even the essential function of the corresponding hydraulic application. In this context HYDAC has developed a smart product for predictive monitoring of the pre-charge pressure without any need to do a measurement on the gas side of the accumulator – the p0-Guard. The paper gives an overview on the conventional way of checking the pre-charge pressure, the function of the monitoring device and points out the benefits of a predictive monitoring of the accumulator precharge pressure. The benefits are clearly depicted by an analytical view as well as on practical example.

Thesis (D.B.A.)--Boston University
Lean has been implemented in the health care sector for over a decade to address the challenges of lowering cost and improving quality. Its impact, however, has not been conclusive. Furthermore, the debate on its potential benefit has not been rigorous or systemic. This dissertation research fills this gap in literature. This dissertation is composed of three papers. In the first paper, I develop a reliable and valid instrument to measure the extent of lean implementation in hospitals. I theoretically derive a more robust set of lean principles for the hospital environment (patient focus, standardized care, seamless coordination, and continuous improvement) and use them as a primary platform for analyzing the use of lean in the health care environment. The results show that currently hospitals have implemented lean principles at relatively low level, compared to the possible maximum implementation level. Among the four principles, continuous improvement principle showed highest implementation level in hospitals. In the second paper, I assess the impact of lean principles implementation on quality and efficiency performance in hospitals by performing multivariate regression analysis with lean principles as independent variables and hospital performance as dependent variable. Multiple hospital performance indicators (adherence to evidence-based care processes, risk-adjusted mortality, patient satisfaction, and risk-adjusted cost) are used to measure process quality, outcome quality, perceived quality, and efficiency of each hospital. The results show that patient focus, standardized care, and continuous improvement principles are significantly associated with hospital quality, while seamless coordination principle is not. The result does not show any significant association between lean principles and hospital efficiency. In the last paper, I identify different lean implementation patterns in hospitals. Since lean is a multi-dimensional concept of four lean principles, which can be implemented individually or in combination , several lean implementation patterns are possible, depending on differing level of emphasis on lean principles. The results show that when lean is implemented holistically, lean is effective in improving quality performance in the health care environment, as in the manufacturing. The result does not show any significant association between lean implementation patterns and hospital efficiency.

Determinants of nursing home performance: examining the relationship between quality and efficiency By Nailya O. DeLellis, MPH, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010 Director: Dr. Yasar Ozcan, Professor, Department of Health Administration To assess the relationship between quality of care and efficiency of nursing homes this study used 10% random sample of non-hospital based nursing homes of size 20-360 beds and occupancy rate of 5-100% in OSCAR database 2008 (n=1430). Data Envelopment Analysis was used to calculate efficiency score and Structural Equations Modeling was used to assess the effect of environmental factors on efficiency score and quality measures as well as relationship between efficiency and quality of care. Logistic regression was performed to find the factors that affect high performance, defined as high efficiency and high quality. In the study’s sample, 149 facilities (10.4%) had an efficiency score of 1, which indicates perfect efficiency. The average efficiency score of nursing homes in the sample was 0.854 (0.079 min; 0.145 std). Competition positively affects efficiency, with a path coefficient 0.09 (t-value = 2.65). Although the path coefficients relating competition with process and with outcome quality were positive (0.08 and 0.04, respectively), the results were not statistically significant. Stronger position of payers in the market positively affects process quality of care (path coefficient = 0.15, (t-value = 2.48). Higher efficiency of nursing homes is associated with higher outcome quality (path coefficient of 0.06, t-value = 1.99), but lower process quality (path coefficient of –0.20 , t-value = –2.95). Only 7.4% of nursing homes in the sample could efficiently provide high quality services, which was defined as high performance in the study. Among the factors that demonstrated statistically significant coefficients in the regression were the size of a facility, the availability of registered nurses, excess demand, and for-profit status. The study provides evidence of the trade-off between efficiency and process quality, in which higher efficiency of a nursing home is associated with lower process quality of care. Findings in the study also suggested that higher efficiency is associated with higher outcome quality.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-30). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Globalisation of markets has brought about enormous challenges and opportunities for business organisations. The prevailing business environment propels organisations to improve and create value in order to remain competitive. Improvement and value creation begin internally and get reflected externally in the form of value added propositions to the market. Six Sigma is a methodology known for creating value within organisations, in all industries, through process improvement which translates into enormous savings for the organisation. Six Sigma is widely used globally and it has been in existence for many years, yet it is not so prevalent in the South African business environment. This research explores the principles and approach adopted, which distinguish the Six Sigma methodology from other improvement programs. In the manufacturing industry, operational efficiencies are essential to enhance value creation and profitability. The study begins by discussing the origin, history and evolvement of Six Sigma into a methodology recognisable and espoused by leading world class organisations. The technique used to effect Six Sigma is entrenched and enforced by adherence to stipulated basic principles, breakthrough strategy and Six Sigma tools in identification and elimination of variation. The study later models some of Six Sigma tools by application on the operational entity in verification and testing of theoretical knowledge into practical knowledge that can be exploited for process improvement consequently enhancing operational efficiencies. The impact of Six Sigma on operational efficiencies underlie on the ability to positively change process effectiveness and capability to near perfection as expressed by defect rate of not more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.
Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Recently, induced by incorporating 1) the ubiquitous data gathering capabilities of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) as well as 2) the powerful data storage and data processing abilities of cloud computing (CC), Sensor-Cloud is attracting growing attention from both academia and industry. However, Sensor-Cloud is still in its infancy and a lot of research efforts are expected to emerge in this area. Improving Sensor-Cloud, this thesis first presents the important research issues that are yet to be widely investigated by other researchers regarding the energy efficiency, security, sensory data transmission and quality of service (QoS) of Sensor-Cloud, respectively. Further, our accomplished work regarding solving the identified research issues is described. Particularly, two collaborative location-based sleep scheduling (CLSS) schemes are designed. Based on the locations of mobile users, CLSS dynamically determines the awake or asleep status of each sensor node to reduce energy consumption of the WSN integrated with mobile cloud. An authenticated trust and reputation calculation and management (ATRCM) system is introduced. ATRCM considers i) the authenticity of cloud service provider (CSP) and sensor network provider (SNP); ii) the attribute requirement of cloud service user (CSU) and CSP; iii) the cost, trust, and reputation of the service of CSP and SNP. A mechanism named TPSS is shown. TPSS consists of two main parts: 1) time and priority-based selective data transmission (TPSDT) for WSN gateway to selectively transmit sensory data to the cloud and 2) priority-based sleep scheduling (PSS) algorithm for WSN to save energy consumption. Trust-Assisted Sensor-Cloud (TASC) is exhibited. In TASC, the sensory data is gathered and transmitted to cloud, by the trusted sensors (i.e., sensors which own trust values surpassing a threshold) in WSN. The sensory data is stored, processed and on demand delivered to users, by the trusted data centers (i.e., data centers which own trust values surpassing a threshold) in cloud. The analytical and experimental results conducted in our work show that the proposed approaches can effectively alleviate the corresponding research issues, respectively. We hope our work can attract more research into Sensor-Cloud to make it develop faster and better.
Applied Science, Faculty of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of
Graduate

The continuous growth of traffic demand driven by the brisk increase in number of Internet users and emerging online services creates new challenges for communication networks. The latest advances in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology make it possible to build Transparent Optical Networks (TONs) which are expected to be able to satisfy this rapidly growing capacity demand. Moreover, with the ability of TONs to transparently carry the optical signal from source to destination, electronic processing of the tremendous amount of data can be avoided and optical-to-electrical-to-optical (O/E/O) conversion at intermediate nodes can be eliminated. Consequently, transparent WDM networks consume relatively low power, compared to their electronic-based IP network counterpart. Furthermore, TONs bring also additional benefits in terms of bit rate, signal format, and protocol transparency. However, the absence of O/E/O processing at intermediate nodes in TONs has also some drawbacks. Without regeneration, the quality of the optical signal transmitted from a source to a destination might be degraded due to the effect of physical-layer impairments induced by the transmission through optical fibers and network components. For this reason, routing approaches specifically tailored to account for the effect of physical-layer impairments are needed to avoid setting up connections that don’t satisfy required signal quality at the receiver. Transparency also makes TONs highly vulnerable to deliberate physical-layer attacks. Malicious attacking signals can cause a severe impact on the traffic and for this reason proactive mechanisms, e.g., network design strategies, able to limit their effect are required. Finally, even though energy consumption of transparent WDM networks is lower than in the case of networks processing the traffic at the nodes in the electronic domain, they have the potential to consume even less power. This can be accomplished by targeting the inefficiencies of the current provisioning strategies applied in WDM networks. The work in this thesis addresses the three important aspects mentioned above. In particular, this thesis focuses on routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) strategies specifically devised to target: (i) the lightpath transmission quality, (ii) the network security (i.e., in terms of vulnerability to physical-layer attacks), and (iii) the reduction of the network energy consumption. Our contributions are summarized below. A number of Impairment Constraint Based Routing (ICBR) algorithms have been proposed in the literature to consider physical-layer impairments during the connection provisioning phase. Their objective is to prevent the selection of optical connections (referred to as lightpaths) with poor signal quality. These ICBR approaches always assign each connection request the least impaired lightpath and support only a single threshold of transmission quality, used for all connection requests. However, next generation networks are expected to support a variety of services with disparate requirements for transmission quality. To address this issue, in this thesis we propose an ICBR algorithm supporting differentiation of services at the Bit Error Rate (BER) level, referred to as ICBR-Diff. Our approach takes into account the effect of physical-layer impairments during the connection provisioning phase where various BER thresholds are considered for accepting/blocking connection requests, depending on the signal quality requirements of the connection requests. We tested the proposed ICBR-Diff approach in different network scenarios, including also a fiber heterogeneity. It is shown that it can achieve a significant improvement of network performance in terms of connection blocking, compared to previously published non-differentiated RWA and ICBR algorithms.  Another important challenge to be considered in TONs is their vulnerability to physical-layer attacks. Deliberate attacking signals, e.g., high-power jamming, can cause severe service disruption or even service denial, due to their ability to propagate in the network. Detecting and locating the source of such attacks is difficult, since monitoring must be done in the optical domain, and it is also very expensive. Several attack-aware RWA algorithms have been proposed in the literature to proactively reduce the disruption caused by high-power jamming attacks. However, even with attack-aware network planning mechanisms, the uncontrollable propagation of the attack still remains an issue. To address this problem, we propose the use of power equalizers inside the network nodes in order to limit the propagation of high-power jamming attacks. Because of the high cost of such equipment, we develop a series of heuristics (incl. Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP)) aiming at minimizing the number of power equalizers needed to reduce the network attack vulnerability to a desired level by optimizing the location of the equalizers. Our simulation results show that the equalizer placement obtained by the proposed GRASP approach allows for 50% reduction of the sites with the power equalizers while offering the same level of attack propagation limitation as it is possible to achieve with all nodes having this additional equipment installed. In turn, this potentially yields a significant cost saving.    Energy consumption in TONs has been the target of several studies focusing on the energy-aware and survivable network design problem for both dedicated and shared path protection. However, survivability and energy efficiency in a dynamic provisioning scenario has not been addressed. To fill this gap, in this thesis we focus on the power consumption of survivable WDM network with dynamically provisioned 1:1 dedicated path protected connections. We first investigate the potential energy savings that are achievable by setting all unused protection resources into a lower-power, stand-by state (or sleep mode) during normal network operations. It is shown that in this way the network power consumption can be significantly reduced. Thus, to optimize the energy savings, we propose and evaluate a series of energy-efficient strategies, specifically tailored around the sleep mode functionality. The performance evaluation results reveal the existence of a trade-off between energy saving and connection blocking. Nonetheless, they also show that with the right provisioning strategy it is possible to save a considerable amount of energy with a negligible impact on the connection blocking probability. In order to evaluate the performance of our proposed ICBR-Diff and energy-aware RWA algorithms, we develop two custom-made discrete-event simulators. In addition, the Matlab program of GRASP approach for power equalization placement problem is implemented.

QC 20120508

Bioenergy is one of many contributors to reducing the use of fossil fuels in order to mitigate climate change by decreasing CO2-emissions, and the potential for biofuels are large. The wood fuel pellets are a refined biofuel made of sawdust, which is dried and compressed to achieve improved fuel and transportation properties. In 2007 the amount of wood fuel pellets used for heating purposes in Sweden was 1715000 tons. The aims of this work was: to examine the moisture content and emission of monoterpenes during the drying and pelletising steps of the pellets production (Paper I); to investigate how the recirculation of drying gases affects the energy efficiency of rotary dryers and how the energy efficiency is related to the capacity of the dryer. (Paper II); to analyse the causes of the problems encountered by household end-users of pellets and investigate whether an improved pellet quality standard could reduce these problems (Paper III); to investigate how the energy consumption of the pelletising machine and chosen pellet quality parameters were affected using an increased amount of rapeseed cake in wood fuel pellets (Paper IV); and to identify gaps of knowledge about wood fuel pellet technology and needs for further research on quality, environmental and health aspects throughout the wood fuel pellet chain, from sawdust to heat. (Paper V).

The overarching goal of this thesis is to investigate network architectures, and find the trade-off between low overall energy use and maintaining the level of quality of service (QoS), or even improve it. The ubiquitous wireless communications environment supports the exploration of different network architectures and techniques, the so-called heterogeneous network. Two kinds of heterogeneous architectures are considered: a combined cellular and femtocell network and a combined cellular, femtocell and Wireless Local Area Network(WLAN) network. This thesis concludes that the investigated heterogeneous networks can significantly reduce the overall power consumption, depending on the uptake of femtocells and WLANs. Also, QoS remains high when the power consumption drops. The main energy saving is from reducing the macrocell base station embodied and operational energy. When QoS is evaluated based on the combined cellular and femtocell architecture, it is suggested that use of resource scheduling for femtocells within the macrocell is crucial since femtocell performance is affected significantly by interference when installed in a co-channel system. Additionally, the femtocell transmission power mode is investigated using either variable power level or a fixed power level. To achieve both energy efficiency and QoS, the choice of system configurations should change according to the density of the femtocell deployment. When combining deployment of femtocells with WLANs, more users are able to experience a higher QoS. Due to increasing of data traffic and smartphone usage in the future, WLANs are more important for offloading data from the macrocell, reducing power consumption and also increasing the bandwidth. The localised heterogeneous network is a promising technique for achieving power efficiency and a high QoS system.

The water supplies of some small inland communities may come in the form of river systems that offer brackish water. Not fit for immediate human consumption, the water can be further processed using reverse osmosis to be converted into drinking water.In very remote areas there are limited energy resources, and for those areas that lie beyond a municipal distribution grid, renewable energy sources may be used. A reverse osmosis system that operates from the limited power generated by a renewable energy system must do so with the utmost of efficiency. Three methods in improving the efficiency of small-scale reverse-osmosis system are investigated, namely high-pressure pump speed control, feed water heating and vacuum pump based energy recovery.

The current study investigated the reliability and validity of using short observations with an observation tool designed to measure implementation of small group interventions. Intervention lessons for eight instructional groups from two schools were video recorded for nine weeks, and post-test assessments of reading decoding were administered to 31 at-risk kindergarten students. Videos of intervention instruction from weeks two, five, and eight, each representing a phase in the intervention period, were used within this study for measuring implementation. Each video was divided into three ten-minute segments representing the beginning, middle, and end of each intervention lesson. Video segments were coded for implementation using the Quality of Intervention Delivery and Receipt tool (QIDR; Harn, Forbes-Spear, Fritz, & Berg, 2012). Overall, the results of this study indicate that a) reliability can be achieved when using 10-minute observations, b) QIDR scores obtained from 10-minute segments are strongly correlated with scores obtained from full-length observations, c) there is no statistical difference in scores obtained from full-length observations and those obtained in 10-minute segments, and d) QIDR scores obtained from both full-length and 10-minute segments accounted for group differences in student outcomes, with lesson segments obtained from the end of lessons accounting for the most variance. Implications for research and practice are discussed, including the importance of thorough training and calibration to maintain reliability, as well as the feasibility and utility of providing frequent observation and feedback through shorter observations.

Thesis (MScAgric)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: One of the reasons why meat supply does not meet human demand is that man has concentrated on utilising relatively few animal species as a source of meat. Development of unconventional livestock, such as goats, is advocated as a means of increasing global meat production and consumption. Although South Africa possesses large numbers of domestic ruminants, meat consumption has been limited mainly to sheep and cattle. Goats are used to a lesser extent. This is partly attributed to a general belief that goat meat is inferior to mutton and beef. Numerous contradictions regarding comparative goat and sheep growth, carcass characteristics and meat composition exist in literature. Concepts involved with most of the contradictions includes average daHy gain (ADG), dressing percentage, carcass weight distribution and organoleptic characteristics, especially tenderness, juiciness and flavour, particularly as pertaining to animals reared/grown under intensive/feedlot conditions. Therefore this project was undertaken to obtain more information on the growth, carcass and organoleptic characteristics, as well as meat chemical compositions of Boer goat (BG) kids in comparison with South African Mutton merino (MM) lambs, reared under feedlot conditions. Thirty-two BG kids and 32 MM lambs were used for this investigation. All the animals were castrated and weaned before entering the feedlot. Two pelleted diets (fed to 16 animals/species) with either a low (LE; 8.9 MJ/kg OM) or a high (HE, 10.9 MJ/kg OM) metabolisabie energy level were fed individually, ad lib for either 28 or 56 days. Feed and water intake, ADG and feed conversion efficiencies (FCE) were monitored. During the last week of the feeding trial, 12 BG kids and 12 MM lambs were used to evaluate the digestibility of the two diets. After either 28 or 56 days, the animals were slaughtered and the carcasses dissected into South African commercial cuts. The m. semimembranosus and 8-9-10-rib cut of each carcass was dissected for determination of chemical composition, drip loss, cooking loss, shear force values and colour measurement. The m. gracilis was dissected from the hind leg of the carcass and used for sensory evaluation. MM's had significantly higher AOG's than BG's (e.g. MMHE56: 0.281; BGHE56: 0.162 kg/day). Within a diet there was no difference (P>0.05) in FCE between BG's and MM's and only the MM's FCE differed between the LE and HE diet (e.g. BGLE28: 7.65; BGHE28: 6.37; MMLE28: 8.73; MMHE28: 5.56 kg feed/kg weight gain). BGLE digested dry matter (OM), crude protein (CP) and energy more efficiently and had a higher energy retention than MMLE. The two diets had the same ME-value for the goats, which confirms that goats perform equally well on a lower quality feed as their contemporaries on a higher quality feed. Neither species, nor diet affected nitrogen retention. The BG had a 49 % lower (P<0.01) water intake per kg weight gain than the MM on both the high and low energy diets. Both species had a lower (P<0.01) water intake on the high than on the low energy diet. Furthermore, the BG had a daily water intake of only 171 ml/kgo.75 compared to the 302 ml/kgo.75 of the MM. The weight of the liver, empty stomach, head and feet (as a percentage of empty body weight) were higher in goats than in sheep. The MM's had significantly heavier skins, probably due to wool growth. Both kidney fat and gastro-intestinal tract (GIT) fat increased with age. The animals slaughtered after 56 days in the feedlot had significantly longer and deeper carcasses than their contemporaries slaughtered after 28 days. Within a diet and slaughter age, the MM had significantly broader and deeper carcasses than the BG's. BG's had significantly less weight per unit carcass length, and thus more slender carcasses than MM's. Diet had no significant influence on the carcass weight distribution of the goats. However, MM's had heavier carcasses (LE: 19.87 vs. 15.28 kg; HE: 24.01 vs. 17.05 kg) and proportionally heavier ribs and buttocks than BG's. Neither diet nor slaughter age influenced the proximate analysis of the m. semimembranosus, but MM's had significantly lower moisture values than BG's. In the 8-9-10-rib cuts BG's had significantly more moisture and protein and lower fat and energy values than MM's. OM, fat and energy values increased with an increase in slaughter age in both species. BG's had significantly higher concentrations of 11 of the 18 measured essential amino acids in their 8-9- 10-rib cuts than the MM's. Gaat carcasses had higher Ca, K, Mg, Na and P-Ievels than sheep carcasses, regardless of the diet fed. There was a tendency for goat's m. semimembranosus to have a lower Fe-content than that of sheep. BG carcasses had a lower carcass cholesterol content than that of lamb (66.77 vs. 99.28 mg/100g, respectively). Palmitic (C16:0), stearic (C18:0) and oleic (C18:1 n9) acid comprised the greatest proportions of fatty acids in both the m. semimembranosus and 8-9-10-rib cut for both species. On a LE-diet there was no significant difference between the saturated fatty acid (SFA) to unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) ratio of goat meat and lamb. However, on the HEdiet, lamb had a significantly higher SFA:UFA ratio than chevon (m. semimembranosus: 0.842 vs. 0.689; 8-9-10-rib cut: 1.407 vs. 0.892). Organoleptically, a difference was noted between chevon and lamb. Each has a specific species flavour, which was not influenced by energy level of the diet. BG meat was perceived to be stringier than that of the MM, but there was no significant difference in Warner-Bratzler shear force values. Tenderness declined with age in both species and there was also a tendency for goat meat to be less juicy than lamb. Chevon had a more pronounced aftertaste than lamb. No objective differences could be distinguished between the colour of the cooked chevon and lamb. There was a tendency for fresh lamb to have a higher a*-value (redness) than chevon. Although diet did not influence drip loss, drip loss increased with an increase in slaughter age. Only after 56 days did the MM's m. semimembranosus have a significantly higher drip loss than the BG's (LE: 4.84 vs. 3.43%; HE: 4.72 vs. 3.32%). In the m. semimembranosus of both species, cooking loss increased with an increase in slaughter age. Since diet did not influence the growth, carcass weight distribution, water holding capacity, colour, shear force values or organoleptic qualities of chevon, BG's may be finished on a diet with a lower ME-value than that usually formulated for sheep, without a reduction in performance. This may render a direct economic advantage for BG feedlot finishing. Meat from young feedlot goats is not inferior to that of lamb and it has a higher protein percentage and lower fat percentage. Therefore, it can be considered as a healthy food commodity, especially among low-income groups or people wishing to consume a low calorie diet.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: 'n Vergelykende analise van nutriëntverbruik en vleiskwaliteisparameters van Boerbokke en Suid-Afrikaanse Vleismerino's: Een van die hoofredes waarom die vraag na vleis die aanbod oorskrei, is die feit dat die mens tot op hede net op 'n paar dierspesies as bron van vleis gekonsentreer het. Benutting van niekonvensionele spesies, soos bokke, kan aanbeveel word ten einde die globale vleisproduksie en -verbruik te verhoog. Ten spyte van die feit dat Suid-Afrika oor baie gedomestikeerde herkouerspesies beskik, is vleisverbruik in die verlede tot hoofsaaklik skape en beeste beperk. Bokke is tot 'n mindere mate gebruik. Dit kan gedeeltelik toegeskryf word aan die algemene siening dat bokvleis ondergeskik aan skaap- en beesvleis is. Verskeie teenstrydighede ten opsigte van vergelykings tussen bokke en skape se groei, karkaseienskappe en vleissamestelling bestaan in die literatuur. Teenstrydige resultate ten bpsigte van gemiddelde daaglikse toename (GOT), uitslagpersentasie, karkasgewigverspreiding en organoleptiese eienskappe (veral taaiheid, sappigheid en geur) van diere afgerond onder intensiewe/voerkraal-toestande, kom veral voor. Hierdie projek is vervolgens uitgevoer ten einde meer inligting ten opsigte van die groei, karkas- en organoleptiese eienskappe, sowel as die chemiese samestelling van die vleis van Boerbok (BB) lammers in vergelyking met Suid-Afrikaanse Vleismerino (VM) lammers, onder voerkraal-toestande grootgemaak, te verkry. Twee-en-dertig BB lammers en 32 VM lammers is vir hierdie studie gebruik. AI die diere is gekastreer en gespeen voor hulle in die voerkraal geplaas is. Twee verpilde diëte (gevoer aan 16 diere/spesie) met óf 'n lae (LE, 8.9 MJ/kg DM) óf 'n hoë (HE, 10.9 MJ/kg DM) metaboliseerbare energievlak is individueel, ad lib, vir óf 28 óf 56 dae aan die diere gevoer. Voer- en waterinname, GOT en voeromsettingsdoeltreffendheid (VOD) is gemonitor. Gedurende die laaste week van die voedingsproef is 12 BB'e en 12 VM's gebruik ten einde die verteerbaarheid van die twee diëte te bepaal. Na 28 of 56 dae is die diere geslag en die karkasse in Suid-Afrikaanse kommersiële snitte verdeel. Die m. semimembranosus en 8-9-10-rib snit van elke karkas is verwyder vir bepaling van chemiese samestelling, drupverlies, kookverlies, skeurwaardes en kleurbepaling. Die m. gracilis is uit die agterbeen uitgehaal en vir sensoriese evaluering gebruik. VM's het betekenisvolle hoër GOT's as BB'e (bv. VMHE56: 0.281; BBHE56: 0.162 kg/dag) gehad. Binne 'n dieet was daar geen verskille (P>0.05) in VOD tussen BB'e en VM's nie en net die VM's se VOD het tussen die LE- en HE-dieet verskil (bv. BBLE28: 7.65; BBHE28: 6.37; VMLE28: 8.73; VMHE28: 5.56 kg voer/kg gewigstoename). BBLE het die droë materiaal (DM), ruproteïen (RP) en energie meer effektief verteer en het 'n hoër energieretensie as VMLE gehad. Die twee diëte het dieselfde ME-waarde vir die bokke gehad, wat bevestig dat bokke net so goed op 'n laer kwaliteit voer presteer as op 'n dieet van 'n hoër kwaliteit. Stikstofretensie is nie deur spesie of dieet beïnvloed nie. Die BB het 'n 49% laer (P<0.01) waterinname per kg massatoename op beide die HE- en LE-dieet gehad. Beide spesies het 'n laer (P<0.01) waterinname op die hoë as die lae energie dieet gehad. Verder het die BB ook 'n daaglikse waterinname van slegs 171 ml/kg075 gehad in vergelyking met die 302 ml/kgO.75van die VM. Die gewig van die lewer, leë pens, kop en pote (as persentasie van leë liggaamsgewig) was hoër vir bokke as vir skape. Die VM's se velle was betekenisvol swaarder, waarskynlik as gevolg van wolgroei. Beide niervet en kanaalvet het toegeneem met 'n toename in slagouderdom. Die diere wat na 56 dae in die voerkraal geslag is, het betekensivol langer en dieper karkasse gehad as dié na 28 dae. Binne 'n dieet en slagouderdom, het die skape breër en dieper (P<0.05) karkasse as die bokke gehad. BB'e het betekenisvol minder gewig per eenheid karkaslengte en dus maerder karkasse as VM's gehad. Dieet-energievlak het geen betekenisvolle effek op die verspreiding van karkasgewig by bokke gehad nie. VM's het egter swaarder karkasse (LE: 19.87 vs. 15.28 kg; HE: 24.01 vs. 17.05 kg) en proporsioneel swaarder ribbes en boude as BB'e gehad. Dieet of slagouderdom het nie 'n betekenisvolle effek op die chemiese samestelling (vog, vet, proteïen en as) van die m. semimembransous gehad nie, maar VM's het laer (P<0.05) vogwaardes as BB'e gehad. In die 8-9-10-rib snit het BB'e betekenisvolle hoër vog en proteïen, maar laer vet- en energiewaardes as VM's gehad. In beide spesies het DM, vet en energiewaardes toegeneem met 'n toename in slagouderdom. BG'e het 'n betekenisvolle hoër konsentrasie in 11 van die 18 gemete essensiële aminosure in hul 8-9-10-rib snitte gehad in vergelyking met VM's. Bokkarkasse het ook hoër Ca, K, Mg, N en P-vlakke as skaapkarkasse gehad, ongeag die dieet. Daar was 'n neiging vir die bok m. semimembranosus om 'n laer Fe-inhoud as dié van die skaap te hê. BB-karkasse het 'n laer cholesterol-inhoud as skaapkarkasse (66.77 vs. 99.28 mg/100g, onderskeidelik) gehad. Palmitiensuur (C16:0), steariensuur (C18:0) en oleïensuur (C18:1n9) het die grootste proporsies van die vetsure in beide die m. semimembranosus en 8-9-10-rib snit van beide spesies uitgemaak. Op 'n LE-dieet was daar geen verskil tussen die versadigde (SFA) tot onversadigde (UFA) vetsuur-verhouding van bok- en skaapvleis nie. Op 'n HE-dieet het skaapvleis egter 'n betekenisvol hoër SFA:UFA-verhouding as bokvleis gehad (m. semimembranosus: 0.842 vs. 0.689; 8-9-10-rib snit: 1.40 vs. 0.892, onderskeidelik). Organolepties is 'n verskil tussen bok- en skaapvleis gevind. Elkeen het 'n spesifieke spesiegeur, wat onafhanklik van die dieet was. Bokvleis is waargeneem as meer veselrig as skaapvleis, maar daar was geen verskil in Warner-Bratzler skeurwaardes nie. In beide spesies het sagtheid afgeneem met 'n toename in ouderdom en daar was 'n neiging vir bokvleis om minder sappig as lamsvleis te wees. Bokvleis het ook 'n meer pertinente nasmaak as lam gehad. Geen objektiewe verskil kon tussen die kleur van gekookte skaapen bokvleis onderskei word nie. Daar was egter 'n tendens vir vars lamsvleis om 'n hoër a*- waarde (rooiheid) as bokvleis te hê. Alhoewel dieet nie 'n invloed op drupverlies gehad het nie, het drupverlies toegeneem met 'n toename in slagouderdom. Slegs na 56 dae het die VM se m. semimembranosus 'n hoër (P>0.05) drupverlies as dié van die BB getoon (LE: 4.84 vs. 3.43%; HE: 4.72 vs. 3.32%, onderskeidelik). In die m. semimembranosus van beide spesies het kookverlies toegeneem met 'n toename in slagouderdom. Aangesien dieet nie 'n effek op die groei, karkasgewig-verspreiding, waterhouvermoë, kleur, skeurwaardes of organoleptiese eienskappe van bokvleis gehad het nie, kan BB'e op 'n dieet met 'n laer ME-waarde as wat normaalweg vir skape geformuleer word, afgerond word, sonder om 'n verlaging in produksie te verwag. Dit mag 'n direkte ekonomiese voordeel vir afronding van BB'e in die voerkraal inhou. Vleis van jong voerkraalbokke is nie minderwaardig teenoor die van skape nie e-n dit het 'n hoër proteren- en laer vetpersentasie. Dus kan bokvleis as 'n gesonde voedselbron gesien word, veralonder lae-inkomste groepe of mense wat 'n lae kalorie-dieet wil inneem.

In order to find out why energy-not-supplied in Norway - the most important indicator for the quality of service in the quality-regulation regime there - decreased more pronounced before the introduction of quality-regulation in 2001 than after it, we develop a dynamic quality-DEA-model and apply it to a representative sample of distribution-net operators. Our model enables us to calculate a counter-factual and thus to tentatively answer the question: What would have happened, had there been no quality-regulation? This way we find strong evidence that the quality-regulation in Norway did not have an effect on the behavior of the firms. (author's abstract)
Series: Working Papers / Research Institute for Regulatory Economics

Thesis (Ph.D)--Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009.
Committee Chair: Hu, Xiaoping; Committee Member: Keilholz, Shella; Committee Member: Mao, Hui; Committee Member: Martin, Diego; Committee Member: Oshinski, John. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Nowadays, the main concern for IT-related service sector in organizations is to improve IT-Service Management (ITSM) by reducing cost of service in conjunction with growing in their efficiency and effectiveness. Particularly in IT firms, these concerns are much more imperative where the ITSM framework is the main section of providing service and feedback to managers. However, a challenge is that this significant service segment is ineffective by customers (I.e. IT managers) since IT maintenance and IT operations are unnoticed by IT related research. Academia together with industry demand a better knowledge and information of IT service management to work closely in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the system function.In this research study, it is attempted to review the situation of ITSM framework (I.e., Metrics) about evaluation method based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and best practices for IT-Service Management process in DB Schenker and to compare them with other corporations. At first, the researcher has done an extensive literature review on the earlier works of Metrics for IT Service Management. After extracting needed information, it is governed in an innovative way to make it more effective and efficient, then run a case study for better understanding of the real situation and to compare literature and real world. The researchers mainly choose Swedish companies as successful companies in IT management to review ITSM framework (i.e. KPIs).
Program: Masterutbildning i Informatik

BACKGROUND: The healthcare landscape is changing at a pace that traditional management structures are ill equipped to handle. In response to demands for accountability and greater value, service line management (SLM), a popularized concept in the 1980s, has recently gained renewed attention as an organizational tool for improving hospital-physician relationships, coordinating care, and aligning organizational goals, resources, and strategies. OBJECTIVES: The aim is to systematically review the literature on SLM to evaluate its effects on quality and efficiency in healthcare organizations and to identify factors that may affect success. After evaluating its impact and the potential factors affecting success, this paper will explore SLM’s generalizability and applicability in Hong Kong’s public healthcare system. METHODS: Using key words, a systematic search of EBSCO, Medline (OvidSP), ProQuest, and PubMed databases was conducted. The reference lists of the literature were further examined to find more articles. The extracted data was evaluated for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis). This analysis was used to identify and explain the organizational and environmental factors influencing SLM. RESULTS: The initial search yielded 1049 citations. After applying exclusion criteria and reviewing reference lists, 17 articles were identified. The review found that a variety of management structures could be use to achieve organizational objectives. Since each healthcare organization is unique, the structure must be tailored to its internal and external context. Success depends on multiple factors. The internal positive factors or strengths of SLM include enhanced care coordination, communication among staff, multidisciplinary collaboration, leadership, cost finding and planning, integration of information, and greater resource allocation to SLs. The internal negative factors or weaknesses include resistance to organizational change, lack of buy-in among key constituents, lack of internal readiness, inappropriate organizational structures, inadequate leadership skills, difficulties in identifying priority SL, disruptions due to the implementation process, and decreases in funding for non-prioritized areas. Positive external factors or opportunities include the potential for developing a market advantage, identifying improvement areas, enhancing patient safety, and improved public perception. Negative external factors or threats include funding cuts, alterations in reimbursement schemes, advancements in technology, and changes in market forces. CONCLUSION: Despite the hopeful results and discussions presented in the reviewed articles, there is a lack of strong evidence to support implementation and to identify factors affecting success. This is largely due to the variety of ways in which SLM have been implemented and tailored to the diverse organizational and environmental factors. Despite difficulties in comparing various SLs, hospitals and health systems that fully embrace service line management are finding success. Using the service line approach may create opportunities and confer benefits, but it may also disrupt the provision of care. Thus, physicians and managers must consider the positive and negative impacts and implications of SLM before moving forward.
published_or_final_version
Public Health
Master
Master of Public Health

The quality of the knitted fabric is an important factor in the knitwear industry. On circular knitting machines the fabric quality is improved by using the positive storage feeding device which delivers the length of the yam to the needles in order to form stitches at a constant rate. Yam tension, yam properties and elongation of the yam are important parameters influencing course length in the knitted fabric. However, course length is the most important parameter that determines the dimensions of the knitted fabrics. Therefore, a mathematical analysis was carried out to study the feasibility of using yarn length measurement in order to improve the fabric quality and the process efficiency. A PC based system was created to monitor important information such as yam run-in length, running machine condition, yam breakage, needle breakage, machine and time performance during the normal operation. An addition sensor was installed in order to determine the above parameters. Special hardware and software were developed for monitoring and analysing the knitting process parameters in real-time.

碩士
國立勤益科技大學
資訊管理系
105
At present Taiwan's traditional manufacturing industries, most of the manufacturers use the ISO standard to improve the quality and efficiency of the productions. The primary activities to make the process function effectively are quality standardization of in-process inspection, including first and last check, independent inspection, inspection examination, etc.,. But they will build very large numbers of report files during operations that make the jobs very tedious and inconvenient. This study uses feasibility-analysis to illustrate the executable conditions and uses SWOT method to analyze and cross-analyze to give strategy of quality control inspection system. listing quality inspection planning program. The main objective of this article is to simplify the inspections and to digitalize the table sheets, such that, the original complicated paper reports, through database analysis, process exception reports will be given and used for improvement scheme. The inspections are made stage by stage to confirm whether each of them fulfills the predicted planning, which keeps good efficiency of all the inspections.

碩士
國立臺北護理健康大學
健康事業管理研究所
103
Background and Purpose Since March 1995, medical industries have had huge impacts because of the implementation of the National Health Insurance in Taiwan (NHI). NHI system eliminates the economic barrier of people to receive healthcare service but also enhances the utilization of healthcare service. Recently, people have received the sufficient healthcare service in Taiwan and thus would seek for high quality healthcare service. Because of the information asymmetric, people may believe the high level hospitals may provide better healthcare survive quality. Therefore, people may centralize to the medical center for better quality service and thus cause medical centers full of patients. In this study, we employ Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to investigate the efficiency of healthcare services and calculate the congestion efficiency of each hospital in Taiwan Methods In this study, the data resource is obtained from both Ministry of Health and Welfare and Department of Statistics in Ministry of the Interior, including hospital operational data in 2012. We analyze 89 hospitals in Taiwan, including 5 medical centers, 23 regional hospitals and 61 district hospitals. The data is analyzing by using DEA-SOLVER-LV(V3) statistical analysis software and descriptive statistics, and Pearson correlation coefficient is also adopted to describe the characteristics of data. Results In Model 1, the results show that the congestion is existed in 36 hospitals, including 1 medical centers, 11 regional hospitals, and 24 district hospitals. In Model 2, the congestion is existed in 39 hospitals, including 2 medical centers, 19 regional hospitals and 39 district hospitals. In model 3, 10 regional hospitals and 29 district hospitals exist quality inefficiency. Discussion According to the results, the amount of outpatient is an important factor to affect the efficiency and may cause low quality efficiency. We suggest that people may centralize to medical centers for better healthcare service, so the utilization of healthcare service is high. On the contrary, the amount of patients is low in the district hospitals that may cause the low utilization of healthcare service. Therefore, the congestion may exist in the district hospital because of excessive healthcare service.

碩士
長庚大學
企業管理研究所
99
Firm investment efficiency has been an important issue in recent years. Despite the numerous studies documenting the relationship between financial statements and investment efficiency, a relationship between management quality and investment decision has so far received little attention in the academic literature. This thesis empirically examines the relationship between management quality and investment inefficiency. The data were hand-collected from the public listed companies in Taiwan for the periods from 2003 through 2008. Empirical results find that the size of management team, managers’ pervious working experience and CEO dominance are significantly and negatively related to investment inefficiency. These results imply that the large size of management team consisting of managers from different backgrounds with diverse viewpoints may help the firm to make the optimal investment decisions. Additionally, managers’ previous working experience may help the firms to make the right investment decision under volatile and complex environment. Third, a dominating CEO may improve and enhance the cohesion in the team. As the proportion of CEO’s share ownership increase, the agency cost between managers and shareholders decrease. This prevents managers from empire building or perquisite consumption, which causes overinvestment. Overall, all the above factors of management quality can reduce investment inefficiency.

碩士
國立臺灣科技大學
工業管理系
104
Quality sectors in terms of product inspection, quality control, and quality assurance units of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are commonly subordinated to the plant level. Owing to unclear organization definition, quality sectors are prone to serve as many roles/duties, resulting in losing focuses, being difficult to measure performances, and harming the company's overall operational efficiency. This thesis is conducted by a qualitative case study to explore the quality organization issues of SMEs for redesigning quality organization as the transition from a conventional organization. This thesis contains a case context and a teaching guidelines. Readers can understand through this thesis study regarding how a team works in SMEs to deal with quality organization redesign.

博士
東海大學
工業工程與經營資訊學系
99
In Taiwan, aging population as well as disabled population is rising in a constant pace. More and more senior citizens are arranged in the long term care facilities due to changes in social environment, family structures and family functions. Rapid increase of elderly population also causes the increase in need for long term care facilities. According to the statistics of the Department of Health, Executive Yuan, the numbers of nursing homes in Taiwan grew 11.86 times from 29 in 1997 to 373 in 2009. Therefore, the assessment of nursing home quality and management performance is becoming widely concerned. This study focuses on nursing homes to explore the related model between operating efficiency and quality of care by evidence based research. Twenty-three institutions from Taichung County are selected as the study target. Our research making use of the evaluation results of the local health authority to analyze nursing home qualities and management performance. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to evaluate the management performance of the target nursing homes and to compare the management efficiency among different categories of nursing homes. Based on the DEA model, five input and four output variables are selected and analyzed by super efficiency model analysis. The twenty-three institutions are categorized according to ownership, affiliation and scale to compare their quality by statistical Mann-whitney U test. Our findings are summarized as follow. 1. In terms of performance efficiency: (1) Average technique efficiency is 1.2644. (2) Average pure technique efficiency is 1.7885. (3) Average scale efficiency is 0.8346. (4) Only 2 out of 23 DMUs are relatively inefficient. (5) There is no significant difference between public and private nursing homes, neither between hospital affiliated and independent institutions. With respect to scale, institutions with more than 70 beds are appeared to be more efficient. 2. In terms of quality of care: (1) For indexes such as residential safety, services provided, professional consultant and care plan, public nursing homes generally perform better than private owned institutes. (2) For indexes such as residential safety, emergency facilities and overall environment, hospital affiliated nursing homes generally have better rating than independent institutions. (3) There are no significant differences in all quality indexes among institutions of different scale. 3. In terms of the correlation between performance efficiency and quality of care: Public nursing homes appear to be significant negatively correlated. Our results not only serve as an important basis for institutional managers to figure out their management problems, but also as basic principles to help manage their institutions efficiently. In addition, our study provides reference information for nursing home managers to redirect their future tasks and administration, as well as to examine whether their limited resources are used appropriately. Moreover, we hope that our study also provides as a valuable reference for the government to establish policies for elderly care.