Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Value and evaluation'

This thesis examines the nature of value in law. Value is a protean concept that, while fundamental to judicial decision-making, is not well understood. We need to develop a clearer, more sophisticated understanding of value and its derivatives and cognates – eg values, value judgments, and evaluation. This thesis aims to contribute to that task by examining three broad claims.

Key-value stores have a long history of providing users with a simple to use, yet powerful, interface to durable data storage. Useful for various purposes in their own right, they are also often used as storage layers in more complicated systems---such as fully featured database management systems. For these reasons, it is educational to investigate how such systems are actually architectured and implemented. This thesis looks in detail at two recently developed embedded key-value stores, Google LevelDB and Symas Lightning Memory-Mapped Database (LMDB). Both systems' overarching architecture and lower-level implementation details are considered to provide a thorough description of how they work. While exposing largely the same set of features, the systems are shown to take vastly different approaches to data storage. These techniques are described, and put in context with regards to existing ideas from the database management systems field. It is also shown how the designs impact performance in the face of different types of workloads.

There is a great deal of concern regarding teacher impacts on student achievement being used as a substantial portion of a teacher’s performance evaluation. This study investigated the degree of concordance and discordance between mathematics teacher ranking using value tables and covariate regression, which have both been used as measures for teacher effectiveness. The researcher examined teacher rankings, before and after the state recommended classification, using correlational techniques, comparison matrices, and visual examination for value-added scores derived from the value table versus the covariate regression approach. Examination demonstrated strong correlations between the initial rankings (r = .77 to .98) and a high concordance (γ = .96 to 1.0) once the recommended classifications were applied to the teachers rankings. The overall implications of this project are that more complex methods may parse the impact information out with higher statistical accuracy, however, once the recommended classification is applied to the methods there may be very little difference in the classification of teachers.

This thesis presents and analyses the evaluation of an European wide training programme aimed at engineers working in a large multinational automotive company. The training programme is unique in that it was conceived to address particular operational concerns and involved a multicultural workforce from six European countries. The evaluation of the training, which extends from the pilot stages of the programme through to its full implementation, where Kirkpatrick's four level evaluation framework is used, is the company’s first large scale attempt at systematic training evaluation. The evaluation of the programme is typical in its approach as reflected in the wide body of literature, however the use of meta-evaluation to determine the overall value of the evaluation approach in a commercial context provides originality and the basis for establishing an alternative approach to evaluating vocational training. The main body of the thesis is presented in three parts. Part I provides a critical review of the literature relating to; learning and training; conceptualisations of evaluation; and measurement and evaluation methodology, to establish the foundation for the empirical study. Part II is a detailed analysis of the evaluand, the evaluation methodology employed, and the results and outcomes from the evaluation. Part III provides directions for training evaluation based on a meta-evaluation of the empirical study. The thesis draws conclusions with respect to the role of evaluation in organisational training. The evaluation of training is largely conceptualised in the literature as being concerned with the assessment of value or worth of training to an organisation, which is the prevailing paradigm of Kirkpatrick's training evaluation framework. From the evidence obtained through the empirical study with regard to utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy, it is concluded that the role of evaluation should be directed towards maximising value or worth of training through the systematic assessment, feedback and optimisation of the identifiable parameters of the training process, with the outcomes of training forming part of an overall evaluation of training framework.

Performance measurement and management (PMM) poses daunting challenges to organizations in terms of meeting multiple stakeholder objectives. Evaluation of these objectives, and hence performance is essential for many reasons such as monitoring and control, diagnosis, improvement, learning and decision-making of processes or enterprise systems. Performance measures as descriptors of performance are the key tools in this evaluation process. However, the multidimensionality of performance, the inter-dependencies among performance measures and the pursuit to manage many dimensions of performance complicate the PMM process. Furthermore, the uncertainty in terms of objectives satisfaction surrounding the business processes or enterprise systems adds further complexity. To deal with these issues, a process-centered value-risk based performance management system (VR-PMS) is proposed in the current research work. The purpose is to transform the expectations and fears of stakeholders into value and risk indicators respectively for informed decision making. For this purpose, a conceptual value-risk model is developed aimed at integrating consistently the concepts relevant to objectives, activities and risks in one framework and conceptualizing the idea of value and risk based performance management. In addition, a methodological framework is developed that divides the PMM process into three phases: performance modeling, assessment and decision-making. Each phase of the framework is instrumented with quantitative analysis methods and tools. The deliverable of the VR-PMS is a set of ranked solutions (i. E. Alternative business processes) evaluated against the developed value and risk indicators
La mesure et la gestion de la performance posent problème aux entreprises en termes d'atteinte des objectifs des multi parties prenantes. L'évaluation de ces objectifs et ainsi de la performance est essentielle pour plusieurs raisons : le contrôle et la surveillance, le diagnostic, l'amélioration, l'apprentissage et la prise de la décision de processus ou système d'entreprise. Les mesures de performance étant les descripteurs de la performance jouent un rôle important dans cette évaluation. Cependant, la multi-dimensionnalité de la mesure de performance, l'interdépendance entre elles et la recherche pour mesurer plusieurs dimensions de la performance compliquent le processus de mesure de performance. De plus, l'incertitude en ce qui concerne l'atteinte des objectifs atours du processus métiers ou système d'entreprise y ajoute encore de la complexité. Pour aborder cette situation, un système de mesure de performance basé sur l'indicateur du couple (valeur-risque) (appelé VR-PMS) orienté processus a été proposé. L'objectif est de transformer les atteintes et inquiétude des parties prenantes en un indicateur de la performance et un de risque respectivement pour prendre une décision en connaissance de cause. A cet effet, un modèle conceptuel de valeur/risque est proposé : il vise à intégrer les concepts associé aux objectifs, activités et risque dans un seul cadre et conceptualise l'idée de la gestion de performance basée sur la valeur et risque. En outre, un modèle méthodologique est élaboré et divise les processus de mesure de performance en trois étapes : la modélisation de performance, évaluation et prise de décision. Chaque phase du modèle est dotée d'outils et méthodes pour l'analyse quantitative. Le livrable de VR-PMS est un classement de solutions (c'est-à-dire alternatives de processus métier) évaluée vis-à-vis l'indicateur développé à partir de valeur et risque

This thesis was requested by Solution Xperts in Linköping and is an evaluation of the software BizTalk360, which is a add-on to the very well known application integration software BizTalk Server. One problem that many face with BizTalk Server is how to handle the post-implementation operations of their implementation. Referring to such factors as monitoring and security for instance. The built-in tools are very limited and lack a variety of functions that are very desirable. BizTalk360 tries to solve this. In order to evaluate the value that BizTalk360 brings to its users, two factors were taken into account. How important are the functions provided for the company? And how difficult would these be to implement independently?. After testing the BizTalk360 core functions and features and also implementing a representative function of BizTalk360, everything learnt were presented to group of experienced BizTalk Sever developers in order to receive estimates regarding their individual importance and theoretical implementation time. The importance of the functions proved quite minor. The platform offers a lot of smart solutions to various problems but these wont see enough use to justify the cost. The difficulty of implementing a similar platform were also estimated to be quite low, only time consuming. Estimated to take (through average) 653 man hours.

This dissertation discovered the factors influencing how students value asynchronous Web-based courses through the use of qualitative methods. Data was collected through surveys, observations, interviews, email correspondence, chat room and bulletin board transcripts. Instruments were tested in pilot studies of previous semesters. Factors were identified for two class formats. The asynchronous CD/Internet class format and the synchronous online Web based class format. Also, factors were uncovered for two of the instructional tools used in the course: the WebCT forum and WebCT testing. Factors were grouped accordingly as advantages or disadvantages under major categories. For the asynchronous CD/Internet class format the advantages were Convenience, Flexibility, Learning Enhancement, and Psychology. The disadvantages included Isolation, Learning Environment, and Technology. For the synchronous online Web based class format the advantages were Convenience, Flexibility, Human Interaction, Learning Enhancement and Psychology, whereas the disadvantages included Isolation, Learning Environment and Technology. Concurrently, the study revealed the following factors as advantages of the WebCT Forum: Help Each Other, Interaction, Socialization, Classroom News, and Time Independent. The disadvantages uncovered were Complaints, Technical Problems and Isolation. Finally, advantages specified for the WebCT testing tool were Convenience, Flexibility and Innovations, and its disadvantages were Surroundings Not Conducive to Learning, and Technical Problems. Results indicate that not only classroom preference, learning style and personality type influence how students value a Web based course, but, most importantly, a student's lifestyle (number of personal commitments, how far they live, and life's priorities). The WebCT forum or bulletin board, and the WebCT testing or computerized testing were seen mostly by students, as good tools for encouraging classroom communication and testing because of the convenience and flexibility offered. Still, further research is needed both quantitatively and qualitatively to ascertain the true weight of the factors discovered in this study.

La presente tesis doctoral se presenta en forma de compendio de publicaciones, en la cual se han desarrollado diversos Modelos Causales para ayudar en la toma de decisiones usando como herramienta principal las relaciones causa-efecto inherente del sistema. A continuación se describen brevemente los artículos incluidos en la tesis doctoral El artículo titulado “A CD&CR causal model based on path shortening/path stretching techniques” publicado por la revista Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies esta enfocado hacia la investigación académica de alto nivel que aborda el desarrollo, las aplicaciones y consecuencias, de las nuevas tecnologías en el campo del transporte. El enfoque del modelo causal desarrollado en Redes de Petri Coloreadas aportan no solo una metodología innovativa per se, sino que su aplicación e implicaciones en la etapa de planificación, diseño, y gestión, es de particular interés en el rendimiento general del sistema de transporte aéreo. En artículo titulado "Revisiting the pallet loading problem using a discrete event system approach to minimise logistic costs” publicado en la revista International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) se presenta un modelo orientado a eventos discretos para abordar el Problema del Palletizado (PLP) usando como formalismo de especificación las Redes de Petri Coloreadas. El problema de Paletizado conforma una parte fundamental en el flujo logístico de diversos sistemas de transporte (terrestre o aéreo), siendo un factor clave en etapas aguas arriba (e.g. producción) y abajo del sistema (e.g. distribución). El trabajo presenta una novedosa forma de modelado con una importante mejora de los kPI’s respecto a los actuales entornos comerciales, soportando tanto diferentes heurísticas así como su integración con el sistema para encontrar configuraciones óptimas para el acomodo de cajas con una tipología diversa. El artículo denominado "Integrating and sequencing flows in terminal maneuvering area by evolutionary algorithms," publicado por la IEEE/AIAA en el Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2011 presenta una aproximación innovadora para aliviar el problema de congestión en el espacio aéreo terminal (terminal maneouvering área). En este artículo se analiza un procedimiento alternativo para la integración y secuenciación de las aeronaves en la fase de aterrizaje. El artículo ha recibido diversas menciones tal como el mejor artículo de la sesión, mejor artículo en la sección de mejoras a la capacidad del sector aéreo y mejor artículo de estudiante. Estas menciones indican la importancia y trascendencia de dicho trabajo donde se utilizan algoritmos desarrollados para la optimización de sistemas altamente complejos como es el espacio aéreo terminal. El artículo que lleva por nombre “A TMA 4DT CD/CR causal model based in path shortening/path stretching techniques”, publicado en el International Conference on Research in Air Transportation — ICRAT 2010, ha recibido la mención Best paper award reconociendo las aportaciones del trabajo presentado. El modelo desarrollado en Redes de Petri Coloreadas para la solución de conflictos entre aeronaves presenta resultados experimentales validados mediante simuladores de vuelo de la compañía Aireuropa que permiten validar las trayectorias obtenidas mediante el modelo desarrollado. Finalmente, el articulo Causal model to sequence and merge 4DT flows in TMA, se encuentran publicados en las memorias del International Conference on Application and Theory of Automation in Command and Control Systems ATTACS2011 donde se presenta un algoritmo de solución para la secuencializacion y fusión de flujos de aterrizaje de aeronaves donde se muestra el gran potencial para mejorar de la toma de decisiones usando el espacio de estados de los modelos de RdPC.
The present PhD thesis report has been elaborated as a compendium of publications, in which diverse Causal Models have been developed to assist in the decision making process using a cause-effect relationship approach inherent in the system. A brief description of the items included in the doctoral thesis. The document is organized in four different parts. First, the Chapter called “Basic Notions” introduces the basic notions and a general perspective on the systems approach. Particular interest has been placed in the Discrete-Event Systems approach, presenting the main features of this formalism. The main theory behind the Coloured Petri Nets approach is presented in Section 2.1.1 Different case studies are provided from Chapters 3 to 5. Chapter 3 presents the work named “A CD&CR causal model based on path shortening/path stretching techniques”, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. This work depicts a groundbreaking approach to alleviate the airspace congestion and to deal with the implications for the planning, design, and management of Air Traffic Control operations. Particular interest has been placed Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) where the traffic conditions impose to take time-critical decisions. Therefore, an appropriate management of arrival operations could alleviate congestion which impacts directly in capacity and efficiency of the overall Air Traffic Management operations. To evaluate the performance of the the resolution strategy to avoid non-efficient procedures, diverse scenarios have been tasted in a busy traffic period at Gran Canaria’s airport. The result obtain contribute with the planning and management of Air Traffic Control operations to increase the overall predictability of the Air traffic, with benefit to airlines and airports, among others. Chapter 4 corresponds to the article "Revisiting the pallet loading problem using a discrete event system approach to minimise logistic costs” published in the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR). This work presents an innovative and challenging modelling approach to optimize the space and distribution of boxes into a pallet, supporting the inherent box diversity (heterogeneous palletizing problems) of present production and distribution logistic systems. The space utilization is modelled as squares that can be fragmentise and de-fragmentise. In a first approach, the state space analysis is performed to evaluate different optimal configurations to load the maximum number of boxes on a rectangular pallet. The second approach implements heuristics to show that acceptable occupancy results can be obtained without requiring the exhaustive evaluation of the different feasible combination. Chapter 5 introduces the work "Integrating and sequencing flows in terminal maneuvering area by evolutionary algorithms" in proceeding of the IEEE/AIAA en el Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2011. This work has received three mentions: Best student paper award; Best paper in the ATM Capacity Improvements track award; y Best paper of session award which confirm the transcendence and implications of such approach. This chapter presents a new approach to optimize a set of aircraft planned to land at a given airport. It is proposed to merge the incoming flows from different routes by mean of speed and path changes. Those changes aim to remove conflicts at merging points and to maintain separation of aircraft following the same route link according to their wake turbulence constraint. The optimization criteria are based on the minimum deviation from the initial path planning. This algorithm has been successfully applied to Gran Canaria airport in Spain with real traffic demand samples for which conflict free flow merging is produced smoothly with optimal runway feeding. Finally, Chapter 5 contains the overall conclusions, future work, summary of contributions and complementary publications on the author. The work presented in annex called “Causal model to sequence and merge 4DT flows in TMA” summarizes the development of a decision support algorithm to tackle the merging and sequencing problem within the Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) sector. The algorithm works with multiple landing traffic flows that share the airspace in the same time window. A flexible terminal area route structure is proposed; it eliminates conflicts within the Standard Terminal Arrival (STAR) while traffic is merged prior converging on to the final approach. As a first instance the first come first serve (FCFS) sequence policy will be tasted and later on the sequence will be altered by means of the Constrained Position Shifting (CPS) algorithm. Gran Canaria STAR is used to evaluate the benefits of the proposed model under synthetic traffic; and to determine the spacing buffers the ICAO Separation minima (ICAO DOC-4444) criteria is used as on current methodology. Finally, in Annex, the paper “A TMA 4DT CD/CR causal model based in path shortening/path stretching techniques” introduces the basic ideas behind a discrete event model for Conflict Detection and Conflict Resolution algorithm in a TMA 4D trajectory scenario in presented which focuses mainly on the arrival phase. This model brings a very interesting knowledge about the events that take place in the management of 4DT and their interactions in Gran Canaria TMA to remove non-effective operations, avoid delay propagation between arrivals and optimize the occupancy of the runway. The causal model developed considers different alternative predefined turning points for each flight evaluating path shortening/path stretching of all trajectories upwards the merging point in a TMA.

Public private partnerships (PPPs) are procurement models used in the provision of public infrastructures and involving private, as opposed to public, finance. The PPP model differs from the traditional public procurement model in this sense and in the unprecedented degree to which the private sector is involved. All things being equal, the rationale for choosing a PPP instead of a traditional public procurement model is if it provides a better Value for Money. As a result, a crucial issue to address is to find the key drivers of Value for Money in PPP projects and most importantly, to analyze the relationships between those key drivers and the complex notion of Value for Money. This study is based on a large overview of the literature together with contributions of informal interviews and my own opinions. Emphasis is put on the importance of risk management from financiers’ perspective and its consequences on Value for Money. The findings highlight the current problems in the Value for Money assessment that make the analysis hardly reliable. Good and bad practices in Value for Money assessment are discussed and potential solutions and guidance toward more Value for Money are provided.

This thesis discusses the phenomenon of currency crises, in particular it is devoted to empirical identification of crisis periods. As a crisis indicator, we aim to utilize an exchange market pressure index which has been revealed as a very powerful tool for the exchange market pressure quantification. Since enumeration of the exchange market pressure index is crucial for further analysis, we pay special attention to different approaches of its construction. In the majority of existing literature on exchange market pressure models, a currency crisis is defined as a period of time when the exchange market pressure index exceeds a predetermined level. In contrast to this, we incorporate a probabilistic approach using the extreme value theory. Our goal is to prove that stochastic methods are more accurate, in other words they are more reliable instruments for crisis identification. We illustrate the application of the proposed method on a selected sample of four central European countries over the period 1993 - 2012, or 1993 - 2008 respectively, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The choice of the sample is motivated by the fact that these countries underwent transition reforms to market economies at the beginning of 1990s and therefore could have been exposed to speculative attacks on their newly arisen currencies. These countries are often assumed to be relatively homogeneous group of countries at similar stage of the integration process. Thus, a resembling development of exchange market pressure, particularly during the last third of the estimation period, would not be surprising.

The problem related to this study was to develop a clearer understanding of the impact of Tennessee's Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) on school superintendents' decision-making responsibilities in view of school reform efforts at both the national and state levels during the last decade. The purpose of this study was to identify relationships between three independent variables (superintendents' years of experience, superintendents' perceived degree of personnel acceptance, and superintendents' perceived technical assistance availability for data analysis and interpretation of results) and superintendents perceptions of the system on eight aspects (student learning; teacher performance; school system success; educational accountability; educational equality; assessment decisions; personnel decisions; and, curriculum and professional development decisions). Superintendents in the 139 Tennessee school systems were surveyed using an instrument containing 51 response items. The return rate was 81% (N = 112). Six research questions were answered by analyzing 24 null hypotheses using the chi square test, with Kendall's Tau-B for determining strength of relationships. Hypotheses were tested at the.05 level of significance. All null hypotheses related to superintendents' perceived degree of school personnel acceptance were rejected, with the exception of personnel decisions. All null hypotheses related to superintendents' years of experience were retained. The null hypothesis related to superintendents' perceived TVAAS technical assistance received and educational accountability was rejected. All other null hypotheses related to superintendents' perceived technical assistance availability regarding data analysis and interpretation of value-added assessment results were retained. Results indicated the practice of participatory leadership among Tennessee superintendents. Recommendations included further research to determine possible differences between rural and urban school systems and between elected and appointed superintendents across Tennessee.

In the past decades, while many countries planned and undertook more and bigger infrastructure megaprojects, poor performance has marred their delivery, for example through cost overruns, delays, disputes, and shortfalls in expected benefits. It is therefore important to improve performance levels, especially in infrastructure megaprojects that can considerablely influence the economy, society and environment. Project evaluation is an effective tool in project performance management as it provides stakeholders with a management process through which they can learn from the past and perform better in the future. Most of the traditional evaluation approaches emphasize the three basic success criteria of time, budget and quality. However, with the increasing importance of sustainability criteria and concerns, as well as the growing imperatives for stakeholder engagement, it has already been suggested to reconsider and redefine value by also evaluating other factors, such as those related to the environment and society. Therefore, an integrated whole life cycle value (WLCV) evaluation framework is proposed in order to improve infrastructure megaproject WLCV performance. In this study, whole life cycle (WLC) evaluation has a two-fold meaning: (i) the evaluation is based on a set of value factors drawn from a WLCV system; and (ii) this evaluation is a systematic continuous process from the start to the end of the project. However, considering the unique characteristics of every project, a totally fixed or static structure and content framework is neither sufficient nor suitable for the various types of infrastructure megaprojects. The recommended solution is to develop a semi-flexible framework that enables a pre-determined step by step dynamic structure formulation and a flexible WLCV system. In order to measure project WLCV derived from stakeholders’ expectations, from more objective and persuasive perspectives, the relevant value objectives/criteria/indicators, their weightings and targets will be identified, integrated and developed through this WLCV system. Cross-criteria relationships which have not been addressed adequately before, will be dealt with by assigning appropriate weightings. It is also proposed to build a database to store completed project information including various stakeholders’ expectations expressed in the form of value objectives. In order to develop the above proposed framework, a basic literature review was conducted to reveal and analyze the significant evaluation problems, identify trends in stakeholder engagement and develop the concept as well as typical criteria and indicators of project WLCV. Meanwhile evaluation practices, stakeholder engagement in the process of evaluation and WLCV perspectives in the Hong Kong construction industry were examined through a first round of interviews and the first of two focus group meetings. The first focus group meeting, second round interviews and the second focus group meeting were conducted to improve the proposed framework by investigating the importance of assigning an appropriate weighting to each value objective and each group of stakeholders; elaborating the various value criteria to measure value objectives at appropriate points of a project WLC. The findings from literature reviews, interviews, focus group meetings and a case study were integrated and injected into developing the aforementioned framework for building and administering the evaluation of project WLCV in ways that could improve desired project WLC performance. The outputs of the current research are expected to assist clients of infrastructure megaprojects to build a sense of ownership among all the key stakeholders at the outset, and to help motivate all stakeholders to be more co-operative, with a view to jointly targeting and monitoring an agreed project WLCV, thereby helping to achieve better WLC performance on infrastructure megaprojects. The main contributions to knowledge from this research are in developing a comprehensive evaluation methodology which combines and refines relevant components from existing evaluation approaches as well as injects the WLCV concept and criteria into a more holistic approach that is expected to identify and address current inadequacies in infrastructure megaproject delivery.
published_or_final_version
Civil Engineering
Master
Master of Philosophy

It is a central claim of modern linguistic theory that linguists do not prescribe, but describe language as it is, without pronouncing on correctness or judging one variety better than another. This attempt to exclude evaluation is motivated by a desire to be ' politically correct', which hinders objective analysis of language, and by an ill-advised imitation of the natural sciences, which obstructs the discipline's progress towards becoming a science in its own right. It involves linguists, as users of a valued variety, in self-deception and disingenuousness, distances them from the concerns of the ordinary language user, and betrays a failure to understand the involvement of social values in language, the nature of language itself, and the limits of linguistic science. On a wider scale, linguistics reflects society's devaluing and mechanisation of language. Despite growing concern expressed in the literature, and the incoherence that becomes apparent when linguists attempt to address social problems using a theory that regards language as an autonomous object, newcomers to the discipline continue to be taught that anti-prescriptivism is the natural corollary of a scientific approach to language. This thesis suggests that the way out of these difficulties is to rethink the meaning of ' theory' in linguistics. If we take the reflexivity of language seriously, building on M.A.K. Halliday's notion of 'linguistics as metaphor', we are reminded that a linguistic theory is made of language. Metalanguage must use the experiential and interpersonal meaning-making resources of everyday language. It follows that a linguistic theory cannot escape being evaluative, because evaluation is an inherent part of interpersonal meaning. If we fail to notice our own metalinguistic evaluation, this is because language disguises its evaluative meanings, or perhaps we are just not used to thinking of them as part of the grammar. To achieve clarity about the involvement of value in language, we need to turn our metalanguage back on itself - 'using the grammar to think with about the grammar' . Some ways of doing this are demonstrated here, turning the resources of systemic functional linguistics on linguists' own language. The circularity of this process should be seen not as a drawback but as a salutary reminder that linguistics is an interpretive rather than a discovery process. This knowledge should help us revalue language and make a place for evaluation in linguistic theory, paving the way for a socially responsible and productive linguistics.

Thesis (PhD (Economics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008.
The primary financial objective of a firm is the maximisation of its shareholders’ value. A problem faced by the shareholders of a firm is that it is difficult to determine the effect of management decisions on the future share returns of the firm. Furthermore, it may be necessary to implement certain monitoring costs to ensure that management is focused on achieving this objective. A firm would, therefore, benefit from being able to identify those financial performance measures that are able to link the financial performance of the firm to its share returns. Implementing such a financial performance measure in the valuation and reward systems of a firm should ensure that management is aligned with the objective of shareholder value maximisation, and rewarded for achieving it. A large number of traditional financial performance measures have been developed. These measures are often criticised for excluding a firm’s cost of capital, and are considered inappropriate to be used when evaluating value creation. Furthermore, it is argued that these measures are based on accounting information, which could be distorted by Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP). Studies investigating the relationship between these measures and share returns also provide conflicting results. As a result of the perceived limitations of traditional measures, value based financial performance measures were developed. The major difference between the traditional and value based measures is that the value based measures include a firm’s cost of capital in their calculation. They also attempt to remove some of the accounting distortions resulting from GAAP. Proponents of the value based measures present these measures as a major improvement over the traditional financial performance measures and report high levels of correlation between the measures and share returns. A number of studies containing contradictory results have been published. On the basis of these conflicting results it is not clear whether the value based measures are able to outperform the traditional financial performance measures in explaining share returns. The primary objectives of this study are thus to: • Determine the relationship between the traditional measures earnings before extraordinary items (EBEI) and cash from operations (CFO), and shareholder value creation; • Investigate the value based measures residual income (RI), economic value added (EVA), cash value added (CVA) and cash flow return on investments (CFROI), and to determine their relationship with the creation of shareholder value; • Evaluate the incremental information content of the value based measures above the traditional measures. The information content of the traditional measures and the value based measures are evaluated by employing an approach developed by Biddle, Bowen and Wallace (1997). The first phase of this approach entails the evaluation of the relative information content of the various measures in order to determine which measure explains the largest portion of a firm’s market-adjusted share returns. The second phase consists of an evaluation of the incremental information content of the components of a measure in order to determine whether the inclusion of an additional component contributes statistically significant additional information beyond that contained in the other components. The study is conducted for South African industrial firms listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange for the period 1991 to 2005. The data required to calculate the measures investigated in the study are obtained from the McGregor BFA database. This database contains annual standardised financial statements for listed and delisted South African firms. It also contains EVA, cost of capital and invested capital amounts for those firms listed at the end of the research period. Including only these listed firms in the research sample would expose the study to a survivorship bias. Hence these values are estimated for those firms that delisted during the period under review by employing a similar approach to the one used in the database. The resulting sample consists of 364 firms providing 3181 complete observations. Since different information is required to calculate the various measures included in the study, different samples are compiled from this initial sample and included in the tests conducted to evaluate the information content of the measures. The results of this study indicate that the value based measures are not able to outperform EBEI in the majority of the relative information content tests. Furthermore, the measures EVA, CVA and CFROI are also not able to outperform the relatively simple value based measure RI. The results from the incremental information content tests indicate that although some of the components of the value based measures provide statistically significant incremental information content, the level of significance for these relatively complex adjustments is generally low. Based on these results, the claims made by the proponents of the value based measures cannot be supported. Furthermore, if a firm intends to incorporate its cost of capital in its financial performance measures, the measure RI provides most of the benefits contained in the other more complex value based measures.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate five different volatility forecasting models that are used to calculate financial market risk. The models are used on both daily exchange rates and high-frequency intraday data from four different series. The results show that time series models fitted to high-frequency intraday data together with a critical value taken from the empirical distribution displayed the best forecasts overall.

President Obama's Race to the Top competitive grant program instigated a wave of teacher evaluation reform. Teachers across the nation are being assessed based on student learning outcomes in combination with observations of performance and several other factors potentially including professional responsibility and the perceptions of students and parents. In Connecticut, 45% of a teacher's evaluation is now based on student learning objectives (SLOs) (Connecticut Guidelines for Teacher Evaluation, 2012). As a result, teachers are being asked to make changes in the way they think about assessment, plan for instruction, collaborate with colleagues, and converse with administrators. Judicious use of classroom observations, student achievement data, and feedback from students is critical to improve educational outcomes (Marshall, 2012). A multi-faceted approach incorporating use of well-grounded evaluative tools within systems that recognize teacher collaboration serves to support greater student learning (Darling-Hammond et al., 2011).

This research study is informed by a comprehensive review of the literature related to school improvement and accountability, effective teaching, teacher evaluation models, and change theory. Additionally, the study is predicated on the notion that current evaluation reform will be fruitless without teacher input (Weiner & Lundy, 2013). Fourteen elementary classroom teachers in Connecticut revealed perceptions about the influence of value-added evaluation on their professional efficacy both before and after the implementation began. This study applied qualitative research with a phenomenological approach to explore the manner in which value-added teacher evaluation implementation affected teachers on a personal and professional level. The use of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews revealed four major themes: stress, accountability, communication, and fairness. The research uncovered a shift in focus from concerns about student achievement pre-implementation to concerns about the use of data for evaluation purposes and its effect on teachers once implementation was underway. Additionally, teachers demonstrated concern about equity in evaluation based on invalid or unreliable test data and the exclusion of external factors affecting test scores. Most teachers stated that close communication with principal and colleagues was central to their success with the new plans. These underlying themes indicate a need to reflect on the true intent of teacher evaluation systems and determine whether that intent is indeed being fulfilled.

The reliability of genetic evaluations across separate management units (e.g. flocks) depends on the extent of genetic links or connections among animals in these units. Where poor connectedness exists, comparisons of estimated breeding values (EBV) across units may be biased. The objectives of this study were to identify breeding strategies to increase connectedness among units, to evaluate statistics that may reflect the reduction in bias as connectedness increases in such strategies, and to assess levels of connectedness in Suffolk and Targhee flocks participating in the National Sheep Improvement Program. Expectations of bias when production units have different genetic means were derived for a simple sire model. These expectations were applied to data involving two flocks of animals with three different types of connections: sharing of a common reference sire or use of either a full- or half-sibling sire in each flock. Bias decreased as numbers of progeny in each flock increased for all methods. Linking through a reference sire was most effective and was the only method that eliminated bias as progeny numbers became infinite. Pedigree and performance data on a single trait with heritability 0.25 were then simulated for 15 flocks with 40 to 140 ewes per flock. Each flock was simulated with a different founder genetic mean to introduce bias into the genetic evaluation. Flocks participated in sire referencing schemes by artificial insemination, with varying levels of participation, or by natural service. With sire referencing genetic gain was higher and inbreeding was lower than without, and bias was rapidly reduced to near-zero levels. Discontinuing the schemes led to lower genetic gain, but bias was not reintroduced. The prediction error correlation of flock genetic means was proposed as a connectedness measure because it was strongly associated with bias. Benchmarks of 0.05 and 0.10 for "good" and "superior" connectedness were established. Targhee flocks have increased connectedness across the breed by actively exchanging rams over 15 yr. In the Suffolk breed, connectedness has only improved within segregated clusters of flocks. Suffolk breeders need to engage in active ram exchange to decrease risk of biased across-flock EBV comparisons.
Ph. D.

The debate on how to measure the value of IT is an ongoing debate within the IT evaluation research. Research about the value of IT tends to focus on formal aspects and ignore informal aspects such as the subjective perceptions of individuals and researchers acknowledge a lack of informal evaluation methods used in practice. This study aims to answer two research questions: How can informal value of IS be evaluated? and What are the benefits and drawbacks of relying on informal value when assessing IS? To answer these questions a qualitative case study have been conducted using the DeLone & McLean IS Success Model as a theoretical framework. The results show that using the model was successful however we argue that important aspects were missing in the model. The benefits of relying on informal value showed to be the possibilities of discovering aspects of value that are not visible in formal evaluation. The drawbacks of performing an informal evaluation are that they are complicated and time-consuming and do not promise useful results.

We evaluated behavior exhibited by individuals with developmental disabilities using progressive ratio schedules. High- and low-preferred stimuli were determined based on the results of a paired-stimulus preference assessment and were evaluated in subsequent reinforcer and progressive ratio assessments using concurrent- and single-operant schedules of presentation in a modified reversal design. Results showed that for two participants, stimuli determined to be low-preferred via a preference assessment functioned as reinforcers when evaluated independently of high-preferred stimuli and under gradually increasing response requirements. The results suggest that for cases in which a high-preferred stimulus is unavailable or unfeasible, the contingent delivery of relatively less-preferred stimuli may maintain appropriate behavior, even as response effort is increased. In addition, results of the progressive ratio evaluation are suggestive of stimulus value.

Fun Flights is a charter flight brokerage company that offers leisure travelers themed, non-stop charter flights to premier destinations in the United States. Fun Flights' benchmarks include commercial airlines and charter flight companies. The functional unit used for comparison is ticket prices. When compared to commercial airlines, Fun Flights promotes leisure travel specifically to premier destinations financially lagging in tourism as of the recent economic downturn. These destinations include Las Vegas, Nevada; Honolulu, Hawaii; Disneyworld and Disneyland. The social trade-off of Fun Flights is increased competition in an already struggling market. Fun Flights is offering an experiential alternate value to leisure travelers by providing a themed, charter flight experience through the use of our online community and social media. Fun Flights will affectively promote travel and tourism to premier destinations throughout the United States that need help recovering from economic recession.

This study employed a mixed methods approach to evaluate the meaning and value of grades within a traditional grading system. Teachers’ grading and assessment practices were examined in terms of clarity, consistency, and to what extent assessment guided instruction. Teachers from a high-performing suburban high school in the Northeast responded to an electronic survey and participated in focus groups regarding their grading and assessment practices. Gradebooks were analyzed to triangulate teacher practices and perspectives regarding the meaning of student grades. Clark and Estes (2008) Gap Analysis Framework was utilized to assess knowledge, motivational, and organizational influences on teachers’ grading and assessment practices. The findings of this assessment revealed that teachers possessed knowledge about assessment and the motivation to apply it, but faced organizational barriers implementing effective practices in a traditional grading system. Responses indicated that teachers understood and used formative assessment during class, but also included it in students’ grades to elicit effort and ensure sufficient graded assignments to justify student performance. Organizational constructs such as marking periods and online grading systems, in addition to an overall lack of organizational support and training, were found to be substantial obstacles to teachers achieving the stakeholder and organizational goals. The findings of this study emphasized the need for enhanced training, collaboration, and communication on grading and assessment. The development and implementation of an effective plan to address these organizational issues could shift schools from using traditional grading systems to rank and sort students to assessment programs that promote student learning.

In a small, rural school district in the southeastern United States, elementary school teachers were receiving positive evaluation ratings while student proficiency on state assessments was below the state average. Due to changes in federal and state laws, school personnel evaluate methods have undergone significant reform. The purpose of this study was to answer the guiding research questions of teachers and administrators perceptions toward the value-added model (VAM) of evaluation and how those perceptions affect teacher performance. Taylor's scientific management theory, which suggests examining human productivity through the lens of applied science served as the conceptual framework. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with a homogeneous group of 4 elementary teachers and 4 principals. Thematic data followed an open-coding process to identify categories and emergent themes. The findings revealed that teachers believed VAM had little effect on their instructional practice and principals rarely used VAM data to recommend professional development to teachers. This study included the creation of a professional development project to provide a clear understanding of VAM and a method for analyzing student data to inform (a) instruction, (b) pedagogical and content knowledge in the area of balanced literacy and assessments, and (c) a summative review of student data related to VAM. The study and project have implications for positive social change by providing district and school-based leaders with insight into the effects of many decisions related to teacher evaluations.

Since the events of 9/11, there has been tremendous amount of renewed interests in the study of trade security. There has been an influx of security regulations and the private sector has been trying to keep pace in complying with them. However, due to the public externalities of security improvements and the lack of quantified and proven benefits, the private sector is struggling to establish business cases for their security initiatives. There is very little quantitative research in this area. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM), this study serves to fill this gap by introducing a statistical way of analysing and understanding the complex relationships amongst security effort, its motivators and performance and traditional supply chain performance (SCP). This study also proposes an evaluation framework for security efforts. EFA results show that security is a dimension of SCP. This means that organizations have all along been measuring an aspect of their operations that relates to security. As such, organizations should not perceive the current heightened interests in security as throwing them off-balance. In evaluating security efforts, organizations should select key performance indicators (KPIs) that represent each of the four areas of information, cargo, people and cost. SEM results show that organizations undertake security efforts as a result of both perceived security benefits and perceived collateral benefits, with perceived security benefits carrying a greater weight in the decision-making process. Results also show that organizations are implementing security initiatives out-of-compliance i.e. implementing initiatives that they perceive as not having significant impacts on security and SCP. In view of the positive relationships among perceived security impact, security effort and security performance, there is further imperative for an objective method for evaluating security efforts to prevent effort justification behaviour in determining the effectiveness of the same. Results also show that organizations perceive an improved performance in security leads to an overall improvement in SCP. However, as with other supply chain strategies, there are tradeoffs and not all aspects of SCP are impacted in the same way. Time, responsiveness and efficiency for instance are negatively impacted while reliability is positively impacted.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2003.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa has made a remarkable transformation from an openly racist to a tolerant and democratic nation. The transformation process removed the legal barriers between subgroups that formerly postulated separate development for the various racial groups and restricted the contact between individuals to a major extent. In present day society, one can observe the transformation process in that South African citizens from different backgrounds have to develop new patterns of communication and interaction. This process was mirrored in the student culture of Stellenbosch. The first objective of this study was to research how individual students experienced their social and academic environment. Since student relations do not always conform to the University norm of mutual respect for human diversity, the University felt the need to facilitate an intervention for valuing human diversity. The second objective of this study was to evaluate the process of the intervention, focusing on the programme context, the programme activities and the program theory. In addition, the impressions of workshop participants were studied. In order to conceptualise the research objectives, the theoretical principles of valuing diversity were discussed in the form of a purposive literature review on the social psychology and sociology of stereotyping and related processes, which were examined as barriers to valuing diversity. The Value Diversity Intervention was implemented in August 2001. The intervention aimed to heighten students' awareness of the diversity of the student body and to improve the interaction among the various student subgroups. The intervention was designed as a workshop and included 50 students from various backgrounds who were living in the University residences. Two evaluation types were utilised in this study, i.e. the evaluation of perceived needs and the evaluation of the intervention process. The research questions were clarified and the specific methods for gathering and analysing the data were specified. In addition, the aspect of validity and the quality of the obtained data were reviewed. The evaluation of perceived needs showed that individual students perceived the student population to be divided into minority ('coloured', 'black') and majority ('white') groups. Even though group membership did not affect specific instances of intergroup relations (e.g. individual friendships), it had implications for the social atmosphere on campus, which was characterised by a lack of intergroup contact and a domination by the majority group. Accordingly, minority group members interpreted the social atmosphere more negatively than majority group members. Hence, minority group members perceived a need to improve intergroup interaction. This analysis indicates that a value diversity intervention may be beneficial. This corresponded to the view of the Department of Student Affairs, which arranged the Value Diversity Intervention. The evaluation of the intervention highlighted both negative and positive aspects. Firstly, the intervention design did not include the promotion of the intervention itself, which might have been essential making students interested in the diversity topic and in motivating students to participate. Secondly, the intervention did not address the specific diversity challenges as experienced by students of the University of Stellenbosch. Students expressed concerns regarding the applicability of the provided information in their daily life. Thirdly, the workshop focused mainly on stereotypes. Yet, the possible effects of stereotypes were not sufficiently discussed. In addition, a large number of stereotypes were listed, but these were often biased due to the lack of participants from diverse groups. Further, no workshop technique which questioned the presented lists of biased stereotypes was applied or generated. Besides these technical considerations, it should be noted that stereotypes in general perpetuate the division between subgroups. Thus, the workshop focused to a large extent on past and present aspects, which divide the student population, instead of focusing on uniting issues. The described negative aspects might have been balanced by one of the four observed workshops. This specific workshop was characterised by a small amount of participants and a positive presentation of one of the main facilitators. This resulted in a productive discussion, where the participants used the possibility to reflect on the current situation out of their perspective and reflected upon the contributions of the facilitator. Students might have been motivated to take positive impulses of this workshop in their daily life. Based upon this research, recommendations can be determined. Firstly, the promotion of the intervention should emphasize the desirability of diversity values and highlight the personal potential benefits to participants. Secondly, it might be useful to acknowledge differences between students, but to place a greater emphasis on similarities, i.e. on aspects that connect students. Thirdly, the curriculum of the intervention should be modified to cater especially for student needs. Fourthly, the selected workshop components should achieve an equal balance between lecture parts and interactive elements. Participants should have the possibility to take an active part in the intervention if they are interested in doing so. The final recommendation entails that future interventions should be based on a comprehensive, sustained strategy with long-term goals. These strategies should be integrated in the already existing infrastructure of an institution. This intervention has to be understood as a contribution to the transformation process that South Africa is currently undergoing. Based on the recent discussion at the University of Stellenbosch about the adoption of a comprehensive diversity strategy, it is hoped that this singular intervention will be linked to further contributions in this transformation process.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Suid Afrika het 'n merkwaardige transformasie vanaf 'n openlik rassistiese tot 'n tolerante en demokratiese nasie ondergaan. Voorheen het die wetlike skeiding tussen subgroepe aparte ontwikkeling en, vir verskeie rassegroepe, minimale kontak met individue in verskillende rassegroepe beteken. Die transformasieproses in Suid-Afrika het hierdie omstandighede verander en in die huidige Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing is die proses waardeur mense van verskillende agtergronde nuwe patrone van kommunikasie en interaksie moet ontwikkel, merkbaar. Die transformasieproses kan ook in die studentekultuur van Stellenbosch gesien word. Die eerste doel van die tesis was om ondersoek in te stel na hoe individuele studente hulle sosiale en akademiese omgewing ervaar. Aangesien studenteverhoudinge nie altyd tot die Universiteit se norm van wedersydse respek vir menslike diversiteit konformeer nie, het die Universiteit gevoel dat daar 'n behoefte is om 'n intervensie te fasiliteer om waardering vir menslike diversiteit skep. Die tweede doel van die tesis was om die proses van die intervensie te evalueer deur te fokus op die konteks van die program, die programaktiwiteite en die programteorie. Verder is die indrukke van die deelnemers aan die werkswinkelook bestudeer. Die teoretiese beginsels onderliggend aan die waardering van diversiteit is bespreek ten einde die navorsingsdoelwitte te konseptualiseer. Dit is verwesenlik deur 'n "doelgerigte" literatuurstudie oor die sosiale sielkunde en sosiologie van stereotipering en verwante prosesse wat gesien word as struikelblokke in die evaluering van diversiteit. Die intervensie vir die waardering van diversiteit is in Augustus 2001 deur die Universiteit van Stellenbosch geimplimenteer. Die intervensie het as doel gehad om studente 'n verhoogde gewaarwording van die diversiteit van die studenteliggaam te bied en ook om interaksie tussen die verskeie studente-subgroepe te bevorder. Die intervensie is ontwerp as 'n werkswinkel vir 50 studente van verskillende agtergronde wat van Universiteitsbehuising gebruik maak. Die tesis verduidelik hoe die navorsingsdoelwitte korrespondeer met die evalueringstipes wat gebruik is, nl. die evaluasie van waargenome behoeftes en die evaluasie van die proses. Die navorsingsvrae is duidelik gestel en die wetenskaplike metodes vir dataversameling en dataanalise word gespesifiseer. Verder word die aspek van die geldigheid en kwaliteit van die data ook bespreek. Die evaluering van waargenome behoeftes het gewys dat individuele studente die studentepopulasie sien as verdeel In 'n minderheidsgroep ('bruin' en 'swart') en 'n meerderheidsgroep ('wit'). Alhoewel lidmaatskap tot n betrokke groep rue intergroepverhoudings affekteer nie (bv. individuele vriendskappe), het dit tog implikasies vir die sosiale atmosfeer op kampus wat deur 'n tekort aan intergroepkontak en dominasie deur die meerderheidsgroep gekarakteriseer kan word. Vervolgens interpreteer minderheidsgroepe die sosiale atmosfeer meer negatief as lede van die meerderheidsgroep. Dit kan dan ook as die rede aangevoer word waarom lede van minderheidsgroepe 'n waargenome behoefte het om intergroepinteraksie te bevorder. Die persepsies van die respondente wat 'n onderhoud toegestaan het, het aangedui dat 'n intervensie vir die waardering van diversiteit voordelig sal wees en dit het ooreengestem met die siening van die Departement van Studentesake, wat die intervensie gereël het. Die evalusie van die intervensie beklemtoon albei die negatiewe en positiewe aspekte. Eerstens, het die intervensie intervensie-ontwerp, nie die promosie van die intervensie self behels nie, wat noodsaaklik sou gewees het om student geinteresseerd te maak in die diversiteit van die onderwerp en om die studente te motiveer om mee te doen. Tweedens, het die intervensie nie die spesifieke uitdagings soos deur die studente van die Universiteit van Stellnbosch ondervind is, aangespreek nie. Studente het hulle bekommernis uitgespreek oor die toepassing van die informasie in hulle daaglikse lewe. Derdens het die werkswinkel hoofsaaklik gefokus op stereotipes. Nogtans was die effekte van die stereotipes nie deeglik bespreek nie. Boonop was daar te groot aantal stereotipes gelys, maar dit was bevooroordeeld as gevolg van die gebrek van deelnemer van diverse groepe. Daar was ook geen werkswinkel tegnieke van toepassing wat die aangebode lyste van die bevooroordeelde stereotipes bevraagteken het nie. Naas die tegniese oorwegings, moet daar gelet word dat stereotipes in die algemeen die verdeling tussen subgroepe in stand hou van stereotipes in die algemeen. Dus het die werkswinkel tot 'n groot mate gefokus op huidige en vorige aspekte wat die studente verdeel het in plaas daarvan om te fokus op sake van ooreenstemming. Gegrond op hierdie navorsing, kan aanbevelings gemaak word. Eerstens moet daar klem gelê word op die bevordering van die verskeie behoeftes en waardes van die intervensie en die potensiaal waarby deelnemers kan baat. Tweedens, kan dit waardevol wees om verskille tussen studente te erken maar groter klem te lê op eendersheid, d.i. aspekte wat die studente tot mekaar verbind. Derdens moet die leerplan van die intervensie gewysig word om in die behoeftes van die student te voorsien. Vierdens, moet daar 'n balans gehandhaaf word tussen die lesings en interaktiewe elemente. Daar moet 'n moontlikheid bestaan vir deelnemers om 'n aktiewe rol in die intervensie te speel indien hulle dit verlang. Ten slotte word aanbeveel dat toekomstige intervensie gebaseer word op begrypende en volgehoue strategie met lang termyn doelwitte. Die bogenoemde strategie moet in die alreeds bestaande infrastruktuur verweef word. Hierdie intervensie kan beskou word as 'n bydrae tot die transformasie proses wat Suid-Afrika huidiglik ondergaan. Gebaseer op die onlangse gesprek by die Universiteit van Stellenbosch oor die aanneming van'n omvattende diversiteitstrategie, word daar gehoop dat die enkelvoudige intervensie kan inskakel by verdere bydraes in die transformasie proses.

This mixed-methods study examined the extent to which teacher performance and student performance measures correlated, and to understand which specific practices of mathematics teachers in Grades 3-5 related to student performance. Research was conducted at five elementary schools in a large, urban north Texas school district. Data sources included component scores and recorded evidence from observation rubrics, interviews with campus administrators, and value-added modeling (VAM) student growth scores. Findings indicated a modest relationship between teacher performance levels and student performance levels. Lack of access to individual teacher VAM data, per district policy, might have impacted the strength of the relationship. Interviews with administrators and an examination of the evidence cited in the observation rubrics identified specific practices associated with highly rated mathematics teaching. Differences in administrators’ experience levels with both mathematics instruction and the observation instrument might have influenced rubric scores and the level of specificity shown in evidence statements.

A global mapping of early stage medical technology companies has been implemented. The companies have emerging products within neurology and have undergone an evaluation by clinicians concerning the ability to provide clinical value for Swedish health care. The evaluation process has been executed by discussion with neurologists and neurosurgeons in combination with a literature survey. To limit the evaluation process, areas of stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy were chosen.

Some companies turn up to develop more requested products than others. Medfield Diagnostics AB, with their microwave screening product could in the future address the need for fast, accurate and accessible diagnosis of stroke and head trauma. The NBS system from Nexstim Ltd. has potential to provide clinical value by the ability of the products TMS technology to navigate in the brain. Elminda Ltd. product built of an evidence based rehabilitation platform could enhance recovery of patients with neurological disorders on an individual basis. BrainsGate Ltd. product to deliver drugs over the blood brain barrier provides totally new treatment options and NeuroSonix Ltd. ultrasound based product could assist the surgeon and decrease damageable embolic debris. Neurolife non-invasive solutions innovative device, which non-invasively measured the intracranial pressure, would be a totally new way to monitor patients.

A symposium was organized and three top ranked companies with stroke care products were invited to present their technology for Swedish clinicians in Stockholm. Participating companies were Nexstim Ltd., Elminda Ltd. and Medfield Diagnostics AB, who were all well received and considered to have interesting technologies with ability to provide clinical value.

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) production in many areas of the world is reduced due to damage caused by sorghum midge (Stenodiplosis sorghicola). There are several methods of control to reduce losses due to sorghum midge, which include cultural practices, biological control, chemical control and resistant cultivars. The best long-term solution for sorghum midge control is the use of genetic resistance in cultivars and hybrids. Recently, sorghum midge resistant hybrids have been developed by several sorghum breeding programs, but there is limited information about agronomic performance relative to planting dates compared to susceptible standards. Thus, the objectives of this research project are: (1) to evaluate the value of sorghum midge resistant sorghum hybrids in the USA production system, (2) to confirm the presence of sorghum midge insect resistance in sorghum hybrids, and (3) to determine whether the resistance in eighteen sorghum hybrids is stable across two environments in Texas where sorghum midge is a damaging pest. Sorghum hybrids with different levels of resistance to sorghum midge were evaluated at College Station and Corpus Christi, Texas in 2003 and 2004, using two different planting dates and the presence or absence of an insecticide treatment. Agronomic data, sorghum midge incidence ratings and number of adult midges, were determined for all entries. All entries designated as resistant did have some resistance compared to susceptible checks. Across all hybrids, grain yield was higher in sorghum with normal planting dates compared to late planting. Under midge pressure resistant hybrids performed better than susceptible hybrids, but lacking midge pressure the susceptible hybrids were higher performing. The use of midge resistant hybrids in commercial production is only warranted when producers are reasonably sure that midge will be a problem. Otherwise, they should continue to plant early using traditional hybrids.

碩士
國立暨南國際大學
國際企業學系
91
Value-at-Risk (VaR) models have been radically developed to measure the market risk. In this paper, we apply both hypothesis-testing and relative performance criteria to evaluate different VaR models. The results suggest that both SWARCH-L model and adjusted-historical simulation model have better performance across all criteria. The strength of SWARCH approach is its efficiency to track the evolution of risk in terms of its highest correlation, only it tends to produce too few exceptions. For future researches, we suggest it may be more accurate to allow for more than two regimes or to add the GARCH term in practice.

碩士
東吳大學
EMBA高階經營碩士在職專班
100
The value of the design may be is hard to measure. It seems difficult to convince business owners that "design can bring good profit and brand image for company or product, even service process.” How to let enterprises realize the design value, how to use design to create a innovative business model, how to use design to create excess profits. For who want to invest the culture and creative industry; businesses can reference those information to measure the effectiveness from this research.

碩士
義守大學
資訊管理學系碩士班
96
The 21st century is a changing and revolution century, knowledge economy is now becoming a rising all over the world, and for enterprises and organizations, knowledge management is cardinal and crucial, even has more powerful influences to many entries. Nowadays, implementations and research of knowledge management are getting more and more important. The domestic enterprises and organizations have already made a lots level of research to knowledge management. However, there are less literature for knowledge evaluation in the recent years because knowledge is consist of the difference attributes, components, and properties, and it is difficult to establish evaluating model with perfect structures and effective ways. Therefore, this study creates a system on knowledge management to explore knowledge track, finds out core knowledge, and discoveries knowledge value. The system showed that knowledge track is the knowledge to roll up between key factors which abound in each department, documents, systems, people, matters, affairs, and others of knowledge value inside enterprises and organizations; at that, core knowledge which found by exploring knowledge track also leads enterprises and organizations to make the better vision of the future.

碩士
臺北醫學大學
醫學資訊研究所
99
Telecare system provide the elderly and chronic patients in a familiar environment to obtain medical care, reduce the frequency to hospitals and reduce the medical burden, lower health care spending, improve the image of hospitals, reduce social costs. However, the telecare system must be developed, building hardware and software related to information technology equipment, physiological measurement equipment, allocation of space, many IT persons, doctors, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, to carry out development and operations, such as video consultation, tele-health education, pharmaceutical safety, mobile positioning, living resources and referral services,. Medical institutions, in the process of introducing telecare system, One must see whether the value of the introduction of Telecare? Who is the goal customer? What resources? What is the cost structure? Where are the revenues? Therefore, I select 5 general business of Telecare (1) Long distance measurement (2) Video Consulting (3) Pharmaceutical Security Services (4) living resources transfer (5) Alert notification Services, According to the business model of Alexander Osterwalder to discuss with some professional person. Alexander Osterwalder who has just received his Ph.D from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and have MBA Management Consultant company, his design canvas have very high click rate on the network. After discuss we summary the report according the nine dimensions of model. I hope the results is helpful for the medical care institute that want to setup Telecare system. Results: 1. The key partners: the hospital, pharmacy, physical measurement providers, IT hardware and software vendors, telecommunications companies, life service resources industry, security companies. 2. Key activities: (1) physical distance measurement (2) Video Consulting (3) Security Services Pharmaceutical(4) living resources referral (5) warning notification 3. The key resources: Inside hospital resources: Inclusion physicians, nurses, nutritionists, pharmacists, IT Engineer Outside hospital resources: (1) information platform, equipment manufacturers and other physiological measurements. (2) living resources services company, including: mobile positioning device companies, medical supplies and assistive devices leasing company, the family cleaning service companies, restaurants, transportation companies. (3) community resources: community patient organizations, home care agencies, neighborhood leader. 4. Value Proposition: (1) people-centered integrated care services (2) improve health care services accessibility. (3) Use information and communication technology to construct an integrated medical care, life system model. Improve the quality of telecare services. 5. Customer relations: maintain a long-term trust relationships with the following customers. (1) diabetes, hypertension (2) disabilities (3) patients with mild dementia(4) the elderly people who living alone (5) primary caregivers of chronic diseases (6) assessment by the case manager are consistent. 6. Distribution channels: on-site measurement, distance measurement back, telephone care for guidance, and medical personnel via the Internet to their home. 7. Customer needs: physiological measurement of long distance, video consulting, security services, pharmaceutical, life resources, referrals, notification alerts. Near real-time measurement of the right, willing to measure to address the concerns of patients in the medication and reduce the inconvenience to their daily lives, reducing the time and frequency from the hospital, there are exceptions when immediate disposal of medical assistance for medical treatment. 8. Cost structure: the cost of health care personnel, hospitals and the community Station software, hardware costs, administrative costs, measurement costs. (1) Personnel costs: professional consulting medical team, supervisor, case manager, IT and administrative personnel. (2) Equipment cost: fixed costs, including office equipment, decoration costs, IT equipment, software, IT hardware. (3) Other operating costs: office expenses, marketing, wide publicity, equipment depreciation. 9. Income: membership fees, drug fees, drug delivery fees, security fees, living resources trnasfer services, transportation.

碩士
國立清華大學
工業工程與工程管理學系所
106
Once a customer wants to capture critical information from the comments for a product/service, he/she has to search for the comments related to the product/service via the Internet. As the customer browses the comments, he/she usually has to spend much time to acquire the emotional tendency of the product/service. Furthermore, the customer often regards that the value of each comment is of equal importance. That is, the representativeness of distinct comments is usually ignored. In order to solve this problem, this research develops a model for comment value evaluation. The proposed model can be used to visually reveal the values of distinct comments and the integrated evaluation of the product/service. By utilizing this model, the customer can easily acquire representativeness of each comment and the integrated evaluation of product/service characteristics in order to efficiently make purchase decisions.

博士
元智大學
工業工程與管理學系
93
The efficiency of manufacturing resources that cannot be fully manipulated due to confinement of organizational boundaries will become a bottleneck for business development. However, the organizational dominance among the members is significantly different, and suppliers may conceal disadvantageous information based on egoism. As a result, we are not capable of conducting a prior assessment of production costs, quality, or other factors. Grey System Theory is focused on implementation of the grey relational analysis and its model under an indefinite systemic model and incomplete information to discuss the system’s characteristics and behaviors. To prevent confusion or risks from occurring to the value chain partners due to information asymmetry, the Grey Prediction Model and Grey Relational Analysis in Grey decision making theory are therefore applied to achieve “shrink of information asymmetry”. With this approach, we can integrate production/manufacturing resources of up- and down-stream companies to attain a manufacturing distribution mechanism that will respond to market needs quickly for consolidation of the organizational production mobility. Therefore, this research is aimed to develop a Manufacturing Value Network Model to assist industries in implementing an integrated manufacturers’ business system. First of all, multi-cost for performance characteristic with integrated manufacturing-value chain will be considered, and the Grey Decision Making theory for assessment to standardize suppliers’ job assignment will be adopted. Secondly, focusing on sources allocation of manufacturing-value chain, the initial step of multi-plant productivity and technical selection will be undertaken. It means that in according to inspection items listed on the order request, tested samples will be assessed at respective factories, as well as with Grey Decision Making theory to assess related digital data in order to build up an effective manufacturing-value chain. Finally, aiming directly at selection of suppliers, all related analysis of decision criteria will be analyzed in order to obtain decision makers’ bias information toward each spared proposal, and to synthesize priority. And based on production equipment bearing and sustaining related matrix defined by processing distinctive features of products manufacturing, thereafter, measurement of Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is undertaken to conduct an assessment criteria for suppliers’ job assignment. Results of this research are evident. It is able to assist industries in taking charge of suppliers’ selection and appropriate job assignment, and, in the long run, we evaluate performance of these suppliers with the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Meantime, in effectively proceeding economic analysis of suppliers’ management, as well as in establishing an integrated business operating model based on manufacturing-value chain.

abstract: This research explores and deepens our understanding of an element of arts infrastructure in the United States: the arts incubator, an organizational form or programmatic initiative that exists at the intersection of artistic production, entrepreneurship, and public policy. The study is a qualitative cross-case analysis of four arts incubators of different types: Arlington Arts Incubator, Intersection for the Arts, Center for Cultural Innovation, and Mighty Tieton, situated within the context of the literature of arts incubators, business incubator evaluation, and a theoretical framework for understanding entrepreneurship in the US arts and culture sector. The research opens the black box of incubator operations to find that arts incubators create value for client artists and arts organizations both through direct service provision and indirect echo effects but that the provision of value to communities or systems is attenuated and largely undocumented. Arts incubators, like many small arts organizations, tend to look retrospectively at outputs rather than at the processes that convert inputs to tangible impacts, or means into ends. This is an issue not relegated only to the arts and culture sector; business incubators share some of these tendencies. Despite these issues, arts incubators remain a potentially impactful tool of cultural policy if their processes and activities align with their strategic goals and those processes and activities are assessed formatively and summatively.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Public Policy 2015

碩士
國立政治大學
經營管理碩士學程(EMBA)
98
Merge and acquisition is a complicated and professional procedure. It contains the integration of resources coming from the economics, finance, law, commerce, and management, etc. In response to the relationship between M&A and enterprise value, it also involves the different fields including Organization, business strategy theory, enterprise financial theory, Accounting, and Law. It's difficult to have a thorough study. covering everything as mentioned above. What I did here is to understand the various evaluation methods of enterprise value during M&A process. The enterprise value evaluation during M&A will be performed specific to different parties including company to emerge, company to be merged, and the combined one after merging. It’s easier to evaluate the existing two companies compared to evaluate the neutral combined company, which will be with much more difficulty and higher risky. In order to accurately evaluate the enterprise value of the combined one, the foundation will be based on the evaluation on the two existing companies with sufficient accuracy. Then the assumption of the running situation after merging, and judgment of the dimension of coordination effects will be the key points. For the evaluation method of enterprise value will have the income approach, the market approach, and the cost approach depends on the different consideration. Further the further detailed classification, please see Para. 7-2. The company which I am working for is not IPO yet, there's no fair enterprise value available for the reference. The periodic financial statements as considering by the mother company to evaluate the company's performance will be EPS, ROA, and ROE, etc. In the article discussion paragraph, the application of EVA (economic value added) was brought up for understanding. And the information collected regarding the comparison of ROS, ROE and EVA different performance evaluation at the different stages. Some scholars studied the premium and/or value creation of target companies after M&A via CAR (cumulative abnormal return) model. I ignored it here as the limitation of my personal knowledge in this field.

碩士
國立政治大學
統計學系
104
Recently, with the development of liberalization and globalization in financial markets, investor is faced with more investment opportunity and investment risk simultaneously, and this makes investor evaluate VaR. Therefore, it becomes the most significant topic for investor to utilize the concept of investment portfolio to select and adopt suitable risk measure method to evaluate risk and further control risk. Based on this reason, this study combines the concept of VaR with the theory of portfolio. This thesis utilize Markowitz’s Mean-Variance approach and Growth Value Index(GVI) to select each optimal stock portfolio from Taiwan’s Financial Stock、Taiwan’s traditional Stock、Taiwan’s Electronic Stock and publicly traded company in Taiwan Stock Exchange. Furthermore, employing Historical Simulation Approach、Variance-Covariance Approach and GARCH to evaluate the VaR of that optimal portfolio. Finally, through Kupiec test (1995) to evaluate each model’s forecasting performance. Empirical study shows that from the results of the out-of-sample forecasting, we can find that GARCH is the best one to forecast the VaR, and decompose the portfolio VaR with marginal VaR and component VaR .This kind of analysis can provide managers with more accurate decision in making risk management.

碩士
國立清華大學
高階經營管理碩士在職專班
102
This dissertation is an assumption that display manufactures or touch panel manufacturers might want to invest TPK Holding Co., Ltd for cooperation. How can they evaluate TPK Holding Co., Ltd? Ever since Apple Inc. introduced the first generation iPhone in AD 2007, the entire mobile phone industry changed dramatically due to the application of touch panel in smartphones. Almost all 1st-tier mobile phone makers were shocked and realized that touch panel application would be a major factor of success in the market of mobile phone. Thus, they modified their new product development for both middle- end and high-end smartphones those must be applied with touch panel as a necessary specification. As a result of market demand, there were many touch panel companies established several years ago and created a competitive market in touch panel industry. The first generation iPhone was with the configuration of projective- capacitive touch panel. Due to the patent issues, touch panel manufacturers began to provide customers from resistive touch panel then switched to projective-capacitive touch panel that includes either PET or glass material. Business of touch panel has been going up and down caused by mobile phone makers’ choices. However, the competition was getting tough continuously with more players from AD2013 when display manufacturers introduced in-cell and on-cell in the market. Nowadays, it is being a stage of both touch panel manufacturers and display manufacturers grab market share of touch panel for mobile devices.

碩士
正修科技大學
經營管理研究所
96
Due to the rapid change in our environment and the popularization of internet, the management of enterprises not only focuses on the internal integration, they now give importance to external enterprise partners and the supply chain which provide resources to the enterprise. The purpose of this study is to explore the two factors namely “value innovation of supply chain collaboration” and “relationship among supply chain members” that influence the evaluation of value innovation performance of supply chain collaboration and explore the relationship of the factors toward performance to propose a method of colloquial evaluation for performance. First, the questions in the two influencing factors were evaluated using colloquial words and were represented by triangular fuzzy number. Then, the significant weights of every question were used to represent the fuzzy number of the evaluation results. Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) was then used to separately integrate into different triangular fuzzy numbers that represent the evaluation results of the influencing factors. Last, the integrated value of triangular fuzzy number was used to construct the relationship among the two influencing factors and performance. After obtaining the result of the performance evaluation, the result of the performance evaluation was transformed into colloquial words to represent the performance evaluation results. Using the results of this study, the evaluator can directly use the questions in the questionnaire to influence the dimensions “value innovation of supply chain collaboration” and “relationship among supply chain members” and through the transformation operations, obtain colloquial performance evaluation results.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
會計學研究所
88
Thesis Abstract Title of thesis : EVA® (Economic Value Added) as Management Performance Evaluation Name : Hsieh Min-Chun ( also known as David Hsieh ) Advisor : Taychang Wang Graduate date : December, 1999 Due to rapid changes in economic and information technology and how to create more powerful of competitive advantages within companies becomes the key issue. The environmental trends such as global expansion, customization and diversification, resulting in the dynamic driving the appearance of new forms, appears to be a transformation from command and control to decentralization of world-wide strategic business operating units based organization. Agency problems always exist whenever shareholders decide to delegate authorities to the managers of all business operating units, which are caused by the information asymmetry and/or moral hazard problem between the principal and the agent. Implementing EVA® as a way to evaluate management performance ( residual income method) can motivate the managers to take actions that maximize the value of the firm to the shareholders. The main purpose of this research is to direct managers'' attention in the idea behind the EVA® approach. The EVA® approach emphasizes the requirement to earn sufficient return on all capital employed and creates a new focus on minimizing the capital tied to operations. The findings from the empirical study of three local public listing corporations and one case study on a subsidiary of international pharmaceutical corporation can be summarized as follows: 1)Linking ABC to EVA® as operating improvement analysis. Annual budget planning can be provided by customers, channels or countries for all strategic operating units so-called profit centers which should be based on the main cost driven activities to allocate operating expenses and the subject to capital employed to products; in order to enhance the innovation improvement. 2)Linking the operating results as managers’ incentive bonus plan. Link all strategic operating units with the annual operation actual results to compute all SBU EVA® value as the incentive bonus plan which can reduce the agency costs. 3)Divest non-value-added assets. In case a SBU''s EVA® value is negative, management should consider its divestiture. Some of the international investment pharmaceutical plants in Taiwan have been divested and transferred into Mainland China or South Asia countries since 1980. 4)EVA® as new products launching bechmark. While the new products are launched, a lot of promotional campaign expenses or commissions.. etc will incur gradually. If the new product can not gain a positive EVA® ; reevaluating the sales policy or terminating this product is needed within the specific period. 5)EVA® as an appropriately capital structure indictor. Stock dividend is often used to signal operating results to the shareholders in the Taiwan’s stock market. But the stock price will drop dramatically if the increase in earnings per share is slower than the increase in outstanding shares. EVA® helps the management, employees to understand the cost of equity capital which can be helpful for the manager to decide how the fund portfolio investment or loans perform. This can also help to adjust capital structure accordingly to reduce cost of capital and risk management. 6)EVA® as firm value evaluation. The empirical study of three local public listing corporations (i.e. Formosa Plastic Co., Taiwan Semiconductor manufacturing Co., Ltd. And U Lee Co.,) sample data collected from 1994 to Jun.,1999 found their annual EVA® have closely co-move with their own stock market value ( i.e. MVA it’s market value added) respectively. 7)EVA® as acquisition of firm value evaluation. EVA® formula concept can be used to evaluate the acquisition value of an target when the synergy generated is greater than the cost of capital investment, i.e. one has a so-called successful deal.