Chiral &amp / #945 / -hydroxy and &amp / #945 / -acetoxy enones are important starting materials in the synthesis of many biologically active materials. In this work, enantiomerically pure &amp / #947 / -hydroxy enone and polyoxo cyclohexenones are synthesized starting from 1,3-cyclohexandione. In the first step, 1,3-cyclohexandione is protected under acid catalyzation and 3-methoxy-2-methyl-2-cyclohexen-1-one is obtained. &amp / #945 / &#039 / -Acetoxy enone is obtained by Mn(OAc)3 mediated oxidation which is an attractive alternative to other multi-step procedures in the literature. Enzymatic kinetic resolution is applied to the racemic form of this product and enantiomerically pure &amp / #945 / &#039 / -acetoxy enone and &amp / #945 / &#039 / -hydroxy enone is obtained. In this stage, for the screening of the reaction many enzymes were tried. Reduction of &amp / #945 / &#039 / -hydroxy enone furnished enantiopure &amp / #947 / -hydroxy enone.

Korea has experienced remarkable economic growth during the last four decades due to its trade-oriented development policy. Since the international trade of Korea is carried predominantly by sea transport, its ports play a pivotal role in national economic development. This impressive development in a short period of time has resulted in rapidly increasing seaborne cargoes. All the parties involved in port activities have made a significant effort to keep pace with the ever-growing export and import cargoes. Korean ports, however, still have a number of problems including insufficient port and terminal capacity, inefficient management and operation, and bureaucratic administration, all of which weaken the competitiveness of the country's products by adding heavy logistics costs. Th deal appropriately with these problems, the newly established public port authority, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, has launched a new port and terminal development plan to attract private capital into both existing and new facilities. As a consequence, this scheme has introduced new competition into the Korean port industry combined with some degree of privatisation. The motives for privatisation are complex and varied, but one key claim made is that the transformation of ownership from public to private improves economic efficiency. Economic theories and existing empirical studies, however, fail to establish clear-cut evidence supporting this claim. This phenomenon may reflect, to some extent, a paucity of performance indicators systematically applicable across enterprises and industries. It is essential, therefore, to have a systematic and pragmatic analytical framework to assess the process of privatisation and its results. With this context in mind, this thesis aims to critically review the characteristics of international port privatisation together with the economic theory of privatisation, to apply a new econometric technique for efficiency measurement to a port: the frontier model, and to assess the policy implications for the Korean government and port authority, paying particular reference to the privatisation strategy and its implementation within the nation's seaports and terminals. This research makes an original contribution to knowledge in three respects: firstly, port privatisation, in particular the Korean case has, for the first time, been scientifically investigated on the basis of the economic theory of privatisation; secondly, the industry was analysed through the application of a recently developed econometric efficiency measurement method based on the estimation of two frontier models (i.e. cross-sectional and panel models); and finally, the results of the research undoubtedly provide government, port authority and other interested parties with information and guidelines for implementing the policy of port privatisation.

An der TU Dresden wurde eine Forschungsarbeit zur experimentell-theoretischen Analyse des Tragverhaltens von Verankerungen durchgeführt, die hauptsächlich zur oberflächenparallelen Einleitung großer Schubkräfte in einen Betongrund ausgelegt sind. Diese Verankerungen ermöglichen die Übertragung einer großen Querkraftbe¬anspruchung mit geringer Exzentrizität zur Oberfläche, die mit einer Normalbean¬spruchung in Zug- oder Druckrichtung kombiniert werden kann. Die wesentlichen Grundelemente sind zumindest ein Schubdübel, ein Zuganker und eine Grundplatte, mehrere Schubdübel oder Anker können vorhanden sein. Der quaderförmige Schub¬dübel überträgt die Kraft in den Beton. Die angreifenden Lastmomente und das Moment aus der exzentrischen Einleitung der Schublast werden in ein vor und hinter dem Dübel wirkendes Kräftepaar zerlegt. Die Zugkomponente wird dem Zuganker in Form eines Kopfbolzendübels zugewiesen. Die Grundplatte verbindet die lastseitige Befestigungskonstruktion mit den lastübertragenden Bauteilen Schubdübel und Zug¬anker. Gleichzeitig kann die Grundplatte in den Beton eingelassen sein und überträgt dann ebenfalls Schublasten. Die Lastabtragung und das Verhalten der Einbauteile im Versuch wurden analysiert. Von besonderer Bedeutung ist hierbei die Last-Verschiebungslinie, die die Lastüber¬tragung charakterisiert. Ziel war es, ein Bemessungskonzept zur Dimensionierung der Schubdübel zu erarbeiten. Um die im Versuch erkennbare maßgebende Beein¬flussung der Lastübertragungskapazität durch den sich einstellenden Verformungs¬zustand eingehender untersuchen zu können, wurde der Versuch mit finiten Elemen¬ten abgebildet. So war es möglich, in einem ersten Schritt Lastübertragungskapazitä¬ten für unverformte Systeme zu ermitteln, die praktisch im Versuch nicht oder nur extrem aufwändig realisiert werden könnten. In einem zweiten Schritt kann dann der Einfluss der Verformung berücksichtigt werden. Hierbei können die Parameter ge¬nauer und vielschichtiger variiert werden als dies bei den relativ aufwändigen Versu¬chen rein quantitativ möglich war. Das in dieser Arbeit vorgestellte Berechnungsver¬fahren liefert neben der maximal aufnehmbaren Schubbeanspruchung geometrisch beliebiger Einbauteile auch die Beanspruchbarkeit einzelner Baugruppen und erlaubt es zu beurteilen, inwieweit die einzelnen Lastübertragungsmechanismen additiv oder alternativ wirksam sind. Das Verfahren gibt Auskunft über das zu erwartende lastabhängige Verhalten der Einbauteile inklusive der Vorhersage von Teilversagens¬zuständen. Das Potential der Befestigungssysteme zur Übertragung großer Schublasten ist durch die Aufsplittung der Lastkomponenten und Übertragung durch spezialisierte Bauteile begründet. Diese können in ihrer Beschaffenheit den Erfordernissen optimal angepasst werden. Einsatzgebiete für diese Befestigungen sind alle konzentrierten Lasteinleitungen oder Montagestöße zwischen Betonbauteilen oder Stahl-Holz-Kon¬struktionen auf der einen und Betonelementen auf der anderen Seite. Neben der Auflagerung von Trägern oder Fassadenelementen ist vor allem auch an die Ertüchti¬gung und Verstärkung bestehender Betonbauteile durch zusätzliche Stahlkonstrukti¬onen zu denken. / An experimental and theoretical analysis of the behaviour of complex shear loaded fastenings was carried out at Dresden University of Technology. The main focus was on applications which introduce a great amount of shear load value parallel to the surface into a concrete base using a stell shear lug. The behaviour of these special fixings is presented as the result of the finished research program. Structures, as shown in the opposite figure, are able to transmit high values of shear loads to the anchor ground. An additional loading of normal force und bending moment is suitable, but will only be supposed to cover the necessary tolerance and off centre condition of the fixture parts. The advantage of fastening with shear lugs is based on the splitting of the load transfer into different components. The shear lug/lugs caries/carry the shear load, and the tie bar itself only balances the system by tension load due to moment loading and normal loading. Thusall loads are transferred by highly specialized components. If the base plate is embedded, there will be a shear load transferred in front of the base plate, too. The load carrying behaviour of the fastenings in the experiments is analyzed. Here, the load-displacement relationship is of special importance . This thesis aims at elaborating a dimensioning concept for the design of shear lugs. The tests show a decisive influence of the movements – displacements as well as rotations – of the fastenings to the load carrying capacity. In order to to be able to examine this behaviour, the experiment is redesigned by finite elements. In a first step it is therefore possible to examine fastenings without movements based on the anchor bolt stiffness. In a second step, the influence of the deformation can be explored. Here, the parameters can be varied more exactly and in a more complex way than this is possible in terms of quantity with the comparetively extensive test setup. The calculation method being introduced here does not only supply the maximum shear load transfer capacity of the hole fastening system, a system with free geometries, but also shows the partial shear load transfer capacity of the individual parts of the unit. This method is a means of predicting the load-related behaviour of the fastenings to be expected, including the forecast of partial failure states. As a result, a suggestion for the design of the fittings is shown. This design can be applied to all fittings by splitting the different load components to especially provided anchor elements. The design resistance and behaviour of the fastenings is estimated, depending on different geometries and stiffness conditions of the lug. Different strength classes of the concrete as well as different load combinations are taken into consideration. First examples from building sites are also available.

Prompted by the Labour government's proposal to introduce education on family relationships into the National Curriculum, this research project was set up to investigate how teachers portrayed 'family' within the classroom and the reactions that children had to the images that were presented. The intention was to highlight any problems that might arise from including 'family' into the formal curriculum. The fieldwork was conducted in three primary and three secondary schools. Two of each of the schools were located in the West Country and the remaining two, in order to give some ethnic and cultural balance to the project, were in the West Midlands. A total of sixteen teachers and forty children were involved. In each school, three topics or lessons that concerned 'family' were observed during the course of one academic year; this was followed by interviews with the teachers, to ascertain their intentions within the lesson, and with the pupils, to gain their reaction. Final interviews with each of the children encouraged them to reflect on what they had learned about 'family' during the year. Government documents concerned with family education suggest an agreement on the values on which family should be based and appear to regard family as an uncomplicated concept. The data collected, however, indicate that 'family' is regarded by teachers as a complex and sensitive subject that should be approached with caution. In addition pupils show a variety of reactions to the lessons, ranging from anger and distress to ready acceptance. The project's contribution to knowledge is therefore to demonstrate some of the complexities that are involved in teaching about 'family' and to inform one aspect of the ongoing debate on values education within Britain.

Software quality problems are a concern for the software engineering community. Software Process Improvement (SPI) is the most recent and most popular approach adopted to address this problem. SPI focuses on the processes that develop software in order to deliver improvements to the product. Despite this popularity of SPI there is insufficient evidence of its successful impact on software quality. Quality problems in software continue. This has led to some concern in the industry about the effectiveness of SPI in tackling the problem of software quality. There is evidence to suggest that SPI does improve software quality. However, there is also evidence to suggest that SPI is not sufficiently supported by software practitioners. This lack of support may be one of the reasons why SPI appears to be failing at tackling the problem of software quality. In this research it is argued that this lack of support for SPI is caused by companies' inability to manage software practitioners' motivation for SPI properly. Companies may not be managing software practitioners' motivation for SPI properly because they may not understand them. There is therefore a need to better understand what software practitioners'motivations for supporting SPI are. A review of the literature suggests a set of guidelines that can improve software practitioners' support for SPI. The literature also suggests four themes that underpin software practitioners' motivation for SPI. The four themes are SPI managers' perception of the motivators and demotivators for SPI, software practitioners' motivators, software practitioners' de-motivators and the differences in software practitioners' motivators and de-motivators. The basis of this research is that exploring the four themes that underpin software practitioners' motivation for SPI improves understanding of the factors that influence support for SPI. This knowledge of the factors that influence support for SPI can then be used to validate and provide an empirical basis for the literature-suggested guidelines. Thereby improving confidence in the "-IL iidelines. The four themes underpinning software practitioners' motivation for SPI are examined through empirical studies. Findings from these studies suggest that SPI managers perceive senior managers as not supportive of SPI. They also perceive developers as not enthusiastic about SPI. The findings also suggest that the key motivators of software practitioners for SPI are visible support and commitment from senior management and empowerment of practitioners, whereas the key de-motivators are related to constraints on resources and a failure to secure practitioners' buy-in for SPI. There are also differences in what motivates and de-motivates different practitioner groups for SPI and these differences are related to the jobs that practitioners do. Finally, software practitioners have different perceptions of their role in SPI, which are related to their software development roles. This suggests that the objectives of SPI should be tailored to the software development objectives of practitioners in order to improve their support for SPI. Overall, findinas from these studies confirm most of the guidelines suggested by the t:, literature. The confirmed guidelines are offered as insight to improving support for SPI, which can in turn help to improve the impact of SPI on software quality.

Abstract The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the valuation of intangible assets in different financial environments. Value relevance of intangible investments has been largely recognized by indicating their close relatedness on future operating performance and valuation of firms. The financial environment of the country (market- or bank-based) is also found to be an important determinant of the economic performance of the firm. This thesis combines these two important issues by examining how a country's financial system affect the firm's investments and valuation of intangible assets. The study consists of four essays and an introductory section. Essay I investigates the firm's investments in human capital in different legal- and financial environments. The results of this study indicate that human capital asset constitutes an essential part of the market value of firms in all our sample countries. The results also suggest that firms make investments in human capital to increase their innovation capabilities and to improve their future benefits. Essay II investigates the firm's investments in R&D capital in different financial systems. The common result concerning both financial system is that the estimated R&D capital constitutes a great part of the firm's unrecorded goodwill. The main finding of the study is that the effects of the firm's past profitability and growth on its estimated R&D capital are stronger in bank-based than market-based financial systems. This result emphasizes the role of bank-based financing over market-based financing in the efficiency of resource allocation to R&D investments. Essay III investigates the stock market's response to the firm's R&D investments in different financial systems by taking account of lead-lag structure between the firm's R&D investments and its market value. The main result of the study is that the stock markets' response to current R&D investments varies between different financial systems with regards to the point in time against which the stock market response is examined. This study suggests that information disclosure policies, level of stock-market expectations and attitude towards risk are the most important potential factors that explain the valuation differences of R&D between market- and bank-based financial systems. Essay IV investigates the effect's of a country's financial system on current R&D investments and the future profitability of the firm. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows: the firm's current R&D investments are more strongly associated with the level of future firm profitability in bank-based than market-based financial system whereas current R&D investments are more strongly associated with the uncertainty of future firm profitability in market-based than bank-based financial system. The findings of this study suggest that differences in the valuation of R&D between market-based and bank-based financial systems mainly depends on the information asymmetry between the firm and its investors.

Abstract The main difficulty in the usability evaluation of a product concept or a prototype is that it is very difficult to take reliably into account many different characteristics or attributes, which cannot be measured with the same unit, scale or instrument. Secondly, evaluation always involves some uncertainty. One can never be really sure that all the essential aspects that affect the final user emphasis are taken into consideration. This uncertainty can be decreased by involving diverse people in the evaluation process during R&D or, before the final decision, by elaborating the best ideas to a level at which they can be really used on a pilot scale in the field. Most often, though, the latter takes too much time and would result in many other problems. Evaluation can possibly be best enhanced by using enough involved people, i.e. various experts and especially end-users, who need or use the product in question. A key ingredient to the success of product development, in addition to ergonomic knowledge, is often thought to be active involvement of the intended product users by (1) measuring user-product interaction and (2) participation in design decisions. When a potential end-user experiments with the product, both quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods can be used. This thesis shows some methodological possibilities of evaluation, especially through simulation. It also describes in detail the practical phases of the experiments. For example, a lot of development was needed to find out how to communicate product alternatives and their concepts to (elderly) users. And most importantly, this thesis aims to give evidence of how the procedure called experimental ergonomic evaluation (EEE) should be feasibly implemented and statistically confirmed for significance and consistency. A special focus in the experiments was placed on elderly end-users. Since the number of elderly citizens is increasing, there is a need for products to help the elderly live independently at their homes. Studying and understanding how users accomplish their tasks helps to identify their needs and to formulate implications for the design of technology to satisfy those needs. Thus, user studies conducted before beginning to design a new technology provide a proactive way of involving users in the design process. The first prototypes then enable usability studies, such as user trials. With an emphasis on usability engineering, trials can be developed into more feasible EEE procedures for industrial companies. All the developed and applied EEE procedures were based on a user-centred approach with different user trial types (N = 15). The users as subjects (N = 264) performed as real tasks as possible and, based on their perceptions during the trials, gave their preferences or scored certain variables. The subjects were also observed and measured by the researcher. The products or other technologies in the trials comprised a total of 9 cases, ranging from "low-tech" steps and chairs to "high-tech" information and communication technology (ICT) applications. The perceived preference and observed performance measures were then combined. Different methods are needed simultaneously to make the results more accurate. The present EEE procedures proved to be cost-effective, efficient and sufficiently valid at least in a research context. The EEE procedures ranged from subjective estimations, such as rating and ranking, to more complex multi-criteria methods that can be used to facilitate decision-making, such as conjoint analysis, Mitchell's paired comparison and use-value analysis. Objective evaluation was also used, including measurement of products and users as well various observations. Both experts and end-users (subjects) had their own important roles in the experiment. Based on this study, EEE procedures are easy to implement in industry for routine usability testing in the course of product development. EEE with its wide coverage yields more universal and absolute usability values, not only ones based on direct benchmarking.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The retail sector is a growing industry, however with serious problems associated with inventories such as stock breakage. This article proposes a collaborative model applying the S&OP methodology to reduce stock breakages in a Peruvian company in the retail sector through a purchasing plan designed by the interaction and participation of different actors in charge of the process. The results of the model are measured by the percentage of stock breaks, the demand forecast error and the increase in sales. In the diagnosis of the problem two factors were identified that cause the stock breaks. The first is caused by the delay that exists in the replenishment of inventories, due to the bad programming of delivery of products between the distribution center and the stores. The second is related to the insufficient amount of purchases caused by not properly categorizing the products, poor forecast and not having safety inventory policies. A simulation resulted in a 17% stock breakage reduction, a 17% forecast error decrease, and a 15% sales increase.

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