摘要 本文於確定給付退休金計劃下，探討基金經理人於最差基金財務短絀情境發生前極大化管理目標之最適投資組合，基金比值過程定義為基金現值與負債指標之比例，管理人將於指定最差基金比值發生前極大化達成既定經營目標之機率，隨時間改變之基金投資集合包括無風險之現金、債券與股票。本研究建構隨機控制模型描述此最適化問題，並以動態規劃方法求解，由結果歸納，經理人之最適策略包含極小化基金比值變異之避險因素，風險偏好及跨期投資集合相關之避險因素與模型狀態變數相關之避險因素。本研究利用馬可夫練逼近法逼近隨機控制的數值解，結果顯示基金經理人須握有很大部位的債券，且不同的投資期間對於最適投資決策有很大的影響。 關鍵字: 短絀、確定給付、負債指標、隨機控制、動態規劃。 / Abstract This paper analyzes the portfolio problem that is a pension fund manager has to maximize the possibility of reaching his managerial goal before the worst scenario shortfall occurs in a defined benefit pension scheme. The fund ratio process defined as the ratio between the fund level and its accrued liability benchmark is attained to maximize the probability that the predetermined target is achieved before it falls below an intolerable boundary. The time-varying opportunity set in our study includes risk-free cash, bonds and stock index. The problems are formulated as a stochastic control framework and are solved through dynamics programming. In this study, the optimal portfolio are characterized by three components, the liability hedging component, the intertemporal hedging component against changes in the opportunity set, and the temporal hedging component minimizing the variation in fund ratio growth. The Markov chain approximation methods are employed to approximate the stochastic control solutions numerically. The result shows that fund managers should hold large proportions of bonds and time horizon plays a crucial role in constructing the optimal portfolio. Keywords: shortfall; defined benefit; liability benchmark; stochastic control; dynamic programming.

Our world is more technologically advanced and interdependent, risks are increasingly shared across local, regional and national boundaries and we are more culturally diverse than ever before. As a result, communities are increasingly confronted with emergencies and crises which challenge their social and economic stability. To be resilient, communities rely on services and employment provided by organisations, to enable them to plan for, respond to, and recover from emergencies and crises. However organisational and community resilience are two sides of the same coin; if organisations are not prepared to respond to emergencies and crises, communities too are not prepared. Resilient organisations are also better poised to develop competitive advantage. However despite the potential business and performance rewards of becoming more resilient, organisations struggle to prioritise resilience and to allocate resources to resilience, which could be put to more immediate use. To enable organisations to invest in their resilience, the business case for resilience must be better than the case for new equipment or new staff. This thesis develops a methodology and survey tool for measuring and benchmarking organisational resilience. Previous qualitative case study research is reviewed and operationalised as a resilience measurement tool. The tool is tested on a random sample of Auckland organisations and factor analysis is used to further develop the instrument. The resilience benchmarking methodology is designed to guide organisations’ use of the resilience measurement tool and its incorporation into business-as-usual continuous improvement. Significant contributions of this thesis include a new model of organisational resilience, the resilience measurement tool, and the resilience benchmarking methodology. Together these outputs translate the concept of resilience for organisations and provide information on resilience strengths and weaknesses that enable them to proactively address their resilience and to develop a business case for resilience investment.

In the recent years a new type of NoSQL databases, called Graph databases (GDBs), has gained significant popularity due to the increasing need of processing and storing data in the form of a graph. The objective of this thesis is a research on possibilities and limitations of GDBs and conducting an experimental comparison of selected GDB implementations. For this purpose the requirements of a universal GDB benchmark have been formulated and an extensible benchmarking tool, named BlueBench, has been developed.

The aim of this thesis is to research the current possibilities and limitations of automatic generation of synthetic XML documents. The first part of the work discusses the properties of the most used XML data generators and compares them to each other. The next part of the thesis proposes an algorithm for XML data generation which focuses on subset of the main XML data characteristics (number of elements, number of attributes, fan-out, mixed contents etc.). The main target of the algorithm is to generate XML documents using a set of settings which are easy to understand. The last part of the work compares the proposed solution with the existing ones. The comparison focuses on how easy it is to generate XML documents, what structures can be created and finally it compares properties of the similar XML data created using different XML data generators. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The aim of this thesis is to research the current possibilities and limitations of automatic generation of synthetic XML documents. The first part of the work discusses the properties of the most used XML data generators and compares them to each other. The next part of the thesis proposes an algorithm for XML data generation which focuses on subset of the main XML data characteristics (number of elements, number of attributes, fan-out, mixed contents etc.). The main target of the algorithm is to generate XML documents using a set of settings which are easy to understand. The last part of the work compares the proposed solution with the existing ones. The comparison focuses on how easy it is to generate XML documents, what structures can be created and finally it compares properties of the similar XML data created using different XML data generators. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Nowadays software performance is evaluated not only by specialized review companies but it is more and more starting to be a common practice for the software developers themselves. Companies are often forced to develop and maintain their own tools for measuring performance of the developed applications. On the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics there has been created a toolkit for automation of software performance evaluation called BEEN. This toolkit should significantly ease the management of individual performance measurements but it is not possible to test it thoroughly in the environment where it was created. The goal of this thesis is to deploy BEEN in a real environment of commercially oriented company and evaluate the usability of this toolkit for the developers. We will focus on evaluating both objective and subjective positives and drawbacks of this toolkit as observed by unbiased users.

The two most popular classification tree algorithms in machine learning and statistics - C4.5 and CART - are compared in a benchmark experiment together with two other more recent constant-fit tree learners from the statistics literature (QUEST, conditional inference trees). The study assesses both misclassification error and model complexity on bootstrap replications of 18 different benchmark datasets. It is carried out in the R system for statistical computing, made possible by means of the RWeka package which interfaces R to the open-source machine learning toolbox Weka. Both algorithms are found to be competitive in terms of misclassification error - with the performance difference clearly varying across data sets. However, C4.5 tends to grow larger and thus more complex trees. (author's abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

The goal of this paper is to benchmark Answer Set Programming (ASP) systems to test their performance when dealing with a complex optimization problem. In particular, the problem tackled is resource allocation in the area of Business Process Management (BPM). Like many other scheduling problems, the allocation of resources and starting times to business process activities is a challenging optimization problem for ASP solvers. Our problem encoding is ASP Core-2 standard compliant and it is realized in a declarative and compact fashion. We develop an instance generator that produces problem instances of different size and hardness with respect to adjustable parameters. By using the baseline encoding and the instance generator, we provide a comparison between the two award-winning ASP solvers clasp and wasp and report the grounding performance of gringo and i-dlv. The benchmark suggests that there is room for improvement concerning both the grounders and the solvers. Fostered by the relevance of the problem addressed, of which several variants have been described in different domains, we believe this is a solid application-oriented benchmark for the ASP community. / Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operations

Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva hur Handelsbanken och Nordea styr sina organisationer.Fokus ligger på hur styrningen mellan dessa aktörer skiljer sig, samt hur det påverkarmedarbetarna. Då ekonomistyrning och verksamhetsstyrning skiljer sig från varandra ville vise hur medarbetarna påverkas av respektive styrsätt. Handelsbankens styrsätt skapades av JanWallander under tidigt 1970-tal. Han menade att budget kunde vara skadligt motorganisationen och utvecklade istället ett styrsystem som bygger på verkligt utfall och endecentraliserad organisation. Detta ger indikationer på att Handelsbanken använder ett merverksamhetsinriktat styrsätt. Nordea har däremot en stark koppling till budget främst genomatt staten är den enskilt största aktieägaren. Under 2001 skedde en omorganisation vilketledde till att styrprocessen gjordes mer levande. Vi ser dock fortfarande att budgeten är encentral del i Nordeas styrning, vilket gjorde att vi valde dessa två motpoler i vår studie.Studien har genomförts i enhetlighet med det tolkande paradigmet där vi valt en kvalitativundersökningsmetod som baseras på semistrukturerade intervjuer. Vi har genomfört enfallstudie med en abduktiv forskningsansats. Genomgående har vi försökt skapa ett djup istudien för att få en korrekt bild av fenomenen.Vi har funnit en del skillnader inom organisationerna som ligger till grund för hurmedarbetarna påverkas av styrningen. Vi ser att förväntningarna som finns på medarbetarnaskiljer sig med tanke på vilket styrsätt och fokus som organisationen har. Det finns dock ingetsätt som är att föredra då styrningen är starkt sammankopplad med hur organisationen äruppbyggd.

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree of correlation between the Scantron Achievement Series (SAS) benchmark assessment in reading and the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) test in reading in fourth grade students. The goal was to identify the predictive validity of the SAS benchmark instrument. The study included fourth grade students who had taken the SAS and TCAP reading sections during the school years of 2011- 2013. The study was quantitative. Data were collected from a school system in northeast Tennessee with 12 elementary schools. Three of the elementary schools did not qualify for Title I funds but the other 9 schools were Title I funded schools. Data collection tools used in the study included results from the TCAP test using the paper-and-pencil format and the SAS using a computerbased test. Student scaled scores were used for determining the degree of correlation between the TCAP test and SAS assessment. This study was used to examine any correlation between the TCAP and SAS tests used with fourth grade student in Tennessee. The effect was determined by how closely the tests were correlated across gender, race, socioeconomic status, and school Title-I status. The results show that the TCAP and SAS test scores have a strong positive correlation: Both assessments consistently showed that female students scored significantly higher than male students, Students in Non-Title I schools scored significantly higher than those in Title I funded schools, There was no significant difference in scores based on race (Black or White), and There was no significant difference in scores based on socioeconomic status.