O objeto de estudo desta dissertação é o estudo de edificações de uso misto dentro de contexto urbano. Serão estudados obras referenciais já concluídas para que se possam avaliar as relações e o desempenho deste tipo de edificação em seu contexto A partir de quatro casos de diferentes características, escala, volumetria, contexto e uso distintos, serão aprofundadas as analises. Apoiados por de métodos de representação gráfica serão analisadas: a relação das edificações com seu contexto urbano, a relação de seus espaços com a escala humana, a composição volumétrica da edificação, a forma como foi implantada, as articulações produzidas , a relação dos perímetros com os espaços de domínio público entre outros aspectos de relevância para a pesquisa. Com isso, busca-se analisar as potencialidades e funcionamento das edificações de uso misto. / The purpose of this dissertation is the study of mixed-use buildings within urban contexts. Through the selection and analysis of reference works already built, it was possible to value the relationships and performance of this type of building in its respective context. These analyzes were focused on four cases of different characteristics, scales, volumetrics, contexts and uses. Supported by graphic representation methods, the following criteria were approached: the relationship of buildings with their urban context, the relation of their spaces to the human scale, the criteria of volumetric composition, the way they were inserted on site, the articulations produced, the relation between their perimeters and the spaces of public domain, as well as other aspects that were relevant to the research. Therefore, it was intended to analyze the potentialities and the functioning of the so defined mixed-use buildings.

The purpose of this research is to show how Performance Solutions Group, LLC can effectively use segmentation marketing both in their current market and in expansion. The goal is to find a solution and suggest changes that should be made to the marketing team at Performance Solutions Group. This research was completed by looking at how segmentation marketing is used in broad industries currently and investigating how Performance Solutions Group can use it in their company. This case study shows that segmentation marketing is an effective way for Performance Solutions Group to market its services.

Secondary art education programs primarily offer courses in traditional mediums like drawing, painting, sculpture, and ceramics. In addition to valuing these traditional art forms, art education research supports integrating new technologies and media in the classroom. However, the possibilities of creating an exclusively contemporary, new genres curriculum have yet to be explored. This study examines the affordances and limitations of a high school-level new genre curriculum and describes how students reacted to these new genres and how their perceptions of art, student-peer relationships, and artist identities changed over time. By introducing students to new genres, the author found students expanded their definitions of art, became excited about art, and created personally relevant and meaningful artwork. The results of this case study may be valuable to art educators desiring to integrate more contemporary art into their curriculum.

Secondary art education programs primarily offer courses in traditional mediums like drawing, painting, sculpture, and ceramics. In addition to valuing these traditional art forms, art education research supports integrating new technologies and media in the classroom. However, the possibilities of creating an exclusively contemporary, new genres curriculum have yet to be explored. This study examines the affordances and limitations of a high school-level new genre curriculum and describes how students reacted to these new genres and how their perceptions of art, student-peer relationships, and artist identities changed over time. By introducing students to new genres, the author found students expanded their definitions of art, became excited about art, and created personally relevant and meaningful artwork. The results of this case study may be valuable to art educators desiring to integrate more contemporary art into their curriculum.

A cohesive organizational culture has been linked to positive outcomes in child-serving agencies, such as improved child-level outcomes and positive organizational climate (Glisson & Green, 2006; Glisson & Hemmelgarm, 1998; Glisson & James, 2002; Hemmelgarn, Glisson, & James, 2006). Although isolated studies of organizational culture have been conducted in individual agencies (child welfare and juvenile justice), no study has examined the organization culture of successful, holistic systems of care that involve the coordination of multiple agencies, such as child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health and education. Data collected from the three system-of-care sites selected for participation in Case Studies of System Implementation was analyzed for themes using the Atlas.ti qualitative software package. The analysis was conducted through the framework of Schein's model of organizational culture. For each site, examples of artifacts, values, and assumptions were identified. The artifacts at sites were closely related to the articulated values of the organizations. Findings also suggest that there are underlying components to the organizational culture of system of care, including system of care values and principles, collaboration, willingness to change, and leadership. Results also showed that local context affects organizational culture. Suggestions for future exploration into these hypotheses are provided.

Poor quality financial statement audits have a negative impact on the information provided to principals and stakeholders that can increase the risk of corporate fraud. The well-documented collapses of companies, such as Enron and WorldCom, brought the issue of audit quality to the headlines. Using agency theory as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this single case study was to determine what strategies client managers and boards can use to facilitate an engagement with an audit firm and effectively carry out their responsibility to provide effective relevant evidence and support for their management assertions as outlined in the engagement letter. The population comprised a census sample of 9 individuals with direct involvement in the audit process within a Connecticut-based organization and its audit firm. Data collection comprised of semistructured interviews and analysis of public and internal documents. Using methodological triangulation, 5 primary themes emerged including communication, documentation, knowledge and experience, character, and procedural. The findings of this study may promote social change by enhancing knowledge of what role management can play in ensuring a high-quality audit. Improved insight to the audit process may promote investor confidence in the financial statements and economic growth through capital spending.

No description available.

Recent world events have caused Americans to reassess national political, economic, and educational priorities, resulting in a shift towards Asia. The schools in response have begun to introduce less commonly taught languages, such as Japanese and Chinese. Many Utah public schools have tried to implement less commonly taught language programs. Some have succeeded, and other others have not. The purpose of this study was to understand how and why some schools were able to successfully integrate less commonly taught language programs, and why others were not.The results of this study suggest that the factors relating to students’ interests and the teacher/administrator relationship were the most important positive factors affecting the success of the Japanese programs with staying power. It was also found that the factors relating to funding issues and student enrollment were the most important negative factors affecting the failure of the long-term Japanese programs that were eliminated.

This study examines the transition of a post-secondary correctional education (PSCE) system formerly facilitated by higher education to the current system administered by the State Department of Corrections (SDC). This study used qualitative case study methodology utilizing multiple perspectives from five different stake-holding groups or five socials units: state legislators, county law enforcement personnel, state higher education administrators, SDC personnel, and technical college personnel. A thick, rich description of the transition was obtained by relying on multiple perspectives recorded in interviews of stakeholders in PSCE.The stakeholders’ perception of this educational transition that changed PSCE in one state was shaped by personal perspectives on issues surrounding the education of the incarcerated. The rhetoric, political machinations, and reality of this transition define stakeholders’ perspectives of the driving forces that initiated the facilitation of PSCE from a Higher Education run system to one run by the SDC.

[pt] Esta dissertação investiga a convergência e o desempenho de Algoritmos Genéticos: os problemas, soluções e medidas propostas. O trabalho consiste de cinco partes principais: uma discussão sobre os fundamentos matemáticos que buscam explicar o funcionamento de um Algoritmo genético; um estudo dos principais problemas associados à  convergência e ao desempenho de Algoritmos genéticos; uma análise das técnicas e algoritmos alternativos para a melhoria da convergência; um estudo de medidas para estimar o grau de dificuldade esperado para a convergência de Algoritmos Genéticos; e estudo de casos. Os fundamentos matemáticos de Algoritmos Genéticos têm por base os conceitos de schema e blocos construtores, desenvolvidos por Holland (apud Goldberb, 1989a). Embora estes conceitos constituam a teoria fundamental sobre a qual a convergência se baseia, há, no entanto, questões importantes sobre o processo através do qual schemata interagem durante a evolução de um Algoritmo genético (Forrest et al, 1993b). Este trabalho apresenta uma discussão sobre os principais questionamentos que têm sido levantados sobre a validade destes fundamentos. São discutidas as controvérsias geradas pela necessidade de uma visão dinâmica dos Algoritmos Genéticos, onde a amostra da população e os resultados obtidos pela recombinação sejam considerados. Em especial, as objeções apontadas pro Thornton (1995) quanto à  coerência da associação dos conceitos de schema e blocos construtores, a contradição entre os Teoremas schema e Price vista por Altemberg (1994), e as idéias de adequação do Teorema Fundamental de Algoritmos Genéticos ao conceito de variância dentro de uma população. Os principais problemas de convergência e desempenho de um Algoritmo Genético foram discutidos: a Decepção e a Epistasia. É apresentada a idéia de que a Decepção, embora esteja fortemente ligada à  dificuldade de convergência de Algoritmos Genéticos, não constitui fator suficiente para que um problema seja considerado difí­cil para um Algoritmo genético (GA-hard problems) (Grefenstette, 1993). São também apresentados os coeficientes de Walsh (Goldberg, 1989b) e demonstrada a sua relação com as idéias de schema e epistasia, e sua utilização em funções decepcionantes. São analisadas diversas funções decepcionantes. São analisadas diversas funções, associadas aos conceitos de Decepção e Epistasia: as funções fully-deceptive e fully easy com 6 bits, propostas por Deb e Goldberg (1994); as funções deceptive but easy e non-deceptive but hard de Grefenstette (op. Cit.); as funções F2 e F3 de Whitley (1992), e ainda, as funções NK (apud Harvey, 1993) e Royal Road (Forrest et al, op. Cit.) Técnicas alternativas para melhorar a convergência incluem basicamente algoritmos evolucionários com características especí­ficas a determinado tipo de problema. São analisados alguns algoritmos alternativos, como o Messy de Goldberg et alli (1989), o Estruturado de Dasgupta et al (s.d.), o aumentado de Grefenstette (ibidem) e os algoritmos propostos por Paredis (1996b). É ainda discutida e exemplificada a importância da escolha adequada de parâmetros e da representação de cromossomas, para que a convergência seja mais facilmente alcançada. O estudo de medidas de convergêcia de Algoritmos Genéticos fornece uma classificação: medidas probabilísticas e medidas baseadas em landscapes. São apresentadas também as colocações de Koza (1994) e Altemberg (op. Cit.) sobre a convergência de Algoritmos Evolucionários. É dado destaque para medida da dificuldade esperada para convergência baseada no Coeficiente de Correlação entre a Aptidão e a Distância (FDC - Fitness Distance Correlation), como proposto por Jones e Forrest (1995b). O estudo de casos consiste da análise do comportamento de Algoritmos Genéticos pela medida FDC, quando aplicados a um conjunto de funções matemáticas, incluindo as já citadas, e ainda as funções de teste propostas por De Jong (apud Goldberg, op. cit) e a função decepcionante de Liepins e Vose (apud Deb et al, 1994). Também é realizada uma extensão da medida de dificuldade FDC estudada, buscando adequá-la a uma visão mais dinâmica de Algoritmos Genéticos. Para executar estes testes, o ambiente GENEsYs 1.0, desenvolvido por Thomas Bäck (1992) (a partir de seu precursor Genesis de JOhn Grefenstette (apud Ribeiro et alli, 1994), foi adaptado e extendido. / [en] This wok investigates the convergence and the performance of Genetic Algorithms: the problems, solutions and proposed measures. It is divided into five topics: a discussion on the mathematical foundations that explains how Genetic Algorithms work: a study of the most important problems associated to their convergence and performance; an analysis of techniques and alternative Genetic Algorithms to achieve better convergence; a study of measures trying to estimate the level of difficulty for the convergence of GA s; and case study. The mathematical foundations are based in conceps of schema and building blocks, developed by Holland (apud Goldberg, 1989a). Although they constitute the fundamental theory about Genetic Algorithms convergence, there has been a lot of questions about the process in which schemata interact during the evolution of GA s (Forrest et al, 1993b). This work presents a discussion on the most important questions that have been raised about the validity of these foundations. Specifically the objections pointed out by Thorton (1995) about the conference of the association between schema and building blocks; the contradiction between schema theorem and Price theorem, mentioned by Altenberg (1994); and the new ideas raised by the variance of fitness concept. The most important problems related to the convergence and performance of GA s are discussed, i.e. the Deception and the Epistasis. Even though Deception can difficult the convergence, the former does not constitute a sufficient factor for the late (Grefenstette, 1993). The Walsh coefficients (Goldberg, 1989b0 and their relation with schema are presented, and also their utilization in deceptive fuctions. Some functions are analised, based on the concepts of Deception and Epistasis: the 6-bits fully- deceptive function by Deb et all (1994): the 3-bits fully- deceptive functions, by Deb et alli (1989); the functions deceptive but easy and non-deceptive but hard of Grefenstette (op. cit.) the F2 and F3 functions of Whitley (1992) as well as the NK functions (apud Harvey, 1993) and the Royal Road functions (Forrest et al, op. cit.). The techniques included the alternative GA s, with special carachteristics. The Messy GA of Goldberg (1989), the Structured GA of Dasgupta (s.d.), the Augmenated GA of Grefenstette (ibidem) and GA s fo Paredis (1996b). The importance of a correct choice of parameters is also discussed. The study of measures classifies those Ga´s into two types: probabilistics and based on landscapes. The considerations of Koza (1994) and Altenberg (op. cit.) are also discussed. It is given special enfasis to the FDC ( Fitness Distance Correlacion) measure, proposed by Jones and Forrest (1995b). The case study consists of the analysis of the behavior of GA by the measure FDC, applied to a set of mathematical functions. The environment used is GENEsYs 1.0, developed by Thomas Bäck (1992) over the Genesis of Grefenstette. The GENEsys 1.0 was adapted and expanded to fullfil the requirements of this work.