Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:48:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 154736.pdf.jpg: 11167 bytes, checksum: c54429c7a19993eb1a0d8c317d47e577 (MD5) 154736.pdf: 793144 bytes, checksum: 6ff2b730403c9bd9d9e6890986bc3ac4 (MD5) 154736.pdf.txt: 256846 bytes, checksum: 718e16e7c731050f8c866fb834e0a273 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-03T00:00:00Z / This work approaches some of the behaviors revealed by the industrial employees from the region of the medium Vale do Paraíba, State of São Paulo, which can be characterized as behavior deviation inside the organization, because they are in disagreement with the internal codes – implicit or explicit ones – and that result in losses for the organization. The research aims at identifying its decisive and significant factors. This is an exploratory study which uses the questionnaire technique, applied to a sample of 1.450 employees, and the interview as well. The statistic pattern utilized to determine the behavior deviation incidence, submitted to the evaluation, has been considered useful for the deviation foresight. Among the results are the identification of the behavior deviation incidence, with 63% of occurrence related to the amount of the 936 participators that returned valid questionnaires; the identification of the decisive factors – the organizational and ethical environment, the subjective and the economic factors –; and the proposal of a cycle that represents the dynamics that guides the behavior deviation and its determiners that encloses the following steps: the decisive factor, the occurrence of the behavior deviation, the losses for organization-employee, the feedback of the process. The participators profile is related to the behavior deviation issue, according to their instruction level and their work area. The results obtained with the interviews have pointed that employees of the enterprises considered in this research are involved in extra activities, usually to complement their wages. There is a disconnection between employee and employer, what can suggest communication failures and inadequacy of behaviors codes and rules; there is a culture of the behavior deviation. The research has pointed that: (1) it is possible to use that cycle to identify and predict the behavior deviation, since this behavior is considered conflicting with the enterprise interests; (2) the organizational culture may be incorporated in order to develop the ethical behaviors of the employees and consequent competitive advantages for the organization; (3) it is necessary to create a planning process that regards all the involved social actors, having as basis the ethical principles applied to the behaviors codes formation, in order to encourage the development of the character values. / A ética, nos dias de hoje, ocupa um lugar primordial no campo organizacional, como também em toda a sociedade. A primeira metade do século XX se caracterizou, de certa forma, por um período em que predominou a abordagem mecanicista. A máquina, como foco de atenções, parecia se sobrepor ao ser humano. Na segunda metade do século XX o empregado passou a ser valorizado enquanto pessoa. Isso fortaleceu a abordagem psico-sociológica. Uma das questões que se coloca é: como as organizações podem transcender a mera produção de bens e serviços e a geração de valor econômico, e como harmonizar os interesses das empresas, da sociedade e das pessoas? A resposta a esses questionamentos passa por se considerar, de maneira incisiva, o homem no ambiente profissional, sua postura ética, e os fatores que dominam a sua relação com a empresa que o emprega. Esta tese tem como objetivos proporcionar uma visão da problemática do desvio de conduta na organização, mostrar quais são os seus fatores determinantes, e de que maneira tais fatores operam na incidência do desvio de conduta. O espaço de análise considerado foram empresas industriais localizadas na região do Médio Vale do Paraíba, no Estado de São Paulo. Utilizou-se a pesquisa bibliográfica como fonte de embasamento teórico-conceitual e um estudo exploratório, com abordagens qualitativa e quantitativa. A análise qualitativa indicou, como resultado, os fatores determinantes do desvio de conduta. A análise quantitativa forneceu um modelo estatístico que descreve a relação entre os fatores determinantes e a incidência do desvio. O modelo obtido, submetido a validação, foi considerado útil para previsão do desvio de conduta. Concluiu-se que é necessário um processo de planejamento que envolva todos os atores sociais, com base em princípios éticos aplicados à formação de códigos de conduta, voltados a incentivar o desenvolvimento dos valores de caráter.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / We present the Shortfall Deviation Risk (SDR), a risk measure that represents the expected loss of results that occur with certain probability penalized by the dispersion of results worse than such expectation. The SDR combines the Expected Shortfall (ES) and the Shortfall Deviation (SD), which we also introduce, contemplating the two fundamental pillars of the risk concept the probability of adverse events (ES) and the variability of an expectation (SD) and considers extreme results. We demonstrate that the SD is a generalized deviation measure, whereas the SDR is a coherent risk measure. We achieve the dual representation of the SDR, and we discuss issues such as its representation by a weighted ES, acceptance sets, convexity, continuity and the relationship with stochastic dominance. Illustrations using Monte Carlo simulation and real data indicate that the SDR offers greater protection to measure risk than other measures, especially in turbulent times. / Esse trabalho apresenta o Risco do Desvio da Perda (Shortfall Deviation Risk SDR), uma medida de risco que representa a perda esperada de resultados que ocorrem com determinada probabilidade penalizada pela dispersão de resultados piores que essa expectativa. O SDR combina a Perda Esperada (Expected Shortfall ES) com o Desvio da Perda (Shortfall Deviation SD), introduzido nesse trabalho, de modo a contemplar os dois pilares fundamentais do conceito de risco, que são a possibilidade de eventos ruins (ES) e a variabilidade sobre uma expectativa (SD), além de levar em conta resultados extremos. Neste estudo é demonstrado que o SD é uma medida de desvio generalizado, ao passo que o SDR é uma medida de risco coerente. A representação dual do SDR é obtida, e questões como sua representação por meio de uma ponderação da ES, conjuntos de aceitação, convexidade, continuidade e relação com dominância estocástica são discutidas. Ilustrações com simulação Monte Carlo e dados reais indicam que o SDR oferece maior proteção na mensuração do risco que outras medidas, especialmente em momentos de turbulência.

Under de senaste åren har en betydande ökning av elförbrukningen rapporterats. Som en följd av detta ökar efterfrågan på produkter och komponenter relaterade till elnätet på marknaden. Hur industrier samtidigt säkerställer produktkvalitet och kontrollerar tillverkningskostnader är uppenbart viktigt för de relevanta branscherna.    Syftet med denna avhandling var att genomföra en fallstudie vid ett företag som tillverkar transformatorer för att utveckla en arbetsmodell som hjälper företaget att kartlägga dess mest kvalitetskritiska material och identifiera de dolda kostnader som uppkommer vid kvalitetsbrister. Flera forskningsfrågor formulerades och besvarades för att uppnå detta syfte. Dataanalys, intervjuer, litteraturstudier och observationer har använts för att genomföra fallstudien.   En arbetsmodell har utvecklats genom en detaljerad analys av fallföretagets system för avvikelserapportering. Kostnad och Antal felrapporter ha identifierats som de huvudsakliga faktorerna som kan vara viktiga för kartläggningen av de mest kvalitetskritiska materialen på fallföretaget. Det har även skapats en konceptuell modell som beskriver det preliminära arbetet innan den faktiska kartläggning och uppföljningsarbetet.    Den teoretiska bidraget från denna studie är den föreslagna konceptuella arbetsmodellen för kvalitetskritiska material samt arbetsmodellen som beskriver hur kartläggningen av kvalitetskritiska material kan genomföras. Företaget anser att uppdraget är fullgjort och flera förbättringsförslag har även presenterats, vilket utgör ett praktiskt bidrag. / In recent years, a significant increase in electricity consumption has been reported. Consequently, the products and components related to power grids are increasingly demanded in the market. How to ensure the product quality and control the manufacturing cost simultaneously is obviously important for the relevant industries.   The purpose of this thesis was going to implement a case study at a transformer manufacturing company and develop a working model that helps the company map its most quality-critical materials and identify hidden quality defect costs. Several research questions were formulated and being answered in order to realize the purpose. Data analysis, interviews, literature studies and observation have been used to conduct the case study.    A working model has been developed in this study after a detail analysis of the deviation reporting system used by the case company. Cost and Number of error reports have been identified as the main factors that can be important for mapping the most quality-critical materials in the case company. A conceptual model has also been created for describing the preliminary work before the actual mapping and the follow-up work.   The theoretical contribution of this study is the proposed conceptual working model on quality-critical materials and the working model that describes how the mapping of quality-critical materials can be carried out. The company considers the assignment fulfilled, and several improvement suggestions have also been presented, thus providing the practical contribution.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Embedded "Card-Based" receivers are one of the latest innovations in telemetry reception. These products provide substantial power and flexibility in a small form factor (one slot, PC or VME). In many applications they are a cost effective alternative to conventional telemetry receivers. This paper analyzes currently available products with regard to their features, capabilities, and performance, as well as highlighting typical applications.

Vehicle activated signs (VAS) display a warning message when drivers exceed a particular threshold. VAS are often installed on local roads to display a warning message depending on the speed of the approaching vehicles. VAS are usually powered by electricity; however, battery and solar powered VAS are also commonplace. This thesis investigated devel-opment of an automatic trigger speed of vehicle activated signs in order to influence driver behaviour, the effect of which has been measured in terms of reduced mean speed and low standard deviation. A comprehen-sive understanding of the effectiveness of the trigger speed of the VAS on driver behaviour was established by systematically collecting data. Specif-ically, data on time of day, speed, length and direction of the vehicle have been collected for the purpose, using Doppler radar installed at the road. A data driven calibration method for the radar used in the experiment has also been developed and evaluated. Results indicate that trigger speed of the VAS had variable effect on driv-ers’ speed at different sites and at different times of the day. It is evident that the optimal trigger speed should be set near the 85th percentile speed, to be able to lower the standard deviation. In the case of battery and solar powered VAS, trigger speeds between the 50th and 85th per-centile offered the best compromise between safety and power consump-tion. Results also indicate that different classes of vehicles report differ-ences in mean speed and standard deviation; on a highway, the mean speed of cars differs slightly from the mean speed of trucks, whereas a significant difference was observed between the classes of vehicles on lo-cal roads. A differential trigger speed was therefore investigated for the sake of completion. A data driven approach using Random forest was found to be appropriate in predicting trigger speeds respective to types of vehicles and traffic conditions. The fact that the predicted trigger speed was found to be consistently around the 85th percentile speed justifies the choice of the automatic model.

One would like to evaluate and compare complex digital communication systems based upon their overall bit error rate. Unfortunately, analytical expressions for bit error rate for even simple communication systems are notoriously difficult to evaluate accurately. Therefore, communication engineers often resort to simulation techniques to evaluate these error probabilities. In this thesis importance sampling techniques (variations of standard Monte Carlo methods) are studied in relation to both linear and non-linear detectors. Quick simulation, an importance sampling method based upon the asymptotics of the error estimator, is studied in detail. The simulated error probabilities are compared to values obtained by numerically inverting Laplace Transform expressions for these quantities.

This thesis examines the link between mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and corporate financial leverage. The thesis proposes and tests various hypotheses regarding: (1) the relationship between the probability of firms undertaking M&As and corporate financial leverage; and (2) the changes in financial leverage prior to firms' decision to initiate M&As. The empirical evidence on the proposed hypotheses is based on a large sample of firms in the UK during the period 1996 and 2006. The empirical analysis presented in this study contributes to the large and growing body of literature on the interdependence of corporate financing and investment decisions. Specifically, this study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, the thesis investigates the link between firms leverage deviations (i.e. the deviations of firms observed leverage ratios from target leverage ratios) and the probability of undertaking M&As in the future. Building upon the earlier literature, it is argued that extreme leverage deviations lower the probability of undertaking M&As by impairing firms ability to raise capital to finance these deals. The study s empirical analyses suggest that extremely overleveraged firms have lower probability of undertaking M&As. Moreover, the link between extreme overleverage and the probability of undertaking M&As is weaker for diversification-increasing acquisitions (i.e. deals in which the acquirer and the target firm operate in different industries); for domestic acquisitions (i.e. deals in which the acquirer and the target firm are domiciled in the same country); and for focused (i.e. single-segment) firms undertaking acquisitions. Thus, the leverage deviation effect is not symmetric for all types of acquisitions and for all firms. Second, the thesis examines how the pre-acquisition changes in corporate financial leverage may be influenced by: (1) the extent to which firms deviate from their target leverage ratios; and (2) firms intentions to initiate M&As. Key empirical findings in this section suggest that firms that have higher leverage deviations adjust their leverage at a higher rate than those with lower deviations. More importantly, the empirical evidence suggests that firms that undertake M&As adjust their pre-acquisition leverage at a higher rate than those that do not. These findings suggest that, when making adjustments to corporate capital structure, managers tend to consider their firms leverage deviations and their future acquisition plans. Furthermore, the study s findings partly explain the differences in the speeds of financial leverage adjustments reported in the existing literature.

Spel om pengar finns i olika former och har blivit en del av många personers vardag, dessvärre kan inte alla hantera spelet. Spelmissbruk påverkar personen som för en ständig jakt på pengar och speltid vilket medför konsekvenser och känslor som är svåra att hantera. Ett spelmissbruk påverkar även omgivningen i form arbetsgivare, vänner, familj, barn med flera som alla blir en del av ett missbruk. Denna kvalitativa studie avser studera hur en person inträder i ett spelmissbruk, hur personen upprätthåller ett liv som spelmissbrukare och hur personen tar sig ur missbruket. Vårt syfte med studien är att få en djupare förståelse samt att urskilja vilka känslor ett spelmissbruk medför. Vi har genomfört djupintervjuer med åtta personer och tolkningen och analysen har skett hermeneutiskt. Genom vår analys har sju teman kunnat urskiljas intresse för spel i tidig ålder, inträde i spelmissbruk, ångest skuld och skam, verklighetsflykt, förändringar i identiteten och beteende, relationer och interaktion och avslutningsvis strategier. Vi har tagit del av åtta gripande berättelser och fann att spelmissbruk medför stora konsekvenser för den enskilde individen men även för personer i omgivningen. Spelmissbruk är viktigt att belysa och lyfta i samhället då det är ett växande problem som berör många och att det ofta är ett dolt missbruk. / Gambling with money comes in different forms and have become a part of many people's everyday lives, unfortunately not everyone can handle the game. Compulsive gambling affects the person who has a constant search for money and playing time, that gives consequences and feelings that are difficult to manage. The addiction affects people in the environment as employers, friends, family, children and others who all become part of an addiction. This qualitative study intends to study how a person enters a gambling addiction, how the person maintains a life as a compulsive gambler and how the person enter the abuse. Our purpose of the study is to gain a deeper understanding and to identify what emotions the addiction brings. We have conducted in-depth interviews with eight people and the interpretation and analysis has been hermeneutic. Through our analysis seven themes have been distinguished interest in the game at an early age, entry into gambling addiction, anxiety, guilt and shame, escapism, changes in the identity and behavior, relationships and interactions and finally strategies. We have taken note of the arrest of eight stories and found that compulsive gambling entails serious consequences for the individual but also for people in the surroundings. Compulsive gambling is important to highlight and promote in the community as it is a growing problem that affects many and it is often a hidden addiction.

Molecular Biology has allowed the characterization and manipulation of the molecules of life in the wet lab. Also the structures of those macromolecules are being continuously elucidated. During the last decades of the past century, there was an increasing interest to study how the different genes are organized into different organisms (‘genomes’) and how those genes are expressed into proteins to achieve their functions. Currently the sequences for many genes over several genomes have been determined. In parallel, the efforts to have the structure of the proteins coded by those genes go on. However it is experimentally much harder to obtain the structure of a protein, rather than just its sequence. For this reason, the number of protein structures available in databases is an order of magnitude or so lower than protein sequences. Furthermore, in order to understand how living organisms work at molecular level we need the information about the interaction of those proteins. Elucidating the structure of protein macromolecular assemblies is still more difficult. To that end, the use of computers to predict the structure of these complexes has gained interest over the last decades. The main subject of this thesis is the evaluation of current available computational methods to predict protein – protein interactions and build an atomic model of the complex. The core of the thesis is the evaluation protocol I have developed at Service de Conformation des Macromolécules Biologiques et de Bioinformatique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, and its computer implementation. This method has been massively used to evaluate the results on blind protein – protein interaction prediction in the context of the world-wide experiment CAPRI, which have been thoroughly reviewed in several publications [1-3]. In this experiment the structure of a protein complex (‘the target’) had to be modeled starting from the coordinates of the isolated molecules, prior to the release of the structure of the complex (this is commonly referred as ‘docking’). The assessment protocol let us compute some parameters to rank docking models according to their quality, into 3 main categories: ‘Highly Accurate’, ‘Medium Accurate’, ‘Acceptable’ and ‘Incorrect’. The efficiency of our evaluation and ranking is clearly shown, even for borderline cases between categories. The correlation of the ranking parameters is analyzed further. In the same section where the evaluation protocol is presented, the ranking participants give to their predictions is also studied, since often, good solutions are not easily recognized among the pool of computer generated decoys. An overview of the CAPRI results made per target structure and per participant regarding the computational method they used and the difficulty of the complex. Also in CAPRI there is a new ongoing experiment about scoring previously and anonymously generated models by other participants (the ‘Scoring’ experiment). Its promising results are also analyzed, in respect of the original CAPRI experiment. The Scoring experiment was a step towards the use of combine methods to predict the structure of protein – protein complexes. We discuss here its possible application to predict the structure of protein complexes, from a clustering study on the different results. In the last chapter of the thesis, I present the preliminary results of an ongoing study on the conformational changes in protein structures upon complexation, as those rearrangements pose serious limitations to current computational methods predicting the structure protein complexes. Protein structures are classified according to the magnitude of its conformational re-arrangement and the involvement of interfaces and particular secondary structure elements is discussed. At the end of the chapter, some guidelines and future work is proposed to complete the survey.

Baigiamajame magistro darbe yra nagrinėjamos pagrindinės rekomendacinių sistemų socialiniuose tinkluose problemos: rekomendacijų tikslumas, pasyvūs vartotojai, neaiškios rekomendacijos. Iškeliami pagrindiniai tikslai, kuriais siekiama išanalizuoti rekomendacinių sistemų veikimo principus ir pasiūlyti metodą rekomendacinės sistemos efektyvumui ir rekomendacijų tikslumui gerinti. Analizuojama užsienio literatūra, atliekamas eksperimentas su realia duomenų baze. Analizuoti rezultatai vertinami skirtingų vartotojų grupių (pasyvūs, aktyvūs, tarpiniai vartotojai), analizuojamas kiekvienos grupės poveikis bendram rezultatui. Aprašytos aiškios rekomendacijos ir pateikti jų pavyzdžiai. Rezultatai vertinti trimis skirtingais kriterijais: PAP, PAVP ir ĮA. Pirmi du rodo skaičiavimo nuokrypius, trečiasis – įverčių apimtį. Atlikti penki bandymai skirtingomis sąlygomis ir pateikti kiekvieno bandymo bei bendri rezultatai. Išsikelti tikslai yra įgyvendinti, nes analizuojant gautus rezultatus, tiek bendras rekomendacijų tikslumas, tiek pasyvių vartotojų pagerėjo. Bendras pagerėjo 4% ir 11%, pasyvių vartotojų – 11% ir 17%. Darbe aprašomas modelis gali būti nesunkiai pritaikomas rekomendacinei sistemai. Šis baigiamasis darbas gali būti naudojamas kaip pagrindas ar literatūros šaltinis tolesniems tyrimams Lietuvoje. / The thesis analyses the main problems of recommender systems in social networks: the accuracy of recommendations, cold start users, uncertain recommendations. The main goals are raised, which are used to analyze the principles of processes in recommender systems, and to offer a novel method to improve the efficiency and the accuracy of recommendations. The foreign articles are discussed and the new method is implemented on an existing data set. The results are evaluated according to the different groups of users (cold start users, heavy raters and intermediate users) and the effect of each group to the main result is analyzed. The transparent recommendations are explained with the examples. The results are evaluated using three different metrics: MAE, MAUE and RC. The first two determine the deviation of the calculations the third determines the coverage of the ratings. Five experiments were made with different conditions and the results of each are presented along with the general results. The held purposes were accomplished because the accuracy of recommendations increased for all users and for cold start users as well. The benefit of the accuracy for all users is 4% and 11%, for cold start users 11% and 17%. The model described in the thesis can be easily incorporated to the recommender system. This thesis can be used as the basis of future work of recommender systems in Lithuania.