The present study was concerned with differences between four groups of college students with various vocational goals. The impetus for this study stems from the development of a new instrument designed to scientifically measure the underlying factors of basic goals in life.

At the time of a customer order, the e-tailer assigns the order to one or more of its order fulfillment centers, and/or to drop shippers, so as to minimize procurement and transportation costs, based on the available current information. However this assignment is necessarily myopic as it cannot account for all future events, such as subsequent customer orders or inventory replenishments. We examine the potential benefits from periodically re-evaluating these real-time order-assignment decisions. We construct near-optimal heuristics for the re-assignment for a large set of customer orders with the objective to minimize the total number of shipments. We investigate how best to implement these heuristics for a rolling horizon, and discuss the effect of demand correlation, customer order size, and the number of customer orders on the nature of the heuristics. Finally, we present potential saving opportunities by testing the heuristics on sets of order data from a major e-tailer. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Thesis advisor: Richard Lennan / This dissertation in Christian eschatology affirms the cosmic implications of the notion of the parousia, and proposes the latter as a suitable symbol for a renewed eschatological narrative of God’s transforming encounter with the whole of creation. Over the last several decades, eschatological reflection has ceased to refer simply to future events, and has become an interpretative key for the entire theological enterprise. The cornerstone of any contemporary eschatological reflection is God as end and goal of the whole of creation. In addition, two other elements arise in the work of most contemporary theologians, namely the anthropological interpretation of eschatology, and an apparent sobriety in the use of images for depicting the future of creation. This dissertation will explore the complementary counterpoints of these perspectives. On the one hand, this work argues for an all-embracing eschatology that broadens those theologies that either restrict God’s eschatological fulfillment only to what will happen to human beings and earth, or give to human beings a role that, seen in a broader, cosmic perspective, seems to be disproportionate. On the other hand, this dissertation maintains the necessary renewal of an eschatological narrative from a Christological, cosmic perspective in a context where the loss of figurative language for eschatology negatively affects our ability to conceive the future of the whole of creation and to be really inspired by it in the present time. The main thesis of this dissertation is that the theological notion of the parousia grounds all eschatological statements in Jesus Christ, broadens the interpretation of God’s fulfillment to a fully transformed creation, offers an illustrative image of this cosmic process, and can empower believers to recognize and embrace their eschatological role within the framework of God’s action upon all things. This seems especially urgent in the contemporary theological context, where an all-embracing narrative about future fulfillment is either challenged or has almost disappeared. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Keith Harris / The focus of this research is to create a production schedule that will increase capacity while staying within business constraints of shelf life and warehouse space in a industrial food processing environment. The results support that product wheels maximize process responsiveness by lengthening production runs, and increasing safety stock inventory. In doing so, it maintains acceptable customer service levels and minimizes overtime costs. This study develops a model that simulates the relevant variables impacting the performance of the operation. The results show significant cost reductions are achieved by eliminating changeovers, increasing line capacity, safety stock levels protect against 99% of order variation, and warehouse space is available to house increased cycle stock and safety stock. Given the results on this line, I recommend expanding the model to other food processing locations within the business to further increase capacity and decrease overtime expenses.

This research attempts to investigate the collaborative commerce in steel industry and is divided into two dimensions. First, it investigates the case of China Steel Corporation system, addressing its order fullfillment process. The researcher has been in charge of planning and developing the electronic commerce of China Steel Corporation since 1998. He has been dealing with answering the enquiry about e-commerce from the customers for a long time and has taken part in the whole process of collaborating CSC e-commerce with customers. Therefore, the main method to collect data of this study is through observation. Second, this study synthesizes the references on the three-layer framework of enterprise and enterprise collaboration (CHIU, CHEUNG and TILL, 2003), the case study on the business rules of order fulfillment collaborative operating system, and web service. Then, it tries to build a framework of collaborative commerce system based on the web service and expect to improve the process of order fulfillment to steel supply. This research summarizes the twelve issues of order fulfillment into four collaborative requirements: requirement collaboration, order collaboration, production collaboration, and e-Logistics Collaboration. This study provides the collaborative process system design and construction steps to strengthen the steel order fulfillment. This case is based on the moment punctual producing rate and presumes the advantages of collaborative operating system in strengthening order fulfillment. And it indeed has the merits of promoting punctual order fulfillment.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the mental motivation of using Avatar system. There have already existed lots of researches for the motivation of using the related network system in the past. Based upon the findings of the past researches, this thesis sorted out four main motivations: self-fulfillment, escapism, sociality and entertainment, and discussed the correlation between these four motivations and mentality and behaviour intention. This research is conducted by Questionnaire Survey and found out that the motivations of self-fulfillment and entertainment are combined as a new motivation, and the motivations of escapism and sociality are not significantly correlated with the user¡¦s mentality. From this research, therefore, it is concluded that as long as the development of network, the habit and motivation of using network are evolving as well. Future studies could be discussed more to address this difference of evolving, in order to allow that the network operators have a more accurate grasp of the users¡¦ mentality and provide more effective services.

Många företags användande av konsulter har under de senaste åren ökat och det finns luckor i forskningen kring denna yrkeskategori. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka huruvida individuella och arbetsrelaterade faktorer hos konsulter påverkar uppfattning av fullföljande samt omfattning av psykologiska kontrakt i relation till en uppdragsgivare. Deltagarna var 172 konsulter, från tre konsultföretag, som besvarade en enkät delvis hämtad från projektet PSYCONES. Resultatet visade att konsulternas individuella samt arbetsrelaterade faktorer påverkade det psykologiska kontraktet och att det som påverkade mest är grad av tillit gentemot uppdragsgivare, antal arbetade timmar i veckan samt ålder. Dock påverkade inga av faktorerna kopplade till konsultrollen uppfattning av fullföljande samt omfattning av psykologiska kontrakt. Denna studie bidrar med vetskap om att psyko-logiska kontrakt skapas mellan konsult och uppdragsgivare, att tillit är en viktig komponent även i denna form av arbetsrelation samt en antydan att konsulters arbetssituation inte skiljer sig anmärkningsvärt från andra an-ställningsformer.

Supersession is the theory of one idea supplanting the other. In both Christianity and Islam, this idea is commonplace. In Christianity, the message of Jesus creates a New Covenant for both Jews and Gentiles, while in Islam, the revelation of Muhammad restores the original religion that God intended from the beginning. Christianity and Islam both supersede Judaism in very similar ways. In regards to the use of Abraham in particular, each religion inherits him by appealing to Jewish scripture or their oral tradition, using him to prove their truth claims, and claiming that their religion is originally the religion of Abraham.

Career burnout, defined by feelings of high emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment, is prevalent amongst clinicians. A literature search established mindfulness-based interventions are growing in popularity to reduce or prevent burnout in healthcare. One type of mindfulness-based intervention is Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programming. MBSR, an eight-week course, has been shown to reduce stress and improve quality of life and self-compassion. Our research aims to investigate the current burnout landscape in the field of medicine, and evaluate the effects of a MBSR variant course on clinician burnout and professional fulfillment at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Through the creation and execution of an eight-week MBSR variant course, Mindfulness Training for BMC Clinicians: A Program for Stress Reduction, Vitality, and Professional Development, we surveyed clinicians before the course, after the completion of the course, and two months after the completion of the course. The surveys were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data; we employed mixed methods analysis to statistically evaluate these data. The survey results were used to calculate numerical professional fulfillment and burnout scores for each clinician. Changes in scores were evaluated over time. These data suggest participants' professional fulfillment increased and burnout decreased from baseline measures to post-intervention measures, and results were sustained two months after the course was completed. Likewise, our qualitative data revealed approximately two-thirds of participants remarked having greater value on self-care. The vast majority of participants plan on continuing their mindfulness practice after the course and would recommend the MBSR variant course to their colleagues. Mindfulness based interventions show promise in increasing professional fulfillment and alleviating aspects of career burnout in clinicians at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Continuation of our pilot course will allow our team to increase our sample size and continue to evaluate and modify methods to best serve clinicians and other hospital employees in the efforts to increase their overall wellbeing.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Over the years, the telecommunications sector has steadily grown in the last ten years while gaining relevance in the global market. Management of the supply chain generates various risks and complications, and many industries seek effective supply chain operation methods to meet their variable requirements. The objective of this research is to propose a supply-chain model focused on on-time delivery compliance with substantial support of knowledge management methodologies. The research study yielded a 91% increase in compliance from the given scenario.