by Hui See-mun Alice. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-53). / ABSTRACT --- p.i / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.ii / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.iii / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.3 / Chapter III. --- TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT - AN OVERVIEW --- p.5 / Importance of Quality to banks --- p.5 / History of TQM --- p.7 / Definitions on Quality.......: --- p.9 / Definitions of Total Quality Management --- p.10 / Critical factors for a successful TQM program --- p.14 / Chapter IV. --- TQM IN CHASE MANHATTAN BANK --- p.18 / Reasons for implementing TQM in Chase --- p.18 / Fundamental principles and values of Chase TQM --- p.18 / TQM implementation in Hong Kong --- p.23 / Chapter V. --- EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS --- p.29 / Evaluation of the system --- p.29 / Recommendations --- p.33 / Chapter VI. --- CONCLUSION --- p.39 / APPENDIX / Chapter 1. --- Overview of ISO 9000 --- p.41 / Chapter 2. --- HKMA Quality Award Criteria Framework --- p.43 / Chapter 3. --- TQM plan --- p.44 / Chapter 4. --- Problem solving process 8c Quality improvement process --- p.45 / Chapter 5. --- Deming's 14 principles --- p.46 / Chapter 6. --- Juran's 10 steps in quality improvement --- p.47 / Chapter 7. --- Crosby's 14 steps in quality improvement --- p.48 / Chapter 8. --- Malcolm Baldrige Award assessment system --- p.49 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.51 / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS / Figure 1. Framework of Chase TQM --- p.19 / Figure 2. Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle --- p.21 / Figure 3. TQM Plan --- p.44 / Figure 4. Problem Solving Process --- p.45 / Figure 5. Quality Improvement Process --- p.45

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Pensions are essentially the only source of income for many retired workers. It is thus critical that the pension fund manager chooses the right type of plan for his/her workers.Every pension scheme follows its own set of rules when calculating the benefits of the fund’s members at retirement. Whichever plan the manager chooses for the members,he/she will have to invest their contributions in the financial market. The manager is therefore faced with the daunting task of selecting the most appropriate investment strat-egy as to maximize the returns from the financial assets. Due to the volatile nature of stock markets, some pension companies have attached minimum guarantees to pension contracts. These guarantees come at a price, but ensure that the member does not suffer a loss due to poorly performing equities.In this thesis we study four types of mathematical problems in pension fund management,of which three are essentially optimization problems. Firstly, following Blake [5], we show in a discrete time setting how to decompose a pension benefit into a combination of Euro-pean options. We also model the pension plan preferences of workers, sponsors and fund managers. We make a number of contributions additional to the paper by Blake [5]. In particular, we contribute graphic illustrations of the expected values of the pension fund assets, liabilities and the actuarial surplus processes. In more detail than in the original source, we derive the variance of the assets of a defined benefit pension plan. Secondly,we dedicate Chapter 6 to the problem of minimizing the cost of a minimum guarantee included in defined contribution (DC) pension contracts. Here we work in discrete time and consider multi-period guarantees similar to those in Hipp [25]. This entire chapter is original work. Using a standard optimization method, we propose a strategy that cal- culates an optimal sequence of guarantees that minimizes the sum of the squares of the present value of the total price of the guarantee. Graphic illustrations are included to in-dicate the minimum value and corresponding optimal sequence of guarantees. Thirdly, we derive an optimal investment strategy for a defined contribution fund with three financial assets in the presence of a minimum guarantee. We work in a continuous time setting and in particular contribute simulations of the dynamics of the short interest rate process and the assets in the financial market of Deelstra et al. [19]. We also derive an optimal investment strategy of the surplus process introduced in Deelstra et al. [19]. The results regarding the surplus are then converted to consider the actual investment portfolio per- taining to the wealth of the fund. We note that the aforementioned paper does not use optimal control theory. In order to illustrate the method of stochastic optimal control, we study a fourth problem by including a discussion of the paper by Devolder et al. [21] in Chapter 3. We enhance the work in the latter paper by including some simulations. The specific portfolio management strategies are applicable to banking as well (and is being pursued independently).

(Deutsch) Diese Arbeit versucht sich unter Einbeziehung interkultureller Quellen im Dialog mit Julio Cortázars Erzählung "der Verfolger" [el perseguidor] an einer Verfolgung der Jagd. Sie hofft, mit dem Begriff der Jagd und seiner Ausdifferenzierung in verschiedene Modi fundamentale Bewegungsrichtungen der menschlichen Existenz zu beschreiben. Die menschliche Existenz kommt dabei als spannungsreiches Zwischen ("inter") von sinngetragener medialisierter Bezogenheit und außer-sinnhafter realer Faktizität in den Blick. Im Verlaufe der Arbeit werden anhand ausgewählter Szenen der Erzählung nicht nur die Spannung des Zwischen selbst, sondern auch seine Pole zum Gegenstand des philosophischen Fragens gemacht. Schlüsselworte: Jagd, Cortázar, Zwischen (inter), Sinn, außer-Sinn, Reales, Leib, absolutes Nichts

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In the late nineteenth century, the American art world was highly competitive as artists vied with each other and more established European artists for a small pool of patrons. A few recognized the power of mass media to create celebrity and financial success. They tread carefully into the arena of self-promotion, striking a delicate balance between advertising and maintaining Gilded Age ideas about the purely artistic motivations of a great painter. In 1878, the largely unknown artist William Merritt Chase arrived in New York with the idea that an elaborately decorated studio could potentially make his name in the art world. The plan worked. His Tenth Street Studio was a harmony of color created through his masterful arrangement of bric-a-brac and art objects. It soon attracted media coverage and public attention. Chase quickly realized, however, that the writers who gushed over his studio were more interested in the space than the artist who created it. While the studio had achieved celebrity, its creator had not. In order to attract patrons, Chase needed to garner press coverage of the studio that would refer back to himself as the artist. His solution was a series of paintings of the studio interior itself. Chase depicted wealthy visitors looking at prints, conferring with the artist, even contemplating a purchase of work right off the walls – messages intended to advertise his availability to these potential patrons. These painted “advertisements,” created in the 1880s, redirected public attention from the studio to its creator and solidified his celebrity. In 1890, Chase painted one of the most famous events to ever occur at the Tenth Street Studio – the performance of the Spanish dancer known as the Carmencita. While encapsulating the bohemian atmosphere of the studio, Chase’s portrait of the dancer displayed no trace of the studio or its contents, only a plain muted background. He no longer needed to advertise himself as artist-for-hire because he had already succeeded in this endeavor. His painted studio advertisements had worked. Chase was a bona fide Gilded Age celebrity and a permanent addition to the canon of great American artists.

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Endothelial cells separate the bloodstream from the underlying tissue and play a crucial role in vascular homeostasis. They also form an important barrier for vascular drug delivery. This thesis contains preliminary studies targeted at understanding the mechanisms of binding and transport across endothelial cells cultured in vitro. Specifically, the first study investigates how the recombinant source of Factor IX (FIX), a blood coagulant protein used in the treatment of Hemophilia B, impacts surface ligand binding (FIX to its specific receptors) to bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs). Competitive binding experiments between 125I-FIX and FIX were undertaken to quantify the interaction of recombinant and transgenic FIX with BAECs and human collagen IV and determine if there was a measurable difference in binding affinity. Results indicate limited specific binding of 125I-FIX to BAECs and no binding to human collagen IV. Concrete conclusions were not drawn from this data due to technical issues during the experimental process. The second study investigates insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) transport across both BAEC and MAC-T cells, a mammary epithelial cell line, cultured on tissue culture inserts. IGF-I is a circulatory growth factor implicated in the regulation of cell division and tissue proliferation. Competitive binding experiments between 125I-IGF-I and unlabeled protein (IGF-I, Y60L-IGF-I, a mutant of IGF-I, and IGF Binding Protein-3 (IGFBP-3)) were undertaken to quantify the binding and transport of IGF-I under various experimental conditions. Results confirmed earlier work from the Williams' laboratory indicating that 125I-IGF-I transport was enhanced by incubation with its non-receptor-binding analog, Y60L-IGF-I, but cell surface associated 125I-IGF-I was decreased by its presence. Other studies were undertaken but conclusive results could not be drawn. / Master of Science

Es wird allgemein angenommen, dass Proteine exponentiell degradiert werden. Das bedeutet, dass neu synthetisierte als auch alte Proteine mit gleicher Wahrscheinlichkeit degradiert werden. Es tauchen jedoch immer mehr Hinweise dafür auf, dass das nicht immer der Fall sein muss. Um diese Fragestellung systematisch anzugehen, haben wir eine Methode zur metabolischen Pulsmarkierung mit der nichtkanonischen Aminosäure Azidohomoalanine (AHA) entwickelt. AHA ermöglicht die Anreicherung von neu synthetisierten Proteinen direkt nach einem Puls oder nach einer „chase“ (Nachverfolgung) Periode in AHA freiem Medium. Wir kombinierten diese Methode mit SILAC und Shotgun Proteomik um zu quantifizieren wieviel Protein nach verschiedenen chase-Perioden übrig bleibt. Damit konnten wir Degradationsprofile für tausende von Proteinen erstellen. Unsere Daten zeigen, dass mehr als 10 % der Proteine nicht exponentiell degradiert werden (NED). Diese Proteine werden mit fortschreitendem Alter ausschließlich stabiler. Proteasomale Degradation von überschüssigen Proteinkomplexuntereinheiten scheint einen Großteil der NEDs zu erklären. Beim Vergleich zwischen murinen und humanen Zellen stellte sich heraus, dass NED teilweise konserviert ist. Das liegt scheinbar daran, dass diese Zellen trotz unterschiedlichem Ursprungs einheitlich bestimmte Untereinheiten überproduzieren. Da überschüssige NED Proteine bereits unter Standardbedingungen degradiert werden, nahmen wir an, dass die zusätzliche Überproduktion eines NED Proteins seine Level im stationären Zustand nicht verändern sollte. Um dies zu zeigen, quantifizierten wir Degradationskinetiken von Proteinen einer aneuploidenZelllinie. Wir fanden, dass NED Proteine, die auf trisomischen Chromosomen codiert sind, nicht in gleichem Maße ihr stationäres Level steigerten wie exponentiell degradierte Proteine. In Übereinstimmung mit unserer Hypothese verzeichneten wir stattdessen eine Zunahme der anfänglichen Degradationsraten dieser NED Proteine. / Proteins are thought to be degraded exponentially. That means that newly synthesized proteins have the same probability to be degraded as old proteins. However, evidence has accumulated showing that this is not true in all cases. To analyze this more systematically, we developed a method employing metabolic pulse-labeling by the non-canonical amino acid azidohomoalanine (AHA). AHA enables enrichment of newly synthesized proteins directly after pulse or after chase in AHA-free medium. We used SILAC and shotgun proteomics to quantify how much protein remains after different lengths of chase to create degradation profiles for thousands of proteins. Importantly, these degradation profiles allowed us to detect changes in degradation kinetics as the proteins age. We found that more than 10 % of proteins are non-exponentially degraded (NED). These protein are exclusively stabilized by age. Proteasomal degradation of excess protein complex subunits seems to explain a large fraction of NED. Comparing NED in mouse and human cells, we found that NED is at least partially conserved, seemingly due to cells consistently making too much of certain subunits. These overproduced subunits are on average shorter and more structured than the exponentially degraded proteins within the same complex. Finally, since excess NED proteins are degraded during baseline conditions, we hypothesized that making more of a NED protein would not increase its steady state levels. We employed an aneuploidy cell model and found that indeed NED proteins encoded on trisomic chromosomes did not increase in steady state levels to the same extent as exponentially degraded proteins. Instead, we recorded an increase in initial degradation of these proteins. In summary, we present a method for global pule-chase experiments allowing the detection of age-dependent protein degradation with possible implications for the understanding of aneuploidy and cancer.

Dans cette thèse, les techniques de coopération ont été étudiées pour un canal multi-accès multi-relais composé d'au moins deux sources qui communiquent avec une seule destination à l'aide d'au moins deux nœuds de relayage en mode semi-duplex. Le multiplexage par répartition dans le temps est supposé. Tout d'abord, l’algorithme d’adaptation de lien est exécuté par l'ordonnanceur centralisé. Durant la première phase de transmission, les sources transmettent chacune à leur tour leur message respectif pendant des intervalles de temps consécutifs. Dans chaque intervalle de temps dans la deuxième phase, la destination planifie un nœud pour transmettre les redondances, mettant en œuvre un protocole coopératif d'Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ), où les canaux de contrôle limités bidirectionnels sont disponibles depuis les sources et les relais vers la destination. Dans la première partie de la thèse, les stratégies de sélection des nœuds centralisé sont proposées pour la deuxième phase de transmission. Les décisions d’ordonnancement sont prises en fonction de la connaissance des ensembles de sources correctement décodées par chaque noeud et ayant comme objectif de maximiser l’efficacité spectrale moyenne. L'analyse de la probabilité de coupure de l'information ainsi que les simulations Monte-Carlo (MC) sont effectués afin de valider ces stratégies. Dans la seconde partie, un algorithme d’adaptation de lien lent est proposé afin de maximiser l’efficacité spectrale moyenne sous contrainte de vérification d'une qualité de service individuelle cible pour une famille donnée de schémas de modulation et de codage, réposant sur l'information sur la distribution des canaux signalée. Les débits des sources discrets sont déterminés en utilisant l’approche "Genie-Aided" suivie d’un algorithme itératif de correction de débit. Les simulations MC montrent que l’algorithme d’adaptation de lien proposé offre des performances proches de celles de la recherche exhaustive. Dans la troisième partie, les performances de protocole HARQ à redondance incrémentale (IR) avec codage mono et multi-utilisateur, ainsi que l'HARQ de type Chase Combining avec codage mono-utilisateur sont comparées. Les simulations MC montrent que l'IR-HARQ avec codage mono-utilisateur offre le meilleur compromis entre performance et complexité pour le scénario de petit nombre de sources. Un schéma de codage pratique est proposé et validé à l'aide de simulations MC. / In this thesis, cooperation techniques have been studied for Multiple Access Multiple Relay Channel, consisted of at least two sources which communicate with a single destination with the help of at least two half-duplex relaying nodes. Time Division Multiplexing is assumed. First, the link adaptation algorithm is performed at the centralised scheduler. Sources transmit in turns in consecutive time slots during the first transmission phase. In each time slot of the second phase, the destination schedules a node to transmit redundancies, implementing a cooperative Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) protocol, where bidirectional limited control channels are available from sources and relays towards the destination. In the first part of the thesis, centralized node selection strategies are proposed for the second phase. The scheduling decisions are made based on the knowledge of the correctly decoded source sets of each node, with the goal to maximize the average spectral efficiency. An information outage analysis is conducted and Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations are performed to evaluate their performance. In the second part, a slow-link adaptation algorithm is proposed which aims at maximizing the average spectral efficiency under individual QoS targets for a given modulation and coding scheme family relying on the reported Channel Distribution Information of all channels. Discrete source rates are first determined using the "Genie-Aided" assumption, which is followed by an iterative rate correction algorithm. The resulting link adaptation algorithm yields performance close to the exhaustive search approach as demonstrated by MC simulations. In the third part, performances of Incremental Redundancy (IR) HARQ with Single and Multi User encoding, as well as the Chase Combining HARQ with Single User encoding are compared. MC simulations demonstrate that IR-HARQ with Single User encoding offers the best trade-off between performance and complexity for a small number of sources in our setting. Practical coding scheme is proposed and validated using MC simulations.

在高度醫療化的現代社會當中，醫病關係是一個不容忽視的重要議題。二十世紀的醫療科技突飛猛進，但是病患所接受的醫療品質卻是越來越低劣。醫生過度強調科學與理性，失去對病人的尊重，因而導致醫療系統凌駕於人性之上的情境。《哈維》與《心靈病房》分別描述了病患在醫院所經歷的治療過程。透過這兩齣戲的比較，本文發現二十世紀下半葉的醫療系統對待病患的態度並無改善。透過傅柯與生命倫理學的觀點，本文旨在說明二十世紀醫療系統對人性所造成的迫害，並且探討醫療體系的威權如何被建立以及病患的自主權如何被剝奪。 　　本論文分為四章。第一章說明柴絲和愛德森的生平背景、《哈維》與《心靈病房》的相關評論以及本論文的理論架構。第二章透過傅柯的觀點闡述醫護人員無形中施加於病患身上的醫療暴力。第三章透過生命倫理學的角度分析病患任由醫療體系擺佈的過程。第四章總結醫護人員對病患的操控以及病患在醫療系統中所遭遇的困境，並且重申醫療系統應該以「以病患為中心」的醫療模式取代傳統霸權式的醫療。 / In the madicalized society, the doctor-patient relationship is a significant issue because medical science has had tremendous breakthroughs in the twentieth century, yet the quality of hospital care has become worse. Doctors, over-relying on science and rationality, lose respect for their patients, which leads to a situation of medical apparatuses above humanity. Mary Chase’s Harvey and Margaret Edson’s Wit describe patients’ experience in hospital respectively. Through the comparison and contrast of the plays, this thesis cannot see any improvement in doctors’ treatment of patients. Therefore, aiming at demonstrating the dehumanizing evil of medical apparatuses, this thesis elaborates the construction of medical authority from the perspective of Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary power and reflects on the deprival of patients’ autonomy with the approach of biomedical ethics. This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One introduces the backgrounds of the authors, literature review of Harvey and Wit and the theoretical frameworks of Foucault and biomedical ethics. Chapter Two, focusing on the rigid disciplinary power of medical apparatuses, illustrates hospital staff’s evil practice on patients. Chapter Three demonstrates the dehumanized patients under the manipulation of medical discipline and unethical treatment. Chapter Four concludes hospital staff’s manipulation of patients and patients’ dilemmas in medical institution and then reiterates the significance of the patient-centered treatment.