The purpose of this study was to understand the types of competitive methods used by independent hotels in their bid to obtain and sustain competitive advantage. The concept of the co-alignment principle, as it relates to the choice of competitive methods and their implementation, was the focus of the research. The study investigated the co-alignment between the elements of the co-alignment principle; strategy choice, firm structure and firm performance. Five hotels in Jamaica and two propositions were used to test the model. The theoretical discussions were based upon the resource-based view literature. The empirical section of the study consisted of in-depth case studies, direct observations, guests' surveys and secondary data of independently owned and operated hotels in Jamaica. Interviews were conducted with general managers (or acting general managers) and other managers at each hotel. The study revealed the importance of co-alignment in hotels and the results indicated that performance was best when there was co-alignment. The results also indicated that the competitive methods cited by managers, as providing the greatest value to the hotels, were not always in line with what guests saw as important to them. Six conclusions were reached, which revealed the actions of managers of independent hotels. Unlike past research that focused on only one element of the co-alignment principle, this study focused on three elements; strategy choice, firm structure, and firm performance. The fourth element, environmental forces, was held constant in this study. / Ph. D.

Samarbete över gränser / Co-operation across the borders

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

<p> This thesis deals with the lattice of all topologies which may be put on an arbitrary set E. The structure of the lattice is investigated together with its lattice properties. A chapter is included on the co-atoms of the lattice, the ultra-topologies, wherein various topological properties which do and do not hold are investigated. Various topological properties are considered as to which topologies are minimal and maximal such and also which topological properties are preserved under lattice operations and relations.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Since the dawn of space exploration, material outgassing has been a major concern when developing a spacecraft. This has not only led to the creation of clean-rooms, but also to the development of various testing methods and standards used to understand the outgassing characteristics of any given material. In industry, low-outgassing materials are used to prevent contamination of electronics and camera lenses, because outgassed contaminates can lead to electronic failure and blurry images. The objective of this study is to develop a gas sensing sensor data acquisition system comprised of inexpensive commercial off-the-shelf components capable of detecting acceleration, atmospheric characteristics, and gas concentrations. Ground tests have been conducted to determine baseline characteristics of the components and develop an understanding of the CO2, CO and NO2 sensors’ ability to detect outgassing from PLA and ABS. Significant CO2 outgassing from PLA and ABS was observed, while CO outgassing was highly temperature dependent.

Yes / Population Health Management (PHM) relies on the analysis of data from several sources to account for the complex interaction of factors that contribute to the health and well-being of a population, while considering biases and inequalities across sub-populations. Visualisation is emerging as an essential tool for insight generation from data shared and linked across services including healthcare, education, housing, policing, etc. However, visualisation design is challenged by poor data connectivity and quality, high dimensionality and complexity of real-world routinely collected data, in addition to the heterogeneity of users’ backgrounds and tasks. The Creative Visualisation Opportunities (CVO) framework provides a structured approach for working with diverse communities of visualisation stakeholders and defines a set of participatory activities for the effective elicitation of requirements and visualisation design alternatives. We conducted three workshops, applying variations of the CVO framework, with over one hundred participants from the PHM domain, including clinicians, researchers, government and private sector representatives, and local communities. In this paper, we present the results of preliminary analysis of these activities and report on the perceived impact of visualisation in this domain from a stakeholders’ perspective. We report real-world successes and limitations of applying the framework in different formats (through online and in-person workshops), and reflect on lessons learned for task analysis and visualisation design in the PHM domain.

The need for more collaboration and co-teaching emerged from the standards-based and accountability movement as a result of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) legislation. The purpose of this study is to identify the perceived skill set needed by general and exceptional education teachers in order to be successful in a co-teaching classroom, discover if collaborative coursework is being offered to pre-service teachers as part of their university experience, and identify specific strategies, programs, and field experiences in which pre-service general and exceptional education teachers can engage in to better prepare them for their first co-teaching/collaborative teaching assignment. This qualitative study was based on the naturalistic inquiry design (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) and was comprised of one focus group from each of the three school divisions. The purposeful sample selection of teachers for each focus group included five to eight general and exceptional education probationary (zero to five years experience) teachers who have current or previous experience in a collaborative or co-taught classroom, and who graduated from a Virginia institution of higher education. A focus group protocol was used for data collection based on the ten revised (2011) Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium standards. When comparing the data of what general education teachers perceived were most important compared to what training, coursework, and experiences were actually provided as part of their pre-service training, 53% of the training received matched the skills they felt were most important. Forty-seven percent of their pre-service training focused on "other" skills, knowledge, performance, and critical dispositions. When comparing the data of what exceptional education teachers perceived were most important compared to what training, coursework, and experiences were actually provided as part of their pre-service training, 60% of the training received matched with the skills they felt were most important. Forty percent of their pre-service training focused on "other" skills, knowledge, performance, and critical dispositions. These data suggest that there is a disconnect between what pre-service teachers perceive as important and what is actually being taught through coursework and experiences in teacher preparation programs. / Ed. D.

Chinese urban villages which have grown over time have difficulty to operate as a healthy urban environment. As a consequence, residents are often forced to move to the boundary of the city although many prefer its narrow streets and the informality of life. This thesis proposes a modern infrastructural architecture to collaborate with the fabric of the urban village and infuse the environment with new possibilities and potentials. / Master of Architecture

In response to the student retention and diversity issues that have been persistent in undergraduate engineering education, many colleges have developed Engineering Student Support Centers (ESSCs) such as Minority Engineering Programs (MEPs) and Women in Engineering Programs (WEPs). ESSCs provide underrepresented students with co-curricular support using student interventions in the form of programs, activities, and services. However, ESSCs have a relatively short history and there are gaps in our knowledge about these support systems. While the practice of providing students with co-curricular support has been evaluated, theories of co-curricular support have not been as thoroughly investigated; we know very little about how co-curricular support functions alongside engineering curricula. In an effort to help close the gaps in current literature, the purpose of my study was to explore how the student interventions offered alongside engineering curricula influence the undergraduate experience. To address this purpose, I used a multi-case study design to explore the particulars of six ESSCs housed at four institutions. I focused on the ESSC administrators (those who provide support) and undergraduate students (those who receive support) using multiple qualitative data collection methods. The primary result of this study was the Model of Co-curricular Support (MCCS), which is a version of Tinto's Model of Institutional Departure that I repurposed to demonstrate the breadth of co-curricular assistance required to comprehensively support undergraduate engineering students. The MCCS illustrates how a student's interaction with the academic, social, and professional systems within a college–as well as the university system surrounding the college–could influence the success he or she has in an undergraduate engineering program. More specifically, the MCCS is a conceptual model for constructing and evaluating support systems and individual student interventions that prioritize undergraduate engineering students. Within my study, I also identified several classifications of ESSCs and highlighted some pros and cons associated with various classifications and configurations. Ultimately, this research combines student-retention theory with student-support practice in a way that could facilitate future collaborations among educational researchers and student-support practitioners. / Ph. D.

Recent advancements in FPGA technology have provided devices which are not only suited for digital logic prototyping, but also are capable of implementing complex computations. The use of these devices in multi-FPGA Custom Computing Machines (CCMs) has provided the potential to execute large sections of programs entirely in custom hardware which can provide a substantial speedup over execution in a general-purpose sequential processor. Unfortunately, the development tools currently available for CCMs do not allow users to easily configure multi-FPGA platforms. In order to exploit the capabilities of such an architecture, a procedure has been developed to perform a dataflow analysis of programs written in C which is capable of several hardware-specific optimizations. This, together with other software tools developed for this purpose, allows CCMs and their host processors to be targeted from the same high-level specification. / Master of Science