The ambivalence of many prehistorians toward curio collections has meant that, although they recognise some of their shortcomings, they nevertheless use collections as if they had qualities of archaeological assemblages. In this dissertation it is posited and then demonstrated that curio collections are very different entities to archaeological assemblages. In order to use collections in valid constructions of New Zealand�s pre-European past, the processes that led to their formation need to be understood. It is only then that issues of representation can be addressed. In order to better understand the collecting process, a study of the activity of 24 curio collectors who operated in the Murihiku region of southern New Zealand during the period between 1865 and 1975 was undertaken. The study was structured about two key notions: the idea of the �filter� and the idea that tools and ornaments have a �life history� that extends from the time that raw material was selected for the manufacture to the present. The notion of the filter made possible a determination of the effects of particular behaviours on patterns of collector selectivity and the extent and nature of provenance recording; and the extended concept of life history recognised that material culture functions in multiple cultural and chronological contexts-within both indigenous and post-contact spheres. Examination of the collecting process led to the identification of five curio collecting paradigms: curio collecting for the acquisition of social status, curio collecting for financial return, curio collecting as an adjunct to natural history collecting, curio collecting as an adjunct to historical recording, and ethnological or culture-area curio collecting. Filtering processes associated with each paradigm resulted in particular, but not always distinctive, patterns of curio selectivity and styles of provenance recording. A switch in the focus of attention from examination of curio collectng processes generally to the study of the filtering processes that shaped collections from a specific archaeological site-the pre-European Otago Peninsula site of Little Papanui (J44/1)- enabled some evaluation of individuual collection representation. A database recording up to 19 attributes for each of 6282 curios localised to �Little Papanui� in Otago Museum enabled 31 dedicated or �ardent� collectors who operated at the site to be identified. These 31 dedicated collectors were grouped according to the paradigm that best described their collecting behaviour. It was found that the greater proportion of these dedicated collectors (n=12, 39%) had been influenced by the ethnological or culture-area collecting paradigm. These 12 collectors were responsible for recovering a remarkable 5645 curios or nearly ninety-percent (89.86%) of the meta-collection. Because curio collections lack meaningfully recorded stratigraphic provenance, it is the technological and social context in which tools and ornaments functioned that must become the focus of curio collection studies. Appropriate studies of technological and social and context focus upon evaluations of raw material sourcing, evaluations of manufacture technique and assessments of tool and ornament use and reuse (and integrative combinations of these modes of study). These sorts of evaluation require large collections compiled in the least selective manner possible and the collections need to be reliably localised to specific sites. Collections compiled by the ethnological or culture-area collectors have these qualities. Collections compiled within other paradigms lack locality information and were assembled in highly selective manners.

The Wider Caribbean Region does not have a regional waste management strategy. An integrated approach to waste management throughout the region would benefit many economic sectors, safeguard people’s health and improve environmental quality. Numerous studies, above all a project conducted in 1994 by the World Bank, pointed out that one of the main reasons why such strategy has not been developed yet lies in the scarce availability of data in the waste management sector. Through on field researches and the analysis of institutional reports, the objective of the present study is defining the reasons that led and still underpin such scarcity. Furthermore, the study proposes a new methodology of data collection and improvements to one of the mathematical model that is used to estimate waste quantities in ports. The purpose of the paper is to find an integrated solution to a double challenge: waste abundance and energy scarcity, with focus on ship generated waste management.

solid objects is a collection of objects and its cultural life, where the roles of the object, artist, collector, museum, writer, publisher and curator are suspended to reemerge in other possible forms. In this work the text becomes an object, the pocket a museum, the collection a persona, the artist its curator, the writer a sign.

Iterative rounding has been an increasingly popular approach to solving network design optimization problems ever since Jain introduced the concept in his revolutionary 2-approximation for the Survivable Network Design Problem (SNDP). This paper looks at several important iterative rounding approximation algorithms and makes improvements to some of their proofs. We generalize a matrix restatement of Nagarajan et al.'s token argument, which we can use to simplify the proofs of Jain's 2-approximation for SNDP and Fleischer et al.'s 2-approximation for the Element Connectivity (ELC) problem. Lau et al. show how one can construct a (2,2B + 3)-approximation for the degree bounded ELC problem, and this thesis provides the proof. We provide some structural results for basic feasible solutions of the Prize-Collecting Steiner Tree problem, and introduce a new problem that arises, which we call the Prize-Collecting Generalized Steiner Tree problem.

Due to the saturation of the market and the economic downturn in 2008, the expansion rate of shops of convenience store chains in Taiwan has shrunk rapidly. In coping with this harsh external environment, all of the proprietors strive to implement varieties of promotion activities to boost their revenue. One of the most popular schemes is the "Whole Store Integrated Promotion Strategy" initiated by 7-Eleven in 2007. That is, by means of point collecting, customers can exchange for exclusive gifts or get a discount on certain products. The market response toward this activity is so strong that makes other competitors to follow suit immediately. Hence, this promotion skill has become the panacea for lifting sales. Thus, this study uses customers of convenience stores as the subject to analyze the impacts on impulsive buying behavior on different promotion activities and to understand the degree of customers¡¦ satisfaction after they finish their shopping. Meanwhile, the impulsivity traits and the social demographic variables of customers are included in this survey as well in order to find out their relationship with the impulsive buying behavior. The result reveals that the traditional price-discount promotion activity is favored and easier to induce impulsive buying behavior than the novel point collecting one. Besides, this study also finds out that the higher impulsivity trait the customer possesses the more possibility for them to conduct impulsive buying. As for customers' satisfaction, it shows that the higher degree of impulsive buying, the more satisfy the customer is.

This thesis analyzes the educational function of art museums, how education in art museums evolved and how an art museum can conduct an educational mission. The concept of the material collections as the educative origin of art museums will be discussed alongside the history of collections in Europe. In addition to the concept of collection, the importance of educational programmes of art museums will be highlighted. Having derived a general notion of the educational function of art museums, the thesis will seek to answer questions such as how museology evolved in Turkey and whether the turkish museology has an educational concern. In accordance with these questions two turkish contemporary art museums will be investigated as case studies.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Robert E. Lyons, Dept. of Plant & Soil Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

The present dissertation is intended to be the first systematic investigation of the illusionistic pergola considered within the framework of the intellectual culture and the garden culture of early modern Rome. The subject is the fresco or mosaic decoration featuring a pergola – a depicted trelliswork covered with plants and peopled with birds – in the loggias, porticoes, and garden pavilions of villas and palaces in Rome and its environs. These pictorial fictions have survived in sufficient numbers to constitute a decorative trend, and moreover, appear in clusters at specific periods, which can be partly explained by means of the cultural factors predominant at the time. The dissertation discusses these pergolas in relation to antiquarian culture, the collecting of plants and birds, the study of natural history, garden furnishings and the art of treillage, thereby contextualizing them within the culture of early modern Rome. The dissertation assembles the first corpus of illusionistic pergolas in the period 1500-1620, updating a much earlier general corpus of 1967 by Börsch-Supan, and distinguishes three distinct periods of the proliferation of these pictorial fictions in Rome and its environs: the first period (1517-1520), the second period (1550-1580), and the third period (1600-1620). Important cultural issues relevant to each period are identified,and proposed as the frameworks for study. These include the reference to the antique and to the vernacular, mediation between indoors and outdoors, the tension between art and craft and the ambiguity of the pseudo-architectural, semantic and aesthetic cross reference between architecture and garden, and the reflection of the intellectual culture. On examination, the illusionistic pergolas are revealed to be a nexus of interrelationships between built structure, ornamented surface, garden and landscape, as well as multivalent embodiments of emerging ideas and sensibilities concerning the experience of architectural space and nature. By taking into account the middle ground of architecture and garden, the study explores the multivalence of ephemeral garden furnishings and their fictive counterparts, opening up a new perspective on the sites examined, and attempts to see a resonance of the tradition in modern times. / text

Uppsatsens syfte är att ta reda på hur STIM:s insamlings- och fördelningsregler ser ut och ta reda på varför det är på det sättet, samt att undersöka ifall det finns några brister och hur de i sådant fall kan åtgärdas. För att få fram orsaken till utformningen av de insamlings- och fördelningsregler STIM använder har vi valt en kvalitativ studie där vi intervjuat STIM. Vi har även intervjuat olika aktörer, exempelvis musikförlag, som har kontakt med STIM, för att belysa eventuella brister. Totalt har vi gjort sju intervjuer. Vi har dessutom använt sekundära källor så som årsredovisning och material från STIM:s hemsida till beskrivandet av insamlings- och fördelningsreglerna. STIM:s insamlings- och fördelningsregler är utformade av styrelsen och baseras på olika faktorer. Bland annat har STIM krav från upphovsrättssällskap i världen att hålla sina administrativa kostnader nere. De administrativa kostnaderna är centrala för hur noggrann insamling och fördelning STIM driver. De brister som framkommit är bland annat att STIM ligger efter den tekniska utvecklingen och de nya användningsområdena för musik som detta innebär. STIM är bra för de stora upphovsmännen som figurerar frekvent i radio och TV. Dock är de mindre upphovsmännen inte lika uppmärksammade då STIM inte fokuserar på att samla in småpengar från mindre områden där mindre upphovsmän eventuellt figurerar. STIM:s monopolställning på den svenska marknaden bidrar till att det inte finns någon direkt press på dem att förändra verksamheten. En mindre konkurrent som skulle fokusera på nya marknader och mindre marknader som är eftersatta i STIM:s verksamhet, är behövlig. / The purpose of this case study is to find out how STIM:s collecting and distribution activities operate and why they do so. Also we intend to investigate possible scarcities and how they can be taken care of. To find out how STIM’s collecting and distribution actions function we used a qualitative study in which we did interviews with STIM. We also interviewed various people involved in the subject e.g. music publishers. These interviews helped us finding scarcities within STIMS operations. We made a total of seven interviews. Also we used secondary sources such as financial rapports and STIM’s webpage to describe the collecting and distribution activites. The rules which STIM uses to collect and distribute royalties are developed by STIM’s board and are based on various elements such as pressure brought on from foreign collecting societies to keep the administrative costs low. These administrative costs have great influence on the accuracy of the collecting and distributing activities. STIM is far behind the new technology and the new use of music that this technology offers. STIM doing a great job towards successful originators whose songs are frequently played on the radio and the TV. However the less successful originators do not get the same attention from STIM because they don’t focus on collecting smaller amounts of money from smaller districts where some of these less successful originators appear. The monopoly status STIM has on the Swedish market contributes to the non existing pressure to make them change their operations. A smaller competitor whose main focus would be the new and the smaller market for music is necessary.

Iterative rounding has been an increasingly popular approach to solving network design optimization problems ever since Jain introduced the concept in his revolutionary 2-approximation for the Survivable Network Design Problem (SNDP). This paper looks at several important iterative rounding approximation algorithms and makes improvements to some of their proofs. We generalize a matrix restatement of Nagarajan et al.'s token argument, which we can use to simplify the proofs of Jain's 2-approximation for SNDP and Fleischer et al.'s 2-approximation for the Element Connectivity (ELC) problem. Lau et al. show how one can construct a (2,2B + 3)-approximation for the degree bounded ELC problem, and this thesis provides the proof. We provide some structural results for basic feasible solutions of the Prize-Collecting Steiner Tree problem, and introduce a new problem that arises, which we call the Prize-Collecting Generalized Steiner Tree problem.