Following established traditions in anthropology and sociology, where cross-border research helps to identify important themes which benefit from comparative study, this dissertation introduces cross-sector policy research as a new methodology for generating useful insights about public policy. The cross-sector method is applied to the study of the UK energy and transport sectors. A range of generic policy developments in the energy sector are identified including: the development of efficiency indicators, scenario analysis, and the establishment of energy efficiency programmes. Such developments have not, as yet, occurred in the transport sector. A structural analogy between energy and transport is developed which is used to generate a range of innovations for transport policy including: gross mass movements and intensities as indicators of the efficiency with which the economy uses transport; the projection of a quantitative scenario of sustainable mobility; and the outline of a transport efficiency programme. The insights from the analogy are generalised to consider the benefits of a wider application of cross-sector policy research to other policy areas.

This doctoral thesis deals with the aspects of evaluation of balance and optimality of corporate information systems. The initiative for this specialization was given by the increasing importance that is being laid on the perception of information systems from the point of view of a business company. More and more resources are being invested in the domain of information systems, but afterwards, it is not always ascertained that the information system is such a system, one could characterize as balanced and optimal for the company today as well as in the future. Often this is because there does not exist for the company an available and easily applicable methodic how to evaluate the system. As one of the main starting points of this doctoral thesis I have chosen the methodic HOS8 that was published 5 years ago on our faculty. The newly proposed methodic HOS2009 is trying to clear up the weak points of the original HOS8 methodic that were discovered during its practical use. This is done mainly by using the information feedback from the applicants of the methodic. Within the scope of this thesis the factors influencing the level of the particular areas of the system and the influence of these areas on its general balance are being examined. With regard to the evaluation of the balance and optimality of the information system, in this thesis the problematic of determination of a balanced and optimal state of information system for a company nowadays as well in the future are being examined. As a part of the methods output the thesis presents also charts representing the general state of the system, the imbalance of the particular parts of the IS and the relationship between the areas of hardware and software. Based on the evaluation of the current state and its comparison to the balanced optimal state for the present day as well for the future, the new possible directions and strategies of further development of the IS in the company are being proposed. I see the best exploitation of the methodic HOS2009 in the company in the support of managerial decisions with impact on: the discovery of potentially problems within the scope of IS of the company, the design of a possible course of development useful for their solution, but also the usage of the methodic as a simple control mechanism.

Energy efficiency has developed into an important objective for industrial enterprises. However, there is still a need for systematic approaches to reduce energy consumption in factories. Existing methods focus on the optimization of manufacturing processes and lack upon considering the entire factory system. Additionally, they are based on a detailed quantitative analysis of processes and thus, they need a high effort during the phase of data acquisition. Therefore, an approach for reducing energy consumption by providing energy efficiency measures to factory planning participants was developed in order to overcome these barriers. The general approach is described in this paper and supported with a use case that demonstrates the required information and possible outcomes in terms of energy efficiency information. Main advantages of this approach are reducing the effort to acquire energy data and the possibility to consider the factory system holistically.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / This article analyzes the effect of decisions on resource allocation among items of operating expenses, administrative and otherwise, in the unilateral moments of the distribution of returns on Brazilian stock mutual funds. We follow methodologically Chambers, Chung and Fare (1996, 1998), using the Directional Distance Function (DDF) technique, which allows us to measure the behavior of the average value, and semicurtose semivariance of returns of funds, together with inputs associated with the internal allocation of resources. The boundary of "production" was constructed from the observation of the accounting entries monthly and daily returns for a panel of 59 mutual funds within the class of Ibovespa Activity during 2005 to 2009. We are able to evidence a high level of persistence in terms of efficiency, corroborating the evidence reported in Castro and Matos (2012). The more efficient funds have higher levels of cumulative return, except in 2008, lower levels of undesirable products associated with the risk and composition of operating expenses, such that the value of the ratio of non administrative expenses/ administrative expenses is approximately half of the observed for the most inefficient funds. / Este trabalho estuda os nÃveis de eficiÃncia do processo produtivo dos fundos de investimento em aÃÃes no Brasil, visando acomodar as crÃticas de Murthi et al. (1997) e Basso e Funari (2001). Analisa-se o efeito das decisÃes em termos de alocaÃÃo de recursos dentre rubricas de despesas especificamente operacionais ou administrativas nos nÃveis de ganho e de risco mensurado pela semivariÃncia e semicurtose, a partir da FunÃÃo DistÃncia Direcional proposta por Chambers, Chung e FÃre (1996, 1998). A observaÃÃo do comportamento conjunto dos inputs e outputs e a construÃÃo da fronteira de produÃÃo para um painel de 59 fundos mÃtuos de investimento em aÃÃo, categoria Ibovespa Ativo, durante 2005 a 2009, permitem evidenciar um elevado nÃvel de persistÃncia em termos de eficiÃncia, corroborando a evidÃncia de persistÃncia de performance reportada em Matos e Castro (2012). Os fundos sistematicamente eficientes sÃo todos administrados por instituiÃÃes financeiras privadas, possuem uma tendÃncia de alocar proporcionalmente mais em cotas de outros fundos que os fundos ineficientes e atendem essencialmente clientes institucionais, private ou de alta renda, enquanto os fundos ineficientes sÃo direcionados essencialmente para o pÃblico em geral. A eficiÃncia està associada ainda a maiores nÃveis de retorno acumulado, exceto em 2008, menores nÃveis de produtos indesejÃveis associados ao risco e a uma composiÃÃo dos gastos tal que, o valor da razÃo de gastos nÃo administrativos/gastos administrativos à aproximadamente a metade do evidenciado para os fundos sistematicamente ineficientes. Os resultados parecem robustos quando comparados aos tradicionais rankings de performance risco-retorno. Evidencia-se uma maior heterogeneidade de eficiÃncia no turbulento ano de 2008, caracterizada por uma maior quantidade de fundos na fronteira, quase 30%, e pelos maiores nÃveis de ineficiÃncia.