Thesis (M.A.)--Northern Kentucky University, 2007. / Made available through ProQuest. Publication number: AAT 1443795. ProQuest document ID: 1324373731. Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-47)

Thesis (M.S.)--Ball State University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-49). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Στα πλαίσια της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας, ασχολούμαστε με την αυτόματη κατηγοριοποίηση των αποτελεσμάτων των αναζητήσεων στον Παγκόσμιο Ιστό. Αρχικά, ορίζουμε τα χαρακτηριστικά των σελίδων που είναι κατάλληλα για κατηγοριοποίηση με βάση την πρόθεση του χρήστη. Έπειτα, με χρήση μεθόδων μείωσης της διαστατικότητας επιλέγουμε τα πιο αντιπροσωπευτικά από τα χαρακτηριστικά αυτά και αξιολογούμε την απόδοση διάφορων αλγορίθμων κατηγοριοποίησης. Ακολούθως, επιλέγουμε τον αλγόριθμο κατηγοριοποίησης που βασίζεται στα επιλεγμένα χαρακτηριστικά και επιτυγχάνει την καλύτερη απόδοση. Εφαρμόζοντας τον αλγόριθμο, κατηγοριοποιούμε τα αποτελέσματα των αναζητήσεων στον Παγκόσμιο Ιστό. Τέλος, προτείνουμε μια μέθοδο εξαγωγής όρων από τα κατηγοριοποιημένα αποτελέσματα και επαναδιατύπωσης του ερωτήματος με βάση τον σκοπό αναζήτησης του χρήστη. / In this thesis, we tackle the problem of automatic classification of search results in Web environment. First, we define web pages features that are convenient for classification based on the user’s intent. Next, we use dimensionality reduction techniques to choose the most representative features and we evaluate different classification algorithms. We choose the most efficient classification algorithm based on chosen features and by using it, we classify the results retrieved from web searches. In the end, we propose a method to extract terms from the classified results and to reformulate the query based on user intent.

Το πρόβλημα εύρεσης συντομότερων διαδρομών είναι ένα από τα πιο θεμελιώδη προβλήματα μονοκριτηριακής βελτιστοποίησης σε δίκτυα. Σε αυτό το πρόβλημα αναζητείται η συντομότερη διαδρομή μεταξύ δύο δεδομένων σημείων ελαχιστοποιώντας ένα κριτήριο κόστους. Σε πολλές εφαρμογές ωστόσο, μας ενδιαφέρουν περισσότερα από ένα κριτήρια προς βελτιστοποίηση. Για παράδειγμα, στην εύρεση διαδρομών σε ένα οδικό δίκτυο με διόδια, μας ενδιαφέρει εκτός από την διανυμένη απόσταση και η ελαχιστοποίηση του χρόνου και του κόστους. Παρόμοια παραδείγματα βρίσκουμε και στον χώρο των δικτύων τηλεπικοινωνιών, όπου εξετάζονται κριτήρια όπως η καθυστέρηση, η πιθανότητα λάθους, ο αριθμός συνδέσμων και άλλα. Σε αυτές τις περιπτώσεις η καλύτερη λύση δεν μπορεί να οριστεί με μονοσήμαντο τρόπο, και συνεπώς καταφεύγουμε σε αντισταθμίσεις μεταξύ των παραγόντων, που είναι γνωστές ως σύνολο λύσεων κατά Pareto. Παρόλο που για το πρόβλημα μονοκριτηριακής εύρεσης συντομότερων διαδρομών υπάρχουν πολλοί αποδοτικοί αλγόριθμοι για την επίλυση του προβλήματος, το αντίστοιχο πολυκριτηριακό πρόβλημα είναι πολύ πιο σύνθετο. Μέχρι τώρα, αυτό το πρόβλημα έχει αποδειχθεί ότι είναι NP-πλήρες. Επιπλέον, έχει αποδειχθεί ότι το πλήθος των λύσεων σε αυτό το πρόβλημα αυξάνεται εκθετικά σε σχέση με το μέγεθος της εισόδου. Υπάρχουν δύο βασικές προσεγγίσεις επίλυσης τέτοιων προβλημάτων, όπου εξετάζονται πολλαπλά κριτήρια. α) Η πρώτη μέθοδος βρίσκει προσεγγιστικές λύσης κατά έναν ορισμένο παράγοντα. Οι προσεγγιστικές μέθοδοι δεν βρίσκουν απαραίτητα ακριβείς λύσεις, αλλά είναι σχετικά γρήγορες και προσφέρουν εγγύηση για το ποσοστό απόκλισης από την βέλτιστη λύση. β) Η δεύτερη μέθοδος χρησιμοποιεί ευρετικές βελτιώσεις για να επιταχύνει τους ήδη υπάρχοντες αλγορίθμους. Τέτοιες τεχνικές βρίσκουν ακριβείς λύσεις, και το ζητούμενο είναι να επιτευχθεί μια πολύ καλή χρονική απόδοση. Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία επικεντρωνόμαστε στην δεύτερη μέθοδο, υποκινούμενοι από την μεγάλη ζήτηση πρακτικών εφαρμογών για εύρεση αποτελεσματικής και ακριβούς λύσης του προβλήματος συντομότερων διαδρομών υπό πολλαπλά κριτήρια. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, στην εργασία αυτή παρουσιάζουμε ένα ενοποιημένο πλαίσιο για την αποδοτική επίλυση αυτών των προβλημάτων. Προτείνουμε νέες μεθόδους ή βελτιώσεις των υπαρχόντων. Υλοποιήσαμε τις μεθόδους που παρουσιάζουμε συνοδεύοντάς τις με μια εκτενή πειραματική μελέτη πάνω σε δίκτυα ευρείας κλίμακας. / We present new implementations of heuristic algorithms for the solution of the multiobjective shortest path problem, using a new graph structure specifically suited for large scale road networks. We enhance the heuristics with further optimizations and experimentally evaluate the performance of our enhanced implementation on real world road networks achieving 10 times better performance with respect to the best previous study.

O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar os efeitos de um programa de capacitação de treinadores sobre comportamentos de um treinador de tênis no estabelecimento de metas para seus atletas durante o treino. Um treinador de tênis com 21 anos de idade e 3 de experiência, e dois atletas, com idade entre 15 e 16 anos, que treinavam e competiam regularmente, participaram da pesquisa. O estudo foi dividido em três fases. Na fase de linha de base,realizou-se a filmagem de 11 sessões de treino e calculou-se a porcentagem de ocorrência de instruções, encorajamentos, críticas/sarcamos, correções e elogios, fornecidos aos atletas, pelo treinador. Registrou-se, também, os tipos de exercícios aplicados pelo treinador e o número de vezes que o treinador registrou o desempenho dos atletas e que participou dos exercícios aplicados. Em seguida, iniciou-se a fase intervenção (Fase 2),composta por quatro passos, em um total de 10 sessões. Cada sessão consistiu no treino de habilidades específicas do treinador (observar e registrar comportamentos, planejar critérios e prazos de evolução do desempenho, fornecer feedback etc.) antes do treino e no acompanhamento subseqüente do treino com os atletas. Providenciou-se feedback para o treinador, durante os treinos e ao final destes. Finalmente, na pós-intervenção (Fase 3),procedeu-se como na Linha de Base. Os resultados mostraram que houve aumento na porcentagem de instruções, correções e elogios descritivos e redução na porcentagem de críticas/sarcasmos, durante e após a intervenção. Observou-se, ainda, que houve um aumento da porcentagem de registros dos desempenhos dos atletas e da participação do treinador nos exercícios. Verificou-se que os comportamentos aprendidos pelo treinador ocorreram nas interações com outros alunos de outras turmas. Também observou-se melhora no desempenho dos atletas – que atingiram as metas estabelecidas. Os resultados sugerem, portanto, a efetividade da intervenção na capacitação de treinadores no uso da estratégia de estabelecimento de metas, bem como a necessidade de mais investigações com um maior número de treinadores, de diferentes modalidades. / The aim of this study was to assess the effects of a coach training program on the behaviors of a tennis coach while establishing goals for his athletes during practice. A 21-year – old coach with 3 years of experience, and 2 athletes, aged between 5 and 16 years old who have practiced and competed regularly took part in this research. The study was divided in three phase. During the baseline phase, 11 sessions of training were filmed and the percentage of occurrence of the instructions, encouragement, criticism/sarcasm,corrections and praise, given to athletes by their coach, were calculated. It was also recorded the type of drills used and the number of times in which the coach has registered the athletes development and his participation in the required drills. Following, it was initiated the intervention phase (Phase 2), consisting of four steps, totalizing 10 sessions. Each session was composed of the training of specific coach abilities (observe, register the athlete’s behavior, criterion and development time, provide feedback etc.) before practice and by the post-training follow-up with the athletes. Feedback was provided for the coach, during and after the training. Finally, during the post-intervention (Phase 3), procedures were set such as in baseline phase. The results showed that was an increase of the percentage of instructions, corrections and descriptive praise, and the decrease of the percentage of criticism/sarcasm, during and after intervention. It was also observed the increase of number of times when the development of the athletes were registered and the coach’s participation in the performed drills. It was seen that the knowledge obtained by the coach was used to interact with different students other than those. It was also observed the improvement on the athletes performance – who have achieved the established goals. Therefore, the results suggest the effectiveness of the intervention while training coaches in the use of the goal-setting strategy, as well as the need of further investigation using a larger number of coaches in sports other than tennis.

Syfte och frågeställningar Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur en tränare i ett ungdomsakademilag bedrev fotbollsträning och interagerade med spelarna utifrån ett motivations- och inlärningsperspektiv. Detta ledde fram till följande frågeställningar: Utifrån Self-Determination Theory, var tränaren i sitt interagerande med spelarna övervägande autonomistödjande eller kontrollerande? Utifrån Achievement Goal Theory, var tränaren i sitt interagerande med spelarna övervägande uppgiftsorienterad eller ego-orienterad? Hur stor del av fotbollsträningen var isolerad kontra funktionell? Metod I studien deltog en tränare för ett akademilag i fotboll. Tränaren var 30 år gammal och hade en avslutad kandidatexamen i idrott samt var innehavare av UEFA Advanced Level Diploma. Tränaren videofilmades och observerades i efterhand utifrån ACT (Assessment of Coaching Tone). Omfånget var 5 träningspass och tiden i isolerade kontra funktionella övningar klockades. Resultat Tränarens interageranden var 11% Autonomy supportive, 37% Neutral och 52% Controlling. Evaluation related feedback var 22% Mastery-oriented, 32% Neutral och 46% Ego-oriented. Övningsformerna var till 95% funktionellt uppbyggda och till 5% isolerade. Slutsats Utifrån Assessment of Coaching Tone verkar tränaren i sina interageranden med spelarna vara övervägande kontrollerande samt skapa ett resultatorienterat motivationsklimat. Utifrån Self-Determination Theory och Achievement Goal Theory försvårar sannolikt dessa interageranden spelarnas möjlighet att utveckla självbestämmande motivation. Övningsformerna är i hög grad funktionella vilket sannolikt ökar chansen för att spelarna kan utveckla en perceptuell-kognitiv förmåga som krävs för att nå elitnivå.

[pt] Este trabalho apresenta um estudo sobre a visualização eficiente de figuras grandes,tais como mapas e desenhos CAD. Essas figuras são normalmente formadas por um grande número de objetos gráficos que, em geral, são predominantemente poligonais com muitos pontos. Em computação gráfica, as técnicas convencionais de se desenhar figuras não são capazes de oferecer tempos de resposta interativos quando elas são aplicadas a um grande volume de dados. Portanto, é necessário utilizar mecanismos apropriados para acelerar esse processo.É feita uma rápida descrição dos objetos gráficos e dos métodos de acesso espaciais.Em seguida, são propostos métodos para armazenar e recuperar eficientemente conjuntos de objetos gráficos bidimensionais em um meio de armazenamento secundário. Esses métodos utilizam estruturas de dados persistentes compostas por uma R-tree, V-trees e Quadtrees. A fim de demonstrar a eficiência das soluções propostas,são mostrados experimentos feitos com dados geográficos reais. / [en] This work presents a study about the efficient visualization of big figures, such as maps and CAD drawings. These figures are normally formed by a big graphical objects number that, generally, are predominantly polygon with many dots. In graphical computation, the conventional techniques of drawing figures are not capable to offer time of interactive reply when they are applied to a great volume of data. Therefore, it is necessary to use appropriate mechanisms in order to make the process faster. A description of graphical objects and of the espacial access methods is done. Then, they it is considered methods to store and to restore efficiently joints of bidimensional graphical objects in a way of secondary storage. These methods use composed structures of persistent data for a R-tree, V-trees and Quadtrees. In order to demonstrate the efficiency of the solutions proposed, experiments made with real geographic data are shown.

Project management (PM) plays a significant role in achieving the company’s goal and objectives. Due to its significant role, it is essential that the project managers use processes which remain focussed on the company’s business strategy. However, some implementations of the company’s business strategy have led to failures as a result of misalignment between project management and the company’s business strategy. Such misalignment has an impact on both the project management and business strategy and may lead to problems in the overall functioning of the business, including the implementation of the company’s business strategy through the projects. This research was undertaken to investigate the problem of aligning project management process with the company’s business strategy which has not been fully investigated to-date. This investigation aims to provide a deeper understanding and more holistic analysis of the key factors, such as stakeholders and contextual factors (AF), which enable or inhibit this alignment in order to develop a conceptual framework that addresses this research gap. This study examines and analyses the alignment process, by considering the key factors at the early planning phase of project management. To address the research gap, the study employs a qualitative, multiple case study approach in the interpretive paradigm. Data was collected via interviews of senior personnel (executives and project managers), mainly from three managerial levels of the organisation, including corporate, business, and functional levels in four telecommunication companies of the private sector in Saudi Arabia. The investigation was carried out by collecting data through semi-structured interviews to critically explore collectively the perspectives of the executives and the project managers on their experience of managing and executing the company’s business strategy and the projects. Written and electronic documentations as well as non-participant observations also served as important triangulation and complementary sources in understanding the phenomenon being studied and as a means of gaining additional perspectives and further insights on key issues. This study provides a novel contribution to the alignment process of project management to business strategy. The original contribution and findings of this study contribute to the growing body of knowledge of project management by developing a practical framework to benefit both academics and practitioners and to increase awareness of the alignment process. This holistic conceptual framework includes two sets of factors that impact the alignment process. Additionally, it provides a unique prescriptive standard and a code of practice for practitioners seeking to realise efficient and effective alignment.

abstract: Goal specification is an important aspect of designing autonomous agents. A goal does not only refer to the set of states for the agent to reach. A goal also defines restrictions on the paths the agent should follow. Temporal logics are widely used in goal specification. However, they lack the ability to represent goals in a non-deterministic domain, goals that change non-monotonically, and goals with preferences. This dissertation defines new goal specification languages by extending temporal logics to address these issues. First considered is the goal specification in non-deterministic domains, in which an agent following a policy leads to a set of paths. A logic is proposed to distinguish paths of the agent from all paths in the domain. In addition, to address the need of comparing policies for finding the best ones, a language capable of quantifying over policies is proposed. As policy structures of agents play an important role in goal specification, languages are also defined by considering different policy structures. Besides, after an agent is given an initial goal, the agent may change its expectations or the domain may change, thus goals that are previously specified may need to be further updated, revised, partially retracted, or even completely changed. Non-monotonic goal specification languages that can make these changes in an elaboration tolerant manner are needed. Two languages that rely on labeling sub-formulas and connecting multiple rules are developed to address non-monotonicity in goal specification. Also, agents may have preferential relations among sub-goals, and the preferential relations may change as agents achieve other sub-goals. By nesting a comparison operator with other temporal operators, a language with dynamic preferences is proposed. Various goals that cannot be expressed in other languages are expressed in the proposed languages. Finally, plans are given for some goals specified in the proposed languages. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Computer Science 2010

abstract: Original equipment manufacturers (buyers) are increasingly involving suppliers in new product development as a means to increase efficiency and expand capabilities. To realize such benefits, however, the two firms need to have appropriate communication and goal structures to minimize friction while maximizing design quality. In addition, the effectiveness of the inter-firm interaction process, i.e. their collaboration quality, is also a key success factor. This study draws from Information Process Theory to propose that higher technical and relational uncertainty requires more inter-firm communication. The misalignment between communication intensity and uncertainty reduces both design quality and design efficiency. Goal incongruence, which always lowers project performance, is less harmful for projects with high technical uncertainty due to the potential of the conflict resolving process in improving decision quality and efficiency. Finally I use Hackman's theory of work group effectiveness to propose that collaboration quality fully mediates the effects of communication intensity and goal congruence on project outcomes. The study used an empirical survey of manufacturers as the primary method of data collection. Manufacturers that integrate and assemble complex and discrete products are the target population. Design engineers and project managers from manufacturers were my target respondents. Both SEM and hierarchical regression were used to test the conceptual model. The dissertation made five theoretical contributions. First, I introduced the concept that there is an optimal level of inter-firm communication intensity, exceeding which lowers design efficiency without improving design quality. Second, I theoretically defined and empirically operationalized two types of uncertainty, one on the project level and one on the inter-firm level, which were shown to moderate the effects of inter-firm communication and goal structures on collaboration outcomes. Third, this study examined the conditions when goal congruence is more effective in improving collaboration outcomes. Fourth, this study nominally and operationally defined collaboration quality, a theoretical construct which measure the effectiveness of inter-partner interactions rather than mere existence or amount of certain activities pursued by partners. Finally, I proposed several enhancements to existing construct measures. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2011