In this thesis, different ways to evaluate social business are compared and discussed.The relatively new concept “social business” is used to describe a private sector enterprise, the purpose of which is not primarily to maximise profit but to achieve a social mission. However, in doing so, it needs to be sustainable in financial terms, and this means that sufficient profitability is a necessary condition. (Environmental sustainability is another important prerequisite, which is not discussed in depth here).Assessing the success of a social business, it is therefore necessary to evaluate both the social impact and the financial viability. This means, on one hand, using appropriate evaluation methods that have mainly been developed for the public sector and the civil society. Such methods are based on unequal power relations requiring accountability – a concept not normally used in the private sector, where funding is based on a voluntary exchange of money for goods or services. On the other hand, not all traditional methods for assessing performance in a private sector company are suitable for determining financial sustainability in a social business. Nevertheless, existing methods should be used where appropriate.Among the findings are:- the importance of the local context and particular features, which makes comparisons between different social businesses difficult, and which necessitates adaptions of assessment methods- that several financial indicators, used for for-profit business, may also be useful for social business (especially those related to revenue trends and liquidity). However such indicators are based on accounting (history) rather than a forward-looking analysis of the business environment, and may not be fully comparable.- that the main purpose of impact evaluation is the need to improve operations, but also to enhance legitimacy among stake-holders and – to some extent – regulators and prospective investors. Stake-holder involvement is therefore normally an advantage.- that methods that build on monetising outcomes and impacts (for example Social Return on Investment) are normally less appropriate than models that use non-monetary forms for publishing evaluation results, eg. anecdotal analyses- that with the exception of evaluations done by the academia to increase knowledge, available resources will normally not be sufficient to carry out fully fledged external evaluations using methods to establish a counterfactual situation.The development of social business also challenges traditional economic assumptions of the profit maximising individual through introducing such concepts as solidarity, social capital and citizenship. The fact that in several ways, social business crosses the borderline between on one hand the private sector and on the other hand public sector and civil society makes it necessary for representatives from many different academic fields to cooperate closely in future research: economics, business administration, political and social scientists etc.

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This thesis presents a comprehensive assessment of breakdown and operational voltage constraints in state-of-the-art silicon-germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) BiCMOS technology. Technology scaling of SiGe HBTs for high frequency performance results on lower breakdown voltages, making operating voltage constraints an increasingly vital reliability consideration in SiGe HBTs from both a device and circuits perspective.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate Ti/APC-2 nanocomposite laminates mechanical properties after low velocity impact. The finite element analysis with software ANSYS/LS-DYNA is used to analyze the size of damage and plastic zone and internal energy of laminates during low velocity impact. Finally, the numerical results and experimental data are in good agreement. The work can be divided into two parts: the first is to fabricate the hybrid composite laminates and place the samples on the floor, subjected to the free drop of a rigid steel ball of 1m and 2m high. Then, the samples after impact were due to static tensile and fatigue tests to obtain mechanical properties. Using the optical microscopy the impact defects of laminate surface were measured. The second, ANSYS/LS-DYNA was used to simulate a laminate impacted by a steel ball. The energy change of steel ball impact and internal energy of laminates during impact were also discussed. From the experimental data, the mechanical properties, such as ultimate strength and stiffness, of virgin samples are better than those of impacted samples due to free drop. In addition, no matter the laminates were added nanoparticles SiO2 or not, the strength of laminates reduces after impact, however, the fatigue resistance of impacted samples does not lose much. Compare with the data of penetration depth and plastic zone due to free drop. The errors of numerical results are 5.4%~12.4% for the penetration depth and the errors 5.21%~8.98% for plastic zone respectively. That is acceptable. The numerical method ology provides a reference to realize the energy change in laminates after impact. Also, from the experimental measurement it is obvious to see damage area after impact and the mechanical properties do not reduce significantly due to low velocity impact generally in Ti/APC-2 composite laminates.

With VLSI(very large scale integration) technology shrinking and frequency increasing, the minimum feature size is smaller than sub-wavelength lithography wavelength, and the manufacturing cost is significantly increasing in order to achieve a good yield. Consequently design companies need to further lower power consumption. All these factors bring new challenges; simulation and modeling need to handle more design constraints, and need to work with modern manufacturing processes. In this dissertation, algorithms and new methodology are presented for these problems: (1) fast and accurate capacitance extraction, (2) capacitance extraction considering lithography effect, (3) BEOL(back end of line) impact on SRAM(static random access memory) performance and yield, and (4) new physical synthesis optimization flow is used to shed area and reduce the power consumption. Interconnect parasitic extraction plays an important role in simulation, verification, optimization. A fast and accurate parasitic extraction algorithm is always important for a current design automation tool. In this dissertation, we propose a new algorithm named HybCap to efficiently handle multiple planar, conformal or embedded dielectric media. From experimental results, the new method is significantly faster than the previous one, 77X speedup, and has a 99% memory savings compared with FastCap and 2X speedup, and has an 80% memory savings compared with PHiCap for complex dielectric media. In order to consider lithography effect in the existing LPE(Layout Parasitic Extraction) flow, a modified LPE flow and fast algorithms for interconnect parasitic extraction are proposed in this dissertation. Our methodology is efficient, compatible with the existing design flow and has high accuracy. With the new enhanced parasitic extraction flow, simulation of BEOL effect on SRAM performance becomes possible. A SRAM simulation model with internal cell interconnect RC parasitics is proposed in order to study the BEOL lithography impact. The impact of BEOL variations on memory designs are systematically evaluated in this dissertation. The results show the power estimation with our SRAM model is more accurate. Finally, a new optimization flow to shed area blow in the design synthesis flow is proposed, which is one level beyond simulation and modeling to directly optimize design, but is also built upon accurate simulations and modeling. Two simple, yet efficient, buffering and gate sizing techniques are presented. On 20 industrial designs in 45nm and 65nm, our new work achieves 12.5% logic area growth reduction, 5.8% total area reduction, 10% wirelength reduction and 770 ps worst slack improvement on average.

Solder joints are the most fragile parts in electronic package. The properties of joints made of lead-free material are harder and crisper than those of lead-contained material. They tend to break due to dynamic loading by absorbing the impact energy and result in malfunction. Thus, how to improve the reliability of contact joints made of lead-free material in dynamic loading has become an important topic for research. This work is based on JEDEC Standard JESD22 - B111 ¡§Board Level Drop Test Method of Components for Handheld Electronic Products,¡¨ and JESD22 ¡V B110 ¡§Subassembly Mechanical Shock¡¨. The setup of drop test apparatuses was used to conduct dropping tests with the impact of acceleration 1500 G, in order to acquire the reliability of SnAgCu, SnCu, and SnAg alloy, which would be compared with 63Sn37Pb. The specimens would be red-dyed for an analysis under SEM to examine the distribution of the breakage. The results were analyzed by Weibull distribution to predict Mean Time to Failure (MTTF), it is revealed that MTTF of solder joints made of Sn0.7Cu, Sn2.6Ag0.5Cu, and Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu (MTTF=355.32, 295.82, 289.54 cycles respectively) are longer than that made of 63Sn37Pb (MTTF=152.52 cycles). Notably, MTTF of alloy Sn0.7Cu is 2.3 times of solder joints of SnPb. Alloy Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu has the shortest MTTF among the three, which is also 1.89 times of alloy SnPb. That is to say, under impact of 1500G, solder joints made of Sn0.7Cu, Sn2.6Ag0.5Cu, and Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu possess greater resistance to shock than alloy 63Sn37Pb, which is in common by used at present. In addition, the breakage of solder joints mainly generated on Intermetallic Compound (IMC) and around the four corners, distributed from the periphery to the central area. Especially, those on the corners receive greater stresses due to edge effect.

With electronic packaging towards the development of lead free process, the research on the portable electronic devices subject to impact load is emphasized gradually. At present, for drop test and cyclic bending test, most of the failure modes lie on the modes of "fracturing in IMC layer" or "fracturing on IMC/solder boundary". The purpose of this work is to use 3D numerical analysis software ANSYS/LS_DYNA, that were found out a proper numerical model, to further analyze the impact fracture of lead-free solder. From the numerical results, the strain rate of solder joint ranges from 103 s-1 to 104 s-1 under an impact velocity of 2 m/s. At this strain rate, the mechanical properties of solder joint could be effectively investigated. When IMC strength is smaller than 300MPa, the main failure mode is fracturing of IMC; whilst, IMC strength is greater than 300MPa, the failure mode becomes fracturing of bulk solder, but the failure mode of fracturing of IMC and a partial solder requires a model with more fine meshes to simulate. Different velocities did not affect the numerical results significantly, because the material parameters of a solder ball is strongly dependent on strain rate. Also, we found that the impact test in reality does not present a shear-dominant mode alone even when the impact angle is 0¢X. While using simulation to carry out the dynamic experiment, it can be observed that the course of solder joint suffering the damage provides a good reference and contrast for the experimental work in the future.

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ABSTRACT The Relationship Between Strategic Alignment of Information Systems and Performance Impact in Hospitals Huang, Ying Hsiang The Taiwan government implemented the National Health Insurance (NHI) program in 1995 to provide comprehensive and uniform health services to the entire population. The ensuring phenomenon from the implementation of the NHI program is the furious competition in the healthcare market that has become matured. To survive, hospitals need to enhance efficiency and provide high quality of care to the patients. Often, hospitals cope with external environmental changes through the choice and application of appropriate strategies. Forming strategic alignment with resources is an increasingly adopted strategy by hospitals. The recognition of information systems (IS) as the most valuable resource has motivated hospitals to engage in their formal management. To achieve better hospitals¡¦ performance from managing IS, management strategists recommend that hospitals relate IS management with business activities in hospitals. As a resource, IS can be related to business through alignment (in terms of strategic alignment of IS), as is applicable to other resources such as manpower resources. Despite interest in managing IS, however, there has been little or not research about aligning IS with business in hospitals. Lack of empirical evidence creates a gap between the theory and practice of strategic alignment of IS. In this study, to integrated theories about IS and alignment to develop an alignment framework and model for IS alignment research, developed a strategic alignment construct, and empirically tested the alignment model within the mediation perspectives along with the Venkatraman¡¦s theory. Mediation was interpreted as the mechanism through which IS strategy could catalyze business strategy for the attainment of better performance. Data from hospitals¡¦ survey in Taiwan was analyzed using the variance-based partial least square and multiple regression method. IS strategy and business strategy in mediating the performance, the links were examined. Results indicate that strategic alignment of IS positively impact performance, explaining about 52.4% of its variation. In all models, the interactionist perspective as the better mediator of hospitals¡¦ performance. Through exploratory, an important management implication of this study is that it may make more sense for hospitals to orientate their business strategies and operations based on their IS resources strategic alignment rather than engage in IS function as a response to business needs since this study shows such strategic alignment of IS contributed on performance with 8.4% of its variation.

With the electronic packaging towards the rapid development of lead free process, the related research on the portable electronic devices subject to impact load is emphasized urgently. At present, the failure modes of fracturing in IMC layer and fracturing on IMC/solder boundary are mostly encountered due to drop test and cyclic bending test respectively. The purpose of this work is to use 3D numerical analysis software ANSYS/LS_DYNA, that were found to be a suitable numerical model for further analyzing the impact fracture of lead-free solder. The relationship between simulation and ball impact test system was compared and the effects of variable parameters on solder balls subjected to impact loading was investigated. Also, the transient deformation and fracturing of solder joints subjected to the impact load were studied numerically and experimentally. Then, the transient response and the failure modes of the solder joint due to impact load were predicted by varied strain rate tests. From the numerical results, the strain rate mechanical properties of solder joint due to high can be effectively obtained. The difference of IMC strength caused three kinds of failure modes of the solder ball, however the failure mode of fracturing in IMC and a party of solder requires a model to simulate with more refined meshes. Different velocities affected the numerical results significantly. The higher the velocity of impact test applied, the lower the impact loading received. That is mainly attributed to the material parameters adopted of a solder ball is strongly dependent on the strain rate considered. Also, it is found that the impact test in reality does not result in a shear-dominant failure mode. While using dynamic simulation instead of the experiment, the damage process of solder joint can be observed. That provides a good reference and contrast for the experimental work in the future.