In recent years, due to the improvement of living standard and the increase of national income, the market size of department stores has been expanding constantly .In addition to the greater number of development cases, there are many new department stores and shopping malls being built in succession. These situations make department stores confront with gradually increasing challenges. In such competitive environment, these department stores have become so called¡¨ the stronger gets stronger and the weaker gets weaker¡¨. In Taiwan, seventy percent of the total sales in department stores are nearly taken by several groups of department stores, and single business running has become considerably difficult. However, it can be found that HANSHIN DEPARTMENT STORE accounted for almost 37 percent of market sales which was in Kaohsiung in 2005 .Even HANSHIN DEPARTMENT STORE¡¦ s sales got nearly three times as much as that of the second place in Kaohsiung. Although HANSHIN DEPARTMENT STORE lacks abundant resources of chain stores, it can successfully take the sales top of department stores in Kaohsiung .In this case, its business model is worth exploring. Therefore, the object of this research is HANSHIN DEPARTMENT STORE. The purpose of this research is trying to find out the key success factors of how to manage department stores by reviewing relevant literature and making interviews. I hoped that these research results will be useful for department stores to improve development in the future.

Due to advanced in computer technology¡Avideo data are becoming available in the daily life. The method of managing Multi-media video database is more and more important¡Aand traditional database management for text documents is not suitable for video database; therefore, efficient video database must equip video summary. Video summarization contains a number of key-frame and the key-frame is a simple yet effective form of summarizing a video sequence and the video summarization help user browses rapidly and effectively find out video that the user wants to find. Video summarization except extraction of key-frame has another important key, the number of key-frame. When storage and network bandwidth are limited, the number of key-frame must conform to the limit condition and as far as possible find the representative key-frame. Video summarization is important topic for managing Multi-media video. The number of key-frame in video summarization is related to distortion between video summarization and original video sequence. The number of key-frame is more, the distortion between video summarization and original video sequence is smaller. This paper emphasizes key-frame extraction and the rate of key-frame. First the user inputs the number of key-frame and then extracts the key-frame that has smallest distortion between original video sequence in key-frame number limit situation. In order to understand the entire video structure¡Athe Normalized the graph cuts(NCuts) group method is carried out to cluster similar video paragraph. The resulting clusters form a direction temporal graph and a shortest path algorithm is proposed to find main structure of video. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated by experiments on a collection of videos from Open Vide Project. We provided a meaningful comparison between results of the proposed summarization with Open Vide storyboard and the PME based approach.

Thesis (M.S.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords: computer arithmetic; modular multiplication; public key cryptography; Montgomery; vlsi; high radix. Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-90).

Cryptographic schemes are designed to protect the privacy of the users. Numerous schemes have been proposed for different purposes. One important type of schemes is called the secret sharing scheme. In a secret sharing scheme, a secret value can be shard among authorized parties. Another important type of schemes is identity based encryption and its variant: certificateless encryption. Traditionally, both of them assume the absolute privacy of secret shares or secret keys. However, this assumption may not hold in the real world. Side-channel attack, such as time analysis and memory attack will enable the attackers to get partial information about them. Therefore, we propose the leakage resilient cryptographic schemes to guarantee the privacy under various key-exposure attack. Generally speaking, there are three leakage models: the bounded leakage model, continual leakage model and auxiliary input model. We will focus on the first two models in this thesis. This thesis addresses two leakage resilient cryptographic schemes. The first one is called Continual Leakage-Resilient Dynamic Secret Sharing. In this scheme, the attacker can continuously leak on the private value owned by the user with the constrain that the length of the leaked information should be less than ℓ bits between updates. The dealer is able to dynamically choose a set of n users and a threshold of t users (which is called authorized set) to reconstruct secret with the same broadcast message. The user can also dynamic join and leave the scheme. The privacy of the secret value can be guaranteed even up to t-1 users are corrupted and the information of all other users are leaked. The second one is called Leakage-Resilient Certificateless Public-Key Encryption. Certificateless encryption is proposed to solve the key escrow problem in PKG. Instead of relying on the PKG to generate the full secret key in the traditional model, we generate partial secret key on PKG. We then combine it with our selected secret value to generate the final secret key. This will solve the key escrow problem since the PKG has no knowledge about the secret value chosen. Our scheme is the first leakage-resilient version of certificateless encryption. In our security model, both the master key held by the PKG and the secret key (including the secret value) held by the user can be leaked by the attacker. We first construct the scheme in bounded leakage model and then extend it to continual leakage model. Finally, all of these schemes require lots of composite order bilinear pairing operations. We will describe how to improve the efficient of it on graphics hardware in chapter 4. We run the parings in parallel on GPU to accelerate them. The implement scheme and efficient are presented in this thesis. / published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Univ., Diplomarbeit, 1999--Frankfurt (Main)

Weingarten, Diplomarbeit, 2001.

Conceptions of geography and learning geography have been studied through recording the experiences of a group of secondary school pupils over a threeyear period. This group formed part of the first cohort to experience Key Stage 3 Geography in the National Curriculum. The study is set within the context of Geography in the National Curriculum and the formulation and issues arising from this are discussed. A review of recent research in geographical education is presented to indicate how this study adds to current thought and practice. The study sought evidence to answer two specific questions: 1. What is geography? 2. What is learning geography? The study is set in a secondary school in Kent where the researcher has taught for sixteen years. Evidence was obtained from two classes of pupils, these were taught geography by the researcher for the whole period of Key Stage 3 1991- 1994. Data was obtained through applying a range of methods. The study was conducted in the phenomenographic tradition, seeking qualitatively different ways in which pupils understood the phenomena of geography and learning geography, and describing the "structural" and "referential" aspects of each. Categories of description of the distinctly different ways in which the phenomena are understood have been identified, presented and discussed. The categories are illustrated by quotes from individual pupils. These form the results of the study. The results of the study shed light on the ways in which pupils understand aspects of geography and learning geography as developed in the context of Geography in the National Curriculum. The longitudinal perspective adopted illuminates how these understandings change over time. A discussion is presented which clarifies the main features of the conceptions discovered. This is followed by a consideration as to how the results of the research could be applied by teachers to their understanding of geography, the pupils they teach, and in planning learning experiences. The thesis concludes by drawing together the contextual setting of the research, methodology and key findings. It suggests reasons that may have influenced the findings before considering their utility and avenues for further research.

A field trial was established in January 2002 under a centre pivot at Syferfontein (Sasol) open cast mine, close to Secunda in the Mpumalanga Province (Republic of South Africa). Field measurements of crop, soil, water and weather were taken up till May 2003. Growth analyses were undertaken during the growing period of the planted pastures. Crop growth parameters and input parameters for long term predictions with the SWB model were also determined. The determinations were made for five planted pastures to evaluate if they could be irrigated with Na2SO4 rich mine effluent, and to see if the SWB model could reliably simulate crop growth, as well as the salt and water balance. The results indicated that Fescue (cv. Iewag), Lucerne, and Fescue (cv. Demeter) could be grown successfully with satisfactory yield and quality. No leaf burn was observed for the irrigated pastures. The ECe, pH and ESP of the soil increased slightly over the irrigation period, whereas the EC, pH and SAR of the soil solution fluctuated with rainfall. The model predicted the leaf area index (LAI), top dry matter (TDM), soil water deficit and salts reasonably well. In the long-term, 1420 mm year -1 of mine effluent can be used through irrigation. 93% of the salt added through irrigation was predicted to leach from the profile in a 20 year irrigation period which the rest precipitating in the 0.8 m deep soil profile in the form of gypsum. The Na2SO4 mine water can be utilized for pasture production provided that proper irrigation management and fertilization is done. Copyright 2004, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Beletse, YG 2004, Modelling the soil water and salt balance of planted pastures irrigated with sodium sulphate rich mine effluent, MSc(Agric) dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-01182005-083427 / > / Dissertation (MSc (Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Plant Production and Soil Science / unrestricted

This study concerns the phylogeography of Sandelia capensis and S. bainsii (family Anabantidae), two freshwater fish species endemic to Cape coastal rivers of South Africa. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome b gene (S. capensis) and control region (S. capensis and S. bainsii) were used as genetic markers. Sandelia capensis has a wide distribution, and occurs in most river systems of the Cape Floristic Region (CFR). Therefore, by studying the genetic variation within the species we could investigate the drainage history of this region. Two major historically isolated lineages were identified within this species, one comprising west coast populations and the other south coast populations. Genetically unique lineages were also identified within each of these two major clades. The split between the two major clades dated back to the Pliocene, while divergence times for lineages within them dated back to the Pleistocene. River capture events and sea level changes in the CFR played a major role in shaping the genetic variation that we observe within S. capensis today. Sandelia bainsii is restricted to a few Eastern Cape coastal rivers, and is classified as endangered. Within this species two divergent clades were identified, a Great Fish/Kowie lineage and a Buffalo/Gulu lineage. Sandelia capensis is also of conservation importance since certain populations are declining as a result of many different threats. In identifying these genetically unique lineages, certain areas (rivers/populations) could be prioritized for conservation management. The two major lineages identified within each of the two species should be conserved as separate units and not be intermixed. Two genetically very unique populations identified within S. capensis, the Heuningnes and Diep, are under severe pressure and should also be prioritized for management. In addition, a preliminary phylogenetic study was performed on the Anabantidae using mtDNA 16S rRNA sequences. This was done to investigate the phylogenetic relationships between the two Sandelia species (classified as sister taxa) and also their relationships with the other anabantids. The phylogenetic relationships between the anabantids were largely unresolved, probably due to an ancient radiation. / Dissertation (MSc (Genetics))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Genetics / unrestricted

This study assesses the performance of an atmospheric GCM forced with persisted SSTs in simulating austral summer precipitation at smaller spatial (regional) scales. Two statistical recalibration techniques of differing technical complexity are then presented and compared to get an idea as to which method among them is best suitable for southern Africa. The two regression-based methods applied in recalibrating the ECHAM4.5 GCM output during austral summer in southern Africa are based on model output statistics (MOS) using principal components regression (PCR) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to statistically link archived records of the GCM to regional rainfall over much of Africa south of the equator. A linear statistical model linking near-global sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) to regional rainfall is also developed. Southern Africa is divided into 18 homogeneous regions using cluster analysis. The potential predictive skill of summer precipitation over each region from raw-GCM ensembles, the linear statistical and MOS models is evaluated using the relative operating characteristics (ROC) score and the ranked probability skill score computed over a 12-year retroactive period 1989/90–2000/01. The MOS technique outperforms the raw GCM ensembles and the linear statistical model in certain cases. On many occasions, the PCR-MOS performs better than CCA-MOS but the former does not show clear superiority over the latter method because the two methods are in a broad sense performing the same task. The need to recalibrate GCM predictions at regional scales to improve their skill at smaller spatial scales is demonstrated in this study. / Dissertation (MSc (Meteorology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology / unrestricted