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Trend forecasting is perceived to be an essential service for fashion companies to use in order to stay competitive in the fast-paced fashion industry. Yet, in times of climate change, appointing new trends each season is a questioned practice. Since trend forecasting aligns with the inherent obsolescence of fashion’s constant change, forecasting seems to stand in paradox with the imperatives of sustainability. Thus, this thesis aims to explore the role of trend forecasting to understand its compatibility with environmental sustainability. The review of previous research depicts the evolution of the trend forecasting field and displays prominent literature within fashion and sustainability, which together displays an apparent research gap that this study aims to fill. The thesis follows an exploratory design pursuing a multiple case study strategy applied through eight semi-structured interviews with trend forecasters and a content analysis of WGSN online trend forecasts. Findings of this study validate the existence of a trend forecasting paradox while also demonstrating areas of compatibilities. Customized forecasting and long-term approaches were concluded as compatible practices and may be integrated into both long-term and seasonal forecasting. This study also recognizes a need to differ between forecasting sustainability and sustainable forecasting. This thesis is believed contribute to an under-researched area and aid the trend forecasting industry to realize its impact on sustainability, as well as suggesting approaches on how to further incorporate sustainable practices into their work.

Many sensor nodes are scattered in the sensor network,which are used in all aspects of life due to their small size, low power consumption, and multiple functions. With the advent of the Internet of Things, more small sensor devices will appear in our lives. The research of deep learning neural networks is generally based on large and medium-sized devices such as servers and computers, and it is rarely heard about the research of neural networks based on small Internet of Things devices. In this study, the Internet of Things devices are divided into three types: large, medium, and small in terms of device size, running speed, and computing power. More vividly, I classify the laptop as a medium- sized device, the device with more computing power than the laptop, like server, as a large-size IoT(Internet of Things) device, and the IoT mobile device that is smaller than it as a small IoT device. The purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility, usefulness, and effectiveness of long-short-term memory neural network model value prediction research based on small IoT devices. In the control experiment of small and medium-sized Internet of Things devices, the following results are obtained: the error curves of the training set and verification set of small and medium-sized devices have the same downward trend, and similar accuracy and errors. But in terms of time consumption, small equipment is about 12 times that of medium-sized equipment. Therefore, it can be concluded that the LSTM(long-and-short-term memory neural networks) model value prediction research based on small IoT devices is feasible, and the results are useful and effective. One of the main problems encountered when the LSTM model is extended to small devices is time-consuming.

Submitted by William Justo Figueiro (williamjf) on 2015-08-20T17:50:42Z No. of bitstreams: 1 17e.pdf: 4833899 bytes, checksum: bf223781f226b67de43eb30160a4b491 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-08-20T17:50:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 17e.pdf: 4833899 bytes, checksum: bf223781f226b67de43eb30160a4b491 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Nenhuma / A aplicação de incentivos monetários e não monetários a executivos, com objetivo de obter uma performance empresarial, de curto ou longo prazo, constitui um dos mecanismos de governança corporativa para alinhamento entre os interesses do acionista majoritário e proprietário (principal) e executivos (agentes). Como ajustador deste alinhamento o papel do Conselho de Administração, bem como dos comitês de apoio como de riscos e de remuneração, são fundamentais. Dependendo do ajuste do sistema, poderá haver uma exposição ao risco estratégico em maior ou menor grau. No Brasil, conforme percepção de conselheiros de administração, este mecanismo não é regulado com objetivo de regular a exposição ao risco estratégico e as políticas de incentivo são alinhadas, em geral, no curto prazo, conforme a performance desejada, levando a custos de controle e monitoramento. Além disto, algumas peculiaridades brasileiras leva a necessidade de modelos de incentivo adequados ao Brasil, sendo, os componentes de incentivo usuais na Europa e Estados Unidos, em alguns casos, conflitantes com a legislação trabalhista e fiscal brasileira. / The application of monetary and non monetary incentives to executives in order to obtain a performance business, short or long term, are corporate governance mechanisms for aligning the interests of shareholders, and majority owner (principal) and managers (agents). As this alignment adjusting the role of Board of Directors and committees of support as risk and return are key. Depending on the setting of the system, there may be a strategic risk exposure to greater or lesser degree. In Brazil, as perceptions of board members, this mechanism is not regulated for the purpose of regular exposure to strategic risk and incentive policies are aligned generally in the short term, as the desired performance, leading to control costs and monitoring. Moreover, some peculiarities Brazilian models leads to the need for adequate incentive to Brazil, being the components of incentive usual in Europe and the United States, in some cases, conflicting with the Brazilian labor legislation and tax.

Could shareholder primacy, with its assumed short-termist practices, have had its day when it comes to managerial activity centered on creating corporate value? Many business and opinion leaders appear to take this position, not least Jack Welch who famously declared 'shareholder primacy is the dumbest idea in the world!' Indeed, in a post-Crash economy has a wider stakeholder focus with a longer-term outlook superseded any business notions of shareholder primacy and wealth maximization? This research examines these possibilities through a consideration of the narrative companies produce, such as annual reports. From this corpus material, an assessment is made of whether UK managers' perceptions about corporate value generation changed over the period covering the worldwide financial crisis, with respect to their relative favouring of shareholders and stakeholders. The corpus of narrative material used is visualized as a conceptual space in which a conversation reflecting perceptual bias to the generation of corporate value occurs. To explore such corpuses, in order to compare narratives at points either side of the 2008 Crash, a new methodology was devised called narrative staining. Hence, a detection and visual mapping over the period was made possible of managers' changing perceptions concerning primacy (shareholder or stakeholder orientation) with its mediation by termism (a short or long-term bias). Termism is also originally conceived as part of a larger temporal category, which includes a sense of urgency to act (urgent versus non-urgent) that is similarly examined. The investigation reveals that over time perceptual change about value creation happened, though in unanticipated ways. Companies pre-Crash were often short-term stakeholder oriented then moved post-Crash to a long-term shareholder orientation. A focus for this study was the corporate domain, consisting of a selection of FT250 companies. However, managerial perceptions about corporate value creation are influenced not simply by the conversation of the corporate domain but rather by a multi-actor conversation taking place throughout the business environment. To comprehend this effect, the research mines further corpuses that comprise the UK's regulatory domain (hard and soft law), the press (Financial Times and other newspapers), and relevant peripheral stakeholder organizations (including the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, and the Trades Union Congress). These organizations demonstrated more complex, unforeseen, perceptual effects as the financial crisis proceeded with many aligning according to their political or business agenda, which also impacted any sense of urgency to act they had. There appears to be no previous attempt at an extensive and multivariate analysis of this nature. And the findings challenge prevalent characterizations of shareholder and stakeholder behaviour. Moreover, the research shows that utilizing a wide set of stakeholder corpuses acts a viable proxy for broader financial perspectives amongst UK organizations. The technique of narrative staining therefore provides insights, hitherto inaccessible, for assessing and consolidating large-scale perceptual bias regarding value creation across the economy. The technique also has significant potential for other applications.