During the turbulent times facing contemporary organisations, managers and employees need a precise understanding of the nature of team dynamics that develops quality service to customers. Extensive literature searches reveal few research studies focused on the nature of teamwork, which develops value to customers. The purpose of this study is to examine the value of teamwork for providing quality service within the Hong Kong shiprepair industry, outline the insight gleaned and recommend future research. This study aims to link empirically the Western developed Deutsch's (1949a, 19496, 1973, 1980, 1985, 1990) Theory of Cooperation and Competition with the innovation of teamwork and to assist in understanding the variance in the performance of these teams. Literature suggests that the relationships and interaction within the work teams can very much impact the overall performance of these work teams. The extent that these work teams are able to develop cooperative goals can promote productive and constructive communication and problem solving (constructive controversy) in their interactions. A constructive interaction leads to team members' perception of high team confidence. With trust, strong work relationship, team morale and perceived confidence, team effectiveness is enhanced on quality customer service (Alper, Tjosvold and Law, 1998; Tjosvold, Hui and Law, 1998; Tjosvold, Moy and Sasaki, 1996, 1999; Wong et al., 1999). The research also tests the extent of impact of traditional Chinese values of power distance and collectivism as contributing to cooperative goals and encourages an openminded discussion of opposing views (constructive controversy). It proposes that by adopting cooperative goals, shiprepair yard management in Hong Kong may meet the twin challenges of involving employees fully into the organisation and providing quality service to customers. / The result suggests that the Western derived Theory of Cooperation and Competition, if appropriately and skillfully expressed, might have the potential as one alternative to understand the goal interdependence dynamics as experienced by the Hong Kong Chinese in the shiprepair industry. Nevertheless, the result is not confirmatory to the main hypothesis of the study that team confidence is significantly related to quality customer service. Findings of this study question whether a Western theory or research instrument derived is appropriate for application to a Chinese work setting (Bond and Wang, 1983). Although it is useful to test concepts developed in one culture to another, yet theories from the West cannot be assumed to apply in the East (Hofstede, 1993; Triandis, 1983). An important finding of this research is, however, that this Western derived theory might not be suitable to be applied in a work group of very low levels of education and/or low exposure to the modern workplace practice and Western influences.

Abel Tasman, a Dutchman, was the first person to put New Zealand on European maps over three hundred years ago (in 1642) and today there are over twenty-eight thousand people living in New Zealand who identify themselves as Dutch and twenty-seven thousand people speaking the Dutch language. Previous research has explored various aspects of Dutch migration, including migrant experiences, culture and language yet only de Bres (2004) compares the experiences of Dutch immigrants across time periods of their arrival. Cultural retention and maintenance has mainly been assessed via the use of the Dutch language rather than through other methods, such as Dutch customs and social networks. The main reason for this research is to compare the experiences and cultural identity of the three 'waves' of Dutch migrants, which has not been undertaken before. This study interviewed six Dutch settler families living in the Bay of Plenty, from three time-periods (1950s; 1960s to 1980s; and 1990s to today) and across generations in order to compare their experiences and assess if and how they maintain their Dutch identity through their use of customs and social networks. Open-ended questionnaires and interview schedules were used to interview the sixteen participants. Content analysis was undertaken for the majority of the questionnaire and interview schedules. For the remaining questions that focused on social networks, the structural aspects of the social support for participants were measured in terms of the social network characteristics, size, density and multiplexity. The study found an overall retention of Dutch identity across all time-periods for generation one (generation one refers to the migrating parents) with all families using the Dutch language within their own homes, yet only one family maintaining their Dutch identity through social networks and only one family maintaining their Dutch identity through the use of customs. The second and third generation participants have little to no interest or involvement in the Dutch culture or community. One second generation participant considered herself Dutch-Kiwi, with the remaining second generation participants considering themselves New Zealanders. Only one person from the third generation participated and she identified herself as a Dutch-Kiwi. Overall, this study supports the perception of the 'invisible Dutch' however due to the small sample size it is impossible to make conclusive statements concerning the Bay of Plenty Dutch community. There is a limited amount of research comparing the experiences of Dutch migrants and how their cultural identity is maintained through their social networks; therefore further research is required to fill this gap.

Model checking is an existing approach for automatic reasoning. The model checker is an important tool and has been applied to software engineering for system verification. As an extension of model checking, model update is a new concept and has been defined and developed in this dissertation. A model updater is employed as an automatic system modification tool for software verification. The combination of model checking and model update completes the task of automatic system verification. In this dissertation, a comprehensive theoretical foundation and prototype implementation for CTL model update are developed. First, five primitive updates which capture the basic atomic operations in a CTL Kripke model are identified and formalized. Next, the minimal change criteria for CTL model update based on these primitive operations are defined. Then, updating an original model to a new model satisfying CTL semantics based on previous primitive updates and minimal change rules is characterized. The related complexity of CTL model update is also analyzed. Following this research, formal algorithms in the form of pseudo code to be used as the guidance for future implementation are designed. Then, a prototype CTL model updater is implemented. This prototype CTL model updater is a stand alone utility and contains both model checking and update functions. The prototype is then applied to three well known models and has successfully been tested. During the implementation, as a byproduct, the approach for extracting a complete Kripke model from NuSMV is described. Also, during the implementation, an up-date model explosion problem is discovered and further minimal change rules based on the original minimal change rules are proposed which significantly reduce the number of minimally updated models. The corresponding theory is formalized and the complexity for solving the update model explosion problem is analyzed. / Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

PhD / Access to justice is an important human right that ensures adequate redress for harm, and which consequently helps deter future wrongdoing. Without access to justice citizens are precluded from the full enjoyment of their economic and social entitlements. The cost of litigation is a significant impediment to access to justice. Although the courts have attempted to increase access to justice by broadening the range of available dispute resolution options and by improving productivity through the implementation of case flow management systems, the cost of prosecuting claims remains disproportionately high and unaffordable for most small to medium sized claimholders. Legal claim assignment to parties able to aggregate claims and to apply their expertise as litigation entrepreneurs to deal with claim prosecution efficiently is one means of redressing the imbalance between the cost of claim prosecution to individual claimholders compared to the value of their claims. However, the well-entrenched doctrines of maintenance and champerty prohibit legal claim assignment. The continued resort to the doctrines of maintenance and champerty despite a strong and independent modern judiciary reflects distaste for claim commodification. However, the advent of litigation funding and its acceptance by the High Court of Australia in Campbell’s Cash and Carry v Fostif Pty Ltd (and to some extent United Kingdom and United States courts) on access to justice grounds has challenged conventional maintenance and champerty dogma. Together with other measures such as the introduction of conditional fee agreements that shift the cost of funding access to justice from the public to the private purse, the resistance to full claim alienability has been significantly weakened. The thesis argues that full claim alienability is favoured on normative and efficiency grounds and examines developments in Australia, England and the United States, which portend toward claim commodification. In addition, the thesis examines regulatory instruments required to ensure that the present partial claim market and the potential full claim market operates fairly and efficiently. It also considers how claim commodification may affect the relationship between legal practitioners and claim holders. [Please note: For any information on access to the full text please conact the author.]

Une des préoccupations majeures du monde industriel est d'avoir une exploitation performante permettant de garantir au mieux la qualité des missions réalisées, le respect des délais demandés et la minimisation des coûts d'exploitation. Toutefois, aujourd'hui la concurrence accrue et la complexité des systèmes conduit les industriels à développer des approches qui permettent la maîtrise de la disponibilité et en particulier à prendre en compte ce paramètre pour l'élaboration de la politique de maintenance. L'objectif de ce manuscrit est de proposer des éléments méthodologiques permettant de caractériser le concept de disponibilité pour en assurer la maîtrise. Nous proposons une méthode de modélisation d'une exploitation en vue d'évaluer les performances en termes de disponibilité. Les résultats de cette évaluation permettent entre autres d'identifier les leviers d'amélioration pouvant agir sur les performances de l'exploitation. Ensuite, nous nous sommes focalisés, dans cette thèse, sur un de ces leviers, à savoir le réordonnancement de la maintenance programmée permettant de répondre au besoin du partenaire industriel. Dans cette optique, nous avons proposé une méthode permettant d'améliorer le réordonnancement d'un programme de maintenance en vue d'optimiser la disponibilité d'un système voire d'un ensemble de systèmes. Dans le cadre de cette méthode, nous avons proposé des heuristiques permettant de réordonnancer les opérations de maintenance en fonction des opportunités d'un exploitant de système. Nous chercherons dans ce manuscrit à apporter des éléments méthodologiques expérimentées chez la société Eurocopter, reposant sur des principes opérationnels et basés sur des approches par scénario.

Les besoins essentiels de produire " plus ", " mieux " et " moins cher " s'inscrivent aujourd'hui dans une crise financière qui conduit les entreprises industrielles à faire face à des enjeux économiques liés aux impératifs de gains de productivité, mais aussi à des enjeux sociaux liés aux impératifs de sécurité des hommes et des matériels, aux exigences de protection de l'environnement et de réduction des nuisances. Ces enjeux se déclinent au niveau des équipements par le concept de maintien en condition opérationnelle (MCO). La maintenance en est l'élément principal, et l'un des principaux leviers d'action sur la performance globale des systèmes de production lorsqu'elle est couplée à un processus de pronostic. On parle alors de stratégies de maintenance prévisionnelles.<br />Ces nouvelles formes de maintenance posent de nombreux défis scientifiques et industriels, dont certains sont étudiés dans les présents travaux : Quel est le " meilleur " instant pour réaliser une intervention de maintenance préventive donnée ? Comment regrouper deux actions de maintenance préventive ? Qu'est-ce qu'une opportunité pour la maintenance ?<br />Les réponses à ces questions mobilisent des outils mathématiques variés, allant de l'algorithme de Bruss en analyse stochastique aux relations d'équivalence en algèbre.<br />Enfin, une application industrielle sur la plateforme TELMA est présentée.

<p>I examensarbetet har avvikelse- och underhållsrapporter rörande FörstaAmfibieregementets stridsbåtssystem analyserats för att finna eventuella brister. Iexamensarbetet finns statistik från hela 2008 representerat. Utifrån de rapporter ochden statisktik som dessa brister givit upphov till har de delsystem och komponentermed störst felfrekvens blivit granskade. I rapporten presenteras troliga orsaker tilluppkomna fel och brister, men även förslag på åtgärder för att öka tillgänglighetenpå systemet.Under arbetet med rapporten har det dock visat sig att marinens Drift, Informationoch Underhållsstödsystem (DIUS) kan vara den största orsaken till en minskadtillgänglighet. Systemet är inte anpassat för det stora antalet marina enheter ochpersonal som arbetar med systemet och de sistnämnda har inte alltid rätt utbildning.</p> / <p>This thesis has analysed incident and maintenance reports concerning the FirstMarine Regiment’s combat boat maintenance system. The aim was to find thosepossible deficiencies and shortcomings causing reduced accessibility. In addition, thethesis includes an analysis of maintenance-related statistics reported in 2008. Byusing these reports and statistical data as our factual base, we have examined thoseparts of the maintenance system and its components most frequently affected bydeficiencies and shortcomings. The thesis presents the most likely reasons for thesenegative occurrences, but also recommendations regarding measures that willincrease the overall accessibility.During our research, however, it also became evident that the main and most likelyreason for the reduced accessibility was the inherent capacity of the maintenancesystem (DIUS) used by the Royal Swedish Navy. In conclusion, this system is notsufficiently adapted to the great number of naval units and personnel who are usingit. Further, the naval personnel operating the system sometimes lack adequatetraining.</p>

<p>In this study the reader will learn how to work with student adaptation as a method for students to easier study and learn mathematics at a vocational school focusing on vehicle maintenance. This secondary school is located in the southern part of Sweden. Four math teachers who teach at this program use in-depth interview when it comes into explaining what they mean regarding adaptation and its role in teaching this students and helping them pass the course. This is very much a topic of today and has been so for some time. We hear about reports which reveals alarmingly low levels of know light which continue to drop especially at vocational programs in particular in mathematic. The math teachers describe specific obstacles and circumstances which in their experiences will limit their teaching options and alternatives and therefore will also limit the adaptation and its role. One may say in general that adaptation not necessarily is a method with an obvious template to follow so many various players will have to be involved in the teaching. This holds true with regards to all various aspects of learning. The student is here by enabled to see and experience the full picture of the program and the subject in question. No matter what the subject is, focus will always be the goal of the program and the students’ future careers. There are questions as to whether there may be conflicts of interest between the various actors involved in the learning process.</p><p>.</p>

This research addresses the large-scale group fleet replacement problem with multiple vehicle types of multiple units, under budget and demand constraints. Past research in group fleet replacement is limited and has focused on one vehicle type, with multiples units and constraints. Many studies in fleet replacement have also dealt with single replacement, with single units, and with no constraints. The objective of this research is to find the methodology to solve the general large-scale group fleet replacement problem. A multi-phase methodology based on the grouping concept is presented and is integrated with optimization techniques. The vehicles are grouped according to various technology parameters. A two-level hierarchical replacement process, focusing on inter-group, and intra-group analysis, is developed and the resulting models are solved using integer programming. Finally, a case study using the Oregon Department of Transportation records is examined. The replacement model presented can incorporate complex variations in the large-scale group fleet replacement problem. It is flexible and can be used in wide variety of replacement problems. Used appropriately, the results from this methodology can result in reduced fleet replacement costs and operation costs. / Graduation date: 2001

The major purpose of this study was to develop an Adaptation Model for emergency departments in urban and suburban Health Maintenance Organizations. Questions explored which provided data for the Model were: 1) are there significant differences in the demographic, sociologic, and decision-making characteristics of clients seeking services in emergency rooms and after-hour clinics?, and 2) are there significant differences in perceptions of access-related problems and stated preferences for personal physicians among clients seeking such services? A pilot study was completed, critiqued, and analyzed. Final research instruments were developed for adults and children. Questionnaires were completed by 1,031 clients in an urban and suburban facility of the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Care Program in Portland, Oregon. Data analysis was completed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences sub-program FREQUENCIES, CROSSTABULATION, AND DISCRIMINANT. Major findings of this study were: 1) no significant differences existed in the demographic and sociologic characteristics of clients, 2) significant differences were found in perceived problems of access, in decision-making characteristics, and in preferences for personal physicians. Significant items were: 1) convenience of the facility location, 2) immediacy and availability of care, 3) contact prior to arrival, 4) instruction by "nurse" to seek care, 5) clients reporting they did not have a personal physician, and 6) repeated use of the emergency department during the previous year. Different profiles of decision-making characteristics of urban and suburban clients resulted from the analyses. The overall pattern of care for children varied less between urban and suburban settings than did the pattern of care for adults. Findings were discussed in terms of the traditional model of emergency department care. Conflicts arising from system "controls" provided the basis for suggesting changes incorporated into the Adaptation Model. The basic premise for the Adaptation Model advances the point at which triage occurs, eliminates conflicts of control, and thus modifies both consumer behavior and the emergency department system. / Graduation date: 1982