This study examines 1) whether the different expenditure mechanisms used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invite different sources of influences on the budget process and thus on the expenditure outcomes and 2) whether the frequent use of omnibus appropriations bills since 1996 has changed budget levels of the institutes under the NIH. The NIH uses two major expenditure mechanisms with very different beneficiary groups: the principal investigator-initiated Research Project Grants and Intramural Research. Drawing on theories of motivations of public officials and of political clout of agency heads and considering empirical studies of the effect of omnibus legislation, this study reveals the following: 1) directors with more public service experience are more successful in securing a higher budget for their institutes; 2) while the directors are found to be driven by public service motivation, when it comes to expenditure allocation between two different mechanisms, they behave in a self-interested manner, representing the interests of the institutional sectors where they have developed close relationships; 3) with ever-increasing budgets between 1983 and 2005, the institute directors have chosen to seek higher budgets rather than merely avoid the risk of budget cuts; 4) although the advisory boards are purportedly used to seek private input for the priority setting, they tend to increase intramural more than external research project grant expenditures; 5) the practice of omnibus appropriations bills significantly benefits the institutes under the NIH such that with omnibus legislation the institutes¡¯ total expenditures have more than doubled controlling the other factors; and 6) there are significant differences in the effects of the director¡¯s public experience and the number of advisory boards and their membership both (i) between disease-focused institutes and nondisease institutes and (ii) with and without omnibus legislation. The effects of the director¡¯s public service experience and the advisory boards have more budgetary impact in the general science-focused institutes than in their disease-focused counterparts. The influence of the advisory board and of the institute director¡¯s public service experience on the individual institute¡¯s expenditure level is significantly diminished by the frequent use of omnibus appropriations bills.

University, Diss., 2004--Kassel. / Download lizenzpflichtig.

A controversial bill aimed to stimulate investment and boost the economy in Indonesia, called the Omnibus Law Bill, is followed by both protest and support expressed in social media prior to its signatories in October 2020. During that time, the Twittersphere is packed with both the Opposition and Support movement of the bill, who both benefit from the use of hashtags. To distinguish an organic grass-roots movement from a propaganda that fits the agenda of the government and elite, a comparison study is conducted with a framework of top-down and bottom-up- mechanism of information virality (Nahon & Hemsley, 2013). The top-down mechanism combined with participatory propaganda theory is designated to explain the Support movement. Vice versa the bottom-up mechanism is combined with connective action theory designed to explain the Opposition movement as its character in line with a contemporary and digital protest movement (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). As existing research only often studies both networks alone, this unique case provides an opportunity to compare both networks. A mixed-method of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Topic Modelling used to differentiate the characteristics of both groups, based on both network structure and topics discussed. The finding in regards to the SNA is corresponding to the theoretical framework and previous studies. The loosely organized nature of connective action is reflected in several characteristics of the Opposition Network, in contrast to the element of coordination found in the Support Network. Findings from bi-term topic modeling, however, both contradict and support the hypothesis that suggests more variations in the topics within the Opposition Network as a result of the self-motivated participant and personalized messages (Leong et al., 2019).

En analysant les interactions entre pratiques sociales quotidiennes et espace urbain à La Havane entre 1878 et 1921, cette thèse démontre combien l'émergence et la diffusion socio-‘raciale’ de nouvelles façons de pratiquer la ville contribuent alors à une ré-invention du quotidien, c'est-à-dire à la reconfiguration de l'expérience journalière que les Havanais ont de leur ville et à l'actualisation de la façon dont ils y font société.Enclenchés entre 1878 et 1895 puis consolidés après 1898, l'essor de transports en communs urbains à La Havane et leur appropriation progressive par les couches populaires favorisent un renouvellement des pratiques sociales quotidiennes de l'espace urbain, synonyme d'une entrée définitive des Havanais dans l'ère des transports urbains de masse. Atypique de par sa précocité et sa rapidité, ce processus est également remarquable par ses répercussions sur deux des formes structurantes de la convivance havanaise. Dès avant l'Indépendance, le régime appliqué à la marginalité havanaise s'en trouve désarticulé, à un moment où, la contestation de l'ordre colonial gagnant, le contrôle social devient un enjeu crucial pour les autorités. Sur l'ensemble de la période d'étude, le renouvellement des pratiques sociales quotidiennes œuvre à une redéfinition de la géographie résidentielle havanaise : il est à la base d'une diffusion des couches populaires dans l'ensemble de La Havane, qui entrave et contredit le projet élitaire de capitale républicaine.En « faisant les poches à l’histoire », en étudiant de nombreuses archives inédites ou peu valorisées et à partir de la constitution d'une base de données géo-référencée et d'un important matériel cartographique, cette thèse pose donc, entre lecture alternative de la chronologie canonique et complexification de la trame historique, un regard autre sur l'une des périodes charnières de l'histoire de La Havane et de Cuba. / By analysing the interactions between daily social practices and urban space in Havana between 1878 and 1921, this thesis demonstrates how new ways of moving through the city emerged and spread both socially and racially, thus contributing to reinventing everyday life, that is to say reorganising its inhabitants' daily experience of the city and updating the way they socialised. The development of public transport in Havana and the working class's growing use of it began between 1878 and 1895 and boomed after 1898, which fostered a renewal of daily social practices of urban space and allowed the people of Havana to enter the age of mass urban transport. This precocious, swift, therefore atypical process was also remarkable because of its repercussions on two of the structuring forms of convivance. Already before the Independence, government's treatment of social outcasts started to dislocate, precisely at a time when protest against colonial order was spreading and social control was becoming a crucial issue for the authorities. Over the period under study in this thesis, the reinvention of daily social practices led to redefining the residential geography of Havana: it made possible a wider diffusion of the working class throughout the city, which hampered and challenged the republican capital's project of the elite. By “emptying out history's pockets” and studying numerous unpublished or little valued archives, this thesis, which involved constituting a georeferenced database and a body of cartographic material, offers a different insight into one of the turning points in the history of Havana and Cuba through an alternative analysis of the conventional chronology and a complexification of historical framework.

Some companies today are using sub-optimal and nearly obsolete management systems for their networks. Given the large number of different services that are demanded by users, there is a need to adapt the network structure to support the current and potential future demands. As a result, there is a need for new Network Management Solutions (NMSs). The aim of this thesis project is to help a company who uses a NMS called Local Area Network (LAN) Management Solution (LMS). LMS was designed by Cisco for managing LAN networks. However, the company’s demands are growing and they need to expand their network more than expected. Moreover, LMS is designed to only support devices by Cisco, whereas the company wants a universal solution with wide device support from many manufacturers. This thesis presents an analysis of their current system and suggests potential solutions for an upgrade that will meet all of the company’s demands and will have a long operating life. To help find reasonable solutions a thorough evaluation of their existing NMS and network monitoring and management needs was made.  This evaluation gave good insights into different aspects of their system. A reasonable solution was found by following a three-step approach, beginning with 82 possible solutions, filtering out and breaking down with each step, until only the most suitable NMS was left. Two NMSs has been proposed as equally suitable replacements: IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus and ManageEngine OpManager. Regardless of which one is chosen, they both have the following advantages over the company’s existing NMS: they are very stable solutions which can handle a large number of managed devices; they are universal solutions with wide device support, and the company can add custom support if needed; they are user-friendly with the ability to add custom interfaces; and they both have a professional first-line technical support department locally located. / Vissa företag använder idag suboptimala och föråldrade övervakningsssystem för sina nätverk. Med tanke på det stora antalet olika tjänster som efterfrågas av användare finns det ett stort behov av att anpassa nätverksstrukturen för att stödja de nuvarande och potentiellt framtida kraven. Som ett resultat finns det ett behov av nya övervakningssystem (Network Management Solutions (NMSs)) för nätverken. Syftet med detta examensarbete är att hjälpa ett företag som använder NMS:en Local Area Network (LAN) Management Solution (LMS). LMS utecklades av Cisco för att hantera lokala nätverk (LANs). Men med tiden har företagets krav förändrats och de har därför behövt expandera sitt nätverk mer än väntat.  Dessutom är LMS endast utformad för att hantera enheter tillverkade av Cisco, medan företaget vill ha en universal lösning med stöd för enheter från många olika tillverkare. Denna rapport presenterar en analys av deras nuvarande system, samt föreslår möjliga lösningar som kan ersätta detta. Den nya lösningen ska vara långvarig samt ska uppfylla alla krav företaget ställt. För att hitta lämpliga lösningar har en grundlig utvärdering av den befintliga NMS:en samt en analys av de ställda kraven utförts. Denna analys gav goda insikter i olika aspekter av deras nuvarande system. En lämplig lösning hittades genom att följa en trestegsmetod. Metoden utgick från 82 möjliga lösningar, som efter flera steg av filtrering resulterade i de mest lämpade ersättningssystemen. Två NMS:er har föreslagits som lika lämpliga ersättare: IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus och ManageEngine OpManager. Oavsett vilken som väljs, har de båda följande fördelar jämfört med den nuvarande NMS:en: de är båda väldigt stabila lösningar som klarar av en stor mängd hanterade enheter; de är universella lösningar med stöd för en stor mängd olika enheter, dessutom går det även att lägga till eget stöd för enheter vid behov; de är användarvänliga och har möjlighet till att anpassa egna gränssnitt; samt att de båda har en professionell first-line teknisk support placerad lokalt i landet.<p>

The purpose of this study was to focus on the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 and the amendments of 1989 and 1990. Nursing assistants were placed in cluster groups of 300-hours, 120-hours, and 0-hours. Each subject's job performance of nursing care was observed using the Francis's Task Performance Rating Scale. The purpose of the analysis was to determine (1) if there was a significant difference in job performance of patient care between program completers and the challengers, (2) if there was a significant difference in the job performance of patient care between 300-hour and 120-hour, and (3) if there was a significant difference between the content required in OBRA mandated nursing assistant programs and actual job performance skills needed in patient care. It was determined that program completers' job performance of patient care was significantly different from the challengers.

We provide a Frequentist-Bayesian hybrid test statistic in this dissertation for two testing problems. The first one is to design a test for the significant differences between non-parametric functions and the second one is to design a test allowing any departure of predictors of high dimensional X from constant. The implementation is also given in construction of the proposal test statistics for both problems. For the first testing problem, we consider the statistical difference among massive outcomes or signals to be of interest in many diverse fields including neurophysiology, imaging, engineering, and other related fields. However, such data often have nonlinear system, including to row/column patterns, having non-normal distribution, and other hard-to-identifying internal relationship, which lead to difficulties in testing the significance in difference between them for both unknown relationship and high-dimensionality. In this dissertation, we propose an Adaptive Bayes Sum Test capable of testing the significance between two nonlinear system basing on universal non-parametric mathematical decomposition/smoothing components. Our approach is developed from adapting the Bayes sum test statistic by Hart (2009). Any internal pattern is treated through Fourier transformation. Resampling techniques are applied to construct the empirical distribution of test statistic to reduce the effect of non-normal distribution. A simulation study suggests our approach performs better than the alternative method, the Adaptive Neyman Test by Fan and Lin (1998). The usefulness of our approach is demonstrated with an application in the identification of electronic chips as well as an application to test the change of pattern of precipitations. For the second testing problem, currently numerous statistical methods have been developed for analyzing high-dimensional data. These methods mainly focus on variable selection approach, but are limited for purpose of testing with high-dimensional data, and often are required to have explicit derivative likelihood functions. In this dissertation, we propose ``Hybrid Omnibus Test'' for high-dimensional data testing purpose with much less requirements. Our Hybrid Omnibus Test is developed under semi-parametric framework where likelihood function is no longer necessary. Our Hybrid Omnibus Test is a version of Freqentist-Bayesian hybrid score-type test for a functional generalized partial linear single index model, which has link being functional of predictors through a generalized partially linear single index. We propose an efficient score based on estimating equation to the mathematical difficulty in likelihood derivation and construct our Hybrid Omnibus Test. We compare our approach with a empirical likelihood ratio test and Bayesian inference based on Bayes factor using simulation study in terms of false positive rate and true positive rate. Our simulation results suggest that our approach outperforms in terms of false positive rate, true positive rate, and computation cost in high-dimensional case and low-dimensional case. The advantage of our approach is also demonstrated by published biological results with application to a genetic pathway data of type II diabetes. / Ph. D.

The new EU omnibus directive mandates that companies must now show the lowest previous price of a product. In a behavioral experiment, we investigate whether this affects consumers’ willingness to buy. We also test for gender differences in consumers’ willingness to buy when being exposed to the lowest previous price. Today gender-stereotypical norms like Girl math are present on social media. Hence, it is highly relevant to understand if these gender differences in consumer behavior exist and why. In the experiment, we also observe whether the effect of previous lowest price differ depending whether the good in question is hedonic or utilitarian and on the consumer’s level of information ignorance. The experiment was conducted online, where participants made a series of purchasing decisions. The participants were assigned to be either in a control or a treatment group, where the treatment group was exposed to the lowest previous price. Results from t-tests and OLS regressions indicate a negative effect on willingness to buy when consumers are exposed to the lowest previous price, with no difference between men and women. However, general willingness to buy in the experiment differed between genders regardless of the lowest previous price, suggesting that differences in shopping behavior are mainly due to varying attitudes towards purchasing decisions. Hedonic goods are less affected by the lowest previous price compared to utilitarian goods and the effect on willingness to buy when exposed to the lowest previous price is decreasing with increasing financial ignorance, which may be due to individuals ignoring information rather than being affected by decision inertia. / Den skärpa Prisinformationslagen innebär att företag nu måste ange tidigare lägsta pris på en vara. I ett beteendeexperiment undersöker vi om detta påverkar konsumenters köpbenägenhet. Vi testar även om det finns könsskillnader i köpbenägenhet vid exponering av tidigare lägsta pris. Idag finns det könsstereotypiska normer som växer fram på sociala medier, därför är det ytterst relevant att förstå om dessa könsskillnader i köpbeteenden finns och varför. I experimentet observerar vi även om effekten av tidigare lägsta pris på köpbenägenhet skiljer sig åt beroende på om varan i fråga är för nytta eller nöjes skull samt konsumentens nivå av informationsignorans. Experimentet genomfördes online där deltagarna skulle göra en rad av köpbeslut. Deltagarna blev antingen indelade i en kontroll- eller behandlingsgrupp, där deltagarna i behandlingsgruppen blev exponerade för tidigare lägsta pris. Resultaten från t-tester och OLS-regressioner indikerar på att det finns en negativ effekt på köpbenägenheten när en konsument exponeras för tidigare lägsta pris. Denna effekt skiljer sig inte mellan män och kvinnor. Däremot skiljer sig den allmänna köpbenägenheten i experimentet mellan män och kvinnor, oberoende av tidigare lägsta pris, vilket tyder på att skillnaderna i köpbeteende huvudsakligen beror på olika attityder vid shopping och köpbeslut. Hedoniska varor påverkas mindre än utilitariska varor av tidigare lägsta pris, samtidigt som ökad finansiell ignorans leder till en lägre påverkan på köpbenägenhet vid exponering av tidigare lägsta pris vilket kan kopplas till att individer ignorerar information snarare än drabbas av beslutströghet.

Title: Media Image of the Kolocová - Sluková Beach Volleyball Team from the National Press within the Context of the 2012 Olympics. Objectives: The main target of the thesis was to analyse media image of the beach volleyball team Kolocová - Sluková in the national press and the influence of the participation of the team in 2012 Summer Olympics in London on the media image in the national press. Methods: The first used method in the thesis was interview with beach volleyball players Kristýna Kolocová and Markéta Sluková. For the thesis was used Content analysis of the articles of national press and their supplements and national magazines in the period from 1st April 2011 to 15th of August 2013. There was used the Quantitative research Omnibus in the thesis too, number of respondents was 1017. Results: The thesis approved increase of the article frequency or media interest during and after participation of the team in the 2012 Olympic games, as well as character changes (size, themes etc.). Graphs and tables present the results of the analysis. Based on these results there are offered suggestions for the media communication of the team. Keywords: Beach volleyball, media, media image, Olympic games, content analysis, omnibus, interview.

This study examines 1) whether the different expenditure mechanisms used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invite different sources of influences on the budget process and thus on the expenditure outcomes and 2) whether the frequent use of omnibus appropriations bills since 1996 has changed budget levels of the institutes under the NIH. The NIH uses two major expenditure mechanisms with very different beneficiary groups: the principal investigator-initiated Research Project Grants and Intramural Research. Drawing on theories of motivations of public officials and of political clout of agency heads and considering empirical studies of the effect of omnibus legislation, this study reveals the following: 1) directors with more public service experience are more successful in securing a higher budget for their institutes; 2) while the directors are found to be driven by public service motivation, when it comes to expenditure allocation between two different mechanisms, they behave in a self-interested manner, representing the interests of the institutional sectors where they have developed close relationships; 3) with ever-increasing budgets between 1983 and 2005, the institute directors have chosen to seek higher budgets rather than merely avoid the risk of budget cuts; 4) although the advisory boards are purportedly used to seek private input for the priority setting, they tend to increase intramural more than external research project grant expenditures; 5) the practice of omnibus appropriations bills significantly benefits the institutes under the NIH such that with omnibus legislation the institutes' total expenditures have more than doubled controlling the other factors; and 6) there are significant differences in the effects of the director's public experience and the number of advisory boards and their membership both (i) between disease-focused institutes and nondisease institutes and (ii) with and without omnibus legislation. The effects of the director's public service experience and the advisory boards have more budgetary impact in the general science-focused institutes than in their disease-focused counterparts. The influence of the advisory board and of the institute director's public service experience on the individual institute's expenditure level is significantly diminished by the frequent use of omnibus appropriations bills.