Functional vision refers to the use of vision to perform day-day tasks and is assessed by the ability to perform these tasks. Assessment of functional vision is an integral component of the management of children with visual impairment. The results of the assessment help in designing appropriate educational and rehabilitation intervention strategies. The L V Prasad-Functional Vision Questionnaire (LVP-FVQ) is a reliable and valid tool for assessing self-reported functional vision performance (FVP) in children. Self-reports are obviously the child's perception of his or her ability to perform certain tasks but they may not reflect actual performance. Various studies of FVP in adults have used actual performance measures of everyday tasks, but very few studies, even in adults with visual impairment, have compared self-reports and performance measures and none have included identical tasks on the 2 methods of assessment. To date, no study has assessed FVP using performance measures of daily tasks in the paediatric population. Therefore, the aims of the current study were: (1) To develop performance measures of FVP and compare them with self-reports of FVP from the LVP-FVQ in a prospective cohort of Indian school-going children with visual impairment. (2) To investigate the effect of a psychological attribute, self-concept, on self-reports, performance measures and the relationships between the 2 measures. (3) To investigate the relationship between clinical measures of vision and FVP. Performance measures of FVP for children with visual impairment were developed for 17 day to day tasks for comparison with self-reports of the same tasks for the LVP-FVQ. The LVP-FVQ was verbally administered by the researcher to 178 Indian school-going children aged between 8 and 17 years with visual impairment. Similarly, the performance of each of the tasks by these children was measured by the researcher. The performance measures for most of these tasks were recorded on continuous scales and later categorized to match the ordinal ratings from the LVP-FVQ. The self-report and performance measure ratings for the 17 tasks were then converted into the same metric using a Rasch model allowing an accurate picture of whether and how these two measures of FVP compared with each other. Rasch analysis was used to estimate the person ability and item difficulty for FVP from the 2 methods of assessment. Self-reports showed stronger correlations with performance measures of FVP than were hypothesized. Similar to some studies in adults, binocular high-contrast visual acuity was found to be the single most significant predictor of a child's functional vision performance. Contrary to expectations, self-concept did not have a significant effect on the relationship between the 2 measures. A few reasons for the stronger than expected relationship between the 2 methods of assessment of FVP in children with visual impairment are suggested. Firstly, the use of identical tasks for self-reports and performance measures of FVP is likely to improve the relationship. Secondly, the LVP-FVQ was developed using focus groups of children with visual impairment, their parents, low vision specialists and rehabilitation professionals leading to good content validity. Since children were included in the development of the LVP-FVQ, the tasks were representative of a child's typical daily life. Thus, the performance measures were also suited to the day-day tasks of school-going children but were not tapping any social and psychological issues relating to visual impairment. Thirdly, the use of Rasch analysis which addresses many of the issues of unequal measurement and defines a hierarchy of items for self-reports and performance measures could have led to higher correlations in the present study. Finally, the high reliability and validity of self-reports and performance measures of FVP in the present study may have contributed to the higher than expected correlations. None of the demographic variables or self-concept affected the relationship between self-reports and performance measures of FVP, but self-concept had a weak significant association with self-reports. This result is unique to this study and warrants further investigation. Binocular high-contrast visual acuity alone, the most common visual function measured in ophthalmic clinics, explained between one-third and two-thirds of the variance in functional vision performance. This confirms the expected trend that with worse visual impairment, FVP is lower. The addition of the variable, self-concept, resulted in a very small increase in the variability explained for self-reported FVP. Similarly, the addition of other clinical measures of vision such as binocular low contrast visual acuity and colour vision resulted in a small increase in the variability explained for performance measures of FVP. The correlation between binocular high-contrast visual acuity and performance measures of FVP was statistically significantly higher than that between binocular high-contrast visual acuity and self-reports of FVP. There are a few possible reasons for this higher correlation. Firstly, performance measures are considered to be a more "objective" form of assessment, while self-reports are a child's perception of his or her ability and therefore lack a context, which may result in either over-estimation or under-estimation of actual ability. Furthermore, performance measures include dimensions such as the time taken to perform a task or other criteria specific to a task, while self-reports do not use such qualifiers. Secondly, the higher correlation may be the result of the visual complexity of some of the tasks. While self-concepts of children with visual impairment played a small but significant role in the self-reported FVP, studies in adults with visual impairment have suggested that other psychological factors such as mood, anxiety, motivation etc. are associated with an individual's perception of visual performance. Future studies are required to explore the possible role of these and other factors in FVP in Indian school-going children with visual impairment. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the field of paediatric low vision rehabilitation by providing performance measures of FVP and relating them to self-reports in children with visual impairment and their relationship with common measures of visual function. With self-reports, the child is reporting his or her perception of ability to complete a task, where performance measures examine the child's ability to complete a task by observing his or her performance. Thus, although the two methods are comparable, it is because of the different yields from each of these measures that they are not considered interchangeable. A combination of the 2 measures where practical would perhaps provide a richer depiction of the FVP of children with visual impairment. As developing countries such as India have limited resources allocated for eye care services where less than seven percent of the gross national product is spent on health care, self-reports can be utilized together with clinical measures of vision (mainly visual acuity) to assess the FVP in children with visual impairment in a community setting. However, both methods of assessment of FVP together with clinical measures of vision are essential if a comprehensive assessment of FVP is to be carried out in children with visual impairment. Information from these assessments can help clinicians better understand the functioning of children with visual impairment and incorporate them in the management of low vision in school-going children with visual impairment in India.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and develop relevant keyperformance indicators within the warehouse operations in amanufacturing company, and how they can be used for control. Research question: In a manufacturing company, which are the most important KPIs forcontrolling and monitoring the warehouse operations, and how can thoseKPIs be developed?Methodology: This master thesis is based on a case study at a pharmaceutical companynamed Fresenius Kabi. A qualitative approach has been used whereprimary data was collected through 10 structured & semi structuredinterviews and through observations in the warehouses to understand thecurrent state. Secondary data was used in form of academic papers to seewhat previous research had to say about KPIs and operation & processmanagement. Internal documents were also used as a secondary source. Findings: Two key performance indicators have been developed, productivity andcost efficiency. A template has been designed to produce the KPIs. Thisstudy contributes to the understanding of how to develop KPIs that fits amanufacturing company´s warehouse operations and a recommendation onhow you could develop a system for producing the data.

As pesquisas na área da saúde tem sido desenvolvidas com recursos governamentais obtidos junto às agências de fomento ou com recursos próprios das instituições, num esforço conjunto para a obtenção de parâmetros, em que se destacam os estudos epidemiológicos, voltados à melhoria na resolutividade dos problemas de saúde da população. A inserção da temática “Gestão em Serviços de Saúde” na área epidemiológica surge do enfoque multidisciplinar como uma forma de complementar os estudos trazendo conhecimentos oriundos da Administração para a abordagem das questões relativas à qualidade na atenção, eqüidade, identificação dos agravos de saúde, novas tecnologias e avaliação de custoefetividade das intervenções em saúde. A capacidade de auto-sustentabilidade de um laboratório de pesquisa de uma instituição pública de saúde em relação aos seus recursos financeiros e materiais e ao desenvolvimento do seu potencial humano de forma efetiva e eficaz é o foco deste trabalho que tem por objetivo desenvolver e aplicar o sistema gerencial Balanced Scorecard (BSC) no Centro de Terapia Gênica do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre. O desenvolvimento do Balanced Scorecard no Centro de Terapia Gênica foi realizado em duas etapas: a primeiro, voltada à construção do modelo conceitual através da elaboração do Mapa Estratégico e a segunda, à definição do Plano de Ação com a seleção das áreas de indicadores do laboratório. As referências usadas nessas fases foram a revisão da literatura sobre o BSC e seu desenvolvimento em outras organizações do setor público e privado, a análise exploratória dos indicadores de desempenho sugeridos pela Associação Brasileira das Instituições de Pesquisa Tecnológica (ABIPTI), o Planejamento Estratégico do Hospital de Clínicas e o levantamento dos dados do laboratório. Os resultados obtidos indicam a viabilidade da aplicação do BSC em um laboratório de pesquisa de um hospital público de ensino. Mostram, também, que a administração das atividades de pesquisa, vista sob uma perspectiva estratégica, torna a multidisciplinaridade de conhecimentos presentes em uma instituição como um fator importante para a busca das melhores práticas gerenciais que contribuam para agregar valor científico, tecnológico e econômico às atividades de pesquisa e desta forma, auxiliem a impulsionar as atividades de P&D na organização. / The researches in healthcare have been being developed with government resources or the institutions own resources, in an joint effort to obtain parameters in which the epidemiologic studies outstand , aiming at the improvement of the solution of the health problems of the population. The insertion of the issue " Administration in Healthcare Organizations " in the epidemiologic area comes from the multidisciplinary focus as a way of complementing the studies bringing knowledge originated from the Administration to the approach of issues such as the quality of the attention, access, identification of diseases, new technology and the evaluation of cost-effectiveness of the health care intervention. The capacity of self-sustainability of a research laboratory of a public institution of healthcare in relation to its financial and material resources and to the development of its human potential capital in an effective and efficient way is the focus of this work that has as objective to develop and to apply the system management called Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in the Center for Gene Therapy of the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre. The development of the Balanced Scorecard in Center for Gene Therapy was accomplished in two stages: firstly, aiming at the construction of the conceptual model through the elaboration of the Strategic Map and, secondly, to the definition of the Plan of Action with the selection of the performance measures of the laboratory. The references used in those phases were the revision of the literature on BSC and its development in other public and private organizations, the exploratory analysis of the performance measures suggested by the Brazilian Association of the Technological Research Institutions (ABIPTI), the Strategic Planning of the Hospital de Clinicas and the obtaining of the data of the laboratory. The results obtained indicate the viability of the application of BSC in a research laboratory of a public hospital. They also show that the administration of research activities, seen under a strategic perspective, turns the multidisciplinary knowledge present in an institution as an important factor for the search of the best managerial practices that contribute to join scientific, technological and economic value to the research activities and this way, help to impel the activities of P&D in the organization.

Diversas atividades humanas são fortemente dependentes do clima e da sua variabilidade, especialmente aquelas relacionadas ao uso da água. A operação integrada de reservatórios com múltiplos usos requer uma série de decisões que definem quanta água deve ser alocada, ao longo do tempo para cada um dos usos, e quais os volumes dos reservatórios a serem mantidos. O conhecimento antecipado das condições climáticas resulta de vital importância para os operadores de reservatórios, pois o insumo dos reservatórios é a vazão dos rios, que por sua vez é dependente de condições atmosféricas e hidrológicas em diferentes escalas de tempo e espaço. A pesquisa trata sobre três importantes elementos de subsídio à tomada de decisão na operação de reservatórios baseada na previsão de variáveis hidrológicas: (a) as previsões de vazão de curto prazo; (b) as previsões de precipitação de longo prazo e (c) as medidas de desempenho das previsões. O reservatório de Furnas, localizado na bacia do Rio Grande, em Minas Gerais, foi selecionado como estudo de caso devido, principalmente, à disponibilidade de previsões quantitativas de chuva e pela importância desse reservatório na região analisada. A previsão de curto prazo de vazão com base na precipitação foi estimada com um modelo empírico (rede neural artificial) e a previsão de precipitação foi obtida pelo modelo regional ETA. Uma metodologia de treinamento e validação da rede neural artificial foi desenvolvida utilizando previsões perfeitas de chuva (considerando a chuva observada como previsão) e utilizando o maior número de dados disponíveis, favorecendo a representatividade dos resultados obtidos. A metodologia empírica alcançou os desempenhos obtidos com um modelo hidrológico conceitual, mostrando-se menos sensitiva aos erros na previsão quantitativa de precipitação nessa bacia. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que as previsões de vazão utilizando modelos empíricos e conceituais e incorporando previsões quantitativas de precipitação são melhores que a metodologia utilizada pelo ONS no local de estudo. A redução dos erros de previsão relativos à metodologia empregada pelo ONS foi em torno de 20% quando usadas previsões quantitativas de precipitação definidas pelo modelo regional ETA e superiores a 50% quando usadas previsões perfeitas de precipitação. Embora essas últimas previsões nunca possam ser obtidas na prática, os resultados sugerem o quanto o incremento do desempenho das previsões quantitativas de chuva melhoraria as previsões de vazão. A previsão de precipitação de longo prazo para a bacia analisada foi também estimada com um modelo empírico de redes neurais artificiais e utilizando índices climáticos como variáveis de entrada. Nesse sentido, foram estimadas previsões de precipitação acumulada no período mais chuvoso (DJF) utilizando índices climáticos associados a fenômenos climáticos, como o El Niño - Oscilação Sul e a Oscilação Decadal do Pacífico, e a modos de variabilidade climática, como a Oscilação do Atlântico Norte e o Modo Anular do Hemisfério Sul. Apesar das redes neurais artificiais terem sido aplicadas em diversos problemas relacionados a hidrometeorologia, a aplicação dessas técnicas na previsão de precipitação de longo prazo é ainda rara. Os resultados obtidos nesse trabalho mostraram que consideráveis reduções dos erros da previsão relativos ao uso apenas da média climatológica como previsão podem ser obtidos com a metodologia utilizada. Foram obtidas reduções dos erros de, no mínimo 50%, e chegando até um valor próximo a 75% nos diferentes testes efetuados no estudo de caso. Uma medida de desempenho da previsão foi desenvolvida baseada no uso de tabelas de contingência e levando em conta a utilidade da previsão. Essa medida de desempenho foi calculada com base nos resultados do uso das previsões por um modelo de operação de reservatório, e não apenas na comparação de vazões previstas e observadas. Nos testes realizados durante essa pesquisa, ficou evidente que não existe uma relação unívoca entre qualidade das previsões e utilidade das previsões. No entanto, em função de comportamentos particulares das previsões, tendências foram encontradas, como por exemplo nos modelos cuja previsão apresenta apenas defasagem. Nesses modelos, a utilidade das previsões tende a crescer na medida que a qualidade das mesmas aumenta. Por fim, uma das grandes virtudes da medida de desempenho desenvolvida nesse trabalho foi sua capacidade de distinguir o desempenho de modelos que apresentaram a mesma qualidade. / Several human activities are strongly dependent on climate and its variability, especially those related to water use. The operation of multi-purpose reservoirs systems defines how much water should be allocated and the reservoir storage volumes to be maintained, over time. Knowing in advance the weather conditions helps the decision making process, as the major inputs to reservoirs are the streamflows, which are dependent on atmospheric and hydrological conditions at different time-space scales. This research deals with three important aspects towards the decision making process of multi-purpose reservoir operation based on forecast of hydrological variables: (a) short-term streamflow forecast, (b) long-range precipitation forecast and (c) performance measures. The Furnas reservoir on the Rio Grande basin was selected as the case study, primarily because of the availability of quantitative precipitation forecasts from the Brazilian Center for Weather Prediction and Climate Studies and due to its importance in the Brazilian hydropower generation system. Short-term streamflow forecasts were estimated by an empirical model (artificial neural network – ANN) and incorporating forecast of rainfall. Quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs), defined by the ETA regional model, were used as inputs to the ANN models. A methodology for training and validating the ANN models was developed using perfect precipitation forecasts (i.e., using the observed precipitation as if it was a forecast) and considering the largest number of available samples, in order to increase the representativeness of the results. The empirical methodology achieved the performance obtained with a conceptual hydrological model and seemed to be less sensitive to precipitation forecast error relative to the conceptual hydrological model. Although limited to one reservoir, the results obtained show that streamflow forecasting using empirical and conceptual models and incorporating QPFs performs better than the methodology used by ONS. Reduction in the forecast errors relative to the ONS method was about 20% when using QPFs provided by ETA model, and greater than 50% when using the perfect precipitation forecast. Although the latter can never be achieved in practice, these results suggest that improving QPFs would lead to better forecasts of reservoir inflows. Long-range precipitation forecast was also estimated by an empirical model based on artificial neural networks and using climate indices as input variables. The output variable is the summer (DJF) precipitation over the Furnas watershed. It was estimated using climate indices related to climatic phenomena such as El Niño - Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and modes of climate variability, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Southern Annular Mode. Despite of ANN has been applied in several problems of hydrometeorological areas, the application of such technique for long-range precipitation forecast is still rare. The results obtained demonstrate how the methodology for seasonal precipitation forecast based on ANN can be particularly helpful, with the use of available time series of climate indices. Reductions in the forecast errors achieved by using only the climatological mean as forecast were considerable, being at least of 50% and reaching values close to 75% in several tests. A performance measure based on the use of contingency tables was developed taking into account the utility of the forecast. This performance measure was calculated based on the results of the use of the forecasts by a reservoir operation model, and not only by comparing streamflow observed and forecast. The performed tests show that there is no unequivocal relationship between quality and utility of the forecasts. However, when the forecast has a particular behavior, trends were found in the relationship between utility and quality of the forecast, such as models that generate streamflow forecast with lags in comparison to the observed values. In these models, the utility of the forecasts tends to enhance as the quality increases. Finally, the ability to distinguish the performance of forecast models having similar quality was one of the main merits of the performance measure developed in this research.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) contribute substantially in economies around the world and in South Africa in particular. This study aimed to explore and describe the financial performance measures currently used by manufacturing SMEs in Pretoria. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at the participant SMEs’ premises in order to gather the information. It was found that most of the respondents use financial ratios, but to a limited extent, when measuring their financial performance. The use of bankruptcy prediction models is totally absent among the participants. It has been recommended that SMEs use more ratios from the literature that have been proven to be the best financial measures, and the six ratios that have worked well for some of the participants in the study. It is also recommended that SME owners enrol their financial staff for training in bankruptcy prediction models, and use financial software packages if they can afford them. / Graduate School for Business Leadership / (M.Tech. (Business Administration))

Prediction of corporate bankruptcy (or distress) is one of the major activities in auditing firms’ risks and uncertainties. The design of reliable models to predict distress is crucial for many decision-making processes. Although a variety of models have been designed to predict distress, the relative performance evaluation of competing prediction models remains an exercise that is unidimensional in nature. To be more specific, although some studies use several performance criteria and their measures to assess the relative performance of distress prediction models, the assessment exercise of competing prediction models is restricted to their ranking by a single measure of a single criterion at a time, which leads to reporting conflicting results. The first essay of this research overcomes this methodological issue by proposing an orientation-free super-efficiency Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model as a multi-criteria assessment framework. Furthermore, the study performs an exhaustive comparative analysis of the most popular bankruptcy modelling frameworks for UK data. Also, it addresses two important research questions; namely, do some modelling frameworks perform better than others by design? and to what extent the choice and/or the design of explanatory variables and their nature affect the performance of modelling frameworks? Further, using different static and dynamic statistical frameworks, this chapter proposes new Failure Prediction Models (FPMs). However, within a super-efficiency DEA framework, the reference benchmark changes from one prediction model evaluation to another one, which in some contexts might be viewed as “unfair” benchmarking. The second essay overcomes this issue by proposing a Slacks-Based Measure Context-Dependent DEA (SBM-CDEA) framework to evaluate the competing Distress Prediction Models (DPMs). Moreover, it performs an exhaustive comparative analysis of the most popular corporate distress prediction frameworks under both a single criterion and multiple criteria using data of UK firms listed on London Stock Exchange (LSE). Further, this chapter proposes new DPMs using different static and dynamic statistical frameworks. Another shortcoming of the existing studies on performance evaluation lies in the use of static frameworks to compare the performance of DPMs. The third essay overcomes this methodological issue by suggesting a dynamic multi-criteria performance assessment framework, namely, Malmquist SBM-DEA, which by design, can monitor the performance of competing prediction models over time. Further, this study proposes new static and dynamic distress prediction models. Also, the study addresses several research questions as follows; what is the effect of information on the performance of DPMs? How the out-of-sample performance of dynamic DPMs compares to the out-of-sample performance of static ones? What is the effect of the length of training sample on the performance of static and dynamic models? Which models perform better in forecasting distress during the years with Higher Distress Rate (HDR)? On feature selection, studies have used different types of information including accounting, market, macroeconomic variables and the management efficiency scores as predictors. The recently applied techniques to take into account the management efficiency of firms are two-stage models. The two-stage DPMs incorporate multiple inputs and outputs to estimate the efficiency measure of a corporation relative to the most efficient ones, in the first stage, and use the efficiency score as a predictor in the second stage. The survey of the literature reveals that most of the existing studies failed to have a comprehensive comparison between two-stage DPMs. Moreover, the choice of inputs and outputs for DEA models that estimate the efficiency measures of a company has been restricted to accounting variables and features of the company. The fourth essay adds to the current literature of two-stage DPMs in several respects. First, the study proposes to consider the decomposition of Slack-Based Measure (SBM) of efficiency into Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE), Scale Efficiency (SE), and Mix Efficiency (ME), to analyse how each of these measures individually contributes to developing distress prediction models. Second, in addition to the conventional approach of using accounting variables as inputs and outputs of DEA models to estimate the measure of management efficiency, this study uses market information variables to calculate the measure of the market efficiency of companies. Third, this research provides a comprehensive analysis of two-stage DPMs through applying different DEA models at the first stage – e.g., input-oriented vs. output oriented, radial vs. non-radial, static vs. dynamic, to compute the measures of management efficiency and market efficiency of companies; and also using dynamic and static classifier frameworks at the second stage to design new distress prediction models.

Diversas atividades humanas são fortemente dependentes do clima e da sua variabilidade, especialmente aquelas relacionadas ao uso da água. A operação integrada de reservatórios com múltiplos usos requer uma série de decisões que definem quanta água deve ser alocada, ao longo do tempo para cada um dos usos, e quais os volumes dos reservatórios a serem mantidos. O conhecimento antecipado das condições climáticas resulta de vital importância para os operadores de reservatórios, pois o insumo dos reservatórios é a vazão dos rios, que por sua vez é dependente de condições atmosféricas e hidrológicas em diferentes escalas de tempo e espaço. A pesquisa trata sobre três importantes elementos de subsídio à tomada de decisão na operação de reservatórios baseada na previsão de variáveis hidrológicas: (a) as previsões de vazão de curto prazo; (b) as previsões de precipitação de longo prazo e (c) as medidas de desempenho das previsões. O reservatório de Furnas, localizado na bacia do Rio Grande, em Minas Gerais, foi selecionado como estudo de caso devido, principalmente, à disponibilidade de previsões quantitativas de chuva e pela importância desse reservatório na região analisada. A previsão de curto prazo de vazão com base na precipitação foi estimada com um modelo empírico (rede neural artificial) e a previsão de precipitação foi obtida pelo modelo regional ETA. Uma metodologia de treinamento e validação da rede neural artificial foi desenvolvida utilizando previsões perfeitas de chuva (considerando a chuva observada como previsão) e utilizando o maior número de dados disponíveis, favorecendo a representatividade dos resultados obtidos. A metodologia empírica alcançou os desempenhos obtidos com um modelo hidrológico conceitual, mostrando-se menos sensitiva aos erros na previsão quantitativa de precipitação nessa bacia. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que as previsões de vazão utilizando modelos empíricos e conceituais e incorporando previsões quantitativas de precipitação são melhores que a metodologia utilizada pelo ONS no local de estudo. A redução dos erros de previsão relativos à metodologia empregada pelo ONS foi em torno de 20% quando usadas previsões quantitativas de precipitação definidas pelo modelo regional ETA e superiores a 50% quando usadas previsões perfeitas de precipitação. Embora essas últimas previsões nunca possam ser obtidas na prática, os resultados sugerem o quanto o incremento do desempenho das previsões quantitativas de chuva melhoraria as previsões de vazão. A previsão de precipitação de longo prazo para a bacia analisada foi também estimada com um modelo empírico de redes neurais artificiais e utilizando índices climáticos como variáveis de entrada. Nesse sentido, foram estimadas previsões de precipitação acumulada no período mais chuvoso (DJF) utilizando índices climáticos associados a fenômenos climáticos, como o El Niño - Oscilação Sul e a Oscilação Decadal do Pacífico, e a modos de variabilidade climática, como a Oscilação do Atlântico Norte e o Modo Anular do Hemisfério Sul. Apesar das redes neurais artificiais terem sido aplicadas em diversos problemas relacionados a hidrometeorologia, a aplicação dessas técnicas na previsão de precipitação de longo prazo é ainda rara. Os resultados obtidos nesse trabalho mostraram que consideráveis reduções dos erros da previsão relativos ao uso apenas da média climatológica como previsão podem ser obtidos com a metodologia utilizada. Foram obtidas reduções dos erros de, no mínimo 50%, e chegando até um valor próximo a 75% nos diferentes testes efetuados no estudo de caso. Uma medida de desempenho da previsão foi desenvolvida baseada no uso de tabelas de contingência e levando em conta a utilidade da previsão. Essa medida de desempenho foi calculada com base nos resultados do uso das previsões por um modelo de operação de reservatório, e não apenas na comparação de vazões previstas e observadas. Nos testes realizados durante essa pesquisa, ficou evidente que não existe uma relação unívoca entre qualidade das previsões e utilidade das previsões. No entanto, em função de comportamentos particulares das previsões, tendências foram encontradas, como por exemplo nos modelos cuja previsão apresenta apenas defasagem. Nesses modelos, a utilidade das previsões tende a crescer na medida que a qualidade das mesmas aumenta. Por fim, uma das grandes virtudes da medida de desempenho desenvolvida nesse trabalho foi sua capacidade de distinguir o desempenho de modelos que apresentaram a mesma qualidade. / Several human activities are strongly dependent on climate and its variability, especially those related to water use. The operation of multi-purpose reservoirs systems defines how much water should be allocated and the reservoir storage volumes to be maintained, over time. Knowing in advance the weather conditions helps the decision making process, as the major inputs to reservoirs are the streamflows, which are dependent on atmospheric and hydrological conditions at different time-space scales. This research deals with three important aspects towards the decision making process of multi-purpose reservoir operation based on forecast of hydrological variables: (a) short-term streamflow forecast, (b) long-range precipitation forecast and (c) performance measures. The Furnas reservoir on the Rio Grande basin was selected as the case study, primarily because of the availability of quantitative precipitation forecasts from the Brazilian Center for Weather Prediction and Climate Studies and due to its importance in the Brazilian hydropower generation system. Short-term streamflow forecasts were estimated by an empirical model (artificial neural network – ANN) and incorporating forecast of rainfall. Quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs), defined by the ETA regional model, were used as inputs to the ANN models. A methodology for training and validating the ANN models was developed using perfect precipitation forecasts (i.e., using the observed precipitation as if it was a forecast) and considering the largest number of available samples, in order to increase the representativeness of the results. The empirical methodology achieved the performance obtained with a conceptual hydrological model and seemed to be less sensitive to precipitation forecast error relative to the conceptual hydrological model. Although limited to one reservoir, the results obtained show that streamflow forecasting using empirical and conceptual models and incorporating QPFs performs better than the methodology used by ONS. Reduction in the forecast errors relative to the ONS method was about 20% when using QPFs provided by ETA model, and greater than 50% when using the perfect precipitation forecast. Although the latter can never be achieved in practice, these results suggest that improving QPFs would lead to better forecasts of reservoir inflows. Long-range precipitation forecast was also estimated by an empirical model based on artificial neural networks and using climate indices as input variables. The output variable is the summer (DJF) precipitation over the Furnas watershed. It was estimated using climate indices related to climatic phenomena such as El Niño - Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and modes of climate variability, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Southern Annular Mode. Despite of ANN has been applied in several problems of hydrometeorological areas, the application of such technique for long-range precipitation forecast is still rare. The results obtained demonstrate how the methodology for seasonal precipitation forecast based on ANN can be particularly helpful, with the use of available time series of climate indices. Reductions in the forecast errors achieved by using only the climatological mean as forecast were considerable, being at least of 50% and reaching values close to 75% in several tests. A performance measure based on the use of contingency tables was developed taking into account the utility of the forecast. This performance measure was calculated based on the results of the use of the forecasts by a reservoir operation model, and not only by comparing streamflow observed and forecast. The performed tests show that there is no unequivocal relationship between quality and utility of the forecasts. However, when the forecast has a particular behavior, trends were found in the relationship between utility and quality of the forecast, such as models that generate streamflow forecast with lags in comparison to the observed values. In these models, the utility of the forecasts tends to enhance as the quality increases. Finally, the ability to distinguish the performance of forecast models having similar quality was one of the main merits of the performance measure developed in this research.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2527.pdf: 2598997 bytes, checksum: 9f4e8a6113e894b9bf182eeaee49c181 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-26 / The purpose of this essay is to investigate ways to promote an increase at the participation of employees in the development and use of the performance measurement system in an industrial goods manufacturer. Along with economical globalization, several performance measurement models begin to appear and companies in general are brought to invest in the search for the model that better fits each one s purpose. The effort is focused in the development, implementation and use of performance measurement systems. Among a number of proposed models, the one that gained more recognition worldwide was BSC. This fact itself does not guarantee the full use of the performance measurement system. Employee s participation and commitment has been an issue that deserves attention from researchers because it is an unquestionable fact that its involvement increases the performance of the individual and improves the motivation of the group. For this research it was chosen the action-research method, due to the fact of it to allow researchers to play an active role in the very reality of observed facts. The research had the support of large bibliographic studies to identify and evaluate influent factors to development and evolution of SMD. During action-research work, questionnaires were applied, interviews were conducted and thoughts were made about the adopted actions and results achieved. As a final result of field research, a better understanding of process change, skill development in the use of SMD, system management and involvement of stakeholders were achieved. Recommendations resultant of this research included managers, quality management staff and executives of the company, the development of employees, the improvement of SMD use, ownership and continuous improvement of the business. / O objetivo precípuo desta dissertação é buscar formas para aumentar a participação dos funcionários no desenvolvimento e uso do sistema de medição de desempenho em uma empresa de bens de capital. Juntamente com a globalização da economia, a partir dos anos oitenta, começaram a surgir diversos modelos e propostas de sistemas de medição de desempenho, os quais têm levado as empresas a investir na busca do modelo que melhor sirva ao propósito de cada qual. O esforço se concentra no campo do desenvolvimento, implementação e uso de sistema de medição de desempenho. Dentre os vários modelos propostos o que mais se destacou em todo o mundo foi o BSC. Este fato, per se, não garante a plenitude de utilização do sistema de medição de desempenho. O envolvimento e a participação dos funcionários é assunto que tem merecido a atenção dos pesquisadores porque é fato incontestável que seu envolvimento aumenta o desempenho do indivíduo e auxilia a motivação do grupo. Para esta pesquisa optou-se pela pesquisa-ação pelo fato de ela permitir, ao pesquisador, desempenhar um papel ativo na própria realidade dos fatos observados. O desenvolvimento desta investigação foi alicerçado em ampla revisão bibliográfica para identificar e avaliar fatores que influenciam o desenvolvimento e evolução do SMD. Para levar a bom termo o desenvolvimento da pesquisa-ação, no decorrer do trabalho foram aplicados questionários, conduzidas entrevistas e feitas reflexões sobre as ações tomadas e os resultados obtidos. Como resultado final da pesquisa de campo, foi obtido um melhor entendimento do processo de mudança, do desenvolvimento de habilidade no uso do SMD, de gestão do sistema e envolvimento dos stakeholders. As sugestões resultantes deste trabalho de pesquisa abrangeu os gerentes, o pessoal da gestão da qualidade e a alta direção da empresa, o desenvolvimento dos funcionários, a melhorias da gestão do SMD, propriedade (ownership) e melhoria contínua do desempenho do negócio.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:52:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissFAC.pdf: 1641656 bytes, checksum: 3e48b5a2633d9ec682a617bdd738dac7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-09-30 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / This work aims to propose a method to analyze the relationships between performance measures in a Performance Measurement System using historical performance data storaged in a datawarehouse or operational data store. There is a problem in the performance measurement area that it doesn t have methods to create relationships models between performance measures. The present methods that we have in academic researches don t help to build the relationships concerning historical performance data. Therefore, there is a trend to build the relationship between performance measures to reflect the desirable future, but it is also true that we have to learn about the past actions. Nowadays, with the increasing complexity in the organizations environment it is very difficulty to handle historical data about performance to identify relationship patterns without using concepts, techniques and tools of the Information Technology (IT) field. The variables contained in the performance measurement models are increasing continually so it is important to understand the complex net of relationships between performance measures in an organization. The stakeholders in the organization see the relationships between performance measures as trivial, but this doesn t help because the relationships are partial and subjective and the stakeholders that articulate the variables in most of the cases are accountable by the performance. It s expected that decision makers participate and share their models of relationships between performance measures and that it be the most comprehensive as possible. This work is important because it proposes to use the data mining philosophy to help building a method to understand relationship between performance measures with performance historical data. Hence, it will be possible to define and communicate the relationships between performance measures to the users of the organization and increase the use of performance measurement models. The proposed method presents a process to build and find relationships between performance measures data using data mining techniques. The IDEF0 procedure was used to present our approach. / O objetivo deste trabalho é propor um método para o estabelecimento dos relacionamentos entre as medidas de desempenho de um sistema de medição de desempenho a partir de dados históricos sobre desempenho armazenados em um banco de dados, utilizando a abordagem data mining. Um problema no campo da medição de desempenho é a falta de métodos de criação de modelos de relacionamentos entre as medidas de desempenho. Os existentes, encontrados na literatura, não tratam de como construir o relacionamento a partir de dados históricos de desempenho. Além disso, existe uma tendência de estabelecer o relacionamento esperado de forma que a medição de desempenho reflita o futuro desejado. Entretanto, é de grande valia aprender por intermédio daquilo que já foi feito, ou seja, pelas ações passadas. Com o aumento da complexidade das organizações, fica um tanto quanto difícil manipular dados históricos sobre desempenho para a identificação de padrões de relacionamento sem lançar mão de conceitos, técnicas e ferramentas da tecnologia de informação. Em face de o número de variáveis envolvidas ser cada vez maior, é importante a busca do entendimento da complexa teia de relacionamento existente entre as medidas de desempenho numa organização. Este relacionamento é visto pelas pessoas nas organizações como algo corriqueiro. Entretanto, o que pode ser improdutivo é que esses relacionamentos são parciais e pessoais, visando a articular as variáveis por cujo desempenho as pessoas, na maioria dos casos, tinham responsabilidade. O ideal é que a maioria dos tomadores de decisão compartilhem do mesmo modelo de relacionamento entre as medidas de desempenho e que ele fosse a mais abrangente possível. Portanto, a relevância deste trabalho é procurar desenvolver uma forma de aplicação da abordagem data mining a fim de auxiliar na construção de um método para o estabelecimento dos relacionamentos entre as medidas de desempenho com base em dados de desempenho históricos. Assim, será possível formalizar e disseminar o relacionamento entre as medidas de desempenho para uma gama maior de pessoas numa organização, podendo melhorar o uso da medição de desempenho. O método proposto procura abranger todo o processo de construção do relacionamento com aplicação de data mining e não somente a aplicação de uma ou outra técnica especifica dele. A apresentação da proposta é feita utilizando-se a prática IDEF0.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:52:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissALTA.pdf: 2776037 bytes, checksum: 117a84001593a55afaffa27437e3c41a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-12-22 / The evolution of production organization models was observed with more intensity since the second half of the last century. Its purpose is to make organizations more competitive. A core element that accompanies this change is a performance measurement system with a more multidimensional framework in most organizations. The actors in this scenario use the information from these performance measurement systems for issues of planning, control and improvement. In this context, the relationship between performance measures has been providing information to each of these actors. The mental models of these actors are unique. Usually the formal model of relationship between the performance measures in use is not shared. The goal of this work is to research this problem and to evaluate how the sharing process occurs for the use of maps of relationships between performance measures. The main contribution is the creation and sharing of a model of relationships between performance measures among users of a performance measurement system. The evaluation of this sharing process took place for the application of some research tools in a quasi-experimental project. / A evolução dos modelos de organização da produção percebida com mais intensidade a partir da segunda metade do século passado acontece no sentido de tornar as organizações cada vez mais competitivas. Um elemento central que acompanha essa mudança é o sistema de medição de desempenho, que se torna cada vez mais multidimensional, em várias dessas organizações. Os atores desse cenário utilizam as informações geradas por esses sistemas de medição de desempenho para fins de planejamento, controle e melhoria. O relacionamento entre medidas de desempenho está inserido nesse contexto provendo informações a cada um dos atores envolvidos. Os modelos mentais desses atores são individuais, pois, normalmente não há um compartilhamento de um modelo formal de relacionamento entre as medidas de desempenho em uso. Esta dissertação propõe pesquisar sobre esse problema e avaliar como esse compartilhamento acontece pelo uso de mapas de relacionamentos entre medidas de desempenho. A contribuição principal está na criação e no compartilhamento de um modelo de relacionamento entre medidas de desempenho em conjunto com usuários de um sistema de medição de desempenho. A avaliação desse compartilhamento aconteceu pela aplicação de alguns instrumentos de pesquisa no projeto de um quasi-experimento.