There have been numerous researchers who, over the years, have explored the relationship between the golden ratio and how it relates to the human perception of beauty. Although the golden proportion is one of the aesthetic characteristics contained in many masterpieces of art and design, it is still largely thought of as little more than an aesthetic guideline, that is, if indeed it is even being considered at all. This thesis asserts that golden proportion and practical geometric knowledge can be used as an extremely effective means of codifying the creative process, inspiring and influencing creative design decisions. This thesis is concerned with examining the application of practical geometric knowledge as an integral part of the design process. It also documents the development of the author's geometric refinement tools and discusses the results of their performance in testing by scrutinizing the opinions of design students and professional designers who both had their designs modified by the author's refinement tools. The relationship between geometric knowledge embedded in design classics and bestselling items was also examined. This thesis describes a mixed methods approach with multiple analyses, from which qualitative and quantitative data (about the implementation of applying geometric knowledge) was gathered via two geometry workshops, interviews with the professional designers, as well as an analysis of visual materials consisting of two hundred selected design examples. Based upon the process of employing geometric knowledge and its experiments, the thesis presents a descriptive analysis of the data to test theoretical propositions and draw conclusions about the value of applying practical geometry as design knowledge and as a practical tool for a design in the modern context. The significance of this thesis is that it elucidates upon the use of the golden ratio, and practical geometry as a practical design refinement tool, with the ability to transform the perception of practical geometry from being merely an aesthetic guideline which appears in masterpieces from the past, to a directly applicable practical design technique. The main contribution this thesis makes to the field of design practice is that it attempts to further understand the results achieved by codifying designing styles and design decisions, a process which can be described as objective rational knowledge in practice. This thesis frames individual design participants' perspectives of the golden ratio and the relationship between modern designs and the masterpieces of history. Thereby, hopefully providing a historical perspective and a modern context for the golden ratio. Further to that, it is the author's hope that this work will provide inspiration to today's designers, motivating them to begin implementing practical geometry into their designs and in the future generations of design education to come.

O ensino de Administração da Produção e Operações (APO) foi investigado em quatro formas complementares: através da revisão da literatura; análise dos conteúdos dos livros didáticos; análise das questões do Exame Nacional de Cursos (Provão) e análise dos programas das disciplinas de APO dos cursos de graduação em Administração de Empresas da FEA-PUC-SP, FEA-USP e FGV-EAESP, que foram consideradas as principais escolas de Administração do município de São Paulo. Quanto aos conteúdos de APO, os resultados convergiram para uma lista de 25 tópicos principais que deveriam ser tratados tanto nos livros didáticos de APO, quanto nos cursos de graduação em Administração de Empresas. Através das respostas aos questionários enviados aos professores, bem como contatos telefônicos, por e-mail e in loco, foram obtidas informações que complementaram a análise do conteúdo de APO, mas também permitiram as seguintes comparações: as três escolas possuem de quatro a cindo disciplinas obrigatórias de APO, totalizando 230 horas no curso, que ainda conta com disciplinas optativas, sendo que a FEA-USP oferece apenas uma disciplina, enquanto a FEA-PUC-SP e a FGV-EAESP oferecem oito; Slack et al. (2002) é o livro mais recomendado para as disciplinas de Administração da Produção e operações, mas para as disciplinas ligadas à Administração de Materiais não há um livro que predomine, além disso, os professores têm complementado seus cursos com apostilas; o método de ensino e o sistema de avaliação nas três escolas possuem vários pontos em comum e o Provão não tem sido utilizado como recurso didático; finalmente, nas três escolas o corpo docente está organizado em áreas ou departamentos, sendo a área de produção uma das menores na FEA-USP e na FGV-EAESP. Sendo poucos os professores, deveriam, então, ter alto número de carga horária. Apesar disso, os professores do Departamento de Produção da FGV-EAESP possuem a menor carga horária na graduação, quando comparados com as outras duas escolas. / Production and Operations Management (POM) teaching has been investigated in four different supporting ways: from literature review, books content, Brazil´s National Exam questions, and discipline program analysis, all of them related to POM, and taking place in FEA-USP (Faculdade de Economia e Administração – Business Economics College of University of São Paulo) Business Management Courses, PUC-SP (Catholic University of São Paulo), and FGV-EAESP, most renowned Business Schools in São Paulo. Results concerning POM drove to 25 main listed topics which should be referred not only in POM school books, but also in Management graduation courses. Upon answers to the questions sent to professors, phone contacts, e-mails and locals, some information was collected, which led to the following comparison levels: the mentioned schools above have 4 or 5 primary course disciplines related to POM, totalizing 230 hours, and there are still free choice program students. FEA-USP offers just one disicipline, while FEA-PUC-SP, and FGV-EAESP offer eight. Slack et al. (2002) is the most recomended book concerning POM disciplines, but for the ones related to Material Management there is no such prevailing book. Besides, professors have been meeting their courses content goal using their own notes. Teaching methods, and grading systems in those schools have common views and the National Exam has not been used as a reference or a pattern. Finally, the faculty in those three schools is divided into areas or departments. The Production area is one of the smallest in FEA-USP and FGV-EAESP, and as a result of it, FGV-EAESP Production Department professors have the smallest number of classes in graduation courses, compared to the other two schools, though as they are so few, those teachers were expected to have great numbers of classes.

O ensino de Administração da Produção e Operações (APO) foi investigado em quatro formas complementares: através da revisão da literatura; análise dos conteúdos dos livros didáticos; análise das questões do Exame Nacional de Cursos (Provão) e análise dos programas das disciplinas de APO dos cursos de graduação em Administração de Empresas da FEA-PUC-SP, FEA-USP e FGV-EAESP, que foram consideradas as principais escolas de Administração do município de São Paulo. Quanto aos conteúdos de APO, os resultados convergiram para uma lista de 25 tópicos principais que deveriam ser tratados tanto nos livros didáticos de APO, quanto nos cursos de graduação em Administração de Empresas. Através das respostas aos questionários enviados aos professores, bem como contatos telefônicos, por e-mail e in loco, foram obtidas informações que complementaram a análise do conteúdo de APO, mas também permitiram as seguintes comparações: as três escolas possuem de quatro a cindo disciplinas obrigatórias de APO, totalizando 230 horas no curso, que ainda conta com disciplinas optativas, sendo que a FEA-USP oferece apenas uma disciplina, enquanto a FEA-PUC-SP e a FGV-EAESP oferecem oito; Slack et al. (2002) é o livro mais recomendado para as disciplinas de Administração da Produção e operações, mas para as disciplinas ligadas à Administração de Materiais não há um livro que predomine, além disso, os professores têm complementado seus cursos com apostilas; o método de ensino e o sistema de avaliação nas três escolas possuem vários pontos em comum e o Provão não tem sido utilizado como recurso didático; finalmente, nas três escolas o corpo docente está organizado em áreas ou departamentos, sendo a área de produção uma das menores na FEA-USP e na FGV-EAESP. Sendo poucos os professores, deveriam, então, ter alto número de carga horária. Apesar disso, os professores do Departamento de Produção da FGV-EAESP possuem a menor carga horária na graduação, quando comparados com as outras duas escolas. / Production and Operations Management (POM) teaching has been investigated in four different supporting ways: from literature review, books content, Brazil´s National Exam questions, and discipline program analysis, all of them related to POM, and taking place in FEA-USP (Faculdade de Economia e Administração – Business Economics College of University of São Paulo) Business Management Courses, PUC-SP (Catholic University of São Paulo), and FGV-EAESP, most renowned Business Schools in São Paulo. Results concerning POM drove to 25 main listed topics which should be referred not only in POM school books, but also in Management graduation courses. Upon answers to the questions sent to professors, phone contacts, e-mails and locals, some information was collected, which led to the following comparison levels: the mentioned schools above have 4 or 5 primary course disciplines related to POM, totalizing 230 hours, and there are still free choice program students. FEA-USP offers just one disicipline, while FEA-PUC-SP, and FGV-EAESP offer eight. Slack et al. (2002) is the most recomended book concerning POM disciplines, but for the ones related to Material Management there is no such prevailing book. Besides, professors have been meeting their courses content goal using their own notes. Teaching methods, and grading systems in those schools have common views and the National Exam has not been used as a reference or a pattern. Finally, the faculty in those three schools is divided into areas or departments. The Production area is one of the smallest in FEA-USP and FGV-EAESP, and as a result of it, FGV-EAESP Production Department professors have the smallest number of classes in graduation courses, compared to the other two schools, though as they are so few, those teachers were expected to have great numbers of classes.

This thesis is concerned with the improvement of construction practices by studying the application in the sector of some core principles underlying current production management theories. The research is motivated by the recognition in recent literature that the best production practices world-wide have a common core. The core principles investigated in this research are the "reduction of cycle time", "reduction of variability", "increase of transparency" and "build of continuous improvement into the process". The fundamental rationale underlying these principles is the concept of flow where production is seen as composed of waiting, transporting, inspecting and transformation (processing) activities. According to this concept, transformation activities are the only ones that actually add value. Hence, all other activities should be reduced or eliminated from the flow whilst increasing the efficiency of transformation activities. The assessment of construction practices against the theory was carried out through six case studies, based in England and Brazil, and a complementary meta-case. Cross-case study analysis showed that construction already applies all heuristic approaches relating to the flow principles under study. However, the intra-case study analysis revealed a serious lack of integration among the literal replications identified in each of the case studies. Integration of practices matching the theory is critical since the evidence suggests that there is a correlation between production performance and the level of integration among literal replications. An additional case study investigated the issue of how to implement these principles in the practice of construction. The interaction with the host company happened through an Action Learning set supported by the Revans Centre for Action Learning and Research. The experiment showed that a combination of both "push" and "pull" learning seems to be an appropriate approach for introducing the principles in study in the construction sector. Top management positive support during "gestation" period was the most important factor for motivating people to "pull" the learning after the initial 'push' learning exercise.

This research is concerned with understanding a quality management system and its interaction with maintenance management activities within the organisation. The interaction between maintenance and quality, can lead to their integration with production. The second output of production is maintenance, whose output is increased production capacity. Both the production process and the quality of the maintenance work, which, in turn, affects equipment condition, affect the quality of final product. The thesis aims to identify the barriers and difficulties affecting quality in maintenance, within Libyan (public sector) manufacturing organisations. The specific objectives are derived to provide focus for the research activities, in order to fulfil the specific aim of the research in a structured and scientific manner. In order to achieve the thesis objectives, an empirically-based systems analysis of two case study organisations in the Libyan public manufacturing sector was carried out. Substantial field work was carried out using predominantly a qualitative approach. Qualitative data was collected by semi structured interview (from different levels of management and supervisors) to explore the quality management phenomena, and to provide a more holistic understanding through triangulation techniques of required and suitable data. This study has contributed to existing knowledge through getting an in-depth understanding of quality and maintenance issues. A specific definition of "quality in maintenance" was developed, common barriers of quality systems and the key factors of improving maintenance were summarised. Furthermore, by using the framework in figure 2.8 the enablers and inhibitors of quality in maintenance were demonstrated. This study is the first one that identified the unique barriers affecting quality in maintenance within the Libyan manufacturing organisations. These barriers are divided into three main kinds: the technical, economic barriers, managerial, organisational barriers, and cultural environmental barriers. The key findings of the research indicate that the case study organisations do not actively promote quality in the maintenance area that takes into consideration the influence of organisational, social, economic and political factors (change culture) on the quality of operations and performance inside the organisations.

The diffusion of innovations is a fundamental aspect of the innovative process, to which the literature on innovation dedicated a lot of attention. This voluminous literature covers a variety of themes, such as different kinds of innovations, potential adopters, and mechanisms by which the innovation spreads among its potential users. However, some aspects of this vast literature still deserve some further investigation. The objective of the thesis is to study the adoption and diffusion of a consumer technology, the portable digital audio player (DAP) market in Europe and Japan. The methodology is quantitative and consists on the collection and analysis of two original datasets. The first dataset regards the demand-side consisting in a survey of 1562 young potential adopters from 9 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and Japan). The other source of data is a dataset of 585 DAPs marketed between 2001 and 2009, including information on product characteristics (storage space, size, etc.) and price. The analysis of the data is carried out at three levels. The first one regards the demand-side, with the aim of assessing how users' characteristics shape the adoption decision, and providing a classification of potential adopters that goes beyond the usual classification based on timing of adoption or on the distribution of a single variable such as income. The second level concentrates on the supply-side, testing if there is a systematic relationship between product price and its objectively measurable characteristics and evaluating how technical change in the sector influences the diffusion path by matching products' quality change with users' preferences and patterns of adoption over time. Finally, the third level aims at providing evidence on whether conventional models of diffusion are able to provide an adequate explanation of the diffusion of DAPs, and moreover, on how the assumptions underlying these models might be combined or synthesised into a coherent framework.

<p> </p> <p><em>This study examines data-driven contract design in the small data regime and large data regime respectively, and the implications from contract pricing in the pharmaceutical supply chain. </em></p>

<p dir="ltr">Employee staffing and scheduling are critical aspects of resource management in labor-intensive, customer-centric service organizations. This thesis investigates the optimal decision-making process for these critical tasks in the presence of non-stationary uncertainty, such as case-mix resident need, recommended staffing hours, and potential staffing turnover, a challenge prevalent in various domains, including healthcare and nursing home management.</p><p dir="ltr">The research begins predicting resident needs accurately. For this purpose, we present a novel Bayesian modeling approach to predict nursing home need-based resident census and staffing time. The resultant time series data of need-based resident census and staffing time are nonstationary with potential correlations between resource utilization groups. We thus propose Bayesian latent variable models with time-varying latent states to capture the dynamic patterns of resident service needs. We demonstrate the superiority of the proposed Bayesian prediction models by comparing their forecasting performance with several popular benchmark models, using historical assessment and aggregate staffing data from representative nursing homes.</p><p dir="ltr">The thesis further incorporates a rolling-horizon scheduling approach that integrates a periodically evolving Bayesian forecasting method into a series of stochastic look-ahead decision actions over multiple periods. To deal with the workforce scheduling with nonstationary demand uncertainty, we introduce a stochastic lookahead optimization framework that executes two-stage stochastic programming periodically along a rolling horizon to address the evolving non-stationary uncertainty. We obtain two-stage stochastic programming models to design effective work schedules, specifically assigning nurses to various shifts while balancing the staff workload and accommodating fluctuating resident needs.</p><p dir="ltr">We finally introduce the SNHSSO framework (stochastic nursing home staffing and scheduling optimizer), encompassing data modeling and addressing multi-period, multi-uncertainty, and multi-objective staffing and scheduling challenges. When the SNHSSO Optimizer is executed with the provided inputs, it generates recommended staffing decisions for longer planning horizons, as well as schedules and contingency plans for shorter planning horizons. These adapted decisions and adjusted parameters are archived for future reference, facilitating subsequent iterations of the process. SNHSSO optimizes caregiver assignments by taking into account probabilistic forecasts of service requirements, resident acuity, and staff turnover, all within two-stage stochastic mixed integer linear programs. Our approach leverages a scenario-based rolling horizon methodology to effectively solve the SNHSSO model.</p><p dir="ltr">The empirical foundation of this work is built on case studies conducted using Minimum Data Set (MDS) data spanning five years from 2014 to 2018 in Indiana nursing homes.</p>