Taiwan was once world-known for its ¡¥Economic Miracle¡¦ while it was politically stabilized, socially peaceful and securely maintained. After the government lifted martial law in 1987, Taiwan initiated ¡¥Political Democratization¡¦ and direct presidential election. No matter how prosperous our economy is or how free our democracy is, a secured environment that is free from fear or intimidation takes priority over everything. As the guardians of the people, the police act as a bridge between the government and the people, and bear the responsibility of publicizing government decree. The National Police Agency, which is the subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, is the supreme organization in charge of all police functions in Taiwan. The population of police force at present is around 70,000 and 60% of them are rank and file officers. This study has taken the rank-and-file police officers of Kaohsiung County Police Bureau as a case to analyze the relations among ¡¥Job Involvement¡¦, ¡¥Job Stress¡¦, ¡¥Job Satisfaction¡¦, and ¡¥Turnover Propensity¡¦. A questionnaire has been made with 41 questions in it to make a research according to the items of frequency analysis, intersection analysis, and correlation analysis. There are ten discoveries in the conclusion considered correspond with the correlation research made by overseas or domestic scholars, besides, they are similar to the police ecosystem of Taiwan on the whole. But there are still some variables, such as organization climate, organization acceptance, growing requirement and personality characteristic that affect a person¡¦s resignation. Although research has been made on different profession and group by domestic and overseas scholars, it can also be made on the police to approach whether there is ¡§sameness in difference¡¨ or ¡§difference in sameness¡¨.

This thesis examines determinants of the adoption of total mixed ration (TMR), and the effects of the adoption of TMR on the farm level productivity and profitability of Ontario dairy farms. A sample of 320 farm level data from 2004-2008 is taken from the Ontario Dairy Farm Accounting Project (ODFAP). A probit model is estimated to examine the factors affecting the adoption of TMR; and the propensity score matching analysis is used to explore the influence of the use of TMR on sample farm’s productivity and profitability. Results from the probit model show that farmer’s age, herd size, region, breed type and feeding system have significant effect on the adoption of TMR. In turn, the adoption of TMR feeding practice has positive influence on both farm productivity and profitability. Under the propensity score matching method, the use of the TMR feeding practice has an economically significant effect on farm profits (i.e., for average farm with approximately 73 cows, the use of TMR feeding practice increases farm profits by CAD$37,091.30/year approximately) and a statistically significant increase in milk production by 1075.41 hl/cow per year.

There is consensus among entrepreneurship scholars regarding the importance of entrepreneurship toward the economies of countries. There is sufficient evidence to support the view that entrepreneurs are characterised by unique characteristics. Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial orientation have been widely studied and entrepreneurial orientation is considered instrumental for motivating individuals to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Previous research has also identified a correlation between entrepreneurial orientation and the performance of a firm. Many studies on the subject of entrepreneurial orientation have revealed that entrepreneurial orientation is multi-dimensional, for example, previous studies have identified autonomy, innovation, risk taking, competitive aggressiveness and pro-activeness as some of the factors that may influence entrepreneurial orientation. Given the importance of entrepreneurship with regard to job creation, the study attempted to identify the entrepreneurial orientation of Generation Y students. South Africa is experiencing high unemployment levels among the youth and the need to identify the entrepreneurial perceptions of the youth is significant as future entrepreneurs will come from this cohort. The findings of this research study may assist different stakeholders such as government, businesses and higher education institutions among others to take appropriate actions to address the problem of unemployment and create a favourable environment where persons may engage in entrepreneurial activities. The purpose of this research study was to determine the entrepreneurial orientation of Generation Y students in the Vaal Triangle area. Autonomy, innovation and risk taking were identified as factors that may possibly influence the entrepreneurial orientation of Generation Y students in this area. The findings in this research study indicate that students regard themselves as being autonomous, innovative and risk takers. No significant differences were found with regard to the entrepreneurial orientation of males and females. In comparing different designated groups in terms of the three constructs, significant differences were noted among certain items, for example, Coloureds and Indians tend to perceive themselves as more innovative compared to other groups. However, further research is needed because there is no sufficient evidence to suggest that one group is more entrepreneurial than the other. The findings in this research study revealed that Generation Y students perceive themselves as being autonomous, innovative and risk takers. This is encouraging because entrepreneurial activities, to a large extent, are known to be influenced by entrepreneurial orientation. It is evident that the youth can be encouraged to be job creators instead of job seekers. / Thesis (MCom (Entrepreneurship))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012.

This thesis aimed to apply the causal framework with potential outcomes to examine the causal effect of air temperature on reported violent crimes in Swedish municipalities. The Generalized Estimating Equations method was used on yearly, monthly and also July only data for the time period 2002-2014. One significant causal effect was established but the majority of the results pointed to there being no causal effect between air temperature and reported violent crimes.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The glass-transition traverses continuously from liquid to solid behaviour, yet the role of structure in this large and gradual dynamic transition is poorly understood. This thesis presents a theoretical study of the relationship between structure and dynamics in two-dimensional glass-forming alloys, and provides new tools and real-space insight into the relationship at a microscopic level. The work is divided into two parts. Part I is concerned with the role of structure in the appearance of spatially heterogeneous dynamics in a supercooled glass-forming liquid. The isoconfigurational ensemble method is introduced as a general tool for analysing the effect that a configuration has on the subsequent particle motion, and the dynamic propensity is presented as the aspect of structural relaxation that can be directly related to microscopic variations in the structure. As the temperature is reduced, the spatial distribution of dynamic propensity becomes increasingly heterogeneous. This provides the first direct evidence that the development of spatially heterogeneous dynamics in a fragile glass-former is related to spatial variations in the structure. The individual particle motion also changes from Gaussian to non- Gaussian as the temperature is reduced, i.e. the configuration expresses its character more and more intermittently. The ability of several common measures of structure and a measure of structural ‘looseness’ to predict the spatial distribution of dynamic propensity are then tested. While the local coordination environment, local potential energy, and local free volume show some correlation with propensity, they are unable to predict its spatial variation. Simple coarse-graining does not help either. These results cast doubt on the microscopic basis of theories of the glass transition that are based purely on concepts of free volume or local potential energy. In sharp contrast, a dynamic measure of structural ‘looseness’ - an isoconfigurational single-particle Debye-Waller (DW) factor - is able to predict the spatial distribution of propensity in the supercooled liquid. This provides the first microscopic evidence for previous correlations found between short- and long-time dynamics in supercooled liquids. The spatial distribution of the DW factor changes rapidly in the supercooled liquid and suggests a picture of structural relaxation that is inconsistent with simple defect diffusion. Overall, the work presented in Part I provides a real-space description of the transition from structure-independent to structure-dependent dynamics, that is complementary to the configuration-space description provided by the energy landscape picture of the glass transition. In Part II, an investigation is presented into the effect of varying the interparticle potential on the phase behaviour of the binary soft-disc model. This represents a different approach to studying the role of structure in glass-formation, and suggests many interesting directions for future work. The structural and dynamic properties of six different systems are characterised, and some comparisons are made between them. A wide range of alloy-like structures are formed, including substitutionally ordered crystals, amorphous solids, and multiphase materials. Approximate phase diagrams show that glass-formation generally occurs between competing higher symmetry structures. This work identifies two new glass-forming systems with effective chemical ordering and substantially different short- and medium-range structure compared to the glassformer studied in Part I. These represent ideal candidates for extending the study presented in Part I. There also appears to be a close connection between quasicrystal and glass-formation in 2D via random-tiling like structures. This may help explain the experimental observation that quasicrystals sometimes vitrify on heating. The alignment of asymmetric unit cells is found to be the rate-limiting step in the crystal nucleation and growth of a substitutionally ordered crystal, and another system shows amorphous-crystal coexistence and appears highly stable to complete phase separation. The generality of these results and their implications for theoretical descriptions of the glass transition are also discussed.

The standard Keynesian view predicts that equalization of the income distribution leads to an increase in aggregate consumption. We revisit the analysis carried out by the seminal empirical contributions which test such a hypothesis using modern econometric methods and the most comprehensive dataset existing on income distribution measures. Our results indicate that there is no substantive empirical evidence of an effect of income inequality on aggregate consumption. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The standard Keynesian view predicts that equalization of the income distribution leads to an increase in aggregate consumption. We revisit the analysis carried out by the seminal empirical contributions which test such a hypothesis using modern econometric methods and the most comprehensive dataset existing on income distribution measures. Our results indicate that there is no empirical evidence of a negative effect of income inequality on aggregate consumption.

Ingeniera Civil Industrial / La industria del retail en Chile en los últimos años ha enfrentado una disminución en las altas tasas de crecimiento que había acostumbrado a tener, haciéndose evidente el desafió de adaptarse a un mercado turbulento, que lleva consigo un cambio constante de las expectativas de los consumidores, cuya preferencia puede significar el éxito o el fracaso de cualquier empresa. Y así lo entienden las empresas de tiendas por departamento, donde su preocupación ha ido en aumento respecto a la obtención y retención de sus clientes. El objetivo de este trabajo es el de diseñar y proponer una estrategia de email marketing que permita aumentar la probabilidad de pertenecer a la categoría de alto valor de los clientes, mediante la aplicación de acciones promocionales que sean capaces de aumentar los niveles de visitas y/o los niveles de venta de los clientes. Para lograr esto, se comenzará por analizar aquellas variables que podrían ser relevante para explicar la probabilidad de cada cliente de pertenecer a esta categoría. Con estas variables se procederá a diseñar un modelo que sea capaz de calcular dicha probabilidad, conocida como Propensity Score. Con esta información se realizará un estudio experimental que busca probar distintos tipos de promociones (distintos montos y porcentajes de descuento) y medir su efectividad en términos de contribución de visitas como de ventas. Para alcanzar los objetivos mencionados, se trabajará con clientes identificables, es decir, clientes con Rut, con registro de su información demográfica y de su comportamiento de compra. A estos se les aplicaran herramientas de estadística descriptiva, técnicas RFM, comparación de modelos de propensión mensual y la aplicación de un diseño experimental. El principal entregable de esta memoria corresponde a una propuesta de gestión de clientes de alto valor, clientes F, la cual señala qué promociones son más adecuadas para aumentar la propensión de cada cliente, sus niveles de ventas y/o sus niveles de visitas. La propuesta diferenciará entre distintos segmentos de clientes según su tipo (cliente F o normal), según su nivel de venta y según su nivel de visitas. Las principales conclusiones del estudio son que promociones enviadas por canal POS no son capaces de aumentar la propensión del cliente. Sin embargo, promociones como el 40% de dcto. sí aumentaron la probabilidad de los clientes sin importar el segmento al cual pertenecían, y mejor aún, mostraron ser rentables para la empresa. Se propone como estudios futuros, probar otros canales adicionales al cupón POS y email, los que quizás tengan mayor efectividad al momento de hacer que un cliente se sienta importante y decida finalmente acercarse a la tienda a comprar. / 16/03/2022

Background: Although palliative chemotherapy is the standard of care for patients diagnosed with stage IV NSCLC, patients with a small metastatic burden, “oligometastatic” disease, may benefit from definitive local therapy. Methods: We identified 186 patients (26% of Stage IV patients) prospectively enrolled in our institutional database from 2002-2012 with oligometastatic disease, which we defined as five or fewer distant metastatic lesions at diagnosis. Univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards models were used to identify patient and disease factors associated with improved survival. Using propensity score methods, we investigated the effect of definitive local therapy to the primary site on overall survival. Results: Median age at diagnosis was 61 years, 51% of patients were female, 12% had squamous histology, and 33% had N0-1 disease. On multivariable analysis, ECOG performance status ≥2 (hazard ratio [HR] 2.43), nodal status N2-3 (HR 2.16), squamous pathology, and metastases to multiple organs (HR 2.11) were associated with a greater hazard of death (all p<0.01). Number of metastatic lesions and size of primary were not significantly associated with overall survival. Definitive local therapy to the primary tumor was associated with prolonged survival (HR 0.65, p=0.043). Conclusions: Definitive local therapy to the primary tumor appears to be associated with improved survival in patients with oligometastatic NSCLC. Select patient and tumor characteristics, including good performance status, non-squamous histology, and limited nodal disease, may predict for improved survival in these patients.

Previous research implementing stratification on the propensity score has generally relied on using five strata, based on prior theoretical groundwork and minimal empirical evidence as to the suitability of quintiles to adequately reduce bias in all cases and across all sample sizes. This study investigates bias reduction across varying number of strata and sample sizes via a large-scale simulation to determine the adequacy of quintiles for bias reduction under all conditions. Sample sizes ranged from 100 to 50,000 and strata from 3 to 20. Both the percentage of bias reduction and the standardized selection bias were examined. The results show that while the particular covariates in the simulation met certain criteria with five strata that greater bias reduction could be achieved by increasing the number of strata, especially with larger sample sizes. Simulation code written in R is included.