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The study investigated the service quality of the Aga Khan University (AKU) library as an example of an academic library in Kenya using SERVQUAL, a user based assessment tool. Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy formed the basis of the study; a philosophy that is customer oriented and lays great emphasis on enhancing customer satisfaction. The study adopted a survey design and data was collected using a structured selfadministered questionnaire by the name of SERVQUAL. The study sample consisted of nursing and medical faculty; nursing and medical students. A total of 78 (63%) respondents responded to the questionnaire. The data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 17.0. Descriptive statistics was provided and univariate analysis was applied to examine the characteristics of the 2 main variables; perceptions and expectations. The findings of the study established that the expectations of AKU library users are higher than their perceptions. It is also evident from the findings that there are service quality gaps in a number of library services offered by AKU library. This is demonstrated through the gap analysis between the AKU library users‟ perceptions and the users‟ expectations of AKU library. The study recommends that AKU library as well as other academic libraries in Kenya adopt user based assessment tools such as SERVQUAL in the evaluation of library service quality. The study further recommends that AKU library needs to address gaps between the library users‟ perception and the users‟ expectation in order to enhance customer satisfaction through the provision of quality services. The study also recommends that AKU library needs to address the gaps in service attributes such as those relating to AKU library staff, reliability and efficiency of AKU library service delivery. In line with the findings the study further recommends more training for AKU library staff in areas such as customer service skills as well as the need for AKU library to invest more in its physical facility and equipment. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

This Master's thesis provides an overview of the work of the contemporary Spanish interpreter, teacher and researcher Ángela Collados Aís. It consists of the author's short biography, the analysis of her research in the evaluation of interpreting quality including an introduction into the issue, and an overview of her published works on interpreter training. Selected chapters include a brief subjective reflection on the text in question. The main motivation for this work was to acquaint the Czech academic community with this figure of Spanish translation studies. This is a theoretical thesis, similar to other student works on important figures on the international translation studies scene.

SUMMARY: In my diploma work deals with evaluating the quality of life of persons with intellectual disabilities by their parents. The work used quantitative educational research, specifically survey. The first section summarizes selected theoretical background on the issue of mental disability and quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities. In the second part of my thesis is described by the research, which was investigated methods, what strategies were used and research items have been collected. The results obtained are summarized in the final part. The aim of this thesis was to explore whether a range of social services in Pardubice significant indicator of quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities from the perspective of their parents. The results show that it is not.

The aim of this thesis was to explore options for hospital profiling in the Slovak republic. Sacrificing breadth of the study in favor of depth, the scope of the analysis was narrowed down to one quality indicator only - mortality. In the first step a mortality prediction model was constructed in order to predict expected probability of death on the basis of a set of risk factors in order to filter away variation in hospital outcomes that is caused by other factors than quality of care. Validation of the model was performed on a validation sample of 25% of data. Discriminative ability of the final model is very high - c-statistics over 0.9. Furthermore, we verified that hospitals differ in the risk structure of their patient populations significantly - mean predicted probability of dying for hospitals differed from 0.02% to 33%. In the second step hospital profiling was performed. Standardized mortality ratios were calculated for each hospital as a difference between observed and expected number of deaths. After introduction of risk-adjustment and calculation of confidence intervals 43% of hospitals were re-classified. 30-day mortality was selected as the best indicator for hospital profiling.

Os processos de gestão do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) são apoiados por um conjunto de sistemas de informação de abrangência nacional, com funcionalidades para as áreas epidemiológicas, ambulatoriais, hospitalares e administrativas. Trabalhos na literatura descrevem pontos fracos nessas aplicações, tais como a falta de integração entre sistemas e bases de dados, fragmentação de informações, baixa cobertura, incertezas quanto à confiabilidade dos dados mantidos e deficiências no apoio ao gestor para planejamento e tomada de decisões. Nesse contexto, foi identificada uma lacuna para pesquisar e discutir qualidade e avaliação dessas aplicações. Este trabalho propõe um modelo para avaliação de características de qualidade de sistemas de informação em saúde que possa ser aplicado aos sistemas do SUS. É descrito o processo de pesquisa, análise e classificação dos indicadores de avaliação para o modelo. Os indicadores foram obtidos por meio de pesquisa em bases bibliográficas e classificados segundo os atributos de qualidade da norma ISO/IEC 25010, adotada como modelo de qualidade no estudo. Como resultado, 57 indicadores foram identificados e mapeados, abrangendo todas as características de qualidade do modelo. A avaliação dos indicadores foi instrumentalizada por meio do desenvolvimento de questionários e procedimentos de inspeção de software, orientados aos diversos stakeholders envolvidos: profissionais de saúde, gestores de saúde, profissionais de tecnologia da informação e usuários do sistema de saúde. A aplicabilidade do modelo proposto foi avaliada para o Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade (SIM). A factibilidade dos procedimentos de inspeção foram analisados pelos mantenedores da aplicação e o SIM foi avaliado em um processo que envolveu profissionais de saúde de 18 municípios paulistas e 10 gestores de saúde que atuam nos níveis locais, regionais e estadual. Este trabalho poderá contribuir como mais uma referência para estudos que envolvam processos de avaliação da qualidade de softwares em saúde e auxiliar na normatização de planos de avaliação e monitoramento de qualidade de sistemas e dados em saúde pública no Brasil e em projetos de melhoria de software. / The management processes of the Unified Health System (SUS) are supported by a set of information systems with national scope, having features for the epidemiological, ambulatory, hospital, and administrative areas. Papers in the literature describe weaknesses in these applications, such as the lack of integration between systems and databases, fragmentation of information, low coverage, uncertainties regarding the reliability of data held and weaknesses in supporting managers in planning and decision making. In this context, we identified a gap for quality research and discuss and review these applications.This work proposes a model for evaluating health information systems that may be applied to the systems of SUS. It describes the research, analysis, and classification process of evaluation indicators for the model. The indicators were obtained by search in bibliographic databases and they were classified according to the quality attributes of the standard ISO/IEC 25010, adopted as quality model in the study. As a result, 57 indicators were identified and mapped, covering all quality features of the model. The evaluation of the indicators was instrumentalized by developing questionnaires and inspection procedures of software, oriented to the various stakeholders involved: health professionals, health managers, information technology professionals and users of the health system. The applicability of the proposed model was evaluated for the Information System on Mortality (SIM). The feasibility of the inspection procedures were analyzed by the maintainers of the application and the SIM has been reported in a case involving health professionals from 18 cities and 10 health managers working in local, regional and state levels. This work will be able to contribute as a further reference for studies involving quality assessment processes for softwares in health and to assist in the standardization of plans for assessing and monitoring the quality of systems and data on public health in Brazil and in projects for improving softwares

O objetivo desta pesquisa foi avaliar a qualidade dos serviços públicos eletrônicos sob a ótica dos gestores públicos e dos usuários. Para realizar tal pesquisa foram realizadas entrevistas em profundidade com os gestores públicos da cidade de Ribeirão Preto e da cidade de Vinhedo. E também, foram aplicados questionários em sua forma on line para avaliar a satisfação dos usuários em relação ao site municipal (cidade de Ribeirão Preto) e o site estadual (site do Programa Poupatempo). Os resultados obtidos na pesquisa foram que os itens relacionados à facilidade de uso do site, oferecimento do que era esperado, fornecimento das informações com qualidade e o estímulo do site ao uso repetido foram os fatores melhor avaliados pelos usuários na cidade de Ribeirão Preto. E na cidade de Vinhedo, os itens que foram melhores avaliados foram: o fornecimento das informações com qualidade, o estímulo do site ao uso repetido e o oferecimento do que era esperado. Tais resultados implicam que apesar das diferenças existentes entre as cidades, os itens relacionados à satisfação dos usuários foram praticamente os mesmos. Logo, esta pesquisa contribuiu para auxiliar os gestores públicos municipais a nortear as suas ações para melhoria da qualidade dos serviços públicos oferecidos. A pesquisa revelou a necessidade de uma efetiva coordenação por parte de órgãos federais no sentido de facilitar o desenvolvimento dos serviços de governo eletrônico. Pesquisas futuras nesta área poderiam replicar o questionário e as entrevistas aplicadas visando corroborar os elementos identificados em outras esferas governamentais. / The objective of this research was to evaluate the quality of the electronics from the perspective of public managers and users of public services. To conduct such research indepth interviews were conducted with public officials of the city of Ribeirão Preto and the town of Vinhedo. Also, questionnaires were administered in form online to evaluate user satisfaction in relation to the municipal website (Ribeirão Preto) and state site (the site Poupatempo Program). The results obtained in the study were that items related to ease of use of the site, offering what was expected, provision of quality information and encouragement to the repeated use of the site were the best factors evaluated by the users in the city of Ribeirão Preto. And in the town of Vinhedo, items that were best were: the provision of quality information, the stimulus site to repeated use and delivery than expected. These results imply that despite the differences between the cities, the items related to user satisfaction were almost the same. Therefore, this research has contributed to assist the municipal administrators to govern its actions to improve the quality of public services. The survey revealed the need for effective coordination by federal agencies to facilitate the development of electronic government services. Future research in this area could replicate the questionnaire and the interviews applied aiming to corroborate the elements identified in other spheres of government.

Quality assurance of education in organizations providing further vocational education Dagmar Urbanová ABSTRACT The aim of the thesis is to analyze the possibilities of assurance of quality in private organizations providing adult professional education in the Czech Republic and to find out whether and with what impact these possibilities are currently used. The theoretical part puts continuing professional education into the context of lifelong learning, outlines the historical development of this segment of education, recalls important documents, organizations, and events that advocate autonomy, development and spreading of awareness of the importance of continuing professional education. In the second chapter of the theoretical part, the current possible tools and methods for the management and evaluation of the quality of adult education are defined and described. The research part uses a questionnaire survey to explore what methods for the improving the quality of their services the organizations providing adult education use, what the applied methods give to them, what requirements they impose to their instructors and the overall role played by the quality in their activities. Educational organizations focusing on adult professional education all over the Czech Republic are addressed. The source for...

La création des vidéos panoramiques de haute qualité pour des contenus immersifs en VR est généralement faite à l'aide d'un appareil doté de plusieurs caméras couvrant une scène cible. Malheureusement, cette configuration introduit à la fois des artefacts spatiaux et temporels dus à la différence entre les centres optiques et à la synchronisation imparfaite. Les mesures de qualité d'image traditionnelles ne peuvent pas être utilisées pour évaluer la qualité de ces vidéos, en raison de leur incapacité à capturer des distorsions géométriques. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons des méthodes pour l'évaluation objective des vidéos panoramiques basées sur le flux optique et la saillance visuelle. Nous validons cette métrique avec une étude centrée sur l'homme qui combine l'annotation d'erreurs percues et l'eye-tracking.Un défi important pour mesurer la qualité des vidéos panoramiques est le manque d'une vérité-terrain. Nous avons étudié l'utilisation des vidéos originales comme référence pour le panorama de sortie. Nous notons que cette approche n'est pas directement applicable, car chaque pixel du panorama final peut avoir une à $N$ sources correspondant à $N$ vidéos d'entrée avec des régions se chevauchant. Nous montrons que ce problème peut être résolu en calculant l'écart type des déplacements de tous les pixels sources à partir du déplacement du panorama en tant que mesure de la distorsion. Cela permet de comparer la différence de mouvement entre deux images données dans les vidéos originales et le mouvement dans le panorama final. Les cartes de saillance basées sur la perception humaine sont utilisées pour pondérer la carte de distorsion pour un filtrage plus précis.Cette méthode a été validée par une étude centrée sur l'homme utilisant une expérience empirique. L'expérience visait à déterminer si les humains et la métrique d'évaluation détectaient et mesuraient les mêmes erreurs, et à explorer quelles erreurs sont les plus importantes pour les humains lorsqu'ils regardent une vidéo panoramique.Les méthodes décrites ont été testées et validées et fournissent des résultats intéressants en ce qui concerne la perception humaine pour les mesures de qualité. Ils ouvrent également la voie à de nouvelles méthodes d'optimisation de l'assemblage vidéo, guidées par ces mesures de qualité. / High quality panoramic videos for immersive VR content are commonly created using a rig with multiple cameras covering a target scene. Unfortunately, this setup introduces both spatial and temporal artifacts due to the difference in optical centers as well as the imperfect synchronization. Traditional image quality metrics cannot be used to assess the quality of such videos, due to their inability to capture geometric distortions. In this thesis, we propose methods for the objective assessment of panoramic videos based on optical flow and visual salience. We validate this metric with a human-centered study that combines human error annotation and eye-tracking.An important challenge in measuring quality for panoramic videos is the lack of ground truth. We have investigated the use of the original videos as a reference for the output panorama. We note that this approach is not directly applicable, because each pixel in the final panorama can have one to N sources corresponding to N input videos with overlapping regions. We show that this problem can be solved by calculating the standard deviation of displacements of all source pixels from the displacement of the panorama as a measure of distortion. This makes it possible to compare the difference in motion between two given frames in the original videos and motion in the final panorama. Salience maps based on human perception are used to weight the distortion map for more accurate filtering.This method was validated with a human-centered study using an empirical experiment. The experiment was designed to investigate whether humans and the evaluation metric detect and measure the same errors, and to explore which errors are more salient to humans when watching a panoramic video.The methods described have been tested and validated and they provide interesting findings regarding human-based perception for quality metrics. They also open the way to new methods for optimizing video stitching guided by those quality metrics.

<p>Mammographic screening is an effective way to detect breast cancer. Early detection of breast cancer depends to a high degree on the adequacy of the mammogram from which the diagnosis is made. Today, most of the analysis of the mammogram is performed by radiologists. Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems have been proposed as an aid to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the screening procedure by automatically indicating abnormalities in the mammograms. However, in order for a CAD system to be stable and efficient, the input images need to be adequate. Criteria for adequacy include: high resolution, low image noise and high image contrast. Additionally, the breast needs to be adequately positioned and compressed to properly visualise the entire breast and especially the glandular tissue.</p><p>This thesis addresses questions regarding the automatic determination of mammogram adequacy with the focus on breast positioning and segmentation evaluation. The goal and, thus, the major technical challenge is to develop algorithms that support fully automatic quality checks. The relevant quality criteria are discussed in Chapter 2. The aim of this discussion is to compile a comprehensive list of necessary criteria that a system for automatic assessment of mammographic adequacy must satisfy. Chapter 3 gives an overview of research performed in computer-aided analysis of mammograms. It also provides basic knowledge about image analysis involved in the research area of computerized mammography in general, and in the papers of this thesis, in particular. In contrast, Chapter 4 describes basic knowledge about segmentation evaluation, which is a highly important component in image analysis. Papers I–IV propose algorithms for measuring the quality of a mammogram according to certain criteria and addresses problems related to them. A method for automatic analysis of the shape of the pectoralis muscle is presented in Paper I. Paper II proposes a fully automatic method for extracting the breast border. A geometric assumption used by radiologists is that the nipple is located at the point on the breast border being furthest away from the pectoralis muscle. This assumption is investigated in Paper III, and a method for automatically restricting the search area is proposed. There has been an increasing need to develop an automated segmentation algorithm for extracting the glandular tissue, where the majority of breast cancer occur. In Paper IV, a novel approach for solving this problem in a robust and accurate way is proposed. Paper V discusses the challenges involved in evaluating the quality of segmentation algorithms based on ground truths provided by an expert panel. A method to relate ground truths provided by several experts to each other in order to establish levels of agreement is proposed. Furthermore, this work is used to develop an algorithm that combines an ensemble of markings into one surrogate ground truth.</p>