Magistro darbe yra iškelta bankų teikiamų paslaugų kokybės problema. Darbe išanalizuota ir susisteminta įvairių tiek Lietuvos, tiek ir užsienio autorių publikuota medžiaga bei atlikti tyrimai, susiję su paslaugų kokybe, klientų lojalumu. Darbe išsamiai išanalizuota paslaugų koncepcijos esmė, lojalumas ir jį įtakojantys veiksniai, stadijos. Darbe plačiai analizuojama paslaugų kokybė teoriniu aspektu, atlikta paslaugų kokybės modelių analizė, analizuojamas lojalumas, kas jį įtakoja, lojalumo stadijos ir lojalumo klientų kategorijos. Atlikta bankų teikiamų paslaugų kokybės ir klientų lojalumo analizė pagal komercinių bankų klientų lojalumo formavimo modelį. Nepasitvirtina autorių suformuluota hipotezė, kad bankų teikiamų paslaugų kokybė, netenkina daugelio klientų poreikių. / In this master's work analyze the quality of service in the bank’s problem. The material of the foreign authors and Lithuanian ones has been analyzed and structured. However, the research, involving service, quality and loyalty of customer is made. Has been analyzed the essence of the service conception, loyalty, and its influencing factor stage. Moreover, the paper theoretically analyzes the quality of the service, and there is maid the analysis of the service quality modals analyses of the loyalty of customers, who it affects, the stage of loyalty and categories of customer loyalty. There was performed the analysis of the banks of the quality of accommodation services and loyalty of customers provided by commercial banks and the forming of the model of customer loyalty. There does not prove a hypothesis formulated by the authors that the quality of accommodation services provided by banks does not satisfy the needs of most clients.

Šiame magistro baigiamajame darbe ištirta ir įvertinta Lietuvos hidrometeorologijos tarnybos teikiamų paslaugų efektyvumas, kokybė, vertinimas bei tobulinimo galimybės, iškeltos paslaugų kokybės vertinimo problemos bei pateikti pasiūlymai šių problemų sprendimui. Pirmoje dalyje tiriamos paslaugų sampratos, paslaugų ypatumai, vieša ir meteorologijos paslauga bei vartotojų pasitenkinimo indeksas. Išanalizuoti šeši pagrindiniai paslaugų kokybės modeliai. Antroje dalyje pateikta tyrimų metodologija. Aprašytas instrumentarijus dviejų atliktų tyrimų. Pirmasis tyrimas - hidrometeorologijos tarnybos vieša vartotojų pasitenkinimo apklausa atlikta tarnybos tinklalapyje. Antrasis tyrimas - hidrometeorologijos tarnybos paslaugų kokybės vertinimas, paslaugų vartotojų anketavimo būdas. Trečiojoje dalyje aprašoma hidrometeorologijos tarnybos charakteristika, atliktų tyrimų rezultatai. Aptartos tobulinimo galimybės. Pateikiami paslaugų kokybės gerinimo būdai. / This master's thesis investigates and assesses the efficiency of services, services‘ quality, assessment and improvement opportunities, raises the problems of services‘ quality and provide suggestions for solving these problems in Lithuanian Hydrometeorological Service. The first part explores the concept of services, services’ features, public meteorological service and customer satisfaction index. There are analyzed six main service quality models. The second part is intended to explain the methodology. There are described two instrumentations used for analysis. The first analysis aims to investigate public users’ satisfaction with Hydrometeorological Service and was implemented in the Authority's website. The second analysis covers Hydrometeorological Service services’ quality assessment and was implemented by questioning service’ customers. The third part describes basic characteristics of Hydrometeorological Service and examines research results. There are possibilities for improvements discussed and methods how to improve the quality of services explained.

<p>Estuaries interfacing with the land, atmosphere and open oceans can be influenced in a variety of ways by anthropogenic activities. Centuries of overexploitation, habitat transformation, and pollution have degraded estuarine ecological health. Key concerns of public and environmental managers of estuaries include water quality, particularly the enrichment of nutrients, increased chlorophyll a concentrations, increased hypoxia/anoxia, and increased Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). One reason for the increased nitrogen loading over the past two decades is the proliferation of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in coastal areas. This dissertation documents a study of estuarine eutrophication modeling, including modeling of major source of nitrogen in the watershed, the use of the Bayesian Networks (BNs) for modeling eutrophication dynamics in an estuary, a documentation of potential problems of using BNs, and a continuous BN model for addressing these problems.</p><p>Environmental models have emerged as great tools to transform data into useful information for managers and policy makers. Environmental models contain uncertainty due to natural ecosystems variability, current knowledge of environmental processes, modeling structure, computational restrictions, and problems with data/observations due to measurement error or missingness. Many methodologies capable of quantifying uncertainty have been developed in the scientic literature. Examples of such methods are BNs, which utilize conditional probability tables to describe the relationships among variables. This doctoral dissertation demonstrates how BNs, as probabilistic models, can be used to model eutrophication in estuarine ecosystems and to explore the effects of plausible future climatic and nutrient pollution management scenarios on water quality indicators. The results show interaction among various predictors and their impact on ecosystem health. The synergistic eftects between nutrient concentrations and climate variability caution future management actions.</p><p>BNs have several distinct strengths such as the ability to update knowledge based on Bayes' theorem, modularity, accommodation of various knowledge sources and data types, suitability to both data-rich and data-poor systems, and incorporation of uncertainty. Further, BNs' graphical representation facilitates communicating models and results with environmental managers and decision-makers. However, BNs have certain drawbacks as well. For example, they can only handle continuous variables under severe restrictions (1- Each continuous variable be assigned a (linear) conditional Normal distribution; 2- No discrete variable have continuous parents). The solution, thus far, to address this constraint has been discretizing variables. I designed an experiment to evaluate and compare the impact of common discretization methods on BNs. The results indicate that the choice of discretization method severely impacts the model results; however, I was unable to provide any criteria to select an optimal discretization method.</p><p>Finally, I propose a continuous variable Bayesian Network methodology and demonstrate its application for water quality modeling in estuarine ecosystems. The proposed method retains advantageous characteristics of BNs, while it avoids the drawbacks of discretization by specifying the relationships among the nodes using statistical and conditional probability models. The Bayesian nature of the proposed model enables prompt investigation of observed patterns, as new conditions unfold. The network structure presents the underlying ecological ecosystem processes and provides a basis for science communication. I demonstrate model development and temporal updating using the New River Estuary, NC data set and spatial updating using the Neuse River Estuary, NC data set.</p> / Dissertation

Submitted by Fernando Souza (fernandoafsou@gmail.com) on 2017-08-17T16:24:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2693687 bytes, checksum: b83d46aca568cc0cd41d71706209817d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-17T16:24:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2693687 bytes, checksum: b83d46aca568cc0cd41d71706209817d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-26 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / Evaluation of Educational Software (ES) is important to identify the correct use of this tool as a facilitator of the teaching-learning process and also allows you to check the adequacy of the ES in accordance with the educational goals set by teachers; IF the correct operation according to the Software Engineering; the direction to the characteristics, needs and skills of its members, according to Engineering Usability. Therefore, the aim of this study was the analysis of 14 ES approaches to assessment in order to identify the coherence and comprehensiveness in relation to established models of classical literature for Software Quality (ISO 9126-1 and SWEBOK guide), Quality of Service (ISO 9241-1 and Heuristics Usability) and the. Precepts of Education. The process of knowledge appropriation of the approaches, was marked in the study of characterization of the same, from which it was possible to identify great heterogeneity of the adopted criteria, measurement instruments and diagnoses obtained. Thus, there was a comparison between the quality model in order to identify the intersection criteria for different models. As a result of the characterization of the 14 analyzed approaches and the intersection of the Software Quality Models, Use and Teaching, elaborated a dictionary of terms to map the criteria of each quality model, with those present in the ES assessment approaches considered in this study. It is expected that this tool will be useful to assist the actors involved in the ES evaluation process as it uses information taken and understood as a reference standard in the literature. / A avaliação de Softwares Educativos (SE) é importante para identificar a utilização correta desta ferramenta como facilitadora do processo de ensino-aprendizagem e, além disso, permite verificar a adequação do SE de acordo com os objetivos pedagógicos estabelecidos pelos professores; o correto funcionamento do SE de acordo com a Engenharia de Software e; o direcionamento para as características, necessidades e habilidades de seus usuários, segundo a Engenharia da Usabilidade. Portanto, o objetivo deste estudo foi realizar a análise de 14 abordagens para avaliação de SE, com o intuito de identificar a respectiva coerência e abrangência, em relação aos modelos consagrados da literatura clássica para a Qualidade de Software (Norma ISO 9126-1 e Swebok Guide), Qualidade de Uso (Norma ISO 9241-1 e Heurísticas de Usabilidade) e os Preceitos da Pedagogia. O processo de apropriação do conhecimento sobre as abordagens, pautou-se no estudo de caracterização das mesmas, a partir do qual foi possível identificar grande heterogeneidade dos critérios adotados, instrumentos de mensuração e diagnósticos obtidos. Dessa maneira, realizou-se uma comparação entre os modelos de qualidade, buscando identificar a intersecção entre critérios de modelos distintos. Como resultado da caracterização das 14 abordagens analisadas e da intersecção entre os modelos de Qualidade de Software, de Uso e Pedagógica, elaborou-se um dicionário de termos para mapear os critérios de cada modelo de qualidade, com aqueles presentes nas abordagens de avaliação de SE consideradas neste estudo. Espera-se que este instrumento seja útil para auxiliar os atores envolvidos no processo de avaliação de SE uma vez que se utiliza de informações adotadas e entendidas como padrão de referência na literatura.

An important issue during architectural design is that besides functional requirements, software architecture is influenced greatly by quality requirements [9][2][7], which often are neglected. The earlier quality requirements are considered, the less effort is needed later in the software lifecycle to ensure a sufficient software quality levels. Errors due to lack of their fulfilment are the most expensive and difficult to correct. Therefore, attention to quality requirements is crucial during an architectural design. The problem is not only to gather the system’s quality requirements, but to establish a methodology that helps to deal with them during the software development. Literature has paid some attention to software architecture in the context of quality requirements, but there is still lack of effective solutions in this area. To alleviate the problem, this paper lays out important concepts and notions of quality requirements in a way they can be used to drive design decisions and evaluate the architecture to estimate whether these requirements are fulfilled. Important concepts of software architecture area are presented to indicate how important quality requirements are during the design and what are the consequences of their lack in a software system. Moreover, a quality requirement-oriented design method is proposed as an outcome of the literature survey. This method is a model taking quality requirements into account at first, before the core functionality is placed. Besides the conceptual solution to the identified problems, this paper also suggests a practical method of handling quality requirements during a design. A recommendation framework for choosing the most suitable architectural pattern from a set of quality attributes is also proposed. Since the literature provides insufficient qualitative information about quality requirement issues in terms of software architectures, an empirical research is conducted as means for gathering the required data. Therefore, a systematic approach to support and analyze architectural designs in terms of quality requirements is prepared. Finally, quality requirement-oriented and pattern-based design method is further proposed as a result of investigating patterns as a tool for addressing quality requirements at different abstraction levels of a design. The research is concerned with the analysis of software architectures against one or more desired software qualities that ought to be achieved at the architectural level. / http://wnukiewicz.pl kareel@gmail.com

The main goal of the thesis is to create an accurate model of the current state of water quality modelling in the river basin. The basin of the Olšava River, as found in the bachelor thesis "Analysis of Water Quality in the Basin", is polluted with large concentrations of total phosphorus PTot. The master thesis analyses sources of nutrients in the basin that is mainly listed in the vulnerable areas indentified under the Nitrates Directive 91/676/EEC, on the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources. For the water resources management and environmental policy is crucial to recognize distribution of pollution sources throughout main categories. The thesis is concerned with the seasonal variability of the average mass concentrations along the river channel. Broadly used mathematical modelling software of water quality is discussed in the sense of reliability, availability and user interface. Last but not least is a suggestion of two improvements of the water quality based on the MIKE Basin modelling software. The main aim of these proposals is to be realistic in the economical and environmental sense. Proposals consider both in point and non-point sources. Key words: Mathematical modelling, MIKE Basin, Water Quality, Water Quality models, Hydrology, Olšava

Com a crescente utilização de imagens médicas na prática clínica, torna-se necessária a introdução de tecnologias que garantam o armazenamento, indexação e recuperação eficaz dessas imagens. O sistema de recuperação de imagens médicas baseada em conteúdo (S-CBIR) compõe a base de tecnologias computacionais que oferecem aos usuários médicos aplicativos para apoio ao diagnóstico, sendo capaz de responder a consultas por similaridade por meio de características pictóricas extraídas das imagens médicas. Embora as pesquisas em S-CBIR tenham iniciado há quase duas décadas, atualmente existe uma discrepância em relação à quantidade de trabalhos publicados na literatura e os sistemas que, de fato, foram implementados e avaliados. Além disso, muitos protótipos vêm sendo discutidos, mas até o final da escrita desta tese, não foram encontradas evidências de que algum deles esteja disponível comercialmente. Essa limitação é conhecida pela comunidade científica da área por gap de aplicação. Em geral, isso ocorre devido à dificuldade dessas aplicações em superar alguns desafios, como a divergência entre os resultados obtidos automaticamente pelo sistema e aqueles esperados pelos médicos (gap semântico), entre outros gap. Outros fatores também podem ser relatados, como a tendência da não utilização de modelos de qualidade sistematizados para o desenvolvimento dos sistemas, e a carência de modelos que sejam específicos no domínio de aplicação. Com base nesses desafios e em boas práticas de métodos, técnicas e ferramentas da Engenharia de Software, esta tese apresenta um Modelo de Qualidade para melhorias de S-CBIR (MQ-SCBIR), que tem por objetivo apoiar o desenvolvimento e avaliação de S-CBIR, a partir de diretrizes para aumentar o nível de qualidade, buscando a superação do gap de aplicação. O MQ-SCBIR foi construído com base em: evidências adquiridas por meio de uma revisão sistemática e pesquisa empírica sobre como esses sistemas vêm sendo desenvolvidos e avaliados na literatura e na prática; resultados da avaliação de um S-CBIR baseados em testes heurísticos em um ambiente real; modelos bem estabelecidos, como o Capability Maturity Model Integration e Melhoria de Processo do Software Brasileiro; e em experiências pessoais. O uso do MQ-SCBIR pode trazer benefícios para as organizações desenvolvedoras, como a redução da complexidade no desenvolvimento, incluindo a garantia de implementação de boas práticas de qualidade de software e práticas específicas para a superação das limitações de S-CBIR durante o processo de desenvolvimento. / The development of technologies for storing, indexing and recovering clinical images is paramount to support the increasing use of these images in clinical diagnostic evaluation. Content-based image retrieval systems (CBIR-S) are some of the main computational technologies which offer physicians different applications to aid diagnostic processes. They allow similarity queries by extracting pictorial features from medical images. Even though research on S-CBIR started almost two decades ago, there are discrepancies regarding the amount of studies available in the literature and the number of systems which have actually been implemented and evaluated. Many prototypes have been discussed, but up to the moment this study was completed we found no evidence that any of those systems are either commercially available or being currently used in clinical practice. This limitation is known as application gap. In general, this happens due to the difficulty to overcome some obstacles, such as the differences between the results retrieved automatically by the system and those expected by the physicians (semantic gap). Other factors can also be described, such as the tendency towards not using systematic quality models to develop these systems and the lack of specific models for this domain of application. Based on these challenges and also on best practice methods, techniques and tools from software engineering, this work presents a quality model to improve S-CBIR systems (QM-CBIRS). It strives to tackle limitations during the development process by overcoming the semantic gap. The QM-CBIRS was built upon evidence gathered by means of a systematic review on the state-of-the-art and empiric research on the development and evaluation of these systems. Apart from that, results from the assessment of a CBIR-S based on empiric tests and on diagnostic tasks in radiology and well-established software quality models, such as CMMI and the Brazilian Software Improvement Process are presented. Apart from that, results from the assessment of a CBIR-S based on empiric tests and on diagnostic tasks in radiology and well-established software quality models, such as CMMI and the Brazilian Software Improvement Process are presented. The use of QM-CBIRS might be beneficial to development teams in many ways, for example, by increasing the quality of CBIR systems and reducing complexity, thus surpassing limitations from CBIR systems during the development process.

Ground level ozone is one of the most ubiquitous air pollutants in urban areas, and is generated by photochemical reactions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The effectiveness of emission reduction strategies for ozone precursors is typically evaluated using gridded, photochemical air quality models. One of the underlying assumptions in these models is that industrial emissions are nearly constant, since many industrial facilities operate continuously at a constant rate of output. However, recent studies performed in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area indicate that some industrial emission sources exhibit high temporal emission variability that can lead to very rapid ozone formation, especially when emissions are composed of highly reactive volatile organic compounds. This work evaluates the impact of variable emissions from industrial sources on ground-level ozone formation in Houston area, utilizing a unique hourly emission inventory, known as the 2006 Special Inventory, created as a part of the second Texas Air Quality Study. Comparison of the hourly emissions inventory data with ambient measurements indicated that the impact of the variability of industrial source emissions on ozone can be significant. Photochemical modeling predictions showed that the variability in industrial emissions can lead to differences in local ozone concentrations of as much as 27 ppb at individual ozone monitor locations. The hourly emissions inventory revealed that industrial source emissions are highly variable in nature with diverse temporal patterns and stochastic behavior. Petrochemical and chemical manufacturing flares, which represent the majority of emissions in the 2006 Special Inventory, were grouped into categories based on industrial process, chemical composition of the flared gas, and the temporal patterns of their emissions. Stochastic models were developed for each categorization of flare emissions with the goal of simulating the characterized temporal emission variability. The stochastic models provide representative temporal profiles for flares in the petrochemical manufacturing and chemical manufacturing sectors, and as such serve as more comprehensive input for photochemical air quality modeling. / text

Magistro darbe yra iškelta Šiaulių miesto pramogų klubų rinkos teikiamų paslaugų kokybės problema. Darbe išanalizuota ir susisteminta įvairių tiek Lietuvos, tiek ir užsienio autorių publikuota medžiaga bei atlikti tyrimai, susiję su paslaugų marketingu bei kokybe, vartotojų elgsena. Darbe išsamiai išanalizuota paslaugų koncepcijos esmė bei paslaugų marketingo komplekso išskirtinumas. Darbe plačiai analizuojama paslaugų kokybė teoriniu aspektu, atlikta paslaugų kokybės modelių analizė, analizuotas paslaugų kokybės valdymas bei apibrėžiama aptarnavimo svarba paslaugų sferoje. Tyrimo metu išsiaiškinta, kad suformuluota mokslinio tyrimo hipotezė nepasitvirtina, kadangi dauguma apklaustų pramogų klubų klientų yra patenkinti Šiaulių miesto pramogų klubų teikiamų paslaugų kokybe ir ji tenkina klientų poreikius. / This master‘s work analyzes the quality of the service in the recreational clubs of Siauliai. The material of the foreign authors and Lithuanian ones has been analyzed and structured. Also, the research, involving service marketing, quality and customer behaviour is made. The essence of the service conception and the oneness of the complex of the service marketing is particularly analyzed. Moreover, the paper theoretically analyzes the quality of the service, and there is the analysis of the service quality modals made. The management of the service quality is also analyzed. The importance of the service is determined. It is revealed that the hypothesis of the research is not confirmed, because most of the questioned customers are satisfied with the quality of the service in the recreational clubs in Siauliai.

Com a crescente utilização de imagens médicas na prática clínica, torna-se necessária a introdução de tecnologias que garantam o armazenamento, indexação e recuperação eficaz dessas imagens. O sistema de recuperação de imagens médicas baseada em conteúdo (S-CBIR) compõe a base de tecnologias computacionais que oferecem aos usuários médicos aplicativos para apoio ao diagnóstico, sendo capaz de responder a consultas por similaridade por meio de características pictóricas extraídas das imagens médicas. Embora as pesquisas em S-CBIR tenham iniciado há quase duas décadas, atualmente existe uma discrepância em relação à quantidade de trabalhos publicados na literatura e os sistemas que, de fato, foram implementados e avaliados. Além disso, muitos protótipos vêm sendo discutidos, mas até o final da escrita desta tese, não foram encontradas evidências de que algum deles esteja disponível comercialmente. Essa limitação é conhecida pela comunidade científica da área por gap de aplicação. Em geral, isso ocorre devido à dificuldade dessas aplicações em superar alguns desafios, como a divergência entre os resultados obtidos automaticamente pelo sistema e aqueles esperados pelos médicos (gap semântico), entre outros gap. Outros fatores também podem ser relatados, como a tendência da não utilização de modelos de qualidade sistematizados para o desenvolvimento dos sistemas, e a carência de modelos que sejam específicos no domínio de aplicação. Com base nesses desafios e em boas práticas de métodos, técnicas e ferramentas da Engenharia de Software, esta tese apresenta um Modelo de Qualidade para melhorias de S-CBIR (MQ-SCBIR), que tem por objetivo apoiar o desenvolvimento e avaliação de S-CBIR, a partir de diretrizes para aumentar o nível de qualidade, buscando a superação do gap de aplicação. O MQ-SCBIR foi construído com base em: evidências adquiridas por meio de uma revisão sistemática e pesquisa empírica sobre como esses sistemas vêm sendo desenvolvidos e avaliados na literatura e na prática; resultados da avaliação de um S-CBIR baseados em testes heurísticos em um ambiente real; modelos bem estabelecidos, como o Capability Maturity Model Integration e Melhoria de Processo do Software Brasileiro; e em experiências pessoais. O uso do MQ-SCBIR pode trazer benefícios para as organizações desenvolvedoras, como a redução da complexidade no desenvolvimento, incluindo a garantia de implementação de boas práticas de qualidade de software e práticas específicas para a superação das limitações de S-CBIR durante o processo de desenvolvimento. / The development of technologies for storing, indexing and recovering clinical images is paramount to support the increasing use of these images in clinical diagnostic evaluation. Content-based image retrieval systems (CBIR-S) are some of the main computational technologies which offer physicians different applications to aid diagnostic processes. They allow similarity queries by extracting pictorial features from medical images. Even though research on S-CBIR started almost two decades ago, there are discrepancies regarding the amount of studies available in the literature and the number of systems which have actually been implemented and evaluated. Many prototypes have been discussed, but up to the moment this study was completed we found no evidence that any of those systems are either commercially available or being currently used in clinical practice. This limitation is known as application gap. In general, this happens due to the difficulty to overcome some obstacles, such as the differences between the results retrieved automatically by the system and those expected by the physicians (semantic gap). Other factors can also be described, such as the tendency towards not using systematic quality models to develop these systems and the lack of specific models for this domain of application. Based on these challenges and also on best practice methods, techniques and tools from software engineering, this work presents a quality model to improve S-CBIR systems (QM-CBIRS). It strives to tackle limitations during the development process by overcoming the semantic gap. The QM-CBIRS was built upon evidence gathered by means of a systematic review on the state-of-the-art and empiric research on the development and evaluation of these systems. Apart from that, results from the assessment of a CBIR-S based on empiric tests and on diagnostic tasks in radiology and well-established software quality models, such as CMMI and the Brazilian Software Improvement Process are presented. Apart from that, results from the assessment of a CBIR-S based on empiric tests and on diagnostic tasks in radiology and well-established software quality models, such as CMMI and the Brazilian Software Improvement Process are presented. The use of QM-CBIRS might be beneficial to development teams in many ways, for example, by increasing the quality of CBIR systems and reducing complexity, thus surpassing limitations from CBIR systems during the development process.