The purpose of this study is twofold: firstly, it aims to explore the perceptions of quality and quality assurance of key stakeholders in intensive English programs in higher education and examine how these perceptions reflect in what is being done to achieve and assure quality in their programs. Secondly, the study intends to survey and describe the existing quality assurance processes and explore the impact of these processes on establishing a quality culture within the institution. Furthermore, the study aims to find out if and how these quality assurance processes contribute to the improvement of language education and to what extent they meet the expectations of managers, teachers and students. The research study employed qualitative and descriptive methods of data collection and analysis. Managers, teachers and students of intensive English language programs in higher education institutions were the target informant groups in the study. It is hoped that the conclusions drawn from the findings of the research will allow the design of a quality assurance framework which will serve as a guide to intensive English programs in Turkish higher education institutions to develop their own quality assurance processes. The suggested framework aims to provide guidelines for individual institutions to develop processes that are in congruent with the perceptions and expectations of the key stakeholders in their institutions and reflect the realities of their unique contexts.

In zwei sächsischen Betrieben, die selbst erzeugte Rapssaat in einer Pflanzenölmühle zu Rapspresskuchen und Rapsöl verarbeiten, wurde ein Qualitätssicherungssystem (QSS) für Ölsaaten verarbeitende Betriebe in Sachsen erarbeitet. Der in den beiden Betrieben erzeugte Rapsölkraftstoff zeigt eine für dezentrale Anlagen gleichbleibend hohe Qualität. Die Betriebe zeichnen sich durch ein spezielles Reinigungsverfahren und eine umfassende Qualitätssicherung aus. Das bereits vorhandene QSS des Technologie- und Förderzentrums Straubing (TFZ) bildete die Grundlage für die Entwicklung des universell anwendbaren QSS. Es wurde um Fragen zum Anbau, Einsatz des Rapsölkraftstoffs, Umrüstung der Fahrzeuge, Wartung der Fahrzeuge inkl. BHKW und Einsatz des Presskuchens in der Tierfütterung erweitert und in den beiden Betrieben erprobt. Das entwickelte QSS besteht aus Modulen und ist leicht an die betrieblichen Gegebenheiten vor Ort anzupassen. Das QSS inklusive Handbuch und Kalkulationsmodul zur Berechnung der Wirtschaftlichkeit aller Stufen der Verwertungskette steht im Internet unter http://www.landwirtschaft.sachsen.de/landwirtschaft/7211.htm zur Verfügung.

<p>Outsourcing och specifikt callcenter outsourcing diskuteras bland företag. Tyngden i diskussionen ligger på kvalitén, som är en aktuell aspekt av fenomenet callcenter outsourcing. Frågan berör flera parter; de företag som outsourcar, callcenter och konsumenter. Callcenters är organisationer som är specialiserade inom kundkontakt och har i uppgift att kommunicera med företags konsumenter, genom att svara på frågor eller bidra med övrig information och hjälp som konsumenten är i behov av.</p><p>Teorier som ligger till grund för vår uppsats, rör callcenter outsourcing, kvalitet och kvalitetssystem. Vidare har vi diskuterat var forskningen står idag och utifrån det identifierat vårt valda forskningsområde, där vi ämnar besvara frågan gällande vilka olika kvalitetskrav som kunden ställer och hur dessa säkerställs hos den outsourcade callcenterfunktionen, det vill säga leverantören av tjänsten. Kvalitetsaspekten är av stor vikt, därför att dålig service direkt reflekteras på det företag som outsourcar tjänsten, trots att det inte själva utför den. Bristande kvalitet kostar stora summor för verksamheter, närmare bestämt 10 – 30 procent av dess omsättning och därav är det av vikt att företag som outsourcar tjänster och leverantörer som levererar tjänsterna, är införstådda i vikten av kvalitetsaspekten.</p><p>Det slutsatser vi dragit i uppsatsen, är att kunderna ställer olika krav på leverantörerna beroende på den typ av tjänst som ska levereras. Kraven kan handla om bemötande, sekretess, tillgänglighet och att hålla en specifik standard. Dessutom har vi i uppsatsen kommit fram till att leverantörerna använder sig av olika kvalitetssystem för att säkra kvalitén på tjänsterna som outsourcas, allt från kvalitetssystemet ISO9000 och COPC till egenutformade kvalitetssystem och avtal.</p> / <p>Outsourcing, especially call centre outsourcing, is discussed in many companies. One topic in the discussion is the quality of the service provided. The quality is important for all involved parties, companies who outsource their call centre, the call centre and especially for the consumers. Call centres are companies specialized in customer contact, undertaking the communication between the consumer and the company, through answering questions, providing information or support.</p><p>The theories that initiates this essay is based on call centre outsourcing, quality and quality systems. Through a discussion of previous research, we specify our main area of the study. We intend to answer the question of how the quality requirements set by the company is guaranteed by the call centre. Quality is an important topic since the company outsourcing is directly affected by bad service quality. Poor quality is a high cost driver for companies, and research has shown that deficient quality can reduce the company’s turnover by 10-30 percent.</p><p>The conclusion in this essay is that companies set different demands on the call centre, depending on what type of service they agree on. The demands could be about behaviour, secrecy, availability or maintaining a specific level of standard and quality. To secure the level of quality, call centres use different quality systems, such as ISO9000, COPC, systems developed by the call centre it self or service level agreements.</p>

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2010.

In recent years Crowdsourced, or Volunteered, Geographic Information (CGI, VGI), has emerged as a large, up-to-date and easily accessible data source. Primarily attributable to the rise of the Geoweb and widespread use of location enabled technologies, this environment of widespread innovation has repositioned the role of consumers of spatial information. Collaborative and participatory web environments have led to a democratisation of the global mapping process, and resulted in a paradigm shift to the consumer of geographic data also acting as a data producer. With such a large and diverse group of participants actively mapping the globe, the resulting flood of information has become increasingly attractive to authoritative mapping agencies, in order to augment their own spatial data supply chains. The use of CGI would allow these agencies to undertake continuous improvement of their own data and products, adding a dimension of currency that has previously been unattainable due to high associated costs. CGI, however, through its diversity of authorship, presents a quality assurance risk to these agencies should it be included in their authoritative products. Until now, this risk has been insurmountable, with CGI remaining a “Pandora’s Box” which many agencies are reluctant to open. This research presents an algorithmic model that overcomes these issues, by quantifying trust in CGI in order to assess its implied quality. Labeled “VGTrust”, this model assesses information about a data author, its spatial trust, as well as its temporal trust, in order to produce an overall metric that is easy to understand and interpret. The VGTrust model will allow mapping agencies to harness CGI to augment existing datasets, or create new ones, thereby facilitating a targeted quality assurance process and minimizing risk to authoritativeness. This research proposes VGTrust in theory, on the basis of existing examinations of trust issues with CGI. Furthermore, a facilitated case study, “Building Our Footprints” is presented, where VGTrust is deployed to facilitate the capture of a building footprint dataset, the results of which revealing the veracity of the model as a measure to assess trust for these data. Finally, a data structure is proposed in the form of a “geo-molecule”, which allows the full spectrum of trust indicators to be stored a data structure at feature level, allowing the transitivity of this information to travel with each feature following creation. By overcoming the trust issues inherent in CGI, this research will allow the integration of crowdsourced and authoritative data, thereby leveraging the power of the crowd for productive and innovative re-use.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

In-vivo dosimetry with diode detectors is used in radiation therapy as a quality assurance tool. The diode sensitivity under radiation depends upon temperature, dose rate and SDD (source-to-detector distance), field size, beam angle, and energy. This dissertation presents the first systematic and quantitative study of dosimetric characteristics for most of the commercial radiation diodes (n-type and p-type) under different radiation beams.In the temperature dependence study, the systematic study on the dose rate dependence of svwt (sensitivity variation with temperature) was performed. It was concluded that sufficient preirradiation can eliminate dose rate dependence of svwt. However, preirradiation cannot eliminate dose rate dependence of the diode sensitivity, S, itself. In the dose rate and SDD dependence study, it was shown that the p-type diodes do not always show less dose rate dependence than the n-type diodes. Preirradiation does not always reduce diode dose rate dependence. SDD dependence of diode sensitivity can be explained by the instantaneous dose rate dependence if sufficient buildup is provided to eliminate electron contamination. An empirical formula was proposed to fit the dose rate dependence of diode sensitivity. In the energy dependence study, the energy dependence diode detectors are quantified. The empirical theory to quantify this effect was developed. Monte Carlo simulation and the cavity theory are used to predict the energy dependence. It was concluded that the energy dependence does not depend on whether the diode is n- or p- type but rather depends mainly on the material around the die (buildup and its geometry). A systematic study of the correction factors for accurate diode dosimetry is presented in this dissertation.This dissertation has established a theoretical foundation for the modeling of the transient electric and radiation properties of the diode detectors, separately. We believe that the Monte Carlo simulations code for radiation transport should be coupled with the continuity equations to describe the charge transport in the diode detector, and thus provides a complete quantitative description of dosimetric characteristics of the diode detectors. The ultimate goal is to use the diode detector as an absolute dosimeter, rather than as a relative dosimeter.

The fabrication of biomimetic heart muscle suitable for pharmaceutical compound evaluation and disease modeling is hindered by limitations in our understanding of how to guide and assess the maturity of engineered myocardium in vitro. We hypothesized that tissue architecture serves as an important cue for directing the maturation of engineered heart tissues and that reliable assessment of maturity could be performed using a multi-parametric rubric utilizing cardiomyocytes of known developmental state as a basis for comparison. Physical micro-environmental cues are recognized to play a fundamental role in normal heart development, therefore we used micro-patterned extracellular matrix to direct isolated cardiac myocytes to self-assemble into anisotropic sheets reminiscent of the architecture observed in the laminar musculature of the heart. Comparison of global sarcomere alignment, gene expression, and contractile stress in engineered anisotropic myocardium to isotropic monolayers, as well as, adult ventricular tissue revealed that anisotropic engineered myocardium more closely matched the characteristics of adult ventricular tissue, than isotropic cultures of randomly organized cardiomyocytes. These findings support the notion that tissue architecture is an important cue for building mature engineered myocardium. Next, we sought to develop a quality assessment strategy that utilizes a core set of 64 experimental measurements representative of 4 major categories (i.e. gene expression, myofibril structure, electrical activity, and contractility) to provide a numeric score of how closely stem cell-derived cardiac myocytes match the physiological characteristics of mature, post-natal cardiomyocytes. The efficacy of this rubric was assessed by comparing anisotropic engineered tissues fabricated from commercially-available murine ES- (mES) and iPS- (miPS) derived myocytes against neonatal mouse ventricular myocytes. The quality index scores calculated for these cells revealed that the miPS-derived myocytes more closely resembled the neonate ventricular myocytes than the mES-derived myocytes. Taken together, the results of these studies provide valuable insight into the fabrication and validation of engineered myocardium that faithfully recapitulate the characteristics of mature ventricular myocardium found in vivo. These engineered tissue design and quality validation strategies may prove useful in developing heart muscle analogs from human stem cell-derived myocytes that more accurately predict patient response than currently used animal models. / Engineering and Applied Sciences

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education