<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p><strong>Date:</strong> May 2010</p><p><strong>Program:</strong> International Marketing (Master’s Program)</p><p><strong>Authors:</strong></p><p>Merve Ertekin                                                                 </p><p>Burcak Aydin                                                                  </p><p><strong>Tutor:</strong> Tobias Eltebrandt</p><p><strong>Title:</strong> The Impact of National Identity and Culture on Customer Perception of</p><p>Product Quality; <em>‘The case of mobile phones in Sweden and Turkey’</em></p><p><strong>Problem Statement:</strong> How may culture affect the ‘product quality perception’ of consumers?</p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong> What differences can be observed in ‘product quality perception’ of mobile phones in Sweden and Turkey?</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>A quantitative research has been conducted by using both primary and secondary data. Primary data was gathered from distributing questionnaire to Swedish and Turkish university students and secondary data was collected from books, online resources and articles.</p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong>  The authors observed that culture and national identity have an inevitable impact on the product quality perception on customers. Comparison between Turkish and Swedish culture for the case of mobile phones’ quality perception indicated that dissimilar norms and values between cultures were defined quality perception differently.</p>

<p>The cylinder liners’ surface is really important in an engine because it corresponds with piston rings to a tribologic system indispensable to know for reasons of wear, of oil consumption and engine’s life time. For these reasons, it is important to measure and characterize these surfaces.</p><p>The first part of the project is the observation of the impact of the number of strokes of the plateau honing on the surface of the cylinder liners. It is interesting to observe the impact of the variation of the number of strokes of the plateau honing on the peaks, plateaus and valleys of the surface.</p><p>The second part of the project is the simulation of the oil flow on the surface to observe the links between the roughness parameters and the oil flow and the shear stress.</p><p>The results are interesting, we will observe that the number of strokes of honing as a good impact on the quality of the surface.</p><p>In the second part of the project, the results show a correlation between the machining parameters and the roughness and functional parameters.</p><p>It could be interesting to mix the two parts of the project to see the correlation among machining, roughness and functional parameters for the samples made in the first of the project.</p>

<p>Rapidly changing and growing market made entering to the market change a really hard venture. The assortment offered by competitors rose. To keep up challenges it is necessary to apply strategies and techniques which let the company to reach high position on the market. Still rising group of competitors made demanding of customers also rose. Surviving on the market started to be connected with ensuring high quality products, but with still keeping the </p><p>same price of it. How company can achieve it? From the side of company it is connected with quick reaction to the customer needs and to gain it company has to take care after its flexibility. This paper is structured to answer the question why it is significant to be flexible on the market and also how to become a flexible company. To create cognitive perception of this issue, analyse of flexible company - an example of still prospering, a leader company HMS Industrial Network, is presented. The paper firstly identifies the research problem by presenting the theory gained from various literatures and then viewing prior researches concerning values of being flexible company, and secondly shows the methodology of the study. Next, the empirical findings from investigation of one, known as very flexible, company, are presented. Finally the conclusion is presented to see if reality support the thesis developed in paper.</p>

<p><p>Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) och konsekvenserna av att ha detta funktionshinder har debatterats mycket på senare år. ADHD anses vara en medfödd uppmärksamhetsstörning av varierande grad som finns hos 3-5 % av befolkningen och påverkar hela livet för den drabbade. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att belysa skillnader i livskvalitet och hälsa hos barn, unga och vuxna med diagnosticerad ADHD i jämförelse med personer som saknar denna neuropsykiatriska störning. Datamaterialet bestod av 11 vetenskapliga artiklar med kvantitativ ansats publicerade år 2000-2008. I resultatet framkom tre områden där skillnader fanns: livskvalitet och fysisk hälsa, livskvalitet och psykisk hälsa samt livskvalitet och social hälsa. Livskvaliteten och den fysiska hälsan upplevdes likvärdig eller bättre av personer med ADHD jämfört med personer utan funktionshindret i fem av nio studier. Den psykiska hälsan och livskvaliteten skattades lägre i gruppen med ADHD som även hade större problem med självkänsla och självförtroende. Problem med uppförande gav konsekvenser i sociala sammanhang såsom hem och skola och ledde till nedsatt livskvalitet och social hälsa.</p></p>

An analysis and modeling method of the diagnostic characteristics of a mechanical or electromechanical system is presented. Diagnosability analysis is especially relevant given the complexities and functional interdependencies of modern-day systems, since improvements in diagnosability can lead to a reduction of a system's life-cycle costs. The diagnosis process of a mechanical system, involving an observation phase and a testing phase, is described, as well as how failure types (the way particular system failure modes occur) impact the diagnostic process. Failure and diagnostic analysis leads to system diagnosability modeling with the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and component-indication relationship analysis. Finally, methods are developed for translating the diagnosability model into mathematical methods for computing metrics such as distinguishabilty, testability, and Mean Time Between Unscheduled Removals (MTBUR). These methods involve the use of matrices to represent the failure and replacement characteristics of the system. Diagnosability metrics are extracted by matrix multiplication. These metrics are useful when comparing the diagnosability of proposed designs or predicting the life-cycle costs of fault isolation. / Graduation date: 2000

During the past three decades, the success of the Toyota Production System has spurred research in the area of manufacturing systems engineering. Two research fields, productivity and quality, have been extensively studied and reported separately both in the manufacturing systems research literature and the practitioner, but there is a lack of research in the intersection of these areas. In addition to that, most studies on the relationship among manufacturing system design, quality and productivity are based on anecdotal evidence or qualitative reasoning that lack sound scientific quantitative foundations. This study tries to establish a scientific foundation to investigate how production system design and operation influence productivity and product quality by developing conceptual and computational models and performing experiments. By doing so, this study will show an important part of the way to produce high quality products with minimum cost. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Thesis (M. Res. (Med.))--University of Hong Kong, 2006.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-118). Also available in electronic version.

This dissertation utilizes data from four sub-watersheds in the Little River Experimental Watershed, GA to develop models to improve forecast predictions related to the management of surface-water pollution due to non-point source runoff. Non-point source pollution is the primary cause of US surface-water quality impairment and a main transport mechanism for pathogens and other pollutants into receiving surface water bodies (US EPA 2008). In response to pollution reduction and watershed remediation mandates under the Federal Clean Water Act (1972)-particularly the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program-the role of water quality modeling in effectively rehabilitating impaired waters has taken on greater importance. Consequently, the significance of this study is that it is the first of its kind to incorporate a multi-model approach to address limitations in using single water quality models. In this regard, it builds on water quality engineering research by presenting methods to estimate contaminant concentrations and reduce uncertainty in overall model predictions in impaired water-bodies. Methodologically, the key point of departure in this dissertation is centered on the fact that water quality modeling is the cornerstone of TMDL analyses but the associated prediction uncertainty affects their adequacy in providing reliable contaminant loadings estimates in an impaired water body. As such, utilizing hydrological and water-quality process equations embedded in the two most widely used watershed-scale models, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran (HSPF), and observed data from the sub-watersheds mentioned above, the dissertation addresses this limitation by combining results from the two competing models to reduce uncertainty and enhance accuracy of predictions. The study was conducted in two phases. First, HSPF and SWAT-two extensively-used, scientifically-rigorous, US EPA-approved watershed-scale codes-were used to build models of the four study catchments. The models were individually calibrated and shown (based on Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) ratios) to produce reliable simulations of the hydrologic and water quality conditions in the watershed. The second phase of the analysis involved using a multi-model approach to combine model forecasts. Model combination, introduced by Bates and Granger in 1969, has emerged as a viable analytical technique (Claesken and Hjort, 2008; Ajami et al., 2006) and widely-used across disciplines to improve model-forecasting results (Kim et al., 2006; Shamseldin et al., 1997; Granger, 2001; Clemens, 1989; Thompson, 1976; Newbold and Granger, 1974; Dickinson, 1973). After calibration, the model predictions were combined for each catchment using three different methods: the Weighted Average Method (WAM), the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency Maximization Method (NSE-max) and an Artificial Neural Network Method (ANN). Comparison of the results of the multi-model formulation with original individual model results showed improved estimates with all three combination methods. The improvement in model accuracy (based on NSE ratios) varied from modest to significant in both hydrologic and water quality variables. These improvements were attributed to a reduction in model structural uncertainty resulting from the ability to capture aspects of some of the more complex watershed interactions from exogenous information provided by the contributing models. It should be noted here, however, that as model availability increases, if additional models (beyond those utilized here) are used with this approach, care should be taken to ensure the credibility of each individual model for simulating the watershed scale processes under review. Limitations of this study include possible bias introduced by the use of deterministic models to estimate probabilistic contaminant distributions, limitations in available data, and the use of a seven-year study period that did not account for possible impacts of shorter periods of extreme hydrologic conditions on the individual model performances and model combination weightings. Recommendations for future research include (a) improving watershed-scale codes to better describe the probability distribution functions characteristic of contaminant distributions and data collection on wildlife species and populations; and investigating the fate and transport processes of pathogenic indicator bacteria deposited in forested areas and the impact of extreme hydrologic conditions on model performance and weighting. Overall, the findings from this dissertation suggest that water quality modeling incorporating a multi-model approach has the potential to significantly improve predictions compared to the predictions obtained when only one model is used. Clearly, the findings reported here have significant implications in improving TMDL analyses and remediation plans by presenting an approach that exploits the strengths of two of the most complete and well-accepted watershed-scale water quality models in the United States. Moreover, the findings of this dissertation auger well for the future of TMDL management in that it provides a more robust and cost effective basis for policy makers to decide on effective management strategies that incorporate acceptable risk, allowable loading and land use.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon Graduate Center, 1981.