Akademisk avhandling--Historia--Åbo, 1979. / Résumé en anglais. Bibliogr. p. 252-262. Index.

The subject of this thesis is the comprehensive research and design of costumes for the play Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry, including documentation of the creative process from the initial analysis of the play to the final designs. This play was written in the late 19th century and is considered to be a precurser to Surrealism and Theatre of the Absurd. The story is about the brief and tyrannical reign of a hideous, backward individual named Ubu, who comes to power by murdering the Polish king. The play is notable for its rough playfulness, ruthlessness with regard to social and cultural traditions, its open-mindedness and unique use of language. On the surface it comes across as a silly farce, but it contains many deeper undertones that cause Jarry to be sometimes regarded as a symbolist writer. This work is divided into a theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part deals with the author of the play, its content and the context in which it was written, and studies how it was staged in the past. It is not the aim to offer a coherent overview of the life of Alfred Jarry, his work, or the history of past productions of King Ubu. Instead, the information contained here is intended only as a documentation of the historical and theoretical research necessary to understand this work, which ultimately had an impact on the final designs. Part two documents the process of developing the costume designs themselves. Initially it introduces the key considerations that arose from reading the play that affected the overall progress of the work. There follows an analysis of the characters and situations based on the text, and sources of inspiration. The main section describes the final designs of the set and costumes that are supported by attached images.

The Diploma Thesis is dealing with questions of investment decision-making in the area of IT and can be a complete guidance on the basic concepts of decision-making on the investment projects, methods of financial evaluation of such projects and the ways of its application in the sphere of IT. It is mainly aimed on the projects dealing with internal processes in IT organizations and optimalization of its management – IT Service Management (ITSM). The paper deals with existing methodologies and standards applicable to IT Service Management and closely works with the latest library of best practices ITIL V3. The introduction gets the reader into the basics of the IT management, introduces the existent market standards and creates a liaison between the IT and business in questions of investments. The second part pays attention to the principles of ITSM and describes the benefits that can process optimalization bring to the company. The third chapter opens up the IT investment topic and introduces various methodological concepts and models used not only in the classical financial theory, but in the modern management practice as well. It offers a basic overview on the methods of investment project evaluation, e.g. Net Present Value (NPV), The Payback Period Method, The Internal Rate of Return (IRR), The Profitability Index, and the most popular one – Return on Investment (ROI). The following chapter applies the measure of Return on Investment (ROI) to the projects of ITSM implementation according to ITIL. It shows the basic principles of the method usage, describes its main components and introduces the way of identification and evaluation of the benefits, which those projects bring to the business. Gained knowledge is based on the real practical examples – several worked-out business cases created for the customers of the Hewlett-Packard Company. The last part of this chapter shortly describes several software tools for building the similar business cases and their own methodology. The last chapter in devoted to the situation on the local and world market and addresses the practical application of the methods of IT projects evaluation in the companies. The conclusion then summarizes important parts and key elements of the paper.

Introduction: In the current rapidly changing world of work, organisations are investing increasingly in workforce planning. Throughout times, recruiting and retaining talented employees have been one of the most complex problems facing employers. Human Resource (HR) metrics and analytics is still a relatively untouched tool used by HR managers. However, HR practitioners are engaging in an era where recruitment and talent retention processes are becoming predictive and provide several benefits to both the employer and employee. By understanding how data can be used for insightful decisions that generate business results, HR professionals need to exploit the gap. Currently, they have the opportunity to utilise their extensive data sets by providing the organisation with the relevant and strategic analytics for informed decision-making. Research purpose: The purpose of the systematic literature review was to investigate the nature and value that metrics and analytics on recruitment and talent management add to organisations. Motivation for the study: Throughout history, people were considered as the most valuable assets in which an organisation can invest. However, HR failed to take responsibility for the programmes and initiatives which they developed and implemented. By developing a means to measure HR programmes and initiatives and assess the performance and development of employees, HR professionals will be able to demonstrate its effect on the business's 'bottom line'. Consequently, top management would then be more willing to invest money and time in HR-related activities. HR metrics and analytics will allow top management to make informed decisions on HR initiatives and programmes such as recruitment and talent management. In a volatile business environment HR departments need to prove the monetary value of the HR functions to top management. For HR analytics to be effective, it is vital that the organisation applies the correct metrics that is aligned with the overall business strategy and objectives. Research design, approach and method: For the purpose of the present study, a systematic literature review was conducted to determine the nature and value-add of recruitment and talent management analytics in an organisation. Main findings: The first objective was to determine the importance of recruitment and talent retention metrics and analytics. Results show that organisations currently struggle to recruit and retain talented employees, a factor that ultimately impacts the success of the organisation. The review provided evidence of organisations that realised the importance of recruitment and talent retention analytics by also using it to inform their human capital planning. The second objective assessed the use of metrics and analytics to manage recruitment and talent. The research indicated that organisations apply various recruitment and talent retention metrics in different ways and for diverse purposes. A possible reason may be that organisations have different data sets and also use these sets differently to develop HR-related metrics suited for the specific company. The third objective was to identify standards for metrics on recruitment and talent management. The research indicates that there is no systematic approach to evaluate recruitment and talent management. This is a topic for future research. The fourth and final objective investigated the role of recruitment and talent retention analytics in management's decision-making. Here the literature indicates that organisations have invested highly in HR analytics, and even appoint an analytics team within the company with the sole purpose of evaluating the organisation's data sets. This attest to the value management attaches to HR analytics as important contribution to the business's decision-making process, and ultimately the success of the organisation as a whole. Limitations/future research: The present research had to factor in several delimitations related to the context, constructs and theoretical perspectives of the study. The researcher firstly identified that the research context was limited to the Human Resources (HR) segment of organisations and business sector. Secondly, only HR-related analytics were used for the purpose of this study. The researcher searched, analysed and made assumptions about this research topic by consulting mainly recent (over the past 10 years) and authentic resources. Lastly, the assumptions made in the study are based on data the researcher incorporated from selected literature. Conclusion: It is evident from the findings that HR professionals began understanding the impact of recruitment and talent retention analytics on validating HR contributions to the organisation. Furthermore, it is clear that, on the other hand, management does acknowledge the importance and value that recruitment and talent retention analytics add to the organisation's 'bottom line'. This allows management to make insightful decisions, and ultimately retain a competitive edge in the market. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Marketing Management / MCom / Unrestricted

Building Information Modeling (BIM) or Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) recently has been regarded as crucial by the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. The use of BIM/VDC represents the creation and use of a three-dimensional (3D) virtual model that amplifies the design, construction, and operation of a building. This technological improvement fundamentally changes the process of how the buildings are designed and constructed. However, the approach to the use of advanced technology in the AEC industry does not seem to be welcomed by the majority of the industry regarding high initial cost of implementation. This study presents data gathered from meetings, interviews and a case study which was a construction project run in Sweden to determine the savings implementing BIM/VDC and to reveal the return on investment (ROI) from a general contractor (GC) perspective. The potential savings to the GC to invest in BIM/VDC were estimated based on the PENG model, measurable cost benefits associated with reduced schedule overruns and reduced change order cost. This thesis confirmed that BIM/VDC results in vast savings and positive impacts on ROI based on the results from the case study which deployed it successfully.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Yes / A Decision Support System (DSS) in tunnelling domain deals with identifying pathologies based on disorders present in various tunnel portions and contextual factors affecting a tunnel. Another key area in diagnosing pathologies is to identify regions of interest (ROI). In practice, tunnel experts intuitively abstract regions of interest by selecting tunnel portions that are susceptible to the same types of pathologies with some distance approximation. This complex diagnosis process is often subjective and poorly scales across cases and transport structures. In this paper, we introduce PADTUN system, a working prototype of a DSS in tunnelling domain using semantic technologies. Ontologies are developed and used to capture tacit knowledge from tunnel experts. Tunnel inspection data are annotated with ontologies to take advantage of inferring capabilities offered by semantic technologies. In addition, an intelligent mechanism is developed to exploit abstraction and inference capabilities to identify ROI. PADTUN is developed in real-world settings offered by the NeTTUN EU Project and is applied in a tunnel diagnosis use case with Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), France. We show how the use of semantic technologies allows addressing the complex issues of pathology and ROI inferencing and matching experts’ expectations of decision support.

Yes / Social media facilitates and enhances communication between businesses and customers. Nowadays, although it is commonly recognised that companies implement social media into their marketing activities, it is also acknowledged that companies struggle to calculate the return on investment (ROI) from social media marketing efforts as most of them focus only on certain tangible outcomes such as the impact on sales and purchases. Attempts have been made by researchers to identify how to measure key impacts of social media in relation to marketing; however, there remains a lack of empirical data and no comprehensive overview of what “ROI” can mean for an organisation seeking returns on their social media adoption. By knowing how to measure ROI from social media, companies can produce valuable insights which can help enhance marketing strategies in promoting their products/services. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to provide a review of ROI in social media marketing with a particular focus on intangible outcomes such as brand awareness, customer engagement/relationship and eWOM.