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<p>This study focuses mainly on situations of time-based competition. Three problems in this context will be studied in three different parts. In the first part, we will examine the promised delivery time (PDT) competition for firms whose production processes consist of more than one stage. We study three games; a) when each firm consists of two stages and has identical production rates in both stages, b) when each firm consists of k stages and has identical production rate in all stages and, c) when each firm consists of two stages and has different production rates in each stage. In the second part, we focus on a duopolistic market where the firms compete against each other by determining their PDT. The firms try to win the business of a single customer who is sensitive to PDT but will also penalize the winning firm through tardiness costs. This situation may emerge when the production duration is too long and the product is expensive as in the aviation industry. The third part of this study deals with situations of investment competition in the presence of incomplete information in the market. The investment decision will affect the time to production (speed) and determines the probability of winning the business. The notion of incompleteness in information is projected when firms are not fully certain about each other's objective function. In each chapter, we will find the equilibrium of the game and determine the players' optimal strategies. At the end of each chapter, a numerical analysis is presented, where numerous numerical examples are solved. Based on the numerical examples, a sensitivity analysis is also presented for each model that would capture the sensitivity of the Nash equilibria and the firms' optimal strategies towards changes in parameters in the market or the competitor's operations.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The factors associated with employees' work related attitudes and cognitions were examined. A sample of employees from Community Living Trust (CLT), an organisation within the disability support worker industry, completed a questionnaire that included several measures: supervisor and colleague support, role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload, time-based, strain-based and behaviour-based work-to-family/family-to-work conflict, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which supervisor and colleague support contributed to a reduction in role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. In addition, the relationship between support and work-to-family/family-to-work conflict were also explored. Finally, the organisational outcomes, in particular organisational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions, were examined. It was found that supervisor and colleague support did, in some cases, moderated the relationship between role stressors, conflict and job satisfaction / organisational commitment. It was also found that job satisfaction and affective commitment mediated the relationship between the role stressors, WF strain-based conflict and turnover intentions. The major implications from this research are that human resource initiatives should be developed that aims to identify the support needs employees may have, in order to increase levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment and decrease levels of turnover intentions. The final chapter of this research explored the practical implications to the organisation, employees and the need for future research.

隨著科技的快速革新、消費者的喜好快速變遷、與競爭程度日趨激烈等產業環境趨勢演進，快速的推出新產品這項議題，已是愈來愈重要，甚至攸關廠商的獲利與存續與否。因此為求快速的推出新產品，廠商必須在組織各方面予以適當的配合因應，才能達成此目的，本研究就在探討這些重要的組織因應措施。本研究首先在不考慮情境因素之情形下，探討何種組織因應措施可有效加速研發；其次觀察情境因素與組織因應措施的相對重要性；再者研究在同時考慮所有情境時，當採取何種措施較為適當；最後，則指出單獨考慮個別情境之適用措施。本研究將組織的因應措施分為六類，分別為：研發單位的結構、與外界群體的連結、新產品開發團隊的運作方式、效率性、開發團隊的氣氛、與支援的措施。同時本研究考慮了當組織在採行上述因應措施時，會受到哪些情境因素作用，而影響新產品研發速度。這些情境因素為：新產品研發策略、組織內部的風格、與公司資源 。而在本研究的最後，在管理的含意方面可獲致下列的結論：一、若廠商為求超越競爭廠商的研發速度或符合公司內部所設定之進度，應加強有利情境的塑造。二、台灣的大部份廠商所面臨的情境為：較具開拓性與中度創新的策略、以及較為開創的公司文化、較積極的高階管理風格與較為充裕的公司資源。而若為加速研發，最重要之處在於減少運作上的延遲。三、較為開創積極的公司應當加強掌握外界群體的資訊；較為保守穩健的公司則應當加強開發團隊成員的有關時間概念。

Opportunistic selection is a practically appealing technique that is often used in multi-node wireless systems such as scheduling and rate adaptation in cellular systems and opportunistic wireless local area networks, wireless sensor networks, cooperative communications, and vehicular networks. In it, each node maintains a local preference number called metric that is function of its channel gains, and the best node with the highest metric is selected. Identifying the best node is challenging as the information about a node's metric is available only locally at each node. In our work, we focus on the popular, simple, and low feedback timer scheme for selection. In it, each node sets a timer as a function of its metric and transmits a packet when the timer expires. The metric-to-timer mapping maps larger metric values to smaller timer values, which ensures that the best node's timer expires first. However, it can fail to select the best node if another node transmits a packet within D s of the transmission by the best node. In this thesis, we make three contributions to the design and understanding of the timer-based selection scheme. Firstly, we introduce feedback overhead-aware contention resolution in the timer-based selection scheme. The outcome is a novel selection scheme that is faster than the splitting scheme and more reliable than the timer-based selection scheme. We analyze and minimize the average time required by the scheme to select the best node. Secondly, we characterize the optimal metric-to-timer mapping when the number of nodes in the system is not known, as is the case in several practical deployments. When the prior distribution of the nodes is known, we propose an optimal mapping that maximizes the success probability averaged over the distribution on the number of nodes. When even the prior distribution is not known, we propose a robust mapping that maximizes the worst case average success probability over all possible probability distributions on the number of nodes. In both cases, we show that the timers can expire only at 0, D, 2D, ... in the optimal timer mapping. For the known prior case, we develop recursive techniques to effectively compute the optimal timer mapping for binomial and Poisson priors. Lastly, we consider a discrete rate adaptive system and design an optimal timer scheme to maximize the end-to-end performance measure of system throughput. We derive several novel, insightful results about the optimal mapping that culminate in an iterative algorithm to compute it. We show that the design of the selection scheme is intimately related to the rate adaptation rule and the selection policy used. In all cases, extensive benchmarking with several ad hoc schemes proposed in the literature shows the significant gains that the proposed designs can deliver.

Cooperative relay systems have emerged as promising techniques to boost the performance of wireless systems. Recent studies have confirmed that interferences, co-channel interferences (CCIs) and self-interferences, have a huge impact on cooperative relay systems and can cause significant performance degradation. Two problems were observed in this research. Firstly, previous studies on performance analysis of Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relay systems in presence of CCIs have only focused on a specific interference channel model. However, in practical design scenarios, such an assumption is not a realistic proposition. Secondly, analyses of overheads introduced by a time-based relay selection protocol in distributed cooperative systems have been based on an over-pessimistic assumption where all packets involved in a collision are destroyed. Nevertheless, collisions due to the protocol overheads cause the system performance to be degraded but this does not mean that the failure of end-to-end transmission certainly occurs. The thesis aims to analyse the performance of practical cooperative relay systems in the presence of CCIs and self-interferences, by developing exact mathematical methods. A new unified mathematical method for AF relay systems in presence of a random number of arbitrary non-identical CCIs was developed. The obtained new approach derived in terms of a moment generating function of the aggregate interferences' power led to the derivation of new explicit expressions. The new results greatly simplify evaluation of average error rates over diverse practical interference scenarios. Moreover, a new exact mathematical analysis for distributed cooperative relay systems employing a time-based relay selection protocol based on an accurate interference model was presented. This approach led to the derivation of new exact expressions for the spectral efficiency which accounts for both self-interferences and the protocol overheads as well as for different fading scenarios and arbitrary relay locations. This approach provided several advantages over direct approaches, one of which is that it significantly simplified averaging-out the joint random variables involved.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to a person’s ability to remember to do something in the future. It is a complex behaviour that is essential for the daily functioning of young and old alike. Despite its importance in everyday life, few studies have sought to examine the role of personality on PM performance using a multi-trait multi-method approach in young adults. The current study aimed to investigate the differential roles of the Big 5 personality traits on event- and time-based PM performance using multiple measurement methods. In addition, the study aimed to add to the current PM and personality literature by addressing several of the identified methodological limitations of the literature as outlined by Uttl and colleagues (2013). Results demonstrated few strong relationships between PM subtypes (event and time-based) performance indicators, though performance on the lab-based event-based PM task was stronger than on the lab-based time-based PM task even after controlling for ongoing task performance. Participants were also found to perform better on lab-based rather than naturalistic PM tasks. Naturalistic and self-report PM measures were significantly related to each other, but not to lab-based PM. Regarding personality, the relationship between specific personality traits and PM performance differed depending on the PM subtype and/or measurement method being investigated with conscientiousness, memory aid strategy use, and substance use engagement being found to best predict self-reported PM errors in daily life. The current study demonstrated that each PM measurement method taps into different aspects of behavioural and cognitive functioning. Without the use of all three measurement methods, whilst also considering the individuality of the client, researchers and clinicians may be doing a disservice to individuals with true PM difficulties as they may overlook important factors contributing to their poorer performance. / Graduate

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