During the early 1990´s, the Swedish commercial air traffic was de-regulated and the new market-condition made it possible for low-budget airlines to enter the Swedish market. The former monopolistic airline company, Scandinavian Airline Systems (SAS), was facing a new type of competition which had the advantage of offering much cheaper air trips than SAS. Adding the decrease of profitability that struck SAS as well as other airline companies after the terrorist attacks on the 11th of September, forced them to carry out a mayor reorganization programme. The programme, called “Turn Around 2005”, was a direct economical measure that begun in 2002 and lasted until 2005 and resulted in a cost saving of 14,5 billion SEK as well as a notice or a transfer of 6000 employees. The purpose of this essay is to investigate if the opinion of the consumer, the image, corresponds with the profile that SAS wishes to mediate today. Our intentions are also to see if the changes during the reorganization have reached the consumers. This essay is a case study based on both a quantitative and a qualitative method. The quantitative study included questionnaires handed out to 143 persons and a former costumer satisfaction study made by “Svenskt Kvalitetsindex”. The qualitative study included deep interviews with employees on SAS. The results of the questionnaires, interviews and theories about image, profile, identity and GAP-analysis, clearly shows that SAS’s profile of being a low- cost airline and being the most price worthy alternative doesn’t correspond with the opinion of the consumers. The result also shows that the consumers have not detected any of the changes, apart from the price reduction, that was made during the reorganization. However SAS have succeeded to be known by the business-passengers as a bit better regarding the ground services and departures, and that part of their image are therefore close to their profile. Our conclusion states that there is an indistinctness regarding SAS profile since the costumers cannot decide if SAS is a low-cost or a traditional airline company.

In a study involving two languages: French and Arabic, this thesis examines the patterns and meanings of Arabic religious expressions as a code alternation practice in Algerian television interviews. It is concerned with investigating what participants may accomplish by selecting Arabic over French in some points of interaction to deploy religious expressions in their utterances. It also aims at exploring what the function is that these expressions may achieve for the organization of talk-in-interaction. Based on their manifestation in the participants’ utterances, the current study identifies four categories of the use of religious expressions in Algerian media talk where they appear as: transition words to switch to Arabic to keep going on in interaction; in adjacency pairs as a result of a reciprocal invocation between participants; devices to hold the floor and continue turns in interaction; and finally, signals for closing turns and shifting topics where a speakership change or a move to a new topic is possible.

A stator turn fault in a safety-critical drive application must be detected at its initial stage and imperatively requires an evasive action to prevent a serious accident caused by an abrupt interruption in the drive s operation. However, this is much challenging for the case of an interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM) drives because of the presence of the permanent magnets that cannot be turned off at will. This work tackles the problem of increase the stator turn fault tolerance of IPMSM drives in safety-critical applications. This objective is achieved by an on-line turn fault detection method and a simple turn fault-tolerant operating strategy. In this work, it is shown that a stator turn fault in a current-controlled voltage source inverter-driven machine leads to a reduced fundamental positive sequence component of the voltage references as compared to the machine without a turn fault for a given torque reference and rotating speed. Based on this finding, a voltage reference-based turn fault detection method is proposed. In addition, it is also revealed that an adjustment to the level of the rotating magnetic flux in an appropriate manner can yield a significant reduction in the propagation speed of the fault and possibly prevention of the fault from spreading to the entire winding. This would be accomplished without any hardware modification. Based on this principle, a stator turn fault-tolerant operating strategy for IPMSM drives maintaining drive s availability is proposed. To evaluate these turn fault detection method and fault-tolerant operating strategy, an electrical model and a thermal model of an IPMSM with stator turn faults are derived. All the proposed models and methods are validated through simulations and experiments on a 10kW IPMSM drive.

The aim of this study is to further our understanding of the forces that contribute to protein stability and to investigate how site-directed mutagenesis might be used for increasing protein stability. Eleven proteins ranging from 36 to 370 residues have been studied here. A 36-residue VHP and a 337-residue VlsE were used as model systems for studying the contribution of the hydrophobic effect on protein stability. Mutations were made in both proteins which replaced bulky hydrophobic side chains with smaller ones. All variants were less stable than their wild-type proteins. For VHP, the destabilizing effects of mutations were smaller when compared with similar mutations reported in the literature. For VlsE, a similarity was observed. This different behavior was investigated and reconciled by the difference in hydrophobicity and cavity modeling for both proteins. Therefore, the stabilizing mechanism of the hydrophobic effect appears to be similar for both proteins. Eight proteins were used as model systems for studying the effects of mutating non-proline and non-glycine residues to statistically favored proline and glycine residues in ?-turns. The results suggest that proline mutations generally increase protein stability, provided that the replaced residues are solvent exposed. The glycine mutations, however, only have a stabilizing effect when the wild-type residues have ?, ? angles in the L? region of Ramachandran plot. Nevertheless, this strategy still proves to be a simple and efficient way for increasing protein stability. Finally, using a combination of eight previously identified stabilizing mutations; we successfully designed two RNase Sa variants (7S, 8S) that have both much higher Tms and conformational stabilities than wild-type protein over the entire pH range studied. Further studies of the heat capacity change upon unfolding (?Cps) for both proteins and their variants suggest that residual structure may exist in the denatured state of the 8S variant. An analysis of stability curves for both variants suggests that they achieve their stabilization through different mechanisms, partly attributed to the different role of their denatured states. The 7S variants may have a more rigid denatured state and the 8S variant may have a compact denatured state in comparison with that of wild-type RNase Sa.

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The purpose of this research was to investigate the behavior trouble of elementary & junior navy officers, help them turn to and arrange for counseling requirements, while inquiring into differences in junior navy officers¡¦ behavior troubles, attitudes and requirements for counseling. This research adopted a method of questionnaire surveys and targeted all the ensign and lieutenant junior grade naval officers of the Republic of China as the subjects. A sample of 1363 was selected through stratified random sampling and 1363 valid questionnaires was collected by the survey tool of ¡§Questionnaires on Behavior Troubles of Elementary & Junior Navy Officers, Help Them Turn to, and Arrange for Counseling Requirements¡¨ written by author himself. The data collected was analyzed through statistics processing package software for mean, average, standard variation, t-test, etc. the reached conclusion contains the following: For junior officers, there is no significant difference in physical & psychological health, adaptation to and liking to military environment. But there exist considerable differences compared with the counterparts in different ranks, services, education level & degrees and units. There are no significant differences in attitudes towards counseling for genders among junior officers. But there exist considerable differences compared with the counterparts in different ranks, services, education level & degrees and units. Among the behavior troubles for junior officers, ¡§work overload ¡¨ troubles most, next comes the ¡§career planning¡¨, and ¡§emotional imbalance & disorder¡¨. As for personal-related counseling preference for elementary navy officers, families will be their first option; while turning to military colleagues for consultations if faced with service-related troubles. Encountered with either situation, the subjects prefer the way of ¡§one on one ¡§. The most urgent need in counseling for junior officers stands as the ¡§curriculum on emotional quotients and stress arrangement¡§, and second to that is ¡§curriculum arrangement of career planning¡§. Based on the conclusion, this research has proposed the following suggestions: I. Practice of Psychological Counseling: (1). Help junior officers adapt themselves to military environment, while enhancing their physiological & psychological health. (2). Help junior officers take recognizance of psychological health, attitudes towards counseling and turn to required consultation. (3). Comprehend junior officers¡¦ behavior troubles and enthusiastically bring about satisfactory solution for them. (4). Provide appropriate and efficient counseling service in response to different subjects. II. Policy regarding psychological counseling: (1). Provide well staffed establishment with sufficient numbers of professional psychological counselors for the expected purposes. (2). Cultivate professional, qualified personnel and attach much importance to psychological development. (3). Integrate overall resources and strengthen the conception of preventive measures. (4). Combine with technological development and make the best use of website. III. Future Research: (1). Increase the subjects of research. (2). Increase the variables of research. (3). Adopt qualitative research method.

Contents of Thesis and Abstract: In a highly democratic nation, a majority of the national affairs are determined by the opinions of civilians. All public departments work their utmost to pursue ¡§public satisfaction.¡¨ As one of the control bodies of the society, the police organization not only performs intervening and banning acts, but also has to pay attention to the quality of its service to the public. Between the roles the police should play, there exists an extremely great conflict. Undoubtedly, there creates additional burden to the work of the police, which was originally under high working pressure and high degree of tiredness. According to Clause 2 of the Police Act of Taiwan, ¡§The duties of the police are to maintain public order, protect social safety, prevent all the dangers and harms, and facilitate the welfare of people according to laws.¡¨ However, in practice, the complicatedness of duties of the police in Taiwan and the multiplicity of businesses the police involves can be considered of the highest level in the world. The district on-duty police officers, who always stand on the frontline and have frequent contacts with citizens, are just the most basic-level police officers implementing different kinds of administrative work of the police. In view of this, this paper finds out the factors affecting the working pressure and job satisfaction of district on-duty police officers as well as their extents, hoping to understand whether they have strong preference for the change of duties in turn. It is hoped that the study can help improve the quality of both the district on-duty police officers and the administrative work of the police. The study took 1,202 district on-duty police officers subordinating to the Police Bureau of Kaohsiung City Government as the research targets, and employed the way of questionnaire survey to carry out the research. There were 430 questionnaires sent out, and 405 valid questionnaires were returned. After using the statistical software, SPSS to undergo descriptive analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, related and regressive statistical analysis, the study acquires the following results: 1. Part of the facets of working pressure, job satisfaction and the preference for the change of duties in turn has significant difference if there is a difference in the statistical variables of part of the attributes of individuals. 2. Working pressure has significant negative relativity and significant negative effects on job satisfaction. 3. Job satisfaction has significant negative relativity to the preference for the change of duties in turn. The facet of ¡§internal satisfaction¡¨ has significant negative effects on the facet of ¡§preference for the change of duties in turn,¡¨ but has significant positive effects on the facet of ¡§perception for the change of duties in turn.¡¨ The facet of ¡§external satisfaction¡¨ has significant positive effects on the facet of ¡§perception for the change of duties in turn.¡¨ 4. Working pressure has significant positive relativity to the preference for the change of duties in turn. The ¡§personal factor of pressure¡¨ has significant positive effects on the preference for the change of duties in turn. ¡§External environmental pressure¡¨ has significant positive effects on the facet of ¡§preference for the change of duties in turn.¡¨ 5. When both working pressure and job satisfaction at the same time perform regressive statistics on the preference for the change of duties in turn, the results show that job satisfaction really has mediating effect. Keywords: district on-duty police officers, working pressure, job satisfaction, preference for the change of duties in turn

This study aims at investigating Wittgenstein&rsquo / s conception of meaning. In this sense, philosopher&rsquo / s early and later periods will be examined. Key notions of Wittgenstein&rsquo / s philosophy of language, picture theory of meaning, language-game, rule following, Private Language Argument and his assertion that &lsquo / meaning is use&rsquo / will be analyzed. Out of this analysis, Wittgenstein&rsquo / s answer to the following basic question will be sought: How is meaning derived in a language? The outcome of this query will be comparatively read with four linguistic theories so as to position Wittgenstein&rsquo / s conception of meaning with regard to the linguistic turn. As a result of this, it will be argued that Wittgensteinian meaning can be regarded as the very first step of post-structural understanding of meaning and discourse theory.

Order-picking operations constitute the costliest activities in a warehouse. The order-picking problem (OPP) aims to determine the route of the picker(s) in such a way that the total order-picking time, hence the order-picking costs are minimized. In this study, a warehouse that consists of parallel pick aisles is assumed, and various versions of the OPP are considered. Although the single-picker version of the problem has been well studied in the literature, the multiple-picker version has not received much attention in terms of algorithmic approaches. The literature also does not take into account the time taken by the number of turns during the picking route. In this thesis, a detailed discussion is made regarding the computational complexity of the OPP with a single picker. A heuristic procedure, which makes use of the exact algorithm for the OPP with no middle aisles, is proposed for the single-picker OPP with middle aisles, and computational results on randomly generated problems are given. Additionally, an evolutionary algorithm that makes use of the cluster-first, route-second and route-first, cluster-second heuristics for the VRP is provided. The parameters of the algorithm are determined based on preliminary runs and the algorithm is also tested on randomly generated problems, with different weights given to the cluster-first, route-second and route-first, cluster-second approaches. Lastly, a polynomial time algorithm is proposed for the problem of minimizing the number of turns in a parallel-aisle warehouse.

The engineering industry has set up the foundation for Taiwanese economical and industrial development. During all phases of the developments, the engineering enterprises play the heavy role respectively in various engineering stages, such as feasibility study, environment impact evaluation, planning, design, construction, test, management, trainning, operation and maintenance etc. of engineering projects. Following the expansion in scale and versatility in content of the engineering project, the turn-key contract type instead of the traditional design and then construction splitted contract type will become more and more popular in engineering industry. Especially, the BOT and BOO of the turn-key contract in Taiwan public engineering projects are set with higher priority considering both the engineering benefit to the public and the finacial effectiveness of the government. Taiwan became the #144 member entity of WTO in early of year 2002 just soon after the #143 member of China in the late 2001. The mutual market oppening induces not only more competition but also more opportunity to the industries of the WTO member entities. The top management of individual enterprises shall consider thoroughly and work out an approach of theirwon leading to concord with the world trend, strengthen the competitive advantages, and survive forever in the industry. The research is started with the analysis of Taiwanese engineering industry. The resource-based view points and strategic management activities outline the core competence capabilities and advantages in various work stages of the indussstry. The key successful factors in the industry are recommended as : (1) financing capability; (2) business reputation and customer relationship; (3) capabilities of planning, design and cost estimate; (4) economical scale and negotiation capability; (5) engineering management and integration capabilities; and (6) operation and maintenance capability. The CTCI Corporation is also taken as an example introducing his operation methods and strategies which are worthwhile for reference. BOT or BOO stated in this research is on the prime contract with the real owner, usually the government. The prime contractor who is then called as the ¡§second owner¡¨ shall use every available resource in the industry to complete the project on schedule, in good quality, and earn the appropriate profit for his enterprise. Sub-contracting, therefore is still the same as what people did in the traditional engineering projects. Either big scale complex engineering enterprises or small size expert firms can still find theirown way for future operation. Talking about the tendering competition, the final game is almost staied on the financial issues. The learning curve, scale economic and expertization of the low cost strategy chain up the concentration and differenciation strategies. All of these will promote enterprises¡¦ capabilities through the improvement in technical aspects, project management, enterprise processing and resource integration, resource leverage etc.. The engineering enterprises, after evaluating their core competitive advantages, may choose and consolidate the market zone most suitable for them and extend therefrom the market through the alliance.