Abstract The theme of this paper is to discuss the benefits of adding the final year of preschool to Taiwan's national education system. This theme will be explored by contrasting and comparing other countries¡¦ concepts and methods of education. Using America, England, Japan and Germany as examples, overall systems of private and public schools will be analyzed thoroughly. The issues discussed include funding, facilities, teachers, management effectiveness and differences between urban and rural. In addition to an analysis of other nation's educational systems are the findings from questionnaires. Questionnaires were designed to interview 1,827 teachers and 938 parents and were distributed throughout cities and counties in Taiwan in order to collect different views concerning ¡¨The extension of the national education policy to preschool¡¦s final year.¡¨ According to documents and surveys, several conclusions are made as follows: 1. Unbalanced distribution of governmental resources. For example, universities have priority over preschools and public schools have priority over private schools. 2. High percentages of unqualified teachers in private preschools. 3. Excessive rate of teachers working unstably among preschools. 4. Apparently higher business costs in operating private schools than public schools. 5. Undeveloped mechanisms for ¡§Evaluation of the effectiveness of educational vouchers for children.¡¨ Based on research results, a number of proposed solutions are made mainly for policy amendment and future study reference materials. 1. Reconsider the distribution of governmental resources. 2. Provide effective nursery policies. 3. Salary difference subsidies should be given to teachers and caregivers in private preschools, and the rules of public school teacher¡¦s applicative legislation should be applied to teachers in private schools. 4. Putting more attention on children of disadvantaged minorities. 5. Adoption of legislation ensuring free education in preschools. 6. Merge graduates from child care universities and colleges. 7. Accelerate the mechanisms for ¡§Evaluation of the effectiveness of educational vouchers for children.¡¨

Background: Price pressure, together with factors as commodization and demands for lower production costs has had a negative impact on further investments on the tea industry in Sri Lanka. Developing countries must persist in their efforts to catch up with the rapid growth and increased global trade to maintain an important source of growth. Despite increased recognition regarding the importance of economic growth, where it is crucial for a company’s ability to profit with long-term viability by finding a unique combination and collaboration of activities within the value chain, there is still a confusion of how an emerging vertical integration can strengthen the tea industry. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to evaluate, define and describe the value chain of actors and activities from raw material to finished product that activate value increments within the tea industry in Sri Lanka. In order to reach this aim, a deeper understanding of how enterprises choose their way of distribution commodities or value-added product. The empirical data is combined with a theoretical framework that investigates the challenges with vertical integration within the tea industry, focusing on strengthen Sri Lankan tea producers’ value chains. Delimitations: Distinction that investigates Sri Lanka and its value chain of tea. Methodology: This minor field research was performed with an evaluating research design in Sri Lanka. A qualitative approach has been used in combination to the ethnographic method that carries out the collection of data. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with companies within the tea industry in Sri Lanka to meet the research objective. Conclusions: The vertical integration can be strengthened through informal integrate functions and its emergence can thus promote business networks. Actors linking through investments by brokers can thereby simplify the process of value adding activities to the current tea industry in Sri Lanka.

As a result of today`s competitive situation, the demand on the rapid development of research has increased. Both universities and companies are realizing the importance of a functioning and well-developed cooperation. A close collaboration and communication between universities and the business community has in many studies been shown to be very important for business development and knowledge transfer. The purose was to examine how communication and collaboration between universities and industry can be developed and strenghthen on the basis of innovative thinking. In order to initially identify the perceived problems the authors studied how communication and cooperation manifests itslelf today between the two parties, what does not work and how the existing tools for communication and collaboration look like today. The study was conducted based on a qualitative approach and the empirical data have primarily been based on interviews with represantatives from both universities and industry, but also by a smaller invironmental scanning and the authors own experience. The results indicate that the perceived deficiencies concem the establishment of cooperation but also the communication quality, for instance the feedback on the performed. There also appears to be difficult to achieve a high degree of win-win situtation as a result of cooperation. The part that belives that it does not work is the students. None of the responding seems to see the full potential of interacting with each other; Although there are many reasons and much to gain from a partnership the empirical data shows that the parties focus on only two motives for cooperation. The students focus on the opportunity for jobs after graduation and the representatives from the companies see the universities as a recruitment channel. The existing tools for communcation seem to work in a very limited extent. The authors have as a result of this thesis generated a proposal of how communication could be improved in order to respond to the perceived problems. These ideas are presented in the section of suggestions for improvement.

It may sound trivial, but in this episode we’re going to learn to add and subtract…in binary. This will serve as a basis for learning about negative binary representations and the circuitry needed to perform additions in hardware.

No description available.

Syfte – Syftet med examensarbetet är att studera om det finns miljömässiga och kostnadsmässiga fördelar att övergå till additiv tillverkning, 3D-printning, när det kommer till tillverkning av pressgjutningsverktyg. Studien har gjorts på en jämförelse mellan ett laboratorie försök samt den verkliga produktionen. Metod – En jämförelse av ett additivt tillverkat och ett traditionellt tillverkat pressgjutningsverktyg görs utifrån en förenklad livscykelanalys sett ur energiperspektiv samt tillverkningskostnad. Resultat – Jämförelsen leder till att påvisa vilken tillverkningsmetod som är mest miljö- och kostnadsmässigt korrekt att välja. Under studien har det visat att den traditionella tillverkningsmetoden är både mer miljövänlig och kostnadseffektiv jämfört med den additiva tekniken. Resultatet speglar ett specifikt laboratorie försök jämfört med traditionell tillverkning som har utvecklats och prispressats genom under en mångårig industri historia. Implikationer – Resultatet kan uppmuntra till vidare studie där den mest effektiva tekniken används. Det vill säga en uppföljningsstudie där den planerade tekniken kan förbättras från denna studie och ge ett annorlunda resultat. Begränsningar – Eftersom detta är en liten del i ett större projekt, ADDING, som i sin tur är en förstudie för eventuell fortsatt forskning, är analysen avgränsad till de delar i processen för framtagning av ett pressgjutningsverktyg som skiljer sig åt. Studien har valts att fokusera på energiförbrukningen samt tillverkningskostnad. Datainsamlingen har begränsats något av att tekniken är förhållandevis ny samt att tillgången till databaser varit begränsad.

Les microalgues autotrophes sont une source prometteuse de biomasse pour des applications aussi variées que l'extraction de molécules, l'alimentation animale et humaine, la production énergétique ou la décontamination environnementale. La production de masse est donc en forte augmentation dans le monde. Cependant, les techniques actuelles pour caractériser l'état physiologique des cellules algales au cours de la croissance sont coûteuses en main d'œuvre et en temps, souvent basées sur du matériel de mesure générique répondant mal au cahier des charges. Elles sont inadaptées à la mesure en ligne.De nouveaux outils doivent donc être développés pour optimiser le pilotage des procédés de culture, en effectuant des mesures rapides de l'état physico-chimique des cellules. La spectroscopie visible (VIS) et proche infrarouge (NIR) se présente comme une solution pratique. De plus des travaux antérieurs ont démontrés que les propriétés spectrales d'absorption et de diffusion des cellules d'algues dans le domaine VIS-NIR sont très corrélées à leur caractéristiques chimiques (pigments) et physiques (tailles, densité des cellules). Les densités de cellules considérées en cultures denses sont très élevées (10^6-10^9 cellules/mL), rendant inévitables les phénomènes de multidiffusion. Cependant ces derniers ont été identifiés comme gênants pour l'extraction de données à partir des spectres mesurés, car ils rendent l'hypothèse de validité de la loi de Beer Lambert fausse. Dans cette thèse nous nous intéressons à l'extraction de données sur la physiologie des cellules algales à partir de mesures spectrales effectuées sur des échantillons denses, non-dilués, directement issus du milieu de culture. Notre approche se décline en plusieurs axes, correspondants aux différentes échelles de description du problème. D'abord, l'échelle de l'échantillon algal global est considérée. Nous en définissons les propriétés spectrales apparentes, et analysons le problème pratique de leur mesure. Nous avons utilisé un montage à double sphères d'intégration et développé un protocole de mesure complet, que nous décrivons. Ensuite, les propriétés spectrales linéaires intrinsèques au milieu algal sont abordées, et nous cherchons à les reliées aux propriétés apparentes de l'échantillon. Pour cela nous utilisons le formalisme de l'équation de transfert radiatif (ETR) donnant une modélisation rigoureuse des phénomènes de multidiffusion à l'œuvre dans les milieux turbides. En pratique, résoudre l'ETR ne peut se faire que par une approximation ou la simulation. Dans nos travaux nous examinons la méthode Adding-Doubling et son inverse, utilisées avec succès par d'autres équipes sur des échantillons turbides de tissus biologiques. En troisième lieu, l'échelle de description de la cellule d'algue individuelle est abordée. AlgaSim, un programme de simulation basé sur la théorie de Mie étendue, a été développé au cours de cette thèse pour modéliser les spectres d'absorption et de diffusion d'une cellule algale décrite par ses paramètres physiologiques, tels que la taille et le poids sec, les proportions des différents matériaux cellulaires, la quantité et la composition des pigments. Ainsi, les liens entre propriétés physiques et chimiques de la cellule et ses propriétés spectrales sont étudiés. Enfin, une méthode complète est proposée pour articuler toutes les échelles de description précédemment examinées. Les liens entre propriétés intrinsèques du milieu algal et les propriétés optiques individuelles des cellules sont cherchés. Les paradigmes développés aux différentes échelles sont ensuite mis bout à bout pour relier la description physiologique des cellules d'algue aux propriétés spectrales apparentes mesurées sur un échantillon donné. La méthode est testée sur des échantillons algaux réels. Les premiers résultats sont prometteurs, démontrant le potentiel opérationnel de la spectroscopie VIS-NIR pour le suivi de procédés de culture dense de microalgues. / Autotrophic microalgae are seen as a promising source of biomass for various applications such as chemicals extraction, animal and human food, energy production and environment cleaning. Consequently, the global mass production of microalgae has largely increased over the last decade. However, the current techniques used for the characterization of the algal cells all along the growth process require time-consuming sample preparation, a large amount of costly, standard instrumentation and cannot usually be performed in situ.New tools are needed to optimize the monitoring of the cultivation process by providing a faster measurement of the microalgal cells physical and chemical states. For this purpose, utilizing visible (VIS) and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is looked as a promising solution. Moreover, previous studies demonstrated that the spectral absorption and scattering properties of microalgal suspensions in the VIS-NIR domain depend heavily on the chemical characteristics (pigments) and physical characteristics of the cells (size, density of the cells). In a context of cultivation process, cell density in the culture medium is very high (10^6-10^9 cell/mL) which makes the multi-scattering phenomena significant. However, recent studies have showed that the data extraction from spectroscopic measurements performed on turbid samples is highly complicated by the influence of the scattering phenomena on the spectra, making the classical processing methods based on the assumption of Beer law irrelevant. This thesis addresses the issue of retrieving information about the physiological state of microalgal cells from spectral measurements performed on non-diluted, dense bulk culture media. For this purpose, our approach includes successive guidelines, corresponding to different scales of description. First, the scale of the bulk algal aliquot is considered: the apparent spectral properties are defined, and the practical issue of measuring them with an adapted setup is investigated. In particular, a double-integrating sphere setup, as well as a complete measurement protocol are implemented. Second, the intrinsic linear spectral properties of the dense algal medium are defined, and the links between the intrinsic and apparent spectral properties are investigated. The formalism of the radiative transport equation (RTE) is used for this purpose, as it rigorously models the physical phenomena due to multiple scattering. Solving the RTE must be implemented in practice with an approximation or simulation method. In this work, we investigate in particular the Adding-Doubling method and its inverse, which have been proved to be adapted to the case of highly turbid organic tissues and materials. Third, the scale of an individual algal cell is considered. In this thesis we have developed a simulation program called AlgaSim based of the extended Mie theory, which makes it possible to simulate the spectral absorption and scattering properties of an algal cell described by its physiological characteristics, such as its mean size and dry weight, proportions of different cell materials and pigment quantity and composition. The links between the chemical and physical properties of an algal cell and its spectral properties are thus investigated.Finally, a complete method is proposed to link all the scales of description. In particular, the links between the intrinsic spectral properties of an algal medium and the individual properties of the constitutive cells are considered. By organizing all the paradigms previously investigated, it is possible to implement a complete model linking the physiological description of the constitutive algal cells to the apparent spectral properties measured on a dense culture sample. The method and its inverse are tested on real algal samples. They show promising primary results, proving the operational potential of VIS-NIR spectroscopy for the monitoring of dense algal cultures.

This thesis empirically investigates how well the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) ensures value for money (VfM) in its exploitation of Nigeria’s oil resources. This focus on VfM distinguishes the study from other researches carried out on the performance of national oil companies (NOCs) where the common approach in the literature has been to assess performance using the metrics applicable to private oil companies. The rationale for the new approach is that the NNPC is a quasi-public sector organisation and thus its performance should be measured in the same way as that of public sector bodies and state owned enterprises (SOEs). Informed opinions on NNPC’s management roles in Nigeria’s oil and gas upstream sector were sought from a range of relevant experts in twelve stakeholder groups involved in oil and gas upstream operations. Data were collected through the use of questionnaire and interview surveys, and further subjected to statistical analysis to determine and assess significant differences in views between respondent groups. The empirical results obtained from the questionnaires were used to draw a conclusion on the hypotheses formulated for the study. Furthermore, the findings of the interview survey were used to validate the conclusions drawn. The study revealed that the NNPC was perceived to be deficient in keeping its mandate of adding value to Nigeria’s hydrocarbon resources. In specific terms, the respondents were of the view that NNPC has not been able to ensure VfM in its operations because of defects in its organisational structure, administrative system, and accountability. External factors such as political interference, instability and an inappropriate legal framework against which NNPC operates have also been perceived to impede the corporation’s performance. The main conclusions were: firstly, it is argued that the use of conventional private sector metrics to evaluate the performance of NOCs makes it difficult to form an appropriate view on their performance. Secondly, NOCs with numerous conflicting roles as is the case with NNPC are unlikely to achieve satisfactory performance. Thirdly, the NNPC lacks the capability required to ensure multinational oil companies’ (MOC) conformity with operational provisions and best practice. Finally, the thesis concludes that establishing a standardised performance/benchmarking framework is an essential requirement to ensure value addition, VfM and accountability in Nigeria’s oil and gas operations.

Aggregate demand is influenced by the functional income distribution of an economy and that of its trading partners. This relationship between income distribution and output is analyzed in a short-run two-country Neo-Kaleckian model. The effects of devaluation and redistribution are discussed in detail. Trade and redistribution within one country interact and output increases or decreases with changes in either depending on the specific distributional and exchange rate movements. The Marshall-Lerner condition is shown to be equivalent to the assumption of expansionary devaluation. If devaluation increases output, national redistribution policy toward wage earners is also more likely to be expansionary. (author's abstract)

Derome skog råvaruförsörjer fem sågverk i en tuff bransch med hård konkurrens. För att öka konkurrenskraften skall de testa värdehöjande avkap. Värdehöjande avkap innebär att kvalitetsfel kapas bort direkt i skogen av skördarföraren. Detta skall förutom ökande konkurrenskraft leda till högre timmerandel, mindre vrakandel, mer timmer snabbare och säkrare arbetsmiljö för entreprenörer som minimerar det manuella arbetet i skogen. Syftet är att undersöka om värdehöjande avkap ger en värdeökning samt att se vilka variabler som har störst betydelse för eventuell värdeökning. Data samlades in från en fältundersökning samt skördarens HPR- filer för att sammanställas via programmet Virkesvärde. Resultatet visade att användningen av värdehöjande avkap gav en positiv värdeökning. I fältundersökningen visades en 35 % värdeökning där värdehöjande avkap användes. Och via Virkesvärde visades en 43 % värdeökning i de fall där värdehöjande avkap förekom. Slutsatsen blev att begreppet värdehöjande avkap blev en värdehöjande handling samt att två variabler hade störst betydelse på värdeökningen, diameter samt kvalitetsklassen. / Derome forest´s main task is to provide five sawmills in the Derome Group´s industries with raw material from timber. To increase timber exchange from the forest they want to test value-adding cuts direct in to the forest. Value-adding cuts means that the harvester cuts off quality defects that lowers the value of the tree. Such quality defects is rot, buttress or crook. In this case, Derome forest wants to increase timber proportion, reduce wasted log, better timber quality and less disruptions at their industries. The purpose with this study is to investigate if the concept with value-adding cuts increases the value on individual logs and further increases all harvest. To investigate the value-adding cuts a quantitative method in shape of a field investigation was used to provide different data about the tree when value-adding cuts was applied. Except for the field investigation a program developed by Skogforsk called Virkesvärde was used to analyze the whole logging operation. The study was delimit to esclusively manage tree species used in Derome Group´s sawmills, spruce (Picea abies) and pine (Pinus sylvestris).In those cases where value-adding cuts were applied during the field investigation an average value increase was made with 39 SEK/tree and 35 % on the first stock. There is obvious connections between diameter, timber class and increase of value. A new timber proportion with 42,6 m3fub or 1,4 % was created from the analysis in Virkesvärde for the whole cutting operation. The value increase of the cutting operation was 43 % on the first stock on the trees where value-adding cut was applied. Price lists for different assortments from Derome forest was used in the calculations. In the field investigation there was value increases on lumps up to 18 dm. Only when the quality defects did not disappear the cut was unsuccessful. The result of the study gave a clear answer that value-adding cuts really was a value-adding action.