Yes / As multinational enterprises (MNEs) increasingly disaggregate and disperse corporate headquarters (CHQ) activities, the allocation of regional management mandates (RMMs) to local operating subsidiaries is becoming more common. RMMs explicitly break with the traditional assumption of a clear separation between centralised and local decision-making. Yet we know little of how RMMs are enacted by the units involved, or how they evolve over time. Based on a case study of Unilever, we find that RMMs are inherently ambiguous, and identify circumstances under which ambiguity manifests and triggers cycles of sensemaking and sensegiving about the meaning of the mandate. These cycles result in the co-construction of the mandate by multiple units, with changes in RMM scope and governance over time. We also find that sensemaking and sensegiving are most intense among boundary-spanning middle managers. Our work challenges prevailing assumptions that mandates are largely unambiguous when assigned and are unilateral or dyadic accomplishments; demonstrates the importance of sub-unit level analysis in MNEs; and highlights the potential of structuration theory to enrich our understanding of sensemaking and sensegiving in organisations. / Funding from the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS)

We examine risk taking when the bank's preferences exhibit smooth ambiguity aversion. Ambiguity is modeled by a second-order probability distribution that captures the bank's uncertainty about which of the subjective beliefs govern the financial asset return risk. Ambiguity preferences are modeled by the (second-order) expectation of a concave transformation of the (first-order) expected utility of profit conditional on each plausible subjective distribution of the return risk. Within this framework, the banking firm finds it less attractive to take risk in the presence than in the absence of ambiguity. This result extends to the case of greater ambiguity aversion. Given that the competitive bank's smooth ambiguity preferences exhibit non-increasing absolute ambiguity aversion, imposing a more stringent capital requirement to the bank reduces the optimal amount of loans, if the bank's coefficient of relative risk aversion does not exceed unity. Ambiguity and ambiguity aversion as such have adverse effect on the bank's risk taking.

No description available.

Collage is presented as an allegoric art-form sui generis, considering allegory itself as an open-ended form of art. The research provides a suggestion to a different understanding of collage i.e.: as a catalyst for a search for structure and semiotic relationships in an attempt to overcome a constant disordered expansion of an intertextual web and hermeneutic possibilities; and as an open work, providing multi-layered meanings. As an open work collage is typified by the prominent role of its "readers", its ambiguity and the infinite net of references it summons. Collage may be conceived as a bridge between modernism and postmodernism, structuralism and post-structuralism; as a model for constant innovation and suppleness; as a stimulator for meta-artistic questions, acceptance of "soft" universals and reevaluation of the role of the Other within an artwork. Works by Jasper Johns, Michal Na'aman, Dina Hoffman and myself exemplify these ideas. / Visual Arts / M.A. (Visual Arts)

In this thesis, we investigate the formulation, optimization and ambiguities in single-image 3D surface reconstruction from geometric and photometric constraints. We examine linear, discrete and quadratic constraints for shape from planar curves, shape from texture, and shape from shading. The problem of recovering 3D shape from the projection of planar curves on a surface is strongly motivated by perception studies. Applications include single-view modeling and uncalibrated structured light. When the curves intersect, the problem leads to a linear system for which a direct least-squares method is sensitive to noise. We derive a more stable solution and show examples where the same method produces plausible surfaces from the projection of parallel (non-intersecting) planar cross sections. The problem of reconstructing a smooth surface under constraints that have discrete ambiguities arise in areas such as shape from texture, shape from shading, photometric stereo and shape from defocus. While the problem is computationally hard, heuristics based on semidefinite programming may reveal the shape of the surface. Finally, we examine the shape from shading problem without boundary conditions as a polynomial system. This formulation allows, in generic cases, a complete solution for ideal polyhedral objects. For the general case we propose a semidefinite programming relaxation procedure, and an exact line search iterative procedure with a new smoothness term that favors folds at edges. We use this numerical technique to inspect shading ambiguities.

Qin, Shuang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in Chinese.

Traditionella arbetsrelaterade stressorer har sedan drygt ett decennium kompletterats med ambivalens kring arbetsuppgifters färdigställande (”task completion ambiguity”) och ambivalens kring arbetsresultatets kvalitet (”task quality ambiguity”) som konstaterats ha samband med arbetstrivsel. Föreliggande enkätstudie syftade till att undersöka hur sambanden mellan dessa faktorer ser ut bland sångare. Utöver arbetstrivsel undersöktes också samband med upplevd press från andra och sig själv samt psykisk ohälsa, rösthälsa och fysisk hälsa. Totalt deltog 74 svenska operasångare. Sambandsanalyserna visade att arbetstrivsel inte förklaras av någon av studievariablerna. Ambivalens kring arbetsuppgifters färdigställande samvarierade bara med ambivalens kring arbetsresultatets kvalitet medan press och psykisk ohälsa samvarierade med alla studievariabler utom ambivalens kring arbetsuppgifters färdigställande. Resultaten avseende operasångare skiljer sig därmed från tidigare studier på andra yrkesgrupper vilket kan hänga samman med att sångare upplever andra faktorer som viktigare för sin trivsel och arbetsrelaterade hälsa.

In the spring of 1999 NASA will launch the scatterometer SeaWinds, beginning a 3 year mission to measure the ocean winds. SeaWinds is different from previous spaceborne scatterometers in that it employs a rotating pencil-beam antenna as opposed to fixed fan-beam antennas. The scanning beam provides greater coverage but causes the wind retrieval accuracy to vary across the swath. This thesis develops a filed-wise wind retrieval algorithm to improve the overall wind retrieval accuracy for use with SeaWinds data. In order to test the field-wise wind retrieval algorithm, methods for simulating wind fields are developed. A realistic approach interpolates the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) estimates to fill a SeaWinds swath using optimal interpolation along with linear wind filed models. The two stages of the field-wise wind retrieval algorithm are filed-wise estimation and field-wise ambiguity selection. Field-wise estimation is implemented using a 22 parameter Karhunen-Loeve (KL) wind field model in conjunction with a maximum likelihood objective function. An augmented multi-start global optimization is developed which uses information from the point-wise estimates to aid in a global search of the objective function. The local minima in the objective function are located using the augmented multi-start search techniques and are stored as field-wise ambiguities. The ambiguity selection algorithm uses a field-wise median filter to select the field-wise ambiguity closest to the true wind in each region. Point-wise nudging is used to further improve the filed-wise estimate using information from the point-wise estimates. Combined, these two techniques select a good estimate of the wind 95% of the time. The overall performance of the field-wise wind retrieval algorithm is compared with the performance of the current point-wise techniques. Field-wise estimation techniques are shown to be potentially better than point-wise techniques. The field-wise estimates are also shown to be very useful tools in point-wise ambiguity selection since 95.8%-96.6% of the point-wise estimates closest to the field-wise estimates are the correct aliases.

In this thesis, we investigate the formulation, optimization and ambiguities in single-image 3D surface reconstruction from geometric and photometric constraints. We examine linear, discrete and quadratic constraints for shape from planar curves, shape from texture, and shape from shading. The problem of recovering 3D shape from the projection of planar curves on a surface is strongly motivated by perception studies. Applications include single-view modeling and uncalibrated structured light. When the curves intersect, the problem leads to a linear system for which a direct least-squares method is sensitive to noise. We derive a more stable solution and show examples where the same method produces plausible surfaces from the projection of parallel (non-intersecting) planar cross sections. The problem of reconstructing a smooth surface under constraints that have discrete ambiguities arise in areas such as shape from texture, shape from shading, photometric stereo and shape from defocus. While the problem is computationally hard, heuristics based on semidefinite programming may reveal the shape of the surface. Finally, we examine the shape from shading problem without boundary conditions as a polynomial system. This formulation allows, in generic cases, a complete solution for ideal polyhedral objects. For the general case we propose a semidefinite programming relaxation procedure, and an exact line search iterative procedure with a new smoothness term that favors folds at edges. We use this numerical technique to inspect shading ambiguities.

In this thesis, a method of optimization of nonuniform pulse repetition interval for pulse Doppler radars is investigated. PRI jittering technique is used for the selection of inter-pulse intervals. An environment with white Gaussian noise and clutter interference is defined and applying generalized likelihood ratio test, a sufficient statistic function for the detection of the target is derived. The effect of jitter set selection on range and Doppler ambiguity resolution and clutter rejection is investigated. Jitter sets for Doppler ambiguity resolution are investigated by the minimization of the sufficient statistic function value at other estimated target velocities. Jitter sets for range ambiguity resolution are investigated by minimization of the number of ambigous hits at other estimated ranges. The clutter rejection properties of jitter sets are evaluated by defining a constraint function on zero velocity clutter rejection. The problems stated are solved using MATLAB with genetic algorithms. It is observed that there is a trade off between Doppler ambiguity resolution and clutter rejection properties of jitter sets. Low jitter values are needed for good clutter rejection. The performance of jitter sets are optimized according to range ambiguity resolution and clutter rejection properties by defining cost functions. It is observed that good range ambiguity resolution and clutter rejection can be achieved by an optimized PRI jittering technique. Finally, the effects of quantization of Doppler filter coefficients and target returns using improvement factor as the performance criterion are evaluated.