Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership (California State University, Fresno and University of California, Davis). / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the World Wide Web. (Restricted to UC campuses).

Semiconductor manufacturing is complex. Companies strive to lead in the markets by delivering timely chips which are bug (a.k.a defect) free and have very low power consumption. The new research drives new features in chips. The case study research reported here is about the usability and productivity of the silicon debug software tools. Silicon debug software tools are a set of software used to find bugs before delivering chips to the customer. The study has an objective to improve usability and productivity of the tools, by introducing metrics. The results of the measurements drive a concrete plan of action. The GQM (Goal, Questions, Metrics) methodology was used to define and gather data for the measurements. The project was developed in two parts or phases. We took the measurements using the method over the two phases of the tool development. The findings from phase one improved the tool usability in the second phase. The lesson learnt is that tool usability is a complex measurement. Improving usability means that the user will use less of the tool help button; the user will have less downtime and will not input incorrect data. Even though for this study the focus was on three important tools, the same usability metrics can be applied to the remaining five tools. For defining productivity metrics, we also used the GQM methodology. A productivity measurement using historic data was done to establish a baseline. The baseline measurements identified some existing bottlenecks in the overall silicon debug process. We link productivity to time it takes for a debug tool user to complete the assigned task(s). The total time taken for using all the tools does not give us any actionable items for improving productivity. We will need to measure the time it takes for use of each tool in the debug process to give us actionable items. This is identified as future work. To improve usability we recommend making tools that are more robust to error handling and having good help features. To improve productivity we recommend getting data on where the user is spending most of the debug time. Then, we can focus on improving that time-consuming part of debug to make the users more productive. / text

This dissertation consists of three chapters. Chapter one estimates the capital adjustment costs at the plant level in a model entry and exit. We find that the estimated variance of plant-specific productivity shock is larger than obtained from balanced panel estimation. Estimation using the unbalanced panel generates a larger irreversibility cost, a smaller disruption cost, and a smaller convex cost, all compared with the estimates by Cooper and Haltiwanger (2006). In chapter two, we study how much of the aggregate productivity changes can be accounted for by the capital reallocation. We also study the impact of capital reallocation on the productivity dispersion across firms. We find that the capital reallocations accounts for roughly 12 percent of the labor productivity and capital productivity are reduced as the reallocation activity increases. When the economy-wide technology has a positive change, the reallocation increases temporarily then drops to its original level. After a short transition, the economy settles down with an increased labor productivity. Chapter three further studies the quantitative role of allocation, entry and exit in the growth of aggregate productivity. We find that, without including in the model the forces that drive the entry and exit changes, the model economy has a modest increase in the aggregate productivity as a result of decrease in the fixed reallocation cost.

The first chapter studies the effects of financial obstacles to productivity improvement in the context of trade reforms, by constructing a dynamic heterogeneous firms model with financial frictions. Trade reforms are considered beneficial because they confront the liberalized country’s firms with more competition from abroad and increase their incentives to become more efficient. This implies that if poor countries do not improve their productivities they might lose the intended gains from liberalization. Financial frictions however have been quoted an important obstacle for firms to improve their productivities. To address these issues, first, using data on 15 trade liberalization episodes, I document that more financially developed countries experienced more productivity growth after their trade liberalization. Second, I construct a dynamic heterogeneous firms model with financial frictions in financing costs for productivity improvement. Calibrated numerical exercises show that if a country does not improve its financial intermediaries at the outset of trade liberalization it may lose as much as %40 of potential output gains and productivity improvements. The result has policy implications regarding the simultaneous reforms in trade and financial intermediaries. The Second chapter is a cross country empirical analysis aiming to provide evidence for the effects of trade openness and financial development on firms decision to upgrade their technology and the impact on the distribution of firm size across countries. The idea is that reduction of trade barriers is likely to affect incentives of bigger firms to grow to export markets as well as incentives of smaller firms to innovate due to increased competition. Financial frictions, however are likely to limit the scope of these decisions and more so for smaller firms and capital intensive industries. This is likely to have heterogeneous effects on firms leading to changes in firm size distribution. I hypothesize that a combination of trade openness and low financial development increases the relative size of big to smaller firms. To test this hypothesis, I take advantage of cross country/industry differences in trade protection and financial development/needs to provide enough variation for identifying these effects. Using establishment level data from OECD countries, I provide evidence for this hypothesis, by performing double difference estimations. In addition using firm level data on 20,000 firms from World Bank’s enterprise survey, I provide more evidence that trade openness promotes productivity growth particularly for bigger firms in less financially developed countries. The finding contributes to the literature on importance of finance for firm growth by focusing on the channel of heightened competition due to trade. It highlights the importance of incorporating financial aspects of a country in trade analysis. The third chapter is an exercise exploring the welfare gains of trade in a North-South trade where counties are asymmetric in their ability to produce more sophisticated goods. The exercise is based on the model by Matsuyama (JPE 2000), where the world is a static Ricardian model with a continuum of goods and unit demand non-homothetic preferences. One country (the south) has comparative advantage in production of goods with lower income elasticity of demand. As a result, over time with uniform global improvement in technology in the form of smaller unit labor requirements, the terms of trade moves against south. The numerical exercise, calibrates stochastic interpretation of the model to for a specific choice of countries and provides evidence that over time, if the patterns of specializations are not changed drastically, the country specialized in production of less sophisticated goods disproportionately grows less than the other one and has the terms of trade moving against it. / text

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published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

The motivation for this study was to increase the knowledge of foodservice personnel in mass food production in the foodservice area in which they work and by doing so, increasing their productivity. Training is often used to improve productivity and is seen as the answer to many productivity problems. Training and productivity improvement go hand in hand. Little research has been done on training and productivity in mass food production. The main objective of this study was to investigate the impact of training on the productivity of workers in mass food production by means of questionnaires. Firstly, the training needs of the workers were investigated. Secondly, training was given as needed and thirdly, follow-up questionnaires were completed to determine the impact of training. The training needs of the target group were firstly determined by means of questionnaires. The training material was then compiled from information obtained in the questionnaires. Training was given in the form of a lecture. Follow-up questionnaires were completed two and four months after training. The practical significance of the training was determined by comparing the answers of the sets of questionnaires with each other. Results: The workers' knowledge increased by 55% (supervisors), 33% (cleaners), 20% (foodservice aids) and 6.25% (cooks) after having received training. These results show that training will only be of practical significance to the supervisors when it is presented in the same circumstances as in the study. Conclusions: Training, with productivity improvement in mind, must be presented in an effective and meaningful manner to have a significant impact on the knowledge of foodservice workers. The environment, type of worker, management's involvement as well as the type of training, motivation of the worker, correct training material and whether the training will make a difference, must be taken into consideration when planning training for foodservice workers. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Dietetics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

Bandymai buvo atlikti 2007-2008 m. Lietuvos žemės ūkio universiteto Bandymų stotyje. LŽŪU Bandymų stoties dirvožemis IDg8-k (LVg-p-w-cc) – karbonatingas sekliai glėjiškas išplautžemis (Calc(ar)i-Epihypogleyic Luvisols). Tyrimo objektas – kukurūzų veislė BAXXAO. Tyrimų variantai: 1. Kontrolė (netręšta); 2. Tikslinis trąšų mišinys – tręšimo norma N204P120 K208; 3. Standartinis mišinys NPK 17-17-17 – tręšimo norma N208P208K208; 4. Standartinis mišinys NPK 18-12-20 – tręšimo norma N187 P125K208; 5. Kompleksinės trąšos NPK 11-9-20+Mg+S+B – tręšimo norma – N229P94K208; 6. Kompleksinės trąšos NPK 17-10-14+S+Zn – tręšimo norma – N252P149K208. Didžiausias kukurūzų biomasės derlius – 18,49 t ha-1 – gautas tręšiant tiksliniu trąšų mišiniu , o mažiausias biomasės derlius – 17 t ha-1, tręšiant standartiniu trąšų mišiniu NPK 17-17-17. Didžiausias kukurūzų grūdų derlius – 8,81 t ha-1 – gautas tręšiant tiksliniu trąšų mišiniu N204P120K208, o mažiausi – 7,86 t ha-1 , tręšiant standartiniais trąšų mišiniu NPK 17-17-17. Kompleksinės trąšos vienoje granulėje nebuvo efektyvesnės už analoginės sudėties vienanarių trąšų mišinius. Atskirų trąšų formų efektyvumo skirtumai buvo gauti tik dėl nevienodo šių trąšų praturtinimo mikroelementais. / Researches, whose purpose were investigate fertilizes mixtures and complex fertilizes influence in corn harvest productivity, trials were carried out in 2007 – 2008 in Lithuanian University of Agriculture. Trial field soil: IDg8-k (LVg-p-w-cc) – carbonate shallow glacious soils. The biggest corns biomass were 18.49 t ha-1 – received when were fertilized with objective fertilizes mixture and the less harvest – 17 t ha-1 – fertilized with standart fertilizes mixture NPK 17-17-17. The biggest corns grains harvest – 8.81 t ha-1 – fertilized with objective fertilizes mixtureN204P120K208, the less – 7.86 t ha-1, when fertilized with standart fertilizes mixture NPK 17-17-17. Complex fertilizes in one granule were not so effective as analogue composition monomial fertilizes mixture.

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