The aim of this study was to investigate a productivity measurement at the South African Minting Company and evaluate the relationship between productivity and quality. Special emphasis was given to profit-linked total factor model as the tool for measurement. This was encouraged by their ability to separate productivity, profitability and price recovery. Three models were selected and evaluated. These models American Productivity Center (APC) Model, “Profitability = productivity + price recovery” (PPP) model and multi-factor productivity measurement model (MFPMM). APC model was selected as the suitable model because of its simplicity, easy to set up, its ability to produce both financial and non financial data, and allow for route cause analysis with expert system, and more insight for the manager with Microsoft Excels’ What if analysis “Goal seek”. APC model was set up for four periods, from 1 April 2004 to 30 September 2007. The overall profitability results of the circulation coins profit center show an overall positive contribution. There was a break-even of the price recovery for 2006 financial year (period 2). In 2007 financial year (period 3), there was a negative contribution, and this improved to almost break-even in the six month period during this 2008 financial year (period 4). This means there was much more inflation on input resources and the recovery was not fully realised in the price of goods sold. Individual input costs show that the negative price recovery is culminating from material, labour and energy costs contributions. There is a plausible explanation for material and labour, but not for energy. The metal volatility is the underlying cause of the price variation. Labour variation was a company strategy to adjust employee to higher percentiles. Productivity was always positive with the highest contribution in the current financial year (period 4). This means that the profitability at SA Mint has been driven by productivity in the past two financial years. iv Survey of the questionnaire shows average scores for productivity and quality. It is noteworthy, that the lowest mean score for productivity is for the statement “Products are produced in error-free process”. This is a productivity quality measure. In addition, the same variable shows r2 value of 0.42. A conclusion is that even though productivity and quality are highly correlated and show a highly positive relationship, there is a concern on quality in the company. A link can be made that low price recovery becomes more difficult when the quality is not always good. Defective product is a cost, because the product does not reach the customer and if the product is reworked it is still a cost, though low, but more importantly it decreases the available capacity. This study was successful in setting up APC model and producing data that is worthy to the company and academic world. Finally, this study was successful in its quest to establish the relationship between productivity and quality.

El objetivo general del presente trabajo de título es propone y evaluar una metodología de mantenibilidad de un control avanzado, con el objeto de mejorar la confiabilidad y disponibilidad del sistema de control avanzado; se espera con esto que la empresa pueda obtener mayores ganancias y reducir costos de mantención y soporte del sistema.

The two main theories of religious change are the secularization paradigm and the economic model of religion. The secularization paradigm’s main premise is that modernization weakens the power and authority of the church as an institution and reduces the importance of religion in the daily lives of the population. This paradigm applies well to Europe, but the United States acts as a powerful counter-example. Since the 1940s, religious attendance in the United States has remained generally stable, with approximately 40% of the population claiming to attend religious services, mostly in Christian churches, at least once a week. American sociologists explain this relative vitality with reference to an open and competitive religious marketplace, claiming that the innate desire for spirituality is met by the sheer diversity of religious groups in the United States. This economic model of religion applies poorly to the European situation. This thesis examines these apparent contradictions by considering the similarities and differences between the dynamics of religious change in five western countries since the 1970s or 1980s; the countries are Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. The key question is which combination of dynamics is responsible for religious change in western countries. The effects of migration and fertility aside, all population change must be related to some combination of age, period or cohort effects; age effects are those that occur as people age, period effects are those that affect the whole population regardless of age, and cohort effects are often attributed to circumstances or events during youth. These different dynamics of religious change would each indicate different sources of religious change at the individual level, which may lend support to one theory of religious change over another. I show that there is overwhelming evidence that most religious change in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada is due to differences between generations in the time periods observed with some slight downward period effects. The main drivers of change in the United States are either downward cohort with upward period effects, upward age effects, or a combination of these three effects. I conclude that the changing conditions of socialization in youth, both formal and informal, related to modernization and cultural shifts can explain the dynamics in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Similar effects in the United States may be counteracted by the high social desirability of religion in that country by contrast with the other countries and the ability of particularly conservative Protestants in the United States to isolate themselves from views that conflict with their own; these groups are aided in this by numerical strength and by the ability to socialize, work and view media all of which enhance their religious worldview.

This effort deals with the problem of effective counting of people in the room. Although more companies deal with this problem at present, but their systems are very expensive. For this reason I strive to find a cheaper solution for counting people using active infra- red sensors by which I want to perceive the passage of a person through the door or his presence in the room. In addition it is necessary to take into consideration the other various situations that may occur when a person comes into the room or when he/she leaves. These situations can be in many cases similar, but the output should be able correctly distinguish the possibilites. The result of this effort is detector which is able to detect correctly one person or more people passing the door. People can browse through a door one behind the other, but they also can pass in the doorway in random combinations.

This Master thesis deals with designing and realization of optimalization software in ActionScript 3.0 background. The designed applications realized in terms of computation by standalone and distributed variant and by means of chosen heuristic method called HC12. For verification of a function and performance was select set of testing examples. The main purpose of the work was create public clients in the network internet and calculated partial computing by it. The completed clients are selected by competence and carry on tasks. This research has been supported by the Czech Ministry of Education in the frame of MSM 0021630529 Research Intention Intelligent Systems in Automation.

Germ-free animals have been used to study the effects of microbiota for several decades. In that time, numbers of differences from specific-pathogen-free (SPF) animals have been reported, including differences in absolute numbers or percentages of various immune populations, enormously enlarged coecum and lack of germinal centers. However, many of the crucial information about structural and functional differences in their secondary lymphoid organs still remains uncovered. With novel microscopical approaches, such as light sheet fluorescent microscopy, enabling 3D visualization of whole samples without processing them to a series of slides, and multicolor cytometry, allowing the characterization of numbers of cellular populations within a matter of seconds and in a highly quantitative manner, the uncovering of fundamental differences finally seems to be within reach. MHC II-EGFP knock-in mouse model brings the advantages of a fluorescent protein expressed in physiological histological contexts into both fields. Lymphoid and other tissues can be visualized microscopically without the need of staining (even in vivo). Information about the expression of both plasma membrane-localized and intracellular MHC II in various tissues could be acquired directly. Combining MHC II-EGFP knock-in mouse model with...

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(生命科学) / 甲第17801号 / 生博第289号 / 新制||生||37(附属図書館) / 30608 / 京都大学大学院生命科学研究科統合生命科学専攻 / (主査)教授 松本 智裕, 教授 石川 冬木, 教授 西田 栄介 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy in Life Sciences / Kyoto University / DFAM

No description available.

No description available.

La méiose est la division cellulaire qui aboutit à la production de gamètes haploïdes. Lors de la méiose, un unique évènement de réplication est suivi de deux divisions afin de réduire la ploïdie. Lors de ces deux divisions, la cohésion entre chromatides sœurs est éliminée de façon séquentielle pour permettre la succession de deux ségrégations de chromosomes équilibrées. La progression du ‘’cycle méiotique’’ est contrôlée par des régulateurs communs à la mitose et à la méiose mais également par des mécanismes nécessitant des protéines spécifiques à la méiose. L’objectif de de mon travail de thèse était de décrypter les mécanismes moléculaires permettant l’enchainement de deux divisions équilibrées pour la production de gamètes haploïdes. Nous avons pu montrer que la protéine OSD1 inhibait l’APC/C pour permettre la progression méiotique. Nous avons également mis en évidence un réseau fonctionnel, comprenant OSD1, CYCA1;2/TAM et TDM, indispensable à trois étapes clés de la progression méiotique chez Arabidopsis ; la transition prophase-méiose I, la transition méiose I-méiose II et la sortie de méiose. Ces travaux ont également permis de caractériser chez Arabidopsis les deux paralogues de Shugoshin, qui sont des protéines conservées et impliquées dans la protection de la cohésion centromérique. Nous avons également identifié Patronus comme un nouveau protecteur de la cohésion centromérique en méiose. Les résultats obtenus suggèrent que Patronus est un régulateur de l’APC/C qui permet d’empêcher l’élimination de la cohésion centromérique en interkinèse méiotique. / Meiosis is a specialized type of cell division that generates haploid gametes. At meiosis, two divisions follow a single DNA replication event leading to ploidy halving. A stepwise sister chromatids cohesion release also occurs to allow the two successive balanced rounds of chromosome segregation. In addition to general cell-cycle regulators, meiosis requires specific proteins. The aim of this thesis was to understand the molecular mechanisms leading to two successive balanced chromosome segregations. We show that OSD1 promotes meiotic progression through APC/C inhibition and we identified a functional network between OSD1, CYCA1;2/TAM and TDM in Arabidopsis. This functional network controls three key steps of meiotic progression; the prophase-meiosis I transition, the meiosis I-meiosis II transition and the meiosis exit. In addition, we characterized the two Arabidopsis thaliana Shugoshin paralogs, which are conserved proteins involved in sister chromatid cohesion protection. We also identified Patronus, an uncharacterized protein, as a novel protector of meiotic centromeric cohesion. We suggest that Patronus is a novel APC/C regulator that prevents cohesins release during meiotic interkinesis. This work identified two APC/C regulators essential for meiosis in Arabidopsis thaliana.