With the emergence of the internet as a new business channel and its impact on the overall role of today's customers, existing models for the measurement of perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty are worth revisiting. This is specifically important in light of the prominent progress of some of the new business concepts, particularly customer experience management, and the rising emphasis on customers' hedonic and emotional needs. This study attempts to bridge the gap in existing literature by examining the online customer experience in its entirety, attending within the study to both the utilitarian and hedonic needs of online customers and giving special attention to emerging aspects in the online environment, such as customer engagement in self-driven experiences. Therefore, the study includes a comprehensive review of a large body of knowledge, both in consumer behaviour and marketing literature as well as quality management literature, in addition to a scrutiny of 50 studies for different evaluation models in the online environment. This is in order to identify a list of attributes and factors that impact customer evaluations of online experiences. Upon the synthesis of the list of attributes and factors that impact customer evaluations of online experiences, an online blog was created as an environment for asynchronous focus groups. The online blog was beneficial in creating a deeper understanding of what online customers want and what impacts their experiences. Following, an online questionnaire was administered in two stages, once for measure purification purposes which received 90 pilot responses and once for mass data collection purposes which received 366 responses. As a result of this study, an integrated model for the measurement of online customer experience that emphasises the significance of the emotional component was proposed. The model consists of three components, each serve a specific measurement purpose. The XQual construct which consists of 7 attributes and 30 factors, is a performance measure of the experience in relation to specific aspects that address customers' utilitarian and hedonic needs. The satisfaction continuum consists of four factors and is an output measure for each experience or transaction with the online firm. The loyalty continuum consists of four factors and is an outcome measure that indicates customers' attitudinal commitment towards the online firm.

Food labels are imperative in consumers‟ decision-making process of packaged food products as they communicate important information such as expiry dates, nutrition information and information about allergies to the consumer. Especially during a first-time purchase, consumers rely on food labels to assist them in making their product choice easier. In the heterogeneous context of South Africa, consumers‟ product needs vary and one may assume that consumer needs in terms of food label information differ. Although food labelling is regulated in South Africa, it is still important that consumers are satisfied with labels due to their significant communicative function. However, to the knowledge of the author, little previous research exists on South African consumers‟ satisfaction with food labels. Therefore, this study aimed to explore and describe consumers‟ satisfaction with food labels based on a typical in-store encounter. The confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm had been used as theoretical foundation in this study and consumers‟ expectations and performance judgement of food labels were therefore explored and compared within the confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm. This study furthermore aimed to explore the influence of food labels on consumers‟ product choice as well as to determine the influence of demographic characteristics on consumers‟ expectations and performance judgement of food labels. Lastly, this study aimed to make recommendations to food regulators and manufacturers on how existing food labels could be improved in order to enhance consumer satisfaction. Based on the literature, satisfaction with food labels might be influenced by the information on food labels such as ingredient lists, expiry dates and nutrition information as well as attributes of food labels such as the readability, understandability, credibility and adequacy. Exploratory factor analysis used in the present study indicated that the information on food labels can be classified as either primary (ingredient list, expiry date, health and nutrition information, information about allergies and quality guarantee) or secondary (name of manufacturer, well-known logos or symbols, country of origin or geographical region, usage instructions and number of servings). A quantitative research method by means of a survey approach was used in this study over a period of three weeks. A total of 400 self-administered questionnaires were distributed at office buildings and business premises in the urban Gauteng Province in September 2010 by means of a non-probability sampling method. A total of 279 useful questionnaires were retrieved and data analysis was performed by Statistical Consultations Services of the North-West University using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). Results show that respondents were only partially satisfied with food labels as they were satisfied with secondary information, but dissatisfied with primary information as well as with label attributes. The results furthermore show that primary information tended to be more likely to influence respondents‟ product choice than secondary information. In addition, results show that demographics had little influence on respondents‟ expectations and performance judgement of food labels. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations can be made to regulators and manufacturers on how consumer satisfaction with existing food labels can be improved. Recommendations include the improvement of the overall readability, understandability, credibility as well as adequacy of food labels. Especially primary information and the way it gets portrayed should be considered for improvement to increase consumer satisfaction. / Thesis (M. Consumer Science)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011

This research has been focused on the characterisation and analysis of the deposits of large-scale mass movement events that shaped the North Sea Fan since the Mid-Pleistocene. Located at the mouth of the cross-shelf trough Norwegian Channel, the North Sea Fan is one of the largest through-mouth fans in the glaciated european margin with an area of approximately 142,000 km2. Submarine mass movement processed have occurred intermittenrly throughout the Quarternary history of the North Sea Fan, related to recurrent climate-related episodes of growth and retreat of the ice sheets. These processes can transport large amounts of sediment from the upper shelf up to the abyssal basins, playing an important role on the evolution of continental margins and can also reporesnet major geological hazards. This thesis uses mainly 3D seismic data to investigate the external geometry and internal structure of large-scale mass movement deposits. The high spatial resolution provided by the 3D seismic data has allowed a detailed geomorpholocial analysis of these deposits, This study involved the interpretation of the seismic data and the detailed pickling of key reflectors followed by tge extraction of both horizon and window-based seismic attributes. Digital elevation models of the key reflectors and their seismic attribute maps were then transferred to a geographical information system (GIS) where they were interactively interpreted using spatial analysis tools and the full visualisation potential of the software. The outcomes of this study highlight the importance of detailed horizon pickling and interactice interpretation followed by spatial analysis and visualisation in GIS environment. The identification of acoustic patterns within deposits that are normally described from 2D seismic as chaotic or acoustically transparent emphasizes the potential of detailed analysis of 3D seismic data. It gives an example of how this type of data can provide new insights into the mechanisms and processes associated with mass movements. In particular, amplitude and RMS amplitude maps provide remarkable detailed information of internal deformation structures whereas slope, shaded-relief and thickness maps allowed detailed characterisation of the external geometry. Various types of kinematic indicators can be recognized within the mass movement deposits through combined seismic analysis and detaield morphological mapping.

Magister en Ciencias Biológicas mención Ecología Facultad de Ciencias / Life-history attributes could be used to predict species responses to habitat fragmentation or sensitivity. We compared the incidence and sensitivity to fragmentation of four understory birds (Rhinocryptidae family). Rhinocryptids inhabit deciduous forests of Central Chile and our study was conduced in a landscape mosaic of pine (Pinus radiata) plantations and native forest fragments. Sensitivity was positively and strongly correlated with rhinocryptid incidence. Understory structure was the main factor that predicted rhinocryptid presence and abundance. The least sensitive species, Andean (Scytalopus magellanicus fuscus) and the Ochre-flanked Tapaculo (Eugralla paradoxa), were positively associated to dead pine branches and negatively to forest fragment size. Rhinocryptids reduced their abundance in mature forest, but they were willing to cross between different habitat types. However, one of the most sensitive species, Chestnut-throated Huet-Huet (Pteroptochos castaneus), did not move from forest fragments to pine with poor understory when we displayed playback trials. Overall, rhinocryptid species are affected by fragmentation depending of their life-history attributes. The less sensitive species profited from habitat and landscape transformations. We conclude that rhinocryptids could persist in this landscape, as changes in habitat conditions do not become deleterious, such as understory structure.

Intense competition in the food sector makes food-product design play a significant role in the consumers' choices. Product design includes a number of parameters among which the product's color is one of the factors that matters the most. Emotions are of high importance when choosing low-involvement products. The above assumptions indicate the purpose of this research that is to examine the meaning and correlation of associations between emotional attributes, colors and food-products, which the consumer subconctiously takes into consideration when choosing food-products. The theoretical framework for the research is based on a number of academic papers concerning emotional connections people have towards colors, as well as emotional connections when it comes to making a purchase. An experiment and a survey among 200 respondents have been carried out to investigate the phenomenon. The food product which became the survey objective was coffee and the studied colors were primary and secondary colors. The result clearly depicts there are associations between emotional attributes and various colors of food products, moreover, that one of the emotional attributes and one of the colors had a stronger interconnection than others. This leads to the conclusion that the associations between emotional attributes, colors and food products help consumers to make choices more effectively. Keywords: marketing, choice, associations, colors, emotions, emotial attributes, product design / En intensiv konkurrens inom livsmedelsbranschen bidrar till att livsmedelsprodukters design spelar en central roll vid konsumenters valsituationer. Produktdesign utmärks av ett antal parametrar var av produktens färg är en av de viktigaste. Vid transaktioner av lågengagemangsprodukter spelar känslor en avgörande roll för konsumentens beslut. Detta resonemang leder till denna studies syfte vilket söker att utreda vilken betydelse som associationer mellan känsloattribut, färger och livsmedel har för valsituationen av livsmedelsprodukter. Det teoretiska ramverket för studien är framtagen ur ett antal forskares artiklar som behandlar emotionella sammankopplingar som människor har med färger samt vid transaktioner av produkter. För att utreda fenomenet har ett experiment och en enkät genomförts ur ett urval med 200 respondenter. Undersökningsobjektet i form av livsmedel inom studien blev kaffe och de utvalda färgerna blev primär- och sekundärfärgerna. Resultatet för undersökningen påvisar att det finns vissa samband mellan känsloattributen för olika färger och livsmedlet kaffe och det betraktades att det finns indikatorer som visade på att ett känsloattribut och en färg hade en särskilt stark sammankoppling. Detta mynnar ut i slutsatsen för undersökningen vilket är att betydelsen för associationer mellan livsmedel, färger och känsloattribut vid konsumenters valsituationer är att de hjälper till att effektivisera för konsumenterna att genomföra dessa val. Nyckelord: marknadsföring, valsituation, val, associationer, färger, känslor, känsloattribut, produktdesign

The purpose of this diploma thesis is to apply complex seismic attributes on 3D seismic data from Mistelbach block area and trying to figure out whether they are useful by seismic interpretation process. The geology of Vienna basin and the characteristics of Complex seismic attributes will be discussed. The thesis also includes analysis of the Lednice 11 gas reservoir and a new potential hydrocarbon reservoir identification, both using complex seismic attributes.

Title: A study of applying copulas in data mining Author: Martin Ščavnický Department: Department of Theoretical Computer Science and Mathe- matical Logic Supervisor: RNDr. Ing. Martin Holeňa CSc., Department of Theoretical Computer Science and Mathematical Logic Abstract: Copulas are functions that describe the relationship between a multivariate distribution function and its marginals. They provide a way to model multivariate distribution functions, and are extensively used in finance and studied in data mining. In practice, there are many different copula families and no standard way for choosing the right one. In our work, we compare suitability of different copula families in data mining. We fit classification data using 8 copula families and compare them using 3 mea- sures of fit. We also use a classification algorithm based on copulas and compare its accuracy for different copula families. The results indicate that elliptical copulas fit our data better, but hierarchical Archimedean copulas give comparable accuracy in the classification. We also propose and test a modified method for modelling data using hierarchical Archimedean copu- las, which fits some datasets with negative dependence between attributes better. Based on this modified method, we propose a visualization of depen- dence in data and observe...

La donnée sismique depuis sa conception (modélisation d’acquisitions sismiques), dans sa phase de traitement (prétraitement et migration) et jusqu’à son exploitation pour en extraire les informations géologiques pertinentes nécessaires à l’identification et l’exploitation optimale des réservoirs d’hydrocarbures (interprétation), génère un volume important de calculs. Nous montrons dans ce travail de thèse qu’à chacune de ces étapes l’utilisation de technologies accélératrices de type GPGPU permet de réduire radicalement les temps de calcul tout en restant dans une enveloppe de consommation électrique raisonnable. Nous présentons et analysons les éléments sous-jacents à ces performances. L’importance de l’utilisation de motifs d’accès mémoire adéquats est particulièrement mise en exergue étant donné que l’accès à la mémoire représente le principal goulot d’étranglement pour les algorithmes abordés. Nous reportons des facteurs d’accélération de l’ordre de 40 pour la modélisation sismique par résolution de l’équation d’onde par différences finies (brique de base pour la modélisation et l’imagerie sismique) et entre 8 et 113 pour le calcul d’attributs sismiques. Nous démontrons que l’utilisation d’accélérateurs matériels élargit considérablement le champ du possible, aussi bien en imagerie sismique (modélisation de nouveaux types d’acquisitions à grande échelle) qu’en interprétation (calcul d’attributs complexes sur station de travail, paramétrage interactif des calculs, etc.). / During the seismic imaging workflow, from seismic modeling to interpretation, processingseismic data requires a massive amount of computation. We show in this work that, at eachstage of this workflow, hardware accelerators such as GPUs may help reducing the time requiredto process seismic data while staying at reasonable energy consumption levels.In this work, the key programming considerations needed to achieve good performance are describedand discussed. The importance of adapted in-memory data access patterns is particularlyemphasised since data access is the main bottleneck for the considered algorithms. When usingGPUs, speedup ratios of 40× are achieved for FDTD seismic modeling, and 8× up to 113× forseismic attribute computation compared to CPUs.

The purpose of this study is to examine and understand social workers view on the relationship between children and social workers within Individual and Family care in Sweden, and how personnel turnover affects relationship-building with children.   Method: This study is based on a qualitative method, with semi-structured interviews as an approach to gather empirical data. The participants in the study are seven social workers from five different municipalities in Sweden, who work with placed children.   Theory: Our theoretical framework is the attachment theory and the accounts theory. This approach has helped us analyze the result and highlight the importance of essential attributes for a good relationship between social worker and child.   Result: The study is characterized by two different themes, Professional relationship-building and The organization of social work. Our results show that the attributes trustful, confiding, straight, predictable and respectful are essential for a good relationship. Further results indicate that continuity is of importance to build and preserve a healthy relationship. The study also shows that variety in the work force have negative impact on the relationship between social workers and placed children.

Master of Science / Department of Geology / Abdelmoneam Raef / Amid increasing interest in geological sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2), detailed rock formation characterization has emerged as priority to ensure successful sequestration. Utilizing recent advances in the field of 3D seismic attributes analysis, offers improved opportunities to provide more details when characterizing reservoir formations. In this study, several post-stack seismic attributes integrated with seismic modeling for highlighting critical structural elements and petrophysical facies variation of rock formations at Wellington and Anson-Bates fields, Sumner County, Kansas. A newly acquired 3D Seismic data set and several geophysical well logs are also used to achieve the objectives of this study. Results sought in this study are potentially important for understanding pathways for CO2 to migrate along. Seismic amplitude, coherency, and most negative curvature attributes were used to characterize the subsurface for structural effects on the rock formations of interest. These attributes detect multiple anomaly features that can be interpreted as small throw faults. However, in this study, there is a larger anomalous feature associated with the Mississippian formation that can be interpreted as a small throw fault or incised channel sand. Determining which of the two is very important for flow simulation models to be more exact. Modeling of the seismic was undertaken to help in the interpretation of the Mississippian amplitude anomaly. An artificial neural network, based on well log porosity cross-plots and three seismic attributes, was trained and implemented to yield a seismic petrophysical facies map. The neural network was trained using three volume seismic waveform attributes along with three wells with difference in well log porosity. A reworked lithofacies along small throw faults has been revealed based on comparing the seismic structural attributes and the seismic petrophysical facies. Arbuckle formation characterization was successful to a certain degree. Structural attributes showed multiple faults in the northern half of the survey. These faults are in agreement with known structure in the area associated with the Nemaha uplift. Further characterization of the Arbuckle was hindered by the lack of well data. This study emphasizes the need for greater attention to small-scale features when embarking upon characterization of a reservoir for CO2 based geosequestration.