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Highly deteriorated U.S. road infrastructure, major budgetary restrictions and the significant growth in traffic have led to an emerging need for improving efficiency and effectiveness of highway maintenance practices that preserve the road infrastructure so as to better support society's needs. Effectiveness and efficiency are relative terms in which the performance of a production unit or decision making unit (DMU) is compared with a benchmark (best practice). Constructing the benchmark requires making a choice between an "estimation approach" based on observed best practices (i.e., using data from input and output variables corresponding to observed production units (DMUs) to estimate the benchmark with no elaboration on the details of the production process inside the black box) or an "engineering approach" to find the superior blueprint (i.e., focusing on the transformation process inside the black box for a better understanding of the sources of inefficiencies). This research discusses: (i) the application of the estimation approach (non-parametric approach) for evaluating and comparing the performance of different highway maintenance contracting strategies (performance-based contracting versus traditional contracting) and proposes a five-stage meta-frontier and bootstrapping analytical approach to account for the heterogeneity in the DMUs, the resulting bias in the estimated efficiency scores, and the effect of uncontrollable variables; (ii) the application of the engineering approach by developing a dynamic micro-level simulation model for the highway deterioration and renewal processes and its coupling with calibration and optimization to find optimum maintenance policies that can be used as a benchmark for evaluating performance of road authorities. This research also recognizes and discusses the fact that utilization of the maintenance budget and treatments that are performed in a road section in a specific year directly affect the road condition and required maintenance operations in consecutive years. Given this dynamic nature of highway maintenance operations, any "static" efficiency measurement framework that ignores the inter-temporal effects of inputs and managerial decisions in future streams of outputs (i.e., future road conditions) is likely to be inaccurate. This research discusses the importance of developing a dynamic performance measurement framework that takes into account the time interdependence between the input utilization and output realization of a road authority in consecutive periods. Finally, this research provides an overview of the most relevant studies in the literature with respect to evaluating dynamic performance and proposes a classification taxonomy for dynamic performance measurement frameworks according to five issues. These issues account for major sources of the inter-temporal dependence between input and output levels over different time periods and include the following: (i) material and information delays; (ii) inventories; (iii) capital or generally quasi-fixed factors and the related topic of embodied technological change; (iv) adjustment costs; and (v) incremental improvement and learning models (disembodied technological change). In the long-term, this line of research could contribute to a more efficient use of societal resources, greater level of maintenance services, and a highway and roadway system that is not only safe and reliable, but also efficient. / Ph. D.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva hur styrkan i småföretags sociala och professionella nätverk påverkar valet av finansiell bootsrapping, med företagarens ursprung som betingad faktor. Målet med studien är att introducera och ge en generell översikt över orsakssambandet mellan de berörda koncepten. En undersökning genomfördes bland småföretag i Sverige för att identifiera det sociala och professionella nätverkets påverkan på finansiell bootstraping. I undersökningen antogs företagarens ursprung ha en modererande roll. Dessutom ingick en rad kontrollvariabler för att undersöka deras effekt på orsakssambandet. Sålunda ger det en djupare insikt om vilka underliggande individuella och organisatoriska attribut som påverkar företagares val av finansiell bootstrapping. En utökad kunskap för fenomenet finansiell bootstrapping kan ses som ett konkurrenskraftigt hjälpmedel vid egenföretagande. Framförallt blir det påtagligt för småföretagare som stöter på hinder i anskaffningen av externt finansiellt kapital. Denna uppsats baserades på 136 frågeformulär som returneras från småföretagare som är etablerade på den svenska marknaden. Medan resultatet bekräftar vikten av finansiell bootstrapping för småföretag, identifieras ursprungsskillnader i användningen av olika finansiella bootstrappingmetoder. Dessutom identifieras variationer i invandrare och inföddas användning av sociala och professionella nätverk. Vidare upptäcker vi att styrkan i småföretags nätverk har en positiv påverkan på finansiell bootstrapping. Däremot när ursprung antas ha en modererande effekt ges blandade resultat. Sålunda indikerar resultatet på att det finns vissa likheter i invandrare och infödda företagares finansieringsbeteende

The intense economic growth that Brazil has experienced in recent decades and its consequent explosive motorization process have resulted in an undesirable impact: the continuously increasing trend in traffic fatality numbers. This study presents a research on indicators and indexes with the objective of delivering both overall and disaggregated evidence about the road safety performance and targets in fatality reduction in Brazil at the state level taking the exposure into account. The intention is to support road safety strategic analysis in the country and to contribute to improve this critical scene. The methodological structure of this thesis consists of the following three main parts: (I) diagnosing the road safety situation at the state level using final outcome related information, in particular traffic fatality risk data; (II) setting a target number of traffic fatalities based on the relationship between the exposure level and the number of traffic fatalities in each state; and (III) suggesting domains for improvements based on the research of safety performance indicators representing three domains (road user, environment and vehicle) throughout the states. From a benchmarking point of view, we divided the Brazilian states into three separate clusters in order to provide more realistic state performance comparisons. After a data collection and indicators selection step, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was the method used for executing the different steps, with the application of four different types of models specially developed for the identified research purposes. In addition, by means of bootstrapping the DEA scores we measured the sensitivity of the results to possible variations in the input data, for example concerning data quality and availability. As a result, we provided a road safety diagnosis per state as well as traffic fatality targets according to different perspectives: the entire group of road users (motorized and nonmotorized ones), motor vehicle occupants, and finally a disaggregated performance evaluation by running four separate DEA models (for motorcycle, car, truck and bus). Moreover, the SPI research including a hierarchy of 27 safety performance indicators expressed the states relative performance on the main road safety domains. Lastly, state profiles compiling all this information summarized the \"per state\" findings. / O intenso crescimento econômico que o Brasil tem experimentado nas últimas décadas e seu consequente explosivo processo de motorização resultaram em um impacto indesejado: a tendência contínua do aumento do número de mortes no trânsito. Este estudo apresenta uma pesquisa acerca de índices e indicadores com o objetivo de fornecer evidências gerais e desagregadas sobre o desempenho da segurança viária e metas de redução no número de mortes no Brasil no âmbito estadual, levando a exposição em consideração. A intenção é embasar uma análise estratégica da segurança viária no país e contribuir para melhorar este cenário crítico. A estrutura metodológica desta tese consiste das seguintes três partes principais: (I) diagnóstico da situação da segurança viária no nível estadual utilizando informações relacionadas ao resultado final, em particular dados de risco de morte no trânsito; (II) estabelecer uma meta para o número de mortes no trânsito para cada estado; e (III) sugerir domínios para melhorias baseado em pesquisa de indicadores de desempenho da segurança viária voltada a três domínios (usuário da via, ambiente e veículo). Sob a ótica do benchmarking, dividiram-se os estados brasileiros em três clusters para proporcionar comparações mais realistas dos desempenhos estaduais. Após uma etapa de coleta e seleção de indicadores, utilizou-se o método de Data Envelopment Analyis (DEA) para executar as diferentes etapas, com a aplicação de quatro tipos distintos de modelos especialmente desenvolvidos para os propósitos da pesquisa. Além disso, por meio de bootstrapping dos escores obtidos com a DEA, mediu-se a sensibilidade dos resultados a possíveis variações nos dados de entrada, no que diz respeito a, por exemplo, qualidade e disponibilidade dos dados. Como resultado, propicia-se, a partir de diferentes perspectivas, um diagnóstico da segurança viária por estado, assim como metas no número de mortes: para todo o grupo de usuários (motorizados e não-motorizados), ocupantes de veículos motorizados, e finalmente uma avaliação desagregada por meio de quatro modelos separados (para motocicletas, automóveis, caminhões e ônibus). Adicionalmente, a pesquisa de indicadores de desempenho da segurança considerando a hierarquia de 27 indicadores expressou os desempenhos relativos dos estados nos principais domínios da segurança viária. Por fim, perfis estaduais compilando todas estas informações resumem os resultados para os estados.

The intense economic growth that Brazil has experienced in recent decades and its consequent explosive motorization process have resulted in an undesirable impact: the continuously increasing trend in traffic fatality numbers. This study presents a research on indicators and indexes with the objective of delivering both overall and disaggregated evidence about the road safety performance and targets in fatality reduction in Brazil at the state level taking the exposure into account. The intention is to support road safety strategic analysis in the country and to contribute to improve this critical scene. The methodological structure of this thesis consists of the following three main parts: (I) diagnosing the road safety situation at the state level using final outcome related information, in particular traffic fatality risk data; (II) setting a target number of traffic fatalities based on the relationship between the exposure level and the number of traffic fatalities in each state; and (III) suggesting domains for improvements based on the research of safety performance indicators representing three domains (road user, environment and vehicle) throughout the states. From a benchmarking point of view, we divided the Brazilian states into three separate clusters in order to provide more realistic state performance comparisons. After a data collection and indicators selection step, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was the method used for executing the different steps, with the application of four different types of models specially developed for the identified research purposes. In addition, by means of bootstrapping the DEA scores we measured the sensitivity of the results to possible variations in the input data, for example concerning data quality and availability. As a result, we provided a road safety diagnosis per state as well as traffic fatality targets according to different perspectives: the entire group of road users (motorized and nonmotorized ones), motor vehicle occupants, and finally a disaggregated performance evaluation by running four separate DEA models (for motorcycle, car, truck and bus). Moreover, the SPI research including a hierarchy of 27 safety performance indicators expressed the states relative performance on the main road safety domains. Lastly, state profiles compiling all this information summarized the \"per state\" findings. / O intenso crescimento econômico que o Brasil tem experimentado nas últimas décadas e seu consequente explosivo processo de motorização resultaram em um impacto indesejado: a tendência contínua do aumento do número de mortes no trânsito. Este estudo apresenta uma pesquisa acerca de índices e indicadores com o objetivo de fornecer evidências gerais e desagregadas sobre o desempenho da segurança viária e metas de redução no número de mortes no Brasil no âmbito estadual, levando a exposição em consideração. A intenção é embasar uma análise estratégica da segurança viária no país e contribuir para melhorar este cenário crítico. A estrutura metodológica desta tese consiste das seguintes três partes principais: (I) diagnóstico da situação da segurança viária no nível estadual utilizando informações relacionadas ao resultado final, em particular dados de risco de morte no trânsito; (II) estabelecer uma meta para o número de mortes no trânsito para cada estado; e (III) sugerir domínios para melhorias baseado em pesquisa de indicadores de desempenho da segurança viária voltada a três domínios (usuário da via, ambiente e veículo). Sob a ótica do benchmarking, dividiram-se os estados brasileiros em três clusters para proporcionar comparações mais realistas dos desempenhos estaduais. Após uma etapa de coleta e seleção de indicadores, utilizou-se o método de Data Envelopment Analyis (DEA) para executar as diferentes etapas, com a aplicação de quatro tipos distintos de modelos especialmente desenvolvidos para os propósitos da pesquisa. Além disso, por meio de bootstrapping dos escores obtidos com a DEA, mediu-se a sensibilidade dos resultados a possíveis variações nos dados de entrada, no que diz respeito a, por exemplo, qualidade e disponibilidade dos dados. Como resultado, propicia-se, a partir de diferentes perspectivas, um diagnóstico da segurança viária por estado, assim como metas no número de mortes: para todo o grupo de usuários (motorizados e não-motorizados), ocupantes de veículos motorizados, e finalmente uma avaliação desagregada por meio de quatro modelos separados (para motocicletas, automóveis, caminhões e ônibus). Adicionalmente, a pesquisa de indicadores de desempenho da segurança considerando a hierarquia de 27 indicadores expressou os desempenhos relativos dos estados nos principais domínios da segurança viária. Por fim, perfis estaduais compilando todas estas informações resumem os resultados para os estados.

Introduction: Exploring the brain for optimal locations for deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy is a challenging task, which can be facilitated by analysis of DBS efficacy in a large number of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) scores indicate the DBS efficacy of the corresponding stimulation location in a particular patient. The spatial distribution of these clinical scores can be used to construct a functional model which closely models the expected efficacy of stimulation in the region. Designs and Methods: In this study, different interpolation techniques were investigated that can appropriately model the DBS efficacy for Parkinson’s disease patients. These techniques are linear triangulation based interpolation, ‘roving window’ interpolation and ‘Monopolar inverse weighted distance’ (MIDW) interpolation. The MIDW interpolation technique is developed on the basis of electric field geometry of the monopolar DBS stimulation electrodes, based on the DBS model of monopolar cathodic stimulation of brain tissues. Each of these models was evaluated for their predictability, interpolation accuracy, as well as other benefits and limitations. The bootstrapping based optimization method was proposed to minimize the observational and patient variability in the collected database. A simulation study was performed to validate that the statistically optimized interpolated models were capable to produce reliable efficacy contour plots and reduced false effect due to outliers. Some additional visualization and analysis tools including a graphic user interface (GUI) were also developed for better understanding of the scenario. Results: The interpolation performance of the MIDW interpolation, the linear triangulation method and Roving window method was evaluated as interpolation error as 0.0903, 0.1219 and0.3006 respectively. Degree of prediction for the above methods was found to be 0.0822, 0.2986 and 0.0367 respectively. The simulation study demonstrate that the mean improvement in outlier handling and increased reliability after bootstrapping based optimization (performed on Linear triangulation interpolation method) is 6.192% and 12.8775% respectively. The different interpolation techniques used to model monopolar and bipolar stimulation data is found to be useful to study the corresponding efficacy distribution. A user friendly GUI (PDRP_GUI) and other utility tools are developed. Conclusion: Our investigation demonstrated that the MIDW and linear triangulation methods provided better degree of prediction, whereas the MIDW interpolation with appropriate configuration provided better interpolation accuracy. The simulation study suggests that the bootstrapping-based optimization can be used as an efficient tool to reduce outlier effects and increase interpolated reliability of the functional model of DBS efficacy. Additionally, the differential interpolation techniques used for monopolar and bipolar stimulation modeling facilitate study of overall DBS efficacy using the entire dataset.

The work in this thesis presents and evaluates a number of strategies by which English-learning children might discover the major open-class parts-of-speech in English (nouns, verbs and adjectives) on the basis of purely distributional information. Previous work has shown that parts-of-speech can be readily induced from the distributional patterns in which words occur. The research reported in this thesis extends and improves on this previous work in two major ways, related to the constructional status of the utterance contexts used for distributional analysis, and to the way in which previous studies have dealt with categorial ambiguity. Previous studies that have induced parts-of-speech from word distributions have done so on the basis of fixed “windows” of words that occur before and after the word in focus. These contexts are often not constructions of the language in question, and hence have dubious status as elements of linguistic knowledge. A great deal of recent evidence (e.g. Lieven, Pine & Baldwin, 1997; Tomasello, 1992) has suggested that children’s early language may be organized around a number of lexically-specific constructional frames with slots, such as “a X”, “you X it”, “draw X on X”. The work presented here investigates the possibility that constructions such as these may be a more appropriate domain for the distributional induction of parts-of-speech. This would open up the possibility of a treatment of part-of-speech induction that is more closely integrated with the acquisition of syntax. Three strategies to discover lexically-specific frames in the speech input to children are presented. Two of these strategies are based on the interplay between more and less frequent words in English utterances: the more frequent words, which are typically function words or light verbs, are taken to provide the schematic “backbone” of an utterance. The third strategy is based around pairs of words in which the occurrence of one word is highly predictable from that of the other, but not vice versa; from these basic slot-filler relationships, larger frames are assembled. These techniques were implemented computationally and applied to a corpus of child-directed speech. Each technique yielded a large set of lexically-specific frames, many of which could plausibly be regarded as constructions. In a comparison with a manual analysis of the same corpus by Cameron-Faulkner, Lieven and Tomasello (2003), it is shown that most of the constructional frames identified in the manual analysis were also produced by the automatic techniques. After the identification of potential constructional frames, parts-of-speech were formed from the patterns of co-occurrence of words in particular constructions, by means of hierarchical clustering. The resulting clusters produced are shown to be quite similar to the major English parts-of-speech of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Each individual word token was assigned a part-of-speech on the basis of its constructional context. This categorization was evaluated empirically against the part-of-speech assigned to the word in question in the original corpus. The resulting categorization is shown to be, to a great extent, in agreement with the manual categorization. These strategies deal with the categorial ambiguity of words, by allowing the frame context to determine part-of-speech. However, many of the frames produced were themselves ambiguous cues to part-of-speech. For this reason, strategies are presented to deal with both word and context ambiguity. Three such strategies are proposed. One considers membership of a part-of-speech to be a matter of degree for both word and contextual frame. A second strategy attempts to discretely assign multiple parts-of-speech to words and constructions in a way that imposes internal consistency in the corpus. The third strategy attempts to assign only the minimally-required multiple categories to words and constructions so as to provide a parsimonious description of the data. Each of these techniques was implemented and applied to each of the three frame discovery techniques, thereby providing category information about both the frame and the word. The subsequent assignment of parts-of-speech was done by combining word and frame information, and is shown to be far more accurate than the categorization based on frames alone. This approach can be regarded as addressing certain objections against the distributional method that have been raised by Pinker (1979, 1984, 1987). Lastly, a framework for extending this research is outlined that allows semantic information to be incorporated into the process of category induction.

<p>Recently, small businesses have attracted much attention from scholars and businessmen, since the significance of these businesses estimated essential in rapid changing business environment from the perspective of wealth and job creation. Simultaneously, it is well known that most infant entrepreneurs are constrained by shortage of financial resource for development and growth of their business. Some entrepreneurs carry out the need for resources by applying the particular methods of financial bootstrapping. Therefore, a number of researches have been conducted in order to define characteristics of bootstrapping and to analysis how it effects to financial decision making process of entrepreneurs.</p><p>Under specific constrains and difficulties, the majority of the start-ups gain financial capital for business establishment from family funds and other informal sources based on personal contacts. Being directly connected with bootstrapping, financial decision making also must be implemented efficiently in the start-up phase of the company. Practically, the majority of nascent entrepreneurs face the lack knowledge about financing of small business frequently. Thus, the study of bootstrapping methods and the exploration of the factors, that effect decision making process, is important for both researchers and entrepreneurs.</p><p>The regarding thesis, in turn, examines bootstrapping behavior and financial decision making processes of four different companies in the Create Business Incubator. First of all, it investigates financing, financial choice, network and learning in order to conceptualize appropriate frame for conducting the thesis work. Then, necessary hands-on information obtained by conducting certain interviews and analyzing the networking and coaching circumstances of the Incubator. Consequently, after analyzing the characteristics of business and entrepreneurs, a priori conclusion and recommendations are proposed which help to increase the financial awareness of nascent entrepreneurs in the Incubator in terms of financing small business.</p>

<p>Här kommer sammanfattning av vår uppsatts "Småföretagare och deras finansiering"</p><p>Sammanfattning</p><p>Det finns många faktorer, både yttre och inre, som påverkar en småföretagare vid dennes val av finansieringsform. Det finns även många olika former av finansiering att välja bland t ex banklån, leasing och riskkapital och de olika finansiärerna ställer skiftande krav på småföretagen och företagarna. Ett problem som nämns i teorin är det finansiella gapet som bygger på en asymmetrisk information mellan företagaren och finansiären. Småföretagare föredrar enligt pecking order modellen eget genererat kapital och är negativt inställda till att förlora kontroll över företaget samt självständighet. Den form av finansiering som företagarna enligt denna teori undviker därav så långt som möjligt är riskkapital då detta kortfattat innebär att företaget ”betalar” genom att ge bort ägande. Dock kan inte alla småföretag överleva samt finansiera sin verksamhet med egna vinster, speciellt inte i början och det kan vara svårt att erhålla extern finansiering då företagen kanske inte har så mycket att lämna i säkerhet för t ex ett banklån. Denna uppsats är en fallstudie över hur olika faktorer påverkat/påverkar tre företags kapitalförsörjning. En form av finansiering som de undersökta företagen alla anser vara bra är leasing och anledningen till detta är att räntorna idag är så låga. Företagen är inte helt negativt inställda till riskkapital som teorin framhåller, trots att de helst försörjer sig på eget kapital. De undersökta företagen har haft olika förutsättningar vad gäller anskaffning av kapital och de har även till viss del valt olika former. Trots detta kan deras agerande i stora drag sägas följa de teorier som finns angående små företags kapitalförsörjning.</p>