Tese de Mestrado Integrado. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2013

This paper studies the effects of auction mechanisms on the average price of auction results of Shanghai car license plate from 2004 to 2018. We construct two linear regression models and find that an iterated multi-unit auction has a lower efficiency than a seal-bid discriminatory multi-unit auction. We also find that the pre-set price-ceiling is positively correlated with the average winning price. These results suggest that the government can potentially manipulate auction results through the design of the auction mechanism, and through the setting of warning price as a price ceiling.

Small used car dealership ventures experience high business failures in the marketplace. Grounded in the resource-based view (RBV) theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies used car dealership owners and managers employ to remain profitable and sustain operations for longer than 5 years. In this study, 10 participants, including 5 owners and 5 managers from small used car dealerships in Colorado participated in face-to-face semistructured interviews. These participants have developed successful strategies to remain profitable for at least 5 years. Using methodological triangulation, field notes and documentary evidence supplemented the data collected through semistructured interviews. Through thematic analysis, 3 themes emerged from the research findings: customer care, aggressive marketing, and business knowledge. The findings showed the need for managers and owners of used car dealerships to employ strategies to compete in the marketplace and sustain growth. The positive social change resulting from this study includes the potential to increase small business successes, which could increase employment opportunities and the potential for job creation. The success of these small businesses could contribute positively to the economic empowerment of other related businesses and improve the economic wellbeing of communities through an increase in tax revenues and contributions to local nonprofit organizations.

acase@tulane.edu

This thesis investigates two research problems in analyzing floating car data (FCD): automated segmentation and privacy. For the former, we design an automated segmentation method based on the social functions of an area to enhance existing traffic demand analysis. This segmentation is used to create an extension of the traditional origin-destination matrix that can represent origins of traffic demand. The methods are then combined for interactive visualization of traffic demand, using a floating car dataset from a ride-hailing application. For the latter, we investigate the properties in FCD that may lead to privacy leaks. We present an attack on a real-world taxi dataset, showing that FCD, even though anonymized, can potentially leak privacy. / Graduate

El Surf en el Perú está en su mejor momento, hemos logrado Campeonatos Mundiales en los últimos años. Además, desde el 2019, el Surf se convertirá en deporte olímpico, formando parte de los Juegos Panamericanos que se realizarán en Lima en el 2019. Por ello, es necesario contar con un Centro de Alto Rendimiento en una playa emblemática (Punta Rocas), para que nuestros deportistas puedan mantenerse en la élite del deporte mundial, ya que, no cuentan con las facilidades para potenciar sus habilidades. El CAR contará con la infraestructura necesaria y las mejores instalaciones para formar y encaminar a los deportistas a un alto nivel de competitividad. Este Centro contará con áreas de alojamiento, entrenamiento, competencia, administración, centro médico y una zona abierta al público. El centro busca generar espacios de relación entre los deportistas, el público en general, así como otros espacios privados. / Surfing in Peru is at it´s best, we have achieved World Championships in the last years. In addition, since 2019, Surf will become an Olympic sport, taking part of the Panamerican Games that will take place in Lima in 2019. Therefore, it is necessary to have a High Performance Center in an emblematic beach (Punta Rocas), so that our athletes can perform at a cup world level. As of today they do not have the facilities to achieve a Super Competitive level. The CAR will have the necessary infrastructure and the best facilities to train and guide athletes to a high level of competitiveness. This center will contain areas of accommodation, training, competition, administration, medical center and an area open to the public. The center seeks to generate spaces of relationship between athletes, the public in general, and private spaces for themselves. / Tesis

Child road trauma poses a preventable public health burden to the community. This PhD research aimed to: 1) quantify the magnitude of child passenger injuries in New South Wales (NSW), Australia; 2) evaluate the effectiveness of different restraint use to prevent fatalities among child passengers; and 3) estimate the benefit in the general child population from different intervention targets relating to restraint use. It comprised two studies to validate methodology and four independent epidemiological studies. The first study to validate methodology assessed the data item availability and categorization across different road traffic injury surveillance data collections in NSW in relation to World Health Organization recommended data item lists and necessary data item lists for road traffic injury research. Exclusion of, or insufficient categorization of, crucial data items such as restraint use and injurious outcome existed for each data collection. The other study to validate methodology assessed the performance (in terms of incidence estimates, sensitivity, and specificity) of several methods for removing multiple counting when conducting analyses on hospital separation data for child passenger injuries under either primary-diagnosis or all-diagnoses based injury definition, using linkage methods as a comparison. The "readmission"-based criterion consistently best approximated the linkage-method-derived incidence rate. Two epidemiological studies used NSW hospital separation datasets and quantified the magnitude of child road trauma in NSW in terms of hospitalisation rates. One study examined the trend in hospitalised injury incidence rates during the period of July 1998 to June 2005 using a non-parametric estimation method, and reported a non-significant decline of hospitalised injuries to child passengers over time. The second study used Poisson regression to demonstrate that rural NSW children were two times more likely to suffer hospitalised injuries compared with their urban counterparts. The third epidemiological study used the Fatality Analysis Reporting Systems (FARS) from the United States (US) and estimated the association between different restraint uses and child passenger fatality using a matched cohort method. Improperly using restraints significantly elevated the risk of death for child passengers involved in a crash compared to any other restraint use. The advantage of child restraints over seat belts in terms of fatality reduction was not statistically significant, although previous studies have shown an advantage for serious injury reduction. The last study was performed to quantify the relative public health benefit in terms of reduction in child passenger deaths and injuries for different interventions relating to restraint use in the general population using a case-based population attributable risk fraction method. Results support the ongoing child restraint legislation change in Australia to require compulsory child restraint uses for children up to their 7th birthday, and an increasing proper use of age-appropriate restraints would provide the greatest reduction in fatalities and injuries among child passengers assuming equal population uptake for all interventions. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates that child road trauma remains a public health burden to the Australian community; and highlights the importance of properly using age-appropriate restraints in preventing injuries to child passengers.

This thesis is in the form of a novel about three work colleagues who, as part of their job, have to drive long distances together. The story is told from the perspective of all of them but mainly from one of the women who tells the story in the first person. The man and two women are so different from each other in personality and outlook on life, and the basis of the novel is their interactions with each other, the frictions within their relationships, and the thoughts that go through their heads while they are driving. These people spend long hours together in the car and in motel rooms yet they never get any closer to each other. The only one of them who seems to get anything from the experience is the woman who is in the first person, as she achieves a greater sense of her own identity. The other two regard the experiences as just another job and of no great importance in their lives. / Master of Arts (Hons)

The problem surrounding the ever-increasing toll of death and injury arising from road accidents is one which is receiving increasing attention as the number of vehicles on the road continues to rise. While it has not been possible to isolate any one factor as the sole or even primary cause of road accidents, several surveys have shown that in many accidents alcohol has been a contributory factor by affecting the faculties of the driver of pedestrian. The thesis then goes on to discuss factors causing individual differences in response to the same blood alcohol concentration and the correlation between impairment of driving and blood alcohol concentration.

The problem surrounding the ever-increasing toll of death and injury arising from road accidents is one which is receiving increasing attention as the number of vehicles on the road continues to rise. While it has not been possible to isolate any one factor as the sole or even primary cause of road accidents, several surveys have shown that in many accidents alcohol has been a contributory factor by affecting the faculties of the driver of pedestrian. The thesis then goes on to discuss factors causing individual differences in response to the same blood alcohol concentration and the correlation between impairment of driving and blood alcohol concentration.