Improving national ranking is an increasingly important issue for university administrators. While research has been conducted on performance measures in higher education, research designs have lacked a predictive quality. Studies on the U.S. News college rankings have provided insight into the methodology; however, none of them have provided a model to predict what change in variable values would likely cause an institution to improve its standing in the rankings. The purpose of this study was to develop a predictive model for benchmarking academic programs (pBAP) for engineering colleges. The 2005 U.S. News ranking data for graduate engineering programs were used to create a four-tier predictive model (pBAP). The pBAP model correctly classified 81.9% of the cases in their respective tier. To test the predictive accuracy of the pBAP model, the 2005 U.S .News data were entered into the pBAP variate developed using the 2004 U.S. News data. The model predicted that 88.9% of the institutions would remain in the same ranking tier in the 2005 U.S. News rankings (compared with 87.7% in the actual data), and 11.1% of the institutions would demonstrate tier movement (compared with an actual 12.3% movement in the actual data). The likelihood of improving an institution's standing in the rankings was greater when increasing the values of 3 of the 11 variables in the U.S. News model: peer assessment score, recruiter assessment score, and research expenditures.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:44:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RadamesMVM_DISSERT.pdf: 1107498 bytes, checksum: 921fe2f3c1378e170ca3ff8c543c3103 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-18 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / The methods of analysis of the selection system sports talent sometimes do not consider the biological age of the athletes, since that the assessment of maturational moment have several limitations The aim of this work is to develop a predictive equation of pubertal assessment in male subjects, based on anthropometric measurements. We evaluated 206 young boys, aged between eight and 18 years, and studing in public and private schools in Natal, Brazil. The sample selection was done randomly, being used the anthropometric measurements and pubertal maturation evaluation according to the Tanner stages. Statistical analysis followed the presentation of central tendency measures and their derivatives. The inferential analysis was performed according to the ANOVA test, multivariate discriminant analysis and weighted Kappa. The advancement of pubertal stages was accompanied by significant changes in anthropometric variables, demonstrating the relationship presented in both. For this purpose, discriminant analysis selected eight variables with the highest prediction of pubertal maturation, and created an equation with a significance level of 75%. and concordance level of 0.840, considered as excellent. This shows that the prediction of pubertal maturation from anthropometric variables presented as a valid method, being used as a practical tool in sports talents selection / Os m?todos de an?lise do sistema de sele??o de talentos esportivos, por vezes, n?o consideram a idade biol?gica dos atletas, uma vez que a avalia??o do estado maturacional apresenta in?meras limita??es. Para tal, o presente estudo objetiva desenvolver uma equa??o preditiva da avalia??o puberal de sujeitos do sexo masculino, baseada em medidas antropom?tricas. Foram avaliados 206 indiv?duos do sexo masculino entre oito e 18 anos, estudantes de escolas p?blicas e privadas de Natal, Brasil. A amostra foi selecionada aleatoriamente, sendo utilizadas avalia??es antropom?tricas, e a avalia??o da matura??o puberal, segundo o m?todo de Tanner. A an?lise estat?stica foi apresentada pelos valores de tend?ncia central e seus derivados, al?m de ser inferencialmente baseada na ANOVA, an?lise discriminante multivariada e teste de concord?ncia Kappa ponderado linear. O avan?o dos est?gios puberais foi acompanhado por modifica??es antropom?tricas significativas, demonstrando a inter-rela??o entre estas vari?veis. Para tal, a an?lise discriminante selecionou oito vari?veis com maior ?ndice de predi??o da matura??o puberal, e criou uma equa??o com um n?vel de signific?ncia de 75% e concord?ncia de 0,840, considerados como um excelente resultado. Isto demonstra que a predi??o da matura??o puberal a partir de vari?veis antropom?tricas apresentou-se como um m?todo v?lido, servindo de aux?lio pr?tico no meio da sele??o de talentos esportivos