A methodology for ageing foetal and neonatal cattle is developed, involving radiographic examination of infant mandibles for early developmental stages in molariform teeth; tooth-wear methodologies are imprecise at this stage before wear commences. Known-age modern bovine foetal and neonate material are collected as a control assemblage for method development (n=73); six Neolithic to Norse era assemblages from Orkney are examined using the modified technique together with standard tooth-wear analysis and other methodologies. Foetal and died-at-birth material is diagnosed at most sites using the new technique, together with a range of other peri-natal age-groups. Ageing at this early stage is highly relevant in the diagnosis of milking as a palaeoeconomy: the accepted view is that unwanted (male) calves were slaughtered to maximise milk for human consumption, hence a surfeit of neonate calf remains, as at the study sites. The diagnosis of foetal and died-at-birth material challenges this view, suggesting that attritional causes may have contributed to deaths at this stage. Although milking was probably carried out at most of the study sites, this may have been combined with slaughter of cattle for meat in a pragmatic exploitation strategy. Literary research shows possible attritional causes of abortion and early death in calves, in particular dietary insufficiency in pregnant cows, microbial infections, and also inadequate colostrum uptake. Additionally, research is used to consider the challenges to health that early milking might have posed, to the calf as mentioned, but also to the cow, where three main health issues are highlighted: infertility, mastitis and lameness. / The attached files include the Landscape pages and appendices V and VI. Not included are the jpeg Mandible files. A cover sheet was not available.

The main objective of this research is to evaluate the socio economic impact of the development programs like MGNREGA, JnNURM and development of Roads project, on the intended target area. The entire thesis can be divided in to two parts; (1) developing method to evaluate the socio economic impact assessment and (2) case studies. Two different techniques were used to evaluate the change in the productivity. Initially the change is measure by calculating the difference in the efficiencies between two time period using base period and current period production technologies. To illustrate this method a case study of MGNREGA has been considered to evaluate the impact of seventeen districts of the country. From the results it is found that there is difficult in comparing the two efficiencies due to the scaling issue of two production technologies. Further Data Envelopment Analysis is used to evaluate the distance function in the calculation of Malmquist index (MI). MI gives the productivity change between two time periods and is calculated as the geometric mean of two ratios measured with reference to the time period and time period respectively. A new approach is presented by interpreting the two ratios of MI separately using the distance functions to identify the productivity change between two time periods. Three different regions were identified to determine the productivity change; improvement region which observe improvement in the productivity between two time periods, deterioration region which indicate deterioration in the productivity and status quo region suggesting the stagnation region. Two case studies i.e. Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation and development of roads under the name “5054-Decongestion of Roads project” were considered. The impact of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) funds on the performance of Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is studied using the proposed method. The results suggest that for 50 percent of the overall productivity have improved due to the intervention. The deterioration is mainly because of the addition input surplus in terms of number of buses and output slack in terms of reduced load factor, effective distance travelled, operational costs and increase in number of breakdown and accident rates for these DMU’s. The socio economic impact of the roads developed by Government of Karnataka under the name of “5054-Decongestion of Roads project” in and around Bangalore was also studied using this method and the results shows that out of five DMU’s four DMU’s show improvement in the productivity.

In diesem Beitrag werden Methoden der gebäudebasierten Erfassung der Siedlungsstruktur, deren Veränderung und Visualisierung vorgestellt. Die Analyse der Siedlungsentwicklung mit SEMENTA®-CHANGE basiert auf der automatisierten Auswertung topographischer Kartenwerke verschiedenster Zeitstände im Maßstab 1:25 000. Der Verfahrensansatz leistet einen wichtigen Beitrag für die Planung, da er für große Flächen eine Verortung der Gebäude-, Siedlungsflächen- und Siedlungsstrukturentwicklung der vergangenen Jahrzehnte erlaubt und sich daraus auch wertvolle Aussagen über die Wirksamkeit von raumplanerischen Instrumenten (z. B. Verhältnis der Innen- zur Außenentwicklung) ableiten lassen. Beispielhaft werden an ausgewählten Projektergebnissen das Anwendungspotenzial sowie die Grenzen des Verfahrens diskutiert.

Today, with various technology and business standards, organizations face rapid changes in both internal and external environments. To be able to rapidly respond to such changing environments, integration of software systems has entered among the top priorities of many organizations. However, despite extended use of software integration, methods for estimating the business value of implementing such integration are still missing. Besides presenting a conceptual model to define the benefits of systems integration and related causal relationships, this study proposes a method for measuring such benefits in monetary terms. In particular, we  demonstrate how a mathematical programming technique called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be used to evaluate the business value of software integration. Our method is illustrated using data from 12 organizations. The results indicate significant productivity gains by integrating software systems, which represent the value of software integration in organizations.