This research aims to examine a framework to test the relationships between consumers' perceptions of a retailer's brand personality and outcome variables (i.e., positive word-of-mouth about and patronage intention toward the retailer) by applying identity and social identity theories to reveal possible factors influencing these relationships in both department and discount retailer image formats. This research hypothesized that retailer brand personality should influence consumers' behavioral outcomes through private and public forms of self-congruity. The more positive the perception of a retailer's brand personality, the higher the private and public self-congruities with the brand personality. In addition, considering the unique, tangible nature of a store's environment, this research suggested that retailer brand identity (RBI), a consumer's perception of oneness with a retailer brand, should play an important role in the retailer brand personality-behavioral outcomes framework by mediating the influences of both private and public self-congruities on various behavioral outcomes. Moreover, the relationships among two forms of self-congruity and perceived RBI should be moderated by the shopping conspicuousness situation (i.e., whether co-shopping with important others or alone and whether shopping in an environment in which one is visible to important others or is relatively secluded) and consumer shopping involvement (i.e., whether consumers see shopping as an important and self-relevant activity). To test the study's hypotheses, data were collected from a sample of 616 general consumers via a self-administered questionnaire provided through the website of an online survey research firm. This research used a 2 (retailer image format) X 2 (shopping situation conspicuousness) between-subjects quasi-experimental design in which subjects were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups who read a scenario that provided a description of a retailer image format of either a hypothetical department (n = 311) or discount store (n = 305) and a description that manipulated the shopping situation as being either high (n = 303) or low (n = 313) in shopping conspicuousness. Results revealed that the retailer brand personality scale, adapted from BPS, a brand personality scale developed by Aaker (1997) and other scales specifically used to measure retailer brand personality (Dardin & Babin, 1994; d'Astous & Lévesque, 2003; Helgeson & Supphellen, 2004) comprised two positive dimensions (i.e., Modish and Genuine) and one negative dimension (Inactive). Each dimension influenced the behavioral outcomes of Word-of-Mouth and Patronage Intention differently. Perceived Genuineness was the most influential dimension among the three, exerting direct and indirect influences through increasing Private and Public Self-congruities and overall RBI on both WOM and Patronage Intention. However, Modish had only a direct negative effect on Patronage Intentions whereas Inactive had indirect effects on both behavioral outcomes through a combined (direct and indirect) negative effect on overall RBI. This research also revealed that overall RBI, driven by its affective and evaluative dimensions, fully mediated the influences of Private and Public Self-congruities on behavioral outcomes, suggesting overall RBI as an important factor in the retailer brand personality-behavioral outcomes framework. Moreover, the relationship between Public Self-congruity and overall RBI was found to be stronger in the high Shopping Conspicuousness Situation whereas the relationship between Private Self-congruity and overall RBI was found to be stronger in the department store image format. The moderating role of Consumer Shopping Involvement on the relationships among self-congruities and overall RBI was not significant. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings and limitations of the study are provided.

Information visualization (InfoViz) is an essential component of decision support systems (DSS). Sparklines is a visualization tool. This study examines if Sparklines in digital financial reports aids novice investors and if so under what circumstances? Does it enhances decision-making performance and facilitates effective decision-making experience? Additionally, does it lowers decision making effort; reduces dilution effect from non-relevant data in financial reports and mitigates recency bias in using digital financial reports? The hypothesis is guided by the theory of Proximity Compatibility Principle and the Theory of Cognitive Fit. The research methodology for this study is a repeated measure, controlled laboratory based experiment. A pilot test was conducted in with a sample of forty undergraduate students from Gatton College of Business and Economics. The sample size for this study was 275 subjects. The result revealed that there was significant effect of sparklines on decision making performance and it provides an incremental value over a tabular format. Sparklines makes an important contribution towards mitigating recency bias. The results also suggested that the irrelevant information cue in the shareholder’s report were not able to weaken the impact of relevant information in the audited financial data reported using sparklines. Sparklines increased the attention of the readers to the tables. Subjects performed the integrative tasks and spatial better when using Sparklines. For tasks such as symbolic tasks, Sparkline does not necessarily improve decision performance. It was also found out that decision makers experience greater satisfaction when using sparklines. The overall cognitive load experienced by subjects was lower using sparklines when task demands are high (such as in a bankruptcy prediction task). Interestingly, the results indicate that there is no significant effect of sparkline on decision confidence and time. In conclusion, recall of facts and pattern among subjects was found superior with use of sparkline. This study provides an empirical and justifiable basis for policy makers to make explicit recommendations about use of novel graphics such as sparkline in digital financial reports. Limitations of this study are noted.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 30-November 02, 1995 / Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada / The Central Control Unit (CCU) for a decentralised on-board base-band telemetry system is designed for use in launch vehicle missions of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This new design is a highly improved and miniaturised version of an earlier design. The major design highlights are as follows: usage of CMOS Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices in place of LS TTL devices, high level user programmability of TM format using EEPROMs, usage of high density memory for on-board data storage and delayed data transmission, HMC based pre-modulation filter and final output driver etc. The entire system is realised on a single 6 layer MLB and is packaged on a stackable modular frame. This design has resulted in a 1:4 reduction in weight, 1:4 reduction in volume, 1:5 reduction in power consumption and 1:3 reduction in height in addition to drastic reduction of part diversity and solder joints and thus greatly increased reliability. This paper discusses the design approach, implementation details, tools used, simulations carried out and the results of detailed qualification tests done on the realised qualification model.

This diploma thesis deals with the development of using global TV formats on Czech TV channels during 2000-2013. Development is studied in comparison between Czech Television as a public medium and private channels TV Nova and FTV Prima. Global TV formats recently became basic building blocks for production of their own programs in TV entertainment. Thesis focuses on the approach of the TV channels in using global TV formats. It outlines the development of TV genres of global TV formats on Czech TVs and shows how Czech TV stations have dealt with their production and how they have interested the Czech TV spectators. The thesis is based on theoretical background of media globalization supposing that business with global formats has a strong influence over current TV entertainment. TV market offers many various TV formats and TV stations buy them because they have information about success in other countries. It shows that in recent years the offer of global TV formats is so heterogeneous and wide that viewer rating and success of single formats is not so high as in the beginning of the trend in TV entertainment. In the followed period the Czech TV market has been changed by digitalization of Czech TV broadcasting and there is also a phenomenon of media convergence.

Main task of this work is to find out the answers to the questions of the television quiz shows genre development. The work deals with foreign countries development, but the main attention is fixed to Czech republic and Czech full-area broadcasting media, which emphasise general matters. Concretely these television companies: Česká televize, Nova, Prima a Barrandov. The work emphasises the problem of formats originality. The time spread is since January 1993 to April 2012. A quiz shows development before 1993 is mentioned, but the analysis does not contain that. The analysis shows four copied quiz shows development. These examples uncover the variations of the quiz shows formats copying and domestication. They reveal the rules of the copying and domestication. They show the transformation of the quiz shows during recent years. The work tries to solve a few questions about the Czech quiz shows and their partial problems. Has the hosts behaviour changed? What about the hosts gender? Is there more men or women in the quiz shows? Is the number of recently broadcasted quiz shows higher than the number of the quiz shows, which were broadcasted nineteen years ago? What about the relation of the quiz shows production and social changes? Have the western models affected Czech quiz shows production? If so,...

The aim of this diploma thesis is to describe how successfully are global television formats adapted in the region of Central Europe. Media systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia were considerably transformed after the fall of communism in the 1990s. Television markets started to be built within the new media systems. This thesis describes a globalization theory with focus on the concepts of cultural imperialism and cultural globalization. Emergence of the global television formats is one of the most visible processes within the globalization. There is a prevailing opinion presently that the global formats contributes in some ways to cultural heterogenization and pluralization. Local adaptations of global formats acquire meanings of national culture. The term glocalisation is connected with spreading of the global formats. This term is nowadays used more often than the term globalisation in relation to global formats. This diploma thesis is concerned with the adaptation of formats in the countries of Central Europe. Popularity of global formats in this region is compared on the basis of ratings. There is also evaluated which format has the most universal impact in the region and if audiences in these countries have similar cultural preferences. Afterwards, other trends typical...

The main theme of this thesis research is concerned with developing a computational pipeline for processing Next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data. RNA-seq experiments generate tens of millions of short reads for each DNA/RNA sample. The alignment of a large volume of short reads to a reference genome is a key step in NGS data analysis. Although storing alignment information in the Sequence Alignment/Map (SAM) or Binary SAM (BAM) format is now standard, biomedical researchers still have difficulty accessing useful information. In order to assist biomedical researchers to conveniently access essential information from NGS data files in SAM/BAM format, we have developed a Graphical User Interface (GUI) software tool named SAMMate to pipeline human transcriptome quantification. SAMMate allows researchers to easily process NGS data files in SAM/BAM format and is compatible with both single-end and paired-end sequencing technologies. It also allows researchers to accurately calculate gene expression abundance scores.

Dieser Beitrag möchte mit der Weiterentwicklung von Assessment Literacy für zukunftsfähige Lern- und Prüfungsumgebungen an Hochschulen (Advanced Learning and Examination Spaces) einen Beitrag zur Qualitätssicherung von Studium und Lehre leisten. Dazu wird die Entwicklung von Assessment Literacy bei Hochschullehrenden auf zwei Stufen dargelegt: Zunächst werden exemplarische Problemfelder aus verschiedenen Prüfungsformaten beschrieben und Lösungsvorschläge angeboten, um Ansatzpunkte für die Reflexion der eigenen Prüfungspraxis zu liefern (Kap. 2.1). Auf einer zweiten Stufe werden Assessments als Teil von kompetenzorientierten Lern- und Prüfungsumgebungen gesehen. Dazu wird das Konstrukt Kompetenz, dessen Bedeutung im Hochschulkontext sowie das Constructive Alignment als hochschuldidaktisches Planungsmodell für eine kompetenzorientierte Hochschullehre und als Steuerungsinstrument für die Qualitätssicherung von Prüfungen skizziert. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden Ansatzpunkte für das Konzept einer Assessment Literacy in Higher Education abgeleitet, die Funktionsweisen, Rahmenbedingungen und Formate des Prüfens in einen systematischen Zusammenhang bringen sollen (Abb. 1). Diese Wissenssammlung beansprucht nicht dem Leser Unbekanntes zu entdecken. Vielmehr soll Vorhandenes gesammelt, gesichtet, geordnet und bewertet werden und so als Ausgangsbasis für künftige Forschungen im Bereich des Lehrens und Lernens an Hochschulen dienen.

Dans un environnement collaboratif de développement de produit, plusieurs acteurs, ayant différents points de vue et intervenant dans plusieurs phases du cycle de vie de produit, doivent communiquer et échanger des connaissances entre eux. Ces connaissances, existant sous différents formats hétérogènes, incluent potentiellement plusieurs concepts tels que l’historique de conception, la structure du produit, les features, les paramètres, les contraintes, et d’autres informations sur le produit. Les exigences industrielles de réduction du temps et du coût de production nécessitent l’amélioration de l’interopérabilité sémantique entre les différents processus de développement afin de surmonter ces problèmes d’hétérogénéité tant au niveau syntaxique, structurel, que sémantique. Dans le domaine de la CAO, la plupart des méthodes existantes pour l’échange de données d’un modèle de produit sont, effectivement, basées sur le transfert des données géométriques. Cependant, ces données ne sont pas suffisantes pour saisir la sémantique des données, telle que l’intention de conception, ainsi que l’édition des modèles après leur échange. De ce fait, nous nous sommes intéressés à l’échange des modèles « intelligents », autrement dit, définis en termes d’historique de construction, de fonctions intelligentes de conception appelées features, y compris les paramètres et les contraintes. L’objectif de notre thèse est de concevoir des méthodes permettant d’améliorer l’interopérabilité sémantique des systèmes CAO moyennant les technologies du Web Sémantique comme les ontologies OWL DL et le langage des règles SWRL. Nous avons donc élaboré une approche d’échange basée sur une ontologie commune de features de conception, que nous avons appelée CDFO « Common Design Features Ontology », servant d’intermédiaire entre les différents systèmes CAO. Cette approche s’appuie principalement sur deux grandes étapes. La première étape consiste en une homogénéisation des formats de représentation des modèles CAO vers un format pivot, en l’occurrence OWL DL. Cette homogénéisation sert à traiter les hétérogénéités syntaxiques entre les formats des modèles. La deuxième étape consiste à définir des règles permettant la mise en correspondance sémantique entre les ontologies d’application de CAO et notre ontologie commune. Cette méthode de mise en correspondance se base principalement, d’une part, sur la définition explicite des axiomes et des règles de correspondance permettant l’alignement des entités de différentes ontologies, et d’autre part sur la reconnaissance automatique des correspondances sémantiques supplémentaires à l’aide des capacités de raisonnement fournies par les moteurs d’inférence basés sur les logiques de description. Enfin, notre méthode de mise en correspondance est enrichie par le développement d’une méthode de calcul de similarité sémantique appropriée pour le langage OWL DL, qui repose principalement sur les composants des entités en question tels que leur description et leur contexte. / A major issue in product development is the exchange and sharing of product knowledge among many actors. This knowledge includes many concepts such as design history, component structure, features, parameters, constraints, and more. Heterogeneous tools and multiple designers are frequently involved in collaborative product development, and designers often use their own terms and definitions to represent a product design. Thus, to efficiently share design information among multiple designers, the design intent should be persistently captured and the semantics of the modeling terms should be semantically processed both by design collaborators and intelligent systems. Regarding CAD models, most of the current CAD systems provide feature-based design for the construction of solid models. Features are devised to carry, semantically, product information throughout its life cycle. Consequently, features should be maintained in a CAD model during its migration among different applications. However, existing solutions for exchanging product information are limited to the process of geometrical data, where semantics assigned to product model are completely lost during the translation process. Current standards, such as ISO 10303, known as STEP have attempted to solve this problem, but they define only syntactic data representation so that semantic data integration is not possible. Moreover, STEP does not provide a sound basis to reason with knowledge. Our research investigates the use of Semantic Web technologies, such as ontologies and rule languages; e.g. SWRL, for the exchange of “intelligent” CAD models among different systems, while maintaining the original relations among entities of the model. Thus, we have proposed an ontological approach based on the construction of a common design features ontology, used as an Interlingua for the exchange of product data. This ontology is represented formally with OWL DL. Furthermore, axioms and mapping rules are defined to achieve the semantic integration between the applications ontologies and the common ontology. The integration process relies basically on reasoning capabilities provided by description logics in order to recognize automatically additional mappings among ontologies entities. Furthermore, the mapping process is enhanced with a semantic similarity measure in order to detect similar design features. However, this will enable data analysis, as well as manage and discover implicit relationships among product data based on semantic modeling and reasoning.

L'Art Brut est un concept inventé par le peintre français Jean Dubuffet en 1945 pour désigner des œuvres faites par des artistes non professionnels, autodidactes et isolés en contextes rural, psychiatrique voire carcéral. De 1947 à 1976, avec l'aide de la Compagnie de l'Art Brut, il collecta, présenta et documenta ces œuvres dans le but de remettre en question le goût et les valeurs de son époque. Faites le plus souvent à partir de médias non achetés dans des commerces d'art, leur matérialité questionne les catégories artistiques, les pratiques conventionnelles de l'art, ainsi que l'accrochage muséal.Cette thèse s'attache à montrer en quoi le processus créateur, les matériaux, et les dimensions des œuvres collectées par Dubuffet et ses compagnons ont servi à construire un « mythe », au sens barthien du terme, dans le contexte de l'après Seconde Guerre mondiale. Nous montrons que les matériaux « pauvres », les formats extrêmes – très petits, très grands, informes – ont supporté l'idée fantasmatique d'un art « brut », « hors-norme », « anti-culturel » et « autre ». Notre travail réinscrit, d'autre part, le projet de l'Art Brut dans l'histoire des avant-gardes dans le but d'en montrer la spécificité et la portée politique. Nous mettons enfin en avant en quoi les formats des œuvres collectées ont amené à une réforme de l'espace muséal. La Collection de l'Art Brut, ouverte en 1976 et conçue spécifiquement en fonction de la matérialité des œuvres, se présente comme un modèle muséal à part. / Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to designate artworks made by untrained and non-professional artists. Between 1945 and 1976, with the help of the Compagnie de l'Art Brut, he constituted and exhibited an important collection made of thousands of artworks – the Collection of Art Brut, which was donated to Switzerland in 1976. Art Brut artworks were collected in psychiatric hospitals, rural contexts, or jails. Some are made with second-hand materials, most of them differ from the academic canons, and their uncommon aspect – very large, very small, and formless – questions the artistic norms. This research demonstrates that the materiality of these artworks has been the support of an avant-gardist project and a myth in the context of the post Second World War. They serve Dubuffet's subversive discourse and his fantasy to transform the art and the society of his time through artworks made outside the "cultural" sphere. They also serve the myth of an art « poor », « humble », « natural » and « raw ». In addition to that, this thesis highlights how the sizes of these artworks have changed museum space and display. Unprecedentedly, the Collection de l'Art Brut was conceived according to the materiality of artworks, leaving space to welcome rolls of more than 5 m.