Federal agencies spend over $400 billion annually on contracts for goods and services to support the mission and vision of their organizations. The purpose of this multiple case study was to determine what strategies federal government contract managers use to prepare effective contract proposals to help ensure business viability. The conceptual framework for this study was the objective theory of contracts. The population for this study was 9 federal contract managers employed by a contracting office located in Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia. Data were collected from interviews, observation, and document review. Data were analyzed using a cross-case study to explore themes, similarities, and differences across cases. Data analyses revealed 4 key themes: market research, statement of work, independent government cost estimate, and price reasonableness. The findings from this study may help improve government procurement processes by identifying strategies used to prepare efficient contract proposals to increase competition among various contractors and reduce contract disputes. Results may be used by contracting officers and contracting industry to create positive social change by improving corporate social responsibility through accountability and transparent processes that could reduce protests and save taxpayer money.

The research segment of this thesis creates the first comprehensive repository of the current and proposed elements of public transit that will potentially operate in Atlanta. Beginning with a base GIS map of Atlanta Regional Commissions [ARC] Regional Transit Plan Mobility 2030, other GIS shapefiles from MARTA and Georgia Regional Transit Authority [GRTA] were added to complete the map of what Atlantas public transit might soon become. Working within this framework, the analysis provides the potential locations for ten nodes of transference located within Atlanta and its outlying areas - all classified by their relative locations within the city. This thesis analyzes methods of connectivity within these nodes and attempts to arrive at successful conditions of transference between various transit modes; resulting in a series of conceptual design proposals that create both modular efficiency and a standardized aesthetic language.

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Object recognition is a central problem in computer vision which deals with both localizing and identifying objects in images. Object proposals have recently become an important part of the object recognition process. Object proposals are algorithms used for localizing objects in images. This thesis is a study in object proposals and is composed of three parts. First, we present a new data-driven approach for generating object proposals. Second, we release a MATLAB library which can be used to generate object proposals using all the existing algorithms. The library can also be used for evaluating object proposals using the three most commonly used metrics. Finally, we identify previously unnoticed bias in the existing protocol for evaluating object proposals and propose ways to alleviate this bias. / Master of Science

In higher education settings the peer review process is highly valued and used for evaluating the academic merits of grant proposals, journal submissions, academic promotions, monographs, text books, PhD thesis and a variety of other academic products. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the peer review process for awarding research grants used by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Large Grants Program and to propose strategies to address potential shortcomings of the system. This study also evaluated psychometric properties such as the reliabilities of various ratings that are part of the assessment process of the ARC Large grants Program. Data for the all grant applications submitted for the 1996 round of the Large Grants Program were provided by the ARC. In a variation to the typical peer review process, applicants were given an opportunity to nominate assessors to review their proposals. The results indicated that global ratings given by the researcher-nominated assessors were systematically higher and less reliable than those by panel-nominated external reviewers chosen by the ARC. The reliability of peer reviews is not adequate by most standards. A critical direction for future research is considering what strategies need to be put in place to improve the quality of the reviews. To improve the reliability it is recommended that researcher-nominated reviewers should not be used; that there should be more reviews per proposal and a smaller more highly selected core of reviewers should perform most of the reviews within each sub-discipline providing a greater control over error associated with individual reviewers / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In higher education settings the peer review process is highly valued and used for evaluating the academic merits of grant proposals, journal submissions, academic promotions, monographs, text books, PhD thesis and a variety of other academic products. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the peer review process for awarding research grants used by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Large Grants Program and to propose strategies to address potential shortcomings of the system. This study also evaluated psychometric properties such as the reliabilities of various ratings that are part of the assessment process of the ARC Large grants Program. Data for the all grant applications submitted for the 1996 round of the Large Grants Program were provided by the ARC. In a variation to the typical peer review process, applicants were given an opportunity to nominate assessors to review their proposals. The results indicated that global ratings given by the researcher-nominated assessors were systematically higher and less reliable than those by panel-nominated external reviewers chosen by the ARC. The reliability of peer reviews is not adequate by most standards. A critical direction for future research is considering what strategies need to be put in place to improve the quality of the reviews. To improve the reliability it is recommended that researcher-nominated reviewers should not be used; that there should be more reviews per proposal and a smaller more highly selected core of reviewers should perform most of the reviews within each sub-discipline providing a greater control over error associated with individual reviewers / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The research presented in this thesis investigates ways to assist students with writing their project proposals. There is limited literature on the problems students have when writing project proposals in Higher Education. Particularly most of the literature has concentrated on the writing aspects, rhetorical aspects and structure of a scientific article. Even though various studies on assessment of undergraduate individual and group project works have been done, the project proposal has not been given much attention. Therefore assessment of the proposal stage of the undergraduate final year project becomes the focus of this study, conducted over three years. This three-phase study directly involved three main stakeholders (students, supervisors and coordinators) in the overall process. In Phase 1, the existence of the proposal problems was investigated and identified from the perceptions of the students and supervisors. Possible solutions to the proposal problems were identified. Next Phase 2, I acknowledged the requirements of the stakeholders, which provided the framework and initiated the design and development of an eGuide, a self-paced online guide. The implementation and evaluation of the eGuide were then conducted in this phase. Finally Phase 3, the study emphasised improvement to practice focusing on the Degree final year project by utilizing the cyclic approach of an action research. Questionnaires and focus groups were used to gather information from students and supervisors, both to identify the problems they perceived with the student project proposal process and the effectiveness of the online support tool, eGuide. In the development of the eGuide, it proved necessary to design and pilot a robust rubric for students and supervisors to structure the project proposal process. The eGuide was evaluated for its effectiveness by the various users and followed by an action research approach to make further improvements to the Degree final year project curriculum. The assessment criteria evolved further to become a marking template with a very effective feedback tool. The study has a stimulating effect on the practices of how supervision of project proposal was shaped and how the project proposal was being assessed. Practical outcome of the study ultimately benefits not only the students who were the focus in the first place but also the supervisors and the coordinators. The study provides further avenues for research opportunities in this area to take place in the future.

Extant literature has struggled to identify definitive purpose for shareholder proposals, finding them to depend on their context. Progressively, climate change has gathered interest at annual meetings where shareholders present proposals related to the subject. The literature builds expectations for the role of obsolescence, regulation and other forms of activism to motivate innovation with respect to these proposals. The literature also establishes how diversification can serve as a defense. I test the impact that shareholder proposals have on the information environment and on the corporate behaviors of innovation and diversification. I find that capital markets are responsive to proposal pressures and that there are improvements in the information environment. I find that firms in receipt of shareholder proposals related to climate change innovate and diversify more. I find wealth enhancements for these corporate behaviors spurred by climate-related proposals. While definitive statements on causality may elude, my results suggest that shareholder proposals have real effects. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The field of document design has gained considerable attention over the past couple of decades. New technology has drastically increased the design possibilities for writers, and researchers are gaining greater insight into the way that readers interact with the visual elements of their texts. This has led to an explosion in the availability of guidance on document design, but there are still areas where the research is incomplete. One of these areas concerns a common but important type of document: the proposal. There are numerous guides on proposal writing, but most of them are concerned with content and give little attention to document design. Since successful proposals are crucial to both the business and non-profit arenas, it is important that the documents are accessible and make a good impression on reviewers. Good document design can help. In this study I took the existing research on document design and developed a set of questions meant to address the different elements of document design. I tested a sampling of both grant proposals and contract proposals using those questions with a system of scoring based on Likert scaling. I combined the quantitative results with qualitative responses from interviews in order to gain insight regarding the overall effect of visual design elements in proposals. The results of this study showed that there are certain elements of document design (such as layout or contrast) that are important to proposals, but that non-design factors (such as cost or experience) usually outweigh the design for evaluation purpose. / Master of Arts

This study deals with the problem of evaluating curriculum documents which prescribe or make recommendations for curricular change. In 1980 a number of state and national education authorities in Australia released documents which contained proposals for reformulating the curriculum. Several of these proposals took the form of prescribing or recommending a core curriculum while others opted for a whole curriculum approach to the problem of the selection and transmission of educational knowledge. Although these are presented as practical documents - as proposals for action - they also contain theoretical and ideological components which are usually understated. It is the contention of this study that the evaluation of such proposals should not be based solely on their pragmatic or technical aspects but that their theoretical adequacy and links with ideology should also be taken into consideration. To this end, four of these documents have been selected, two of each type of proposals, and are used to provide material to develop criteria for making evaluative decisions about the theoretical and ideological aspects of curriculum proposals. Internal criteria, based on an analysis of the coherence and consistency of curriculum proposals, are derived by relating the proposals to one of two general theories of education. External criteria derive from a meta-critique where an attempt is made to formulate broader propositions which recognise the existence of opposition among various assumptions and are inclusive of those in conflict.