In 2000 Campion High School, a Catholic, Jesuit, single-sex secondary school created and adopted the Grad-at-Grad statement as the school‘s expected school-wide learning results (ESLRs) and has articulated a need for a comprehensive, reliable assessment of these graduation outcomes. This case study used interviews, a survey, and participant observation to understand how the school has implemented and assessed the ESLRs since their inception. The study also thematically compared Jesuit educational philosophy to current theories of educative assessment and outcomes-centered curriculum development. Findings reveal that the school relies on a random, individual approach to curricular incorporation and has not incorporated the outcomes at the departmental level. Teachers at the school provide good role models for the Grad-at-Grad outcomes, and the Campus Ministry and Community Service programs provide meaningful learning experiences in relation to the outcomes. The school uses a variety of traditional assessment measures to assess students‘ growth toward the graduation outcomes. The study concluded that the school is in the middle of the implementation process and should utilize more professional development and the current theories of educative assessment and outcomes-centered curriculum design as it continues to implement and assess the ESLRs.

Yes / Wind Energy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Maintenance is essential in keeping wind energy assets operating efficiently. With the development of advanced condition monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics, condition-based maintenance has attracted much attention in the offshore wind industry in recent years. This paper models various maintenance activities and their impacts on the degradation and performance of offshore wind turbine components. An integrated maintenance strategy of corrective maintenance, imperfect time-based preventive maintenance and condition-based maintenance is proposed and compared with other traditional maintenance strategies. A maintenance simulation programme is developed to simulate the degradation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines and estimate their performance. A case study on a 10-MW offshore wind turbine (OWT) is presented to analyse the performance of different maintenance strategies. The simulation results reveal that the proposed strategy not only reduces the total maintenance cost but also improves the energy generation by reducing the total downtime and expected energy not supplied. Furthermore, the proposed maintenance strategy is optimised to find the best degradation threshold and balance the trade-off between the use of condition-based maintenance and other maintenance activities. / UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Grant Number: EP/P009743/1

Network lifetime is an important performance metric in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Transmission Power Control (TPC) is a well-established method to minimise energy consumption in transmission in order to extend node lifetime and, consequently, lead to solutions that help extend network lifetime. The accurate lifetime estimation of sensor nodes is useful for routing to make more energy-efficient decisions and prolong lifetime. This research proposes an Energy-Efficient TPC (EETPC) mechanism using the measured Received Signal Strength (RSS) to calculate the ideal transmission power. This includes the investigation of the impact factors on RSS, such as distance, height above ground, multipath environment, the capability of node, noise and interference, and temperature. Furthermore, a Dynamic Node Lifetime Estimation (DNLE) technique for WSNs is also presented, including the impact factors on node lifetime, such as battery type, model, brand, self-discharge, discharge rate, age, charge cycles, and temperature. In addition, an Energy-Efficient and Lifetime Aware Routing (EELAR) algorithm is designed and developed for prolonging network lifetime in multihop WSNs. The proposed routing algorithm includes transmission power and lifetime metrics for path selection in addition to the Expected Transmission Count (ETX) metric. Both simulation and real hardware testbed experiments are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed schemes. The simulation experiments run on the AVRORA simulator for two hardware platforms: Mica2 and MicaZ. The testbed experiments run on two real hardware platforms: the N740 NanoSensor and Mica2. The corresponding implementations are on two operating systems: Contiki and TinyOS. The proposed TPC mechanism covers those investigated factors and gives an overall performance better than the existing techniques, i.e. it gives lower packet loss and power consumption rates, while delays do not significantly increase. It can be applied for single-hop with multihoming and multihop networks. Using the DNLE technique, node lifetime can be predicted more accurately, which can be applied for both static and dynamic loads. EELAR gives the best performance on packet loss rate, average node lifetime and network lifetime compared to the other algorithms and no significant difference is found between each algorithm with the packet delay.

Adapt or die. En omvärld i ständig rörelse ställer högre krav än någonsin på organisationer att utveckla sitt förändringsarbete och sättet man ser på förändringar, något som lett till att fenomenet "organisationsförändringar" blivit ett fokusområde för organisationsforskare. Inom denna forskning framhävs inte sällan vikten av att ta ställning till hur anställda tar emot, och påverkas av, detta förändringsarbete. En typ av förändringar som dock förblivit outforskade är väntade förändringar, förändringar där de anställda vet att en förändring kan komma att ske men inte när eller hur den kommer ske. Inom idrotten återfinns en viss typ av organisationer, elitidrottsföreningar, som ställs inför väntade förändringar med jämna mellanrum. Dessa situationer uppkommer när föreningarna omplaceras i det standardiserade seriesystem som återfinns i Sverige och ställs inför kraftigt omväxlande ekonomiska förutsättningar. För att kunna hantera denna osäkerhet förutsätts att organisationen konstant står redo att genomföra omvälvande förändringar, enbart baserat på föreningens sportsliga resultat. Syftet med uppsatsen är att skapa en förståelse för de anställdas reaktioner vid situationer av omplacering och väntad förändring. För att uppnå syftet utgick uppsatsen ifrån bristen på forskning och sökte, med hjälp av metoden Grundad teori, producera en serie väl underbyggda frågeställningar baserade i studiens fynd. Frågeställningarna producerades sedan via fyra semi-strukturerade intervjuer inom två olika elitidrottsföreningar. Resultatet visar på att en utbredd acceptans för väntade förändringar återfinns hos anställda inom elitidrottsföreningar. Uppsatsens fynd grundades i data från respondenterna och sammanställdes via en resultatmodell innehållandes en kärnkategori och fyra underkategorier. Uppsatsen erbjuder således, via metodvalet, en nyproducerad infallsvinkel på en situation som många organisationer inom idrotten – men även utanför – kan komma att ställas inför. / Adapt or die. With the world around them constantly evolving, organizations are facing more pressure than ever before to develop the way they look at the process of change. This has led to the phenomena "organizational change" becoming popular amongst organizational researchers. Within this research, the perspective of the employee affected by the change is often referred to as important. One type of change that has remained relatively untouched by this research is expected change, meaning change where the employee is aware that change is coming but without knowledge of when or how these changes will occur. Within the realm of sports a type of organization can be found, the elite sporting association, that is forced to deal with expected change from time to time. This occurs when the sporting associations are relocated within the standardized divisional system found in Sweden, resulting in significant changes to the associations economic conditions. To manage this, these organizations are in a constant state of readiness; ready to, at a moments notice, conduct sweeping changes to its structure solely in response to the associations success within the division. The purpose of this essay is to create an understanding of how employees react to situations of divisional relocation and expected change. To achieve this purpose, the essay used the lack of previous research as a starting point and sought to, by use of the qualitative method Grounded Theory, produce a set of relevant questions on the matter, supported by the data. These questions were produced through four semi-structured interviews on two different elite sporting associations. The results indicated a widespread acceptance of expected change among the elite sporting associations employees. Findings of the study were grounded in the data extracted from participants of the study and was presented in a results model containing a core category and four sub-categories. Through its choice of method this essay provides a fresh take on a situation that could affect many organizations, both within the realm of sports and outside it.

Nowadays, the Human Machine System (HMS) is considered to be a proven technology, and now plays an important role in various human activities. However, this system requires that only a human has an in-depth understanding of the machine operation, and is thus a one-way relationship. Therefore, researchers have recently developed Human Adaptive Mechatronics (HAM) to overcome this problem and balance the roles of the human and machine in any HMS. HAM is different compared to ordinary HMS in terms of its ability to adapt to changes in its surroundings and the changing skill level of humans. Nonetheless, the main problem with HAM is in quantifying the human skill level in machine manipulation as part of human recognition. Therefore, this thesis deals with a proposed formula to quantify and classify the skill of the human operator in driving a car as an example application between humans and machines. The formula is evaluated using the logical conditions and the definition of skill in HAM in terms of time and error. The skill indices are classified into five levels: Very Highly Skilled, Highly Skilled, Medium Skilled, Low Skilled and Very Low Skilled. Driving was selected because it is considered to be a complex mechanical task that involves skill, a human and a machine. However, as the safety of the human subjects when performing the required tasks in various situations must be considered, a driving simulator was used. The simulator was designed using Microsoft Visual Studio, controlled using a USB steering wheel and pedals, as was able to record the human ii path and include the desired effects on the road. Thus, two experiments involving the driving simulator were performed; 20 human subjects with a varying numbers of years experience in driving and gaming were used in the experiments. In the first experiment, the subjects were asked to drive in Expected and Guided Conditions (EGC). Five guided tracks were used to show the variety of driving skill: straight, circular, elliptical, square and triangular. The results of this experiment indicate that the tracking error is inversely proportional to the elapsed time. In second experiment, the subjects experienced Sudden Transitory Conditions (STC). Two types of unexpected situations in driving were used: tyre puncture and slippery surface. This experiment demonstrated that the tracking error is not directly proportional to the elapsed time. Both experiments also included the correlation between experience and skill. For the first time, a new skill index formula is proposed based on the logical conditions and the definition of skill in HAM.

Quantifier et mesurer le risque dans un environnement partiellement ou totalement incertain est probablement l'un des enjeux majeurs de la recherche appliquée en mathématiques financières. Cela concerne l'économie, la finance, mais d'autres domaines comme la santé via les assurances par exemple. L'une des difficultés fondamentales de ce processus de gestion des risques est de modéliser les actifs sous-jacents, puis d'approcher le risque à partir des observations ou des simulations. Comme dans ce domaine, l'aléa ou l'incertitude joue un rôle fondamental dans l'évolution des actifs, le recours aux processus stochastiques et aux méthodes statistiques devient crucial. Dans la pratique l'approche paramétrique est largement utilisée. Elle consiste à choisir le modèle dans une famille paramétrique, de quantifier le risque en fonction des paramètres, et d'estimer le risque en remplaçant les paramètres par leurs estimations. Cette approche présente un risque majeur, celui de mal spécifier le modèle, et donc de sous-estimer ou sur-estimer le risque. Partant de ce constat et dans une perspective de minimiser le risque de modèle, nous avons choisi d'aborder la question de la quantification du risque avec une approche non-paramétrique qui s'applique à des modèles aussi généraux que possible. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur deux mesures de risque largement utilisées dans la pratique et qui sont parfois imposées par les réglementations nationales ou internationales. Il s'agit de la Value at Risk (VaR) qui quantifie le niveau de perte maximum avec un niveau de confiance élevé (95% ou 99%). La seconde mesure est l'Expected Shortfall (ES) qui nous renseigne sur la perte moyenne au delà de la VaR.

In this paper dependence between credit default swap (CDS) values and stock price movements of the largest European banking groups is examined and effectiveness of the usage of CDS contracts as a tool to hedge exposure to the price movements of the underlying stock during the pre-crisis and crisis periods is assessed. The effectiveness is evaluated by comparing estimated Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) risk measures of portfolios consisting of stocks and CDS vis-à-vis portfolios consisting of only stocks. CDS are valued using mark-to-market approach. Marginal distributions of CDS value changes and stock returns are estimated using Kernel density estimate from historical time-series data of daily stock returns and CDS value changes. Dependence between marginal distributions is estimated using Gaussian, Gumbel and Student‟s t copulas. Random portfolio values are simulated using Monte Carlo Simulation from estimated copulas parameters and marginal distributions for daily, quarterly and yearly time horizons. VaR and ES with 90%, 95% and 99% confidence level are estimated from the simulated portfolio return distribution. The results show that there is a significant negative dependence between CDS values and stock prices during financial crisis while dependence is weak in the pre-crisis period. The main finding of the paper is that CDS added into the portfolio of stocks significantly reduces VaR and ES of a portfolio during the period of financial crisis while they... [to full text] / Šiame darbe tikrinama didţiausių Europos bankų grupių kredito rizikos apsikeitimo sandorių (CDS) ir akcijų kainų priklausomybė bei vertinamas CDS efektyvumas, jei jais draudţiamasi nuo akcijų kainų svyravimų prieš kriziniu ir kriziniu laikotarpiu. Efektyvumas yra įvertinamas lyginant apskaičiuotas rizikos vertes (VaR) ir tikėtinus vertės trūkumus (ES) dviejų portfelių: akcijų portfelio bei akcijų ir CDS portfelio. CDS vertinti yra naudojamas pagal rinką vertinimo būdas (mark-to-market approach). CDS verčių pasikeitimo ir akcijų grąţos ribiniai pasiskirstymai yra įvertinami, naudojant Kernel įvertinimą (Kernel Estimator) iš istorinių akcijų grąţų ir CDS verčių pokyčių duomenų. Priklausomybė tarp ribinių pasiskirstymų yra įvertinama naudojant Gauso, Gumbelio ir Studento t kopulas (copulas). Atsitiktinės portfelių vertės yra susimuliuojamos naudojant Monte Carlo simuliaciją, pritaikant kopulų parametrus bei kintamųjų ribinius pasiskirstymus vienos dienos, ketvirčio bei metų periodams. VaR ir ES su 90%, 95% ir 99% pasitikėjimo intervalais yra skaičiuojami iš susimuliuotų portfelio grąţų pasiskirstymo. Gauti rezultatai rodo, kad tarp akcijų kainų ir CDS verčių yra stipri priklausomybė krizės laikotarpiu, tuo tarpu prieš kriziniu laikotarpiu priklausomybė yra silpna. Pagrindinė darbo išvada yra ta, jog CDS įtraukti į akcijų portfelį reikšmingai sumaţina portfelio VaR ir ES kriziniu laikotarpiu, tačiau nesumaţina prieš kriziniu laikotarpiu. Portfelio rizika gali būti sumaţinta, jei... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Svensk bostadsmarknad har länge präglats av en snedvriden konkurrens med en markant fördel till Sveriges kommunala allmännyttiga bostadsaktiebolag jämte de privata bostadsaktiebolagen. I syfte att utjämna existerande sektoriella diskrepanser och skapa en konkurrensneutral marknad med jämlika villkor för privata respektive kommunala bostadsaktiebolag, infördes per den 1:a januari år 2011, Lag (2010:879) om allmännyttiga bostadsaktiebolag. Lagen innebär för de kommunala bostadsaktiebolagen ett avsteg från den tidigare självkostnadsprincipen mot ett i högre grad affärsmässig agerande enligt vinstdrivande syfte. Denna studie avser utifrån sambandet mellan risk och avkastning inom svenska bostadsaktiebolag, undersöka huruvida svenska kommunala allmännyttiga bostadsaktiebolag efter införandet av lagen uppvisar ett mer affärsmässigt agerande i termer om risk och avkastning på totalt kapital. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkter tar huvudsakligen ansats i prospektteorin samt den förväntade nyttoteorin, vilka utgör två välrenommerade modeller i syfte att förklara beslutstagande under risk. Den förväntade nyttoteorin antar att individer är rationella nyttomaximerare och därefter agerar antingen riskaversivt, risksökande eller riskneutralt. Prospektteorin hävdar i motsats till den förväntade nyttoteorin att individen kan vara en kombination av riskaversiv, risksökande och riskneutral. Varav individen således inte alltid antas agera rationellt. Författarna har funnit flertalet tidigare forskare vilka genom perspektivet av den strategiska företagsledningen, bevisat stöd för prospektteorin som förklarande modell av beslutstagande under risk på företagsnivå, inom och mellan olika branscher. Därmed ställer författarna följande frågeställning: Uppvisar Sveriges kommunala allmännyttiga bostadsaktiebolag ett i högre grad affärsmässigt riskbeteende efter införandet av Lag (2010:879) om allmännyttiga bostadsaktiebolag? Utifrån sekundärdata insamlad via databasen Retriever Business har ett kvantitativt metodangrepp tillämpats i syfte att besvara studiens framställda hypoteser. Insamlad data består av de svenska bostadsaktiebolagens årliga avkastning på totalt kapital för tidsperioden 2006-2010 samt 2011-2014. Det empiriska materialet har vidare analyserats genom korstabeller, rangkorrelationer samt deskriptiv statistik. Resultatet visade att prospektteorin utgör ett bra alternativ som deskriptiv modell av beslutstagande under risk inom svenska bostadsaktiebolag. Enligt prospektteorin påvisades att svenska bostadsaktiebolags riskbeteende varierar beroende på bolagets branschallokering i förhållande till branschens genomsnittliga prestation, varav den strategiska företagsledningen inom svenska bostadsaktiebolag kan antas vara en sammanslagning av både risksökande och riskaversiva. Därmed motsäger resultatet den förväntade nyttoteorins antaganden om att individen alltid agerar rationellt. Vidare påvisade jämförelse av de kommunala bostadsaktiebolagens riskbeteende före och efter reformen att de kommunala bostadsaktiebolagens riskbeteende inte påverkats i större utsträckning, varför indikationer ges att allmännyttiga bostadsaktiebolag inte agerar i högre grad affärsmässigt efter Lag (2010:879) om allmännyttiga bostadsaktiebolag.

This thesis is dealing with the way of verification of the fulfilment of expected outputs of primary education in the thematic unit of organic chemistry. Based on the gradual evaluation of the reform of the Czech educational system, requirements to formulate the outputs more specifically have emerged and led to the initiation of the primary education standards. In the theoretical section the need of the preparation of the standards for the natural science studies is justified, further the methodology of the illustrative tasks output for the thematic unit of organic chemistry is decribed. In the practical section the way of verification of suggested illustrative tasks is explained, as well as the evaluation of the results of the verification and resume of the comments of primary school teachers participating in the research. The conclusion presumably suggests the necessity of revision of the framing educational program (RVP) of primary education for the science subjects and also shows further work options in this sphere, namely creating other illustrative tasks.1

This Diploma Thesis covers the final evaluation topic in the educational program Step by step. In particular, it deals with the verbal description as a specific form of evaluation. In the theoretical part, the Thesis describes the Step by step program in general and within the contexts of its implementation into the Czech local educational system. The Thesis outlines the scope of the program and the applicable ways of evaluation. The second chapter deals with evaluation in general. Various kind and purpose of evaluation have been described in detail. Particular attention has been paid to the verbal evaluation as such. The research section of the Thesis studies and describes the various ways of wording and formulation in the verbal evaluation specifically. It covers both content and form of the final verbal evaluation. Key Words Program Step by step Evaluation Continuous evaluation Final evaluation Verbal evaluation Expected outcomes