¡@¡@The motivation of this research is to construct a Composite Index of funds which can help investors to choose funds with better ¡§future¡¨ performance. ¡@¡@The Composite Index in this thesis includes 14 kinds of indexes, such as Sharpe, Treynor, Sortino, and etc. Each kind of index is calculated by 4 different time lengths, they are 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year. Therefore, there are 56 indexes in the Composite Index (CI). ¡@¡@Factor analysis method was used to analyze fund performance from 1998/01 to 2000/12, and the perfect weight combination to make 56 indexes become one CI was found out. In order to prove the performance of the CI in selecting funds, funds were distributed into 5 groups by their Composite Index scores every month. Therefore, we had group A to E from high CI score to low CI score. We calculated these funds¡¦ returns in the next month, and cumulated them by group from 2001/01 to 2005/12. After calculating, the cumulative returns of group A are 74.47% higher than group E, annual returns are 11.99%, and Sharpe index is 1.41. It shows that Composite Index can really distinguish the future, at least in one month, performance of stock funds. Investors are recommended to change their fund portfolios by latest CI scores once a month. Therefore, the Composite Index is more suitable for fund-of-fund manager, because their transaction costs are lower. ¡@¡@This thesis was awarded by ¡§Industry-University Cooperative Research Project¡¨ of National Science Council, and is going to be developed in PRISS system, a financial analysis software of Folion Financial Technology Co., Ltd. Therefore, a more systemized, programmed, and efficient environment for this kind of research is expectable.

With the rise of the Internet age, the e-commerce mode in China's retail industry has achieved unprecedented development. E-commerce retail has begun to occupy the original share of the brick-and-mortar retail industry gradually. This trend is more significant in the field of beauty and skincare. Tmall, Taobao, JD.com and Tiktok, as the representative online retail channels, have become primary channels for many users to buy skin care and beauty products. Therefore, for the retail industry, online channels can expand sales productivity of products and scale up revenues greatly for enterprises. However, as the Internet enters inventory era and online traffic reaches its peak, the inefficient efforts in online channels may raise the marketing expenses, leading to a decline in their profit margins. This thesis investigates whether e-commerce transformation of traditional retail enterprises in China, e-commerce transformation of different types of retail enterprises, and e-commerce transformation of retail enterprises in different regions will have an impact on corporate performance through empirical analysis. Thus, we will investigate whether e-commerce transformation can significantly promote the growth of corporate performance from multiple perspectives and whether corporate performance can be significantly improved when spending more time on e-commerce transformation.This study employed factor analysis method, using four financial indicators in the aspects of profit-making capability, operating capability, growth ability and solvency. Listed companies in the retail industry in Shanghai and Shenzhen markets from the year of 2008 to the year of 2021 were selected as the research sample. Data were collected to define the transformation years. In terms of the financial data of Chinese listed companies in the retail industry for seven years before and after e-commerce model transformation, this thesis analyzed the changes in corporate performance of traditional Chinese listed companies in the retail industry after e-commerce transformation. The analysis of the empirical results shows that there is no significant improvement within one year after the e-commerce transformation of traditional retail enterprises, and there is a significant improvement in corporate performance after one year. At the same time, this thesis verifies that for the traditional retail industry, e-commerce transformation can promote corporate performance; with different retail enterprise backgrounds, retail enterprises with non-state-owned backgrounds are more able to improve corporate performance; in relatively developed regions, e-commerce transformation shows greater promotion effect on the performance of retail enterprises. / Business Administration/Finance

This research aims to improve the design and placement of runway exits at airports through analysis and modeling of the effects that exogenous causal factors have on pilots' landing behavior and exit selections. Incorporating these factors into modeling software will strengthen the software's utility by providing project teams the ability to specify which pilot motivational causal factors apply to a new or existing runway. The main findings suggest pilots' exit selections are deterministic but dependent on the presence (or absence) of six (6) causal factors. A model and two (2) case studies are presented and compared against predictions generated by existing modeling software. The results support a finding that the causal factor model improves motivation-based predictions over current modeling techniques, which are drawn from stochastic distributions. The accuracy of this model enables designers to optimize runway exit placement and geometry to maximize runway capacity. / Master of Science / Airport design engineers currently plan the locations and geometric characteristics of runway exits by balancing the expected fleet mix of aircraft on that runway with the capacity and delay effects that the number and placement of these exits might cause. This technique originated from research beginning in the early 1970s, which found that pilots' exit motivations primarily resulted from the capabilities and limitations of their aircraft. Since pilots tend to "fly by the numbers" (i.e., exhibit predictable approach airspeeds, power levels, wing flaps, touchdown locations, landing speeds, and braking efforts), engineers thus employed design principles in which the numbers, locations and geometries of exits were primarily functions of the physical and performance-based characteristics of the specific types of aircraft expected to utilize the runway. However, in studying more than 4 million landings by a single aircraft type (the Boeing 737-800) at 42 U.S. airports, the evidence in this thesis shows that pilots' exit selections are behaviorally motivated by more than the physics of motion. This thesis aims to refine previous research and engineering methods by showing evidence that pilots' exit selections have as much to do with the presence (or absence) of certain environmental factors within the landing system. These factors (described in detailed within) are unique to each airport's overall physical network of interconnected runways, exits, taxiways, terminals and other features. Within this network, a pilot's landing behavior and exit selection depends on the locational and relational interactions that each exit choice will have on the time and distance to their apron (gate) assignment. These "interactions" are referred to as causal factors – defined as physical features within a landing environment that pilots have little-to-no control over – but which nevertheless influence their specific exit selections. Two (2) runway case studies provided in this thesis evidence a finding that a causal factor model reliably predicts pilots' exit selections better than current modeling techniques, which are drawn from probability-based statistical distributions. The stability and accuracy of the new model enables engineering design and project teams to optimize runway exit placement and geometry to maximize runway capacity, and can be adopted for use in both existing and future runways.