International governments have recognised that providing quality ‘Education for All’ is a top priority. In South Africa, there is a movement towards the global phenomenon of low fee private schools due to the government schools not satisfying the need for quality education. Sustainability of these schools is imperative as they are playing an increasingly important role in the South African education system. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop a sustainable financial model to ensure these schools are an attractive investment opportunity for all stakeholders. A two phased approach was used to develop the sustainable financial model. The first phase focused on ten interviews with managers and/or founders of low fee private schools to gather information on their financial models. This information was then consolidated into a financial model, which in turn provided a guideline used to interview ten experts from the educational and the financial business sectors in phase two. Two financial models were formed as a consequence and the combinations of these models form the sustainable financial model for low fee private schools. The sustainable financial model acts as a mechanism to ensure sustainability of low fee private schools. The Structural Financial Model (from phase two) has an “aerial view” and exhibits the necessary levers for sustainability. The Relationship Financial Model (from phase one) has a “terrestrial view”, which exhibits the relationship between the different levers in an organisation of a school. A combination of both models results in a sustainable financial model for low fee private schools.Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

As international commerce continues to emerge due to telecommunication and transportation breakthroughs, the eagerness of companies to send particular business functions offshore increases. Offshoring is the removal of a company function (particularly, manufacturing) from a domestic location to a remote destination. Since many developing economies contain low labor wages, companies in the United States and Europe are able to leverage cost savings by paying low compensation to foreign production employees. The low cost concept, though, does not always offer significant financial reward. For companies with particular product types, business models, or limited experience, offshoring proves to be an expensive mistake that is difficult to reverse. Even so, some U.S. enterprises are reshoring their production function to combat the issues faced in the foreign manufacturing sector. This study aims to investigate the problems of offshoring and proposes a “systems-view” decision framework for global sourcing.

The project¡§M-Taiwan¡¨which is now developed in a 5 year - 500 billion NT public construction plan, is a WiMAX based policy of national information and communication development. The research, basing on well-constructed PWLAN in the future, discusses the possibility of ¡§real time news transmission¡§, which put into place by the alternative way of SNG date transmission, the wireless network transmission, and evaluates the plan according to finance modules. The research is founded on documents collecting, interviews with experts, finance module evaluation. The research presents a business mode providing in time news transmission service by wireless network, and names it as WNG (Wireless News Gathering). The goal is to provide the same transmission quality as current SNG, but lower cost and simple process. The plan is to operate a company, offering rental or sales of WNG cars, for replacing the SNG car. And the company applies WVPN from WISP in order to supply transmission service of voice & image and guarantees the security. The first target market is for public media. For common people use is the second. The company is positioned as a wireless network based industry, offering in time data connection. The finance evaluation appears that, under discount rate 3.95%, the project will gain a net present value of 65,463,081 during 7 years operation in a common market. The Internal rate of return is 73%, which is much higher than 18%, the remuneration rate of common new creation industries. The innovative project is with high profit and fast cost recovery. Followed by sensitivity analysis, we know that the project is affected the most by sales income and operation cost, and is affected the least by capital expense. Thus, in order to avoid the price competitions after the competitors come into the industry, at the beginning the company may increase the investment of capital, to raise the barrier of the induction, and to defer the competition. Increasing the sales volume and lowering the risk of cost variation is the key point for industry survival. The company shall be aggressive in marketing or exploring the applying in all aspects in order to improve sales volume, and shall have good internal control to down cost and then promote profit. We find that the wireless network is full of possibilities and imagination as the M-Taiwan project indicated. The appliance service is wide of the range. The research is only one of the applicable models. Following researches may be going toward to killing class appliance and the industries across integration services.

Στις μέρες μας η ευρυζωνικότητα έχει σπουδαίο ρόλο στη ζωή μας. Πιο αναλυτικά η ευρυζωνικότητα μας προσφέρει υπηρεσίες και πολλά οφέλη στην καθημερινή μας ζωή. Για παράδειγμα το internet, μας προσφέρει πολλές υπηρεσίες όπως email, τηλεσύνδεση και αλλά πολλά καθώς και μεταφορά μεγάλου όγκου πληροφοριών. Οι βασικές προϋποθέσεις για την ανάπτυξη της ευρυζωνικότητας είναι η ανάπτυξη υποδομών, η ανάπτυξη υπηρεσιών και η μείωση του «ψηφιακού χάσματος». Όλα τα παραπάνω είναι συνδεδεμένα με τις τεχνολογίες που θα υλοποιήσουν αυτές τις προδιαγραφές. Αυτές δεν είναι άλλες από τις ενσύρματες (ADSL, BPL συστήματα και οπτικές ίνες) και ασύρματες τεχνολογίες (wifi, wimax, δορυφορικές επικοινωνίες) καθώς και συνδυασμό αυτών τον δύο. Δηλαδή αυτές οι τεχνολογίες είναι υπεύθυνες για την παροχή ευρυζωνικών υπηρεσιών στον πελάτη. Σκοπός της παρούσας διπλωματικής είναι να μπορέσει να δώσει στον αναγνώστη μια σφαιρική άποψη για κάθε τεχνολογία παροχής ευρυζωνικών υπηρεσιών και να μπορέσει να εξοικειωθεί με αυτές τις τεχνολογίες. Ο αναγνώστης πληροφορείται ποιες τεχνολογίες θα του προσφέρουν υψηλότερες ταχύτητες μετάδοσης δεδομένων καθώς και τα πλεονεκτήματα και μειονεκτήματα της κάθε τεχνολογίας. Επίσης σκοπός της διπλωματικής αυτής είναι να επισημάνει τις παραμέτρους που επηρεάζουν την κάθε τεχνολογία ως προς την απόδοση που έχει και ως προς τις ταχύτητες που προσφέρει προς τον συνδρομητή. Τέλος η διπλωματική αυτή δίνει στον αναγνώστη και κάποια οικονομικά στοιχεία έτσι ώστε να μπορεί να αντιληφθεί το οικονομικό κόστος που μπορεί να έχει η κάθε τεχνολογία καθώς και τους μελλοντικούς στόχους που έχει η κάθε τεχνολογία σύμφωνα πάντα με τον οικονομικό σχεδιασμό που έχει κάνει. / Nowadays, broadband transmission plays an important role in our lives. Particularly, broadband transmission provides us with many kinds of broadband services and various benefits in our daily life. For example, internet provides us with many services such as e-mail, teleconferencing and other kinds of prospects and capabilities such as the transfer of big amounts of information and bytes. The basic prerequisites which are necessary for the development of broadband transmission are the existence of broadband infrastructure, the advancement of broadband services and last but not least bridging the gap between binary and analogue technology. All above are related to the technologies that will carry out these standards. And these technologies combine both wire technologies (such as ADSL, BPL systems and optic fibers) and wireless technologies (wifi, wimax and satellite communications). Sometimes these two kinds of technologies cooperate at the same time constructively. In conclusion, these technologies are responsible for providing consumers with the various broadband services. This project has the intention of giving us and generally speaking, giving readers a manifold view of every technology that provides us with broadband services and also helping us to become familiars with it. In addition to this, the reader is informed as for which technologies are able to provide him with fast bit rates and at the same time he has the opportunity to see the advantages and disadvantages of each technology. Furthermore, the main purpose of that project is to call to attention the factors that affect each technology as far as the bit and byte rates that are provided to consumers are concerned. In a nutshell, this project gives to the reader some financial and economic data so as to be able to understand the financial cost of each technology and at the same time the forward targets and goals of it according to the economic planning that has been made for that technology particularly.

This doctoral thesis focuses on modelling as an efficient tool in industrial practice in the field of power industry and environmental engineering. It represents the modelling for technical as well as for economic part and their combination. Industrial companies do not evaluate only technical solutions in terms of investment costs, however, they search for optimized technical-economic solutions. The doctoral thesis describes the modelling of individual equipment as well as technological units in various levels of complexity. Case studies utilising various levels of modelling are represented herein.

Os Parques Científicos e Tecnológicos (PCTs) são considerados instrumentos de política de apoio à inovação e transferência de tecnologia. Os parques procuram oferecer uma infra-estrutura física e organizacional favorável ao estabelecimento de empresas de base tecnológica que se beneficiam dos resultados das aglomerações dessas empresas. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma arquitetura de um modelo inovador para financiamento de Parques Científicos e Tecnológicos no Brasil. A proposição do novo modelo explora o potencial dos fundos de investimento como mecanismo de financiamento para os parques. A arquitetura do novo modelo apresentado neste trabalho utilizou uma estrutura norteada pelos moldes de um project finance associada ao uso do Fundo de Investimento em Participações (FIP), e o Fundo de Investimento Imobiliário (FII), como fontes de obtenção de recursos para o financiamento do empreendimento. A metodologia utilizada neste trabalho foi pesquisa-ação que contou com uma etapa de ensaio e avaliação do novo modelo. / The Science and Technology Parks (STPs) are considered useful instruments to promote innovation and transfer of technology. These parks usually offer well developed Real Estate and Research (R&D) infrastructure for the organizations and for Technology Based Firms (TBFs). The firms located in these parks can acquire strategic benefits from the effects of clustering. The main objective of this research is to propose an innovative model for the finance of STPs in Brazil. The proposed model is based on the use of private equity and real estate funds as mechanisms of finance for these parks. The model proposed in this research uses the project finance concept combined with the Brazilian Fundo de Investimento em Participações (FIP, a private equity fund) and the Fundo de Investimento Imobiliário (FII, a real estate fund). The main methodology used in this work was action research that included the testing phase and the evaluation of the model by specialists in the field.

With wireless internet, wireless network(including mobile internet ) will become the new mainstream communication. At the same time, due to the mobility and efficiency of mobile devices, such as PDA, cellular phone, etc., more diverse new functions and services are becoming available. In the near future, mobile commerce and mobile payment systems certainly will become one of the consumer life styles. As a result, many scholars or organizations all propose the mechanism suitable for the mobile commerce and mobile payment system. However, compared to many countries around the world, mobile payment is yet to be developed in Taiwan. From the supply side, there exists a problem that those services control in hands in the telecommunication system industry¡Fand on the other side, there exist some problems from the users , like use habit is difficult to set up , and lack of suitable use situation, etc. This research is based on ¡§The BOT of e-commerce and wireless network development¡¨, which is erected from Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA). We use the situation to develop the mobile payment system and related business plan, hoping to provide a reference for investors of TRA, who want to develop e-commerce and needing a complete payment system and cashflow mechanism. The payment system of this research institute planning is especially in the environment to consumers, propose differently at present that the adding value of the existing mobile payment system is served. For example, we combine the storage fund mechanism and credit card on mobile, transmit trade information through wireless network or IVR, in order to reach all the unrestricting users. We also bring innovative cell-phone dial depositing and cash fund mechanism, in order to solve the situation that passengers are confined in the railroad car and can't move to anyway. The financial model is set up after the business plan, to carry on the feasible assessment of financial affairs of this special project. According to the results from the financial model, NPV of the project is 8,917,271 NT dollar, IRR is up to 22% , DPB is about 4.9 year; and therefore this project is feasible on financial affairs.

Os Parques Científicos e Tecnológicos (PCTs) são considerados instrumentos de política de apoio à inovação e transferência de tecnologia. Os parques procuram oferecer uma infra-estrutura física e organizacional favorável ao estabelecimento de empresas de base tecnológica que se beneficiam dos resultados das aglomerações dessas empresas. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma arquitetura de um modelo inovador para financiamento de Parques Científicos e Tecnológicos no Brasil. A proposição do novo modelo explora o potencial dos fundos de investimento como mecanismo de financiamento para os parques. A arquitetura do novo modelo apresentado neste trabalho utilizou uma estrutura norteada pelos moldes de um project finance associada ao uso do Fundo de Investimento em Participações (FIP), e o Fundo de Investimento Imobiliário (FII), como fontes de obtenção de recursos para o financiamento do empreendimento. A metodologia utilizada neste trabalho foi pesquisa-ação que contou com uma etapa de ensaio e avaliação do novo modelo. / The Science and Technology Parks (STPs) are considered useful instruments to promote innovation and transfer of technology. These parks usually offer well developed Real Estate and Research (R&D) infrastructure for the organizations and for Technology Based Firms (TBFs). The firms located in these parks can acquire strategic benefits from the effects of clustering. The main objective of this research is to propose an innovative model for the finance of STPs in Brazil. The proposed model is based on the use of private equity and real estate funds as mechanisms of finance for these parks. The model proposed in this research uses the project finance concept combined with the Brazilian Fundo de Investimento em Participações (FIP, a private equity fund) and the Fundo de Investimento Imobiliário (FII, a real estate fund). The main methodology used in this work was action research that included the testing phase and the evaluation of the model by specialists in the field.

This doctoral thesis focuses on modelling as an efficient tool in industrial practice in the field of power industry and environmental engineering. It represents the modelling for technical as well as for economic part and their combination. Industrial companies do not evaluate only technical solutions in terms of investment costs, however, they search for optimized technical-economic solutions. The doctoral thesis describes the modelling of individual equipment as well as technological units in various levels of complexity. Case studies utilising various levels of modelling are represented herein.

This thesis is devoted to the study of the applications of the error theory using Dirichlet forms. Our work is split into three parts. The first one deals with the models described by stochastic differential equations. After a short technical chapter, an innovative model for order books is proposed. We assume that the bid-ask spread is not an imperfection, but an intrinsic property of exchange markets instead. The uncertainty is carried by the Brownian motion guiding the asset. We find that spread evolutions can be evaluated using closed formulae and we estimate the impact of the underlying uncertainty on the related contingent claims. Afterwards, we deal with the PBS model, a new model to price European options. The seminal idea is to distinguish the market volatility with respect to the parameter used by traders for hedging. We assume the former constant, while the latter volatility being an erroneous subjective estimation of the former. We prove that this model anticipates a bid-ask spread and a smiled implied volatility curve. Major properties of this model are the existence of closed formulae for prices, the impact of the underlying drift and an efficient calibration strategy. The second part deals with the models described by partial differential equations. Linear and non-linear PDEs are examined separately. In the first case, we show some interesting relations between the error and wavelets theories. When non-linear PDEs are concerned, we study the sensitivity of the solution using error theory. Except when exact solution exists, two possible approaches are detailed: first, we analyze the sensitivity obtained by taking "derivatives" of the discrete governing equations. Then, we study the PDEs solved by the sensitivity of the theoretical solutions. In both cases, we show that sharp and bias solve linear PDE depending on the solution of the former PDE itself and we suggest algorithms to evaluate numerically the sensitivities. Finally, the third part is devoted to stochastic partial differential equations. Our analysis is split into two chapters. First, we study the transmission of an uncertainty, present on starting conditions, on the solution of SPDE. Then, we analyze the impact of a perturbation of the functional terms of SPDE and the coefficient of the related Green function. In both cases, we show that the sharp and bias verify linear SPDE depending on the solution of the former SPDE itself