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The purpose of this report is to identify a generic toolbox for a Swedish municipality's quality work. To do so, the report examines two things. First of all, how a generic toolbox can be designed for a municipality's quality work, and, secondly, how a municipality can strengthen its work with quality. An abductive method has formed the basis for the gathering of theory and empirical evidence. Pragmatism has furthermore been at the heart of convergence, crystallizing a need for tools, in some cases pragmatically tailor made from theory and practice. The toolbox is proposed to consist of a PDSA wheel extending over a year’s period. The tools will be executed in conjunction since they are based on the previous tool’s results. A test that was carried out indicates that the proposed toolbox in fact has a generic cross-function even if knowledge about the use along with leadership values seem to be needed. In order to strengthen the overall quality work the municipality is proposed to compare results from all operations during the year, measurements of results could be used in order to create digital Annual Quality Reports. Also, the top management is encouraged to show interest for daily operations by, for example, site visits. Finally, the municipality should ensure that the quality work carried out by the Quality Management Team is given greater bearing. As an example this can be done by providing citizens with an overview of the inspection’s protocol. / En kommun innefattande ett hundratal verksamheter är i tagen att utveckla sin nuvarande kvalitetsledingsmodell. Kommunen har ett par verktyg för verksamheters kvalitetsarbete men välkomnar fler som är anpassade för användas inom ramarna för den utvecklade kvalitetsledningsmodellen. Syftet med den här rapporten är att identifiera och föreslå en generisk verktygslåda för en kommuns kvalitetsarbete. För att göra detta undersöker rapporten två saker. För det första hur en generisk verktygslåda kan utformas för en kommuns kvalitetsarbete, och för det andra hur en kommun kan stärka sitt arbete med kvalitet. En abduktiv metod har utgjort grund för såväl insamlande av teori men även empiri. Teorin varvas med giganter inom offensiv kvalitetsutveckling och strategisk verksamhetsutveckling till att innefatta nyare rön och synsätt. Undersökning och kartläggning av kommunens granskningsrapporter har ringat in nuvarande utvecklingsområden. I intervju med kommunens kvalitetschef, granskare samt en verksamhetsansvarig har bilden bekräftats och broderats ut. Konvergens i teori, empiri och kommunens nya kvalitetsledningsmodell har fått utgöra grund för varje föreslaget verktyg. Pragmatism har vidare fått stå i centrum då konvergens pekat på ett så pass utkristalliserat behov att verktyg i vissa fall har skräddarsytts utifrån teoretiska områden. Utifrån detta föreslås verktygslådan för det första bestå av ett PDSA-hjul som sträcker sig över ett år. Verktygen ska utföras i följdordning eftersom de bygger på föregående resultat. Test av verktygslådan pekar på att den har en generisk bäring men även att kunskap om tillämpning och bakomliggande värderingar behövs vid användning. I Plan-fasen föreslås en nulägesanalys samt ett 5 varför?. I Do-fasen föreslås en Balanced Scorecard där utrymme för definierade nyckeltalsenheter och framtida utvecklingsområden att innefattas. Vidare föreslås en kanbantavla som inte enbart består av ett traditionellt dragande system utan som även är grund för information. En checklista som verkytg föreslås för att bygga in systematik. I Study-fasen föreslås en ny nulägesanalys som vidare får ligga till grund för kommunens redan väletablerade analysverktyg Analystrappan. I Act-fasen föreslås en Spånskiva som underlag för en ny Balanced Scorecard som avslutar PDSA-cykeln. För att stärka sina verksamheter och få ut så mycket som möjligt av den generiska verktygslådan föreslås kommunen att i Plan-fasen göra sammanställningar av verksamheters resultat som grund för jämförelse och för att basera beslut på fakta. I Do-fasen uppmuntras till högsta ledningens visade intresse genom till exempel platsbesök. I Study-fasen kan kommunen fortsatt arbeta med att utveckla brukarundersökningen. I Act-fasen föreslås att varje verksamhet kvalitetsårsredovisar baserat på den rapportering som gjorts under året. Slutligen borde kommunen se till att det kvalitetsarbete som bedrivs i form av granskningar får större bäring i verksamheter. Detta kan till exempel göras genom att granskningsmarkörer får utgöra jämförelsegrund för brukare och medborgare.

This study investigated whether skills development learning programmes specifically internship programme in the public service sector are effective in improving interns’ emotional intelligence competences. A convenience sample of 66 interns was obtained. The interns, two peers and a mentor assessed the intern’s emotional intelligence competencies twice, at the beginning and towards the end of the internship programme with the aid the 360° Emotional and Social Intelligence Inventory (ESCI). A total of 264 participants completed the inventory. Mean competency ratings were compared to determine if there were differences between the first and the second assessments. There were statistically significant differences for Organisational Awareness, Adaptability, Influence, Teamwork, Empathy, Emotional Self Awareness, Conflict Management and Inspirational Leadership. No statistically significant differences were found in the overall development of emotional intelligence based on gender. However, female interns improved more in Emotional Self-Awareness while males improved more in Inspirational Leadership and Coaching. Skills development internship learning programme in the public service appear to be effective in furthering interns’ emotional intelligence competencies at work. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology with Specialisation in Research Consultation)

Les secousses sismiques sont des catastrophes naturelles, affectant la croûte terrestre, qui peuvent avoir des effets destructeurs majeurs dans les zones urbanisées. Même si des méthodes précises de calcul d’ouvrages en situation sismique existent, il est nécessaire de disposer de méthodes adaptées aux ingénieries mises en oeuvre. L’évolution de la réglementation parasismique (Eurocode 8 et annexes nationales) et du zonage sismique en France fait évoluer de manière significative la nécessité de prise en compte de l’action sismique dans la conception des bâtiments. Dans un calcul sismique, il est indispensable de prendre en compte des effets de la torsion qui peuvent conduire à des conséquences graves, en termes de dommages affectant les ouvrages de génie civil. Le présent travail expose une démarche incluant différents niveaux d'approches pour prendre en compte ce phénomène. Les structures particulièrement visées par ce travail sont les ossatures dites souples et plus spécifiquement les constructions en bois. Une étude paramétrique est menée avec une méthode de combinaison multidimensionnelle pour analyser l'influence de différentes configurations de contreventement sur la sensibilité de l'ouvrage aux phénomènes de torsion. Cette étape est basée sur l’adaptation pour des structures en bois, dans le contexte des Eurocodes (torsion structurale et torsion accidentelle), d’une méthode néozélandaise développée par Priestley et Paulay initialement proposée pour des bâtiments en béton armé. L’étude du comportement des bâtiments en bois en situation sismique s’inscrit dans une approche utilisant la méthode de linéarisation équivalente par coefficient de comportement. L’action sismique peut ainsi être modélisée par des forces statiques équivalentes qui sont ensuite transmises aux éléments structuraux verticaux par des diaphragmes horizontaux. Ce travail permet de définir des distributions d’efforts sismiques sur chaque contreventement avec la prise en compte de la torsion à partir d’une cartographie d’implantation des contreventements et des masses. Cette méthode originale de prise en compte de la torsion est mise en application et l’ensemble des résultats obtenus conduit à la réalisation d’une base de données conséquente sur les effets de la torsion, pour une situation sismique, dans le cas d’un dimensionnement en capacité, avec contreventements ductiles à comportement linéarisé par coefficient de comportement et diaphragmes horizontaux rigides. Après mise en application de cette méthode, une approche numérique du comportement de structures génériques est conduite afin d’illustrer les effets de différents niveaux de simplification inhérents à la méthode originale mise en place. Dans cette étape, les calculs utilisent la méthode des éléments finis en s’appuyant sur le logiciel Cast3m. Les calculs dynamiques sont réalisés sur la base de comportements linéaires ou linéarisés afin d’analyser les effets de différentes méthodes de calcul proposées par l’Eurocode 8, partie 1. Les calculs menés dans cette phase permettent notamment de valider des conditions d’application de méthodes simplifiées pour des structures en bois, et d’approcher les effets de la torsion sur ces structures avec différents degrés de précision. / The earthquakes are natural disasters affecting the earth's crust, which can have major destructive effects in urban areas. We have a set of scientific, technical and conception knowledge which allow to « build earthquake-resistant », but these methods must be adapted to simple buildings. The development of earthquake-resistant regulations (Eurocode 8 and national annexes) and seismic zoning of France evolve significantly to the need for taking into account the seismic action in the building design. In seismic design, it is essential to take into account the torsion effects that can lead to serious consequences in terms of damage to civil engineering structures. This research work presents a process including different levels of approach to take into account the effect of the torsion. The structures particularly targeted by this work are the so-called soft frames and more specifically the timber buildings. After a course of bibliographic elements related to the timber structures and the structures of current buildings subjected to seismic situations, a parametric study is taken with a method for multi-dimensional combination in order to analyze the influence of different bracing configurations on the sensitivity of the structure to the torsion phenomena. This first stage is based on the adaptation for timber structures, in the context of Eurocodes (structural torsion and accidental torsion), of a New Zealand method developed by Paulay and Priestley originally proposed for reinforced concrete buildings. The study of the behavior of timber buildings in seismic situation is part of an approach using the equivalent linearization method by a behavior coefficient. So the seismic action can be modeled by equivalent static forces which are then transmitted to the vertical structural elements by horizontal diaphragms. The objective of this work is to define the distribution of seismic forces on each brace with the inclusion of torsion from cartography of bracing and masses implantation. This original method, taking into account the torsion effect, is implemented and all the results lead to the creation of a rich database, for a seismic situation, in the case of design capacity, with ductile bracing and linearized behavior through the behavior factors and rigid horizontal diaphragms. This database can be used to simplify the approach of the torsional effects of the current timber buildings. It can also be used as a reference for the analysis of the influence of the semi rigid diaphragms or the actual non-linearity of bracing. After implementation of this method, a numerical approach considering the behavior of generic structures is conducted to illustrate the effects of different levels of simplification inherent to the implemented original method. In this step, the calculations use the finite element method (software Cast3M). The dynamic analysis is made on the basis of linear or linearized behavior to evaluate the effects of different calculation methods proposed by Eurocode 8, Part 1. The calculations done in this phase allow mainly to validate the applicability of simplified methods for timber structures, and to predict the torsional effects on these structures with different degrees of precision.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:00:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3182.pdf: 11246326 bytes, checksum: 9eb53dae713d089c39e05019b25a4b1e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-11-20 / The tax planning is necessary for there to be a rational application of resources and improvements in basic infrastructure for the municipality. Therefore, the assessment and questioning of the results indicated in the Generic Plant Values can provide information to the legitimacy of taxation more fair and accessible. This study evaluated the consistency of values existing plant in São Carlos - SP with respect to income levels provided by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The methodology used algebra through the Spring software. The results indicated possible inconsistencies between the income strata and venal values established. It is concluded that the plant venal values could be more efficient if they changed the criteria for charging for urban voids and taken into account the income strata of the taxpayer. / O planejamento tributário é necessário para que haja uma aplicação racional dos recursos disponíveis em benfeitorias e infraestrutura básica para o município. Logo, a avaliação e o questionamento dos resultados apontados na Planta Genérica de Valores podem fornecer subsídios para a legitimidade de uma tributação mais justa e acessível. Assim, este trabalho avaliou a consistência da planta de valores vigente do Município de São Carlos SP com relação aos estratos de renda disponibilizados pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). A metodologia utilizou álgebra de mapas por meio do software Spring. Os resultados apontaram possíveis incongruências entre estratos de renda e valores venais estabelecidos. Conclui-se que a planta de valores venais poderia ser mais eficiente se fossem alterados os critérios de cobrança para vazios urbanos e levados em consideração os estratos de renda do contribuinte.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:06:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2197.pdf: 1979337 bytes, checksum: 0091ce4138b8a98277d9af0d5d2aa788 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-11-13 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / In this dissertation we present a regression modelling proposal for modelling the market prices of urban batches at São Carlos city (SP), over the year of 2005. Usual regression modelling and survival techniques, with left censoring, are considered. A simulation study exames the coverage probabilities the asymptotic confidence for the parameters of the considered modelling. / Nesta disertação apresentaremos uma proposta de um modelo de equação de regressão representativa para a formação do valor de mercado dos lotes urbanos do município de São Carlos, SP, ano de 2005, visando à criação de Plantas de Valores Genéricos (PVG) utilizando as técnicas de: Modelos Lineares Usuais (erros normais e variância constante), estes amplamente utilizados, e a Análise de Sobrevivência com censura à esquerda. Após o ajuste, as duas metodologias são comparadas e testadas num estudo de simulação onde examinamos a probabilidade de cobertura de alguns parâmetros envolvidos na regressão.

Cette thèse de doctorat est consacrée à la reconnaissance de concepts visuels (VCR pour "Visual Concept Recognition"). En raison des nombreuses difficultés qui la caractérisent, cette tâche est toujours considérée comme l’une des plus difficiles en vision par ordinateur et reconnaissance de formes. Dans ce contexte, nous avons proposé plusieurs contributions, particulièrement dans le cadre d’une approche de reconnaissance multimodale combinant efficacement les informations visuelles et textuelles. Tout d’abord, nous avons étudié différents types de descripteurs visuels de bas-niveau sémantique pour la tâche de VCR incluant des descripteurs de couleur, de texture et de forme. Plus précisément, nous pensons que chaque concept nécessite différents descripteurs pour le caractériser efficacement pour permettre sa reconnaissance automatique. Ainsi, nous avons évalué l’efficacité de diverses représentations visuelles, non seulement globales comme la couleur, la texture et la forme, mais également locales telles que SIFT, Color SIFT, HOG, DAISY, LBP et Color LBP. Afin de faciliter le franchissement du fossé sémantique entre les descripteurs bas-niveau et les concepts de haut niveau sémantique, et particulièrement ceux relatifs aux émotions, nous avons proposé des descripteurs visuels de niveau intermédiaire basés sur l’harmonie visuelle et le dynamisme exprimés dans les images. De plus, nous avons utilisé une décomposition spatiale pyramidale des images pour capturer l’information locale et spatiale lors de la construction des descripteurs d’harmonie et de dynamisme. Par ailleurs, nous avons également proposé une nouvelle représentation reposant sur les histogrammes de couleur HSV en utilisant un modèle d’attention visuelle pour identifier les régions d’intérêt dans les images. Ensuite, nous avons proposé un nouveau descripteur textuel dédié au problème de VCR. En effet, la plupart des photos publiées sur des sites de partage en ligne (Flickr, Facebook, ...) sont accompagnées d’une description textuelle sous la forme de mots-clés ou de légende. Ces descriptions constituent une riche source d’information sur la sémantique contenue dans les images et il semble donc particulièrement intéressant de les considérer dans un système de VCR. Ainsi, nous avons élaboré des descripteurs HTC ("Histograms of Textual Concepts") pour capturer les liens sémantiques entre les concepts. L’idée générale derrière HTC est de représenter un document textuel comme un histogramme de concepts textuels selon un dictionnaire (ou vocabulaire), pour lequel chaque valeur associée à un concept est l’accumulation de la contribution de chaque mot du texte pour ce concept, en fonction d’une mesure de distance sémantique. Plusieurs variantes de HTC ont été proposées qui se sont révélées être très efficaces pour la tâche de VCR. Inspirés par la démarche de l’analyse cepstrale de la parole, nous avons également développé Cepstral HTC pour capturer à la fois l’information de fréquence d’occurrence des mots (comme TF-IDF) et les liens sémantiques entre concepts fournis par HTC à partir des mots-clés associés aux images. Enfin, nous avons élaboré une méthode de fusion (SWLF pour "Selective Weighted Later Fusion") afin de combiner efficacement différentes sources d’information pour le problème de VCR. Cette approche de fusion est conçue pour sélectionner les meilleurs descripteurs et pondérer leur contribution pour chaque concept à reconnaître. SWLF s’est révélé être particulièrement efficace pour fusion des modalités visuelles et textuelles, par rapport à des schémas de fusion standards. [...] / This Ph.D thesis is dedicated to visual concept recognition (VCR). Due to many realistic difficulties, it is still considered to be one of the most challenging problems in computer vision and pattern recognition. In this context, we have proposed some innovative contributions for the task of VCR, particularly in building multimodal approaches that efficiently combine visual and textual information. Firstly, we have proposed semantic features for VCR and have investigated the efficiency of different types of low-level visual features for VCR including color, texture and shape. Specifically, we believe that different concepts require different features to efficiently characterize them for the recognition. Therefore, we have investigated in the context of VCR various visual representations, not only global features including color, shape and texture, but also the state-of-the-art local visual descriptors such as SIFT, Color SIFT, HOG, DAISY, LBP, Color LBP. To help bridging the semantic gap between low-level visual features and high level semantic concepts, and particularly those related to emotions and feelings, we have proposed mid-level visual features based on the visual harmony and dynamism semantics using Itten’s color theory and psychological interpretations. Moreover, we have employed a spatial pyramid strategy to capture the spatial information when building our mid-level features harmony and dynamism. We have also proposed a new representation of color HSV histograms by employing a visual attention model to identify the regions of interest in images. Secondly, we have proposed a novel textual feature designed for VCR. Indeed, most of online-shared photos provide textual descriptions in the form of tags or legends. In fact, these textual descriptions are a rich source of semantic information on visual data that is interesting to consider for the purpose of VCR or multimedia information retrieval. We propose the Histograms of Textual Concepts (HTC) to capture the semantic relatedness of concepts. The general idea behind HTC is to represent a text document as a histogram of textual concepts towards a vocabulary or dictionary, whereas its value is the accumulation of the contribution of each word within the text document toward the underlying concept according to a predefined semantic similarity measure. Several variants of HTC have been proposed that revealed to be very efficient for VCR. Inspired by the Cepstral speech analysis process, we have also developed Cepstral HTC to capture both term frequency-based information (like TF-IDF) and the relatedness of semantic concepts in the sparse image tags, which overcomes the HTC’s shortcoming of ignoring term frequency-based information. Thirdly, we have proposed a fusion scheme to combine different sources of Later Fusion, (SWLF) is designed to select the best features and to weight their scores for each concept to be recognized. SWLF proves particularly efficient for fusing visual and textual modalities in comparison with some other standard fusion schemes. While a late fusion at score level is reputed as a simple and effective way to fuse features of different nature for machine-learning problems, the proposed SWLF builds on two simple insights. First, the score delivered by a feature type should be weighted by its intrinsic quality for the classification problem at hand. Second, in a multi-label scenario where several visual concepts may be assigned to an image, different visual concepts may require different features which best recognize them. In addition to SWLF, we also propose a novel combination approach based on Dempster-Shafer’s evidence theory, whose interesting properties allow fusing different ambiguous sources of information for visual affective recognition. [...]

The microbrewery industry is the fastest growing industry in Sweden. In seven years, the industry has grown by 832 percent. The dramatic increase of microbreweries has led to a highly competitive business environment for these entrepreneurs. This calls for microbreweries to develop strategies for how to stand out in this increasingly competitive environment, i.e., create competitive advantages. However, previous studies have shown that craft entrepreneurs do not strive to achieve traditional economic objectives as the competitive strategy research field suggest that companies have. Hence, traditional competitive strategies may not be applicable for these entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study was therefore to develop an understanding how motivational factors affect craft entrepreneurs’ competitive strategy. To fulfill the purpose, we conducted a case study on microbrewers within the northern region of Sweden. We used a qualitative research methodology where we conducted semi-structured interviews. Seven microbreweries participated in the study. We found that craft entrepreneurs’ motivations for why they started and maintained their microbreweries were mainly because of their passion and interest for the craft and therefore this was their primary objective. However, they perceived profit as a necessity that would enable them to achieve their primary objective. Therefore, we found that these entrepreneurs have dual objectives. We also found that entrepreneurs’ motivations affected their competitive strategies. These entrepreneur’s dual objectives caused some dilemmas when the two objectives contrasted each other. We saw tendencies that this created tension among these entrepreneurs when they had to balance the two objectives of generating profit and achieving objectives related to their passion and interest for the craft. Further, we found that these tensions caused implications on the entrepreneurs’ perception of competitive strategy.  Their perception of competitive strategy differed from traditional theory in three areas. Firstly, they had a resistance to grow their businesses. Secondly, they had a resistance for product/market development. And lastly, they experienced a low level of ambiguity when competing and cooperating simultaneously. In this study, we have been able to deepen the knowledge of craft entrepreneurs and how their motivations affect their competitive strategy. This is a first step in developing an understanding of how additional objectives to profit can cause implications for competitiveness.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-15T11:46:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1908357 bytes, checksum: 3762912e093a6400855708f530b6cd4d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / We study the geometry of surfaces immersed in R4 through the singularities of their families of height functions. Inflection points on the surfaces are shown to be umbilic points from their families of height functions. Furthermore, we see that inflection points of imaginary type are isolated points of the curve --1(0). As a consequence we prove that any dive generic convexly embedded S2 in R4 has inflexion points. / Neste trabalho estudamos a geometria das superfícies em R4 através da variedade canal e das singularidades das famílias de funções altura das superfícies. Provaremos que os pontos de inflexão das superfície são os pontos umbílicos das famílias de funções altura. Além disso, veremos que pontos de inflexão do tipo imaginário serão pontos isolados da curva --1(0). Como uma consequência deste estudo provaremos que qualquer mergulho genérico convexo de S2 em R4 tem pelo menos um ponto de inflexão.

Os sistemas Gerenciadores de Bases de Dados (SGBDs) foram desenvolvidos para manipular domínios de dados numéricos e/ou pequenas seqüencias de caracteres (palavras) e não foram projetados prevendo a manipulação de dados complexos, como por exemplo dados multimídia. Os operadores em domínios de dados que requisitam a relação de ordem têm pouca utilidade para manipular operações que envolvem dados complexos. Uma classe de operadores que se adequa melhor para manipular esses dados são os operadores por similaridade: consulta por abrangência (``range queries') e consulta de vizinhos mais próximos (``k-nearest neighbor queries'). Embora muitos resultados já tenham sido obtidos na elaboração de algoritmos de busca por similaridade, todos eles consideram uma única função para a medida de similaridade, que deve ser universalmente aplicável a todos os pares de elementos do conjunto de dados. Este projeto propõe explorar a possibilidade de trabalhar com estruturas de dados concebidas dentro dos conceitos de dados em domínios métricos, mas que admitam o uso de uma função de distância adaptável, ou seja, que mude para determinados grupos de objetos, dependendo de algumas características universais, e assim permitindo acomodar características que sejam particulares a algumas classes de imagens e não de todo o conjunto delas, classificando as imagens em uma hierarquia de tipos, onde cada tipo está associado a uma função de distância diferente e vetores de características diferentes, todos indexados numa mesma árvore. / The DBMS were developed to manipulate data in numeric domains and short strings, not considering the manipulation of complex data, like multimidia data. The operators em data domain which requests for the total order property have no use to handle complex data. An operator class that fit well to handle this type of data are the similarity operators: range query and nearest neighbor query. Although many results have been shown in research to answer similarity queries, all use only one distance function to measure the similarity, which must be applicable to all pairs of elements of the set. The goal of this work is to explore the possibility of deal with complex data in metric domains, that uses a suitable distance function, that changes its behavior for certain groups of data, depending of some universal features, allowing them to use specific features of some classes of data, not shared for the entire set. This flexibility will allow to reduce the set of useful features of each element in the set individually, relying in the values obtainded for one or few features extracted in first place. This values will guide the others important features to extract from data.