ABSTRACT The study has revealed that Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited has been outsourcing it logistics activities more than four years. The rationale behind the outsourcing activities is to cut down cost and enjoy first class service from specialist using the most suitable, quick and reliable technology. The company has actually increased its revenue margin consistently for the past four years and has enjoyed other benefits like: timely delivery and overall quality improvement. Its logistics service providers have also enjoyed benefits like: consistent profit growth rate, transformation of superiority into competitive pricing through economics of scale, improvements of staff skills through efficient training and continuous exposure to new technologies and best practices in the industry. The main problem encountered by the logistics service providers is that they are not been paid on time. It also came to light that Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited have build a very good business relationship with its service providers which have enable it to maintain good logistics service providers and switch to a new one if the need arise. It was discovered that outsourcing logistics activities which is a contractual service has become relatively stable in the developed countries while it is a rapidly growing and emerging in developing countries like Ghana. It was noted that the most obvious reason behind outsourcing logistics activities is to provide very effective means of reducing costs, better services, improving operating efficiency, flexibility and getting access to new suitable technologies easily at a lower cost. Outsourcing, therefore, has increasingly becomes an important strategy that can significantly assist organizations to leverage their skills and resources to achieve greater competitiveness. However, there are risks of becoming over dependent on service providers. / E-mail : thydzo@yahoo.fr , 0233-240315605

Cette thèse est consacrée à la sélection de variables ou de modèles en régression logistique. Elle peut-être divisée en deux parties, une partie appliquée et une partie méthodologique. La partie appliquée porte sur l'analyse des données d'une grande enquête socio - épidémiologique dénommée actu-palu. Ces grandes enquêtes socio - épidémiologiques impliquent généralement un nombre considérable de variables explicatives. Le contexte est par nature dit de grande dimension. En raison du fléau de la dimension, le modèle de régression logistique n'est pas directement applicable. Nous procédons en deux étapes, une première étape de réduction du nombre de variables par les méthodes Lasso, Group Lasso et les forêts aléatoires. La deuxième étape consiste à appliquer le modèle logistique au sous-ensemble de variables sélectionné à la première étape. Ces méthodes ont permis de sélectionner les variables pertinentes pour l'identification des foyers à risque d'avoir un épisode fébrile chez un enfant de 2 à 10 ans à Dakar. La partie méthodologique, composée de deux sous-parties, porte sur l'établissement de propriétés techniques d'estimateurs dans le modèle de régression logistique non paramétrique. Ces estimateurs sont obtenus par maximum de vraisemblance pénalisé, dans un cas avec une pénalité de type Lasso ou Group Lasso et dans l'autre cas avec une pénalité de type 1 exposant 0. Dans un premier temps, nous proposons des versions pondérées des estimateurs Lasso et Group Lasso pour le modèle logistique non paramétrique. Nous établissons des inégalités oracles non asymptotiques pour ces estimateurs. Un deuxième ensemble de résultats vise à étendre le principe de sélection de modèle introduit par Birgé et Massart (2001) à la régression logistique. Cette sélection se fait via des critères du maximum de vraisemblance pénalisé. Nous proposons dans ce contexte des critères de sélection de modèle, et nous établissons des inégalités oracles non asymptotiques pour les estimateurs sélectionnés. La pénalité utilisée, dépendant uniquement des données, est calibrée suivant l'idée de l'heuristique de pente. Tous les résultats de la partie méthodologique sont illustrés par des études de simulations numériques. / This thesis is devoted to variables selection or model selection in logistic regression. The applied part focuses on the analysis of data from a large socioepidémiological survey, called actu-palu. These large socioepidemiological survey typically involve a considerable number of explanatory variables. This is well-known as high-dimensional setting. Due to the curse of dimensionality, logistic regression model is no longer reliable. We proceed in two steps, a first step of reducing the number of variables by the Lasso, Group Lasso ans random forests methods. The second step is to apply the logistic model to the sub-set of variables selected in the first step. These methods have helped to select relevant variables for the identification of households at risk of having febrile episode amongst children from 2 to 10 years old in Dakar. In the methodological part, as a first step, we propose weighted versions of Lasso and group Lasso estimators for nonparametric logistic model. We prove non asymptotic oracle inequalities for these estimators. Secondly we extend the model selection principle introduced by Birgé and Massart (2001) to logistic regression model. This selection is done using penalized macimum likelihood criteria. We propose in this context a completely data-driven criteria based on the slope heuristics. We prove non asymptotic oracle inequalities for selected estimators. The results of the methodological part are illustrated through simulation studies.

In many fields of statistical application the fundamental task is to quantify the association between some explanatory variables or covariates and a response or outcome variable through a suitable regression model. The accuracy of such quantification depends on how precisely we measure the relevant covariates. In many instances, we can not measure some of the covariates accurately, rather we can measure noisy versions of them. In statistical terminology this is known as measurement errors or errors in variables. Regression analyses based on noisy covariate measurements lead to biased and inaccurate inference about the true underlying response-covariate associations. In this thesis we investigate some aspects of measurement error modelling in the case of binary logistic regression models. We suggest a flexible parametric approach for adjusting the measurement error bias while estimating the response-covariate relationship through logistic regression model. We investigate the performance of the proposed flexible parametric approach in comparison with the other flexible parametric and nonparametric approaches through extensive simulation studies. We also compare the proposed method with the other competitive methods with respect to a real-life data set. Though emphasis is put on the logistic regression model the proposed method is applicable to the other members of the generalized linear models, and other types of non-linear regression models too. Finally, we develop a new computational technique to approximate the large sample bias that my arise due to exposure model misspecification in the estimation of the regression parameters in a measurement error scenario.

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In many fields of statistical application the fundamental task is to quantify the association between some explanatory variables or covariates and a response or outcome variable through a suitable regression model. The accuracy of such quantification depends on how precisely we measure the relevant covariates. In many instances, we can not measure some of the covariates accurately, rather we can measure noisy versions of them. In statistical terminology this is known as measurement errors or errors in variables. Regression analyses based on noisy covariate measurements lead to biased and inaccurate inference about the true underlying response-covariate associations. In this thesis we investigate some aspects of measurement error modelling in the case of binary logistic regression models. We suggest a flexible parametric approach for adjusting the measurement error bias while estimating the response-covariate relationship through logistic regression model. We investigate the performance of the proposed flexible parametric approach in comparison with the other flexible parametric and nonparametric approaches through extensive simulation studies. We also compare the proposed method with the other competitive methods with respect to a real-life data set. Though emphasis is put on the logistic regression model the proposed method is applicable to the other members of the generalized linear models, and other types of non-linear regression models too. Finally, we develop a new computational technique to approximate the large sample bias that my arise due to exposure model misspecification in the estimation of the regression parameters in a measurement error scenario.

Clusters seem to not only contribute directly to productivity of the nation as a whole but seem to have a positive effect on other clusters. Yet there has been no research made by researchers that look into the development of business models or joint value propositions made by a cluster as a whole. The authors have failed to identify any common view on the research field today of just how a business model for an industrial logistic cluster should look like as well as what components are essential and must be included. Therefore, the purpose of our research was to explore the contextual conditions for developing BM for industrial cluster in the logistic area.  In order to reach the goal of our research, inductive based approach was used when trying to investigate a cluster in Halmstad called “Innovative Logistic in Halmstad”. The cluster is in a early stage at this moment. Data was collected through interviews and secondary data was collected to complement our findings as well.  The main findings of our study are as follows. The authors create a conceptual business model for industrial cluster in the logistic area. We also offer a value package proposal where the cluster offer a client a joint value proposition as the main majority of companies buy their logistic transports. This could result in e.g. more eco-driven means of transportation.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Tennessee Technological University, 2008. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Aug. 26, 2009). Bibliography: leaves 24-26.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

In many fields of statistical application the fundamental task is to quantify the association between some explanatory variables or covariates and a response or outcome variable through a suitable regression model. The accuracy of such quantification depends on how precisely we measure the relevant covariates. In many instances, we can not measure some of the covariates accurately, rather we can measure noisy versions of them. In statistical terminology this is known as measurement errors or errors in variables. Regression analyses based on noisy covariate measurements lead to biased and inaccurate inference about the true underlying response-covariate associations. In this thesis we investigate some aspects of measurement error modelling in the case of binary logistic regression models. We suggest a flexible parametric approach for adjusting the measurement error bias while estimating the response-covariate relationship through logistic regression model. We investigate the performance of the proposed flexible parametric approach in comparison with the other flexible parametric and nonparametric approaches through extensive simulation studies. We also compare the proposed method with the other competitive methods with respect to a real-life data set. Though emphasis is put on the logistic regression model the proposed method is applicable to the other members of the generalized linear models, and other types of non-linear regression models too. Finally, we develop a new computational technique to approximate the large sample bias that my arise due to exposure model misspecification in the estimation of the regression parameters in a measurement error scenario. / Science, Faculty of / Statistics, Department of / Graduate