Throughout the years, different theories and models have been developed regarding multi-national enterprises' (MNEs') entry into foreign markets. One such model is the Organisational Model, identifying three different types of enterprise, each selecting a different mode of market entry during foreign market expansion. These are: massproduction enterprises, disaggregate-production enterprises and project-based enterprises. This model was based on studies focusing mainly on the US, Europe and Asia. Research indicates, however, that MNEs increasingly identify sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as a region for possible expansion. In view of persistent risk within the SSA region, this study's focus is on determining which entry modes MNEs use when entering a perceived high-risk market in SSA. This research study focused on MNEs that have expanded or are currently expanding into a perceived high-risk country in SSA. A qualitative research design was selected, applying an in-depth case study analysis to six different MNEs two MNEs representing each type of enterprise as categorised by the Organisational Model. Semi-structured personal interviews were conducted with each participant. Each interview focused on elements relating to the MNE's perception of, and approach to selecting entry mode into, high-risk markets. Findings predominantly did not find support for the Organisational Model, indicating that MNEs entering perceived high-risk markets in SSA preferred different entry mode strategies and approached risk consideration differently. Some findings did confirm the literature, by indicating that MNEs consider country risk when entering a foreign market in SSA. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Business Management / MCom / Unrestricted

Purpose – The purpose is to explore how SMEs can initiate transformation towards AI. The purpose will be fulfilled through identifying which opportunities that exist for SMEs and which challenges they are facing. Additionally, we will identify which requirements are necessary to face these challenges. Method – A qualitative approach was most suitable for this study since the purpose is to explore how SMEs can initiate transformation towards AI. It was also suitable since we have collected data through interviews. We have done a single case study where we have studied one supply chain. Finally, we have had an inductive research approach which means that we have gathered a theoretical background which has founded the base and the background for our study, but our interviews have founded the result of the study and created a conclusion based on that. Findings –The result of the study provides identified opportunities with AI for SMEs, what challenges can occur, and which requirements that are needed to face the challenges. The opportunities are identified as forecasting, maintenance and repair, self-optimization, and tracing and tracking. The identified challenges when initiating transformation towards AI are cultural difficulties, lack of external communication, lack of internal communication, limited internal processes, and lack of resources. The requirements are identified as automation, data, strategy, and capabilities. The opportunities, challenges and requirements are summarized in a framework. Theoretical and Managerial Implications – We have contributed to literature by exploring how an SME, as a mass production company, can benefit from AI by identifying opportunities, challenges, and requirements. Additionally, the framework guides SMEs to prepare for opportunities with AI and ensure that they have all of the requirements. Further, by understanding which requirements that are necessary for a transformation and which challenges that can occur, managers can reduce risk of failing projects. Limitations and Future Research –The number of studied companies together with that the study is a single case study limits the generalizability. It creates a suggestion for future research where a wider set of data can be collected. Additionally, we have identified challenges that can occur, however how companies should face these challenges in the best way is a suggestion for future research.

Orientador: Salatiér Buzetti / Banca: Marcelo Andreotti / Banca: Ciniro Costa / Resumo: O nitrogênio é o nutriente que mais tem incrementado a produtividade e a qualidade das forrageiras. O trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar o efeito de doses e fontes de nitrogênio nas características produtivas e qualitativas da Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu. O delineamento experimental utilizado foi o blocos ao acaso em esquema fatorial 5x3x3, 5 doses, 3 fontes de nitrogênio e 3 cortes, com 4 repetições. As doses de N foram: 0, 50, 100, 150, 200 kg ha-1 após cada corte), com as fontes: Entec, Sulfato de Amônio e Uréia, além de 3 cortes realizados em novembro/2006, dezembro/2006 e janeiro/2007. As coletas foram realizadas com intervalos entre corte de 30, 30 e 34 dias onde se determinou a produtividade de massa seca, teor de proteína bruta, fibra em detergente neutro e fibra em detergente ácido. Houve interação para a produtividade de massa seca (kg ha-1) quando se testaram doses de nitrogênio e época de corte. Para os teores de proteína bruta houve interação entre cortes e fontes nitrogenadas, assim como para cortes e doses de nitrogênio. Para fibra em detergente neutro houve efeito significativo para corte e para doses de nitrogênio. Houve interação significativa das doses de nitrogênio e corte para fibra em detergente ácido. Independente da fonte nitrogenada a aplicação de doses crescentes de até 200 kg de N ha-1 por aplicação na forrageira Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu proporcionou incremento na produção de massa seca melhorando a composição bromatológica por aumentar os teores de PB e NDT e, diminuição dos teores de FDN e FDA. / Abstract: Nitrogen is the nutrient that has more contributed to increase the productivity and quality of the pastures. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of doses and sources of nitrogen in the productivity characteristics of Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu. A randomized block design in a factorial scheme 5x3x3, with 4 repetitions was used. The treatments were constituted by 5 doses of nitrogen: 0, 50, 100, 150, 200 kg ha-1 after each cut, 3 sources: Entec, Ammonium sulfate and Urea, besides 3 cuts, accomplished with intervals of 30, 30 and 34 days to evaluate the production of dry mass, crude protein content, neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber. There was interaction of nitrogen doses and cut time to dry mass (kg ha-1). For crude protein content there was interaction between cuts and sources as well as for cut and doses of nitrogen. To neutral detergent fiber there was effect for cut and nitrogen doses and for acid detergent fiber interaction to nitrogen doses and cut. Independently of the source the application up to 200 kg of N ha-1 in each application in the forrageira Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu provided increment in the production of dry mass improving the quality composition for increasing the PB and NDT content and, decreasing the FDN and FDA content. / Mestre

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If we look at the construction industry, particularly the modular single-family construction industry, we often see that the design stage is distinctly separate from the construction and fabrication stages. This separation has been occurring for some time now, however, there is often a noticeable lack of understanding of the constraints in linking architectural design to modular construction for single-family housing. In addition, no framework exists which seeks to support overcoming these constraints for the architectural design process while simultaneously bringing knowledge of fabrication, materials selection, and modular construction to the early stage of design. Also, there is a lack of knowledge of fabrication and modular construction constraints by many architects. This research intended to focus upon mapping the design and manufacturing processes for a specific scale of projects: residential single-family units. The research also aimed to understand the relationships among design, the role of emerging technologies, and manufacturing within the modular home construction industry in order to develop a design process that is based upon mass customization, rather than mass production. Thus, qualitative research methods based upon a grounded theory approach were used for evaluating, capturing, and structuring knowledge. To achieve the greatest possible amount of useful information, case studies of on-site visits to manufactured housing production facilities and structured, in-depth, open-ended interviews of architects, engineers, production managers, business managers, and other knowledge-holders within the manufactured modular housing industry were performed. The aim of this research was to map the design and modular homes manufacturing processes in an effort to better understand the relationships between these two domains. The Integration Definition (IDEF0) for Function Modeling was used as a graphical presentation technique. The goal of using such a graphical technique was, first, to understand and analyze the functions of the existing "As-is" design-manufacture communication process; and second, to enhance and improve the communication and productivity performances among people working in the design, manufacturing, and production sectors. Using this graphical modeling method assisted with mapping the design and modular manufacturing processes, including organizations, teams, decisions, actions, and activities. Through this mapping process, strategies to improve the emergent relationships were proposed as a new "To-be" design and manufacturing framework for modular single-family housing projects. / Ph. D.

The thesis studies Le Corbusier&rsquo / s Dom-ino clusters. It is a research in the field of architectural design. The aim is to explore and reveal the architectural potentials of Le Corbusier&rsquo / s mass-producible Dom-ino frame (1914), not only by concentrating on a single Dom-ino unit but by focusing mainly to the clusters of Dom-ino, searching for the logic behind their multiplication, how they come together and to what extent the units allow variety. To achieve this, six alternative Dom-ino clusters are analyzed, and alternative Dom-ino units are explored, other than the well-known single one. Today, Dom-ino is argued as an architectural diagram, and this research reinforces this argument. The analysis of both the clusters and the units with different plan types eventually puts forward that the Dom-ino frame identifies and exploits all the potentials of mass-production with the standardization of the elements and modularity of the structural grid / and it is an adaptable, flexible and consequently a generic frame that produces infinitely alternative solutions. For this reason, this thesis argues that resolving the way Dom-ino units come together, and analyzing how and in what scale they allow variety in producing clusters will introduce the tools for proper mass-housing, and consequently could produce solutions for today&#039 / s mass-housing problems.

In recent years, several industrial yeasts, owing to their robust growth and certain other characteristics, have been developed as recombinant host systems for commercial production of heterologous proteins. One such yeast Pichia pastoris has proven to be an excellent host for production of secreted and intracellular proteins (Cereghino and Cregg. 2000). The increasing popularity of this particular expression system can be attributed to several factors, most importantly: (1) the simplicity of techniques needed for the molecular genetic manipulation of Pichia pastoris and their similarity to those of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, one of the most well-characterized experimental systems in modern biology;(2) the ability of Pichia pastoris to produce foreign proteins at high levels, either intracellularly or extracellularly; and (3) the capability of performing many eukaryotic post-translational modifications, such as glycosylation, disulfide bond formation and proteolytic processing. The expression level for a given recombinant protein produced by Pichia pastoris seems to be determined largely by its inherent properties such as amino acid sequence, the tertiary structure and the site for expression (Sreekrishna et al.,1997). The attempts on increasing the protein expression levels by far are focused on genetic manipulations to enhance the gene expression and protein stability. Although this is crucial, there is ample scope to improve the productivity of Pichia pastoris fermentations by undertaking a systematic program of optimizing the entire fermentation process. This work aims at undertaking such a program by focusing on strategy to identify and to characterize trends in the behavior of the system. It can be expected that by addressing the process as a whole, rather than narrowly focusing on the protein expression alone, the methodology proposed here can simplify process scale-up and can be applied to several products made by the same host. Pichia pastoris is methylotrophic yeast. In the Pichia pastoris fermentation, the limiting carbon source is glycerol, method or mixture of both. It can grow on methanol as a sole carbon and energy source. It possesses a highly inducible methanol utilization pathway. The first step in the metabolism of methanol is the oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde using molecular oxygen by alcohol oxidase (AOX). AOX, the first enzyme of the pathway, accounts for up to 35% of the total protein in cells grown on limited amounts of methanol. The enzymes undetectable in cells grown on glucose, ethanol or glycerol. There are two genes in Pichia pastoris that code for AOX: AOXI. The AOXI gene product accounts for the majority of alcohol oxidase activity in the cell. This highly inducible and stringently regulated AOXI promoter has been used to construct expression vectors for the production of heterologous proteins in Pichia pastoris. Although some foreign proteins have expressed well in shake-flask cultures, expression levels are typically low compared to fomenter cultures. There are several key aspects of Pichia pastoris fermentations: 1. Fed-batch operation – Controlled addition of glycerol, methanol or mixture thereof. In general, strains are grown initially in a defined medium containing glycerol as its carbon source (growth phase). During this phase, biomass accumulates but heterogonous gene expression is fully repressed. Upon depletion of glycerol, a transition phase is initiated in which additional glycerol is fed to the culture at a growth-limiting rate. Finally, method a mixture of glycerol and methanol is fed to the culture to induce expression (induction phase). The duration of individual substrate feeds, the amount and mode of feeding are critical to optimal fermentation performance. 2.Online measurement and control-One of the most important key parameters in Pichia pastor is expression system is the methanol concentration. Monitoring and controlling this variable are important because high levels of this inductor substrate can be toxic to the cells and low levels of methanol may not be enough to initiate the AOX transcription (Cereghino and Cregg, 2000) This research work aims at investigation the above mentioned aspects by conduction an in depth engineering analysis of the Pichia Pastoris fermentations.

This study examines the relations among information technology (IT), workplace organization and the demand for skilled labor. Recently, demand for skilled labor has relatively increased. One of the causes of this great increase is skill- biased technical change. Firms that are intensive users of IT tend to adopt a complementary set of organizational practices that include: decentralization of decision authority and a greater reliance on skill and human capital. I have explored the affects of IT on skill and organizational architecture of firm by using a detailed data which was collected from the aioecam Group of Company. I have tested that IT usage is complementary or substitutionary to a new workplace organization which includes broader job responsibilities, more decentralized decision-making and more self-managing teams together with IT and new organization are complements with worker skill measured in variety of ways.

To show how mass-production principles and welding in shipbuilding altered the economic conditions along the Gulf coast, this investigation relied on a chronological narrative to illustrate the importance of timing in addition to identifying the significant factors causing the changes. The account begins with a description of the Gulf coast shipyards during World War I and ends shortly after World War II. The necessary factors for Gulf coast participation in shipbuilding are developed in two chapters followed by an evaluation of the specific accomplishments of five Gulf coast shipyards during and after World War II. The effects of the changes in the shipyards on labor are also discussed.

Orientador: Sergio Antonio De Bortoli / Banca: Ricardo Antonio Polanczyk / Banca: Ana Carolian Pires Veiga / Resumo: Este estudo objetivou determinar a influência de diferentes razões de número de ovos de Corcyra cephalonica, no desenvolvimento gregário e solitário de Trichogramma pretiosum, bem como avaliar os desempenhos biológicos e morfométricos de insetos que se desenvolveram de forma solitária e gregária. Foram oferecidas a uma fêmea de T. pretiosum, quatro diferentes densidades de ovos do hospedeiro alternativo C. cephalonica separadamente (5, 10, 20 e 30) por três dias consecutivos (dias 1, 2 e 3). Colocou-se uma fêmea, em tubo cilíndrico de fundo chato (8 cm × 2 cm), em contato com uma cartela contendo ovos do hospedeiro e uma gotícula de mel como alimento. A cartela foi trocada diariamente até a fêmea completar o terceiro dia de vida. Foram avaliadas as porcentagens de parasitismo, emergência de ovos parasitados, e o número de adultos emergidos por ovo, para cada uma das densidades. Em outra etapa, foram realizados testes com os descendentes de T. pretiosum provenientes da emergência de adultos solitários e gregários. Foi oferecido um único ovo hospedeiro exposto à oviposição por 1 dia, para uma única fêmea parasitoide, e individualizado em tubo de plástico (7,5 cm × 1 cm) contendo uma gotícula de mel. Foram avaliadas as porcentagens de parasitismo, de emergência e a longevidade de adultos, além de parâmetros morfométricos dos descendentes gregários e solitários. A relação mais baixa de hospedeiros apresentou 90% de ovos parasitados com a fêmea na idade de um dia, sendo que 68,7% ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This study aimed to determine the influence of different reasons of Corcyra cephalonica eggs, in gregarious and solitary development of Trichogramma pretiosum and evaluate the biological and morphometric performances of these. We were offered to one female parasitoids, four different densities of eggs of the factitious host C. cephalonica (5, 10, 20 and 30) for three days consecutive (days 1, 2 and 3). The female was placed in cylindrical tube (8 cm × 2 cm) in contact with a paperboard containing eggs of the host and a droplet of honey as food. This paperback was changed daily until the female complete the third day of life. The parasitism were evaluated, emergency of parasitized eggs and the number of emerged adults per egg for each offered densities. In another step, tests were performed with the descendants of parasitoids from the emergency solitary and gregarious adults. A single host egg oviposition exposed for one day in individual plastic tubing (7.5 cm × 1 cm) having a honey drop offered. The parasitism were evaluated, emergency and longevity of adults, and morphometric parameters of gregarious and solitaries progenies. The lower ratio hosts showed 90% of parasitized eggs with the female at the age of one day, and 68.7% of these have emerged. The development up two individuals per egg host was observed in all densities during the three-day supply of eggs, and the emergence of one individual was predominant. Adults emerging from solitary parasitize 20.5% more than gregarious and longevity of both did not differ significantly. The body size and the last posterior left tibia was significantly different, being 0.09 mm and 0.03 mm, respectively, higher in solitary adults. Host of different densities, it was possible to significantly lower the ratio, the more adults emerging from an egg C. cephalonica, with the same biological and morphometric ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre