This master thesis analyses an internal merge of two cooperatives. Theoretical findings gained from laws and regulations are applied to a real process of merge. The result is a proposition of opening balance sheet of the successor and evaluating changes in the financial position of the successive cooperative.

Data från positioneringssystem som GPS är alltmer vanlig, men är svårhanterlig i traditionella datalagringssystem. Sådan data består av spatiala och temporala attribut och representeras i vissa fall i JSON-format. Sortering av JSON objekt sker via inbyggda sorteringsfunktioner, vilka kräver att hela JSON objektet finns avserialiserat i minnet. Om datan strömmas måste hela datamängden tas emot innan sortering kan ske. För att förebygga detta krävs att en utvecklare utvecklar metoder för sortering av strömmad data medans strömmen pågår. Den här studien identifierar tre lämpliga sorteringsalgoritmer, och jämför dessa på hur snabbt de sorterar den strömmade datan samt deras minnesanvändning. En klientapplikation och en serverapplikation jämfördes även för att se om sortering på servern genererade bättre resultat. De slutsatser som drogs av experimentets resultat var att merge sort var snabbast men använde mest minne, medans heap sort var långsammast men hade lägst minesanvändning. Klientapplikationens sorteringstider var något snabbare än serverapplikationens.

Driving behavior considerably affects the transportation system, especially lane-changing behavior occasionally cause conflicts between drivers and induce shock waves that propagate backward. A freeway merge section is one of locations observed a freeway bottleneck, generating freeway traffic congestion. The emerging technologies, such as autonomous vehicles (AVs) and vehicle connectivity, are expected to bring about improvement in mobility, safety, and environment. Hence the objective of this study is to enhance freeway merge section operations based on the advanced technologies. To achieve the objective, this study modeled the non-cooperative merging behavior, and then proposed the cooperative applications in consideration of a connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) environment. As a tactical process, decision-making for lane-changing behaviors is complicated as the closest following vehicle in the target lane also behaves concerning to the lane change (reaction to the lane-changing intention), i.e., there is apparent interaction between drivers. To model this decision-making properly, this study used the game theoretical approach which is the study of the ways in which interacting choices of players. The game models were developed to enhance the microscopic simulation model representing human driver's realistic lane-changing maneuvers. The stage game structure was designed and payoff functions corresponding to the action strategy sets were formulated using driver's critical decision variables. Furthermore, the repeated game concept which takes previous game results into account was introduced with the assumption that drivers want to maintain initial decision in competition if there is no significant change of situations. The validation results using empirical data provided that the developed stage game has a prediction accuracy of approximately 86%, and the superior performance of the repeated game was verified by an agent-based simulation model, especially in a competitive scenario. Specifically, it helps a simulation model to not fluctuate in decision-making. Based on the validated non-cooperative game model, in addition, this study proposed the cooperative maneuver planning avoiding the non-cooperative maneuvers with prediction of the other vehicle's desired action. If a competitive action is anticipated, in other words, a CAV changes its action to be cooperative without selfish driving. Simulation results showed that the proposed cooperative maneuver planning can improve traffic flow at a freeway merge section. Lastly, the optimal lane selection (OLS) algorithm was also proposed to assist lane selection in consideration of real-time downstream traffic data transferred via a long-range wireless communication. Simulation case study on I-66 highway proved that the proposed OLS can improve the system-wide freeway traffic flow and lane allocation. Overall, the present work addressed developing the game model for merging maneuvers in a traditional transportation system and suggesting use of efficient algorithms in a CAV environment. These findings will contribute to enhance performance of the microscopic simulator and prepare the new era of future transportation system. / Doctor of Philosophy / Driving behaviors considerably affect the traffic flow; especially a lane change occasionally forces rear vehicles in a target lane to decrease speed or stop, hence it is considered as one of primary sources causing traffic congestion. U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that freeway bottleneck including merge section contributes to freeway traffic congestion more than 40 percent while traffic incidents count for only 25 percent of freeway congestion. This study, therefore, selected a freeway merge section, where mandatory lane changes are required, as a target area for the study. The emerging technologies, such as autonomous vehicles (AVs) and vehicle connectivity, are expected to bring about improvement in mobility, safety, and environment. Based upon these backgrounds, the objective of this study was determined to enhance freeway merge section operations based on the advanced technologies. To achieve the objective, first this study focused on understanding driving behaviors of human drivers. Decision-making for lane-changing behaviors is complicated as the closest following vehicle in the target lane also behaves concerning to the lane change (reaction to the lane-changing intention), i.e., there is apparent interaction between drivers. For example, the vehicle sometimes interferes the merging vehicle's lane-changing by decreasing a gap. To model the decision-making properly, this study modeled the non-cooperative merging behaviors using a game theoretical approach which mathematically explains the interaction (e.g., cooperation or conflict) between intelligent decision-makers. It was modeled for two vehicles, i.e., the merging vehicle in acceleration lane and a following vehicle in freeway rightmost lane, with possible actions of each vehicle. This model includes how each vehicle chooses an action in consideration of rewards. The developed model showed prediction accuracy of approximately 86% against empirical data collected at a merge section on US 101 highway. This study additionally evaluated the proposed model's rational decision-making performance in various merging situations using an agent-based simulation model. These evaluation results indicate that the developed model can depict merging maneuvers based on practical decision-making. Since most existing lane-changing models were developed from the standpoint of the lane-changing vehicle only, this study anticipates that a lane-changing model including practical decision-making process can be used to precisely analyze traffic flow in microscopic traffic simulation. Additionally, an AV should behave as a human-driven vehicle in order to coexist in traditional transportation system, and can predict surrounding vehicle's movement. The developed model in this study can be a part of AV's driving strategy based on perception of human behaviors. In a future transportation environment, vehicle connectivity enables to identify the surrounding vehicles and transfer the data between vehicles. Also, autonomous driving behaviors can be programmed to reduce competition by predicting behaviors of surrounding human-driven vehicles. This study proposed the cooperative maneuver planning which future connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) avoid choosing the non-cooperative actions based on the game model. If a competitive action is anticipated, in other words, a CAV changes its action to be cooperative without selfish driving. Simulation results showed that the proposed cooperative maneuver planning can improve traffic flow at a freeway merge section. Lastly, the optimal lane selection (OLS) algorithm was also proposed to provide a driver the more efficient lane information in consideration of real-time downstream traffic data transferred via a long-range wireless communication. Simulation case study on I-66 highway proved that the proposed OLS can improve the system-wide freeway traffic flow and lane allocation. Overall, the present work addressed developing the game model for merging maneuvers in a traditional transportation system and suggesting use of efficient algorithms in a CAV environment. These findings will contribute to enhance performance of the microscopic simulator and prepare the new era of future transportation system.

This thesis is about visualizing a kind of data that is trivial to process by computers but difficult to imagine by humans because nature does not allow for intuition with this type of information: high-dimensional data. Such data often result from representing observations of objects under various aspects or with different properties. In many applications, a typical, laborious task is to find related objects or to group those that are similar to each other. One classic solution for this task is to imagine the data as vectors in a Euclidean space with object variables as dimensions. Utilizing Euclidean distance as a measure of similarity, objects with similar properties and values accumulate to groups, so-called clusters, that are exposed by cluster analysis on the high-dimensional point cloud. Because similar vectors can be thought of as objects that are alike in terms of their attributes, the point cloud\'s structure and individual cluster properties, like their size or compactness, summarize data categories and their relative importance. The contribution of this thesis is a novel analysis approach for visual exploration of high-dimensional point clouds without suffering from structural occlusion. The work is based on implementing two key concepts: The first idea is to discard those geometric properties that cannot be preserved and, thus, lead to the typical artifacts. Topological concepts are used instead to shift away the focus from a point-centered view on the data to a more structure-centered perspective. The advantage is that topology-driven clustering information can be extracted in the data\'s original domain and be preserved without loss in low dimensions. The second idea is to split the analysis into a topology-based global overview and a subsequent geometric local refinement. The occlusion-free overview enables the analyst to identify features and to link them to other visualizations that permit analysis of those properties not captured by the topological abstraction, e.g. cluster shape or value distributions in particular dimensions or subspaces. The advantage of separating structure from data point analysis is that restricting local analysis only to data subsets significantly reduces artifacts and the visual complexity of standard techniques. That is, the additional topological layer enables the analyst to identify structure that was hidden before and to focus on particular features by suppressing irrelevant points during local feature analysis. This thesis addresses the topology-based visual analysis of high-dimensional point clouds for both the time-invariant and the time-varying case. Time-invariant means that the points do not change in their number or positions. That is, the analyst explores the clustering of a fixed and constant set of points. The extension to the time-varying case implies the analysis of a varying clustering, where clusters appear as new, merge or split, or vanish. Especially for high-dimensional data, both tracking---which means to relate features over time---but also visualizing changing structure are difficult problems to solve.

在知識經濟時代，電子工業環境趨於成熟的環境下，無形資產是企業成長的重要關鍵。台灣電子工業發展至今近四十年，建構完善電子產業生態鏈，在全球站穩關鍵性地位，佔國內GDP產值之比例也非常高。 而併購是企業獲取商譽和無形資產的重要手段，對於電子工業來說，尤為重要。而Tobins’Q利用公司市值為產出指標來衡量廠商之技術創新或品牌形象等無形資產的價值，能反映無形資產在公司未來的成長機會。因此本研究欲探討電子工業和非電子工業併購取得之商譽和無形資產佔贈購價格之比例，了解其差異，並以Tobins’Q值作為公司價值之衡量，探討電子工業和非電子工業於併購當年和併購後所取得之商譽和無形資產是否能增加公司價值。 本文實證結果顯示，電子工業相對於非電子工業因併購所取得商譽和無形資產佔併購價格比例愈高，公司價值在併購後逐年提升度愈大，而電子工業相較於非電子工業更為顯著，顯示出無形資產及商譽在知識經濟時代之重要性。 / In a knowledge-based economy, the electronics industry is driven to maturity stage . Therfore , the intangible assets are the keys to enhance the coporations’ performance. The electronics industry has developed nearly 40 years ,building the perfect economic chain .Now it’s the key position in the world . The electronics industry also has higher propotion of GDP than before . Merge and acquisition is an important method to aquire Goodwill & Intangible assets , except for the electronics industry . Tobins’Q can reflect the opportunity the future of the coporation .Therefore , this research aims to the propotion of acquisition price which is different between electronics industry and non- electronics industry . The research also adopts Tobins’Q as measuring the value of coporation , which aims to define the relationship between Goodwill & Intangible Assets . The empirical results are as follows. The total acquired intangible assets of the propotion of acquisition price are positively associated with the coporation value , and electronic industry is more positive than non-electronic industry .The electronic industry’s Tobins’Q , which means the value of coporation , will be increase year by year .

Rendre les données multimédias disponibles en ligne devient moins cher et plus pratique sur une base quotidienne, par exemple par les utilisateurs eux-mêmes. Des phénomènes du Web comme Facebook, Twitter et Flickr bénéficient de cette évolution. Ces phénomènes et leur acceptation accrue conduisent à une multiplication du nombre d’images disponibles en ligne. La taille cumulée de ces images souvent publiques et donc consultables, est de l’ordre de plusieurs zettaoctets. L’exécution d’une requête de similarité sur de tels volumes est un défi que la communauté scientifique commence à cibler. Une approche envisagée pour faire face à ce problème propose d’utiliser un système distribué et hétérogène de recherche d’images basé sur leur contenu (CBIRs). De nombreux problèmes émergent d’un tel scénario. Un exemple est l’utilisation de formats de métadonnées distincts pour décrire le contenu des images; un autre exemple est l’information technique et structurelle inégale. Les métriques individuelles qui sont utilisées par les CBIRs pour calculer la similarité entre les images constituent un autre exemple. Le calcul de bons résultats dans ce contexte s’avère ainsi une tàche très laborieuse qui n’est pas encore scientifiquement résolue. Le problème principalement abordé dans cette thèse est la recherche de photos de CBIRs similaires à une image donnée comme réponse à une requête multimédia distribuée. La contribution principale de cette thèse est la construction d’un réseau de CBIRs sensible à la sémantique des contenus (CBIRn). Ce CBIRn sémantique est capable de collecter et fusionner les résultats issus de sources externes spécialisées. Afin d’être en mesure d’intégrer de telles sources extérieures, prêtes à rejoindre le réseau, mais pas à divulguer leur configuration, un algorithme a été développé capable d’estimer la configuration d’un CBIRS. En classant les CBIRs et en analysant les requêtes entrantes, les requêtes d’image sont exclusivement transmises aux CBIRs les plus appropriés. De cette fac ̧on, les images sans intérêt pour l’utilisateur peuvent être omises à l’avance. Les images retournées cells sont considérées comme similaires par rapport à l’image donnée pour la requête. La faisabilité de l’approche et l’amélioration obtenue par le processus de recherche sont démontrées par un développement prototypique et son évaluation utilisant des images d’ImageNet. Le nombre d’images pertinentes renvoyées par l’approche de cette thèse en réponse à une requête image est supérieur d’un facteur 4.75 par rapport au résultat obtenu par un réseau de CBIRs predéfini. / Making multimedia data available online becomes less expensive and more convenient on a daily basis. This development promotes web phenomenons such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. These phenomena and their increased acceptance in society in turn leads to a multiplication of the amount of available images online. This vast amount of, frequently public and therefore searchable, images already exceeds the zettabyte bound. Executing a similarity search on the magnitude of images that are publicly available and receiving a top quality result is a challenge that the scientific community has recently attempted to rise to. One approach to cope with this problem assumes the use of distributed heterogeneous Content Based Image Retrieval system (CBIRs). Following from this anticipation, the problems that emerge from a distributed query scenario must be dealt with. For example the involved CBIRs’ usage of distinct metadata formats for describing their content, as well as their unequal technical and structural information. An addition issue is the individual metrics that are used by the CBIRs to calculate the similarity between pictures, as well as their specific way of being combined. Overall, receiving good results in this environment is a very labor intensive task which has been scientifically but not yet comprehensively explored. The problem primarily addressed in this work is the collection of pictures from CBIRs, that are similar to a given picture, as a response to a distributed multimedia query. The main contribution of this thesis is the construction of a network of Content Based Image Retrieval systems that are able to extract and exploit the information about an input image’s semantic concept. This so called semantic CBIRn is mainly composed of CBIRs that are configured by the semantic CBIRn itself. Complementarily, there is a possibility that allows the integration of specialized external sources. The semantic CBIRn is able to collect and merge results of all of these attached CBIRs. In order to be able to integrate external sources that are willing to join the network, but are not willing to disclose their configuration, an algorithm was developed that approximates these configurations. By categorizing existing as well as external CBIRs and analyzing incoming queries, image queries are exclusively forwarded to the most suitable CBIRs. In this way, images that are not of any use for the user can be omitted beforehand. The hereafter returned images are rendered comparable in order to be able to merge them to one single result list of images, that are similar to the input image. The feasibility of the approach and the hereby obtained improvement of the search process is demonstrated by a prototypical implementation. Using this prototypical implementation an augmentation of the number of returned images that are of the same semantic concept as the input images is achieved by a factor of 4.75 with respect to a predefined non-semantic CBIRn.

LED(Light Emitting Diode，發光二極體)的應用已由最早的數字顯示器和指示器發展出一些新的應用，與生活息息相關，四處可見，包括出口指示燈、裝飾燈、交通號誌、舞台燈、室外照明和投射燈等。LED提供的好處包括體積小、使用壽命長、低熱量輸出、節約能源和耐用性，它也擁有設計的靈活性，譬如由將小單體封裝成不同的形狀、顏色、大小及亮度可以達到顯色及調光的各種不同變化。但是LED技術發展限制使得它在整體光源輸出、演色性及可靠性仍不如規格宣稱可以達到的境界，因此在某些應用上還不普及，尤以取代傳統照明的應用市場目前較難達成。然而其餘LED在包括零售展示，彩色燈光，需要較暗光線的狹小空間照明，外部照明和應用一體化的光源的建築、娛樂與劇場照明等應用領域已經漸漸形成市場。由於台灣基於半導體產業的興盛，讓LED產業也隨之蓬勃發展起舞。 Philips公司進入LED照明產業後，積極地展開規劃佈署，主以併購的方式，於2005至2009年共併購了9間LED照明相關公司。從上游研發與製造LED晶片與元件公司Lumileds，到中游LED照明控制廠商Color Kinetics、TIR system、Bodine與Dynalite，以及下游LED燈具製造商PLI、Genlyte與Selecon，將LED照明產業鏈上的的關鍵公司納入旗下，對本身LED照明產品線進行垂直整合以及組織重整，Philips公司藉此以大規模的併購動作向全球宣告自身於LED照明產業的龍頭地位。 本研究針對LED照明產業作一系列的探討與分析，先從目前LED照明發展概況、主要廠商LED照明產品技術結構分析開始作初步探討，最後以Philips公司為個案探討該公司在LED照明的商業模式，如在LED照明產業的組織設計、投資、併購、合資、研發、授權與專利佈局…等。透過上述分析資料及結果，本研究歸納出Philips公司於LED照明產業的經營模式與發展策略，並對應到台灣企業目前的發展狀況。對台灣企業發展LED照明而言，當務之急除致力技術研發，累積自身專利之保護傘，以及對國外廠商的大規模授權動作亦必須要進行充分的研究與了解外，仍需借鏡Philips公司經營LED照明產業的方法與經驗，重新規劃自身的商業模式與競爭策略，避免重蹈過往台灣廠商在LED晶粒與封裝段遭遇的困境，逃脫不了向國外大廠取得授權或是被告的命運。 / The application of LED (Light Emitting Diode) evolved from digital display and indicators to more utility devices close to daily life, such as indicator lamps, decorative lamps, traffic lights, stage lights, outdoor lights, and projection lights. The limit of current technology restricts LED from so-claimed full performance concerning global illumination, color rendering, and reliability so that it is less available in certain applications, especially in the market of traditional lightings. However, LED becomes popular in retail display, color lighting, illumination of a small space, exterior lighting, illumination of integrated building, entertainment lighting and stage lighting. In addition, the prosperity of Taiwan semi-conductor industry encourages the development of LED industry in Taiwan. The LED companies have developed into a complete industry chain in Taiwan and will play an important role in the global LED industry. Philips aggressively merged 9 LED companies between 2005 and 2009. These companies ranges from upstream to downstream of the LED industry chain, including LED chips manufacturer Lumileds, LED controller companies Color Kinetics, TIR System, Bodine, Dynalite, and LED module and system manufacturer PLI, Genlyte, Selecon. The strategy of Philips is to complete its LED product line through vertical merger and reorganization of these important LED companies, proclaiming its leading position in global LED industry. This thesis begins with an introduction about the latest development of LED lighting and the technology analysis on LED products of the main companies. Further, the thesis will take Philips as the case study to elaborate its business model in LED lighting, such as organization, investment, merger and acquisitions, joint venture, R&D, licensing and patent strategy. Through the analysis on Philips’ business model and strategy in LED industry, the research will propose some suggestions for Taiwan LED companies. Taiwan LED companies should increase their own R&D energy, strengthen their intellectual property and keep up with the updated status of international licensing events. They should also take Philips as an example to examine their own business strategy in case that they may be trapped between high Royalties or lawsuits to international enterprises, a dilemma which Taiwan LED die and package companies encountered.

Empirical studies show that similar patterns emerge from a large number of different biological systems. For example, the group size distributions of several fish species and house sparrows all follow power law distributions with an exponential truncation. Networks built by ant colonies, slime mold and those are designed by engineers resemble each other in terms of structure and transportation efficiency. Based on the investigation of experimental data, we propose a variety of simple stochastic models to unravel the underlying mechanisms which lead to the collective phenomena in different systems. All the mechanisms employed in these models are rooted in the concept of selective reinforcement. In some systems the reinforcement can build optimal solutions for biological problem solving. This thesis consists of five papers. In the first three papers, I collaborate with biologists to look into group formation in house sparrows  and the movement decisions of damsel fish.  In the last two articles, I look at how shortest paths and networks are  constructed by slime molds and pheromone laying ants, as well as studying  speed-accuracy tradeoffs in slime molds' decision making. The general goal of the study is to better understand how macro level patterns and behaviors emerges from micro level interactions in both spatial and non-spatial biological systems. With the combination of mathematical modeling and experimentation, we are able to reproduce the macro level patterns in the studied biological systems and predict behaviors of the systems using minimum number of parameters.

Current approaches integrating large scale data and information from a variety of sources to reveal molecular basis of cellular events do not adequately benefit from pathway information. Here, we portray a network structure based pathway enrichment system that fuses and exploits model and data: signalling pathways are taken as the biological models while microarray and ChIP-seq data are the sample input data sources among many other alternatives. Our model- and data-driven hybrid system allows to quantitatively assessing the biological activity of a cyclic pathway and simultaneous enrichment of the significant paths leading to the ultimate cellular response. Signal Transduction Score Flow (SiTSFlow) algorithm is the fundamental constituent of proposed network structure based pathway enrichment system. SiTSFlow algorithm converts each pathway into a cascaded graph and then gene scores are mapped onto the protein nodes. Gene scores are transferred to en route of the pathway to form a final activity score describing behaviour of a specific process in the pathway while enriching of the gene node scores. Because of cyclic pathways, the algorithm runs in an iterative manner and it terminates when the node scores converge. The converged final activity score provides a quantitative measure to assess the biological significance of a process under the given experimental conditions. The conversion of cyclic pathways into cascaded graphs is performed by using a linear time multiple source Breadth First Search Algorithm. Furthermore, proposed network structure based pathway enrichment system works in linear time in terms of nodes and edges of given pathways. In order to explore various biological responses of several processes in a global signalling network, the selected small pathways have been unified based on their common gene and process nodes. The merge algorithm for pathways also runs in linear time in terms of nodes and edges of given pathways. In the experiments, SiTSFlow algorithm proved the convergence behaviour of activity scores for several cyclic pathways and for a global signalling network. The biological results obtained by assessing of experimental data by described network structure based pathway enrichment system were in correlation with the expected cellular behaviour under the given experimental conditions.

Workflow systems aim to provide automated support for the conduct of certain business processes. Workflow systems are driven by workflow specifications which among others, capture the execution interdependencies between various activities. These interdependencies are modelled by means of different control flow constructors, e.g., sequence, choice, parallelism and synchronisation. It has been shown in the research on workflow patterns that the support for and the interpretation of various control flow constructs varies substantially across workflow systems. Two of the most problematic patterns relate to the OR-join and to cancellation. An OR-join is used in situations when we need to model " wait and see" behaviour for synchronisation. Different approaches assign a different (often only intuitive) semantics to this type of join, though they do share the common theme that synchronisation is only to be performed for active paths. Depending on context assumptions this behaviour may be relatively easy to deal with, though in general its semantics is complicated, both from a definition point of view (in terms of formally capturing a desired intuitive semantics) and from a computational point of view (how does one determine whether an OR-join is enabled?). Many systems and languages struggle with the semantics and implementation of the OR-join because its non-local semantics require a synchronisation depending on an analysis of future execution paths. This may require some non-trivial reasoning. The presence of cancellation features and other OR-joins in a workflow further complicates the formal semantics of the OR-join. The cancellation feature is commonly used to model external events that can change the behaviour of a running workflow. It can be used to either disable activities in certain parts of a workflow or to stop currently running activities. Even though it is possible to cancel activities in workflow systems using some sort of abort function, many workflow systems do not provide direct support for this feature in the workflow language. Sometimes, cancellation affects only a selected part of a workflow and other activities can continue after performing a cancellation action. As cancellation occurs naturally in business scenarios, comprehensive support in a workflow language is desirable. We take on the challenge of providing formal semantics, verification techniques as well as an implementation for workflows with those features. This thesis addresses three interrelated issues for workflows with cancellation regions and OR-joins. The concept of the OR-join is examined in detail in the context of the workflow language YAWL, a powerful workflow language designed to support a collection of workflow patterns and inspired by Petri nets. The OR-join semantics has been redesigned to represent a general, formal, and decidable approach for workflows in the presence of cancellation regions and other OR-joins. This approach exploits a link that is proposed between YAWL and reset nets, a variant of Petri nets with a special type of arc that can remove all tokens from a place. Next, we explore verification techniques for workflows with cancellation regions and OR-joins. Four structural properties have been identified and a verification approach that exploits coverability and reachability notions from reset nets has been proposed. The work on verification techniques has highlighted potential problems with calculating state spaces for large workflows. Applying reduction rules before carrying out verification can decrease the size of the problem by cutting down the size of the workflow that needs to be examined while preserving some essential properties. Therefore, we have extended the work on verification by proposing reduction rules for reset nets and for YAWL nets with and without OR-joins. The proposed OR-join semantics as well as the proposed verification approach have been implemented in the YAWL environment.