El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The objective of this work is to develop a quality management system focused on the principles of TQM for cocoa micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in the province of La Convención, Cusco - Perú. The diagnosis for this investigation was made using in-depth interviews to the cocoa farmers that facilitated the identification of the current situation of cocoa MSEs. With the results obtained and based on the scientific articles studied, the critical elements in each activity related to the cocoa production process were determined, and it is focused on establishing a quality management system adaptable to the requirements of the plots studied. As a result of the analysis of the experts, the system in question is based on the following principles of TQM: documentation, customer focus, process-based approach and continuous improvement.

There is a difference between making something move and bringing something to life in animation. The animation principles work together to bring out character that is only visible with memorable movement. Given how the entertainment space has changed and grown over recent years, it is arguably vital for characters to be unforgettable for franchises to survive. This creative thesis explores how personalities are interpreted in animation by viewers and creators, and a workflow to bring the personalities to the forefront in the piece. Three distinct characters will be animated with the same set of animations to showcase how a personality can shine.

This paper examines the performance of SOEs in developing countries in competitive sectors such as aviation, telecommunications and energy to ascertain whether there are any common principles that determine such performance. Through a case study analysis and interviews with executive managers of South Africa’s SOEs, the paper will determine whether the common principles ascertained in the successful performance of the other developing countries’ SOEs can be applied to South Africa and whether any differences in principle exist between South African SOEs and other developing country SOEs. The paper uses the strategic management schools of organisational and institutional theory, agency theory and the resource based view to determine if there are any differences in principle between SOEs in South Africa and other developing countries. The paper also explores whether the environments and contexts of the different SOEs materially impacts their performance and ability to create a competitive advantage over a sustained period. A qualitative approach was used given that this is an explorative study, to provide better insights and in-depth discussion on the relatively new issues that have not been studied in great detail before. The main research findings are that successfully performing SOEs from developing countries exhibit certain common factors that can be applied by SOEs seeking to reform and improve their performance across developing countries. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

LEGIO ANGELICA - HISTORY AND INSPIRATION FOR EDUCATION OF ALTAR BOYS. Main focus of this master thesis is on altar boys education in Legio Angelica. This association was founded in 1929 by a Benedictine priest Method Klement (1889-1979). It existed until 1948 and gave a number of personalities to the Church in Czechoslovakia. First the thesis briefly describes liturgical and scout movement, which had a significant impact on the organization. Furthermore it presents: the history of Legio Angelica with regard to the life stories of its directors, the functioning of the association, the magazine Legio Angelica (which is the main source of the work) and other themes from the associations history. The principal part of the thesis are the third chapter which reflects the educational objectives in Legio Angelica and the fourth chapter that deals with the particular tools of this education. Eventually the author returns to the scouting which has turned into interesting enrichment of the association. Keywords Legio Angelica, Fr. Method Klement, altar boys, education, catholic scouting

Agile methods provide an organization or a team with the flexibility to adopt a selected subset of principles and practices based on their culture, their values, and the types of systems that they develop. More specifically, every organization or team implements a customized agile method, tailored to better accommodate its needs. However, the extent to which a customized method supports the organizational objectives, i.e. the 'goodness' of that method, should be demonstrable. Existing agile assessment approaches focus on comparative analyses, or are limited in scope and application. In this research, we propose a systematic, comprehensive approach to assessing the 'goodness' of agile methods. We examine an agile method based on (1) its adequacy, (2) the capability of the organization to support the adopted principles and strategies specified by the method, and (3) the method's effectiveness. We propose the Objectives, Principles and Strategies (OPS) Framework to guide our assessment process. The Framework identifies (a) objectives of the agile philosophy, (b) principles that support the objectives and (c) strategies that implement the principles. It also defines (d) linkages that relate objectives to principles, and principles to strategies, and finally, (e) indicators for assessing the extent to which an organization supports the implementation and effectiveness of those strategies. The propagation of indicator values along the linkages provides a multi-level assessment view of the agile method.  In this dissertation, we present our assessment methodology, guiding Framework, validation approach, results and findings, and future directions. / Ph. D.

Med utveckling av streamingtjänster kommer det ständigt nya lösning och produkter. Konkurrensen om kunder är högre än någonsin. Företag tävlar om kunder genom att erbjuda den bästa streaming-upplevelsen i marknaden. Det finns principer och regler för hur man ska designa en produkt för vardagligt bruk och hur man ska designa en produkt för interaktion och användarupplevelse. Men det finns inga specifika principer på hur man ska utveckla streamingtjänster. Denna studie undersöker vilka principer som är bäst vid utveckling av streamingtjänster. Resultatet av denna studie blir ny kunskap som kan implementeras i befintliga streamingtjänster. Syftet med studien är att hitta de bästa principerna enligt kvinnliga användare. Metoderna omfattar både kvantitativ enkätundersökning såväl som litteraturstudie. Resultatet av denna studie kommer att analyseras och diskuteras för att hitta de bästa principerna. / With the development of streaming services there are constantly new solutions and products. The competition for customers is higher than before. Companies compete for customers by offering the best streaming-experience in the market. There are principles and rules for how one should design a product for ​an everyday use​ and how one should design a product for interaction and user experience. But there are no specific principles on how one should develop a streaming service. This thesis explores which principles are the best when developing streaming services. The outcome of this thesis will be new knowledge that can be implemented to the existing streaming services. The purpose is to find the best principles according to female users. The methods encompass both quantitative study and literature studies. The result of the study will be analyzed and discussed to find the best principles.

This study attempted to discover some parameters in terms of mental age at which young children, ages five through eight, begin to utilize effectively their mental imagery in the learning process. Using Piaget's principles of conservation as a learning task, subjects were taught in one of two groups: Group one was instructed in conservation concepts by use of concrete example, in which case they were allowed to see, handle and manipulate materials as they underwent transformations. Group two received identical instruction but were called upon to use their mental imagery to visualize the materials undergoing transformations. Based upon the administration of the California Test of Mental Maturity and a pretest, sixteen non-conserving subjects from the kindergarten, first, second, and third grades, making a total of sixty-four subjects, were grouped by matching I.Q.'s to receive four periods of instruction in the principles of conservation. Following instruction each subject was individually administered a posttest and a test of extinction. The test of extinction was designed to measure the degree or depth of conservation acquisition achieved by each subject. A statistical analysis of the data indicated that while children of ages five through eight were able to learn conservation through both methods of instruction, mental age and I.Q.'s were not determining variables. No learning curve based on mental age or I.Q. was discernible. It was strongly indicated, however, that boys resist extinction of conservation principles better when taught through concrete example than they do when taught through mental imagery. Girls utilize mental imagery in acquiring conservation better than do boys of the same age, and as well as boys who learn by use of concrete illustration. Girls' use of mental imagery in the learning process appears to be equal to their use of concrete example.

Irrigation is "the artificial application of water to the soil for the purpose of getting large and steady crop yields". It is supplementary to rainfall and the quantity of water applied and the time of application, therefore, must be determined by the character of the rainfall. Irrigation is usually practiced in those regions which have low rainfall as natural precipitation at such places is insufficient to meet the full water requirements of crops.

Variational principles in classical fluid mechanics and electromagnetism have sprinkled the literature since the eighteenth century. Even so, no adequate variational principle in the Eulerian description of matter was had until 1968 when an Eulerian variational principle was introduced which reproduces Euler's equation of fluid dynamics. Although it successfully produces the appropriate equation of motion for a perfect fluid, the variational principle requires imposition of a constraint which was not fully understood at the time the variational principle was introduced. That constraint is the Lin constraint. The Lin constraint has subsequently been utilized by a number of authors who have sought to develop Eulerian variational principles in both fluid mechanics and electromagnetics (or plasmadynamics). How-ever, few have sought to fully understand the constraint. This dissertation first reviews the work of earlier authors concerning the development of variational principles in both the Eulerian and Lagrangian nomenclatures. In the process, it is shown rigorously whether or not the Euler-Lagrange equations which result from the variational principles are equivalent to the generally accepted equations of motion. In particular, it is shown in the case of several Eulerian variational principles that imposition of the Lin constraint results in Euler-Lagrange equations which are equivalent to the generally accepted equations of motion. On the other hand, it is shown that neglect of the Lin constraint results in Euler-Lagrange equations restrictive of the generally accepted equations of motion. In an effort to improve the physical motivation behind introduction of the Lin constraint a new variational constraint is developed based on the concept of surface forces within a fluid. The new constraint has the advantage of producing Euler-Lagrange equations which are globally correct whereas the Lin constraint itself allows only local equivalence to the standard classical equations of fluid motion. Several additional items of interest regarding variational principles are presented. It is shown that a quantity often referred to as "the canonical momentum" of a charged fluid is not always a constant of the motion of the fluid. This corrects an error which has previously appeared in the literature. In addition, it is demonstrated that there does not exist an unconstrained Eulerian variational principle giving rise to the generally accepted equations of motion for both a perfect fluid and a cold, electromagnetic fluid.

Designing software components for future reuse has been an important area in software engineering. A software system developed with reusable components follows a "with" reuse process while a component designed to be reused in other systems follows a "for" reuse process. This dissertation explores the factors affecting design for reuse and design with reusable components through empirical studies. The studies involve Java components implementing a particular algorithm, a stemming algorithm that is widely used in the conflation domain. The method and empirical approach are general and independent of the programming language. Such studies may be extended to other types of components, for example, components implementing data structures such as stacks, queues etc. Design for reuse: In this thesis, the first study was conducted analyzing one-use and equivalent reusable components for the overhead in terms of component size, effort required, number of parameters, and productivity. Reusable components were significantly larger than their equivalent one-use components and had significantly more parameters. The effort required for the reusable components was higher than for one-use components. The productivity of the developers was significantly lower for the reusable components compared to the one-use components. Also, during the development of reusable components, the subjects spent more time on writing code than designing the components, but not significantly so.  A ranking of the design principles by frequency of use is also reported. A content analysis performed on the feedback is also reported and the reasons for using and not using the reuse design principles are identified. A correlation analysis showed that the reuse design principles were, in general, used independently of each other. Design with reuse: Through another empirical study, the effect of the size of a component and the reuse design principles used in building the component on the ease of reuse were analyzed. It was observed that the higher the complexity the lower the ease of reuse, but the correlation is not significant. When considered independently, four of the reuse design principles: well-defined interface, clarity and understandability, generality, and separate concepts from content significantly increased the ease of reuse while commonality and variability analysis significantly decreased the ease of reuse, and documentation did not have a significant impact on the ease of reuse. Experience in the programming language had no significant relationship with the reusability of components. Experience in software engineering and software reuse showed a relationship with reusability but the effect size was small. Testing components before integrating them into a system was found to have no relationship with the reusability of components. A content analysis of the feedback is presented identifying the challenges of components that were not easy to reuse. Features that make a component easily reusable were also identified. The Mahalanobis-Taguchi Strategy (MTS) was employed to develop a model based on Mahalanobis Distance  to identify the factors that can detect if a component is easy to reuse or not. The identified factors within the model are: size of a component, a set of reuse design principles (well-defined interface, clarity and understandability, commonality and variability analysis, and generality), and component testing. / Ph. D.