The use of non-financial performance measurements (such as quality, delivery and customer satisfaction) has received a lot of attention from practitioners and academics over the last two decades in developed countries. This research project is an exploratory study in Libya to investigate the use of non-financial performance measurements (NFPMs) in a developing country's commercial banking sector. The Libyan service sector is the second contributor to the Libyan Gross Domestic Product (GDP) after the oil sector. Within the service sector, the commercial banking sector has been playing a significant role in the development of the Libyan economy. This research project aims to: 1) explore the current use of NFPMs in the Libyan commercial banking sector (LCBS); 2) determine the environmental factors influencing the use of NFPMs in the LCBS; and 3) explore the impact of NFPMs on financial performance measurements (FPMs) in the LCBSA grounded theory methodology was adopted and four case studies (two State owned banks and two private banks) were conducted. Each case study was analysed according to a structured set of coding procedures (based on the grounded theory approach of Strauss and Corbin, 1990) and substantive hypotheses emerged for each case study. A cross-case analysis of the four case studies gave rise to the following nineteen formal hypotheses which (together with the model developed from the four case studies) are the main findings of this study: H1 The limitations of FPMs are one of the major motives leading to a bank's use of NFPMs H2 A more competitive environment is one of the main motives for managers in a bank using NFPMs. H3 Management's knowledge of the relationship between NFPMs and FPMs is one of the major motives leading to the use of NFPMs in a bank. 11 H4 Demanding customers are one of the major motives leading to the use of NFPMs in a bank. H5 The nature of the banking industry as a service oriented industry is one of the major motives leading to the use of NFPMs in a bank. H6 Lower level managers in a bank tend to use NFPMs more than middle and higher level managers do. H7 Operational experience of management, competence of management, management with more authority, top management's interference, stability of management, and collective working group positively affect a bank's use of NFPMs. H8 New regulations and strategies of the Central Bank and the uncertainty of the economic environment positively affect a bank's use of NFPMs. H9 Some of the Central Bank's old regulations, over-control and interference of the Central Bank, information shortage, weakness of infrastructure, traditional educational system, State ownership and the general public's lack of banking knowledge negatively affect a bank's use of NFPMs. H10 The development of human resource strategies to be more service-oriented is associated with a bank's use of NFPMs. H11 The development of the reward system to be linked with non-financial performance and to be more service-oriented is associated with a bank's use of NFPMs. H12 The development of the banking system (operating, information and reporting system) is associated with a bank's use of NFPMs. H13 The development of a bank's management accounting information is associated with its use of NFPMs. H14 The development of a bank's organisational structure is associated with its use of NFPMs. H15 The adoption of advanced management practices is associated with a bank's use of NFPMs. H16 Use of NFPMs encourages a bank to diversify and improve its range of services. H17 Use of NFPMs encourages a bank to adopt advanced technology. H18 Use of NFPMs improves a bank's profitability, customers' deposits and other FPMs in the long-term. H19 Use of NFPMs leads to an increase in a bank's capital expenditure.

Prahalad has started a debate in the last decade regarding the opportunities of doing business towards the low-income consumers of emerging markets, which he called Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) markets. The purpose of this study is to investigate how companies adapt their marketing mix strategies in order to target this type of market. The research is developed as case studies within the Brazilian telecom market in order to offer a new BOP setting as previous research has been focusing on Asia and Africa. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews are conducted with managers of the prepaid segment of three telecom companies. The study shows that price strategies are most important to adapt towards affordability in order to target BOP markets because of consumers’ limited budget. While adaptation in product and place are also seen, they are not as substantial as in price. The strategy that was not adapted was promotion as traditional channels are most common within the Brazilian BOP market. Moreover, companies with a strategy that traditionally have been upper-segment-centric do have to make larger and more innovative adaptations in order to market this segment.

A majority of the world’s population can be classified as Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), which means that they earn less than USD 3,000 per year. In addition, it is estimated that 12 % of the worlds BoP population live in Africa. Due to the vast economic growth in Africa - which will boost the African consumers income level -we have decided to write a dissertation that regards the African BoP consumers.The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate iffive BoP market barriers exist in the African countries Tanzania and Kenya. In order to answer the research question, we conducted interviews with two different companies established in the Tanzanian respectively Kenyan BoP market. It was possible to answer the research question through the primary data collected during these interviews.Our main findings from the empirical analysis indicated that four out of five market barriers in the Tanzanian and Kenyan BoP markets are accepted, and that both of the companies had to adapt to the different barriers. In addition, Company A and Company B also find solutions to these accepted market barriers in their respective BoP markets.This dissertation will be of value since Africa’s economy is steadily growing, which will attract more companies in the near future. Furthermore, research in how toovercome market barriers in order to establish successful business in low-income markets will also be valuable.

A simple and high efficient wet etching technique for fabricating pyramid textures on (100) Si wafer is proposed. Conventionally, pyramid textures were formed on Si wafers to reduce reflections using KOH anisotropic etching. Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) is often added to the solution to abate the bubbling effect caused by hydrogen released form the Si surfaces during reaction. In this study, a metal net with proper opening dimension was used as a shelter to trap the hydrogen from leaving the surfaces of Si, and therefore turns the hydrogen gas into a gas-type etching mask during the anisotropic etching. In this way, pyramid textures with dimensions range from 3µm to 8µm were successfully fabricated. The measured average reflectivity of the texture for incident optical wave length from 400nm to 1000nm is less than 18%.

The brightness variance, caused by relative velocity of the camera and environment in a sequence of images, is called optical flow. The advantage of the optical-flow-based visual servo method is that feature of the object dose not need to be known in advance. Therefore, it can be applied for positioning and tracking implement tasks. The purpose of this thesis is to implement the image servo technique and the sliding-mode control method to track an unknown image pattern in three dimensional motion. The goal of tracking is to maintain identical image captured by the camera based on the relative movement calculated from the optical flow.

Abstract We propose a new scheme of lensed fiber employing a quadrangular-pyramid-shaped fiber endface (QPSFE) for the coupling high-power 980nm laser diodes and single-mode fibers. The quadrangular-pyramid-shaped fiber was accomplished by first grinding and polishing a flat surface to the center of fiber at the desired inclination angle of £c, rotating the fiber to £p and polishing to the center of fiber, repeating the same process on the other sides of the fiber by rotating the fiber to £k-£p and £p. Then the QPSFE was fabricated by heating the tip of quadrangular-pyramid-shaped fiber in a fusing splicer to form an elliptical microlens endface. A coupling efficiency of 85% has been demonstrated. This higher coupling efficiency of the QPSFE lensed fiber is attributed to the better matching of the elliptical Gaussian field distribution between the laser source and the fiber.

Techn. Univ., Diss.--Wien, 2007.

This thesis identifies the enabling factors that are relevant for a company’s BoP innovation process. It aims at visualizing differences and challenges of BoP innovation processes in contrast to generic innovation processes. A literature review which was conducted first identified seven enabling factors for generic innovation processes: customer orientation, rigorous planning & early specification, pre-development activities, formalized project selection, functional competence & cross-functional teams, strong project leader and top management support. These theoretical findings provided the necessary framework for the qualitative, semi-structured interviews that were conducted with two companies, GE Healthcare and Godrej & Boyce, which both recently implemented a BoP project. The empirical results visualized the companies’ BoP innovation processes and suggested the following findings. First, the focus on customer orientation was strengthened as a company’s unfamiliarity with the local context strengthens the importance of exactly understanding the consumers’ needs. Second, rigorous planning & early specification was found not as important as in generic innovation processes due to the novelty of the endeavor and the necessary adjustments in the course of the project. Third, predevelopment activities remain important. Fourth, formalized project selection is found to be one of the most influential factors for a BoP innovation project. Fifth, no difference in significance was found in functional competence & cross-functional team. However, the two dimensions of internationality of the team and proximity to respective decision makers were added. Sixth, the case studies showed that a strong project champion is decisive for a BoP project. Last, top management support was found to be one of the most important factors for a BoP innovation project as adjusting structural factors and strategic orientations is necessary for a BoP project to fully unfold. Furthermore, three additional factors (strategic (re-)orientation of a company, independent business unit and mindsets and work approach) were discussed.

Background: Events happening in the 21st century- global economic crisis, naturaldisasters, extreme poverty, struggles and conflicts have led to a realization that we areliving in a troubled world where we are interdependent in one way or the other. These issues tend to be complex and intertwined such that delegating them to a single sectoris too huge of a task to bear, thus the need for social innovation through cross sector collaboration. The case of the Refugee Housing Unit is being studied- a collaboration between the IKEA Foundation, UNHCR and the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation led to the creation of a more sustainable environmental friendly shelter for refugees.Since social innovation is a green field especially in a BOP context, the research is aimed at understanding how the RHU case can provide important insight in which collaboration theory can be applied between sectors to shape future social innovation endeavors. Aim: The aim of this thesis is to study the collaboration of organizations belonging to different sectors to create social innovations. This research will examine how collaboration between sectors takes place, and through the empirical case of theRefugee Housing Unit, derive key learning points that could shape future social innovation projects. A framework will be developed that could provide important insightsfor future socially oriented collaborations. Methodology: The proposed framework was developed through a study of socialinnovation theory in terms how it can be accelerated through cross sector collaborationiitheory. A case study that entailed these two theories was chosen to enable the development of a suggested framework. The study involved collection of primary data inform of interviews with Johan Karlsson and Chris Earney, RHU project leader and UNHCR Innovation co-leader, respectively. Additionally, secondary data was used tohelp understand the case further. Results: Examining the core elements of cross-sectoral collaboration for social innovation showed imperative social aspects as well as key dimensions that are pillars for the process of collaboration. The RHU case revealed critical factors for collaboration between sectors that are well stipulated in the framework. The framework can act as a guide for organizations wishing to collaborate for social innovation as well as provide abasis for future research in this young field.

The focus of this research work is the estimation of gaps (missing blocks) in digital images. To progress the research two main issues were identified as (1) the appropriate domains for image gap restoration and (2) the methodologies for gap interpolation. Multi-scale transforms provide an appropriate framework for gap restoration. The main advantages are transformations into a set of frequency and scales and the ability to progressively reduce the size of the gap to one sample wide at the transform apex. Two types of multi-scale transform were considered for comparative evaluation; 2-dimensional (2D) discrete cosines (DCT) pyramid and 2D discrete wavelets (DWT). For image gap estimation, a family of conventional weighted interpolators and directional edge-guided interpolators are developed and evaluated. Two types of edges were considered; ‘local’ edges or textures and ‘global’ edges such as the boundaries between objects or within/across patterns in the image. For local edge, or texture, modelling a number of methods were explored which aim to reconstruct a set of gradients across the restored gap as those computed from the known neighbourhood. These differential gradients are estimated along the geometrical vertical, horizontal and cross directions for each pixel of the gap. The edge-guided interpolators aim to operate on distinct regions confined within edge lines. For global edge-guided interpolation, two main methods explored are Sobel and Canny detectors. The latter provides improved edge detection. The combination and integration of different multi-scale domains, local edge interpolators, global edge-guided interpolators and iterative estimation of edges provided a variety of configurations that were comparatively explored and evaluated. For evaluation a set of images commonly used in the literature work were employed together with simulated regular and random image gaps at a variety of loss rate. The performance measures used are the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and structure similarity index (SSIM). The results obtained are better than the state of the art reported in the literature.