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This thesis aims to explore if the existence of portfolio price premiums can be verified and if they differ in time and over property segments. The purpose is to contribute with valuable insights within the field of portfolio premiums in the real estate industry. In order to explore this further a regression model was developed. The model includes six portfolio variables controlling for size in the aspect of transactional value and number of properties included in the portfolio. We further test if the premium varies over property segments and over time. The data was provided by Cushman & Wakefield and consists of 825 property transactions. The results show that a portfolio premium for small, medium and large portfolios with a transactional value over 500 million SEK, and a discount on small portfolios with a transactional value below 500 million SEK is present. The premium was found to be 17.5% for small portfolios, 16.8% for medium sized and 26.3% for large portfolios. While premiums were found for portfolios with a transactional value over 500 million SEK an 13.7% discount was found for small portfolios with a transaction value below 500 million SEK. Which indicates that investors are willing to pay a premium, but only for larger portfolios. Furthermore, the only segment test with significant results were residential and industrial of which residential indicated a discount on small and medium portfolios with a transactional value over 500 million SEK and industrial indicated a discount on small portfolios with a transactional value over 500 million SEK. The test of variation of a portfolio premium over time gave mixed results and showed that investors payed a premium for medium and large portfolios with a transactional value over 500 million SEK during 2010 - 2015. / Detta masterarbete syftar till att undersöka fenomenet portföljpremier och bidra till utökad kunskap om premier och möjliga förklaringar till varför de uppkommer. Författarna har undersökt om det går att kvantifiera den påstådda portföljpremien och om denna skiljer sig över fastighetsegmenten och tid. Syftet med arbete är att bidrag med värdefulla insikter och kunskap om portföljpremier inom fastighetsbranschen. För att kunna besvara frågeställningen utvecklade författarna en regressionsmodell. Modellen innehöll sex portföljvariabler som bland annat kontrollerade för storlek i förhållande till transaktionsvärde samt antal fastigheter inkluderade i portföljen. För att undersöka om premien varierade över fastighetssegment och med tid utfördes fem olika segmentstest och två års tester. Data som användes i regressionerna tillhandahölls av Cushman & Wakefield. Resultatet av studien visar att det finns en portföljpremie på små, medelstora och stora fastighetsportföljer med ett transaktionsvärde över 500 millioner kronor. Premien noterades till 17,5% för små portföljer, 16,8% för medelstora portföljer och 26,3% för stora portföljer. Medans en premie noterades för portföljer med ett transaktionsvärde över 500 millioner kronor kunde en rabatt om 13,7% hittas för små portföljer med etttransaktionsvärde under 500 millioner kronor. Segmenttesten som genomfördes gav blandade resultat. De test som gav signifikanta resultat var segmentstest för industri och bostäder. Resultatet av regressionen visade att det finns en rabatt för små och medelstora bostadsportföljer med ett transaktionsvärde överstigande 500 millioner kronor samt en rabatt för små industriportföljer med ett transaktionsvärde över 500 millioner kronor. Utöver segmentstesten gjordes även två tester där författarna testade om premien varierade över tid. Likaså här gav testerna blandade resultat. Det kan konstateras att en premie återfinns för portföljer handlade under perioden 2010 - 2015.

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Many entrepreneurs pursue the IT-industry, which is characterized by opportunities and international growth. However, due to failures in sales, marketing and operations, many IT-startups never reach profitability and sustainable performance.  On behalf of the IT-startup Realbridge, the authors have been asked to investigate how their sales process can be made more efficient. By identifying elements in the sales process, the authors can provide suggestions supported by theories and qualitative data on how Realbridge and similar companies can redesign and improve their sales process. The study further investigates the role of sales in the business model and how a changed sales process impact value delivery and innovate the business model. Consequently, the thesis aims to answer the following research questions: How does a firm’s sales process impact value delivery in the business model? How can small IT-companies similar to Realbridge and their product improve their sales process efficiency? This degree project has several purposes. Firstly, it aims to further investigate the role of sales in value delivery in the business model. This will extend knowledge and research on value delivery and sales, and will further investigate the relationship between components of the business model. Secondly, it will serve as a guide for managers in IT-firms on how they can improve the sales process. Thirdly, it will create an understanding of how IT-firms similar to Realbridge can develop or innovate their business model in terms of changed value delivery, key activities and sales process. As the aim of this study is to extend knowledge in the business model and sales literature, as well as analyze Realbridge’s sales process and culminate in recommendations on how IT-startups can increase their sales efficiency, this degree project takes form as a qualitative case study. Interviews have been conducted with interviewees in four different organizations with three different perspectives: Realbridge’s perspective, customer in the car dealership industry’s perspective and non-customer in the car dealership industry’s perspective. The data has been processed in accordance to thematic analysis. The analysis has led the authors to the conclusion that a changed sales process impact value delivery and consequently innovate the business model. It is also found that the sales process impact value creation and capture. Moreover, in order to effectively design a sales process, Realbridge and similar companies must effectively segment the market, focus on fewer segments initially and target them according to their expected financial contribution. They should state and communicate a specific value proposition related to the approached segment’s main needs. Furthermore, customer preferences have to be accounted for in terms of sales channels and type of relationships, and it can be seen as a financial risk to maximize value creation and value delivery for all customers.

La tâche d'alignement d'un texte dans une langue source avec sa traduction en langue cible est souvent nommée alignement de bi-textes. Elle a pour but de faire émerger les relations de traduction qui peuvent s'exprimer à différents niveaux de granularité entre les deux faces du bi-texte. De nombreuses applications de traitement automatique des langues naturelles s'appuient sur cette étape afin d'accéder à des connaissances linguistiques de plus haut niveau.Parmi ces applications, nous pouvons citer bien sûr la traduction automatique, mais également l'extraction de lexiques et de terminologies bilingues, la désambigüisation sémantique ou l'apprentissage des langues assisté par ordinateur.La complexité de la tâche d'alignement de bi-textes s'explique par les différences linguistiques entre les langues. Ces différences peuvent être d'ordre sémantique, syntaxique, ou morphologique.Dans le cadre des approches probabilistes, l'alignement de bi-textes est modélisé par un ensemble de variables aléatoires cachés. Afin de réduire la complexité du problème, le processus aléatoire sous-jacent fait l'hypothèse simplificatrice qu'un mot en langue source est lié à au plus un mot en langue cible, ce qui induit une relation de traduction asymétrique. Néanmoins, cette hypothèse est simpliste, puisque les alignements peuvent de manière générale impliquer des groupes de mots dans chacune des langues. Afin de rétablir cette symétrie, chaque langue est considérée tour à tour comme la langue source et les deux alignements asymétriques résultants sont combinés à l'aide d'une heuristique. Cette étape de symétrisation revêt une importance particulière dans l’approche standard en traduction automatique, puisqu'elle précède l'extraction des unités de traduction, à savoir les paires de segments.L'objectif de cette thèse est de proposer de nouvelles approches pour d'une part l'alignement debi-texte, et d'autre part l'extraction des unités de traduction. La spécificité de notre approche consiste à remplacer les heuristiques utilisées par des modèles d'apprentissage discriminant.Nous présentons un modèle "Maximum d'entropie'' (ou MaxEnt) pour l'alignement de mot, pour lequel chaque lien d'alignement est prédit de manière indépendante. L'interaction entre les liens d'alignement est alors prise en compte par l'empilement ("stacking'') d'un second modèle prenant en compte la structure à prédire sans pour autant augmenter la complexité globale. Cette formulation peut être vue comme une manière d'apprendre la combinaison de différentes méthodes d'alignement: le modèle considère ainsi l'union des alignements d'entrées pour en sélectionner les liens jugés fiables. Le modèle MaxEnt proposé permet d'améliorer les performances d'un système état de l'art de traduction automatique en considérant le jeu de données de la tâche NIST'09, Arabe vers Anglais. Ces améliorations sont mesurées en terme de taux d'erreur sur les alignements et aussi en terme de qualité de traduction via la métrique automatique BLEU.Nous proposons également un modèle permettant à la fois de sélectionner et d'évaluer les unités de traduction extraites d'un bi texte aligné. Ces deux étapes sont reformulées dans le cadre de l'apprentissage supervisé, afin de modéliser la décision de garder ou pas une paire de segments comme une unité fiable de traduction. Ce cadre permet l'utilisation de caractéristiques riches et nombreuses favorisant ainsi une décision robuste. Nous proposons une méthode simple et efficace pour annoter les paires de segments utiles pour la traduction. Le problème d'apprentissage automatique qui se pose alors est particulier, puisque nous disposons que d'exemples positifs. Nous proposons donc d'utiliser l'approche SVM à une classe afin de modéliser la sélection des unités de traduction.Grâce à cette approche, nous obtenons des améliorations significatives en terme de score BLEU pour un système entrainé avec un petit ensemble de données. / Bitext alignment is the task of aligning a text in a source language and its translation in the target language. Aligning amounts to finding the translational correspondences between textual units at different levels of granularity. Many practical natural language processing applications rely on bitext alignments to access the rich linguistic knowledge present in a bitext. While the most predominant application for bitexts is statistical machine translation, they are also used in multilingual (and monolingual) lexicography, word sense disambiguation, terminology extraction, computer-aided language learning andtranslation studies, to name a few.Bitext alignment is an arduous task because meaning is not expressed seemingly across languages. It varies along linguistic properties and cultural backgrounds of different languages, and also depends on the translation strategy that have been used to produce the bitext.Current practices in bitext alignment model the alignment as a hidden variable in the translation process. In order to reduce the complexity of the task, such approaches suppose that a word in the source sentence is aligned to one word at most in the target sentence.However, this over-simplistic assumption results in asymmetric, one-to-many alignments, whereas alignments are typically symmetric and many-to-many.To achieve symmetry, two one-to-many alignments in opposite translation directions are built and combined using a heuristic.In order to use these word alignments in phrase-based translation systems which use phrases instead of words, a heuristic is used to extract phrase pairs that are consistent with the word alignment.In this dissertation we address both the problems of word alignment and phrase pairs extraction.We improve the state of the art in several ways using discriminative learning techniques.We present a maximum entropy (MaxEnt) framework for word alignment.In this framework, links are predicted independently from one another using a MaxEnt classifier.The interaction between alignment decisions is approximated using stackingtechniques, which allows us to account for a part of the structural dependencies without increasing the complexity. This formulation can be seen as an alignment combination method,in which the union of several input alignments is used to guide the output alignment. Additionally, input alignments are used to compute a rich set of feature functions.Our MaxEnt aligner obtains state of the art results in terms of alignment quality as measured by thealignment error rate, and translation quality as measured by BLEU on large-scale Arabic-English NIST'09 systems.We also present a translation quality informed procedure for both extraction and evaluation of phrase pairs. We reformulate the problem in the supervised framework in which we decide for each phrase pair whether we keep it or not in the translation model. This offers a principled way to combine several features to make the procedure more robust to alignment difficulties. We use a simple and effective method, based on oracle decoding,to annotate phrase pairs that are useful for translation. Using machine learning techniques based on positive examples only,these annotations can be used to learn phrase alignment decisions. Using this approach we obtain improvements in BLEU scores for recall-oriented translation models, which are suitable for small training corpora.

Nos ultimos anos o uso de tecnicas de aprendizado computacional tornou se uma das tarefas comumente realizadas, pois tem inumeras aplicacoes de reconhecimento de padroes, tais como: reco- nhecimento de voz, classificacao de texto, reconhecimento facial, diagnostico por imagens medicas, entre outras. Dessa forma, um grande numero de tecnicas que lidam com este tipo de problema tem sido desenvolvido ate o momento. Neste trabalho apresentamos uma alternativa para melhorar a taxa acerto de classificacao do classificador binario SLS, que apresentou resultados comparaveis com as SVMs. Nesse metodo, o Gradiente Descendente e utilizado para otimizar a posicao final dos conjuntos de segmentos de reta que representarao cada classe. Embora convirja rapidamente a um valor otimo, muitas vezes e possivel o algoritmo parar em uma regiao de otimos locais, que nao representa o minimo global. Dado esse problema, foram utilizados diferentes algoritmos evolutivos em combinacao com o Gradiente Descendente a fim de melhorar a acuracia do classificador SLS. Adicionalmente a aplicacao de algoritmos evolutivos na fase de treinamento do classificador SLS, foram exploradas duas propostas: (i) explorar o uso de diferente numero de segmentos de reta para representar a distribuicao de dados de cada classe. Dado que no algoritmo original do metodo SLS o numero de segmentos de reta e igual para cada classe, o qual pode significar alguma perda de acuracia ou sobreposicao dos segmentos de reta; (ii) estimar a melhor combinacao de segmentos de reta a serem usados para cada classe. O uso de diferentes quantidades de segmentos de reta por classe pode ser de ajuda na obtencao de melhores porcentagens de acerto, mas determinar uma quantidade otima que permita representar cada classe, e um trabalho dificil. Assim, usamos o algoritmo X-Means, que e um algoritmo de agrupamento, para estimar o numero de segmentos de reta. As propostas exibiram bons resultados que possibilitam a aplicacao do classificador SLS, com um algoritmo de treinamento hibrido, em problemas reais. / During the past years, the use of machine learning techniques have become into one of the most frequently performed tasks, due to the large amount of pattern recognition applications such as: voice recognition, text classification, face recognition, medical image diagnosis, among others. Thus, a great number of techniques dealing with this kind of problem have been developed until now. In this work, we propose an alternative training algorithm to improve the accuracy of the SLS binary Classifier, which produces good results that can be compared to Support Vector Machines. In that classifier, the Gradient Descent method has been used to optimize the final positions of two sets of straight line segments that represent each class. Although, this method quickly converges to an optimum, it is possible that the algorithm stops at a local optimum region, which does not guarantee a global minimum. Given that problem, we combine evolutive optimization algorithms with the gradient descent method to improve the accuracy of the SLS Classifier. In addition to our proposal of using evolutive algorithms, we also developed two proposals: (i) we explore the use of different number of straight line segments to represent the data distribution. Since the original SLS classifier algorithm uses the same number of segments for each class, which could lead to a loss of accuracy or straight line segments overlapping. So, using different number of segments could be the way to improve the accuracy; (ii) estimate the best combination of straight line segments to represent each class. Finding an optimal combination, can be a very difficult problem, so we propose the X-Means algorithm to determine the number of segments. The proposed methodology showed good results which can be used to solve some other real problems with the SLS classifier using the proposed hybrid training algorithm.

Huvudsyftet med denna uppsats är att förstå vad det finns för olika prioriteringar bland Visit Sweden och de regionala DMO:s när det kommer till en inriktning av den inkommande internationella turismen till Sverige. Vidare är vårt delsyfte att ta reda på hur samarbetet mellan Visit Sweden och de regionala destination managementorganisationer, s.k. DMO:s, förhåller sig och hör ihop med varandra. Vi har använt oss utav kvalitativ metod med olika former av intervjuer från de utförda intervjuerna med Visit Sweden och det regionala DMO:s samt även textmaterial från Visit Swedens webbsida. Teorierna är vetenskapliga artiklar som vi anser anknyter till det valda ämnet samt den insamlade empirin.  I resultaten utifrån den insamlade empiri framgår det att Visit Sweden inte ser själva att de väljer specifika marknader, men att de erkänner att de väljer fokusmarknader när det gäller de olika länderna. Visit Swedens val handlar bl.a. om de ser en potential att resenärer i respektive länder vill besöka Sverige. Detta kan ändras över tid beroende på interna och externa faktorer. De utgår främst utifrån deras målgrupp den Globala resenären som enligt deras marknadsanalyser kan appliceras på flera olika länder som inte ingår i deras fokusmarknader. Det som också styr deras val av marknader och marknadssegment är deras ägare svenska staten och svensk turism AB, men också olika turismaktörer såsom små och stora, som t.ex. hotell som efterfrågar att få hjälp med marknadsföring gentemot internationella turister. Gällande hur de regionala DMO:s prioriteringar ser ut i förhållande till Visit Sweden kan vi konstatera att de flesta prioriterar likartat i förhållande till Visit Sweden. Däremot ser vi ett mönster då de regionala DMO:s som inte delar samma val av fokusmarknader väljer att marknadsföra sig på andra sätt. Detta görs trots det finns en möjlighet för samarbete med Visit Sweden även om fokusmarknaden inte är densamma. / Our main purpose with this bachelor thesis is to get an understanding of which different orientations currently exists when it comes to the incoming international tourism to Sweden. Furthermore, we want to find out how the collaboration between Visit Sweden and the regional destinations management organizations, called DMO:s is structured in relation to each other. We have chosen a qualitative method which includes several different types of interviews with Visit Sweden and the regional DMO:s as well as text material from Visit Sweden's website. The theories are scientific articles which we consider are suitable to our chosen subject and empirical data.     The results based on the collected empirical evidence show that Visit Sweden does not see that they have choose specific markets, but they admit that they choose focus markets when it comes to countries. Among other things, Visit Sweden's choice is about when they see a potential that travelers in each country want to visit Sweden. This can change over time depending on internal and external factors. They are based primarily on their target group Global Traveler who according to their market analyzes can be applied to several different countries that are not included in their focus markets. What also controls the selection of markets and market segments are their owners the Swedish state and Swedish tourism AB, but also various tourism stakeholders such as small and large, for example hotels who seek help with marketing towards international tourists. When it comes to how regional DMO:s prioritize compared to Visit Sweden we can conclude that several of them prioritize in the same way as Visit Sweden. However, we see a pattern when regional DMO:s who do not share the same choice of focus markets choose to market themselves in other ways than cooperating with Visit Sweden. This happens despite of the fact that there is an opportunity for collaboration with Visit Sweden still even if their focus market is not the same.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:45:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Joao Henrique Ribeiro.pdf: 2911429 bytes, checksum: b40e36e6bf02143e38cbfa3bc1dcc040 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-24 / This research work has the purpose of verifying the use of Relationship Marketing in a receptive credit card sales central, as means of increasing sales performance and encouraging product use and customer fidelity through a case study. Its relevance resides in the fact that Telemarketing and Teleservice Segments are the country s major employers, in addition to being the principal tool used by different companies (from credit card to telecommunications services) in acquiring new customers. Despite its great potential in generating relationships and bringing closer companies and customers, telemarketing isn t viewed positively by consumers, being subject to criticism by different market segments, possibly prone to a restrictive regulatory process, where individuals may claim their right not to be approached by telemarketing actions. Consequently, understanding how the company / customer relationship can be improved and encouraged through the use of receptive sales centrals becomes a relevant research subject for researchers and companies from different segments. The theoretical foundation was structured using two approaches: the use of Direct Marketing initiatives to acquire customers and the analysis of efforts to keep them, using a Relationship Marketing model that focuses on building individualized relationships, as means of identifying and satisfying consumer needs. The analysis of results in applying Relationship Marketing to a receptive credit card sales central suggests that its use can increase sales volumes, having a positive impact on customer contact and satisfaction, from planning the communication to be delivered by the operators, to a better customer / operator interaction, focused on the attention given to customers that call a sales central / Este trabalho de pesquisa com caráter exploratório tem como objetivo verificar a utilização do Marketing de Relacionamento em uma central receptiva de vendas de cartão de crédito, como forma de aumentar a performance de vendas e incentivar a utilização do produto e fidelização do cliente, através de um estudo de caso. Sua relevância reside no fato de que o Setor de Telemarketing e Telesserviços é um dos maiores empregadores do país, além de ser uma das formas mais utilizadas por diferentes empresas (de cartão de crédito à serviços de telecomunicações) para a conquista de novos clientes. Apesar de ter grande potencial como um gerador de relacionamento e aproximação entre empresas e clientes, o telemarketing tem sido mal visto pelos consumidores, tem sido alvo de críticas de diferentes setores do mercado e tende a passar por um processo de regulamentação restritiva, onde as pessoas podem solicitar que não sejam abordadas pelas ações de telemarketing. Desta forma, compreender como o processo de relacionamento entre empresa e cliente, através de centrais receptivas de vendas, pode ser melhorado e estimulado torna esta pesquisa relevante para pesquisadores e empresas de diferentes segmentos. A fundamentação teórica foi construída a partir de duas abordagens: a utilização de iniciativas de Marketing Direto para a conquista de clientes e a análise dos esforços para sua manutenção, a partir do Marketing de Relacionamento, que aborda a construção de relacionamentos individualizados, como meio de identificar e satisfazer as necessidades dos consumidores. A análise dos resultados da aplicação do Marketing de Relacionamento em uma central receptiva de vendas de cartão de crédito sugere que sua utilização pode aumentar a quantidade de vendas, tendo impacto positivo na qualidade dos contatos e satisfação dos clientes, a partir do planejamento da comunicação que deve ser feito pelos atendentes, da melhoria da interação entre operadores e clientes e a partir da atenção dada às necessidades dos clientes que ligam para uma central de vendas

Cette thèse traite de la Vision par Ordinateur - VO - et de sa relation avec l'Intelligence Artificielle - IA. Elle est composée de trois parties. La partie I "La Vision par Ordinateur - présentation et réflexions" donne, après une définition des deux domaines, un aperçu des approches théoriques et des réalisations existantes en VO utilisant des concepts de l'IA. Nous développons ensuite notre approche qui intégre 1e concept de structures de contrôle au sens de l'IA dans un système algorithmique incrémental (à base de coroutines). Cette approche, et quelques applications du système CAIMAN qui en résulte, sont détaillées dans les parties II et III_ La partie II "De la construction d'indices visuels" analyse des problèmes algorithmiques importants pour la vision "de bas niveau", notamment celui de l'extraction de segments de droites- La partie III "Sur la reconnaissance d'objets" étudie le problème de l'interprétation d'indices visuels en termes de modèles symboliques, et analyse plusieurs méthodes d'IA <br />permettant d'en maîtriser la combinatoire, en particulier la stratégie de prédiction - vérification