This doctoral thesis features two kinds of skill-training programmes implemented in Tamil Nadu (India) drawing on 18 months of fieldwork. The first explores how Nokia recruits and trains semi-skilled youth to work as Operators, in the Nokia SEZ, in Sriperumbudur. I contrast this with the case of Project SEAM: a state-funded skill-training programme, implemented by a private firm through a public-private partnership (PPP). SEAM trains rural, below-poverty-line youth, to work as sewing machine operators in India’s burgeoning garment clusters. I argue that contemporary India’s development trajectory is characterised by the confluence between an increasingly pluralised network state and rapidly proliferating network enterprises, which work together to establish new workplaces and design and implement skill-training programmes for India’s rural poor. Skill-training is used as a lens to examine the complex, symbiotic relationship between these two actors, who drive these new initiatives. Skill development programmes are predicated on the idea that aspiration is a positive, transformative force – a view that is echoed by social scientists like Appadurai (2004; 2013). I demonstrate how the network state and network enterprise, shape and mould youth aspirations, across the skill-training cycle: transforming (within mere weeks) unemployed, unskilled rural youth – into semi skilled workers, ready to work in the manufacturing sector. Youth aspirations are consciously heightened as a marketing strategy, to maximize enrollments into skill-training programmes. Aspiration is also actively taught as a valuable soft-skill, that young people must possess, to become a part of India’s new workplaces. Through an exploration of how young people encounter such initiatives, I question the idea that aspirations are positively transformational. I highlight the tension in youth experience - between aspirations elevated by the training program, and factory work’s harder realities - to illustrate the dark side of aspiration: characterized by disillusionment, disappointment and personal failure.

While it is well established that expert performers can pick up and utilise postural cues to anticipate more effectively than less-skilled counterparts, the role of contextual information in expert anticipation has received relatively little research attention. The aims of this thesis were to highlight the importance of contextual information in anticipation, identify specific sources of contextual information that impact anticipation, and examine how this information is used. In five studies, skilled and less-skilled tennis players were presented with videos or animations of the same open play rallies. The animations omitted postural information, constraining participants to anticipate based on contextual information alone. First, participants anticipated more accurately than chance in both display conditions. Skilled participants were more accurate than less-skilled participants, with the difference being greater in the video condition. Second, gaze data and retrospective verbal reports were collected when viewing the animations. Skilled participants displayed different gaze behaviour and more thoroughly evaluated the presented information than less-skilled participants. Third, animations were manipulated to depict or omit potential sources of contextual information. The preceding shot sequence was shown to be a useful source of contextual information, particularly for skilled participants. Additionally, player positioning could be used to anticipate highly accurately in absence of any other information. Finally, the option generation strategies underpinning expert anticipation were examined. Participants generated fewer options when postural cues were available compared with when constrained to the use of contextual information alone. Moreover, skilled participants generated more task-relevant and fewer task-irrelevant options than less-skilled participants. Collectively, these findings increase understanding of the role of contextual information in expert anticipation and further highlight the complex nature of perceptual-cognitive expertise.

In April 2013, the U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6% and did not drop as quickly in the recent recession as in past recessions. The Unemployment and Job Creation Program study informed readers that many employers could not find qualified workers. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore hiring managers' strategies to locate and hire skilled workers in the furniture manufacturing industry. The target sample included 3 furniture manufacturers located in Huntsville, Alabama who have successfully developed and implemented strategies for hiring skilled workers. The skill shortage theory was the conceptual framework for this study. In the job market, skill was a persistent theme in the discussion of unemployment. The data collected resulted from face-to-face interviews with 3 managers in the furniture manufacturing business, transcribed interview responses, company documentation, and observation notes. Data analysis included an assessment of word frequencies, keyword coding, and theme identification. The findings included 4 themes: strategy, effective strategy, barriers, and mitigation. Implementing these recommendations may increase managers' effectiveness in hiring. Implications for social change include establishing a credible hiring strategy that provides an opportunity for increasing local employment. The benefits of industries implementing an effective hiring strategy are community awareness and less local unemployment. The employment growth strengthens the community with the increase in spending which creates a thriving economy. An increase in pay provides opportunities for higher education and better provisions for employees' families.

Using one's success and failure experiences can be an indicator of how well risk is being managed in uncertain situations, particularly because exact probability information about outcomes is often missing. Experience-based paradigms include this more real-world aspect of a lack of information when studying risk taking behavior. This thesis builds upon experience-based paradigms to include the element of skill. A puzzle task was developed. A goal was given to participants to try to discern a pattern in each puzzle that would yield consistently positive outcomes. Participants were randomly assigned to a high or low success rate, but told that skill played a role in performance. The outcomes associated with each puzzle were chosen by the participant, and served as a measure of risk taking. After playing 41 puzzles, participants responded to scales measuring skill and chance beliefs, and motivational focus. Risk preferences were similar to experience-based paradigm predictions, though they were not well-calibrated. Those with a high success rate took more risks relative to those with a low success rate, but the results were less extreme than predicted. In addition, a closer look revealed that the pattern for those with a low success rate began by increasing their risk taking, and then did not decrease their risk taking significantly. Neither group felt that skill or chance was playing a dominant role in outcomes, though self-serving bias was observed as better performance did lead to higher ratings of skill. Overall, the results suggest that introducing the potential for skill may change how people approach risk in ways not predicted by experience-based paradigms.

<p>In this thesis, the focus is on creating a wrapper between MATLAB and the Cadence Virtuoso design environment. The central idea is to use the wrapper and write the code for an entire analog layout as scripts in MATLAB. Basically, we will implement a set of necessary commands for performing the most fundamental tasks in layout generation from within MATLAB.</p>

The goal of this research was to establish a methodology for quantifying performance of surgeons and distinguishing skill levels during live surgeries. We integrated three physical measures (kinematics, time and movement transitions) into a modeling technique for quantifying performance of surgical trainees. We first defined a new hierarchical representation called Motor and Cognitive Modeling Diagram for laparoscopic procedures, which: (1) decomposes ‘tasks’ into ‘subtasks’ and at the very detailed level into individual movements ‘actions’; and (2) includes an explicit cognitive/motor diagrammatic representation that enables to take account of the operative variability as most intraoperative assessments are conducted at the ‘whole procedure’ level and do not distinguish between performance of trivial and complicated aspects of the procedure. Then, at each level of surgical complexity, we implemented specific mathematical techniques for providing a quantitative sense of how far a performance is located from a reference level: (1) The Kolgomorov-Smirnov statistic to describe the similarity between two empirical cumulative distribution functions (e.g., speed profiles) (2) The symmetric normalized Jensen-Shannon Divergence to compare transition probability matrices (3) The Principal Component Analysis to identify the directions of greatest variability in a multidimensional space and to reduce the dimensionality of the data using a weight space. Two experimental studies were completed in order to show feasibility of our proposed assessment methodology by monitoring movements of surgical tools while: (1) dissecting mandarin oranges, and (2) performing laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedures at the operating room to compare residents and expert surgeons when executing two surgical tasks: exposing Calot’s Triangle and dissecting the cystic duct and artery. Results demonstrated the ability of our methodology to represent selected tasks using the Motor and Cognitive Modeling Diagram and to differentiate skill levels. We aim to use our approach in future studies to establish correspondences between specific surgical tasks and the corresponding simulations of these tasks, which may ultimately enable us to do validated assessments in a simulated setting, and to test its reliability in differentiating skill levels at the operating room as the number of subjects and procedures increase.

Detta examensarbete syftar till att skapa en modulgenerator som automatiskt genererar matchade motstånd. Med hjälp av sådana motstånd kan prestandan i integrerade kretsar förbättras. Modulgeneratorn som konstruerats klarar av att generera två eller flera matchade motstånd. Programmet skapar med hjälp av indata från konstruktören en färdig layout som kan användas somett byggblock i integrerade kretsar. Examensarbetet har slutförts och programmet har använts för att generera matchade motstånd till två större layouter vid institutionen för Elektroniksystem. / The aim of this thesis is to create a program that automatically generates matched resistors. By using such resistors the performance of integrated circuits can be improved. The program can generate two or more matched resistors. With a set of input parameters the user is able to generate a customized matched resistor. The project has been completed and the program has been used to generate matched resistors for two bigger layouts at the department of Electrical Engineering.

In this thesis, the focus is on creating a wrapper between MATLAB and the Cadence Virtuoso design environment. The central idea is to use the wrapper and write the code for an entire analog layout as scripts in MATLAB. Basically, we will implement a set of necessary commands for performing the most fundamental tasks in layout generation from within MATLAB.

Two instructional design features hypothesized to affect problem solving performance, problem format and contextual interference, were investigated. Problem format was manipulated by altering the format of worked examples to demonstrate a molar or modular solution. Contextual interference was manipulated by randomizing the order in which problem categories were studied. Participants studied worked examples from 5 complex probability categories and solved 11 novel problems. The modular problem format reduced study time and the workload during study and increased performance on the subsequent test. Greater contextual interference increased study time but had no effect on workload or test performance. Additionally, a regression analysis demonstrated that mental workload partially mediated the effect of problem format on test performance. A separate regression analysis did not demonstrate that working memory capacity moderated the effect of problem format on mental workload.

In a competitive environment, how enterprises keep their advantages is becoming more and more significant. From many theoretical and practical researches, employees seem to be the key resource in a working place, which means to have a proper worker in a right position. However, some enterprises do not have a great understanding of making a good use of human resource to make things go smoothly and effectively. Thus this essay emphasizes on the issue of Manpower Inventory by interviewing eight enterprises. I analyzed the results from these eight enterprises to obtain the similarities and dissimilarities of using Manpower Inventory, like background, purpose, and goal. I hope this research will be a useful reference for all the enterprises. I highlighted the major points below: 1. These eight enterprises have different backgrounds and purses but all are willing to have a change to make a good use of human resource by using Manpower Inventory. 2. Manpower Inventory can be distinguished into regularity and particularity. The former one means to put manpower inventory in routine, in other words, to have manpower inventory regularly. The later, particular inventory will be brought up when the organization probably needs it. 3. Quantity inventory depending on the qualities of employees has different inventory means. Generally speaking, however, multi-index is the better method. Skill inventory is supposed to have some related aids to promote workers¡¦ special skills. 4. Manpower Inventory is connected with working achievement, resigning improper employees and promoting proper employees, to make the company stay strong and effective. Adjusting by the entire environment is the key to gain effects. 5. Manpower policy depends on the predictable produce. When the shortage of employees happens in a short term, asking for more hours working, taking shift turns or having helpers from outsider, can solve the problem. On the other hand, when a company has a quilter business, some workers might be asked to have days off without getting paid or even be let go. 6. Human resource department is supposed to follow the future development and find the solutions for the predictable problems. However, planning cannot always follow the changes. Being flexible and having well communication, therefore, will be the best way to untangle unexpected problems and achieve manpower inventory plan.