Scholars have advocated that public relations executives need to seek a seat at the table among the most senior officers in the organization, referred to as the dominant coalition. However, this study found that public relations practitioners also need to seek a seat among the division leadership team and executive-level committees to fulfill a valuable internal boundary spanning role, a role that has been neglected in public relations theory. Consistent with social capital theory, the contacts that public relations practitioners developed allowed them to gather intelligence across the company and then they used that information to help their companies make better strategic decisions and avoid costly mistakes. Through in-depth interviews with 30 senior executives from a variety of disciplines, three other services were identified that enhanced public relations’ power and influence: online reputation management, external boundary spanning and advocacy, and stakeholder analysis. Factors that enhanced or hindered public relations practitioners’ ability to perform these services were also identified. Favorable conditions included the use of integrated decision teams, Theory Y management, perceptions of public relations as a strategic business partner, commitment to transparency in communication, internal relationship building, and the integration of public relations’ activities with core business objectives and operations. The study also examined why informal coalitions are formed and found they existed in both companies with strong adherence to hierarchy and those with decentralized management, a finding that contradicts previous theory. / text

Η εύρεση γεννητικών δέντρων ελάχιστου-κόστους αποτελεί ένα κλασικό επιστημονικό πρόβλημα με σημαντικές εφαρμογές στη σχεδίαση δικτύων. Δοθέντος ενός γραφήματος, όπου κάθε πλευρά σχετίζεται με ένα βάρος (κριτήριο) το πρόβλημα της εύρεσης ενός Ελάχιστου Γεννητικού Δέντρου ανέρχεται στο πρόβλημα της εύρεσης ενός γεννητικού δέντρου με το ελάχιστο συνολικό κόστος. Το πρόβλημα ΕΓΔ έχει αποτελέσει αντικείμενο ενδιαφέροντος πολλών μελετητών με αποτέλεσμα την ανάπτυξη αλγορίθμων πολυωνυμικού-χρόνου, όπως είναι ο αλγόριθμος του Prim, του Sollin και του Kruskal. Στον πραγματικό κόσμο όμως υπάρχουν περιπτώσεις όπου πρέπει να λάβουμε ταυτόχρονα υπόψη πολλά κριτήρια προκειμένου να καθορίσουμε ένα ΕΓΔ. Αυτό συμβαίνει γιατί κάθε πλευρά του γραφήματος σχετίζεται με παραπάνω από ένα κόστη. Για παράδειγμα, στη σχεδίαση ενός τηλεπικοινωνιακού δικτύου, πέρα από το κόστος κατασκευής των συνδέσεων μεταξύ των πόλεων ή των τερματικών μας ενδιαφέρουν και άλλοι παράγοντες. Ο χρόνος που απαιτείται για την κατασκευή, η δυσκολία και πολυπλοκότητα της κατασκευής, η καθυστέρηση μετάδοσης της πληροφορίας αλλά και η αξιοπιστία του συστήματος αποτελούν σημαντικούς παράγοντες που πρέπει να ληφθούν υπόψη στην σχεδίαση του δικτύου. Αλλά και στην καθημερινή ζωή, πολλές φορές χρειάζεται να ληφθούν σημαντικές αποφάσεις οι οποίες εξαρτώνται από περισσότερα από ένα κριτήρια. Παραδείγματος χάριν, άνθρωποι που ταξιδεύουν θέλουν να βελτιστοποιήσουν τη διανυόμενη απόσταση, το κόστος, και το χρόνο μετακίνησης. Το ζητούμενο είναι πως μπορεί να οδηγηθεί κανείς στη λήψη μιας βέλτιστης για αυτόν απόφασης, που κάτω από δεδομένες συνθήκες μπορεί να είναι περισσότερες από μία. Δηλαδή, δεν οδηγούμαστε σε μία μοναδική βέλτιστη λύση αλλά σε ένα σύνολο από «βέλτιστες» λύσεις και ο ενδιαφερόμενος, ανάλογα με τα ιδιαίτερα χαρακτηριστικά του προβλήματος, κάνει την τελική επιλογή. Το πρόβλημα ΕΓΔ, στο οποίο ζητείται η ελαχιστοποίηση περισσοτέρων του ενός κριτηρίων είναι γνωστό ως το πρόβλημα ΕΓΔ πολλαπλών κριτηρίων (multi-criteria minimum spanning tree problem). Η συνεισφορά της παρούσας διπλωματικής λοιπόν αποτελείται από δύο μέρη: Το πρώτο, εστιάζεται στην κριτική επισκόπηση και περιγραφή των υπαρχόντων μεθόδων επίλυσης του προβλήματος ΕΓΔ δύο κριτηρίων. Το δεύτερο, αφορά την υλοποίηση και πειραματική αξιολόγηση δύο βασικών αλγορίθμων για την επίλυση του εν λόγω προβλήματος. Συγκεκριμένα, υλοποιήθηκε η τροποποιημένη εκδοχή (για το πρόβλημα ΕΓΔ πολλαπλών κριτηρίων) του αλγορίθμου του Prim καθώς και μία προσεγγιστική μέθοδος επίλυσης του προβλήματος ΕΓΔ πολλαπλών κριτηρίων. / The minimum spanning tree problem (MST) is of high importance in network optimization. Given a connected graph G where each edge has a weight, the goal is to find the spanning tree with the least cost among all spanning trees of G. Due to its many practical applications, the MST problem has been studied in depth and many efficient polynomial-time algorithms have been developed by Sollin, Kruskal, Prim etc. But in real life, there cases where one has to take simultaneously into consideration many criteria in order to determine a MST because there are multiple weights defined on each edge of the graph. For example, when designing the layout of a telecommunication network, besides the cost for connections between cities or terminals we are interested in other factors too. The time for communication and construction, the difficulty of the construction or the reliability of the system are also important factors and need to be taken into consideration. But also in everyday life, in many cases we need to take decisions that depend on multiple criteria. For instance, people who travel want to minimize simultaneously the cost, the distance and the time. The problem is that in these cases there is not only one optimal solution but rather a set of optimal solutions and the decision maker depending on the characteristics of each case will make the final call. The MST problem in which we want to minimize more than one criteria is known as the multi-criteria minimum spanning tree problem. The contribution of this thesis is composed of two parts. The first part focuses on the critical survey and description of various methods for solving the bi-criteria case of the MST problem. The other part focuses on the implementation and the experimental evaluation of two known and important algorithms. More precisely, we have implemented the modified version of the Prim’s algorithm (for the multi-criteria MST problem) and one approximate algorithm as proposed by Hamacher & Ruhe.

Je présente dans ce mémoire mes travaux sur les limites d'échelle de grandes structures aléatoires. Il s'agit de décrire les structures combinatoires dans la limite des grandes tailles en prenant un point de vue objectif dans le sens où on cherche des limites des objets, et non pas seulement de paramètres caractéristiques (même si ce n'est pas toujours le cas dans les résultats que je présente). Le cadre général est celui des structures critiques pour lesquelles on a typiquement des distances caractéristiques polynomiales en la taille, et non concentrées. Sauf exception, ces structures ne sont en général pas adaptées aux applications informatiques. Elles sont cependant essentielles de part l'universalité de leurs propriétés asymptotiques, prouvées ou attendues. Je parle en particulier d'arbres uniformément choisis, de graphes aléatoires, d'arbres couvrant minimaux et de partitions récursives de domaines du plan:<br/> <strong>Arbres aléatoires uniformes.</strong> Il s'agit ici de mieux comprendre un objet limite essentiel, l'arbre continu brownien (CRT). Je présente quelques résultats de convergence pour des modèles combinatoires ''non-branchants'' tels que des arbres sujets aux symétries et les arbres à distribution de degrés fixée. Je décris enfin une nouvelle décomposition du CRT basée sur une destruction partielle.<br/> <strong>Graphes aléatoires.</strong> J'y décris la construction algorithmique de la limite d'échel-le des graphes aléatoires du modèle d'Erdös--Rényi dans la zone critique, et je fais le lien avec le CRT et donne des constructions de l'espace métrique limite. <strong>Arbres couvrant minimaux.</strong> J'y montre qu'une connection avec les graphes aléatoires permet de quantifier les distances dans un arbre convrant aléatoire. On obtient non seulement l'ordre de grandeur de l'espérance du diamètre, mais aussi la limite d'échelle en tant qu'espace métrique mesuré. Partitions récursives. Sur deux exemples, les arbres cadrant et les laminations du disque, je montre que des idées basées sur des théorèmes de point fixe conduisent à des convergences de processus, où les limites sont inhabituelles, et caractérisées par des décompositions récursives.

A graph is said to be 2-edge-connected if it remains connected after the deletion of any single edge. Given an unweighted bridgeless graph G with n vertices, the minimum size 2-edge-connected spanning subgraph problem (2EC) is that of finding a 2-edge-connected spanning subgraph of G with the minimum number of edges. This problem has important applications in the design of survivable networks. However, because the problem is NP-hard, it is unlikely that efficient methods exist for solving it. Thus efficient methods that find solutions that are provably close to optimal are sought. In this thesis, an approximation algorithm is presented for 2EC on bridgeless cubic graphs which guarantees to be within 5/4 of the optimal solution value, improving on the previous best proven approximation guarantee of 5/4+ε for this problem. We also focus on the linear programming (LP) relaxation of 2EC, which provides important lower bounds for 2EC in useful solution techniques like branch and bound. The “goodness” of this lower bound is measured by the integrality gap of the LP relaxation for 2EC, denoted by α2EC. Through a computational study, we find the exact value of α2EC for graphs with small n. Moreover, a significant improvement is found for the lower bound on the value of α2EC for bridgeless subcubic graphs, which improves the known best lower bound on α2EC from 9/8 to 8/7.

Image segmentation is an important research area in digital image processing with several applications in vision-guided autonomous robotics, product quality inspection, medical diagnosis, the analysis of remotely sensed images, etc. The aim of image segmentation can be defined as partitioning an image into homogeneous regions in terms of the features of pixels extracted from the image. Image segmentation methods can be classified into four main categories: 1) clustering methods, 2) region-based methods, 3) hybrid methods, and 4) bayesian methods. In this thesis, major image segmentation methods belonging to first three categories are examined and tested on typical images. Moreover, improvements are also proposed to well-known Recursive Shortest-Spanning Tree (RSST) algorithm. The improvements aim to better model each region during merging stage. Namely, grayscale histogram, joint histogram and homogeneous texture are used for better region modeling.

No description available.

Le modèle du tas de sable est un modèle de diffusion discret et isotrope introduit par les physiciens Bak, Tang et Wiesenfeld comme illustration de la criticalité auto-organisée. Pour tout graphe, souvent supposé fini, Dhar a formalisé de nombreuses propriétés simplifiant son analyse. Cette thèse propose des études de ce modèle sur la grille bidimensionnelle usuelle et certains de ses sous-graphes également infinis que sont les bandes bi-infinies de hauteur finie. Des approximations du comportement de la pile de sable peuvent se rapprocher de certains modèles de bootstrap percolation avec un support de stabilisation rectangulaire. Les lois sur son demi-périmètre peuvent se décrire à l’aide de statistiques sur les permutations. Un sous-produit de ce travail fait apparaître une différence de deux séries génératrices comptant des permutations selon deux statistiques mahoniennes classiques dont est extrait un polynôme à coefficients entiers et surtout positifs. La suite de cette thèse revisite dans le cadre de ces graphes infinis, des structures jusque-là bien définies uniquement dans le cas des graphes finis, notamment la récurrence. Dans le modèle sur une bande de hauteur finie H, l’existence donnée par Járai et Lyons d’automates finis reconnaissant les configurations récurrentes lues colonne par colonne est étendu par une construction explicite d’automates avec un nombre moindre d’états, se rapprochant de la conjecture de Gamlin. Dans une seconde approche, l’étude se concentre sur les configurations sur la grille entière qui sont périodiques dans les deux directions. Le puits, un sommet du graphe garantissant la terminaison de la stabilisation, est placé à l’infini dans une direction de pente rationnelle. Ceci permet à la fois de préserver la bipériodicité et de proposer une forme affaiblie du critère de Dhar caractérisant ainsi par un algorithme effectif les configurations récurrentes. Ces configurations récurrentes bipériodiques sont des candidates naturelles pour être les éléments de sous-groupes finis de l’éventuel groupe du tas de sable sur la grille. Des éléments de construction de cette loi de groupe donnent expérimentalement quelques sous-groupes finis. / The sandpile model is a discrete model for diffusion of grains on a graph introduced by physicists Bak, Tang and Wiesenfeld as an illustration for self-organised criticality. For any finite graph, Dhar identified many of its numerous structures which simplify its analysis. This thesis focus on the usual square lattice and its subgraphs which are strips of height H, both notions of infinite graphs. Approximations on the behaviour of the stabilisation of a large stack of grains at the origin of the square lattice lead to some random distribution of grains, which stabilisation is connected to some models of bootstrap percolation where modified vertices by this stabilisation forms a rectangle. The laws of the half-perimeter of this rectangle are described by statistics on permutations. As a byproduct, the difference between the generating functions over some permutations of two classical mahonian statistics on permutations appears to mainly be a polynomial with coefficients which are integers and especially positive. Then, this thesis visits in the case of the studied infinite graphs some well-defined structures on finite graphs, in particular the recurrence. In the model on an horizontal strip of height H, we extend the existence of finite automata recognizing recurrent configurations read column by column presented by Járai and Lyons to new automata with significantly less states and these numbers are closer to a conjecture due to Gamlin. An implementation leads to explicit automata for heights 3 and 4 while up to now only the case 2 was obtained by hand. In a second approach, we consider the configurations on the twodimensional square lattice which are periodic in two directions. We suggest to place the sink ensuring that the stabilisation ends at infinity in a direction of rational slope which allows to preserve biperiodicity and a weaker form of Dhar criterion for recurrent configurations. Hence we obtain an effective algorithm defining recurrent configurations among the biperiodic and stable configurations. These biperiodic and recurrent configurations are natural candidates for being the elements of finite subgroups of the hypothetical group on configurations of the sandpile model on the square lattice. We discuss some notions allowing the definition of the law of such a group and experimentally provide some finite subgroups.

This qualitative research addressed systems psychodynamic consultation to boundary management. The systemic, dynamic and chaotic aspects of organisational life formed the backdrop against which the research was conducted. The general objective of the research was to describe a relevant consulting model for organisational consulting psychologists related to boundary management. Literature was reviewed in order to describe organisational consulting and organisational boundaries from the systems psychodynamic perspective. Key principles for boundary management consulting were also described. The objectives of the empirical study were to apply psychodynamic consulting to boundary management and to describe the process. A further objective was to produce research hypotheses about boundary management from both an organisational and a consulting perspective. A case study design was followed. Descriptive data was gathered by means of a participative observer. The data was analysed by means of systems psychodynamic discourse analysis. Ten working hypothesis were produced. These hypotheses culminated into two research hypotheses, describing the primary task of boundary management and boundary management consulting. The first research hypothesis was that the primary task of boundary management is to hold the polarities of integration and differentiation, not allowing the system to become fragmented or overly integrated. The second research hypothesis was that the primary task of the consultant in boundary management consulting is to help the organisation’s managing its own boundaries. This is carried out through taking up the role of organisational consultant, performing the consulting tasks and by applying a consulting process. The researcher concluded that boundary management is an activity of the whole organisation. Boundary management consulting facilitates or supports this organisational activity.

A graph is said to be 2-edge-connected if it remains connected after the deletion of any single edge. Given an unweighted bridgeless graph G with n vertices, the minimum size 2-edge-connected spanning subgraph problem (2EC) is that of finding a 2-edge-connected spanning subgraph of G with the minimum number of edges. This problem has important applications in the design of survivable networks. However, because the problem is NP-hard, it is unlikely that efficient methods exist for solving it. Thus efficient methods that find solutions that are provably close to optimal are sought. In this thesis, an approximation algorithm is presented for 2EC on bridgeless cubic graphs which guarantees to be within 5/4 of the optimal solution value, improving on the previous best proven approximation guarantee of 5/4+ε for this problem. We also focus on the linear programming (LP) relaxation of 2EC, which provides important lower bounds for 2EC in useful solution techniques like branch and bound. The “goodness” of this lower bound is measured by the integrality gap of the LP relaxation for 2EC, denoted by α2EC. Through a computational study, we find the exact value of α2EC for graphs with small n. Moreover, a significant improvement is found for the lower bound on the value of α2EC for bridgeless subcubic graphs, which improves the known best lower bound on α2EC from 9/8 to 8/7.

Faced with the challenges to addressing the novelties of the changing business environments (e.g., new customer requirement, changes in customers taste and preferences, the introduction of new products or services by competitors), organizations seek to build collaboration among their employees who possess complementary knowledge. Integrating complementary knowledge enhances employees' ability to address environmental challenges and foster innovation. Despite the importance of knowledge integration for innovation, integration of such knowledge becomes difficult when employees lack a shared understanding of knowledge, and when the knowledge is newly generated. Because new knowledge is tacit in nature and highly personal to a particular individual, it is difficult to articulate, making knowledge integration (KI) an arduous task. Lack of shared understanding, the presence of new knowledge, and lack of common interests in employees creates three types of knowledge boundaries – syntactic (information processing) boundaries, semantic (interpretive) boundaries, and pragmatic (political) boundaries. The presence of knowledge boundaries makes it difficult for employees to share and access their knowledge with each other. To overcome the challenges related to the knowledge boundaries, employees use boundary-spanning objects, which are common lexicons, common meaning, and common interests, to share and access their knowledge across the boundaries. Although prior studies have emphasized the importance of knowledge integration of various knowledge sources for innovations, examinations of what enhances KI capability of employees for organizational innovation remain limited. In addition, apart from Carlile, (2004) and Franco (2013), which are both case studies, other studies that examine the role of boundary spanning objects for knowledge integration are missing. The knowledge management literature also fails to measures (the success of common lexicons, common meaning, and common interests for achieving KI capability) boundary spanning objects. Therefore, in this study, new measurement items of boundary spanning objects and novelty are developed to test the hypotheses. A survey-based design was used to collect data and measure the constructs examined in this study. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the direct relationship hypotheses. The moderation effects were tested using 1) multi-group analysis using hierarchical linear regression, and 2) relative weight of each boundary spanning object determining KI capability at the different levels of novelty. Evidence suggests that while common meaning and common interests positively influence KI capability, common lexicon does not have a statistically significant relationship with KI capability. The results also revealed that KI capability positively influences organizational innovation. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the strength of the relationship between boundary spanning objects and KI capability is different at the medium and the high level of novelty.