The purpose of this study was to investigate the implementation of curriculum policy regarding eight key learning areas in ACT government high schools with particular analysis concerning the Arts. The study sought to identify the discrepance between school curriculum policy and timetable allocation to the mandated curriculum areas. Analysis of time allocation to learning areas as defined by the timetable allocation of time was considered to be an appropriate method of examining curriculum practice in ACT government high schools. Fifteen ACT government high school timetables were analysed in conjunction with school curriculum documentation. Mandatory time requirements for the eight key learning areas was identified. Timetable structures were analysed in terms of allocation of time to key learning areas, pastoral care, assemblies, activities and electives. Formulae were developed in order to make comparisons between schools possible. Results indicated that disparities existed between time allocation to key learning areas within key learning areas and mandatory time (i.e. minimum guaranteed access time) requirements for key learning areas.

In 1999, the Swedish Parliament decided to launch an experiment to test the idea of replacing, at the compulsory educational level, the national time schedule with localized control of schedules. This was in keeping with strategies of deregulation, decentralisation and increased local autonomy that had dominated Swedish education policy, particularly since the 1990s. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the initiation, decision, implementation and consequences of this experiment The analytical framework combines several different approaches and theories from the literature on public policy and policy analysis. The framework encompasses four dimensions, which cover the experiment’s origins, local application in the classroom setting and consequences. On the empirical level, findings are based on interviews with 32 municipal school directors, and head teachers, teachers and pupils in three schools participating in the experiment, as well as written sources from schools, municipalities, and the national level. The thesis shows that the policy problem the experiment was intended to resolve was represented in an inconsistent manner: On the one hand, the experiment was perceived as a driving force for change; on the other hand, it was seen as legitimising a change that had already taken place. Furthermore, the experiment was formulated in vague terms, which accorded far-reaching discretionary space to the schools. The program’s causal theory expressed by the policy makers was complex, containing a multifaceted chain of presumptions on a range of activities and processes through which the experiment ultimately would lead to improved opportunities for pupils to reach the educational objectives. Empirically, this prediction proved to be invalid as student achievement did not increase. The degree of implementation at the local level varied according to the comprehension, capability and willingness of those involved to carry out the experiment. The courses of action taken by the schools frequently could have been undertaken within the existing legislative framework, as they mostly concerned new ways of working and organising staff and pupils. An assessment of the objectives attained showed that, even if elements of developmental work corresponding to the direction stated in the policy documents were observed, the experiment did not emerge as the primary explanatory factor for this result Thus, the net impact of the experiment can be questioned. If judged against the criterion of adaptiveness, the results are more successful than if the experiment is assessed according to goal-attainment and the validity of the program theory. The experiment was found to integrate, alter and accommodate itself readily to local needs. The thesis illustrates the complexity of formulating and implementing policy in a decentralised context and points to important aspects in the historical background of the programme, which often tend to be overlooked when policy is analysed and discussed. At the same time, the study sheds light on the significant role played by street-level implementation actors in the educational context.

This thesis has focused on an aircraft schedule and network design problem that involves multiple types of aircraft and flight service. First, this thesis expands a business model for integrating on-demand flight services with the traditional scheduled flight services. Then, this thesis proposes a three-step approach to the design of aircraft schedules and networks from scratch. After developing models in the three steps and creating large-scale instances of these models, this dissertation develops iterative algorithms and subproblem approaches to solving these instances, and it presents computational results of these large-scale instances. To validate the models and solution algorithms developed, this thesis compares the daily flight schedules that it designed with the schedules of the existing airlines. In addition, it discusses the implication of using new aircraft in the future flight schedules. Finally, future research in three areas--model, computational method, and simulation for validation--is proposed.

Syftet med föreliggande avhandling är att studera användning och förekomst av lektionsbeteckningar på scheman i skolor utan en nationellt fastställd timplan, samt belysa hur elever upplever de lokala val som görs vad gäller vissa av dessa lektionsbeteckningar. Den teoretiska referensramen har sin grund i didaktikens selektionsfråga och kommunikationsfråga, och Bernsteins båda begrepp klassifikation och inramning. Avhandlingen består av två delstudier. I delstudie I analyseras, såväl kvalitativt som kvantitativt, 326 scheman från 33 skolor som på försök arbetar utan timplan. 163 scheman från skolor med timplan har analyserats i jämförande syfte. I delstudie II genomförs tio gruppintervjuer med totalt 41 elever kring tre typer av icke ämnesrelaterade lektionsbeteckningar (lagtid, verkstad och mentorstid), som är vanligt förekommande på elevers scheman. I avhandlingen visas att en mängd schemabeteckningar (170 stycken) används för att beskriva vad elever och lärare ämnar ägna sig åt. Utöver traditionella ämnen, schemaläggs arbetsmetoder, gruppbaserad tid, skriv- och lästid, social samspelstid, rekreationstid samt lektioner där eleverna involveras i val, planering och utvärdering. Den här typen av alternativa schemabeteckningar används i signifikant större utsträckning i skolorna utan timplan och i de tidigare årskurserna. När skolorna utan timplan använder alternativa beteckningar leder det huvudsakligen till schemapositioner med svagare inramning och svagare klassifikation, samt en förskjutning från innehåll mot metod/form. Eleverna upplever att lektionerna med svagare inramning och klassifikation har ett värdefullt och verklighetsanknutet innehåll, men att de inte är lika viktiga som ämnena. De upplevs ibland vara slöseri med lektionstid. Resultaten diskuteras i ljuset av annan forskning om skolor utan timplan och avhandlingens didaktiska perspektiv. / The aim of the present thesis is to study the existence and use of lesson designations on the schedules in schools that do not work according to a nationally set timetable, and to elucidate how pupils experience the local choices as regards some of these designations. The theoretical frame of reference is based on the didactical questions of selection and communication together with Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing. The thesis includes two studies. Study I is a qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of 326 schedules from 33 schools that take part in an experiment where they work without the nationally set timetable. For the purpose of comparison 163 schedules from schools following the set timetable have also been analysed. In study II ten group interviews with a total of 41 pupils are carried out concerning three types of non-subject related lesson designations (team time, workshop, and mentor time), which frequently appear on the pupils’ schedules. In the thesis it is demonstrated that a large number of lesson designations (170 in all) are used to describe what the pupils and the teachers are doing at school. Apart from traditional subjects, working methods, group-based time, time for reading and writing as well as social interaction and recreation, and lessons, where pupils are involved in selecting, planning and evaluating activities, are included on the agenda. These types of alternative lesson designations are used to a significantly higher degree in schools without a timetable and in the lower grades. The use of alternative designations at the schools without timetable primarily leads to lessons with weak framing and weak classification and, in addition, to a change of focus from content to method or form. The pupils think that lessons with weak framing and classification have a meaningful content related to their everyday life but they are not as important as the ‘real’ subjects. They are sometimes experienced as a waste of valuable lesson time. The thesis has an overall didactic perspective, and the results of the two studies are discussed in the light of previous research about schools using no set timetable.

No description available.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo solucionar problemas complexos em diferentes segmentos da Engenharia de Produção e Transporte a partir da utilização de técnicas de otimização. São consideradas as áreas de sistemas de saúde, transportes e análise sensorial, envolvendo problemas de formação de grade de horários e análise de clusters. De forma específica, as abordagens objetivam: (i) em relação ao setor hospitalar, alocar especialidades cirúrgicas em uma grade de horários de um hospital de modo a minimizar a variância do tempo pós-operatório; (ii) quanto à análise sensorial, desenvolver um índice capaz de identificar painelistas que necessitam de treinamento utilizando conceitos de análise de clusters; (iii) no setor aeroportuário, identificar aeroportos com baixa capacidade preditiva de demanda e relacioná-los com suas características físicas, a partir da análise de clusters. Em todos os problemas abordados, as soluções envolvendo métodos de otimização se mostraram adequadas, com resultados satisfatórios. / This study aims to solve complex problems in different segments of Production Engineering and Transportation using optimization techniques. Different areas are considered, such as the areas of health systems, transport and sensory analysis, involving the timetable scheduling problem and cluster analysis. Specifically, this works aims to: (i) in relation to the hospital sector, allocate surgical specialties in a timetable in order to minimize the variance of postoperative time; (ii) for the sensory analysis, develop an index able to identify panelists who require training, using concepts of cluster analysis; (iii) in the airport sector, identify airports with low predictive capacity of demand and relate them to their physical characteristics, using cluster analysis. In all addressed problems, solutions involving optimization methods were adequate, with satisfactory results.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo solucionar problemas complexos em diferentes segmentos da Engenharia de Produção e Transporte a partir da utilização de técnicas de otimização. São consideradas as áreas de sistemas de saúde, transportes e análise sensorial, envolvendo problemas de formação de grade de horários e análise de clusters. De forma específica, as abordagens objetivam: (i) em relação ao setor hospitalar, alocar especialidades cirúrgicas em uma grade de horários de um hospital de modo a minimizar a variância do tempo pós-operatório; (ii) quanto à análise sensorial, desenvolver um índice capaz de identificar painelistas que necessitam de treinamento utilizando conceitos de análise de clusters; (iii) no setor aeroportuário, identificar aeroportos com baixa capacidade preditiva de demanda e relacioná-los com suas características físicas, a partir da análise de clusters. Em todos os problemas abordados, as soluções envolvendo métodos de otimização se mostraram adequadas, com resultados satisfatórios. / This study aims to solve complex problems in different segments of Production Engineering and Transportation using optimization techniques. Different areas are considered, such as the areas of health systems, transport and sensory analysis, involving the timetable scheduling problem and cluster analysis. Specifically, this works aims to: (i) in relation to the hospital sector, allocate surgical specialties in a timetable in order to minimize the variance of postoperative time; (ii) for the sensory analysis, develop an index able to identify panelists who require training, using concepts of cluster analysis; (iii) in the airport sector, identify airports with low predictive capacity of demand and relate them to their physical characteristics, using cluster analysis. In all addressed problems, solutions involving optimization methods were adequate, with satisfactory results.

Context: Most of the problem of generating timetable for a school belongs to the class of NP-hard problems. Complexity and practical value makes this kind of problem interesting for parallel computing. Objectives: This paper focuses on Class-Teacher problem with weighted time slots and proofs that it is NP-complete problem. Branch and bound scheme and two approaches to distribute the simulated annealing are proposed. Empirical evaluation of described methods is conducted in an elementary school computer laboratory. Methods: Simulated annealing implementation described in literature are adapted for the problem, and prepared for execution in distributed systems. Empirical evaluation is conducted with the real data from Polish elementary school. Results: Proposed branch and bound scheme scales nearly logarithmically with the number of nodes in computing cluster. Proposed parallel simulated annealing models tends to increase solution quality. Conclusions: Despite a significant increase in computing power, computer laboratories are still unprepared for heavy computation. Proposed branch and bound method is infeasible with the real instances. Parallel Moves approach tends to provide better solution at the beginning of execution, but the Multiple Independent Runs approach outruns it after some time. / Sammanhang: De flesta problem med att generera scheman för en skola tillhör klassen av NP-svårt problemen. Komplexitet och praktiskt värde gör att den här typen av problemen forskas med särskild uppmärksamhet på en parallell bearbetning.   Syfte: Detta dokument fokusarar på Klass-Lärare problem med vikter för enskilda tidsluckor och på att visa var ett NP-svårt problem är fullständigt. Branch and bound scheman och två metoder för att distribuera en simulerad glödgning algoritm presenterades. En empirisk analys av beskrivna metoder gjordes i datorlaboratorium i en grundskola. Metod: Implementering av en simulerad glödgning algoritm som beskrivs i litteraturen blev anpassad till ett utvalt problem och distribuerade system. Empirisk utvärdering genomförs med verkliga data från polska grundskolan Resultat: Föreslagit Branch and bound system graderar nästan logaritmiskt antal noder i ett datorkluster. Den simulerade glödgning algoritmen som föreslagits förbättrar lösningarnas kvalitet. Slutsatser: Trots att en betydande ökning med beräkningskraft är inte datasalar i skolor anpassad till avancerade beräkningar. Användning av den Branch and Bound föreslagna metoden till praktiska problem är omöjlig i praktiken. En annan föreslagen metod Parallel Moves ger bättre resultat i början av utförandet men Multiple Independent Runs hittar bättre lösningar efter en viss tid.

Mergers and acquisitions belong to the most used terms in today's economic environment. The reason why is obvious. The optimal allocation of company resources is becoming more and more important and the merger is currently one of the instruments which can support the advantages of synergic effect and can help the companies to be more competitive at the global market. Mergers are proceeding both at domestic and international level and hence it is important to have a clear law in this area. Membership in European Union determines a legal treatment of mergers in the Czech Republic which means that the relevant European regulations need to be implemented into the Czech legal code. This diploma thesis objective is to partially introduce the merger issue in the Czech law and to use the real examples to show some selected implications of the merge processes. Just the real examples illustrate how difficult the merge processes are and how many necessary steps need to be accomplished to successfully merge two or more companies and enter the merger into Czech Trade Register.

This thesis deals with a creation of a timetable on Business College. In the first part the areas in which we can encounter scheduling are introduced, because timetabling undoubtedly belongs to scheduling tasks. Then the linear programming theory is explained. With its help a model for a timetable is made. The assignment problem, which forms a basis for timetable creation model, will be mentioned. We cannot imagine all that without the support of computers. That is why one chapter is dedicated to useable computer programs. The next chapter discusses didactics and its requirements for a good timetable. These requirements are then taken into account in an application chapter. Fundamental part of the thesis is the creation of the timetable for real Business College, taking into account all important conditions. At the end of this thesis a mathematical model is introduced which is suitable for creating timetables for twenty-four classes of this school.