In recent years, the service industry has been made aware of the advantages of risk sharing and inter-firm collaborations. In the current turbulent business environment, a large proportion of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) firms rely on collaboration and partnering with other businesses. The value of such collaboration is highly enhanced by pooling resources to help exploit complementarities between the collaborating businesses and significantly increasing performance and management. Many studies have been conducted on the determinants of collaboration success or failures. However, authors have suggested further research to provide a framework to cover the factors responsible for enhanced value within collaborative working. In particular, the susceptibility of SMEs to successfully collaborate is significantly less than that of large organisations. Hence this was the focus of the current study. The research was focused on establishing the value enhancement of collaborative working within ServQ's, the sponsoring organisation's, collaborative environment. The main aim of this research project is 'To investigate the potential of Value-Enhanced Collaborative Working (VECW) in an SME management advisory firm'. The aim was achieved with the help of the development of a VECW framework based on the issues faced by ServQ's collaborative environment. To achieve this aim, an inductive research approach was adopted; this was facilitated by literature reviews and research methods such as semi-structured interviews, focus groups and scenario planning. This was to ensure that the project was an applied research based on the sound foundations of available theories on collaborative working. The research was initiated with a preliminary case study of the sponsoring organisation to better understand it. This period of initial investigation entailed learning more about the organisation's management and working culture. Parallel to the initial case study, a literature review helped establish a definition of Value Enhanced Collaborative Working (VECW) as well as a conceptual VECW framework. Three key factors were identified in the conceptual VECW framework; these were considered as three separate but equally important branches that together will create a sustainable longterm collaborative working environment. The first factor identified was the People factor; the main output from this was the development of a Collaboration Charter. The Process factor developed a business process model for ServQ while the Tools factor was established through scenario planning. The output of this research was a development of a VECW framework. The research work progressed chronologically by first developing a conceptual VECW framework followed by the development of each of the People, Process and Tool factors in further detail with the help of mechanisms such as Collaboration Charter and business process models. Eventually the framework recommended how all these three factors together enhance the value of collaboration in ServQ. These outputs established the mechanisms to balance all the three factors within ServQ resulting in development of a sustainable collaboration environment. The research has contributed to knowledge by providing a VECW framework in an industrial setting that can be replicated in similar organisations with required changes. In addition, it complements the wide array of literature pertaining to Collaborative Working, SMEs, services organisations and Value.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen Featherstone / The Company is comprised of retail and w holesale agri-input outlets, toll/contract manufacturing and various departments that aid in three tiers of the supply chain. The Company Department 2’s principal goal is to earn a profit and that is achieved by helping their retail customers succeed across Division M. Therefore, a comprehensible strategy for selecting, positioning and promoting wholesale products and services is fundamental in uncovering actual value. The Company has grown to be one of the nation’s foremost agricultural distributors across the United States. Various geographies across the United States, excluding the region, have moved to a three-tier supply chain by merging retail and wholesale outlets. Currently, value demanded from end-users and retail outlets has been supplied from the wholesale level that has sustained the four-tier supply chain a cross the region of the United States. Even though the Company is vertically integrated, their knowled ge and core offerings originate from the retail segment of the supply chain. Retail firms that provide differentiated products and services with the most value to the end-user are those that fit the Company Department 2’s market. In addition, targeted retail fir ms emphasize a full-service business model by supplying produ cts and services across multip le categories. Company Department 2 provides value internally and externally. The three core areas from Company Department 2 are proprietary products, precision products and services, and other retail services valu able to retail customers. Positioning of these core areas differs based on the depth of the current relationship. A flanking strategy is proposed for prospective customers by bundling prestige goods and distribution innovations specifically in the focused proprietary line of products. A guerilla strategy is proposed for existing customers by highlighting product proliferation and improved services across all three of the core areas. Both strategies emphasize advertising and promotion, but more intensive campaigns are proposed with prospective customers. These positioning strategies and tactics are accomplished through accurate implementation at the field level. By risking a claim for what Company Department 2 stands for, communicating how value is created for a customer and communicating the reliability of these offerings, Company Department 2 will develop a unique identity in the marketplace.

Nature et signification du jugement de valeur en critique littéraire: F.R. LeavisCette thèse se penche sur la nature et la signification du jugement de valeur en critique littéraire au XXe siècle et plus particulièrement sur l’œuvre de F.R. Leavis, critique littéraire britannique très influent durant la période moderniste. Leavis est un critique professionnel et un universitaire qui, en tant qu’enseignant et penseur, a fonctionné au sein du système universitaire. En tant que critique, il illustre certaines des pratiques les plus abouties de sa profession. Il a analysé le rôle de l’université et est souvent sorti du monde universitaire pour s’exprimer en public sur des problèmes plus vastes.Il apparaît comme une voix influente ; il a défendu un point de vue qui, selon lui, méritait de l’être. L’extrême sérieux avec lequel il accomplit sa tâche de critique de la littérature et du contexte plus large dans lequel s’inscrivent la littérature et la critique littéraire, a fait de lui une figure majeure de son temps.Dans le contexte de crise qui secouait le monde du début du XXe siècle, déchiré par la guerre, Leavis pensait que les universités devaient nécessairement devenir le vecteur du développement de l’intelligence, de l’éthique et des idéaux du monde d’après-guerre. D’après lui, c’est ce qui ferait rempart à l’érosion des valeurs et aux forces destructives. La littérature, la critique littéraire et les études d’anglais avaient, à son avis, un rôle déterminant à jouer si les universités voulaient assumer leur responsabilité en tant que dépositaires des valeurs humaines et des qualités intellectuelles les plus nobles, qu’elles sont censées nourrir.Leavis pensait aussi que tous les champs du savoir sont constamment en évolution. Il insistait sur le fait que l’éducation universitaire est une et indivisible et refusait absolument de considérer, comme c’était alors le cas, que les humanités et les sciences constituaient des pôles intellectuels opposés.Cette thèse examine l’état constamment changeant des valeurs dans différents domaines d’investigation. Un chapitre est consacré à un ensemble de normes—le rôle des universités, l’éducation de l’intelligence, le jugement et les évaluations, la lecture serrée des textes, « la civilisation de masse et la culture mineure »--qui sous-tendent la croyance de Leavis en une pensée « désintéressée » que les études littéraires contribueraient à nourrir. Par la suite, la thèse examine la manière dont se forment les jugements de valeur, en particulier dans les œuvres de Dryden, Frye, Eliot. / “Nature and significance of value-judgement in literary criticism: F. R. Leavis”The present thesis seeks to examine he nature and significance of value-judgement in literary criticism in the twentieth-century with special reference to F. R. Leavis, a widely influential English literary critic of the British Modernist phase. Leavis was a professional critic and an academic who, as a teacher and a thinker, functioned within the university system. As a critic, he exemplified some of the best practices of his profession. He analysed the role of the academy and often stepped out of the confines of the academic world to comment in the public arena on issues of larger import.He emerged as a major voice of a viewpoint, which, he believed, needed upholding. The intense seriousness, which he brought to bear upon his task as a critic of literature and of the larger context in which literature and literary criticism operated, singled him out as a major figure of his day.Leavis believed that the crisis of the early twentieth-century war-torn world necessitated that the universities become an instrument of development of intelligence, ethics, and ideals in the post-war world. That, for him, would act as bulwark against the erosion of values and the forces of destruction. The literature, literary criticism, and English studies, in his opinion, had a major role to play if universities were to fulfil their essential responsibility of being the repositories of humane values and finer intellectual abilities, which they were expected to nourish.Leavis believed that all fields of knowledge are in a constant state of research and development. He also emphasised the oneness of University education and vigorously opposed the then current notion of humanities and sciences as intellectual polar opposites.The present thesis examines the constantly changing state of values in several fields of enquiry. A chapter is devoted to a set of norms—the role of universities, the educated intelligence, judgement and evaluations, close textual reading, “mass civilization and minority culture,”––that underlie Leavis’s belief in “disinterested” thinking which literary studies help nourish. Subsequently in another chapter, how discriminations and value-judgements are formed is examined with references to the practices of Dryden, Frye, Eliot and several other voices.

Mak, Man Yung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-117). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Conventional Censoring Schemes --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3 --- Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.4 / Chapter 1.4 --- Adaptive Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.6 / Chapter 1.5 --- Extreme Value Distribution --- p.8 / Chapter 1.6 --- The Scope of the Thesis --- p.11 / Chapter 2 --- Estimation methods --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Maximum Likelihood Estimators --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Adaptive Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3 --- Approximate Maximum Likelihood Estimators --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Adaptive Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.20 / Chapter 2.4 --- Monte Carlo Simulation and Result --- p.23 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Numerical Comparisons --- p.33 / Chapter 3 --- Construction of Confidence Intervals --- p.35 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.35 / Chapter 3.2 --- Asymptotic Confidence Interval --- p.36 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.37 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Adaptive Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.39 / Chapter 3.3 --- Parametric Percentile Bootstrap Confidence Interval --- p.56 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Parametric Percentile Bootstrap Confidence Interval based on Maximum Likelihood Estimation method --- p.57 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Parametric Percentile Bootstrap Confidence Interval based on Approximate Maximum Likelihood Estimation method --- p.65 / Chapter 3.4 --- Parametric Bootstrap-t Confidence Interval --- p.71 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Parametric Bootstrap-t Confidence Interval based on Maximum Likelihood Estimation method --- p.72 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Parametric Bootstrap-t Confidence Interval based on Approxi mate Maximum Likelihood Estimation method --- p.79 / Chapter 3.5 --- Numerical Comparisons --- p.86 / Chapter 4 --- Expected Total Test Time --- p.88 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.88 / Chapter 4.2 --- Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.89 / Chapter 4.3 --- Adaptive Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.92 / Chapter 4.4 --- Numerical Comparisons --- p.99 / Chapter 5 --- Optimality Criteria and Censoring Schemes --- p.100 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.100 / Chapter 5.2 --- Optimality Criteria --- p.101 / Chapter 5.3 --- Expected Fisher Information Matrix --- p.102 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Type-II Progressively Hybrid Censoring Scheme --- p.103 / Chapter 5.4 --- Optimal Censoring Scheme for Progressively Hybrid Censoring --- p.106 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusions and Further Research --- p.113 / Bibliography --- p.115

The diploma thesis deals with the determination of the value of the company from the construction branch. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part aims at the methods of the determination of the value of the company. The theoretical knowledge is applied in the second part, namely in subsections about strategic, financial analysis and the evaluation by the yield method of discounted cash flow. Programs Stratex and Evalent are used to determine the value. The conclusion of the thesis includes the determination of the value of the company applied to 1st January 2014.

Absolute value has often been taught procedurally. Many students struggle with solving absolute value equations and inequalities because they do not have an understanding of the underlying concepts. This study was designed to determine to what extent solving absolute value equations and inequalities by using the concept of distance on a number line is an effective method. The claim is that if students use the distance concept on a number line, they will develop the necessary conceptual understanding in addition to just a procedural knowledge that will lead to the success with and flexibility in the use of strategies for more challenging problems. The following questions were addressed in this study: How and to what extent can using a number line develop a conceptual understanding of absolute value equations and inequalities? What solution strategies do students tend to use to solve absolute value equations and inequalities? Does the strategy depend on the complexity of the problem? To what extent do they exhibit flexibility in their use of strategies? What extensions are students able to make? What misconceptions do they have? In this study, lessons and assessments were implemented based on the “best practice” of using multiple representations with a focus on conceptual understanding of absolute value. The lessons were consistent with current content standards. Students completed a pre and post assessment, and some students were selected to participate in a 15 minute interview based on their responses from their assessments. The results were analyzed qualitatively and show that students struggled with remembering the procedure for solving absolute value equations and inequalities. The results also show that students were more successful when using the distance concept on a number line.

Critical values are laboratory values that represent a life-threatening condition for which there is a treatment available. Laboratories make immediate notifications to ordering providers when critical values are identified so that they may quickly act to initiate a treatment for their patient. The majority of laboratories apply the inpatient critical value list to the outpatient setting, although there are many differences between an acutely ill inpatient population and an ambulatory outpatient population. The goal of this study was to determine if providers responded to the critical values in the outpatient setting and to determine if there was a difference in outcome indicators when providers responded to notifications and when they did not respond to notifications. Data for 673 critical value notifications for PT/INR, Digoxin, and Glucose results were collected from Riverside Health System’s five laboratories. Analysis suggested that the inpatient critical value lists and thresholds may not be appropriate to apply to the outpatient setting. In this study of 637 critical value notifications, providers chose not to respond to 25.7% of critical value notifications. Providers were more likely to respond to PT/INR and Digoxin critical value notifications that glucose critical value notifications. None of the cases for either of the three tests that went without a provider response resulted in death or serious harm to a patient, indicating that the critical value thresholds do not meet the definition of a critical value in the outpatient setting. In the future, laboratories should explore the utilization of a different critical value list and thresholds for the outpatient setting based upon patient outcomes.

There is a gap between organizational commitment to professional value of the nurse and the achievement of quality outcomes. This study explored the relationship between the productivity model and the professional value (PVS) model of the hospital-based registered nurse (RN). It was essential to understand how to measure nursing's contribution to patient care as a means to promote patient care outcomes. The current professional nursing dynamic provides an unprecedented opportunity for nurses to achieve their highest professional potential through increased demonstration of advocacy and accountability for the central tenets of nursing. The intent of this project was to explore the elements of the professional nursing workforce in a modern-day hospital. This study was conducted on the medical, surgical, progressive care unit (PCU) and critical care unit (CCU) of a community-based acute care hospital Washington State. A quantitative approach was undertaken utilizing a descriptive correlational study design. RNs on the identified units received electronic invitation and survey via organizational email system, resulting in a participation rate of 47.1% (N=48). The study found that PVS model achievement explained patient outcome variable variance (fall rate 86.4%, HAPU 83.1% and CAUTI 40.9%). Further, large effect size (98%) with work unit variance was demonstrated with PVS model achievement. The innovative PVS model was found to demonstrate a statistically significant difference from existing productivity model, and alignment of RN staffing with organizational quality goals. Recognizing the professional value of the RN could promote meaningful change in the healthcare landscape and optimize patient care and quality outcomes.

In the last fifty years, many countries have moved toward broad-based and flat-rate tax systems such as the value-added tax (VAT) and the flat-rate income tax. The main rationale for introducing a broad-based and flat-rate tax system is the belief that such a system increases the incentive to work, save, and invest, leading to a higher aggregate income and a higher standard of living. Yet, empirical evidence on the actual effectiveness of broad-based and flat-rate taxes is very limited. This dissertation combines novel methodologies with newly available data to provide causal estimates of the economic effects of broad-based and flat-rate tax systems. The first essay analyzes the impact of the flat tax reforms on GDP per capita and its main drivers. I identify 8 Eastern and Central European countries that adopted flat tax systems between 1994 and 2005 and apply synthetic control methods to estimate their counterfactual trajectory of GDP per worker in the absence of a flat tax. I find positive impacts in all 8 countries, with 7 out of 8 cases significant at the conventional level. The second essay estimates the efficiency gains of adopting a VAT in a worldwide sample of countries using synthetic control methods. I find that the VAT has, on average, positive and economically meaningful impact on economic efficiency. However, I find that this result is driven by richer countries only. There is no significant impact of the VAT on poorer countries. I find similar results when estimating the impact of the VAT on total factor productivity and capital stock per worker â"u20ac"u201c two important channels through which a VAT affects economic efficiency. The third essay estimates the causal impact of a VAT on productivity, capital accumulation, and input cost using Regression Discontinuity Design and firm-level data from France. I find no significant impact of a VAT on firms' productivity or input cost. However, I find some evidence that the VAT increases firms' capital accumulation. In addition, I also find that the impact of a VAT is heterogeneous across different sectors of the economy. / Bibek Adhikari

[pt] A atividade da ourivesaria possui registros desde o Egito antigo e é, tradicionalmente, uma atividade familiar, passada de pai para filho e principal atividade técnica do setor joalheiro. No entanto, esta realidade está mudando e no Brasil existem, atualmente, alguns cursos técnicos para o ensinamento do ofício. Esse movimento decorre, em grande parte, da dificuldade que as empresas enfrentam em recrutar e reter esses profissionais. Diferentemente, do que acontecia em décadas anteriores, quando havia identificação e interesse dos jovens em seguir a profissão de seus pais e avós, atualmente são raros os casos em que a profissão de ourives passa de geração para geração, fazendo com que este profissional seja cada vez mais escasso no mercado. A percepção da dificuldade de atrair e reter esses profissionais motivou a realização dessa dissertação, que buscou identificar os valores desses profissionais, bem como comparar esses valores entre as diferentes gerações que exercem a profissão, atualmente. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa com um grupo de trinta profissionais do ramo com um questionário fechado e, posteriormente, entrevistas semi-estruturadas, caráter exploratório, com dezesseis profissionais de diferentes gerações e níveis técnicos, visando identificar seus valores e motivações. Uma vez identificados os valores, os mesmos foram classificados e comparados entre as diferentes gerações e analisados à luz da literatura sobre estes assuntos. Com base nos resultados obtidos foram sugeridas ações e políticas capazes de auxiliar na retenção e motivação destes profissionais. / [en] The activity of gold has records since ancient Egypt and is traditionally a family activity, passed from father to son and chief technical activity of the jewelry industry. However, this reality is changing and in Brazil there are currently some technical courses for the teaching of the craft. This movement stems largely from the difficulty that companies face in recruiting and retaining these professionals. Differently than they did in previous decades, when there was interest and identification of young people to follow the profession of their parents and grandparents, now are rare cases in which the profession of goldsmith passes from generation to generation, so that each professional is increasingly scarce in the market. The perception of difficulty in attracting and retaining these professionals led to the realization of this dissertation, which sought to identify the values of these professionals and to compare these values between different generations in the profession today. For this, a search was conducted with a group of thirty industry professionals with a closed questionnaire, and later semistructured, exploratory, with sixteen different generations of professional and technical levels, to identify their values and motivations. Once identified the values, they were classified and compared across generations and analyzed in light of the literature on these subjects. Based on the results was suggested actions and policies that can assist in retention and motivation of these professionals.