The concept of leadership development plays an important role within the modern organization. As a result of the increasing interest in developing leadership competencies, investments in leadership development programs are becoming a common part of business strategies. However, the return on those investments is seldom evaluated. The reason for this is considered to be the complexity created by the many factors that influence leadership but have no relation to the program. This is a case study based on interviews with participants from a one-year leadership development program that was carried out at AB Previa.

This master?s thesis presents experiences from an evaluation of AdApt, a multi- modal, conversational dialogue system, using PARADISE, PARAdigm for Dialogue System Evaluation, a general framework for evaluation. The purpose of this master?s thesis was to assess PARADISE as an evaluation tool for such a system. An experimental study with 26 subjects was performed.

This study is an evaluation of the runtime watch function in a OEE software, knownas ProTAK. OEE stands for Overall Equipment Effectiveness, it?s a way to measurethe factories process efficiency. The runtimewatch function allows the user to setup and monitor certain critical objects that are of importance for the pulp and paper process at the mill. The data from the runtimewatch can be correlated towards the suppliers specification for the components.

Title: The appraiser?s choice of valuation method ? factors that influences the choice of company valuation methodsSeminar date: 04/06/07Course: Master thesis in Business Administration, 10 Swedish credits.Authors: Anne Benedicks and Veronica ÖbergAdvisor: Eron OxingProfession of category: Financial analysts, auditors and company lawyers.Key words: Company valuation, valuation methods, cash flow analysis, comparative valuation, the net asset value method.The Main Issue: What is of decisive importance when choosing a special company valuation method?Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify, analyse and evaluate the most common methods of valuation for financial analysts, auditors and company lawyers and those factors that influences the choice of method.Method: A multiple survey has been implemented for the actual profession categories. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey.Theoretical: The theoretical frame of reference is based upon the paper?s dependent variable, i.e. the role of the appraiser.

A customer of Sekonden IT is to replace the current setup authoring process for a program called PropCalc with a new process based on a setup authoring tool with high quality and usability.The report aims at present a suitable setup authoring tool for PropCalc by making use of a structured evaluation process evaluate the setup authoring tools on the market.Olof Næssén presents a process for evaluating web frameworks for Java in his thesis Utvärdering av webbramverk för Java. The evaluation process is adapted in the report to generally suit evaluation of software. After adjustment to the evaluation process an evalutaion is performed evaluating the currently available setup authoring tools.The evaluation will show that the most suitable candidate for PropCalc is InstallShield Premier but that the candidate that is finally chosen is WiX..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine and understand how teachers of younger children view the concept of critical evaluation of information and how their interpretations of the concept relate to their teaching. The need for the development of children?s ability to critically evaluate has been emphasized through research as well as the need for collaboration between teachers and librarians in order to help pupil?s process information into knowledgeThe study has a socio-cultural perspective and the material was collected through observations and qualitative interviews with teachers. The results of the study indicate that many teachers experience uncertainty when it comes to the area of critical evaluation and that they do not teach the subject to any substantial extent.

This is a heuristic evaluation of Umeå university library?s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). It makes use of four of Nielsen?s ten heuristics, flexibility and efficiency to use, match between the system and real world, visibility of system status, and aesthetic and minimalist design. The evaluation was done by having 3 evaluators inspect the interface individually, as per Nielsen?s (1990) recommendation of 3-5 evaluators.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to contribute to anincreased understanding of student teacher?s informationseeking for their studies. The role of cognitive authorities andapproaches to the critical evaluation of sources are taken intoaccount as well as what student experiences of informationseeking imply for their future profession. The study takes asociocultural perspective and the empirical material is based oninterviews with six student teachers at the end of theireducation. The interviews have been analysed with a departurepoint in the research questions to the following themes; seekingand finding information, critical evaluation of sources and,analysing and using information.The major findings concern the teacher students? emphasis onthe importance of the critical evaluation of sources and theirscepticism towards Internet use, both for their own studies aswell as for their future pupils.

The purpose of this report is to evaluate different methods for identifying states in robot models. Both linear and non-linear filters exist among these methods and are compared to each other. Advantages, disadvantages and problems that can occur during tuning and running are presented. Additional measurements from accelerometers are added and their use with above mentioned methods for state estimation is evaluated. The evaluation of methods in this report is mainly based on simulations in Matlab, even though some experiments have been performed on laboratory equipment.The conclusion indicates that simple non-linear models with few states can be more accurately estimated with a Kalman filter than with an extended Kalman filter, as long as only linear measurements are used.

Companies need to receive feedback in order to understand how they should adjust to shifting demands in the market. This study focuses on the Mystery Shopping process and the information it provides. Through qualitative interviews information was gathered which identifies Mystery Shopping as an approach where companies actively seek information withthe help of anonymous ?shoppers?. This method is compared to other research methods in order to identify the characteristics of Mystery Shopping.

Companies need to receive feedback in order to understand how they should adjust to shifting demands in the market. This study focuses on the Mystery Shopping process and the information it provides. Through qualitative interviews information was gathered which identifies Mystery Shopping as an approach where companies actively seek information withthe help of anonymous ?shoppers?. This method is compared to other research methods in order to identify the characteristics of Mystery Shopping.

This thesis presents the results of the implementation and evaluation of two machine learning algorithms [Baz98, GB97]based on notions from Rough Set theory [Paw82]. Both algorithms were implemented and tested using the Weka [WF00]software framework. The main purpose for doing this was to investigate whether the experimental results obtained in [Baz98]could be reproduced, by implementing both algorithms in a framework that provided common functionalities needed by both. As a result of this thesis, a Rough Set framework accompanying the Weka system was designed and implemented, as well as three methods for discretization and three classi cation methods. The results of the evaluation did not match those obtained by the original authors.

Today, there are no standardized ways to characterize SOA, many are talking about SOA and many say they are using SOA. One way that we have chosen to characterize this phenomenon is through an evaluation that will indicate whether SOA have been used in the development. Basedon a Service Oriented Architecture literature study, we have created an evaluation pattern resulting SOA principles of integration, architecture and services. This evaluation was applied to Logica's own integration system AgrCom through an empirical study to result in a response indicating whether AgrCom is SOA based. The results of the evaluation show that AgrCom is part of an SOA solution but not an SOA as a whole concept.

The difficullty to distinguish between sheep and goats is a well-known problem in archaeology and osteology. Distinguishing sheep and goats in archaeological animal remains takes time and time is often limited for osteologists. Because of this difficulty osteologists and archaeozoologists often use the term sheep/goat or ?ovicaprids? in their analytical reports. But even if the term sheep/goat comprise both species, this is often not the case when archaeologists and osteologists interpret and present archaeological findings.

The aim of this study is to describe how a theme about vitamins and analytical chemistry can be planed and implemented in a summer research school managed by AstraZeneca. The description of the theme is intended to be used as an instructor?s guide to upcoming summers-research-schools with the same theme. The students, which participated in the summer school of 2007, went to upper secondary school. During the summer school they were going to investigate the content of vitamin C in different fruits and vegetables.