Medical education and professional commitment : the case of traditional Chinese medicine in Hong Kong.

by Simon Siu-man Tam.Includes bibliographical referencesThesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 198

Bank structure, efficiency and risk management in Vietnam

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the feature of the Vietnamese banking system in terms of bank structure, bank efficiency and risk management. We extend the structural, nonstructural and efficiency models to make them applicable to Vietnam. Findings from these models explain the performance and level of efficiency of the whole banking system, state owned commercial banks (SOCBs) and non-state owned commercial banks (non-SOCBs). At the theoretical level, this thesis investigates the development of Vietnamese banking in four stages: (1) the period prior to 1986; (2) 1986-1995; (3) 1996-2005; (4) 2006 until now. We also put an emphasis on the Vietnamese crises in 1997 and 2008. Through such investigations, we are able to incorporate a number of financial fundamentals to the bank structure and efficiency models that capture the features of the Vietnamese banking system. Moreover, we construct a large data set of 48 Vietnamese commercial banks in the period from 1999 to 2009. This time span covers both the post 1997 Asian and 2008 Global crises, which allows us to estimate the impacts of financial crises on the banking system. At the empirical level, this thesis provides, for the first time, a comprehensive application of the extended structural (Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) and Efficiency Hypothesis (EH)) and non-structural (Panzar-Rosse) models. In the non-structural model, we employ models using current and lagged input prices, both with and without assets. Moreover, both equilibrium and disequilibrium approaches are used to examine the bank structure. This is the first time the semi-parametric model is applied through the two-stage procedure for the Vietnamese banking system. In addition, it is also the first study that carries out a survey of risk management using a questionnaire

Development of empirical models for pork quality

Pork quality is an important issue for the whole meat chain, from producers, abattoirs, retailers through to costumers and is affected by a web of multi-factorial actions that occur throughout the pork production chain. A vast amount of information is available on how these diverse factors influence different pork quality traits. However, results derived from individual studies often vary and are in some cases even contradictory due to different experimental designs or different pork quality assessment techniques or protocols. Also, individual influencing factors are often studied in isolation, ignoring interacting effects. A suitable method is therefore required to account for a range of interacting factors, to combine the results from different experiments and to derive generic response-laws. The aim of this thesis was to use meta-analyses to produce quantitative, predictive models that describe how diverse factors affect pork quality over a range of experimental conditions

Remote Sensing of Precipitation: Part II

Precipitation is a well-recognized pillar in the global water and energy balances. The accurate and timely understanding of its characteristics at the global, regional and local scales is indispensable for a clearer insight on the mechanisms underlying the Earth’s atmosphere-ocean complex system. Precipitation is one of the elements that is documented to be greatly affected by climate change. In its various forms, precipitation comprises the primary source of freshwater, which is vital for the sustainability of almost all human activities. Its socio-economic significance is fundamental in managing this natural resource effectively, in applications ranging from irrigation to industrial and household usage. Remote sensing of precipitation is pursued through a broad spectrum of continuously enriched and upgraded instrumentation, embracing sensors which can be ground-based (e.g., weather radars), satellite-borne (e.g., passive or active space-borne sensors), underwater (e.g., hydrophones), aerial, or ship-borne. This volume hosts original research contributions on several aspects of remote sensing of precipitation, including applications which embrace the use of remote sensing in tackling issues such as precipitation estimation, seasonal characteristics of precipitation and frequency analysis, assessment of satellite precipitation products, storm prediction, rain microphysics and microstructure, and the comparison of satellite and numerical weather prediction precipitation products

Identification and analysis of marketing manager competences that determine marketing department capabilities and the underlying importance of courage traits.

The aim of this research is to determine marketing manager characteristics that positively influence the capabilities of the marketing department. Its research objectives are twofold: firstly to identify competences and traits of the most effective marketing managers; and secondly, to determine the nature and extent of the relationships between marketing manager competences and traits, and marketing department capabilities. Contributing to the domain of strategic marketing, the thesis draws on RBV theory from strategic management, competence theory from human resource management and character strength and virtues theory from positive psychology. Gaps in existing marketing theory arise from the observation from literature that marketing’s capacity to help improve business performance, has focused on the functional or departmental capabilities of marketing, with little attention directed towards the individual marketing managers who comprise it. Research takes a mixed methods approach using a modified Delphi method with 40 CEOs, marketing directors and HR executives, to determine specific competences and traits of the most effective marketing managers. Results provide a ranking of the most effective technical and behavioural competences and also underlying personal traits, the most important of which was found to be courage. These findings form the basis of a research survey undertaken with 328 UK marketing managers which examines the influence of courage traits on behavioural competences, the nature of the interaction between behavioural and technical competences, and finally the influence of all three areas of characteristics on marketing department capabilities. Findings show the particular influence of bravery, zest and perseverance, on marketing manager behavioural repertoires, and, directly, on departmental capabilities. They also show the important role of behavioural competences in moderating the influence of technical competences on departmental capabilities. The empirically demonstrated relationships between particular technical and behavioural competences and the influences of certain courage traits, mean that senior marketing executives can engage in better targeted recruitment, and tailor the development of existing marketing managers with greater confidence of achieving improved marketing department capabilities

An Empirical Examination of Relational Governance and Service Capabilities on the Success of Professional Service Firms Offshore Outscoring the Client Perspective

Professional services, such as accounting, finance, engineering and management consulting, are significant contributors to the U.S. economy accounting for the largest value added industry within the private sector. Knowledge-intensive professional services reached this level of economic prominence by responding to heightened competition, managing rising costs, utilizing key resources, and re-directing their focus to internal core competencies through the strategic decision to engage in offshore outsourcing relationships. By 2015, the Congressional Research Study report predicts 3.4 million, or 13.7 of professional service jobs will be offshore outsourced. Offshore outsourcing is a firm level strategic decision to relocate business activities to an offshore third party primarily to emerging markets. Based on existing theories of transaction cost economics, resource based view, and resource dependence theory, this dissertation empirically validates a comprehensive model evaluating the multi-dimensional relational governance mechanism of collaboration on the capabilities of the offshore service provider. In addition, the model examines the influence of the service capabilities on the success of the client firm. One of the key contributions of this study is the client perspective examination of the relationship between the U.S. client firm and offshore service provider thereby addressing a stated need for additional academic research. The importance of governance mechanisms established by professional service firms have evolved over time from minimizing transaction costs and opportunistic behavior, to maximizing access to complementary resources, to building long-term relationships based on communication, commitment and information sharing. These governance mechanisms are integral to a collaborative client-vendor relationship. This dissertation develops hypotheses, from existing outsourcing literature, evaluating the influence of collaboration on the client\u27s perception of the learning capability, the se

Perception, expectation and uncertainty in autism

This thesis uses behavioural measures and self-report questionnaires to understand how autistic individuals extract predictive information from their environment, how this predictive information influences perception in autism and how these processes are associated with other clinical features of autism. In chapters 1 & 2, I start the thesis by reviewing the literature on perception, sensory issues, anxiety and learning in autism before moving on to introduce Bayesian models of perception in autism. In chapters 3, 4 & 5, I present an interrupted search paradigm and demonstrate that autistic individuals did not significantly differ from non-autistic controls in the extent to which prior information guides attention during visual search. These chapters provide a clear case of one aspect of perception in which prior information is used by autistic and non-autistic individuals in a similar manner. In chapter 6, I present a serial reaction time task which tests whether autistic individuals are able to update predictive information flexibly. The results found that autistic individuals, relative to controls, showed an overall reduction in the extent to which they utilised prior information during the task, but this was not specific to conditions in which they were required to update information about the underlying statistical regularities in the task. In chapter 7, I use a visual statistical learning task to assess how well participants were able to implicitly acquire high-level predictive statistical information. The results suggest that autistic individuals show a slightly reduced effect of learning when compared to non-autistic controls, but this effect is not specific to high-level information. In chapter 8, 9 & 10, I present a number of different questionnaire measures for which differences are found between autistic and non-autistic individuals. I used these measures to evaluate the construct of ‘intolerance of uncertainty’ and how it relates to other features of autism before moving on to show that ‘intolerance of uncertainty’ plays a mediating role in clinical features associated with autism, such as anxiety and sensory issues