Major factors contributing to marketing success in the Australian corporate finance market

This thesis investigated the major factors contributing to marketing success, as measured by average annual Return on Shareholders Funds, within the Australian corporate finance market, during the period 1983 to 1987. The study's findings are based on the analysis of the responses to a detailed mail questionnaire, and several follow-up in-depth interviews. The questionnaire was mailed to nearly five hundred of the most senior executives working in the corporate finance market in late 1987. A total of ninety one completed, useable questionnaires were received, representing a response rate of 19.2 per cent. This sample was representative of the several different types of organisations then competing within the chosen market. The main findings of this thesis, based on an extensive analysis of the respondents' questionnaires, are that the organisations which were most successful in terms of their marketing activities were smaller in size than their competitors, had a more systematic approach to their marketing, and were primarily involved in providing either stock broking or investment banking services to their customers. The other major finding is that modern marketing concepts and management practices did not appear to be fully understood, or implemented, within the responding organisations, despite the deregulation of the Australian capital market and the consequent intenSification of competition

Implementing a Business Process Management System Using ADEPT: A Real-World Case Study

This article describes how the agent-based design of ADEPT (advanced decision environment for processed tasks) and implementation philosophy was used to prototype a business process management system for a real-world application. The application illustrated is based on the British Telecom (BT) business process of providing a quote to a customer for installing a network to deliver a specified type of telecommunication service. Particular emphasis is placed upon the techniques developed for specifying services, allowing heterogeneous information models to interoperate, allowing rich and flexible interagent negotiation to occur, and on the issues related to interfacing agent-based systems and humans. This article builds upon the companion article (Applied Artificial Intelligence Vol.14, no 2, pgs. 145-189) that provides details of the rationale and design of the ADEPT technology deployed in this application

Effectiveness of group-based self-management education for individuals with Type 2 diabetes:A systematic review with meta-analyses and meta-regression

Aims: Patient education for the management of Type 2 diabetes can be delivered in various forms, with the goal of promoting and supporting positive self-management behaviours. This systematic review aimed to determine the effectiveness of group-based interventions compared with individual interventions or usual care for improving clinical, lifestyle and psychosocial outcomes in people with Type 2 diabetes. Methods: Six electronic databases were searched. Group-based education programmes for adults with Type 2 diabetes that measured glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) and followed participants for ≥ 6 months were included. The primary outcome was HbA1c, and secondary outcomes included fasting blood glucose, weight, body mass index, waist circumference, blood pressure, blood lipid profiles, diabetes knowledge and self-efficacy. Results: Fifty-three publications describing 47 studies were included (n = 8533 participants). Greater reductions in HbA1c occurred in group-based education compared with controls at 6–10 months [n = 30 studies; mean difference (MD) = 3 mmol/mol (0.3%); 95% confidence interval (CI): −0.48, −0.15; P = 0.0002], 12–14 months [n = 27 studies; MD = 4 mmol/mol (0.3%); 95% CI: −0.49, −0.17; P < 0.0001], 18 months [n = 3 studies; MD = 8 mmol/mol (0.7%); 95% CI: −1.26, −0.18; P = 0.009] and 36–48 months [n = 5 studies; MD = 10 mmol/mol (0.9%); 95% CI: −1.52, −0.34; P = 0.002], but not at 24 months. Outcomes also favoured group-based education for fasting blood glucose, body weight, waist circumference, triglyceride levels and diabetes knowledge, but not at all time points. Interventions facilitated by a single discipline, multidisciplinary teams or health professionals with peer supporters resulted in improved outcomes in HbA1c when compared with peer-led interventions. Conclusions: Group-based education interventions are more effective than usual care, waiting list control and individual education at improving clinical, lifestyle and psychosocial outcomes in people with Type 2 diabetes.No Full Tex

An optimization approach coupling pre-processing with model regression for enhanced chemometrics

Chemometric methods are broadly used in the chemical and biochemical sectors. Typically, derivation of a regression model follows data preprocessing in a sequential manner. Yet, preprocessing can significantly influence the regression model and eventually its predictive ability. In this work, we investigate the coupling of preprocessing and model parameter estimation by incorporating them simultaneously in an optimization step. Common model selection techniques rely almost exclusively on the performance of some accuracy metric, yet having a quantitative metric for model robustness can prolong model up-time. Our approach is applied to optimize for model accuracy and robustness. This requires the introduction of a novel mathematical definition for robustness. We test our method in a simulated set up and with industrial case studies from multivariate calibration. The results highlight the importance of both accuracy and robustness properties and illustrate the potential of the proposed optimization approach toward automating the generation of efficient chemometric models

Energy Expenditure of Grade Four School Children in Western Australia

A composite team from the Public Health Service, the West Australian Institute of Technology, and the Graylands Teachers College conducted surveys on grade 7 children in 1974, and grade 4 children in 1975. The intention of the surveys was to find some relationship between the energy expenditure and the energy intake of each age group. As there is little information concerning the activity patterns of West Australian children the findings of these surveys would serve as a basis for more detailed reports into the physical fitness, activity and dietary balance of children in today\u27s changing society. The study reported below is of the 1975 survey conducted on grade 4 children

Probabilistic predictions for partial least squares using bootstrap

Modeling the uncertainty in partial least squares (PLS) is made difficult because of the nonlinear effect of the observed data on the latent space that the method finds. We present an approach, based on bootstrapping, that automatically accounts for these nonlinearities in the parameter uncertainty, allowing us to equally well represent confidence intervals for points lying close to or far away from the latent space. To show the opportunities of this approach, we develop applications in determining the Design Space for industrial processes and model the uncertainty of spectroscopy data. Our results show the benefits of our method for accounting for uncertainty far from the latent space for the purposes of Design Space identification, and match the performance of well established methods for spectroscopy data

Problematic technology use and sleep quality in young adulthood: novel insights from a nationally representative twin study

Study Objectives: Digital technology use is associated with poor sleep quality in adolescence and young adulthood although research findings have been mixed. No studies have addressed the association between the two using a genetically informative twin design which could extend our understanding of the etiology of this relationship. This study aimed to test: (1) the association between adolescents’ perceived problematic use of digital technology and poor sleep quality, (2) whether the association between problematic use of technology and poor sleep quality remains after controlling for familial factors, and (3) genetic and environmental influences on the association between problematic use of technology and poor sleep quality. Methods: Participants were 2232 study members (18-year-old twins) of the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study. The sample was 48.9% male, 90% white, and 55.6% monozygotic. We conducted regression and twin difference analyses and fitted twin models. Results: Twin differences for problematic use of technology were associated with differences for poor sleep quality in the whole sample (p < 0.001; B = 0.15) and also when we limited the analyses to identical twins only (p < 0.001; B = 0.21). We observed a substantial genetic correlation between problematic use of technology and sleep quality (rA = 0.31), whereas the environmental correlation was lower (rE = 0.16). Conclusions: Adolescent reported problematic use of digital technology is associated with poor sleep quality—even after controlling for familial factors including genetic confounds. Our results suggest that the association between adolescents’ sleep and problematic digital technology use is not accounted for by shared genetic liability or familial factors but could reflect a causal association. This robust association needs to be examined in future research designed to test causal associations