Academic literature on the topic 'Causal performance'

La tesis trata de los modelos de gestión modernos de naturaleza causal, entre los que destaca el Cuadro de Mando Integral (CMI). En primer lugar, se presenta un análisis conceptual su supuesto central, las relaciones causa-efecto. En segundo lugar, se ofrece un análisis estadístico de los supuestos del CMI. En tercer lugar, a partir dos casos de estudio de ayuntamientos, se compara y analiza la implementación del CMI en las organizaciones. El análisis conceptual indica que la complejidad, la incertidumbre y el carácter dinámico del entorno pueden obstaculizar la elaboración de modelos válidos de causa-efecto. Los resultados del análisis estadístico no permiten confirmar la hipótesis de existencia de relaciones estables en el CMI. Finalmente, el análisis de los casos sugiere que las organizaciones pueden recurrir a diversas tácticas y escenarios para implementar el CMI y enfatiza la influencia que las rutinas y normas establecidas en las organizaciones ejercen en ello.<br>This dissertation address a number of research questions related to causal performance measurement models, such as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). First, we provide an analytical discussion on the topic of the cause-and-effect relationships in these models. Second, we test of the BSC assumptions on empirical data coming from the dynamic enterprises. Third, we compare and analyze the BSC adoption by two city councils. The conceptual analysis indicates that dynamic, complex and uncertain environment and the cognitive limitations of managers may greatly challenge the elaboration of valid causal models. Our statistical results give little support to the existence of stable BSC links. Our case studies findings show diverse organizational rationalities behind the BSC adoption in organizations and the importance of the existing rules and routines.

To date, most of the research that has addressed construction performance diagnosis has focused on identifying important factors having impact on construction performance and on establishing related performance models. The majority of the models were developed from a predictive perspective, not an explanatory one. The general goal of this research is to develop a construction performance diagnostic approach capable of assisting in identifying likely actual causes along with supporting evidence, and capturing and modeling experience-based diagnostic knowledge for current and future project use. The diagnostic approach implemented is based on a holistic structured causal model based diagnostic process which is applicable to key project performance measures. The approach is comprised of three layers: 1. a performance measure layer to determine if there exists a performance deviation to explain; 2. a quantitative casual models layer that makes use of quantitative causal relationships to identify causal variable variances, and 3. a user-defined experience-based causal models layer that makes use of experience-based knowledge to help further explain reasons (causal factors) for the causal variable variances. The design of the diagnostic approach involves five connected components which include an integrated information platform that treats the heterogeneous data collected in support of different construction management functions, a component related to making use of quantitative causal models, two components related to an experience-based causal modeling approach that allows the flexible formulation, automatic selection and use of experience-based causal models to help further explain performance variances, and a component responsible for searching and reporting evidence with the guidance of the experience-based causal models. A realistically-sized building project was used to demonstrate the workability of the diagnostic approach for time performance as the representative measure studied in this thesis. The incremental value of the approach compared with current diagnostic practice was demonstrated through an experiment involving individuals with knowledge of construction. The approach was also assessed in terms of some tests formulated to assess the fit of a diagnostic approach with the construction industry context, which is important if the research findings are to have any impact on practice.

The performance of Internet-based services depends on many server-side, client-side, and network related factors. Often, the interaction among the factors or their effect on service performance is not known or well-understood. The complexity of these services makes it difficult to develop analytical models. Lack of models impedes network management tasks, such as predicting performance while planning for changes to service infrastructure, or diagnosing causes of poor performance. We posit that we can use statistical causal methods to model performance for Internet-based services and facilitate performance related network management tasks. Internet-based services are well-suited for statistical learning because the inherent variability in many factors that affect performance allows us to collect comprehensive datasets that cover service performance under a wide variety of conditions. These conditional distributions represent the functions that govern service performance and dependencies that are inherent in the service infrastructure. These functions and dependencies are accurate and can be used in lieu of analytical models to reason about system performance, such as predicting performance of a service when changing some factors, finding causes of poor performance, or isolating contribution of individual factors in observed performance. We present three systems, What-if Scenario Evaluator (WISE), How to Improve Performance (HIP), and Network Access Neutrality Observatory (NANO), that use statistical causal methods to facilitate network management tasks. WISE predicts performance for what-if configurations and deployment questions for content distribution networks. For this, WISE learns the causal dependency structure among the latency-causing factors, and when one or more factors is changed, WISE estimates effect on other factors using the dependency structure. HIP extends WISE and uses the causal dependency structure to invert the performance function, find causes of poor performance, and help answers questions about how to improve performance or achieve performance goals. NANO uses causal inference to quantify the impact of discrimination policies of ISPs on service performance. NANO is the only tool to date for detecting destination-based discrimination techniques that ISPs may use. We have evaluated these tools by application to large-scale Internet-based services and by experiments on wide-area Internet. WISE is actively used at Google for predicting network-level and browser-level response time for Web search for new datacenter deployments. We have used HIP to find causes of high-latency Web search transactions in Google, and identified many cases where high-latency transactions can be significantly mitigated with simple infrastructure changes. We have evaluated NANO using experiments on wide-area Internet and also made the tool publicly available to recruit users and deploy NANO at a global scale.

La presente tesis doctoral se presenta en forma de compendio de publicaciones, en la cual se han desarrollado diversos Modelos Causales para ayudar en la toma de decisiones usando como herramienta principal las relaciones causa-efecto inherente del sistema. A continuación se describen brevemente los artículos incluidos en la tesis doctoral El artículo titulado “A CD&CR causal model based on path shortening/path stretching techniques” publicado por la revista Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies esta enfocado hacia la investigación académica de alto nivel que aborda el desarrollo, las aplicaciones y consecuencias, de las nuevas tecnologías en el campo del transporte. El enfoque del modelo causal desarrollado en Redes de Petri Coloreadas aportan no solo una metodología innovativa per se, sino que su aplicación e implicaciones en la etapa de planificación, diseño, y gestión, es de particular interés en el rendimiento general del sistema de transporte aéreo. En artículo titulado "Revisiting the pallet loading problem using a discrete event system approach to minimise logistic costs” publicado en la revista International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) se presenta un modelo orientado a eventos discretos para abordar el Problema del Palletizado (PLP) usando como formalismo de especificación las Redes de Petri Coloreadas. El problema de Paletizado conforma una parte fundamental en el flujo logístico de diversos sistemas de transporte (terrestre o aéreo), siendo un factor clave en etapas aguas arriba (e.g. producción) y abajo del sistema (e.g. distribución). El trabajo presenta una novedosa forma de modelado con una importante mejora de los kPI’s respecto a los actuales entornos comerciales, soportando tanto diferentes heurísticas así como su integración con el sistema para encontrar configuraciones óptimas para el acomodo de cajas con una tipología diversa. El artículo denominado "Integrating and sequencing flows in terminal maneuvering area by evolutionary algorithms," publicado por la IEEE/AIAA en el Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2011 presenta una aproximación innovadora para aliviar el problema de congestión en el espacio aéreo terminal (terminal maneouvering área). En este artículo se analiza un procedimiento alternativo para la integración y secuenciación de las aeronaves en la fase de aterrizaje. El artículo ha recibido diversas menciones tal como el mejor artículo de la sesión, mejor artículo en la sección de mejoras a la capacidad del sector aéreo y mejor artículo de estudiante. Estas menciones indican la importancia y trascendencia de dicho trabajo donde se utilizan algoritmos desarrollados para la optimización de sistemas altamente complejos como es el espacio aéreo terminal. El artículo que lleva por nombre “A TMA 4DT CD/CR causal model based in path shortening/path stretching techniques”, publicado en el International Conference on Research in Air Transportation — ICRAT 2010, ha recibido la mención Best paper award reconociendo las aportaciones del trabajo presentado. El modelo desarrollado en Redes de Petri Coloreadas para la solución de conflictos entre aeronaves presenta resultados experimentales validados mediante simuladores de vuelo de la compañía Aireuropa que permiten validar las trayectorias obtenidas mediante el modelo desarrollado. Finalmente, el articulo Causal model to sequence and merge 4DT flows in TMA, se encuentran publicados en las memorias del International Conference on Application and Theory of Automation in Command and Control Systems ATTACS2011 donde se presenta un algoritmo de solución para la secuencializacion y fusión de flujos de aterrizaje de aeronaves donde se muestra el gran potencial para mejorar de la toma de decisiones usando el espacio de estados de los modelos de RdPC.<br>The present PhD thesis report has been elaborated as a compendium of publications, in which diverse Causal Models have been developed to assist in the decision making process using a cause-effect relationship approach inherent in the system. A brief description of the items included in the doctoral thesis. The document is organized in four different parts. First, the Chapter called “Basic Notions” introduces the basic notions and a general perspective on the systems approach. Particular interest has been placed in the Discrete-Event Systems approach, presenting the main features of this formalism. The main theory behind the Coloured Petri Nets approach is presented in Section 2.1.1 Different case studies are provided from Chapters 3 to 5. Chapter 3 presents the work named “A CD&CR causal model based on path shortening/path stretching techniques”, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. This work depicts a groundbreaking approach to alleviate the airspace congestion and to deal with the implications for the planning, design, and management of Air Traffic Control operations. Particular interest has been placed Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) where the traffic conditions impose to take time-critical decisions. Therefore, an appropriate management of arrival operations could alleviate congestion which impacts directly in capacity and efficiency of the overall Air Traffic Management operations. To evaluate the performance of the the resolution strategy to avoid non-efficient procedures, diverse scenarios have been tasted in a busy traffic period at Gran Canaria’s airport. The result obtain contribute with the planning and management of Air Traffic Control operations to increase the overall predictability of the Air traffic, with benefit to airlines and airports, among others. Chapter 4 corresponds to the article "Revisiting the pallet loading problem using a discrete event system approach to minimise logistic costs” published in the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR). This work presents an innovative and challenging modelling approach to optimize the space and distribution of boxes into a pallet, supporting the inherent box diversity (heterogeneous palletizing problems) of present production and distribution logistic systems. The space utilization is modelled as squares that can be fragmentise and de-fragmentise. In a first approach, the state space analysis is performed to evaluate different optimal configurations to load the maximum number of boxes on a rectangular pallet. The second approach implements heuristics to show that acceptable occupancy results can be obtained without requiring the exhaustive evaluation of the different feasible combination. Chapter 5 introduces the work "Integrating and sequencing flows in terminal maneuvering area by evolutionary algorithms" in proceeding of the IEEE/AIAA en el Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2011. This work has received three mentions: Best student paper award; Best paper in the ATM Capacity Improvements track award; y Best paper of session award which confirm the transcendence and implications of such approach. This chapter presents a new approach to optimize a set of aircraft planned to land at a given airport. It is proposed to merge the incoming flows from different routes by mean of speed and path changes. Those changes aim to remove conflicts at merging points and to maintain separation of aircraft following the same route link according to their wake turbulence constraint. The optimization criteria are based on the minimum deviation from the initial path planning. This algorithm has been successfully applied to Gran Canaria airport in Spain with real traffic demand samples for which conflict free flow merging is produced smoothly with optimal runway feeding. Finally, Chapter 5 contains the overall conclusions, future work, summary of contributions and complementary publications on the author. The work presented in annex called “Causal model to sequence and merge 4DT flows in TMA” summarizes the development of a decision support algorithm to tackle the merging and sequencing problem within the Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) sector. The algorithm works with multiple landing traffic flows that share the airspace in the same time window. A flexible terminal area route structure is proposed; it eliminates conflicts within the Standard Terminal Arrival (STAR) while traffic is merged prior converging on to the final approach. As a first instance the first come first serve (FCFS) sequence policy will be tasted and later on the sequence will be altered by means of the Constrained Position Shifting (CPS) algorithm. Gran Canaria STAR is used to evaluate the benefits of the proposed model under synthetic traffic; and to determine the spacing buffers the ICAO Separation minima (ICAO DOC-4444) criteria is used as on current methodology. Finally, in Annex, the paper “A TMA 4DT CD/CR causal model based in path shortening/path stretching techniques” introduces the basic ideas behind a discrete event model for Conflict Detection and Conflict Resolution algorithm in a TMA 4D trajectory scenario in presented which focuses mainly on the arrival phase. This model brings a very interesting knowledge about the events that take place in the management of 4DT and their interactions in Gran Canaria TMA to remove non-effective operations, avoid delay propagation between arrivals and optimize the occupancy of the runway. The causal model developed considers different alternative predefined turning points for each flight evaluating path shortening/path stretching of all trajectories upwards the merging point in a TMA.

La psychologisation est une explication causale en des termes psychologiques des évènements qui arrivent aux individus (Beauvois, 2006). Alors que le terme de psychologisation fait référence à la caractéristique interne des explications fournies par les individus, celui de psychopathologisation ferait référence aux caractéristiques à la fois internes mais aussi incontrôlables de ces explications (Haslam, Ban, &amp; Kaufmann, 2007). Attribuer la cause d’une situation d’échec académique à une disposition contrôlable serait majorer la responsabilité de l’individu qui échoue dans cette situation (Weiner, 1995). En revanche attribuer la cause d’un échec académique à une disposition psychopathologique serait minorer la responsabilité de cet individu. Le but principal de cette thèse est 1) de métaboliser le concept de psychopathologisation 2) de révéler un lien entre l’échec académique et l’explication de cet échec par des causes psychopathologiques 3) de montrer que ce lien est distinct de celui existant entre l’échec académique et l’explication de celui-ci par des causes internes et contrôlables. Nous avons tenté de démontrer que les explications causales faites en des termes psychopathologiques avaient bien des caractéristiques différentes de celles faites en des termes internes et contrôlables. Nous avons très parcimonieusement montré un lien entre l’échec académique et les attributions causales d’ordre psychopathologique. Enfin la distinction entre la psychopathologisation et l’attribution causale à des causes internes et contrôlables reste à explorer plus avant<br>Psychologization is a causal explanation in psychological terms of events occurring to people (Beauvois, 2006). Although psychologization refers to internal characteristic of explanations given by the people, psychopathologization refers to characteristics both internal and uncontrollable of these explanations (Haslam, et al., 2007). Attributing the cause of an individual’s academic failure to a controllable disposition would increase the perceived individual’s responsibility for this situation (Weiner, 1995). Conversely attributing to an uncontrollable disposition the cause of the same issue would decreased his responsibility. The main goal of this work is to 1) metabolize the psychopathologization concept 2) reveal a link between academic failure and psychopathologization 3) show that this link is different from the one that exists between attribution to internal and controllable causes and academic failure. We tried to show that psychopathologization and attribution to internal and controllable causes are different in essence. We hardly succeeded to reveal a link between psychopathologization and academic failure. Finally, further work is needed to show a distinction between the two processes

The purpose of this study was to confirm the structural relationship of goal setting variables to performance. Performance was measured in learning mathematics lessons. Linear structural modeling techniques were used to evaluate the goal setting model. The exogenous variables were prior performance, goal difficulty, and self-evaluation. The endogenous variables were self-expectancy, self-efficacy, personal goal, and performance. There was support for the model of goal setting as proposed in this study. The nested alternate structural model for goal setting was the most parsimonious model. This model evidenced a negative effect of easy specific assigned goals on self efficacy. Vague and challenging specific goals had a positive effect on self efficacy. Prior performance, assigned goal, and self evaluation had positive path coefficients to self efficacy which, in turn, had a positive path coefficient to performance. Descriptive univariate statistics tended to support the theory of goal setting. These findings corroborate the results of the structural equation analysis.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1986.<br>Title from title page screen, viewed July 15, 2005. Dissertation Committee: John L. Brickell, Ronald S. Halinski (co-chairs), John F. Chizmar, Mary Ann Lynn, John R. McCarthy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-164) and abstract. Also available in print.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among mood, task performance, and attribution. It was hypothesized that type of mood would affect task performance and causal attributions for success and failure. Subjects viewed one of three films, selected for their humorous (positive mood), educational (neutral mood) and violent (negative mood) content and performed an anagram task in which success and failure was manipulated. After completing the task, subjects were asked to write down the most important cause of their success or failure and rate the cause on three 9point subscales, one subscale for each of the attributional dimensions of internality, stability, and controllability. In addition, subjects responded to an ascription scale that assesses the extent to which specific factors (e.g., task difficulty) are perceived to influence performance. The study found the expected effect of outcome on the causal ascription measure of attributions but not for the dimension measure. Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no effect of mood on attributions or task performance. These results raise the question of the measurement of attribution by causal ascriptions versus dimensions, and leave unresolved the questions of the relationships of mood to attribution and task performance. Possible explanations for the discrepancy between ascriptions and attributions and the lack of an effect of mood are discussed. Implications for future research are examined and suggestions are proposed.<br>Department of Psychological Science