Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Policy management'

Thesis (M.S. in Information Technology Management) Naval Postgraduate School, September 1999.
"September 1999". Thesis advisor(s): Geoffrey Xie, Gilbert Lundy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-224). Also available online.

Thesis: Ph. D. in Policy, Operations, and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, September, 2020
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references.
This dissertation strengthens planning and policy analysis by using concepts from operations management to examine production and distribution of goods and services for disadvantaged groups. Building on the introduction, chapter two tells a cautionary tale, investigating how scholars and decision makers used operations management methods to consider operations in planning and policy analysis in the 1970s in ways that further marginalized already vulnerable residents. The tools and concepts of operations management, however, if sufficiently framed by concerns about equity and advocacy, are powerful instruments in solving production and distribution problems with social consequences. Chapter three explores how these concepts can be used to descriptively identify disparities in access to goods and services by socio-economic status, examining the distribution of irrigation equipment in Senegal. The core question is about the allocation of risk and inventory across levels of a supply chain that extends far into Senegal's farming regions. Chapter four identifies how these concepts can be used to causally explain disparities, tracing policies and plans that aggregative or ameliorate them. It focuses on the main program that subsidizes affordable housing construction in the United States, a durable necessity that is unevenly available and exposed to environment risks across space. The core question is about patterns over space and time in building affordable housing stocks, relative to where and when disasters occur. Chapter five shows how these concepts can be used to prescriptively remedy disparities. It investigates quality risks in the US international food assistance supply chain in Eastern Africa. The core question is about what levers can be pulled in supply chain design to improve food aid quality. Chapter six concludes.
by Mark Emmanuel Brennan.
Ph. D. in Policy, Operations, and Management
Ph.D.inPolicy,Operations,andManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Thesis (M.S.)--Wake Forest University. Dept. of Computer Science, 2008.
Title from electronic thesis title page. Thesis advisor: Errin W. Fulp. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54).

The Ambient Network (AN) Project is part of the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme and aims to enable cooperation between heterogeneous networks, using current and future wireless technologies, minimising the effort of mobile users to gain access to the services that they are interested in - irrespective of their location or the network they are currently using. Because of the highly mobile nature of users and a demand for instant and dynamic access to services, these networks have to be composed ‘on the fly’ without any pre-configurations. The use of context information in AN can remove the need for pre-configuration of networks, hence making them autonomic. However, a concern exists that the free and uncontrolled dissemination of context information could breech the privacy of the participants. It is extremely important to address these privacy issues in order to control who has access to what context information. This control can be achieved through the use of well defined policies. This creates a requirement for a framework in the ContextWare architecture for protecting context information. This masters thesis project is part of an effort to create a policy based infrastructure for authorisation of access to network context information within the AN. The thesis investigates, models, and designs an architecture for a policy management system based on OASIS XACML, that creates an extension to the architecture for management of context information in the AN. In addition to a policy management architecture within an AN, a policy management architecture for composing ANs is also created. To facilitate the transfer of requests and policies, the thesis creates a Policy Management Protocol. The designed architecture was then implemented to create a proof of concept. The designed architecture and protocol were evaluated by running tests on the prototype. The measurements from the tests are analysed and presented in this thesis. The analysis of the experimental data indicates that a policy management system is both feasible and practical. The results show that the delay overhead caused by introducing policy management in a distributed context provisioning system, ranges from 1.7% in a system without load to 6% in a worst case scenario. The throughput of the policy management system is 15 requests per second under load.
Ambient Network är ett EU-finansierat project inom det 6:e ramprogrammet.Projektets mål är att möjliggöra samarbete mellan heterogena nätverk, som använderbåde dagens men även framtidens trådlösa teknologier, för att minimeraslutanvändarens insats för att nå den tjänst de är intresserade av – oberoende av platseller vilket nätverk de använder. På grund av den stora delen av mobila användaresom kräver omedelbar och dynamisk tillgång till tjänster måste dessa nätverk gåsamman ’on the fly’ utan tidigare konfigurering.Användningen av context information i Ambient Networks kan elmininera behovet avförkonfigurering av nätverk, följaktligen blir de då autonoma. Dock, ett problem somuppkommer med detta är att den fria och okontrollerade spridningen av contextinformation bryter integriteten för deltagarna. Det är väldigt viktigt att ta itu med dettaproblem för att kunna kontrollera vilka som har tillgång till vilken contextinformation. Den här kontrollen kan uppnås genom väldefinierade policies. Dettaskapar ett behov av ett ramverk inom ContextWare arkitekturen för att skydda dentillgängliga context informationen. Den här uppsatsen är en del i ansträngningen att skapa en policy baserad infrastrukturför attestering av tillgång till context information inom Ambient Networks. Uppsatsenundersöker och designar en arkitektur för ett policy handhavande system som ärbaserat på OASIS XACML, den bygger vidare på arkitekturen för handhavande avcontext information i Ambient Networks. Utöver policy hantering inom ett ambientnetwork skapas också policy hantering mellan ambient networks när de förenas. Denframtagna arkitekturen är därefter implementerad för att visa på konceptets hållbarhet. En sammanslagning av två policy handhavande system när två nätverk slås ihop ärbehandlat endast i teorin, det är inte implementerat. Designen utvärderas genom att köra test på den implementerade versionen ochdärefter analysera och visa resultaten i rapporten. Dessa test innehåller mätningar avfördröjningen av en enda begäran samt flera, responstiden i ett system med policyhanteringjämfört med utan samt prestandan i ett policy-hanteringssystem med en litenmängd policies jämfört med en större mängd policies.

Systems management represents the set of activities necessary to ensure that information systems function according to user requirements and objectives. Chapter 1 summarizes the management challenges in today's networks and distributed systems. Policy-driven network management is the new management paradigm. Its implementation needs a new information and decision model, appropriate protocols and new hosting and access mechanisms. IETF policy framework and architecture create the support for the deployment of this new paradigm.
Consideration of temporal aspects to allow run-time policy conflict detection and error-handling has not yet been developed. After assessing the existing policy-oriented achievements in terms of tools and IETF drafts, and after presenting existing temporal mechanisms, we concluded that only policy definition temporal issues are partially referred to. We considered complementary temporal issues focusing on "policy execution" and coping with the notions of time zones, policy dependency across multiple time zones and actions translation among many time zones. Finally, we showed how our input can be used for extending the current IETF Policy CIM proposal.
We intend to have an IETF draft on these issues. Specifically, our proposal can be added as a new building block to any existing policy-enabled management tool. We identified important directions in handling policy conflicts at run-time.

This work comprises three independent essays in Telecommunications Policyand Management. In the first study we focus on the deployment of green field next generationaccess network infrastructures when the national regulatory authority has thepower to define geographical markets at sub-national level for which it can applydifferentiated regulatory remedies - Geographically Segmented Regulation(GSR). Using a game theory model that we developed, we confirm the asymmetricbusiness case for the geographic development of these new infrastructures:highly populated areas are likely to develop into competitive telecommunicationmarkets while regions with low household density will only see limited investmentand little or no competition. We show that supply side interdependenciesamong markets make the implementation of GSR non-trivial, namely, we showthat changes in the wholesale access price in one market can have undesirableconsequences in the competitive conditions of interrelated regions wherewholesale prices are unchanged. In the second study we focus on how individual purchase decisions are influenced by the behavior of others in their social circle. We study the case ofthe diffusion of the iPhone 3G across a number of communities sampled froma dataset provided by a major mobile carrier in one country. We find thatthe propensity of adoption increases with the proportion of each indivudal'sadopter friends. We estimate that 14% of iPhone 3G adoptions in this carrierwere due to peer influence. We provide results from several policy experimentsthat show that with this level of effect from peer influence the carrier wouldhardly be able to significantly increase sales by selectively targeting consumersto benefit from viral marketing. Finally, in the third study, we perform a randomized field experiment todetermine the role that likes play on the sales of movies in Video-on-Demand(VoD). We use the VoD system of a large telecommunications provider duringhalf a year in 2012. The system suggests movies to consumers ordered by thenumber of consumer likes they obtained in previous weeks. We manipulatedsuch natural order by randomly swapping likes across movies. We found thatmovies promoted (demoted) increased (decreased) sales, but the amount of informationpublicly available about movies affected the result. Better knownmovies were less sensitive to manipulations. Finally a movie promoted (demoted)to a fake slot sold 15.9% less (27.7% more) than a true movie placed atthat slot, on average across all manipulations. A movie promoted (demoted)to a fake slot received 33.1% fewer (30.1% more) likes than a true movie atthat slot. Hence manipulated movies tended to move back to their true slotsover time. This means that self-fulfilling prophecies widely discussed in theliterature on the effect of ratings on sales are hard to sustain in markets withcostly goods that are sufficiently well-known.

Health Information Systems (HIS) make extensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The use of ICT aids in improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare services by making healthcare information available at the point of care (Goldstein, Groen, Ponkshe, and Wine, 2007). The increasing availability of healthcare data presents security and privacy issues which have not yet been fully addressed (Liu, Caelli, May, and Croll, 2008a). Healthcare organisations have to comply with the security and privacy requirements stated in laws, regulations and ethical standards, while managing healthcare information. Protecting the security and privacy of healthcare information is a very complex task (Liu, May, Caelli and Croll, 2008b). In order to simplify the complexity of providing security and privacy in HIS, appropriate information security services and mechanisms have to be implemented. Solutions at the application layer have already been implemented in HIS such as those existing in healthcare web services (Weaver et al., 2003). In addition, Discretionary Access Control (DAC) is the most commonly implemented access control model to restrict access to resources at the OS layer (Liu, Caelli, May, Croll and Henricksen, 2007a). Nevertheless, the combination of application security mechanisms and DAC at the OS layer has been stated to be insufficient in satisfying security requirements in computer systems (Loscocco et al., 1998). This thesis investigates the feasibility of implementing Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) to enforce a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policy to help protect resources at the Operating System (OS) layer. SELinux provides Mandatory Access Control (MAC) mechanisms at the OS layer. These mechanisms can contain the damage from compromised applications and restrict access to resources according to the security policy implemented. The main contribution of this research is to provide a modern framework to implement and manage SELinux in HIS. The proposed framework introduces SELinux Profiles to restrict access permissions over the system resources to authorised users. The feasibility of using SELinux profiles in HIS was demonstrated through the creation of a prototype, which was submitted to various attack scenarios. The prototype was also subjected to testing during emergency scenarios, where changes to the security policies had to be made on the spot. Attack scenarios were based on vulnerabilities common at the application layer. SELinux demonstrated that it could effectively contain attacks at the application layer and provide adequate flexibility during emergency situations. However, even with the use of current tools, the development of SELinux policies can be very complex. Further research has to be made in order to simplify the management of SELinux policies and access permissions. In addition, SELinux related technologies, such as the Policy Management Server by Tresys Technologies, need to be researched in order to provide solutions at different layers of protection.

Health Information Systems (HIS) make extensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The use of ICT aids in improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare services by making healthcare information available at the point of care (Goldstein, Groen, Ponkshe, and Wine, 2007). The increasing availability of healthcare data presents security and privacy issues which have not yet been fully addressed (Liu, Caelli, May, and Croll, 2008a). Healthcare organisations have to comply with the security and privacy requirements stated in laws, regulations and ethical standards, while managing healthcare information. Protecting the security and privacy of healthcare information is a very complex task (Liu, May, Caelli and Croll, 2008b). In order to simplify the complexity of providing security and privacy in HIS, appropriate information security services and mechanisms have to be implemented. Solutions at the application layer have already been implemented in HIS such as those existing in healthcare web services (Weaver et al., 2003). In addition, Discretionary Access Control (DAC) is the most commonly implemented access control model to restrict access to resources at the OS layer (Liu, Caelli, May, Croll and Henricksen, 2007a). Nevertheless, the combination of application security mechanisms and DAC at the OS layer has been stated to be insufficient in satisfying security requirements in computer systems (Loscocco et al., 1998). This thesis investigates the feasibility of implementing Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) to enforce a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policy to help protect resources at the Operating System (OS) layer. SELinux provides Mandatory Access Control (MAC) mechanisms at the OS layer. These mechanisms can contain the damage from compromised applications and restrict access to resources according to the security policy implemented. The main contribution of this research is to provide a modern framework to implement and manage SELinux in HIS. The proposed framework introduces SELinux Profiles to restrict access permissions over the system resources to authorised users. The feasibility of using SELinux profiles in HIS was demonstrated through the creation of a prototype, which was submitted to various attack scenarios. The prototype was also subjected to testing during emergency scenarios, where changes to the security policies had to be made on the spot. Attack scenarios were based on vulnerabilities common at the application layer. SELinux demonstrated that it could effectively contain attacks at the application layer and provide adequate flexibility during emergency situations. However, even with the use of current tools, the development of SELinux policies can be very complex. Further research has to be made in order to simplify the management of SELinux policies and access permissions. In addition, SELinux related technologies, such as the Policy Management Server by Tresys Technologies, need to be researched in order to provide solutions at different layers of protection.

En la actualidad se están realizando diversos esfuerzos para realizar la visión fu-turista de las redes de telecomunicación autogestionadas. La gestión basada en políticas ha sido reconocida como una herramienta potencial para habilitar esta visión. Mayorita-riamente, ésta técnica ha sido reconocida como proveedora de flexibilidad, adaptabilidad y soporte para asignar recursos, controlar Calidad de Servicio y seguridad, de una manera automática y de acuerdo a reglas administrativas. Adicionalmente, se ha considerado que la gestión basada en políticas proveería tal flexibilidad en tiempo de ejecución y como resultado de cambios en la red, interacciones entre usuarios, aplicaciones y disponibilidad de recursos. A pesar de enormes esfuerzos realizados con lenguajes de especificación de políticas, arquitecturas de gestión en diversos dominios y estandarización, la gestión ba-sada en políticas aún no es una realidad. Una de las razones para la reticencia en su utili-zación es la dificultad para analizar políticas que garanticen estabilidad en el sistema. Además de la problemática asociada a la gestión de conflictos entre políticas, otro obstá-culo para su utilización es la dificultad de derivar políticas ejecutables alineadas a objeti-vos administrativos o a otras políticas de alto nivel. Este último es el problema del refi namiento de políticas.
Esta Tesis aborda el problema crítico de refinamiento de políticas. Damos una vi-sión completa del proceso de refinamiento, desde el análisis formal hasta su realización práctica, identificando los elementos que intervienen en cada paso de tal proceso.
Inicialmente, proponemos un marco de trabajo para refinamiento de políticas ba-sado en Lógica Lineal Temporal, una lógica estándar que permite el análisis en sistemas reactivos. Esta técnica es utilizada para representar políticas a diferentes niveles jerár-quicos de abstracción. Acto seguido desarrollamos mecanismos que habilitan la obten-ción de políticas ejecutables a partir de ciertos requerimientos mediante la utilización de técnicas de exploración de estados basados en Lógica Lineal Temporal. Adicionalmente, aclaramos e identificamos las actividades y tareas de gestión de las partes administrativas durante el ciclo de vida de un sistema de gestión basado en políticas, desde la perspectiva del proceso de refinamiento de políticas.
Esta Tesis presenta también directrices para abordar el proceso de refinamiento de políticas en contextos de gestión de red. Damos un paso adelante en la materialización de este proceso mediante la utilización de propiedades estructurales inherentes a sistemas de gestión de red. Proveemos, en fin, una metodología para aplicar los conceptos introduci-dos en el marco de trabajo desarrollado en esta Tesis en sistemas de gestión de red.
En esta Tesis también realizamos un proceso de refinamiento de políticas com-pleto. Detallamos la realización de tal proceso en una solución exitosa de gestión basada en políticas. Tomando como base el dominio de Gestión de Calidad de Servicio, aclara-mos y presentamos las implicaciones del problema de refinamiento en este dominio de aplicación.
Current research efforts are being directed to commit with the long-term view of self management properties for telecommunications networks. One of the key approaches that have been recognised as an enabler of such a view is policy-based management. Pol-icy-based management has been mostly acknowledged as a methodology that provides flexibility, adaptability and support to automatically assign network resources, control Quality of Service and security, by considering administratively specified rules. The hype of policy-based management was to commit with these features in run-time as a result of changeable network conditions resulting from the interactions of users, applications and existing resources. Despite enormous efforts with policy languages, management archi-tectures using policy in different application domains, standardisation and industrial ef-forts, policy-based management is still not a reality. One reason behind the reticence for its use is the difficulty to analyse policies that guarantee configuration stability. In addi-tion to policy conflict analysis, a key issue for this reticence is the need to derive en-forceable policies from high level administrative goals or from higher level policies, namely the policy refinement process.
This Thesis deals with the critical nature of addressing the policy refinement problem. We provide a holistic view of this process, from formal analysis to its practical realisation, identifying the key elements involved in each step of such critical process.
We initially propose a policy refinement framework relying on Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), a standard logic that allows analysis of reactive systems. Based on the for-mer logic, we lay down the process of representing policies at different levels of abstrac-tion. Following on with this, we develop the mechanisms that enable the abstraction of enforceable policies from hierarchical requirements in a fully automatic manner, making use of Linear Temporal Logic based state exploration techniques. In addition, we clarify and identify the activities and management tasks that the administrative parties should carry out during the life cycle of the policy-based management system, from the perspec tive of the policy refinement process.
This Thesis provides the guidelines to address policy refinement in network management contexts. Concretely, we take one step ahead in the materialisation of the policy refinement process by exploiting inherent containment properties of network management systems. For this purpose we provide the methodology to apply the concepts introduced in the policy refinement framework developed in this Thesis in the above context.
In this Thesis we also execute a complete and rather detailed policy refinement process for a successful policy-based management solution. Taking the intra-domain Quality of Service Management application domain as background, we clarify and pre-sent the implications of the policy refinement problem in such a concrete application do-main.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited
TCP/IP provided the impetus for the growth of the Internet and the IPsec protocol now promises to add to it the desired security strength. IPsec provides users with a mechanism to enforce a range of security services for both confidentiality and integrity, enabling them to securely pass information across networks. Dynamic parameterization of IPsec further enables security mechanisms to adjust the level of security service "on-the-fly" to respond to changing network and operational conditions. The IPsec implementation in OpenBSD works in conjunction with the Trust Management System, KeyNote, to achieve this. However the KeyNote engine requires that an IPsec policy be defined in the KeyNote specification syntax. Defining a security policy in the KeyNote Specification language is, however, extremely difficult and the complexity of the language could lead to incorrect specification of the desired policy, thus degrading the security of the network. This thesis looks into an alternative XML representation of this language and a graphical user interface to evolve a consistent and correct security policy. The interface has the simplicity of a simple menu-driven editor that not only provides KeyNote with a policy in the specified syntax but also integrates techniques for correctness verification and validation.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science and M.S. in Information Technology Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2002.
Thesis advisor(s): Cynthia E. Irvine, Timothy E. Levin. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-72). Also available online.

Using the qualitative case study research design, this thesis examines marine policy and marine environmental management system with regard to fisheries, waste disposal and pollution, as well as marine environmental protection and conservation. Management tools have been used to evaluate government’s organisation and legislation, human resources, policy development, technical management, implementation and enforcement. The model of a marine policy and environmental management is established in the findings. Further, this research is an applied study, with outcomes of practical value in dealing with the issues concerned.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Florida, 2002.
Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 52 p.; also contains graphics. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-297). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

The de facto model of what it means to be effectively organised, hence cybernetically viable, is Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM). Many studies attest to the efficacy of what the VSM proposes, however, these appear to be largely confined to human based organisations of particular types e.g. businesses of assorted sizes and governmental matters. The original contribution to the body of knowledge that this work makes, in contrast, has come from an unconventional source i.e. football (soccer) teams. The unique opportunity identified was to use the vast amounts of football player spatial data, as captured by match scanning technology, to obtain simultaneously the multi-recursive policy characteristics of a real viable system operating in real time under highly dynamical load (threat/opportunity) conditions. It accomplishes this by considering player movement as being representative of the output of the policy function of the viable system model that they, hence their whole team, are each mapped to. As each player decides what they must do at any moment, or might need to do in the immediate future, this is set against their capabilities to deliver against that. This can be said of every player during every stage of any match. As such, their actions (their policies as viable systems) inform, and are informed by, the actions of others. This results in the teams of players behaving in a self-organising manner. Accordingly, in spatially varying player location, one has a single metric that characterises player, hence team function, and ultimately whole team policy as the policy of a viable system, that is amenable to analysis. A key behavioural characteristic of a self-organising system is a power law. Accordingly, by searching for, and obtaining, a power law associated with player movement one thereby obtains the output of the policy function of that whole team as a viable system, and hence the viable system model that the team maps to. At the heart of such activity is communication between the players as they proceed to do what they need to do at any given time during a match. This has offered another unique opportunity to measure the amount of spatially underpinned Information exhibited by the opposing teams in their entirety and to set those in juxtaposition with their respective power law characteristics and associated match outcomes. This meant that the power law characteristic that represents the policy of the viable system, and the amount of Information associated with that could be, and was, examined in the context of success or failure outcomes (as criteria of viability) to discern if some combinations of both were more profitable than not. This was accomplished in this work by using player position data from an anonymous member of the English Premier Football League playing in an unknown season to provide a quantitative analysis accordingly.

Service-oriented architectures (SOA), and in particular Web services, have quickly become a popular technology to connect applications both within and across enterprise boundaries. However, as services are increasingly used to implement critical functionality, security has become an important concern impeding the widespread adoption of SOA. Trust negotiation is an approach to access control that may be applied in scenarios where service requesters are often unknown in advance, such as for services available via the public Internet. Rather than relying on requesters' identities, trust negotiation makes access decisions based on the level of trust established between the requester and the provider in a negotiation, during which the parties exchange credentials, which are signed assertions that describe some attributes of the owner. However, managing the evolution of trust negotiation policies is a difficult problem that has not been sufficiently addressed to date. Access control policies have a lifecycle, and they are revised based on applicable business policies. Additionally, because a trust relationship established in a trust negotiation may be long lasting, their evolution must also be managed. Simply allowing a negotiation to continue according to an old policy may be undesirable, especially if new important constraints have been added. In this thesis, we introduce a model-driven trust negotiation framework for service-oriented applications. The framework employs a model for trust negotiation, based on state machines, that allows automated generation of the control structures necessary to enforce trust negotiation policies from the visual model of the policy. Our policy model also supports lifecycle management. We provide sets of operations to modify policies and to manage ongoing negotiations, and operators for identifying and managing impacts of changes to trust negotiation policies on ongoing trust negotiations. The framework presented in the thesis has been implemented in the Trust-Serv prototype, which leverages industry specifications such as WS-Security and WS-Trust to offer a container-centric mechanism for deploying trust negotiation that is transparent to the services being protected.

There is an increasing demand for information for the rational assessment and reporting of the state the environment, to detect change and to assess the effectiveness of policy or management measures. The research investigated the use of information by conservation organisations through case studies in the Statutory Nature Conservation Agencies and the North York Moors National Park. The results highlighted a number of key problems in the organisational use of information and in the content and utility of the data available. These included the lack of an organisational culture of information use, imperfect knowledge and utilisation of available data, the need to meet changing information demands and the requirement to produce comparable local, regional and national habitat stock estimates. Many of the data deficiencies highlighted would appear to be met by the Countryside Survey (CS) initiative. Despite offering potentially suitable data, with a combination of an environmental stratification (the ITE land class system), field survey and remotely sensed data, this source was little used. Thus, the study sought to assess the scope for comparing CS data with other habitat estimates and for improving the accuracy of these data through the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Three main techniques were employed, modified areal weighting, modified areal weighting with control zones and intelligent weighting’ a hybrid approach in which Land Cover Map of Great Britain (LCMGB) data were employed to redistribute Countryside Survey 1990 (CS9O) totals within ITE land classes. The research found that sub-land class estimates from CS9O data could be improved in some circumstances. In most cases, LCMGB provided better estimates of habitat location and quantity than CS9O. In a few cases, the intelligent weighting method improved the interpolation of CS9O estimates. It is suggested that regional habitat estimates may be improved further through greater within-land class differentiation, an increase in within-land class sampling intensity or stratification and the further development of the LCMGB. The problems faced in integrating, analysing and using available geographic data are considered and conclusions presented

This thesis examines: What is Place Management theory and practice, and how does Place Management inform social policy decisions in Australia? Based in a ‘community of disadvantage’, around ‘childhood development’, and through ‘joined-up governance’, Place Management is based on principles of community development, capacity building, and social capital. A case study of the implementation of the Australian Communities for Children (C4C) programme examines how these principles play out in practice.

Humankind has been dealing with all kinds of disasters since the dawn of time. The risk and impact of disasters producing mass casualties worldwide is increasing, due partly to global warming as well as to increased population growth, increased density and the aging population. China, as a country with a large population, vast territory, and complex climatic and geographical conditions, has been plagued by all kinds of disasters. Disaster health management has traditionally been a relatively arcane discipline within public health. However, SARS, Avian Influenza, and earthquakes and floods, along with the need to be better prepared for the Olympic Games in China has brought disasters, their management and their potential for large scale health consequences on populations to the attention of the public, the government and the international community alike. As a result significant improvements were made to the disaster management policy framework, as well as changes to systems and structures to incorporate an improved disaster management focus. This involved the upgrade of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) throughout China to monitor and better control the health consequences particularly of infectious disease outbreaks. However, as can be seen in the Southern China Snow Storm and Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008, there remains a lack of integrated disaster management and efficient medical rescue, which has been costly in terms of economics and health for China. In the context of a very large and complex country, there is a need to better understand whether these changes have resulted in effective management of the health impacts of such incidents. To date, the health consequences of disasters, particularly in China, have not been a major focus of study. The main aim of this study is to analyse and evaluate disaster health management policy in China and in particular, its ability to effectively manage the health consequences of disasters. Flood has been selected for this study as it is a common and significant disaster type in China and throughout the world. This information will then be used to guide conceptual understanding of the health consequences of floods. A secondary aim of the study is to compare disaster health management in China and Australia as these countries differ in their length of experience in having a formalised policy response. The final aim of the study is to determine the extent to which Walt and Gilson’s (1994) model of policy explains how disaster management policy in China was developed and implemented after SARS in 2003 to the present day. This study has utilised a case study methodology. A document analysis and literature search of Chinese and English sources was undertaken to analyse and produce a chronology of disaster health management policy in China. Additionally, three detailed case studies of flood health management in China were undertaken along with three case studies in Australia in order to examine the policy response and any health consequences stemming from the floods. A total of 30 key international disaster health management experts were surveyed to identify fundamental elements and principles of a successful policy framework for disaster health management. Key policy ingredients were identified from the literature, the case-studies and the survey of experts. Walt and Gilson (1994)’s policy model that focuses on the actors, content, context and process of policy was found to be a useful model for analysing disaster health management policy development and implementation in China. This thesis is divided into four parts. Part 1 is a brief overview of the issues and context to set the scene. Part 2 examines the conceptual and operational context including the international literature, government documents and the operational environment for disaster health management in China. Part 3 examines primary sources of information to inform the analysis. This involves two key studies: • A comparative analysis of the management of floods in China and Australia • A survey of international experts in the field of disaster management so as to inform the evaluation of the policy framework in existence in China and the criteria upon which the expression of that policy could be evaluated Part 4 describes the key outcomes of this research which include: • A conceptual framework for describing the health consequences of floods • A conceptual framework for disaster health management • An evaluation of the disaster health management policy and its implementation in China. The research outcomes clearly identified that the most significant improvements are to be derived from improvements in the generic management of disasters, rather than the health aspects alone. Thus, the key findings and recommendations tend to focus on generic issues. The key findings of this research include the following: • The health consequences of floods may be described in terms of time as ‘immediate’, ‘medium term’ and ‘long term’ and also in relation to causation as ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ consequences of the flood. These two aspects form a matrix which in turn guides management responses. • Disaster health management in China requires a more comprehensive response throughout the cycle of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery but it also requires a more concentrated effort on policy implementation to ensure the translation of the policy framework into effective incident management. • The policy framework in China is largely of international standard with a sound legislative base. In addition the development of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has provided the basis for a systematic approach to health consequence management. However, the key weaknesses in the current system include: o The lack of a key central structure to provide the infrastructure with vital support for policy development, implementation and evaluation. o The lack of well-prepared local response teams similar to local government based volunteer groups in Australia. • The system lacks structures to coordinate government action at the local level. The result of this is a poorly coordinated local response and lack of clarity regarding the point at which escalation of the response to higher levels of government is advisable. These result in higher levels of risk and negative health impacts. The key recommendations arising from this study are: 1. Disaster health management policy in China should be enhanced by incorporating disaster management considerations into policy development, and by requiring a disaster management risk analysis and disaster management impact statement for development proposals. 2. China should transform existing organizations to establish a central organisation similar to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the USA or the Emergency Management Australia (EMA) in Australia. This organization would be responsible for leading nationwide preparedness through planning, standards development, education and incident evaluation and to provide operational support to the national and local government bodies in the event of a major incident. 3. China should review national and local plans to reflect consistency in planning, and to emphasize the advantages of the integrated planning process. 4. Enhance community resilience through community education and the development of a local volunteer organization. China should develop a national strategy which sets direction and standards in regard to education and training, and requires system testing through exercises. Other initiatives may include the development of a local volunteer capability with appropriate training to assist professional response agencies such as police and fire services in a major incident. An existing organisation such as the Communist Party may be an appropriate structure to provide this response in a cost effective manner. 5. Continue development of professional emergency services, particularly ambulance, to ensure an effective infrastructure is in place to support the emergency response in disasters. 6. Funding for disaster health management should be enhanced, not only from government, but also from other sources such as donations and insurance. It is necessary to provide a more transparent mechanism to ensure the funding is disseminated according to the needs of the people affected. 7. Emphasis should be placed on prevention and preparedness, especially on effective disaster warnings. 8. China should develop local disaster health management infrastructure utilising existing resources wherever possible. Strategies for enhancing local infrastructure could include the identification of local resources (including military resources) which could be made available to support disaster responses. It should develop operational procedures to access those resources. Implementation of these recommendations should better position China to reduce the significant health consequences experienced each year from major incidents such as floods and to provide an increased level of confidence to the community about the country’s capacity to manage such events.

Individuals, endowments, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds constantly face portfolio management decisions ultimately affecting the lives of billions. This dissertation addresses two crucial challenges in the context of portfolio management which are to identify the optimal portfolio at any given point in time and to transition the portfolio accordingly. The first essay considers the dynamic consumption/portfolio allocation problem and develops solution techniques allowing us to identify the optimal portfolio allocation (between a risky and risk-free asset) and consumption level over time. Deciding how much to consume, versus how much to save is a question affecting nearly everyone. This essay develops two perturbation methods that yield approximate closed-form solutions to dynamic portfolio allocation/consumption problems under general preferences and a time-varying investment opportunity set. These solution methods are illustrated with examples involving time-varying expected returns, volatility, and interest rates. The second essay examines this monolithic "risky asset" more closely, developing a robust diversification method to define the optimal allocation of assets within the risky portfolio component. This diversification method relies solely on the covariance structure of the investment opportunity set which can be much more precisely estimated than expected returns. Using this new approach leads to an alternative to the mean-variance efficient set of portfolios as traditionally implemented. The resulting optimally diversified portfolio equalizes the correlation between each asset and the overall portfolio. This approach provides individuals and institutions with a robust and stable asset allocation rule which avoids the typical over-concentrations associated with substantial losses during market downturns. The third essay analyzes the question of how to optimally transition a portfolio from one set of allocations to another in the face of transaction costs (which are quantity-sensitive) and a penalty (utility) function for not holding the target portfolio. This improves on existing models by allowing for portfolio mandates that may not be mean-variance efficient, e.g., if they are sub-portfolios and do not represent the total wealth of an investor, or if political or reputational concerns lead to restricting investments. This essay identifies a formula for the optimal rebalancing path and shows that there are several general factors influencing this path.

The police profession is viewed as one of the most stressful occupations in the world. Police officers are responsible for handling calls for service, serving and protecting the community, enforcing laws, and preventing and solving crimes. These responsibilities along with many others can become overwhelming and lead to police stress and trauma. Police stress has been linked to adverse effects on the performances and health of police officers. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to describe the internal and external factors of police stress through their lived experiences as police officers, and the stress management techniques used by police departments to treat police stress. The theoretical framework was based on Kingdon's multiple streams approach. The research questions were designed to examine the factors of police stress and the treatments offered by police departments to help officers manage police stress. Data were collected through surveys and interviews with 15 police officers and 2 human resources department employees from 2 police departments in a southern state. Quantitative results from the surveys were analyzed using Intellectus Statistics software. Qualitative results from the face to face interviews were organized and analyzed using Nvivo 12. The findings indicated that death, time away from family, and trust were main stress factors affecting officers and that Employee Assistance Programs were treatments police departments offer to officers to help manage stress. The implications for social change is improving police officer job performance, the overall mental and physical health of police officers as well as strengthening police-citizen relationships.

The study sought to evaluate debt management policy implementation towards revenue management in government leased properties of the Eastern Cape Provincial Treasury at the Transkei Development and Reserve Fund. Secondly, the study aimed at developing a tool for assisting policy-makers and officials involved in debt management and revenue collection. In order to address the research problem, a case study involving randomly selected 27 employees from the Eastern Cape Provincial Treasury and housing ward committee members was adopted. Self-administered questionnaires and interviews were the two data collection techniques utilised. All participants were involved in the study during tea and lunch breaks at the workplace; this constituted the employees’ natural environment. Both quantitative and qualitative designs were utilised in analysing data. Descriptive statistical analysis using excel was utilised to summarise the responses, analyse the demographic profiles of participants and their responses. The results were thus presented in the form of bar charts. Responses which could not be analysed using statistics were analysed qualitatively thus the advantages inherent in the two approaches were exploited. The evidence from the study suggests that government operational employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities as they relate to debt management and debt collection policy. The development of debt management policy promotes rental collection, improve property profitability and ensure the maintenance is in place to improve attractiveness of the government properties.

This thesis explores the hypothesis that the existing statutory and regulatory framework relating to redundancy and pensions relating to redundancy and pensions encourage employers to adopt workforce reduction strategies that discriminate against older workers. In testing this thesis primary data were collected utilising a case study approach, studies being carried out at three of the Big Four high street banks to identify their workforce reduction strategies and the factors shaping them. It is argued that three main factors encourage employers to adopt workforce reduction strategies that have particular implications for older workers: the existing legal and regulatory framework relating to redundancy, which is perceived by employers to threaten their ability to control the redundancy selection process; the existence of pension funds and the statutory and regulatory framework relating to pensions, which enables the cost implications of redundancy to be alleviated or eliminated, and a desire by employers to avoid disruption and conflict, which has led to the preferences of unions and financial market analysts being taken into account. It is argued that these factors have encouraged the use of early exit schemes, which has concentrated redundancies on older workers. Age prejudice experienced by older workers makes it difficult for them to re-enter the labour market and those aged 50 and over remain unemployed for longer than any other age group. This has led to what has been referred to as a collapse in employment amongst older workers and an increase in economic inactivity, as older men in particular, withdraw from the labour market, preferring to be labelled retired as opposed to unemployed. Taken together with existing and projected demographic change, the economic and social implications of high rates of economic inactivity amongst older workers has brought about a policy shift towards older workers generally. Supply-side responses in the UK have been statutorily based, with key objectives being to encourage inactive older workers to return to the labour market and to make it less attractive for them to remain economically inactive. Meanwhile, demand-side responses have been ambivalent and have concentrated on a succession of voluntary campaigns to encourage employers to value diversity and to retain and recruit older workers. It is argued that the statutory and regulatory frameworks relating to redundancy and pensions have not been reformed, and voluntary campaigns have done little to displace employer and trade union preferences for exit strategies that disproportionally affect older workers. Demand-side responses are increasingly being affected by European Union policy. In particular, by the Employment Guidelines, which encourage the promotion of social inclusion throughout the European Union. Most recently the Framework Directive has come into force, reflecting supra-national policy concerns about early exit from the labour market and the economic and social implications of high levels of economic inactivity amongst older workers. This thesis offers a theoretical and empirical contribution to the public policy debate on early exit from the labour market at a time when the UK Government is contemplating embarking on consultations over specific legislation regarding age discrimination. As the implications of demographic change begin to affect employment policy, the thesis also informs the debate on the more general policy issues surrounding the length of working life.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 1999.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-184).
by Sawan P. Deshpande.
S.M.M.O.T.

Bibliography: leaves 24-27.
This paper aims to tease out and unpack the different value positions that inhere in the range of discourses and methods that currently permeate the field of climate change. In doing so, I will examine the underlying concepts, methods and their application by various actors and institutions.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1991.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-154).
by Joowan Kim.
Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1991.

Hospitals have always faced fundamental questions of patient safety, care, and budgetary concerns. There has been increasing recognition recently of the serious issue of medical devices management, covering the areas of procurement, training, maintenance, and governance. This issue, documented by the National Audit Office, National Patient Safety Agency, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, National Health Service Litigation Authority, and World Health Organisation, impacts on healthcare costs and patient safety. It has led to new Health and Social Care Act Regulations, enforced by the Care Quality Commission. As a result of my work as a consultant in the field of medical devices management, I constructed a policy model based on my own specialist experience and knowledge. This research sought to improve that model through participatory research conducted at an NHS Hospital in London. It took the form of a case study that specifically explored the core policy areas, but this time in collaboration with participants with expertise in one or more of the four interrelated policy areas of procurement, training, maintenance, and governance. This collaboration involved researching and analysing the external demands from regulatory agencies and internal demands from the organisation, centred on procurement, budgetary, and policy issues. The action research informed changes in policy, especially around procurement, leading to improvements in practice. The challenge of keeping policy up to date, and consistent with the external regulations and internal operational demands, is discussed in the case study. The Hospital’s internal politics and culture were found to be a help when starting up the case study, but a hindrance when it came to getting agreement and approvals to change the policy content, because of multiple committees and competing interests. The overall outcome of the project was an organisationally approved best practice policy model for medical devices management within a governance framework that meets the needs of the external regulators, and the management of the organisation. More specifically it was discovered that the use, maintenance, and governance of medical equipment were all reliant on a central issue, namely procurement practice. Procurement conduct for the organisation was redefined within the Hospital policy, and is making training, maintenance, and governance easier to achieve, thereby reducing risk and cost. A major consequence is that all budget holders need to be trained in procurement itself. Moreover, it is anticipated that the model could be used at similar healthcare organisations, ultimately leading to a contribution to knowledge and practice which assists in patient safety and meeting budgets.