Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Providing access'

This study examines the potential contribution market research could make to planning urban farm locations. Substantial research identifies access to healthy foods as a significant barrier for under-served communities. Under-served communities are those struggling with food insecurity, poor nutrition and poor community cohesion. Urban farm locations could be more strategically planned to connect healthy food access and other secondary benefits to these vulnerable communities. This market research based methodology is applied to Portland, Oregon, using GIS data to map where future urban farms should be placed. The final product of this study is a prioritized list of potentially suitable sites in Portland, Oregon, for a future urban farm. This methodology could be applied in other urban areas to increase access to healthy foods among under-served communities.

This master thesis was conducted during an internship at HBT GmbH with the purpose of providing access to an existing public transport schedule system in Hamburg (Germany) for smart phone clients. A state-of-the-art literature review and an evaluation of an existing SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) based web service to access public transport schedule information were conducted to identify the drawbacks of the existing interface with respect to the limitations and characteristics of smart phone clients. One of the main drawbacks is that the use of SOAP based web services and the associated data exchange format XML introduces a high amount of overhead that has to be transmitted between client and server. Additionally the information that is returned from the existing SOAP web service is not adjusted to the needs of smart phone clients. Based on these drawbacks recommendations are given how to implement an interface which provides an improved access to public transport schedule information for smart phone clients. These recommendations include the identification of public transport information that is most relevant for smart phone clients as well as to use REST (Representational State Transfer) web services and the data formats JSON and Fast Infoset for the implementation. To quantify the improvements that were achieved by accessing a newly implemented REST web service in terms of transferred data volume, request-response time and serialisation/deserialisation time a performance test was conducted. Therefore a native iPhone application was developed which accesses the existing SOAP based web service and the newly implemented REST style web service. The performance test showed that the use of the implemented REST web service to access public transport information from smart phone clients leads to a significant improvement in contrast to the existing SOAP based web service.

Program Objective: to train rural physicians how to use PDAs and the ePocrates database Setting: Tennessee rural critical access hospitals Participants: physicians Program: This patient safety initiative was a collaboration between the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA) and the Universities of Southern Maine, Minnesota, and North Dakota, and the Maine Rural Health Research Center, Upper Midwest Rural Health Research Center, QSource (Tennessee QIO), eight small rural Tennessee hospitals and BlueCross/BlueShield of Tennessee (funder). Because of THA’s knowledge of the East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine Library (QCOML) through state conferences, QCOML was asked to conduct the training for the PDA segment of the project. Main Results: The goal was to provide a PDA for every hospital prescriber in eight small rural Tennessee hospitals. The project provided a Palm TX device, a two year subscription to the full suite of ePocrates software and training. One hundred-thirty clinicians were trained in PDA/ePocrates. Retraining was provided at each site as needed. Evaluation: evaluation was conducted by a 4–6 month user’s survey, usage data from ePocrates (sync, look-ups) and evaluation based on the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Survey. Conclusion: Physicians were pleased with the PDAs and indicated that the devices positively influenced their patient care. This type of cooperative venture exposes the talents of medical librarians to new populations and opens up opportunities for further collaboration.

The U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) recently published a document presenting "Grand Challenges for Engineering". This list was proposed by leading engineers and scientists from around the world at the request of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Fourteen topics were selected for these grand challenges, and at least seven can be addressed using the tools and methods of biological engineering. Here we describe how biological engineers can address the challenge of providing access to clean drinking water. This issue must be addressed in part by removing or inactivating microbial and chemical contaminants in order to properly deliver water safe for human consumption. Despite many advances in technologies this challenge is expanding due to increased pressure on fresh water supplies and to new opportunities for growth of potentially pathogenic organisms.

Signing skills of currently employed teachers of the deaf frequently lack the level of proficiency desired for their profession and continue to be largely underappreciated. A fuller understanding of American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language is necessary for the teachers who have learned the signed language after English as a first language and native language. The acquisition of ASL as a first language with young deaf children serves as a basis for the description and assessment of signed language proficiency involved. The structural pattern of ASL as occurred in two different classroom discourses are specifically examined based on the literature of first and second language acquisition. The relationship of ASL proficiency and classroom discourse also allow for assessing the effects of signing skills on the accessibility of the curriculum for deaf students.

Today, energy access is a significant challenge all over the world, particularly in African countries. At the same time, providing energy access is generally accepted as a way to promote sustainable development. In countries such as Uganda, lack of energy access is evident. In this country only 9% of households have access to electricity. About 87% of these households are located in rural and remote areas. Thus, off-grid rural electrification solutions are required to supply electricity services to a significant part of the population.The ultimate objective of this thesis is to propose a specific solution to cover basic energy needs of the rural population considering environmental, social and economic benefits. How can sustainable life solutions be provided in rural areas, by using the energy surplus from a decentralized small-scale biomass gasification power plant? The analysis used as a starting point the Green Plant Concept, which considers the design of a sustainable off-grid platform that produces energy to provide life solutions and also to excite local entrepreneurship in the rural sites where it is implemented. The concept implies participation of the private sector – a telecommunication company – which is a unique feature in the context of rural energization.To develop our analysis, a field trip has been conducted in Uganda, Africa, to answer sub-questions such as How to reach a cost-effective system? How to adapt a business oriented approach to the community’s life-style in order to be well accepted? How to foster the development of the area by having a positive socio-economic impact on society? How to create an environmental friendly solution? How to achieve the maximum efficiency in terms of reusing waste? Tools such as Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) and SWOT analysis were used to interpret collected information and identify impacts of the suggested solutions.The research has shown the great potential of the Green Plan Concept. We conclude by selecting three applications that can enhance the provision of basic energy needs while creating benefits for the stakeholders involved in the process: i) Mini-Grid solutions, ii) Battery Charging Stations and iii) Heat Pipe Exchangers. We also highlighted the relevance of bringing, in addition to appropriated technologies, different stakeholders together, considering their common interests.The research is finalized by estimating the payback period based on the current and expected energy consumption and the capital investment related to the suggested applications. It is important to highlight that the payback time estimations do not include the participation of the telecom companies. This means that the estimated payback period of 7 years could be significantly reduced by the inclusion of this stakeholder.

A día de hoy las federaciones de identidad para servicios web y para el acceso a la red están bastante asentadas y aceptadas. Pero, ¿qué ocurre con otros tipos de servicio que no soportan estas tecnologías? El objetivo de esta tesis es diseñar soluciones que permitan el establecimiento de federaciones de identidad más allá del Web, evitando los problemas que presentan las soluciones disponibles en el estado del arte. Para ello se han analizado y seleccionado un conjunto de tecnologías asociadas al control de acceso que, una vez integradas, proporcionan la funcionalidad completa deseada: • Kerberos, para realizar el control de acceso a los servicios de aplicación, dadas las grandes cualidades que presenta (seguro, ligero, SSO, etc.), su amplio despliegue y su gran rango de servicios y sistemas operativos soportados. • Infraestructuras AAA, para el soporte de federación, por su amplio uso para proporcionar acceso federado a la red (p.ej. eduroam). • SAML, para el soporte de autorización, por su gran historial de éxito y amplio despliegue en federaciones basadas en Web. Por tanto, el objetivo general de esta tesis puede expresarse como: Analizar, diseñar y validar soluciones que permitan a los usuarios obtener credenciales Kerberos para un proveedor de servicios específico, como resultado de un proceso de autenticación realizado a través de una federación AAA y de un proceso de autorización basado en el intercambio de sentencias SAML con la organización origen. Este objetivo se ha abordado de tres formas diferentes, dependiendo del escenario de uso, dando lugar a tres sub-objetivos más específicos: 1. Diseñar una solución que permita la generación de credenciales Kerberos mediante la integración directa de las infraestructuras Kerberos y AAA en el proveedor de servicios. 2. Diseñar una solución que permita la generación de credenciales Kerberos mediante el uso de un protocolo auxiliar (out-of-band) que haga uso de la infraestructura AAA para autenticar al usuario. 3. Diseñar una solución que permita la generación de credenciales Kerberos como consecuencia del proceso de autenticación federada en la red. Además, se definen los siguientes sub-objetivos transversales: 4. Diseñar un modelo de autorización que permita la distribución de información de autorización a través de la infraestructura AAA. 5. Validar las soluciones diseñadas mediante modelos analíticos e implementación de prototipos. A fin de cumplir con estos objetivos, esta tesis define tres soluciones al problema planteado: • FedKERB integra las infraestructuras Kerberos y AAA mediante la definición un nuevo mecanismo de pre-autenticación para Kerberos basado en tecnologías como GSS-API y EAP (objetivo 1). Además, incluye la posibilidad de realizar una autorización avanzada mediante la generación y el transporte de una sentencia SAML desde el IdP de la organización origen hasta la infraestructura Kerberos del proveedor de servicios (objetivo 4). • PanaKERB define una alternativa a FedKERB que no requiere la modificación del mecanismo de pre-autenticación de Kerberos, sino que utiliza un protocolo out-of-band con soporte nativo para infraestructuras AAA (en este caso PANA) para realizar la autenticación federada del usuario (objetivo 2). • EduKERB proporciona una arquitectura cross-layer que integra Kerberos con la autenticación realizada durante el acceso a la red (basada en AAA), mediante la utilización de un nuevo mecanismo de pre-autenticación para Kerberos que utiliza el resultado de una ejecución EAP exitosa previa (objetivo 3). Además, esta tesis proporciona un análisis funcional y de rendimiento de las contribuciones (objetivo 5), consistente en la definición de un modelo teórico de rendimiento, la implementación de prototipos para demostrar su viabilidad y la medición de su rendimiento real, basado en la ejecución de estos prototipos. De este análisis se han extraído dos conclusiones principales. En primer lugar, las tres propuestas presentan tiempos de ejecución aceptables (es decir, similares a los que se dan durante el acceso a la red, que sirve como referencia). Además, al haberse implementado y ejecutado en un entorno real, su viabilidad real queda demostrada.
Nowadays identity federations for web applications and for the network access service are widely used and accepted. But, what happens with other kind of applications that do not support these technologies? The objective of this thesis is designing solutions to allow establishing identity federations beyond the web, avoiding the issues shown by the state of the art alternatives. For doing that, this thesis has analyzed and selected a set of technologies associated to access control. These technologies, once integrated, provide the totality of the desired functionality. • Kerberos, to perform the access control to application services, given the great features it has (secure, lightweight, SSO, etc.), its wide deployment, and its extensive range of supported applications and operating systems. • AAA infrastructures, to provide federation substrate, given their wide usage to provide federated access to the network service (e.g. eduroam). • SAML, to provide support for authorization, due to its great history of success and wide deployment for web-based federations. Hence, the general objective of this PhD thesis can be expressed as: To analyse, design, and validate solutions that enable end users to bootstrap Kerberos credentials for a specific service provider, as the result of an authentication process conducted through the AAA-based federation, and an authorization process based on the exchange of SAML statements with the home organization. This objective has been approached in the different ways, depending on the target scenario, and resulting into three more specific sub-objectives: 1. To design a solution allowing the bootstrapping of Kerberos credentials by means of the integration of the Kerberos and AAA infrastructures in the service provider. 2. To design a solution enabling the bootstrapping of Kerberos credentials by means of an auxiliary protocol (out-of-band) which makes use of the AAA infrastructure to authenticate the end user. 3. To design a solution enabling the bootstrapping of Kerberos credentials as a result of the federated authentication to the network service. Besides, the following transversal sub-objectives are defined: 1. To design an authorization model enabling the distribution of authorization information through the AAA infrastructure. 1. To validate the designed solutions by means of analytical models and prototype implementations. In order to accomplish with these objectives, this PhD thesis defines three solutions to the problem stated problem: • FedKERB integrates the Kerberos and AAA infrastructures by means of the definition of a new pre-authentication mechanism for Kerberos based on GSS-API and EAP (objective 1). Besides, it includes the possibility of performing advanced authorization based on the generation and transport of a SAML assertion from the IdP in the home organization to the Kerberos infrastructure in the service provide (objective 4). • PanaKERB defines an alternative to FedKERB that does not require the modification of the Kerberos pre-authentication mechanism. Instead, it makes use of an out-of-band protocol with native support for AAA infrastructures (i.e. PANA) to perform the federated authentication of the end user (objective 2). • EduKERB provides a cross-layer architecture integrating Kerberos with the authentication process performed during the network access process (based on AAA), by means of a new pre-authentication mechanism that makes use of the results of a successful previous EAP authentication (objective 3). Besides, this PhD thesis provides a functional and performance analysis of the aforementioned contributions (objective 5), consisting of the definition of a theoretical performance model, the implementation of prototypes to demonstrate their feasibility, and the actual performance measurement based on these prototypes. To major conclusions have been extracted from the results of this analysis. On the one hand, the three contributions have shown reasonable execution times (i.e. similar to the ones shown for the network access service, used as a reference). Besides, since they have been implemented and executed in a real environment, they feasibility has been proven.

Introduction. The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine and interpret the role of the concept accessibility in the function of the public library in Sweden. Method. A qualitative method is used to carry out semi-structured interview with public library staff. A connection between the concept accessibility and regulatory documents is also made. Analysis. Through a hermeneutical approach and an understanding of accessibility in the Swedish language and a larger political context, an interpretation and analysis is done. The concept is mainly understood through its social, spatial and comprehensive aspects. Accessibility is also interpetreted through an active aspect. Results. The mission to create a library that is ”accessible for all”, as it is formulated in Swedish library law, is in many ways internalised in the organisation. Social accessibility is a way to make users feel welcome, and the staff plays the function of a portal to the library. Accessibility, as a feeling or an experience, through the interpretation of the individual, is shown to be important from the point of view of library staff. This subjective feeling interplays with the universal principle ”accessibility for all” and how the concept is tied to practical functions. Conclusion. Accessibility, as it is understood through an universal principle, creates an ”interpetrative space”, where fulfilling an equal access to the public library can be problematic. The study shows it’s the users interpetration of what the function the public library has is what steers its function and in turn its accessibility. It creates an interpetrative space where the public library can be constructed and function in different ways which makes the universal principle of equal access hard to uphold. This means a public library that is ”accessible for all” can be understood as a library that is in constant change to reach this goal.  This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

This work outlines the history of Access Courses and explains the National quality assurance framework established to co-ordinate standards within such provision. The National Framework consists of a number of Authorised Validating Agencies (AVAs) who have been empowered to validate Access provision subject to various quality assurance mechanisms. The quality assurance requirements of AVAs are generalised and the effects they have, in terms of costs and benefits, to a number of stakeholders are detailed. Key stakeholders identified are the providing institution, students, and higher education institutions. The general principles of cost-benefit analysis are outlined along with case study examples. A computer-based model is produced with the capability of manipulating the generalisable costbenefit factors to accommodate local conditions and could therefore be used as a decision support aid by the three key stakeholder groups. The application of the model beyond the case studies is also discussed. The problematic nature of applying cost-benefit analysis to the quality assurance mechanisms of Access Courses is also considered. Areas where further research is required are outlined.

L'authentification est une pré-condition pour fournir de la sécurité dans les réseaux ad hoc. Afin de définir une solution d'autehtification adaptée aux caractéristiques de ces réseaux, nous faisons, dans cette thèse, une analyse approfondie des solutions existantes et de la façon dont elles ont été adaptées pour satisfaire aux contraintes des réseaux ad hoc. Cela permet d'identifier leurs limitations ainsi que les problèmes à résoudre. Nous proposons alors une première solution qui résout certains d'entre eux. Cette solution est améliorée dans une seconde solution qui permet, en outre, à chaque noeud de gérer seul ses paires de clefs. L'authenticité des clefs publiques ainsi générées peut être vérifiée sans accéder à une tierce entité. Finalement, nous utilisons cette solution pour définir trois applications sécurisées qui, d'une part, illustrent le fait qu'elle permet de fournir tout service de sécurité et qui, d'autre part, permettent de générer des revenus dans les réseaux ad hoc. La première application permet aux utilisateurs d'acheter des ressources multimédias dans des réseaux ad hoc. La non-répudiation est fournie afin de garantir qu'à la fin de toute transaction l'acheteur reçoit la ressource acheté, est capable de la visionner ou de l'écouter et que le vendeur sera rémunéré. La seconde application permet à des véhicules d'échanger anonymement des informations de sureté et dévaluer leurs fiabilités. Finalement, la troisième application permet aux noeuds de négocier et fournir un accès à un réseau fixe en empêchant toute fraude. Les performances de la solution, sur laquelle reposent ces applications, montrent qu'elle peut être utilisée par des appareils mobiles
Entity authentification is a precondition to provide secure services in ad hoc networks. In order to define an entity authentification solution that suits the characteristics of ad hoc networks, we do an in-depth analysis of existing authentification solutions and how they have been adapted to work in mobile ad hoc networks. This permits to identify their limitations as well as the problems that still need to be solved. We then propose a first solution that solves these remaining problems. It is improved in a second solution that additionally permits each node to manage alone its cryptographic key pairs. The authenticity of such generated public keys can be verified without accessing any third party. We finally use this improved solution to define three secured applications that first highlight how that solution can be used to fulfil various security requirements and that second permits to generate some revenues in ad hoc networks. The first application permits individuals to buy some multimedia resources in ad hoc networks. Non-repudiation is provided to guarantee that at the end of a transaction the buying node receives the resource it has bought and is able to view or play it. It is further provided to guarantee that the selling node is sure that it will be paid for having sold the resource. The second application permits vehicles to exchange anonymously some safety information and to evaluate the reliability of this information. The third application finally permits nodes to negociate and provide the access to a fixed network in a way that avoids defrauding. The performances of the improved solution, on wich these applications rely, show that it can be used on mobile device

Le support de qualité de service (QoS) dans les réseaux MANETs (Mobile Ad-Hoc NETworks) a attiré une grande attention ces dernières années. Bien que beaucoup de travaux de recherche ont été consacré pour offrir la QoS dans les réseaux filaires et cellulaires, les solutions de QoS pour le support du trafic temps réel dans les MANET reste l'un des domaines de recherche les plus difficiles et les moins explorés. En fait, les applications temps réel telles que la voix et la vidéo ne pourrait pas fonctionner correctement dans les MANET sans l'utilisation d'un protocole de contrôle d'accès au support (MAC) orienté QoS. En effet, les trafics temps réel demandent des exigences strictes en termes de délai de transmission et de taux de perte de paquets qui peuvent être remplies uniquement si la sous-couche MAC fournit un délai d'accès au canal borné, et un faible taux de collision. Le but de cette thèse est la proposition et l'analyse d'un protocole MAC basé sur la réservation pour garantir la QoS dans les MANETs. Tout d'abord, nous étudions un problème majeur dans la réservation de ressources dans les MANETs qui est la cohérence des réservations. Notre analyse des protocoles de réservation existant pour les MANETs révèle que de nombreux conflits de réservations entre les nœuds voisins se produisent pendant la phase d'établissement de réservation. Ces conflits, qui sont principalement dues à la collision des messages de contrôle de réservation, ont un impact important sur les performances du protocole de réservation, et conduisent à un taux de collision et de perte de paquet importants pendant la durée de vie de la connexion, ce qui n'est pas acceptable pour les trafics temps réels. Nous proposons un nouveau protocole MAC basé sur la réservation qui résout ces conflits. Le principe de notre protocole est d'établir une meilleure coordination entre les nœuds voisins afin d'assurer la cohérence des réservations. Ainsi, avant de considérer qu'une réservation est réussite, le protocole s'assure que chaque message de contrôle envoyé par un nœud pour établir une réservation est bien reçu par tous ses nœuds voisins. Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse, nous appliquons le protocole de réservation proposé au trafic de type voix. Ainsi, nous étendons ce protocole afin de prendre en compte les caractéristiques du trafic voix, tout en permettant le transport de trafic de données. .
QoS provisioning over Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) has attracted a great attention in recent years. While much research effort has been devoted to provide QoS over wired and cellular networks, QoS solutions for the support of real-time traffic over MANETs remains one of the most challenging and least explored areas. In fact, real-time applications such as voice and video could not function properly on MANETs without a QoS oriented medium access control (MAC) scheme. Indeed, real-time traffics claim strict requirements in terms of transmission delay and packet dropping that can be fulfilled only if the MAC sub-layer provides bounded channel access delay, and low collision rate. The purpose of this thesis is the proposal and analysis of an efficient reservation MAC protocol to provide QoS support over MANETs. Firstly, we study one major issue in resource reservation for MANETs which is reservation consistency. Our analysis of existing reservation MAC protocols for MANETs reveals that many reservation conflicts between neighbor nodes occur during the reservation establishment phase. These conflicts which are mainly due to collisions of reservation control messages, have an important impact on the performance of the reservation protocol, and lead to a significant collision and loss of packets during the life-time of the connection, which is not acceptable for real-time traffics. We design a new reservation MAC protocol that resolves these conflicts. The main principle of our protocol is to achieve better coordination between neighbor nodes in order to ensure consistency of reservations. Thus, before considering a reservation as successful, the protocol tries to ensure that each reservation control message transmitted by a node is successfully received by all its neighbors. In the second part of this thesis, we apply the proposed reservation protocol to voice traffic. .

碩士
國立交通大學
資訊管理研究所
102
The Near Field Communication and related mobile applications have received a growing world-wide attention. More and more NFC-enabled Smart phones are available, like Samsung Galaxy S III and Google Nexus, making mobile phones as electronic purse. Consumers can use cell phones to enter the transport gate as same as tickets. Moreover, NFC-enabled phone can be used like the credit card to pay the bills. 　　Before mobiles providing these services, an integrated platform will be needed for the management of mobile NFC services. Since the mobile service is a cross industry combined with mobile devices, telecom operator, banking financial, etc. The platform should manage multiple embedded applications on mobile phone and keep consumers’ privacy information in the security. Moreover, it is important to offering adequate services while user has authority to choose. 　　As a result, we proposed a platform which serves multiple actors and supports several business models based on NFC standards, and we also design a schema to protect the privacy of the information while client applying for new service and using them. Finally, we will build the integrated system on the mobile to simulate the real context of use, and use service-based access control to verify the different services.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Business Information Systems) -- Tshwane University of Technology, 2010.
This study addresses the key need for access to finance through ICT. A qualitative research approach with a multiple case study design was adopted to provide an in-depth understanding of the situation from the perspective of the development finance institutions (DFIs) providing financial support for small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs), as well as SMMEs that have been beneficiaries. After analysing the findings obtained from the interviews, survey and other sources, an e-finance model was developed. This model comprises three environments, namely the lending subsystem, the service consumer environment and the financial provider environment. The e-finance model is perceived as representing a new distribution channel (an add-on channel rather than a substitute) for the DFIs products and services and it offers a way of reaching a broader range of new clients. Moreover, it serves to improve the turnaround time of the application by automating the process and making it efficient and effective.

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in deployment and usage of realtime network applications, such as Voice-over-IP, video calls/video conferencing, live network seminars, and networked gaming. The continued increase in the popularity of realtime applications requires a more intense focus on the provision of strict guarantees for Quality of Service (QoS) parameters such as delay, jitter and packet loss in access networks. At the same time, wireless networking technologies have become increasingly popular with a wide array of devices such as laptop computers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and cellular phones being sold with built-in WiFi and WiMAX interfaces. For realtime applications to be popular over wireless networks, simple, robust and effective QoS mechanisms suited for a variety of heterogeneous wireless networks must be devised. Implementing the same QoS mechanisms across multiple neighbouring networks aids seamless handover by ensuring that a flow will be treated in the same way, both before and after handover. To provide guaranteed QoS, an access network should limit load using an admission control algorithm. In this research, we propose a method to provide effective admission control for variable bit rate realtime flows, based on the Central Limit Theorem. Our objective is to estimate the percentage of packets that will be delayed beyond a predefined delay threshold, based on the mean and variance of all the flows in the system. Any flow that will increase the percentage of delayed packets beyond an acceptable threshold can then be rejected. Using simulations we have shown that the proposed method provides a very effective control of the total system load, guaranteeing the QoS for a set of accepted flows with negligible reductions in the system throughput. To ensure that flow data is transmitted according to the QoS requirements of a flow, a scheduling algorithm must handle data intelligently. We propose methods to allow more efficient scheduling by utilising existing Medium Access Control mechanisms to exchange flow information. We also propose a method to determine the delay-dependent "value" of a packet based on the QoS requirements of the flow. Using this value in scheduling is shown to increase the number of packets sent before a predetermined deadline. We propose a measure of fairness in scheduling that is calculated according to how well each flow's QoS requirements are met. We then introduce a novel scheduling paradigm, Delay Loss Controlled-Earliest Deadline First (DLC-EDF), which is shown to provide better QoS for all flows compared to other scheduling mechanisms studied. We then study the performance of our admission control and scheduling methods working together, and propose a feedback mechanism that allows the admission control threshold to be tuned to maximise the efficient usage of available bandwidth in the network, while ensuring that the QoS requirements of all realtime flows are met. We also examine heterogeneous/vertical handover, providing an overview of the technologies supporting seamless handover. The issues studied in this area include a method of using the Signal to Noise Ratio to trigger handover in heterogeneous networks and QoS Mapping between heterogeneous networks. Our proposed method of QoS mapping establishes the minimum set of QoS parameters applicable to individual flows, and then maps these parameters into system parameter formats for both 802.11e and 802.16e networks.

The University of Arizona Library is a vital participant in the AgNIC Rangelands project and has contributed to the initiative in many ways. For example, in the mid-to-late 1990â s the Library digitized the backfiles of the Journal of Range Management for open access on the web. Funding and completing digitization projects such as this is a complicated process and requires many decisions along the way. This paper outlines the process taken by the Library to manage a more recent project to scan back issues of the journal Rangelands. It starts with the decision to develop a project plan and request funding from the National Agricultural Library (NAL). It continues on to describe negotiating agreements with project partners, the process for outsourcing of scanning, the design of the technical infrastructure needed to support digitized content, and issues of sustainability that any digital library encounters.

This study explored the benefits of providing supports to non-traditional students in accessing and completing post-secondary education. It focused on one access program, the Winnipeg Education Centre - Social Work Program (WEC-SWP). The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the following questions: (1) What supports at the WEC-SWP assisted non-traditional students in accessing and completing post-secondary education? (2) What benefits did these students acquire by completing a post-secondary degree? Identify personal, professional, economic, community, and society benefits. In addition, the research explored the barriers non-traditional students faced in accessing and participating in post-secondary education. The findings of the study indicated that the research participants faced barriers which prevented them from advancing their education. They required the three supports offered by WEC-SWP: financial, academic, and personal counselling to access and graduate with a degree in Social Work. Aftergraduation, the participants benefited personally by developing self-confidence, self-esteem, respect, pride, and a healthy, holistic lifestyle. Professionally, they have access to careers rather than jobs which allows freedom, independence, creativity, and satisfaction. A degree provided a full time position and an adequate income to sustain a comfortable lifestyle. These participants are positive role models and change agents within their communities. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Increasing the independence of students with disabilities involves an in-depth assessment of their inclusion in driver’s education. This study addresses (a) the plight of disabled students within the state of New Jersey who are unable to access driver’s education, despite the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act; (b) the need to evaluate the potential role of health educators in conducting individualized health assessments to determine the readiness, motivation, and self-efficacy of students with disabilities to participate in driver’s education; (c) the perceived benefits and barriers to the participation of students with disabilities in driver’s education including the need for individually tailored accommodations; and (d) whether the goal of driving is appropriate and accessible for students with disabilities. A case-study approach was used in this research to evaluate the innovative practice of school health educators conducting individualized health assessments of current students and some graduates of the study-site university. The school implemented the described innovation during the academic years of 2007-08 and 2008-09. This research was also designed with a mixed-method approach including quantitative data limited to frequencies and percentages and qualitative data collected from student interviews. The findings indicate that the ability of students with disabilities to drive is beneficial to their quality of life. Driving significantly impacts the self-esteem, independence, and personal freedom of this population, as well as their overall freedom to travel.

Presented at the 2016 American Libraries Association Annual Conference
The University of Arizona (UA) Libraries has been providing GIS services and access to geospatial data since the 1990's, first by providing access to US Federal Depository Program geospatial data on CD-ROMs and DVDs, later through the Arizona Electronic Atlas and more recently the UA Institutional Repository (UAiR) and the UA Campus Repository. Focus groups with faculty and staff confirmed our view that neither the UAiR nor the Campus Repository meet the needs of the UA's GIS community. To address their needs, the UA Libraries investigated various solutions for developing a geospatial data portal that would facilitate discovery, access, sharing, and retrieval of distributed geospatial data resources and consolidate several repositories at the University into one accessible and modern interface. An inventory was completed, interviews were conducted with relevant campus stakeholders and geospatial data portal managers at various academic libraries, and various options were investigated. Based on several factors, the UA decided to implement Open Geoportal (http://www.opengeoportal.org), a collaboratively developed, open source, federated web application for discovering, previewing, and retrieving geospatial data from multiple repositories. The UA Libraries released the resulting geospatial data portal, Spatial Data Explorer (SDE), in the fall 2015. In anticipation of the release, a survey was conducted in spring 2015 of faculty, staff, and students to gauge interest in contributing data to the SDE. The poster will include why we decided to implement Open Geoportal, screen shots showing the SDE interface and functionality, results of the survey and follow-up interviews with potential contributors, and use statistics.

This presentation was one of several presentations delivered at the First International Open Access Day event held on October 14, 2008 at UBC. In support of the open access movement, the UBC Library joined with SPARC, PLoS (Public Library of Science), and Students for FreeCulture along with 65 other institutions in celebration of this worldwide event.

Computing and communications technologies are becoming increasingly central to the way faculty at universities carry out their educational mission. Little is known about how faculty are taking into account the needs of their students with disabilities when integrating technology into their courses. A survey (Fichten, Asuncion, Barile, Fossey & DeSimone, 2000) of a small number of faculty found that professors generally do not know what to do to ensure that students with disabilities have full access to electronic course material or how access problems can be solved. The sample for this exploratory study consisted of 344 full-time and part-time Concordia University faculty, identified as having students with disabilities enrolled in their courses during the 2003-2004 academic year. Two intricately related components composed this study: a faculty survey (with a return rate of 34.3%), and follow-up semi-structured interviews with 30 faculty. The present study further explored training over internet, listservs, e-mail, or CD-ROM that can be provided in various self-paced formats. Findings of interest included: 81 out of 101 respondents (80.2%) reported that they had not considered the needs of these students, while 12 respondents (11.8%) indicated that they had partially taken into account the needs of their students with disabilities. A small group of 8 faculty (7.9%) definitely took into account the needs of their students with disabilities. However, the present study also revealed that there is a willingness by faculty to be trained in this area. When questioned about their preferred medium for interactive training, most respondents chose more than one. The most popular category chosen by 98 out of 114 respondents was a website (85.0%) followed by printed material selected by 94 respondents (82.2%) and CD-Rom chosen by 93 instructors (81.6%). 91 respondents (79.8%) indicated a combination of the three mentioned above. For those who chose other and gave examples, a common specification by them was a trainer. Practical strategic implications for those involved in providing support to faculty adopting educational technology are outlined and discussed Recommendations for future research are provided

碩士
國立中興大學
化學系所
107
A copper(I)-mediated denitrogenative reaction has been successfully developed for the preparation of many important organic molecules. In this study, the synthesis of thioimidates has developed via the copper(I)-catalyzed three-component reaction. The reaction of sulfonyl azide, terminal alkynes, and thiols were catalyzed by copper(I) iodide in dichloromethane at room temperature, including optimized base selection of 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP), afforded substituted thioimidates. Moreover, various thiols were simply prepared from substituted thioacetates, which were deprotected by Dy(OTf)3 catalyst under methanol system, followed used to the next step without purification. Additionally, facile transformation of thioimidates to imidates and amidines were also successful. Finally, the thioimidates was transferred to 3,4-dihydroquinazolines by using p-toluenesulfonic acid monohydrate (PTSA) at room temperature. And the 3,4-dihydroquinazolines can be oxidized to quinazolines under proper oxidants. In future, we want to use N-tosylthioimidates as important intermediates to synthesize various important organic molecules.

This work project is a field lab that focused on the ideation and founding of an entrepreneurial venture, Bubble, directed towards solving the engineering talent concerns faced by companies. The work explores the technology ecosystem, the developer context in Nigeria and areas of interest in understanding the problem. The solution proposed is benchmarked against existing models including competitors; the value proposition and model assumptions are consequently validated. Results and insights gleaned show that the model possesses potential in solving identified pain points, reinventing developer hires,and becoming a fully active venture.

The City of Springfield, Massachusetts is one of the largest cities in western Massachusetts, and was established on the Connecticut River for trading and as a fur-collecting post. In 18th and early 19th century, it experienced an industrial boom and became a regional financial center. Springfield became a major railroad center and grew to become the regional center for banking, finance, and courts. However, in mid-19th century Springfield suffered due to the flooding of the Connecticut River and the disinvestment in industry. These resulted in an urban sprawl as people started moving away from heart of the city. Now, once again, the city is trying to revitalize its downtown and neighboring areas to attract people by improving different types of social and cultural amenities. In this thesis, the author studies the relation of the city with its natural asset ‘The Connecticut Riverfront’ which can be a great place to attract people towards the heart of the city. The author has also researched the various reasons causing this natural asset to be underutilized for several years. In addition, the author also explores the possibilities of connecting the Springfield downtown to the riverfront, providing safe and undisturbed access mainly to pedestrians, physically challenged people, and bike riders. Research shows that the existing transportation paths are the major barriers discouraging people from reaching the riverfront. In order to overcome this problem, a design solution is proposed including a safe, pedestrian-friendly link from the downtown area to the riverfront mitigating all the transportation paths such as highway, high speed traffic roads, and railway tracks. The proposed link will give encouragement to local artist and will also aim to boost local businesses by providing sites for museums, exhibitions, art galleries, food courts, and retail shops. This structure will not only improve the accessibility but it will also provide public open spaces where people can gather for various activities and can also enjoy the scenic view of the riverfront. In Addition, local people can also enjoy the water viewing restaurant and bar overlooking Connecticut River. Lastly, this connecting link lays the foundation for further development of the riverfront area due to increased accessibility to this asset.

Technology advancements in mobile communication has seen a rapid rise in recent years. Likewise, the use of mobile technologies has proven to be of extreme importance in consumer’s life. The main goal of this study is to investigate and identify the impact of marketing activities on the acceptance of mobile marketing practiced by higher education students. Assisted by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Uses and Gratifications Theory, this study tests a conceptual model that explain factors influencing mobile marketing acceptance. The study was conducted in Federal Higher Education Institutions in the UAE. A descriptive, explanatory research that used a quantitative survey methodology was adopted. This study surveyed 402 higher education students using a probabilistic stratified sampling method. The overall findings revealed that risk acceptance, providing information, sharing content, accessing content, perceived value and personal attachment have a positive influence in mobile marketing acceptance, and it validates a new model using Structural Equation Modelling. Furthermore, this study highlights the current state of mobile marketing utilization along with preferred types of services used. This research has the potential to benefit companies to create better mobile marketing strategies, in which they can incorporate within their product and services and recommends actions to create a more effective mobile marketing campaign that benefits both consumers and organizations.
Os avanços tecnológicos na comunicação móvel tiveram um rápido aumento nos últimos anos. Da mesma forma, o uso das tecnologias móveis provou ser de extrema importância na vida do consumidor. O principal objetivo deste estudo é investigar e identificar o impacto das atividades de marketing na aceitação do marketing móvel praticado por estudantes do ensino superior. Assistido pelo Modelo de Aceitação de Tecnologia (TAM) e pela Teoria de Usos e Gratificações, este estudo testa um modelo conceitual que explica os fatores que influenciam a aceitação do marketing móvel. Foi adotada uma metodologia de pesquisa quantitativa, descritiva e explicativa auxiliada pelo uso do questionário. O estudo foi realizado em instituições federais de ensino superior nos Emirados Árabes Unidos. Este estudo pesquisou 402 estudantes do ensino superior usando um método probabilístico de amostragem estratificada. As descobertas gerais revelaram que a aceitação de riscos, fornecimento de informações, compartilhamento de conteúdo, acesso a conteúdo, valor percebido e vinculação pessoal influenciam positivamente a aceitação do marketing móvel e validam um novo modelo usando a Modelagem de Equações Estruturais. Além disso, este estudo destaca o estado atual da utilização do marketing móvel juntamente com os diferentes tipos de serviços mais utilizados. Esta pesquisa tem o potencial de beneficiar as empresas na criação de melhores estratégias de marketing móvel para que possam ser incorporadas nos produtos e serviços e recomenda ações para criar uma campanha de marketing móvel mais eficaz que beneficie tanto os consumidores quanto as organizações.
Les progrès technologiques dans la communication mobile ont augmenté rapidement ces dernières années. De même, l’utilisation des technologies mobiles s’est avérée d’une importance capitale dans la vie du consommateur. L'objectif principal de cette étude est d'étudier et d'identifier l'impact des activités de marketing sur l'acceptation du marketing mobile pratiqué par les étudiants de l'enseignement supérieur. Assistée du modèle d'acceptation technologique (TAM) et de la théorie des usages et des gratifications, cette étude teste un modèle conceptuel qui explique les facteurs qui influencent l'acceptation du marketing mobile. L'étude a été menée dans des établissements d'enseignement supérieur fédéraux des Émirats Arabes Unis. Une recherche descriptive et explicative utilisant une méthodologie de recherche quantitative a été adoptée. Cette étude a examiné 402 étudiants de l'enseignement supérieur utilisant une méthode probabiliste d'échantillonnage stratifié. Les conclusions générales ont révélé que l'acceptation des risques, la fourniture d'informations, le partage de contenu, l'accès au contenu, la valeur perçue et les liens personnels influencent positivement l'acceptation du marketing mobile et valide un nouveau modèle utilisant la modélisation par équation structurelle. En outre, cette étude met en évidence l’état actuel de l’utilisation du marketing mobile ainsi que des différents types de services les plus utilisés. Cette recherche pourrait aider les entreprises à créer de meilleures stratégies de marketing mobile afin de les intégrer à des produits et services, et recommande des actions pour créer une campagne de marketing mobile plus efficace, bénéfique pour les consommateurs et les organisations.