Academic freedom is a much-discussed topic in the literature. However, little empirical research has been performed that describes the faculty perceptions of academic freedom at Christian colleges and universities, a unique segment of institutions within US higher education. Specifically, little recent research has shown how faculty members at Christian colleges and universities define academic freedom, how they describe experiences where they encountered issues of academic freedom, and how they navigate the interaction between academic freedom and institutional religious doctrines (as found in official statements of faith). The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze how faculty members at Christian colleges and university perceive academic freedom. For this qualitative study, I employed the Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954) to collect data from full-time faculty members of Christian institutions. I present the findings discovered through this study, discuss their ramifications, offer recommendations, and draw conclusions. / Ph. D.

Congestion due to traffic accidents and incidents can be reduced through effective freeway incident management. However, this is plagued by a number of problems and requires a high level of expertise and coordination among the involved personnel. The ill-structured nature of the problem, constantly changing conditions, the number of agencies involved, and the lack of current information often cause errors in decision and response. Under these conditions, there is need for computer based support tools to provide the required decision and information support and aid the entire process by improving coordination and communication. This study focuses on addressing this issue through the development of an Expert-GIS system which integrates the powerful spatial data handling capabilities of a Geographic Information System with the rule based reasoning logic of an Expert System. The system is designed as a Group Decision Support System that provides the required support for both the substance of the problem (decisions) and the agency level interactions that take place. The ability to support the process of response is modeled using a blackboard architecture for the system. The prototype developed fully integrates the software environments of Arc/Info and Nexpert-Object and presents a unified interface, from where different incident management functions can be accessed. A complete spatial database was designed for the Fairfax County in Northern Virginia as a part of this development effort. Decision support is provided through a set of six integrated modules - incident detection and verification, preliminary response, duration estimation, delay calculation, final response plan and diversion planning, and recovery. Coordination and communication were enhanced by ensuring the uniformity of information at different locations using the system, and through a messaging mechanism that informed users about the current status of incident. The prototype system was developed for two hypothetical agencIes called the Traffic Management Center and The Police Control Center. Historical incident cases were use to test these systems and check the accuracy of the database and the rule base. Both the tests and the development effort showed a strong need for established sources of network information, that could be readily incorporated into the database. Given the fact that the system works with real network data, the next phase of research in should focus on the deployment of the system at test sites. User feedback obtained from these tests would then serve as a basis for future enhancements. / Master of Science

Laboratory usability tests can be a rich source of usability information for software design, but are expensive to run and involve time-consuming data analysis. Expert review of software is cheaper, but highly dependent on the experience of the expert. Techniques are needed that maintain user involvement while reducing both the cost of user involvement and the time required to analyze data. The User Action Framework (UAF) is a classification scheme for usability problems that facilitates data analysis and reusability of information learned from one project to another, but is also reliant on expert interpretation of usability data, and classification can be difficult when user-supplied problem descriptions are incomplete. This study explored end-user classification of self-reported critical incidents (usability issues) using the UAF, a technique that was hoped to reduce expert interpretation of usability problems. It also explored end-user critical incident reporting from a usability session recording, rather than reporting incidents as soon as they occur, a technique that could be used in future studies to compare effectiveness of usability methods. Results indicate that users are not good at diagnosing their own critical incidents due to the level of detail required for proper classification, although observations suggest that users were able to provide usability information that would not have been captured by an expert observer. The recording technique was successful, and is recommended for future studies to further explore differences in the kind of information that can be gathered from end-users and from experts during usability studies. / Master of Science

Research related to the school counselor's journey to social justice advocacy is minimal. An exploration of the school counselor's journey to social justice advocacy and the impact it has on the counselor's work with students is needed. Furthermore, research related to the needs and challenges of undocumented students have not been explored. The purpose of this study was to explore the social justice identity development of professional school counselors who identify as advocates for undocumented students through critical incidents. The study is grounded in Bobbie Harro's Cycle of Liberation and Relational Cultural Theory to answer the following research questions: (1) What do school counselors who identify as social justice advocates describe as critical incidents in their social justice identity development when working with undocumented students? (2) How have these critical incidents impacted the social justice identity development of professional school counselors? I enlisted a qualitative approach utilizing the Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954) to address the research questions. Six secondary school counselors participated in this study. Five were female, two were white, two were Hispanic, one was African-American, and one was bi-racial. Four were citizens, one was a naturalized citizen and one was a DACA recipient. One had been a school counselor for 1 - 3 years, two for 3-5 years, and 3 had been school counselors for more than 7 years. The critical incidents identified by the participants related to personal experiences such as parental influence, family experiences, and influence of educators; formal learning such as experiential learning and academic learning; past work experiences; and student impact on the counselor.  The school counselor's relationship with an undocumented student or immigrant played a role in the participants social justice identity development. The school counselors' identity development mirrored Harro's (2000) Cycle of Liberation. As a result of the critical incidents provided by the participants, connection and introspection emerged. The connection and introspection liberated the counselor and served as the process towards the counselors' social justice identity development. / Ph. D.

本稿は、中華民国初期、すなわち中華民国誕生から福州事件（1912年1月1日−1919年11月16日）の発生までの日中外交関係を検証する。とりわけ、この時期における日本の対華政策の立案とその後の遂行、換言すれば日本の対華政策の展開過程を日中衝突事件の発生から解決にいたるまでのプロセスから解明する。 / This article examines the diplomatic relations between Japan and China from the beginning of the Republic of China to the outbreak of the Fuzhou incident (January 1, 1912 - November 16, 1919). In particular, the plan and the subsequent implementation of Japan's policy against China in this period, and in other words, the process of development of Japan's policy toward the development of the Chinese policy toward the United States from the outbreak of the Japan China incident to the solution. / 博士(現代アジア研究) / Doctor of Philosophy in Contemporary Asian Studies / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

Die Mobilität von Personen und Gütern, insbesondere in Städten, ist der Motor einer Volkswirtschaft. Dieser Motor kommt jedoch ins Stottern, wenn Staubildung im Stadtstraßennetzwerk einsetzt. Eine unvermeidbare Ursache von Staubildung stellen Verkehrsstörfälle dar, die schlimmstenfalls zu Gridlocks führen können. In der Folge werden hohe Kosten für Verkehr, Wirtschaft und Umwelt verursacht. Mit welchen Gegenmaßnahmen kann die Staubildung im Netzwerk effektiv bewältigt werden? Wie können entsprechende Gegenmaßnahmen realistisch noch vor einem praktischen Einsatz bewertet werden? Ausgehend von diesen Fragestellungen, widmet sich diese Dissertation der Entwicklung eines ereignisorientierten Routenwahlmodells für den Stadtstraßenverkehr und eines selbstorganisierten Störfallmanagements als Gegenmaßnahme zur Reduzierung negativer Auswirkungen der Staubildung. Zur Modellierung des Routenwahlverhaltens in ereignisreichen Stadtstraßennetzen wird das ereignisorientierte Routenwahlmodell entwickelt. Der Ausgangspunkt des Modells ist die diskrete Wahltheorie. Entscheidungsprozesse einzelner Autofahrer werden vor und während der Fahrt direkt simuliert. Der Entscheidungsprozess ist dabei maßgeblich von Beobachtungen lokaler Verkehrsbedingungen geprägt. Somit wird nachgebildet, dass Autofahrer flexibel auf unvorhergesehene Ereignisse durch Routenwechsel reagieren können. Auf diese Weise ist eine realistische Simulation des Routenwahlverhaltens von Autofahrern in der Stadt möglich. Das ereignisorientierte Routenwahlmodell ist zudem generisch formuliert. Es lässt sich zur Bewertung von Gegenmaßnahmen für störfallbedingte Staubildung einsetzen und bedient darüber hinaus ein breites Anwendungsspektrum. Der zweite Beitrag dieser Dissertation ist ein selbstorganisiertes Konzept für ein Störfallmanagement in Stadtstraßennetzen als Gegenmaßnahme zur Staubildung. Es vereint zwei lokal wirkende Prinzipien, deren Ausgangspunkte die Lichtsignalanlagen im Stadtnetzwerk sind. Mit verlängerten Rotzeiten werden Fahrzeuge an einer Kreuzung an der Einfahrt in einen Straßenabschnitt gehindert, wenn ein vorgesehener Rückstaubereich ausgeschöpft ist, da andernfalls Blockaden auf den Kreuzungen entstehen. Gleichzeitig werden noch freie Richtungen an der Kreuzung durch verlängerte Grünzeiten attraktiver gestaltet, um Autofahrer zum Umfahren der Staubildung zu motivieren. Die Anwendung der lokalen Wirkungsprinzipien stellt sich vollständig selbstorganisiert, d.h. ohne Vorgabe eines Planers, mit dem Ausmaß der Staubildung im Netzwerk ein. Simulationsstudien in zwei unterschiedlich komplexen Netzwerken haben die Machbarkeit des selbstorganisierten Störfallmanagements nachgewiesen. Gegenüber einem gewöhnlichen Netzwerk konnte für alle untersuchten Störfälle die Akkumulation zusätzlicher Fahrzeuge im Netzwerk während des Störfalls signifikant reduziert werden. / The mobility of people and goods, especially in urban areas, is of significant importance for national economies. However, recurrent congestion in urban road networks, caused by increased traffic demand, considerably restrains mobility on a daily basis. Another significant source of congestion are traffic incidents which even might lead to gridlock situations. Congestion raises high costs for traffic, economy and environment. Which countermeasures should be applied for an effective management of urban congestion? How can appropriate countermeasures be realistically evaluated? Based on these questions, this thesis is devoted to the development of an event-oriented route choice model for urban road traffic and a self-organized incident management strategy as an effective countermeasure for urban congestion. The first contribution of this thesis is an event-oriented route choice model for urban road networks. It is based on discrete choice theory and models decision-making processes of individual motorists before and during their journey. A key aspect of the proposed model is the motorist's ability to observe local traffic conditions. These observations are then included in the decision process. In this way, it can be modeled that motorists respond to unforeseen events by route revisions. This allows a realistic simulation of the route choice behavior of motorists in naturally eventful urban road networks. Furthermore, the event-oriented route choice model is flexibly formulated. It can be used for the evaluation of countermeasures for incident-related congestion and, moreover, allows a wide range of applications. The second contribution of this thesis is a self-organized concept of an incident management strategy in urban road networks as a countermeasure for urban congestion. It combines two locally acting principles on the basis of traffic lights in an urban road network. The inflow of vehicles into a road segment is regulated with restricted or skipped green times as soon as an allocated queuing capacity is depleted. Otherwise, blockages would result on the intersection. At the same time, yet free alternative directions are served with regular or even extended green times and, thus, might become more attractive to the driver than the original congested direction. The application of these local principles is realized in a completely self-organized manner, thereby scaling directly with the extent of congestion in the urban road network. Simulation studies in two networks with different complexity have proven the feasibility of the self-organized incident management. Compared to an ordinary network, the extents of additional vehicles due to investigated incidents were significantly reduced.

Transportation agencies are introducing new strategies and techniques that will improve traffic incident management. Apart from other indicators, agencies measure the performance of the strategies by evaluating the incidents timeline. An effective strategy has to reduce the length of the incident timeline. An incident timeline comprises various stages in the incident management procedure, starting when the incident was detected, and ending when there is the recovery of normal traffic conditions. This thesis addresses three issues that are related to the traffic incident timeline and the incident management strategies. First, co-location of responding agencies has not been investigated as other incident management measures. Co-location of incident responders affects the incident timeline, but there is a scarcity of literature on the magnitude of the effects. Evaluation of the co-location strategy is reflected by the response and verification durations because its effectiveness relies on improving communication between agencies. Investigation of the response and verification duration of incidents, before and after operations of a co-located Traffic Management Center (TMC) is done by using hazard-based models. Results indicate that the incident type, percentage of the lane closure, number of responders, incident severity, detection methods, and day-of-the-week influence the verification duration for both the before- and after- period. Similarly, incident type, lane closure, number of responders, incident severity, time-of-the-day, and detection method influence the response duration for both study periods. The before and after comparison shows significant improvements in the response duration due to co-location of incident response agencies. Second, the incident clearance duration may not necessarily reflect how different types of incidents and various factors affect traffic conditions. The duration at which the incident influences traffic conditions could vary – shorter than the incident duration for some incidents and longer for others. This study introduces a performance measure called incident impact duration and demonstrates a method that was used for estimating it. Also, this study investigated the effects of using incident impact duration compared to the traditionally incident clearance duration in incident modeling. Using hazard-based models, the study analyzed factors that affect the estimated incident impact duration and the incident clearance duration. Results indicate that incident detection methods, the number of responders, Traffic Management Center (TMC) operations, traffic conditions, towing and emergency services influence the duration of an incident. Third, elements of the incident timeline before the clearance duration have been overlooked as factors that influence the clearance duration. Incident elements before the clearance duration include verification time, dispatch duration, and the travel time of responders to the incident scene. This study investigated the influence of incident timeline elements before clearance on the extent of the clearance duration. Also, this study analyzed the impact of other spatial and temporal attributes on the clearance duration. The analysis used a Cox regression model that is estimated using the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) penalization method. LASSO enables variable selection from incidents data with a high number of covariates by automatically and simultaneously selecting variables and estimating the coefficients. Results suggest that verification duration, response travel duration, the percentage of lane closure, incident type, the severity of an incident, detection method, and crash location influence the clearance duration.

Specification and new trends in the automotive industry impose higher requirements on supply chain management. This thesis describes a part of supply chain management -- reverse logistics and circulation of returnable transport units. The main goal and asset of this thesis is to analyse processes of the team managing the circulation of returnable transport units in the British automobile factories Jaguar and Land Rover. The next main aim and asset is to apply the ITIL methodics Incident management for creating and implementing an application which is based on the process analysis and supports informational needs of individual roles in this team.

The master‘s thesis is focused on security audit. The aim of this thesis is to create methodology, which might help with creating security audits and research current condition of cybernetic and information security in a business establishment. Theoretical part explains basic terms and concepts about cyber and information security. Own interpretation consist description of methodological areas of security audit.

Master's thesis "Innovation processes personal data for the state organization," deals with the protection of personal data for processing, both in paper, as well as electronic form. The main topic is security policy, the assessment of security risks resulting proposals for the introduction of innovative processes aimed to prevent possible leakage and misuse of personal data.