Submitted by Carla Soares (carladanielle@hotmail.com) on 2012-08-25T21:58:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert_CarlaSoares_Final_2012.pdf: 1649745 bytes, checksum: 1c7c43043cdf46a1df59713a55bcd3be (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2012-08-27T20:18:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert_CarlaSoares_Final_2012.pdf: 1649745 bytes, checksum: 1c7c43043cdf46a1df59713a55bcd3be (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2012-08-28T14:45:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert_CarlaSoares_Final_2012.pdf: 1649745 bytes, checksum: 1c7c43043cdf46a1df59713a55bcd3be (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-08-28T14:46:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert_CarlaSoares_Final_2012.pdf: 1649745 bytes, checksum: 1c7c43043cdf46a1df59713a55bcd3be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-07-27 / A Lan House, surgida no Brasil como um meio de entretenimento para os jovens, se tornou, em um curto espaço de tempo, uma febre nas periferias das grandes cidades brasileiras. Essa disseminação se deu, principalmente, após o programa 'Computador para Todos' lançado pelo Governo Federal a título de política pública de inclusão digital. Assim, as Lan Houses se constituíram em uma oportunidade de acesso ao computador e à Internet para aqueles que não teriam ingresso à rede se não fosse a existência desse tipo de instituição comercial (CDI, 2010), sendo a segunda principal provedora de acesso público às TIC no país (CETIC, 2010). Diante desse cenário, este estudo se propõe a descrever a trajetória na implantação das Lan Houses no Brasil, sob a ótica da Teoria Ator-Rede, identificando os atores relevantes na formação de uma rede sociotécnica, por meio do método de estudo de caso único realizado no bairro Jardim Catarina, em São Gonçalo. O trabalho apresenta, ainda, o modelo heurístico de inclusão digital para avaliar se este tipo de estabelecimento apresenta fatores relevantes para fomentar a inclusão digital. O resultado desta análise revela que as Lan Houses não são um agente de inclusão digital, apesar de sua relevância para as regiões com menores índices de renda e, por conseguinte, restritas ao uso de computadores e Internet, como o bairro Jardim Catarina. / Lan House, which appeared in Brazil as a place of entertainment, became in a short time, an entrepreneurship fever in the outskirts of large cities. The Brazilian Lan House phenomenon is in part a side effect of a federal government programme called 'computers for all', as part of a political public of digital inclusion. Thus, Lan Houses have featured as key locations for access to the worldwide computer for thousands of Brazilians who had no access to the Internet until the Lan Houses came into existence. They represent the second leading provider of public access to ICT in the country (CETIC, 2010). Due to this, the objective of this study is to describe the trajectory of Lan Houses’implementation, by theoretical perspective of Actor-Network Theory, identifying the relevant actors of a sociotechnical network. In order to analyze this, a single case study explanatory methodology was adopted, based on a Lan House at Jardim Catarina, São Gonçalo ( Rio de Janeiro). The research also presents a heuristic model of digital inclusion to understand if this kind of establishment presents some main facets considered key success factors to promote digital inclusion. The result of this analysis points out that the Lan House is not a digital inclusion agent, despite its relevance to the regions with lower rates of income and, therefore, restricted to the use of computers and Internet, as the Jardim Catarina is.

Depuis plus de trente ans, l’intervention culturelle des villes n’a cessé de se développer et de se diffuser au travers du territoire national. Multiplication des structures, des projets, création régulière de délégations politiques adéquates ; la culture est un secteur qui a largement bénéficié du dynamisme impulsé par la décentralisation. Parallèlement, les modèles politiques locaux ont évolué avec la montée en puissance de « projets de territoires », englobant les différents secteurs, dont la culture, dans une politique globale. Si elle n’a pas eu de peine à trouver une place dans ces politiques, une idée aussi large et polymorphe que celle de « culture » a nécessairement vu ses contours évoluer. Dès lors plusieurs questions se posent. Quelle place les collectivités font-elles à l’héritage de la politique culturelle française « inventée » en 1959 ? Entre adhésion et opposition au modèle national, comment les politiques culturelles locales se construisent-elles ? Enfin, qu’est-ce qui « fait culture » pour des élus locaux le plus souvent éloignés des réseaux politiques ou des fédérations d’élus à la culture et qui ne peuvent compter que sur leur expérience et leur territoire pour s’approprier leur délégation ?C’est cette appropriation de la notion de culture que ce travail se propose d’explorer, au moyen d’outils issus du corpus de la sociologie des organisations. Le récit des élus à la culture sera mis en perspective avec celui des autres acteurs culturels, mais aussi du corpus de la sociologie de la culture en France, et plus largement de la notion de culture en sciences humaines. Cette confrontation aura pour objectif d’observer les processus « d’entrée en culture » par les élus locaux, la construction des convictions, des orientations politiques des objectifs et des résultats attendus, parfois éloignés des représentations les plus attendues mais nécessitant toute l’attention des acteurs culturels. Au fil des situations et à travers ces démarches, différentes facettes de la notion de culture apparaîtront, et permettront d’observer, à défaut d’une définition unique ce qui fonde la notion de culture dans les politiques locales françaises. / For more than thirty years, cultural involvement by cities has developed constantly and has spread across the nation. Facilities and projects have multiplied and appropriate political delegations have been created regularly: culture is a sector that has widely benefitted from the dynamism driven by decentralization.At the same time, local political models have developed with the rise in power of “territory projects”, encompassing difference sectors including culture within an overall political framework. Although it can scarcely be found within these policies, an idea as large and polymorphic as “culture” has naturally changed form.From that moment, many questions arise. What space do collectivities make for the heritage of the French cultural policy “invented” in 1959? Between adhering to and opposing the national model, how are local cultural policies constructed? Finally, what does culture “do” for local elected official, who are usually far removed from political networks and cultural federations of elected officials and who can only rely on their experience and their territory to appropriate their delegation? This appropriation of the notion of culture is what this work will explore, using tools of the sociological corpus of the organizations.The narrative of elected officials of culture will be put into perspective along with the narrative of other cultural stakeholders, but also in the sociological corpus of culture in France, and more widely, in the notion of culture to be found in human science.This confrontation will aim at observing the process of “entering into culture” by local elected officials, the construction of convictions, political alignment of objectives and expected results, which are sometimes far from the most expected representations but which require the full attention of cultural stakeholders. Through situations and through these procedures, different facets of the notion of culture will appear and will help us, for lack of a single definition, observe what the notion of culture initiates in French local politics.

Within the accepted historiography of photography, the importance of George Eastman and the Eastman Kodak Company (EKC) has become unassailable. They have been placed as the key, and often sole, agent in “revolutionizing” the amateur photography market in the late nineteenth century. While the photographic landscape and market of 1885-1914 was indeed radically altered, the historiographical dominance of what can be identified as the “Kodak story” has obscured the means through which EKC’s successful re-structuring of the existing manufacturing and distribution networks of photographic materials occurred. I argue that the changes effected by Eastman and the EKC began not with imaging desires, but with their acknowledgment, and profound understanding of the existing and competing interests within the photographic industry. This thesis focuses on the EKC’s re-structuring of the extant and evolving communities involved in the manufacturing and distribution of photographic materials in Canada between 1885-1910. Focusing particularly on the period immediately surrounding the establishment of the Canadian Kodak Co. Limited in 1899, I demonstrate the re-structuring processes at work, including: market and financial diversification; governmental lobbying; purchase and mergers; and other business and marketing-based strategies. I frame my theoretical positions and analysis of network re-structuring through the experiences of Ottawa professional photographer and photographic business owner William James Topley (active 1868-1907), and CKCoLtd manager John Garrison Palmer (active 1886-1921). Topley and Garrison’s professional experiences and interactions with expanded communities of photographic consumers and industry participants provide an opportunity for specific and detailed findings which challenge understandings of the evolution of the practice of photography during this transitional period. In doing so, I provide evidence of the primary role network re-structuring played in the EKC’s ability to shape the wider international photographic industry to their advantage in the early twentieth century.

This current study comes from the demand to think of a new working methodology in an innovative Middle School, reporting on interdisciplinary educational needs, focused on the use of networked technologies, driven by the distribution of mobile devices (tablets) for teachers in Middle School. To accomplish this proposal, there was a working methodology using mobile devices with high school students from the State School of Basic Education Dr. Paul Devanier Lauda, in Portuguese discipline in the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Edmodo. It is aimed to instigate a placement of students as networked actors from the ownership of mobile devices, creating interactivity, connectivity and collaboration for the development of knowledge and other forms of subjectivity. In this sense, it developed audiovisual activities mediated by mobile technologies, producing knowledge to expand the time and space in the classroom; and researched is the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Edmodo considering its potential and limits. The theoretical framework that supports this research is the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour. It is understood that humans and non-human actors are equally important in assemblages to knowledge productions, with different delegations, which hybridize changing subject. He adopted the methodology of Dispute Cartography, made by the same author, and the concept of rhizome, of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in order to get analysis criteria to observe and describe the phenomena occurring over the assemblages encountered in practice pedagogical proposals. As a final product of this research, built up a working methodology, based on the actor-network theory, for the development of audiovisual educational proposals via appropriation of AVA Edmodo and mobile network devices as well as for the application of analysis criteria based in rhizomatic principles. / A presente pesquisa parte da demanda de se pensar em uma nova metodologia de trabalho no Ensino Médio Inovador que dê conta das necessidades pedagógicas interdisciplinares, voltada para o uso das tecnologias em rede, motivado pela distribuição de dispositivos móveis (tablets) para os professores do ensino médio. Para efetivar tal proposta, realizou-se uma metodologia de trabalho utilizando os dispositivos móveis com os alunos do ensino médio da Escola Estadual de Educação Básica Dr. Paulo Devanier Lauda, na disciplina de Língua Portuguesa no Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem (AVA) Edmodo. Pretende-se instigar um posicionamento dos alunos como atores em rede a partir da apropriação dos dispositivos móveis, gerando interatividade, conectividade e colaboração para o desenvolvimento do conhecimento e outros modos de subjetivação. Neste sentido, desenvolveu-se atividades audiovisuais mediadas por tecnologias móveis, produzindo conhecimento ao ampliar o tempo e espaço em sala de aula; e pesquisou-se o Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem (AVA) Edmodo, considerando suas potencialidades e limites. A fundamentação téorica que embasa essa pesquisa é a teoria ator-rede de Bruno Latour, pois entende-se que os atores humanos e não-humanos têm a mesma importância nos agenciamentos para produções de conhecimento, com delegações distintas, que formam híbridos modificando sujeitos. Adotou-se a metodologia da Cartografia de Controvérsias, constituída pelo mesmo autor, e o conceito de rizoma, de Gilles Deleuze e Felix Guattari, a fim de obter critérios de análise para observar e descrever os fenômenos que ocorrem ao longo dos agenciamentos surgidos nas práticas pedagógicas propostas. Como produto final dessa pesquisa, se propõe uma metodologia de trabalho, baseada na Teoria ator-rede, para o desenvolvimento de propostas pedagógicas audiovisuais via apropriação do AVA EDMODO e dos dispositivos móveis em rede, bem como para a aplicação de critérios de análise baseados em princípios rizomáticos.

What happened in the post-Soviet, European grain-belt after collective farms were dissolved and in what way can we say that collective farm legacies influence agrarian developments in this region today? These are the main questions of this thesis, which is a work of critical human geography, but is also inspired by theories, methods and approaches from the social sciences, broadly defined. Territorially, the focus is Ukraine, but several articles in this thesis take a wider geographic perspective beyond Ukraine, in particular taking into account the role of Nordic investors in the agrarian sector in Ukraine and Russia. The main aim of this thesis is to examine how farms of different sizes – from small peasant farms to super large corporate farms – develop and change in post-communist circumstances. Another purpose is to reinterpret Soviet agrarian history, in light of what happened after the collapse of communism, in order to incorporate the Soviet experience in a global historical narrative, and to better understand the legacy of collective farming today. These issues are explored in four papers and a comprehensive summary. The first article examines small-scale, household “peasant” agriculture in southern Ukraine and shows the conditions and factors, which have contributed to an impressive intensification of farming in certain villages. The second article investigates large-scale, Nordic investments in Ukrainian and Russian agriculture, with the aim of explaining why many (but not all) such investments have not succeeded to the degree that investors hoped. The third paper focuses on the legacy and afterlife of Soviet-era investments in large-scale irrigation in southern Ukraine, and uses the post-Soviet reincarnation of irrigation in this region to problematize traditional narratives on Soviet environmental management in a global context. The fourth paper, with a wider historical lens, explains the link between collective farms and today’s agroholding agriculture in much of the region, while also discussing the sustainability crisis in agriculture both in a Soviet and post-Soviet context, concluding with a description of a possible and ironic (but by no means inevitable) scenario whereby post-Soviet agriculture saves global capitalism.  Theoretically, this thesis is informed by agrarian political economy; related, contemporary debates on the financialization of agriculture; and critical human geography discussions on uneven development and the geographies of difference. This thesis also is inspired by Actor Network Theory, and the view that reality is constituted by hybrid subject-objects, which are instantiated through the agency of an assemblage or network of different actors, material things, discourses, institutions, etc... While such Actor Network approaches are certainly not new, their application to Soviet and post-Soviet change is relatively new. The source material, which is the basis for the empirical approach of this thesis, is eclectic, and produced via mixed methods from different locations. Analysis is based on interviews (75 interviews in southern Ukraine, in Kyiv, and in Stockholm, plus 28 visits to household farms in one study village in southern Ukraine); participant observation (carried out in the study village in southern Ukraine and in corporate shareholder meetings mostly in Stockholm); various texts, such as corporate documents and newspaper commentary; agricultural statistics; and satellite data.  Among other conclusions, this thesis argues that, given certain factors, small-scale, household agriculture can be viable, at the same time that the concentration and consolidation of agriculture into large-scale holdings is likely to continue, at least in the short term. This thesis also highlights similarities between Soviet and capitalist agriculture in a global historical context, which is one reason that the transformation from Soviet to capitalist agriculture could occur so fast in some areas. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Die vorgestellte Arbeit präsentiert ein geschlossenes Konzept für die synchronisierte Erfassung, Verarbeitung und Aufbereitung beliebiger Sensor-Informationen. Es ist nun möglich, heterogene Sensornetze sowie dedizierte, autarke Messsysteme zeitlich zu koordinieren und entsprechend in Relation zu setzen. Auf Basis von XML erfolgt die ganzheitliche Beschreibung des Monitoring-Szenarios und die Einordnung der einzelnen Datensätze. Die Informationen können nun in beliebigen Ausgabeformaten anwendungsspezifisch definiert und visualisiert werden. Zusätzlich ermöglichen Mechanismen zur gezielten Messwert-Vorverarbeitung und -Filterung eine Senkung des benötigten Datenvolumens. Die Funktionalität des vorgestellten GREASE-Frameworks wird am Beispiel eines geschlossenen Test-Systems aus dem Automotive-Bereich evaluiert. Dabei wird die vorhandene Sensorik eines Kfz-Bordnetzes mit einem zusätzlichen Netzwerk aus Sensorknoten verfeinert. Die korrelierten Daten werden anschließend für die Visualisierung mittels Google Earth, jBEAM und anderen Lösungen aufbereitet.

La GPEC se construit de plus en plus à l’échelle territoriale. Des acteurs institutionnels d’horizons divers et des entreprises de taille variable réfléchissent et travaillent ensemble pour mettre en place des actions qui répondent aux problématiques liées à l’emploi, à la formation, et aux compétences. Ces démarches se font tantôt à « chaud », tantôt à « froid » selon les circonstances, les territoires et les acteurs. L’extension de l’échelle de construction de la GPEC de l’entreprise au territoire peut se justifier par la prise en compte de plusieurs facteurs : internes ou externes aux entreprises, politiques, conjecturaux, socio-économiques, etc. Ainsi à travers des volontés convergentes, de multiples acteurs ambitionnent de lever les limites et insuffisances consubstantielles à la GPEC d’entreprise en recourant à une GPEC-Territoriale. Cette nouvelle approche de construction et d’analyse de la GPEC pose néanmoins des interrogations. Parmi celles-ci, nous avons réfléchi, à cinq questions : comment faire travailler ensemble les acteurs ? Quel diagnostic permet de fédérer les acteurs autour de la GPEC-Territoriale ? Comment se construit cette GPEC-Territoriale en termes de phasage ? Comment les acteurs se mettent-ils d’accord sur la construction et le contenu des actions de la GPEC-Territoriale ? Comment mobiliser les acteurs dans de telles démarches collectives ? Ces questions sont issues de la question principale de notre recherche : quel est le processus de construction d’une GPEC-Territoriale impliquant des acteurs institutionnels et des entreprises ? Nous avons abordé et discuté ces questions sur la base de données empiriques collectées dans deux cas : la GPEC-Territoriale dans la Communauté de communes du Cher à la Loire et la GPEC-Territoriale dans la filière Bois dans le département du Loir-et-Cher. Ces données sont collectées à partir d’observations, d’entretiens qualitatifs, d’études quantitatives et documentaires. Les théories de l’interaction, de la traduction, du choix rationnel et de la mobilisation nous ont servi de grille d’analyse. Au croisement de ces approches et de ces analyses, il en est ressorti que la GPEC-Territoriale se construit à partir de quelques nécessités : capacité du pilote à faire travailler ensemble plusieurs acteurs, établissement d’un diagnostic préalable et partagé se basant sur les problématiques et enjeux des entreprises et des territoires, mobilisation des acteurs à travers des incitations sélectives et l’analyse des catégories de priorités des acteurs. En outre, il est apparu que le contenu de la GPEC-Territoriale est continûment traduit et s’obtient sous un consensus relatif. Enfin et malgré l’aspect sui generis de chaque cas, une modélisation, en phases, de sa construction est possible. / Nowadays HRP is built increasingly on a territorial scale. Institutional actors from different backgrounds and varying size businesses work together to put in place actions that address issues related to employment, training, and skills. These approaches are sometimes in "hot", sometimes in "cold" depending on the circumstances, territories and stakeholders. The extension of the building of the HRP across a territory can be justified by taking into account several factors: internal or external to enterprises, policies, situational, socio-economic, etc. Thus through converging wills, multiple actors aspire to lift the limits and shortcomings related to HRP by using a HRP-Territorial. This new construction approach and analysis of HRP nevertheless raises several questions. Among the many questions we reflected about five of them: how do actors work together? What diagnosis allows to unite stakeholders around HRP-Territorial? How is this HRP-Territorial built in terms of phasing? How do actors agree on the construction and content of the actions of HRP-Territorial? How to mobilize actors in such collective approaches? These questions are taken from the main issue of our research: What is the process of building a HRP-Territorial involving institutional actors and businesses? We discussed and debated these issues on the basis of empirical data collected in two cases: HRP-Territorial in the Community of communes of Cher à la Loire and the HRP-Territorial in the timber Industry in Loir-et-Cher. Those data are collected by observation, qualitative interview, quantitative studies and documentaries. Theory of interaction, actor network theory, rational choice theory and mobilization theory served as our analytical framework. At the intersection of these approaches and these analyzes, it appears that the HRP-Territorial be built from a few necessities : the ability of the pilot to work together several actors, establishing a prior and shared diagnosis that rely on problem and challenges for companies and territory, mobilization of actors through selective incentives and analysis of priority categories of actors. Furthermore, it appears that the contents of the HRP-Territorial is continuously translated and obtained by relative consensus. Finally, and despite the particular case of each situation, a modeling phase of this construction is possible.

Recent development has lead to the emergence of distributed Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSAN), which are capable of observing the physical environment, processing the data, making decisions based on the observations and performing appropriate actions. WSANs represent an important extension of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and may comprise a large number of sensor nodes and a smaller number of actor nodes. The sensor nodes are low-cost, low energy, battery powered devices with restricted sensing, computational and wireless communication capabilities. Actor nodes are resource richer with superior processing capabilities, higher transmission powers and a longer battery life. A basic operational scenario of a typical WSAN application follows the following sequence of events. The physical environment is periodically sensed and evaluated by the sensor nodes. The sensed data is then routed towards an actor node. Upon receiving sensed data, an actor node performs an action upon the physical environment if necessary, i.e. if the occurrence of a disturbance or critical event has been detected. The specific characteristics of sensor and actor nodes combined with some stringent application constraints impose unique requirements for WSANs. The fundamental challenges for WSANs are to achieve low latency, high energy efficiency and high reliability. The latency and energy efficiency requirements are in a trade-off relationship. The communication and coordination inside WSANs is managed via a Communication Protocol Stack (CPS) situated on every node. The requirements of low latency and energy efficiency have to be addressed at every layer of the CPS to ensure overall feasibility of the WSAN. Therefore, careful design of protocol layers in the CPS is crucial in attempting to meet the unique requirements and handle the abovementioned trade-off relationship in WSANs. The traditional CPS, comprising the application, network, medium access control and physical layer, is a layered protocol stack with every layer, a predefined functional entity. However, it has been found that for similar types of networks with similar stringent network requirements, the strictly layered protocol stack approach performs at a sub-optimal level with regards to network efficiency. A modern cross-layer paradigm, which proposes the employment of interactions between layers in the CPS, has recently attracted a lot of attention. The cross-layer approach promotes network efficiency optimization and promises considerable performance gains. It is found that in literature, the adoption of this cross-layer paradigm has not yet been considered for WSANs. In this dissertation, a complete cross-layer enabled WSAN CPS is developed that features the adoption of the cross-layer paradigm towards promoting optimization of the network efficiency. The newly proposed cross-layer enabled CPS entails protocols that incorporate information from other layers into their local decisions. Every protocol layer provides information identified as beneficial to another layer(s) in the CPS via a newly proposed Simple Cross-Layer Framework (SCLF) for WSANs. The proposed complete cross-layer enabled WSAN CPS comprises a Cross-Layer enabled Network-Centric Actuation Control with Data Prioritization (CL-NCAC-DP) application layer (APPL) protocol, a Cross-Layer enabled Cluster-based Hierarchical Energy/Latency-Aware Geographic Routing (CL-CHELAGR) network layer (NETL) protocol and a Cross-Layer enabled Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Minimum Preamble Sampling and Duty Cycle Doubling (CL-CSMA-MPS-DCD) medium access control layer (MACL) protocol. Each of these protocols builds on an existing simple layered protocol that was chosen as a basis for development of the cross-layer enabled protocols. It was found that existing protocols focus primarily on energy efficiency to ensure maximum network lifetime. However, most WSAN applications require latency minimization to be considered with the same importance. The cross-layer paradigm provides means of facilitating the optimization of both latency and energy efficiency. Specifically, a solution to the latency versus energy trade-off is given in this dissertation. The data generated by sensor nodes is prioritised by the APPL and depending on the delay-sensitivity, handled in a specialised manor by every layer of the CPS. Delay-sensitive data packets are handled in order to achieve minimum latency. On the other hand, delay-insensitive non critical data packets are handled in such a way as to achieve the highest energy efficiency. In effect, either latency minimization or energy efficiency receives an elevated precedence according to the type of data that is to be handled. Specifically, the cross-layer enabled APPL protocol provides information pertaining to the delay-sensitivity of sensed data packets to the other layers. Consequently, when a data packet is detected as highly delay-sensitive, the cross-layer enabled NETL protocol changes its approach from energy efficient routing along the maximum residual energy path to routing along the fastest path towards the cluster-head actor node for latency minimizing of the specific packet. This is done by considering information (contained in the SCLF neighbourhood table) from the MACL that entails wakeup schedules and channel utilization at neighbour nodes. Among the added criteria, the next-hop node is primarily chosen based on the shortest time to wakeup. The cross-layer enabled MACL in turn employs a priority queue and a temporary duty cycle doubling feature to enable rapid relaying of delay-sensitive data. Duty cycle doubling is employed whenever a sensor node’s APPL state indicates that it is part of a critical event reporting route. When the APPL protocol state (found in the SCLF information pool) indicates that the node is not part of the critical event reporting route anymore, the MACL reverts back to promoting energy efficiency by disengaging duty cycle doubling and re-employing a combination of a very low duty cycle and preamble sampling. The APPL protocol conversely considers the current queue size of the MACL and temporarily halts the creation of data packets (only if the sensed value is non critical) to prevent a queue overflow and ease congestion at the MACL By simulation it was shown that the cross-layer enabled WSAN CPS consistently outperforms the layered CPS for various network conditions. The average end-to-end latency of delay-sensitive critical data packets is decreased substantially. Furthermore, the average end-to-end latency of delay-insensitive data packets is also decreased. Finally, the energy efficiency performance is decreased by a tolerable insignificant minor margin as expected. The trivial increase in energy consumption is overshadowed by the high margin of increase in latency performance for delay-sensitive critical data packets. The newly proposed cross-layer CPS achieves an immense latency performance increase for WSANs, while maintaining excellent energy efficiency. It has hence been shown that the adoption of the cross-layer paradigm by the WSAN CPS proves hugely beneficial with regards to the network efficiency performance. This increases the feasibility of WSANs and promotes its application in more areas. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

The rapid growth of universities in the Least Developing Countries (LDCs) is aimed at enhancing access to tertiary education, which has resulted in a sharp increase in the enrolment rate. However, the quantitative increase has been marred with a correspondingly continuous decline in the quality of education. This is attributed to a wide range of limiting factors mainly classified as institutional problems. Some of these problems include a shortage of resources, limited skills and incompetent human capital, lack of ICT infrastructure, and the ineffective use of existing ICT resources. These problems and others have adversely affected how national education and research network can improve research output and quality of education. In this study, a survey, in the form of an exploratory quantitative research design is used. A descriptive non-experimental quantitative approach was also chosen, and a questionnaire was administered to approximately one hundred and seventy-two (172) participants drawn from twenty-nine (29) Ethiopian Public Universities. The results of the analysis show that the study variables namely NREN service for education, EthERNet, electronic device and research output have a significant and positive impact on the Quality of Education (QE) to differing degrees. Also, the study variables such as NREN service for research, high-performance computing, and remote computing facilities indicated that they had a significant and positive impact on Research Output (RO) to differing degrees. The study explored the impact of EthERNet in improving the quality of education and research output by examining the existing network infrastructure and NREN services. The study employed the use of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to assess the existing network infrastructure and NREN services to determine that a reliable network can improve the quality of education and research output. Besides, Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used to identify the positive and negative factors that impact on the roles, relationships, and formation of quality of education and research output. Furthermore, a three-step design science approach was applied to propose and justify the theoretical framework, which is used as a base to develop a service portfolio and roadmap conceived to design the required NREN service for EthERNet. This research contributed to the body of knowledge by finding the missing link between the quality of education and research outputs. From a theoretical perspective, the research contributed a theoretical framework by developing the construct and their measures that can be used in assessing the adoption and usage of technology. Furthermore, the study contributes to the literature by demonstrating an analytical process which could be used as a guide for future NREN service requirement to improve the quality of education and research output with the existing findings being used as a reference point. / School of Computing / Ph. D. (Computer Science)

abstract: The purpose of this study is to explore how internationalization is formed and operationalized in the Intensive English Programs (IEPs) at three Michigan higher education institutions. Drawing from Latour’s (2005) actor-network theory, this study examined the human and non-human actors involved in constructions of internationalization, which was defined as relational processes (programs and policies) that define and deliver international, intercultural, or global elements into the purpose, function and delivery of postsecondary education (Altbach, 2007; Knight, 2003). As an entry point into the study, I focused on the director of the programs and their mission statements, a written articulation of beliefs, as suggested by Childress (2007; 2009). To explore these potential networks, I utilized Comparative Case Study (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2016), which allowed for more unbounded cases; Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 1999; Latour, 2005) which allowed for agency among non-human actors that also coexist, transform, translate or modify meaning; and relational network analysis methods (Herz et al. 2014; Heath et al. 2009; Clarke 2005), which helped to explore and make sense of complex relational data. This was in the effort to construct an understanding of the “processual, built activities, performed by the actants out of which they are composed” (Crawford, 2004, p. 1). I mapped actors within each site who were performing their local and contingent processes of internationalization. The results indicate the formation of complex and far reaching webs of actors and activities that accomplish a form of internationalization that is highly localized. While each program under investigation responded to similar pressures, such as funding shortfalls via student enrollment declines, the responses and networks that were created from these constraints were wildly different. Indeed, the study found these programs engaged in international activities that enrolled various external actors, from campus departments to local community groups. In engaging in relational connections that moved beyond their primary instructional purpose, English language instruction and cultural acclimatization, the IEPs in this study were able to 1) contribute to the internationalization of university departmental curricula, 2) serve their communities in dynamic and impactful ways and 3) develop their own sense of internationalization in a university setting. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 2020