Magister Legum - LLM / Over the past decade countries have embraced globalisation. The depth and influence of globalisation has grown significantly since the 19th century. Globalisation has accelerated mainly due to increased integration in trade with bilateral, regional and multilateral trade negotiations on the rise. Multinational companies have also enlarged which enable production to be done seamlessly in different countries, increase in capital flows such as purchase of assets and bonds has also contributed. Furthermore, the surge on technological innovations and advancement cannot be ignored when one speaks of globalisation this era has been dubbed the technological era additionally there is also the role of migration which enhances labor movements. The world has rapidly shrunk to one global economy. After the World War II countries began to move away from protectionism to liberalised trade and this resulted in the formation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) then the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which is comprised of 164-member states. The WTO regulates trade and promotes free trade. Over the years the organisation has been evolving to deal with issues such as climate and technical assistance. Global trade presents challenges which may give rise to the need for countries to protect their domestic industries for political and economic reasons.

This thesis investigates the effect that non-anonymity has upon student team-member evaluations; more specifically, it looked at how to create conditions of openness and honesty in which students will readily give and receive constructive criticism. The central hypothesis of this research is that if students are taught and prepared to properly give and receive constructive criticism, and have multiple opportunities to do so, non-anonymous feedback is the most effective and desirable. In order to gauge the effects of non-anonymity, eight specific hypotheses relating to different aspects of the feedback process were tested. Predictions were made as to the effects upon the self-awareness and defensiveness of those who received feedback, the honesty and candor of those who provided it, as well as the effect upon teams' levels of trust and unity, and levels of performance. The statistical analysis showed that non-anonymity had no significant effect upon self-awareness, trust and unity, and performance. Significant differences were observed for honesty and candor, as well as defensiveness. Although some of these differences were in favor, others were contrary to the assumptions that were made. One of the results showed that at the beginning of the procedure, non-anonymous ratings were more lenient, but at the end of the process there was no difference. This was as expected. In regards to the overall process, non-anonymous students perceived ratings to be less honest and candid. A second conclusion was that non-anonymous students were actually more defensive towards negative feedback. In the end, there was no strong evidence for or against non-anonymity, and thus it appears that there was no major treatment effect. There are two justifications as to why this may be the case. These are based upon insights gained from the free-response section of a follow-up survey which the participants took. First, if non-anonymous feedback does indeed produce positive outcomes it may take a longer period of time for these differences to be noticed. This process took place over only about a three-month period, and feedback was received only 3-4 weeks apart. Secondly, when teams are small (i.e., only 3-5 members), it is difficult to maintain anonymity, which essentially removes the treatment. From these observations, the final recommendation of this report is that for students working in small teams, non-anonymous feedback is preferable. This is because, as just noted, anonymity is difficult to maintain even if it is a required condition. It seems that pretending that anonymity exists, when in fact it does not, actually hinders transparency and trust. Also, it seems that giving feedback non-anonymously will more effectively prepare students for working on teams in their careers, as this is more reflective of the way that feedback will be provided in the workforce.

Recently, many identity-based two-party and three-party key agreement schemes were proposed based on pairing cryptosystems. Multi-party (including more than three parties) key agreement protocols, which are called conference key schemes, can be applied to distributed systems and wireless environments such as Ad hoc networks. However, it is not easy to extend two or three-party schemes to multi-party ones with the guarantee of efficiency and security. In addition to the above two properties, inter-domain environments should also be considered in identity-based key agreement systems. However, only few identity-based multi-party conference key agreement schemes in single domain were proposed in the literature and they did not satisfy all of the security attributes such as forward secrecy and withstanding impersonation. In this thesis, we will propose a novel efficient single-domain identity-based multi-party conference key scheme and extend it to an inter-domain version. Finally, we will prove that the proposed schemes satisfy the required security attributes via formal methods.

Canadian federalism has experienced pressure for change in recent years. By the end of the twentieth century, collaboration became the catch word and federations throughout the world, including Canada, witnessed an emergent movement toward collaborative governance, collaborative public service delivery, collaborative management and collaborative approaches to addressing social and economic issues. But even if the number of collaborative arrangements has grown since the 1990s, the understanding of the design, management and performance of collaborative arrangements in the Canadian federation remains weak. Accordingly, this dissertation argues that, in order to understand and open the black box of intergovernmental collaboration, it is necessary to put collaboration in a historical context and explore the roles of elites and political institutions in shaping intergovernmental collaborative practices. The role of the former provides the necessary complement of agency, while that of the latter represents a perspective that gives theoretical importance to political institutions. The integration of the two theoretical schools, elite theory and historical institutionalism, into one approach constitutes an attractive solution and offers the tools necessary to explore the complex processes of intergovernmental collaboration. The theoretical framework constructed in this dissertation is then applied to analyze whether the Agreement on Internal Trade, the Social Union Framework Agreement and the Council of the Federation can be considered in reality as examples of collaborative federalism.

Tongue diagnosis is a unique method of diagnosis practiced in traditional Chinese medicine and an important tool in diagnosing diseases before determining proper methods of cures and treatment. In the traditional clinical practice, tongue diagnosis depends solely on the personal knowledge and experience of the practitioner, thereby lacking in objectivity and quantification. Consequently, an automatic tongue diagnosis system (ATDS) has been developed to provide practitioners with objective data and assist them in reaching diagnoses. To prove the system¡¦s stability in clinical application, this study employs 20 sets of tongue images, taken 10 minutes apart from 20 patients with possible variations in lighting, and the length, shape and angle of extruding tongue. The features extracted by the ATDS for each set of tongue images are compared to investigate the intra-agreement of ATDS, and two sessions of tongue diagnosis questionnaires to investigate the intra-agreement of doctors with consensus (DC) and doctors without consensus(DWC),and the inter-agreement between ATDS, DC and DWC, and the inter- agreement among DC and DWC. And this study also investigate the improvement of agreement by DWC after a training process.

Abstract Chinese civil war broke out in 1949. The Nationalist government moved to Taiwan (Chiang Kai-shek regime) and proposed "The legitimate government does not coexist with rebels" and vowed to "retake the mainland China" and also brought up other slogans as well. They also took Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu as counterattack base. Therefore, the tensions of cross-strait relations were at daggers drawn. Our government hasn¡¦t lifted the ban to the mainland China to visit relatives until 1987. In 1992, "Koo-Wang talks" for each session made a significant progress in establishing cooperation premise of the "1992 consensus". Gradually, the cross-strait relations have become moderate, but the regime of the mainland China still doesn¡¦t give up forcing against Taiwan. Since the Ma government took office in 2008, they have devoted to promoting the peaceful progress of cross-strait relations and restarting cross-strait economic cooperation and contact channels for cultural exchanges as well. The government even signed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with the mainland China to prevent Taiwan from the Asian market marginalization on June 29, 2010. The new government is actively reflecting on the impasse between the two sides resulting in Taiwan's development of the stagnant status quo and brainstorm for a breakthrough in the Road; on the other hand, continued economic development of the mainland China will make their influence in the global much dramatically. In particular, Chinese President Hu Jin-Tao in Beijing proposed six new advocates to Taiwan to commemorate <Compatriots in Taiwan> in 30th anniversary commemorative meeting on December 31, 2008. The sixth point mentioned that the two sides can explore the establishment of a military security mechanism of mutual trust. They also called for the two sides to include the full range of military and other exchange, and thus achieve the signing of a peace agreement. Owing to the fact that confidence building measures is the process and catalyst for signing a peace agreement with two sides, we can accumulate experiences from cross-strait interaction and establish mutual trust by the confidence building measures. Furthermore, we can lay the foundation for further engaged in peace talks. Consequently, in the turning point of history, it goes without saying that the importance of confidence building measures.

In the Internet of Services (IoS) providers and consumers of services engage in business interactions on service marketplaces. Provisioning and consumption of services are regulated by service level agreements (SLA), which are negotiated between providers and consumers. Trading composite services requires the providers to manage the SLAs that are negotiated with the providers of atomic services and the consumers of the composition. The management of SLAs involves the negotiation and renegotiation of SLAs as well as their monitoring during service provisioning. The complexity of this task arises due to the fact that dependencies exist between the different services in a composition. Dependencies between services occur because the complex task of a composition is distributed between atomic services. Thus, the successful provisioning of the composite service depends on its atomic building blocks. At the same time, atomic services depend on other atomic services, e.g. because of data or resource requirements, or time relationships. These dependencies need to be considered for the management of composite service SLAs. This thesis aims at developing a management approach for dependencies between services in service compositions to support SLA management. Information about service dependencies is not explicitly available. Instead it is implicitly contained in the workflow description of a composite service, the negotiated SLAs of the composite service, and as application domain knowledge of experts, which makes the handling of this information more complex. Thus, the dependency management approach needs to capture this dependency information in an explicit way. The dependency information is then used to support SLA management in three ways. First of all dependency information is used during SLA negotiation the to ensure that the different SLAs enable the successful collaboration of the services to achieve the composite service goal. Secondly, during SLA renegotiation dependency information is used to determine which effects the renegotiation has on other SLAs. Finally, dependency information is used during SLA monitoring to determine the effects of detected violations on other services. Based on a literature study and two use cases from the logistics and healthcare domains different types of dependencies were analyzed and classified. The results from this analysis were used as a basis for the development of an approach to analyze and represent dependency information according to the different dependency properties. Furthermore, a lifecycle and architecture for managing dependency information was developed. In an iterative approach the different artifacts were implemented, tested based on two use cases, and refined according to the test results Finally, the prototype was evaluated with regard to detailed test cases and performance measurements were executed. The resulting dependency management approach has four main contributions. Firstly, it represents a holistic approach for managing service dependencies with regard to composite SLA management. It extends existing work by supporting the handling of dependencies between atomic services as well as atomic and composite services at design time and during service provisioning. Secondly, a semi-automatic approach to capturing dependency information is provided. It helps to achieve a higher degree of automation as compared to other approaches. Thirdly, a metamodel for representing dependency information for SLA management is shown. Dependency information is kept separately from SLA information to achieve a better separation of concerns. This facilitates the utilization of the dependency management functionality with different SLA management approaches. Fourthly, a dependency management architecture is presented. The design of the architecture ensures that the components can be integrated with different SLA management approaches. The test case based evaluation of the dependency management approach showed its feasibility and correct functioning in two different application domains. Furthermore, the performance evaluation showed that the automated dependency management tasks are executed within the range of milliseconds for both use cases. The dependency management approach is suited to support the different SLA management tasks. It supports the work of composite service providers by facilitating the SLA management of complex service compositions.

The purpose of the present programme was to develop and validate a theoretically-grounded instrument to measure the planned and unplanned dimensions of lifestyle PA (PPA and UPA; Dunn, Andersen, & Jakicic, 1998). In Study 1, two samples of British adults (Internet: N = 742; paper: N = 563) were used to establish the content validity of the Brunel Lifestyle Physical Activity Questionnaire (BLPAQ). Exploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor model (UPA and PPA) that produced acceptable fit indices using confirmatory factors analyses with both samples. The purpose of Study 2 was to examine the test-retest reliability of the BLPAQ over 5 weeks using a sample of leisure centre users, university staff members, and university students (N = 337). High correlations were observed between the two administrations (range = .93-.98; p < .01). Thereafter, the data were subjected to proportion of agreement (PoA) analysis as advocated by Nevill, Lane, Kilgor, Bowes, and Whyte (2001). Both PPA and UPA demonstrated satisfactorily high internal agreement (PoA > 95%). In Study 3, the BLPAQ was cross-validated using two criterion measures: the Baecke Questionnaire of Habitual Physical Activity (Baecke, Burema, & Frijters, 1982) and the Godin’s Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire (Godin & Shephard, 1985). Multiple linear regressions were performed to predict PPA and UPA from the subscales of the two reference measures. The predictive models differed markedly in terms of gender. Subsequently, the sample of 338 British adults was divided into two subsamples, and these were subjected to a cross-validation using the Limits of Agreement (LoA) methodology advocated by Bland and Altman (1986). The agreement plots revealed that both BLPAQ subscales demonstrated acceptable inter-sample agreement when compared to the criterion measures. In Study 4, a series of structural equation models were tested with the aim of predicting PPA and UPA using the variables that constitute the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The TPB was able to predict PPA but not UPA. The addition of a direct path between past behaviour to UPA did not result in a significant prediction. Further work is required to examine the factorial structure of the PPA subscale and to increase the number of items in the UPA subscale. In sum, the programme has contributed a valid and reliable theory-based measure of PA as well as evidence to support the utility of the TPB in PA research. However, the TPB framework may require the addition of predictors such as past behaviour and actual behavioural control.

Significance tests for the measure of raw agreement are proposed. First, it is shown that the measure of raw agreement can be expressed as a proportionate reduction-in-error measure, sharing this characteristic with Cohen's Kappa and Brennan and Prediger's Kappa_n. Second, it is shown that the coefficient of raw agreement is linearly related to Brennan and Prediger's Kappa_n. Therefore, using the same base model for the estimation of expected cell frequencies as Brennan and Prediger's Kappa_n, one can devise significance tests for the measure of raw agreement. Two tests are proposed. The first uses Stouffer's Z, a probability pooler. The second test is the binomial test. A data example analyzes the agreement between two psychiatrists' diagnoses. The covariance structure of the agreement cells in a rater by rater table is described. Simulation studies show the performance and power functions of the test statistics. (author's abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

Canadian federalism has experienced pressure for change in recent years. By the end of the twentieth century, collaboration became the catch word and federations throughout the world, including Canada, witnessed an emergent movement toward collaborative governance, collaborative public service delivery, collaborative management and collaborative approaches to addressing social and economic issues. But even if the number of collaborative arrangements has grown since the 1990s, the understanding of the design, management and performance of collaborative arrangements in the Canadian federation remains weak. Accordingly, this dissertation argues that, in order to understand and open the black box of intergovernmental collaboration, it is necessary to put collaboration in a historical context and explore the roles of elites and political institutions in shaping intergovernmental collaborative practices. The role of the former provides the necessary complement of agency, while that of the latter represents a perspective that gives theoretical importance to political institutions. The integration of the two theoretical schools, elite theory and historical institutionalism, into one approach constitutes an attractive solution and offers the tools necessary to explore the complex processes of intergovernmental collaboration. The theoretical framework constructed in this dissertation is then applied to analyze whether the Agreement on Internal Trade, the Social Union Framework Agreement and the Council of the Federation can be considered in reality as examples of collaborative federalism.