Context. Quality assurance plays a vital role in the software engineering development process. It can be considered as one of the activities, to observe the execution of software project to validate if it behaves as expected or not. Quality assurance activities contribute to the success of software project by reducing the risks of software’s quality. Accurate planning, launching and controlling quality assurance activities on time can help to improve the performance of software projects. However, quality assurance activities also consume time and cost. One of the reasons is that they may not focus on the potential defect-prone area. In some of the latest and more accurate findings, researchers suggested that quality assurance activities should focus on the scope that may have the potential of defect; and defect predictors should be used to support them in order to save time and cost. Many available models recommend that the project’s history information be used as defect indicator to predict the number of defects in the software project. Objectives. In this thesis, new models are defined to predict the number of defects in the classes of single software systems. In addition, the new models are built based on the combination of product metrics as defect predictors. Methods. In the systematic review a number of article sources are used, including IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, and Springer Link, in order to find the existing models related to the topic. In this context, open source projects are used as training sets to extract information about occurred defects and the system evolution. The training data is then used for the definition of the prediction models. Afterwards, the defined models are applied on other systems that provide test data, so information that was not used for the training of the models; to validate the accuracy and correctness of the models Results. Two models are built. One model is built to predict the number of defects of one class. One model is built to predict whether one class contains bug or no bug.. Conclusions. The proposed models are the combination of product metrics as defect predictors that can be used either to predict the number of defects of one class or to predict if one class contains bugs or no bugs. This combination of product metrics as defect predictors can improve the accuracy of defect prediction and quality assurance activities; by giving hints on potential defect prone classes before defect search activities will be performed. Therefore, it can improve the software development and quality assurance in terms of time and cost

The number of web applications continues to grow rapidly. Many applications that were traditionally desktop-based such as word processors, email clients or even file managers have now their web alternatives that often have bigger user base. While the software world is shifting from providing desktop-based applications to offering cloud-based services, challenges arise to provide high quality software in this radically different environment. Web-based applications are different in many aspects to their desktop equivalents. Web-based and desktop-based applications have radically dissimilar architecture, user interface, execution environment, requirements and limitations. To mention a few specific differences: the web application is executed in the context of a web browser, not operating system; code is executed in two separate places: on the server and in the web browser; code for the server is written in a different language than code for the client. Because of these differences, the traditional software testing techniques are only of limited use. To properly test a web application one needs to take into account numerous differences in Web-Browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Apple Safari. Simple input-output testing is useful only to limited degree, because output cannot be just compared to the predefined value but must be compared within the context of all the environments and operating systems the application supports. The fact that an application works in one browser does not guarantee that it will work at all in other browsers. The entire complexity of the problem makes testing web applications a very time consuming and difficult task. Often it takes significantly longer time to test the application than it is to implement it. Because of these difficulties, web applications are often tested exclusively manually by humans, and only to a limited degree. New techniques and technologies are necessary to approach the problem of web application testing. This paper includes a case study carried out during author’s work on a web-based application. It examines the current state-of-the-art of web application testing and suggests useful techniques in tackling the problem.

L’évaluation de la vulnérabilité est indispensable pour permettre aux gestionnaires du risque d’inondation, publics ou privés, d’avoir une meilleure connaissance et de prendre des décisions concernant les moyens d’action à mettre en place. Notamment, la connaissance de l’efficacité des actions menées sur les territoires et de la capacité existante des territoires à faire face au risque peut influencer leurs choix et les politiques publiques de gestion. Toutefois, l’évaluation de l’efficacité d’une action à réduire les dommages liés aux inondations est complexe et difficile à mener. Par ailleurs, peu de travaux incluent la capacité d’actions dans l’évaluation de la vulnérabilité.L’objectif de cette thèse est de proposer une appréciation de la vulnérabilité tenant compte de la capacité d’action des territoires. Il s’agit d’une approche expérimentale de l’efficacité des actions, appliquée aux Programmes d’Action de Prévention des Inondations (PAPI) qui sont le dispositif phare de la politique de prévention du risque inondation en France. Elle repose sur une méthode à dire d’experts, associant les différents acteurs de la gestion du risque inondation en France / Assessing vulnerability to flooding is necessary in order to allow public or private stakeholders, involved in flood risk management, improving their knowledge and taking decisions with regards to flood risk management. In particular, knowing the effectiveness of implemented actions as well as the existing risk coping capacities on territories may impact their decisions and public policies. However, the assessment of an action’s impact on flood-related damages is characterized by high complexity. Few research works include the society’s capacity to take action in their models of vulnerability assessment.The objective of this research is to provide an assessment of vulnerability to flooding that takes in account this capacity of action. It relies on an experimental design that aims at assessing the effectiveness of actions through expert judgments. The panel of experts gathers varied actors involved in flood risk management. The method is implemented on Actions Programs for Flood Prevention, as they are a key component of the french flood risk management public policy

Pas de résumé / Doctorat en droit / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Introduction and background: There has been a growing trend over the last few decades that auditors will assure corporate sustainability reports. The audit profession has a long history and experience of reviewing the corporate financial reports. Sustainability reports, on the other hand, is a relatively new and dynamic area of auditing where the auditor lacks experience and clear standards designed to review such a report. The lack of experience can adversely affect the auditor’s professional legitimacy. Purpose: The aim of the study is to highlight the difficulties auditors may face while reviewing and certifying sustainability reports. Method: This essay is a literature study. The literature study consists of ten scientific articles. Conclusions: The study shows that international standards are difficult to apply and does not give the auditors fully support throughout the auditing process. Furthermore, auditors do not have enough knowledge and capacity to carry out a reliable audit of sustainability reports on their own. The study concludes that major auditing companies maintain legitimacy through their trademark. Finally, detailed and reliable statements by auditors are critical to meet stakeholders expectations. Concluding discussion: Auditors possess mostley limited knowledge and experience of auditing sustainability reports which creates problems within the auditing process. The study discusses what form these problems take and how they can be problematic for the auditor's credibility and legitimacy. / Inledning och bakgrund: Under de senaste decennierna har det skett en växande trend att revisorer ska bestyrka informationen i företags hållbarhetsrapporter. Revisionsbranschen har lång erfarenhet bakom sig av granskning av företagens finansiella rapporter dock är hållbarhetsrelaterade frågor relativt nytt. Ett område som än idag är under utveckling och där revisorn inte har samma kunskap och tydliga standarder utformade för hur sådan rapport ska granskas. Bristen på erfarenhet kan komma att påverka revisorernas trovärdighet och professionella legitimitet negativt. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att belysa svårigheter revisorer står inför vid granskning och bestyrkande av hållbarhetsrapporter. Metod: Uppsatsen bygger på en litteraturstudie som består av tio stycken vetenskapliga artiklar. Konklusioner: Revisorer har otillräckligt stöd och har svårt att använda sig utav de idag tillgängliga internationella standarderna. Det har även visat sig att revisorer inte har tillräckligt med kunskap och kompetens för att på egen hand kunna fullfölja en granskning av hållbarhetsrapporter. Större revisionsbyråer upprätthåller legitimitet utifrån sitt inarbetade varumärke men ett mer detaljerat uttalande av revisorerna i hållbarhetsrapporten ses som den viktigaste aspekten för att få tillit från intressenterna. Avslutande diskussion: Revisorer har oftast begränsad kunskap och erfarenhet av att revidera informationen i hållbarhetsrapporten vilket gör att det kan uppstå problem i granskningsprocessen som i sin tur kan äventyra deras legitimitet. Vilka dessa problem är och hur de kan vara problematiska för revisorns trovärdighet samt legitimitet diskuteras i studien.

Le travail de recherche appliquée réalisé au cours du doctorat s’intéresse aux tempêtes hivernales à fort potentiel d’impact économique en Europe et comprend deux parties. La première partie vise à quantifier l’impact du changement climatique sur les tempêtes de vent hivernales extrêmes en Europe et s’appuie sur des données couvrant des périodes supérieures à 30 ans. La seconde partie du travail est plus opérationnelle et a pour objectif l’élaboration et la mise en place d’un outil de détection des tempêtes de vent hivernales en Europe à partir de prévisions météorologiques actualisées toutes les six heures. L’objectif général de la première partie du travail de recherche est d’apporter une vision moyen-terme de ce que pourraient être les tempêtes de vent hivernales en Europe au cours du XXIe siècle. Ce travail vient compléter la vision pour l’instant principalement court-terme du risque proposée par les modèles CatNat, utilisés par les (ré)assureurs pour connaître le coût du risque sur leur portefeuille. Au cours du travail de recherche, une nouvelle méthode a été proposée pour définir le potentiel de dommages associés à une tempête de vent en Europe. L’idée originale développée au cours du projet est l’utilisation de plusieurs variables capturant différentes échelles spatio-temporelles et prenant en compte la relation entre plusieurs variables caractéristiques d’un même cyclone extratropical. La recherche d’événements partageant une signature similaire et intense, simultanément dans la vorticité relative à 850 hPa, la pression au niveau de la mer et le vent de surface, conduit à la détection d’un nombre réduit d’événements. La comparaison du nombre d’événements qui constituent ce groupe et de leur intensité entre des données issues de réanalyses et celles issues de différentes simulations du climat futur peut apporter des réponses suffisantes aux compagnies d’assurance sur l’évolution de ce risque dans un climat dont les conditions climatiques sont différentes de celui d’aujourd’hui. Un premier article sur la méthode a été accepté dans le journal Natural Hazard and Earth Science System. La méthode a été appliquée aux données issues des modèles participant au projet CMIP5. Il s’agit d’évaluer la capacité des modèles de climat à reproduire les événements type « tempête de vent hivernales en Europe » et d’estimer l’impact du changement climatique sur la fréquence et l’intensité des tempêtes de vent hivernales en Europe. Un second article reprenant les résultats de cette étude est en préparation. La seconde partie de la thèse est focalisée sur le projet opérationnel Severe WIndstorms Forecasting Tool (SWIFT) dont le but est de développer un outil permettant, à partir de prévisions météorologiques issues toutes les six heures, de détecter un événement type tempête de vent pouvant causer des dégâts majeurs en Europe et de proposer aux entités du groupe AXA concernées une estimation du montant des pertes et du nombre de sinistres associés à l’événement à venir ainsi que leurs localisations. / The research carried out during the PhD deals with winter windstorms with high economic damage potential in Europe and can be divided in two parts. The first part aims at quantifying the impact of climate change on European winter windstorms and relies on datasets covering long periods of time (>30 years) either in the past or in the future. The objective of the second part is to forecast potential losses and claims associated with an upcoming extreme windstorm by using forecast data updated every six hours. The overall objective of the first part is to provide a medium-term view of what could be the winter windstorms in Europe during the 21st century. It thus completes the short-term vision of the risk given by the Catastrophe Models used by the (re)insurers to assess the cost of the risk on their portfolio. A new methodology has been developed to define the damage potential associated with European winter windstorms. The novelty of the methodology relies in the use of several variables capturing different spatiotemporal scales and the coupling that exists between variables during the cyclogenesis. Seeking for events sharing a similar intense signature simultaneously in the relative vorticity at 850 hPa, the mean sea level pressure and the surface wind speed lead to the detection of a small group of events. Comparing the number of events that belong to this group and their intensity in reanalysis datasets and different simulations of the future climate can provide enough information to insurance companies on the potential evolution of this hazard in a future climate. A first paper on the methodology has been accepted in the journal of Natural Hazard and Earth Science System.The methodology has been applied to the datasets provided by Global Climate Models (GCM) participating to the CMIP5 project. The goal is to assess the ability of GCMs to reproduce winter windstorms in Europe and the potential impact of climate change on the frequency and intensity of such events. A second paper presenting the results obtained from this second study will be submitted.The second part of the PhD focuses on the project Severe WIndstorms Forecasting Tool (SWIFT). The objective is to develop an early warning tool that detects an upcoming winter windstorms in meteorological forecasts updated every six hours and provides interested AXA entities with an alert on the upcoming windstorm as well as an estimate of the potential losses and claims.The tool has been developed in parallel of the research project and consists in two modules. In the first module, particularly intense systems are detected in meteorological forecasts and the associated gust footprint is extracted. In the second module, wind speeds are translated into a loss and a number of claims thanks to vulnerability curves. When a system is detected, an alert is sent with the appropriate information on the event propagation and the associated loss. The tool has been running automatically for the 2013 – 2014 winter season and detected most of the events that passed over Europe.

M.Tech. (Operations Management) / It has become a trend for organisations to implement and certify quality systems. The most common quality system that organisations currently implement is ISO 9001. Certification to ISO 9001 has in recent times been used as a marketing tool to enter new markets. Nowadays, customers expect their suppliers and potential suppliers to be certified to ISO 9001. It has become a primary requirement for doing business, and customers now demand it. There have been various studies conducted to establish the advantages of ISO 9001 and its impact on organisational performance. Laboratories are no exception to this developing trend. They are implementing laboratory quality standards like ISO 17025 and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Good Laboratory Practice (OECD GLP). Some laboratories are now applying for certification of compliance to laboratory standards. Implementing and certifying laboratory systems is an exercise that comes at a cost. The exercise is demanding in terms of human resources, time and capital. There has not been a study conducted to evaluate the impact of these systems on the operational performance of laboratories. This is the reason that resulted in identification of the need to conduct the study. A qualitative research approach was pursued in conducting the study, where the researcher investigated the impact of laboratory quality standards on the operational performance of commercial and non-commercial laboratories. Operational performance in this study is defined as health and safety; supplier selection and performance; human resources; customer satisfaction and profitability. Data was collected through interviews, and was then summarised, and analysed in order to address the research problem. Based on the data collected, it was concluded there is no notable difference in the performance of laboratories with or without quality assurance systems such as ISO 17025 and OECD GLP.

This thesis reports on two aspects of interpersonal meaning in peer reviewer reports for eleven researchers in the Animal and Veterinary Sciences awarded NRF ratings in A1, B1, C1 and Y1 rating categories. These aspects are the evaluation of the researcher applying for a rating, and the instruction to the NRF as to the rating the researcher ought to receive. A full APPRAISAL Analysis (Martin & White 2005) complemented by an investigation of politeness strategies (Myers 1989) is used to analyse the reports and show how the various systems of interpersonal meaning co-function and to what effect. The analysis reveals that there are clear differences between the evaluative and instructive language used in the reports. Those for the A1 rated researchers are characterised by only positive evaluations of the applicant, frequently strengthened in terms of Graduation and contracted in terms of Engagement. Overall there is less Engagement and politeness in these reports rendering them more ‘factual’ than the reports for the other rating categories. The A1 rated researcher is therefore construed as being, incontestably, a leader in his/her field of research, worthy of a top rating. The reports for the B1 and C1 rated researchers are characterised by the increasing presence of negative evaluations. In addition, there are more instances of softened/downscaled Graduation, dialogic expansion and deference politeness, showing that there is more perceived contention about the evaluations made. The reports for the Y1 rated researchers (a category for young researchers) focus on the applicant’s demonstrated potential to become a leader in the field. In addition to a high incidence of negative evaluations, downscaled Graduation, dialogic expansion and deference politeness, the Y1 reports are also characterised by a high incidence of advice and suggestions from the reviewers concerning the applicant’s work and standing. At a broader level, the analysis reveals that the language used in the reports has a profound influence on the outcome of the rating process. The reports are crucial, not only for evaluating the applicant but, also, more subtly, in directing the NRF towards a specific rating category. It offers insights into what is valued in the scientific community, what is considered quality research, and what leads to international recognition. The research also adds uniquely to current thinking about the language of science and, more particularly, highlights the nuanced understanding of evaluative and instructive language in the reports that is possible if one draws on the full APPRAISAL framework, and insights into politeness behaviour.

L’Organisation des Nations Unies a décrété l’année 2005 « année du microcrédit », dans l’espoir de réduire la pauvreté dans le monde, conformément aux huit objectifs du millénaire pour le développement (OMD). Présenté comme un précieux instrument de lutte contre la pauvreté, ce système créé par le Docteur Muhammad YUNUS prix Nobel de la Paix 2006 et fondateur de la Grameen Bank au Bangladesh, s’est propagé à travers le monde et notamment dans les pays en développement. Il permet d’offrir des petits prêts à des populations pauvres exclues du système financier afin de développer des activités génératrices de revenus et d’épargner. Plus connu sous le nom de la microfinance, ce terme désigne aujourd’hui, le microcrédit, l’épargne, le transfert d’argent et l’assurance. En effet, l’accès aux prêts n’excluait pas les autres risques, car le décès, la maladie, l’invalidité et les dommages aux biens fragilisaient aussi ces populations, révélant leur besoin d’assurance et il est évident que la prise de conscience de leur état de pauvreté, suscite la réduction de leur vulnérabilité. Une logique sous-tend l’offre par le biais de la « microassurance » dont le champ sémantique et opérationnel relève des compétences des assureurs qui en se lançant sur ce marché, doivent faire face à de nombreux défis car la microassurance s’inscrit dans des contextes bien spécifiques. Entre innovations et traditions, la démarche sera conçue dans le cadre d'une politique intégrée avec les Etats, acteurs traditionnels du développement, institutions de microfinance, organisations non gouvernementales et bailleurs de fonds internationaux, dont l'appui était essentiel. En dix ans, la microassurance a connu une croissance extraordinaire. Mais malgré les efforts accomplis, le bilan montre qu’il reste encore du chemin à faire. / The United Nations declared 2005 as the « Year of Microcrédit », in the hopes of reducing the level of world poverty, as part of the eight main objectives of the millennium development goals " OMD ". Presented as a valuable tool against poverty, this system created by Doctor Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Price, and founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, is used throughout the world and most notably in developing countries.It allows " small loans " to impoverished populations which are excluded from financial systems so that they can develop activities that generate income as well as offer them the opportunity to save. More known as " microfinance", this term refers today, microcredit, savings, money transfer and insurance.Indeed, access to loans does not exclude other risks such as death, sickness, invalidity, as well as potential damages to capital goods. These numerous risks show their absolute need for insurance and it is obvious that awareness of their poverty will reduce their vulnerability.A development logic behind the offer through the " microinsurance " whose semantics and operational field within the competence of insurers embark on this market have to overcome a number of challenges as the field of " microinsurance " are in very specific and often difficult contexts.Between innovative and traditional, the approach will be integrated policy with the states, the traditional development actors, microfinance institutions, ONGs, international donors, whose support was essential.In ten years, " microinsurance " has experienced a extraordinary growing. But despite the progress that has been made, the resume shows that there is still much work to do.

The fields of quality assurance in higher education and e-learning, or technology-enhanced learning, are current and topical, yet seldom overlap (Reid, 2003). Higher education institutions are experiencing pressure to become more client focused and compete on the global stage, especially with respect to technology-enhanced learning. We are on the brink of a genuine pedagogical revolution (Moon, 2003) and calls for quality promotion, accountability, self-evaluation, value for money and client satisfaction cannot go unheeded. Three knowledge domains provide the context for this study: quality assurance, higher education and web-supported learning. Their intersection locates the research problem that was investigated, namely the quality assurance of web-supported learning in higher education. The research design is an instrumental case study, focusing on web-supported learning as a supportive medium in a flexible, blended learning model at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The research methods include the literature survey, case analysis meetings, a student survey, lecturer interviews, expert consultation and task teaming. The conceptual framework for this study (Figure 2.5) is based on the confluence of the existing theories: quality assurance theory, instructional systems design and systems theory. The updated conceptual framework (Figure 7.1) and the synthesized findings (Table 7.1) reflect the holistic nature of the process-based quality management system for web-supported learning that characterises this study. The value of this study to the academic community is in the findings, which include a taxonomy of critical success factors for web-supported learning, the identification of factors which promote student and lecturer satisfaction (or frustration) with web-supported learning experiences, and lessons learnt by applying standard quality assurance theory to the instructional design process. The self-evaluation exercise in an academic support unit provides a precedent and contributes criteria that will be useful to the Higher Education Quality Committee in South Africa, as well as to other higher education institutions. / Thesis (PhD (Computer Integrated Education))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted