<p>In today’s fast-paced world, there is a constant demand for better and more efficient ways of doing business. Motorola in Linköping are using the agile development framework, Scrum in their software development. A certain level of quality must also be assured of the delivered goods and services. Is it possible to use Scrum and still meet the quality requirements?</p><p>This Master Thesis is performed to investigate if it is possible to achieve a quality certificate from TL 9000, the telecom industry extension of ISO 9000, when using the agile development framework Scrum. The investigation consists of interviews and observations at Motorola, Linköping, along with literature studies about quality systems and agile development.</p><p>The conclusion is that it is possible to meet the TL 9000 requirements when using Scrum, under the condition that some additional processes are performed and that other parts of the organization also fulfills the remaining requirements. This is needed since there are requirements that are out of scope for the Scrum framework. Examples of the suggested additions are to follow the Scrum framework more strictly and to adopt a more specific definition of done.</p>

Thesis (M.Art. et Scien. (Town and Regional Planning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

The research focuses on the effectiveness of the integrated development planning (IDP) as a tool to accelerated service delivery: A case study of Aganang Local Municipality. The main problem investigated in the research is that the community of Aganang Local municipality does not have adequate services. The objective of the research is to investigate the integrated development planning process's impact on service delivery, to investigate if the budget is aligned to the IDP and to make possible recommendations on how the IDP could accelerate and improve service delivery. The hypothesis of the research centres on the acceleration of service delivery by implementing the IDP. Change in integration and cooperation in municipalities can be met if the management, process, systems, culture and innovation are improved. Qualitative and quantitative data was used in this research; the primary sources include questionnaires and interviews while the secondary sources include books, journals and reports. The findings revealed that Aganang local municipality has limited capacity in terms of human and financial resources; the municipality should have a retention and succession policy to ensure that the skills in the municipality are retained. The research also revealed that most people in the municipal area are illiterate and have insufficient skills. The study also revealed that the sector departments do not ensure that municipal strategies take cognisance of provincial strategies during the strategic sessions. The study also revealed that the budgets are only done per financial year and not on a Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTERF) basis (3-year plan) and are not properly aligned to the IDP. The research recommends that municipalities should strengthen the inter-governmental relations to ensure alignment and integration both horizontally and vertically. The research also recommends that the municipality should build capacity and develop skills in the community. The study also recommends adopt the cluster planning and implementation including forward planning to ensure that there is maximum resource allocation and shared functions. The study also recommends that the budget should be on a three-year basis to allow for proper project planning. / Thesis (M.Art. et Scien. (Town and Regional Planning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:08:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_mestrado_josemar.pdf: 1807801 bytes, checksum: b47a17ed3732deb7f34a3e310ec05477 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-09-29 / The multifractal modeling is more appropriate in describing some features finding in traffic flows in real networks than other models. This work investigates the behavior of the traffic modeling based policing algorithms found in the literature (Leaky Bucket, Fractal Leaky Bucket, Gaussian Multifractal Leaky Bucket) regarding the buffer utilization, the efficiency for the use of buffer efficiency in describing the accumulated traffic (envelope process), packet dropping and data loss (bytes). First, we compare the envelope process of the considered policing algorithms and the proposed algorithm MAPM (Multifractal Arrival Policing Mechanism), with traffic without policing. Next, it was calculated the system loss rate for a finity buffer system with and without policing algoritm. Using the deterministic Network Calculus, it is also estimated the average queue length (backlog) and delay of bytes by applying the concept of the Min-Plus algebra that presents some differences against the conventional algebra. The proposed policing algorithm was applied to a transmission system based on OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency - Division Multiplexing) / TDMA (Time Division Multiplexing Access) system, where it was evaluated the network performance of the considered policing algorithms. Simulations were carried out with real wireless network trace (Wi-Fi) and wired network trace in order to demonstrate the efficiency of the algorithm proposed in relation to policing algorithms in the literature. The simulations shown the efficiency of the MAPM policing algorithm with traces from wired and wireless networks. We also propose the use of deterministic Network Calculus associated to multifractal envelope process to analyze the traffic behavior in terms of delay and backlog before policing algorithms application in the network. Finally we present the results of buffer utilization, link utilization, delay and backlog to a WiMAX system where the policing algorithm MAPM in general shown delay and backlog increasing in the traffic compared with anothers algorithms and low link utilization / A modelagem multifractal tem se mostrado mais apropriada para descrever algumas características encontradas nos fluxos de tráfego de redes reais que outros modelos, tais como o modelo de Poisson e Markov. Este trabalho investiga o comportamento dos algoritmos de policiamento baseados em modelagem de tráfego (Balde Furado, Balde Furado Fractal, Balde Furado Multifractal Gaussiano) em relação à utilização do buffer, eficiência em descrever o tráfego acumulado (processo envelope) e descarte de pacotes e perda de dados (bytes). Primeiramente, compara-se o processo envelope dos algoritmos de policiamento considerados e do algoritmo proposto neste trabalho, o MAPM (Multifractal Arrival Policing Mechanism), com o tráfego sem policiamento. Em seguida, a taxa de perda em um enlace simples com buffer finito com e sem algoritmo de policiamento é calculada. Utilizando o Cálculo de Rede Determinístico, estima-se o tamanho da fila (backlog) e retardo (delay) de bytes, conforme o conceito da álgebra Min-Plus. O algoritmo de policiamento proposto foi aplicado em um sistema de transmissão OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency - Division Multiplexing) / TDMA (Time Division Multiplexing Access) baseado no sistema WiMAX simplificado, onde se avaliou o desempenho da rede com os algoritmos de policiamento considerados. Realizam-se simulações com séries reais de tráfego de redes sem fio (Wi-Fi) e de redes com fio a fim de demonstrar a eficiência do algoritmo proposto em relação aos algoritmos de policiamento encontrados na literatura. As simulações realizadas evidenciam a eficiência do algoritmo MAPM em policiar séries reais de tráfego de redes com fio e redes sem fio. Propôs-se também, a utilização do Cálculo de Rede Determinístico associado ao processo envelope multifractal para se analisar o comportamento do tráfego em termos de retardo e backlog após a aplicação dos algoritmos de policiamento de rede. Por fim, são apresentados os resultados de retardo, backlog, utilização média do buffer e utilização do enlace para um sistema WiMAX onde o algoritmo de policiamento MAPM que apresentou em geral, acréscimo no retardo e backlog do tráfego em relação aos outros algoritmos e baixa utilização do enlace.

Mpumalanga Provincial Department of Human Settlements in partnership with the National Department of Human Settlements has launched a new integrated system known as the Housing Needs Register (HNR) to manage potential housing beneficiaries. This study was aimed at refining the integrated system in terms of providing guidelines and processes in the allocation of affordable houses. A total of 88 878 records captured on the HNR were profiled, and the results show that in approximately 86% of the records, family factors and better economic circumstances were given as the main motivation towards a desire to own a house in a particular area of residence. These findings emphasized the importance of understanding beneficiaries’ needs with regard to housing. Providing guidelines in the application of this knowledge in a fair and consistent manner could assist in curtailing the spread of informal selling or demolishing of state subsidized houses and other forms of corruption. / Public Health / M.A. (Public Health)

The computer and microelectronics technologies are developing very quickly nowadays. In the mean time, the modern integrated avionics systems are burgeoning unceasingly. The modern integrated modular architecture more and more requires the low-latency and reliable communication databus with the high bandwidth. The traditional avionics databus technology, such as ARINC429, can not provide enough high speed and size for data communication, and it is a problem to achieve transmission mission successfully between the advanced avionic devices with the sufficient bandwidth. AFDX(Avionics Full Duplex Switched Ethernet) is a good solution for this problem, which is the high-speed full duplex switched avionic databus, on the basis of the Ethernet technology. AFDX can not only avoid Ethernet conflicts and collisions, but also increase transmission rate with a lower weigh of the databus. AFDX is now adopted by A380,B787 aircraft successfully. The avionics data must be delivered punctualy and reliablely, so it is very essential to validate the real-time performance of AFDX during the design process. The simulation is a good method to acquire the network performance, but it only happends in some given set of scenarios, and it is impossible to consider every case. So a sophisticatd network performance method for the worst-case scenario with the pessimistic upper bound requires to be deduced. The avionic design engineers have launched many researches in the AFDX simulation and methods study. That is the goal that this thesis is aimming for. The development of this project can been planned in the following two steps. In the first step, a communication platform plans to be implemented to simulate the AFDX network in two versions – the RTAI realtime framework and Linux user space framework. Ultimately, these frameworks need to be integrated into net-ASS, which is an integrated simulation and assessment platform in the cranfield’s lab.The second step deduces an effective method to evaluate network performance, including three bounds(delay,backlog and output flow), based on the NC. It is called Network Calculus. It is an internet theory keeping the network system in determistic way. It is also used in communication queue management. This mathematics method is planed to be verified with simulation results from the AFDX simuation communication platform, in order to assure its validity and applicability. All in all, the project aims to assess the performance of different network topologies in different avionic architectures, through the simulation and the mathematical assessment. The technologies used in this thesis benefit to find problems and faults in the beginning stage of the avionics architecture design in the industrial project, especially, in terms of guarantee the lossless service in avionics databus.

Mpumalanga Provincial Department of Human Settlements in partnership with the National Department of Human Settlements has launched a new integrated system known as the Housing Needs Register (HNR) to manage potential housing beneficiaries. This study was aimed at refining the integrated system in terms of providing guidelines and processes in the allocation of affordable houses. A total of 88 878 records captured on the HNR were profiled, and the results show that in approximately 86% of the records, family factors and better economic circumstances were given as the main motivation towards a desire to own a house in a particular area of residence. These findings emphasized the importance of understanding beneficiaries’ needs with regard to housing. Providing guidelines in the application of this knowledge in a fair and consistent manner could assist in curtailing the spread of informal selling or demolishing of state subsidized houses and other forms of corruption. / Public Health / M.A. (Public Health)

In today’s fast-paced world, there is a constant demand for better and more efficient ways of doing business. Motorola in Linköping are using the agile development framework, Scrum in their software development. A certain level of quality must also be assured of the delivered goods and services. Is it possible to use Scrum and still meet the quality requirements? This Master Thesis is performed to investigate if it is possible to achieve a quality certificate from TL 9000, the telecom industry extension of ISO 9000, when using the agile development framework Scrum. The investigation consists of interviews and observations at Motorola, Linköping, along with literature studies about quality systems and agile development. The conclusion is that it is possible to meet the TL 9000 requirements when using Scrum, under the condition that some additional processes are performed and that other parts of the organization also fulfills the remaining requirements. This is needed since there are requirements that are out of scope for the Scrum framework. Examples of the suggested additions are to follow the Scrum framework more strictly and to adopt a more specific definition of done.

The basic requirement for a good quality expert opinion are high quality sources of information, i.e. adequately detailed and valid groundwork. This dissertation analyzes groundwork for expert activities in the area of building operation appraisals, handling of information and its transmission within the life cycle of a construction. For this purpose, it is possible to divide the construction according to its functional parts. The thesis puts emphasis on drawing up a budget according to its functional parts, which is clearer for the investors, contractors and real estate administrators as well as the expert. A significant part of the dissertation is dedicated to recommendations on how to determine the usual price of building operations. In this section I define some options of how to determine the usual price of building operations, including their comparison. Likewise, I investigated and compared real agreed prices of building contracts for public commissions. The basic recommendation resulting from this chapter is the recommendation for the Czech statistics department to automate the data collection based on registers of building operations created with one of the budgeting programs (preferably according to functional parts). For the experts, I prepared a set of recommendations based on the analyzed differences between the budgeted prices and those applied in real contracts. There is no generally accepted method to evaluate the losses created due to delays in construction. For the purposes of this dissertation, I investigated the common prices of rent of the individual equipment and then established two approaches to put value on the cost of equipping the site, percentage rate and individual calculation. I examine in more detail the issues related to quantification of costs for wintertime arrangements. At the end of the chapter I define recommendations for experts. With regard to recommendations for establishing discounts from the construction price due to occurrence of defects and unfinished tasks, I analyzed real examples of distribution of defects and unfinished tasks at the moment of delivering the building operation to the investor and discovered that approximately 50% of defects are part of the surface working. Additionally, I analyzed the Czech technical regulations regarding surface working in order to find basis for assessment of the presence or absence of a defect. While investigating the approach to non-removable defects, I discovered incorrectly considered shelf life of waterproofing within the appraisal. Based on this, I investigated the market and determined the shelf life of common waterproofing systems. At the end of this dissertation I carry out a comparison of selected items of the two pricing systems most commonly used in the Czech Republic, URS and RTS. The differences are a result of contemplating using different technologies, varied mechanisms and diverse approaches to determine the costs of material.

The main goal of Commercial Carriers is to deliver packages respecting the promises made to customers. Therefore, backlog prevention systems play a crucial role considering that backlogs would prevent CCs to reach their primary objective. This work aims at analyzing the state of the art of current available solutions to overcome these limitations, and, on top of those, a new approach is proposed. Then, the new proposal is evaluated and compared to already deployed solutions. The mechanism analyzed in this thesis aims at reaching, through the use of statistics, comparable results to ML solutions in terms of accuracy, but requiring less computational resources. To achieve this, the proposed methodology relies on a statistical model that does not need to be trained and executed, as typical ML models. As a consequence, one of the main benefits is the speed of execution: requiring less than 30 seconds, about 25 times faster than ML approaches. Our findings show that our approach requires about 15% of the data other solutions need: this is a significant advancement with respect to the current state of the art. This constitutes an additional benefit in terms of cost savings for tech resources, both in terms of data storage and program execution. Results prove the effectiveness of the proposal, with 80% accuracy, about 10% lower than averages ML approaches. Key point is the difference in the approach, for which is worth to evaluate the trade-off. Considering the effective low frequency of events that negatively impact the performances and result in backlog, the proposed approach would be valid for everyday scenarios but it would be still advisable to rely on even more accurate technologies during particularly intense periods. / Huvudmålet för Commercial Carriers är att leverera paket som respekterar de löften som ges till kunderna. Därför spelar system för att förebygga eftersläpning en avgörande roll med tanke på att eftersläpningar skulle hindra CC:s att nå sitt primära mål. Detta arbete syftar till att analysera det senaste inom nuvarande tillgängliga lösningar för att övervinna dessa begränsningar, och utöver dessa föreslås ett nytt tillvägagångssätt. Därefter utvärderas det nya förslaget och jämförs med redan implementerade lösningar. Mekanismen som analyseras i denna avhandling syftar till att, genom användning av statistik, nå resultat som är jämförbara med ML-lösningar när det gäller noggrannhet, men som kräver mindre beräkningsresurser. För att uppnå detta bygger den föreslagna metodiken på en statistisk modell som inte behöver tränas och utföras, som typiska ML-modeller. Som en konsekvens är en av de största fördelarna körhastigheten: kräver mindre än 30 sekunder, ungefär 25 gånger snabbare än ML närmar sig. Våra resultat visar att vårt tillvägagångssätt kräver cirka 15% av den data som andra lösningar behöver: detta är ett betydande framsteg med avseende på den nuvarande teknikens ståndpunkt. Detta utgör en ytterligare fördel i form av kostnadsbesparingar för tekniska resurser, både vad gäller datalagring och programexekvering. Resultaten bevisar effektiviteten av förslaget, med 80% noggrannhet, cirka 10% lägre än genomsnittet för ML. Nyckelpunkten är skillnaden i tillvägagångssättet, som är värt att utvärdera avvägningen. Med tanke på den effektiva låga frekvensen av händelser som negativt påverkar prestandan och leder till eftersläpning, skulle det föreslagna tillvägagångssättet vara giltigt för vardagliga scenarier, men det skulle fortfarande vara tillrådligt att förlita sig på ännu mer exakt teknik under särskilt intensiva perioder.