Le développement d’applications ubiquitaires est particulièrement complexe. Au-delà de l’aspect dynamique de telles applications, l’évolution de l’informatique vers la multiplication des terminaux mobiles ne facilite pas les choses. Une solution pour simplifier le développement et l’exploitation de telles applications est d’utiliser des plateformes logicielles dédiées au déploiement et à l’adaptation des applications et gérant l’hétérogénéité des périphériques. Elles permettent aux concepteurs de se focaliser sur les aspects métiers et facilitent la réutilisation. La gestion du contexte est un élément clé lorsque l’on souhaite réaliser des applications pervasives sensibles au contexte. Les informations contextuelles issues d’un grand nombre de sources distribuées différentes sont, généralement, des informations brutes qui, sans interprétation, peuvent être dénuées de sens. En se basant sur des ontologies, il est possible de construire des modèles sémantiques qui seront alimentés par ces informations brutes et ainsi non seulement d’augmenter leur niveau de représentation sémantique mais surtout de pouvoir les utiliser pour prendre des décisions automatiques d’adaptation d’applications basées sur le contexte au runtime. La démocratisation des périphériques conduit à ce qu’un usager dispose actuellement de plusieurs périphériques incluant postes fixes, téléphones, tablettes, box, etc. pour son usage personnel. Il est souhaitable que cet ensemble de ressources lui soit accessible en tout point et à tout moment. De même des ressources publiques (stockage, services, etc.) peuvent lui être offertes. En revanche, la protection de la vie privée et les risques d’intrusion ne peuvent être négligés. Notre proposition est de définir, pour chaque utilisateur, un domaine d’adaptation qui contient l’ensemble des ressources auxquelles il peut accéder sans limite. Ces ressources sont celles qu’il a accepté de rendre disponibles sur ses machines pour lui-même et celles que les autres utilisateurs ont accepté de partager. Ainsi la notion de contexte est liée à celle d’utilisateur et inclut la totalité des ressources auxquelles il a accès. C’est la totalité de ces ressources qui sera exploitée pour faire en sorte de lui offrir les services adaptés à ses choix, ses dispositifs, sa localisation, etc. Nous proposons un middleware de gestion de contexte Kali2Much afin de fournir des services dédiés à la gestion du contexte distribué sur le domaine. Ce middleware est accompagné du module Kali-Reason permettant la construction de chaînes de raisonnement en BPMN afin d’offrir des fonctionnalités de raisonnent sur les informations de contexte dans le but d’identifier des situations nécessitant éventuellement une reconfiguration soit de l’application soit de la plateforme elle-même. C’est ainsi qu’est introduit l’aspect autonomique lié à la prise de décision. Les situations ainsi détectées permettent d’identifier le moment où déclencher les adaptations ainsi que les services d’adaptation qu’il sera nécessaire de déclencher. La conséquence étant d’assurer la continuité de service et d’ainsi s’adapter en permanence au contexte du moment. Le travail de reconfiguration d’applications est confié au service Kali-Adapt dont le rôle est de mettre en oeuvre les adaptations par déploiement/redéploiement de services de l’application et/ou de la plateforme. Un prototype fonctionnel basé sur la plateforme Kalimucho vient valider ces propositions / The ubiquitous applications development is not a trivial task. Beyond the dynamic aspect of suchapplications, the evolution of computer science toward the proliferation of mobile devices does not make things easier. A solution to simplify the development and operation of such applications is to use software platforms dedicated to deployment and adaptation of applications and managing heterogeneous devices. Such platforms allow designers to focus on business issues and facilitate reuse. Context management is a key element for making context-aware pervasive applications. Contextual information comes from many different distributed sources. It is generally raw information with no interpretation. It may be meaningless. Based on ontologies, it is possible to construct semantic models that would be powered by the raw information. This does not only increase the level of semantic representation but it can also be used to make automatic decisions for adapting context-based applications at runtime. Devices’ democratization allows a user to have multiple devices including personal computer, mobile phones, tablets, box, etc. for his personal use. It is desirable that the set of resources will be available to him from everywhere and at any time. Similarly, public resources (storage, services, etc.) would also be accessible to him. However, protection of privacy and intrusion risks cannot be ignored. Our proposal is to define, for each user, an adaptation domain that contains all his resources. Users can access their resources without limits. Users can agree on sharing resources with other users. Thus the notion of context is related to the user and includes all the resources he can access. All these resources will be exploited to offer him services adapted to his preferences, his features, his location, etc.We propose a context management middleware Kali2Much to provide services dedicated to the management of distributed context on the domain. This middleware is accompanied by Kali-Reason module for building reasoning chains in BPMN. The reasoning chains provide context information reasoning functionality. They reason about context information in order to identify situations that might require a reconfiguration of the application or of the platform itself. Thus the autonomic aspect related to decision making is introduced. Situations detected allow to identify when there is a need to trigger adaptation. The consequence is to ensure continuity of service and thus constantly adapt to the current context. The reconfiguration applications work is dedicated to Kali-Adapt service whose role is to implement the adaptations deployment/redeployment of application services and/or platform. A working prototype based on Kalimucho-A platform validates the proposals.

This study aimed to develop a causal chain that illustrates the path through which a variety of factors influence consumer financial vulnerability. In order to achieve the stated aim, it was necessary to firstly identify the factors that gave rise to consumers being financially vulnerable. Secondly, the nature of the causal chain between the identified factors was determined. Thirdly, the causes of consumer financial vulnerability according to key informants in the financial services industry were determined. Finally, based on the results of the first three stages, possible explanations for consumer financial vulnerability were provided. Before the construction of the causal chain could be explored, a theoretical framework regarding household financial position as well as financial attitudes and behaviours was provided. The theoretical framework was supported by a description of the linkages through which consumers function and transact in an economy by applying chain reasoning. The chain reasoning was extended by providing financial statements reflecting the results of consumers’ interactions in the macroeconomy with an extract from the national accounts of South Africa presenting the income statements, balance sheets and relevant financial ratios of consumers for the period in which the research was conducted (2008 to 2009). For this study, the explanatory sequential mixed methods design was deemed appropriate to achieve the proposed research objectives. The research process firstly consisted of a quantitative strand where the possible causes for consumer financial vulnerability were identified after which the results were validated with data obtained in the second phase by means of four focus group discussions. To determine the factors giving rise to and establish the causal chain of overall consumer financial vulnerability, regression analysis was conducted. Based on the results of the regression analysis, it became evident that the financial vulnerability chain is not a singular linear process but rather a non-linear process (with contemporaneous and singular linkages) with a variety of factors influencing financial vulnerability, but also influencing each other over time. / Management Accounting / D. Accounting Science

This study aimed to develop a causal chain that illustrates the path through which a variety of factors influence consumer financial vulnerability. In order to achieve the stated aim, it was necessary to firstly identify the factors that gave rise to consumers being financially vulnerable. Secondly, the nature of the causal chain between the identified factors was determined. Thirdly, the causes of consumer financial vulnerability according to key informants in the financial services industry were determined. Finally, based on the results of the first three stages, possible explanations for consumer financial vulnerability were provided. Before the construction of the causal chain could be explored, a theoretical framework regarding household financial position as well as financial attitudes and behaviours was provided. The theoretical framework was supported by a description of the linkages through which consumers function and transact in an economy by applying chain reasoning. The chain reasoning was extended by providing financial statements reflecting the results of consumers’ interactions in the macroeconomy with an extract from the national accounts of South Africa presenting the income statements, balance sheets and relevant financial ratios of consumers for the period in which the research was conducted (2008 to 2009). For this study, the explanatory sequential mixed methods design was deemed appropriate to achieve the proposed research objectives. The research process firstly consisted of a quantitative strand where the possible causes for consumer financial vulnerability were identified after which the results were validated with data obtained in the second phase by means of four focus group discussions. To determine the factors giving rise to and establish the causal chain of overall consumer financial vulnerability, regression analysis was conducted. Based on the results of the regression analysis, it became evident that the financial vulnerability chain is not a singular linear process but rather a non-linear process (with contemporaneous and singular linkages) with a variety of factors influencing financial vulnerability, but also influencing each other over time. / Management Accounting / D. Accounting Science