National Bureau of Statistics of China (PRC) announced that the GDP of 2005 is 2255.7 billion dollars and China has replaced Italy as the world¡¦s sixth-largest economy, next to the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain and France. Taiwan economic development source is mainly from exports, the share of GDP as high as 49%. From the Second World War to 2000, Taiwan mainly exporting area is the United States. This situation had been changed in 2001 though. From the beginning of 2001, Taiwan¡¦s export to China surpassed Taiwan¡¦s export to the United States for the first time over the amount and the gap has become greater and greater. Department of Statistics, Ministry of Economic Affairs reported that Taiwan¡¦s exports to China were 28% (US$ 56.22 billion dollars) and only 15% (US$29.1 billion dollars) went to the United States. No matter how large of China¡¦s economic cooling policy is, it will make great impact on Taiwan inevitably due to the cross-strait economic and trade exchanges getting closer day by day. Confronting China¡¦s economic policy of macro adjustment and controls, how should Taiwan industry take response measures? The main purpose of China¡¦s macro-control policy is to control the domestic demand, and there fore the most direct impact on the target will be the Taiwan factory owners producing goods for domestic market. So, Taiwanese businessmen should plan before they move for keeping flexibility in business and have the ideas of the alternative market to reduce the business risks. The research methods of this study adopt social sciences method, including literature quoted language analysis, statistical analysis and SWOT analysis, so as to know the top-ranked industries of the output value in Taiwan, which are major industries like the electronics industry and the petroleum and petrochemical industry. After China implemented macro-control policy, how on earth does this influence make on Taiwan industries, the investment in China and business operations of Taiwanese businessmen? How do the Taiwan governing authorities, Taiwan factory owners and Taiwanese businessmen investing in China take response measures? In conclusion, the suggestions to our government for the response measures of China¡¦s macro-control policy: (1) Government should set up the statistics database from the aspects of the funds and market demand. (2) Government should provide the cross-strait economic and trade policy and information to the factory owners. (3) Government should continuously pay close attention to the growth of China¡¦s economic slowdown. (4) Government should relax restrictions on Taiwanese business financing in China through China-based Off-shore Banking Units (OBU) as soon as possible. (5) Government should remind Taiwanese businessmen of having more constructive strategies to add more footholds overseas. (6) Actively popularize the imperatives of the beneficial division of labor and business models to Taiwanese businessmen. (7) Government should provide the related information for Taiwanese businessmen, such as the laws and regulations of the investment and management in the market of Mainland China, the perspective and competition of all kinds of industries. (8) Government should constructively work out the good models of cross-strait business division The suggestions to Taiwanese businessmen: (1) Stop to listen and watch before investing. (2) Choose the investment or industry that you are familiar with and find the partners that you are rely on. (3) Have the sound and steady increase of investment. (4) Give a careful consideration to the transfer investment.

Saudi Arabia is in the process of implementing Electronic Patient Records (EPR) throughout its National Health services. One of the key challenges during the adoption process is the security of EPR. This thesis investigates the current state of EPR security in Saudi Arabia’s National Health Services (SA NHS) both from a policy perspective and with regard to its implementation in SA NHS’s information systems. To facilitate the analysis of EPR security, an EPR model has been developed that captures the information that is stored as part of the electronic record system in conjunction with stated security requirements. This model is used in the analysis of policy consistency and to validate operational reality against stated policies at various levels within the SA NHS. The model is based on a comprehensive literature survey and structured interviews which established the current state of practice with respect to EPRs in a representative Saudi Arabian hospital. The key contribution of this research is the development and evaluation of a structured and model-based analysis approach to EPR security at the early adoption stage in SA, based on types of information present in EPRs and the needs of the users of EPRs. The key findings show that the SA EPR adoption process is currently proceeding without serious consideration for security policy to protect EPR and a lack of awareness amongst hospital staff.

The purpose of this study is to propose a top-down policy engineering framework for attribute-based access control (ABAC) that aims to automatically extract ACPs from requirement specifications documents, and then, using the extracted policies, build or update an ABAC model. We specify a procedure that consists of three main components: 1) ACP sentence identification, 2) policy element extraction, and 3) ABAC model creation and update. ACP sentence identification processes unrestricted natural language documents and identify the sentences that carry ACP content. We propose and compare three different methodologies from different disciplines, namely deep recurrent neural networks (RNN-based), biological immune system (BIS-based), and a combination of multiple natural language processing techniques (PMI-based) in order to identify the proper methodology for extracting ACP sentences from irrelevant text. Our evaluation results improve the state-of-the-art by a margin of 5% F1-Measure. To aid future research, we also introduce a new dataset that includes 5000 sentences from real-world policy documents. ABAC policy extraction extracts ACP elements such as subject, object, and action from the identified ACPs. We use semantic roles and correctly identify ACP elements with an average F1 score of 75%, which bests the previous work by 15%. Furthermore, as SRL tools are often trained on publicly available corpora such as Wall Street Journal, we investigate the idea of improving SRL performance using domain-related knowledge. We utilize domain adaptation and semi-supervised learning techniques and improve the SRL performance by 2% using only a small amount of access control data. The third component, ABAC model creation and update, builds a new ABAC model or updates an existing one using the extracted ACP elements. For this purpose, we present an efficient methodology based on a particle swarm optimization algorithm for solving ABAC policy mining with minimal perturbation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed methodology generates much less complex policies than previous works using the same realistic case studies. Furthermore, we perform experiments on how to find an ABAC state as similar as possible to both the existing state and the optimal state. Part of the data utilized in this study was collected from the University of North Texas Policy Office, as well as policy documents from the university of North Texas Health Science Center, for the school years 2015-2016 through 2016-2017.

No description available.

Darbas yra orientuojamas į opios šiandieninei Lietuvos visuomenei problemos sprendimą — alkoholio suvartojimo mastų ir su tuo susijusių pasekmių mažinimą Lietuvoje. Tuo tikslu darbe siekiama išanalizuoti Lietuvos alkoholio kontrolės politikos įgyvendinimo problematiką įrodymais grįstos politikos perspektyvoje. Viešųjų problemų efektyviam sprendimui didelę reikšmę turi moksliškai patvirtintos žinios, todėl pirmas ir antras darbo skyriai susiję su detalesne įrodymais grįstos politikos analize tiek tiriant bendrą jos reikšmę viešojoje politikoje, tiek ir jos reikšmę alkoholio kontrolės politikoje. Analizė grindžiama anglosaksų ir Skandinavijos šalių mokslininkų darbais, kadangi šiose šalyse mokslo naudojimas viešųjų problemų sprendimui, įskaitant ir didelio alkoholio suvartojimo visuomenėje problemos, gana paplitęs, akcentuojant, jog įrodymų naudojimas viešojoje politikoje, labai svarbus, siekiant suprasti politinę aplinką ir jos pokyčius, adekvačiai pažinti probleminę situaciją, tinkamai pasirinkti ir įgyvendinti geriausias politikos priemones, lemiančias efektyvius pasirinktos politikos rezultatus. Remiantis Lietuvos teisės aktų analize ir Lietuvos mokslininkų darbais, trečiajame skyriuje nagrinėjama Lietuvos alkoholio kontrolės politikos sistema, siekiant įvertinti, kiek LR alkoholio kontrolės politikoje pritaikytinas įrodymais grįstos alkoholio kontrolės politikos priemonių vystymas, įvertinant ir pagrindines vyraujančias problemas, neleidžiančias alkoholio kontrolės... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This study is about one of the most serious problems in Lithuania — reduction of huge alcohol consumption and related consequenses in Lithuania’s civil society. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to analyze the problematic implementation of alcohol control policy in Lithuania in accordance with the perspective of evidence-based policy. The public policy to be effective, it’s very important to use knowledge based on researches, so in the first and the second chapter this evidence-based perspective is analyzed, respectively, to examine its general importance to public policy itself and to alcohol control policy. This analysis is based on the studies of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian scientists, because in these countries researches in public policy is used broadly, including alcohol control policy, emphasizing on the use of evidence to be very important in understanding the political environment and its changes, an adequate understanding of the problematic situation, the right choice, and the best practices of that policy, which all determine effective outcomes of that policy. According to Lithuanian legislation and the analyses of the studies, in the third chapter it is examining the system of alcohol control policy in Lithuania, to seek evaluate the problems, which occur in adopting evidence-based alcohol policy to Lithuania’s alcohol control policy. As it turned out, in Lithuania, the development of alcohol control policy infrastructure is adequately formulated (for example... [to full text]

The thesis examines the coordination of public police organizations in an intra-national setting through interviews and observations with police officers and managers in multiple organizations in the Lower Mainland, BC, Canada, alongside documentary analysis of local, national and provincial law, policy and protocols relating to coordination. It produces a qualitative and inductive analysis of how police coordinate both within and between agencies, examining ‘interstices’ between police units and using recent ‘integration’ initiatives between public police organizations in the Lower Mainland as a focal point. It develops a recent local history of police activity and organizational change in the region; a novel typology of police organizational boundaries grounded in open-systems organizational theory; and an account of the dynamics of inter-unit coordination based on empirical findings. The thesis then sets out a governance problem for police coordination, developing the argument that coordination work is unique work and needs to be treated as such for purposes of accountability, transparency and equity of police practice in a democratic society. This governance problem is applied to broader developments in police work in Anglo-American societies, and an intellectual framework for assessing police governance under coordination is advanced.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) continue to rise in South Africa, accounting for 43% of total deaths in 2012. Smoking and a diet high in salt are among the major modifiable risk factors for NCDs that can be addressed through cost-effective policy interventions in the form of regulation or legislation and active multisectoral engagement. Population-based prevalence and mortality data are necessary for monitoring and evaluation such interventions. South Africa has developed a National Strategic Plan for NCDs but there is limited evaluation of NCD policies. Furthermore, there is a need to explore the availability of population-based data and the role that it can play to monitor interventions. Aim: The overall aim of the thesis is to assess the implementation of policies for reducing risk factors for chronic NCDs in South Africa, and to explore the role of population-based data in supporting environmental and policy approaches to prevent NCDs. The thesis will also examine whether there are differences in urban and rural settings in the implementation of tobacco control and salt reduction regulation as well as the barriers to implement the National Strategic Plan for prevention of NCDs. Methods: Multiple methods of data collection were used. A desk review of policies to address NCDs in South Africa was undertaken and semi-structured interviews with the NCD policymakers and managers in two provinces (the Eastern Cape and Western Cape) were undertaken, to explore challenges and successes of implementation of the NSP. The Cross-sectional baseline questionnaire and quantified food frequency data from the PURE study were used to determine the prevalence of smoking and the intakes of sodium and potassium in a selected urban and a rural community. Data collected using a validated community audit tool was used to assess the physical environment related to tobacco as well as questionnaire data from face-to-face interviews about perceptions about tobacco use in the urban and rural communities. Trends in mortality from tobacco related and high salt consumption related conditions together with prevalence data from national health surveys were reviewed to assess the health impact.

All high-level living organisms are made of small cell units, containing DNA, RNA, genes, proteins etc. Genes are important components of the cells and it is necessary to understand the inter-gene relations, in order to comprehend, predict and ultimately intervene in the cells’ dynamics. Genetic regulatory networks (GRN) represent the gene interactions that dictate the cell behavior. Translational genomics aims to mathematically model GRNs and one of the main goals is to alter the networks’ behavior away from undesirable phenotypes such as cancer. The mathematical framework that has been often used for modeling GRNs is the probabilistic Boolean network (PBN), which is a collection of constituent Boolean networks with perturbation, BNp. This dissertation uses BNps, to model gene regulatory networks with an intent of designing stationary control policies (CP) for the networks to shift their dynamics toward more desirable states. Markov Chains (MC) are used to represent the PBNs and stochastic control has been employed to find stationary control policies to affect steady-state distribution of the MC. However, as the number of genes increases, it becomes computationally burdensome, or even infeasible, to derive optimal or greedy intervention policies. This dissertation considers the problem of modeling and intervening in large GRNs. To overcome the computational challenges associated with large networks, two approaches are proposed: first, a reduction mapping that deletes genes from the network; and second, a greedy control policy that can be directly designed on large networks. Simulation results show that these methods achieve the goal of controlling large networks by shifting the steady-state distribution of the networks toward more desirable states. Furthermore, a new inference method is used to derive a large 17-gene Boolean network from microarray experiments on gastrointestinal cancer samples. The new algorithm has similarities to a previously developed well-known inference method, which uses seed genes to grow subnetworks, out of a large network; however, it has major differences with that algorithm. Most importantly, the objective of the new algorithm is to infer a network from a seed gene with an intention to derive the Gene Activity Profile toward more desirable phenotypes. The newly introduced reduction mappings approach is used to delete genes from the 17-gene GRN and when the network is small enough, an intervention policy is designed for the reduced network and induced back to the original network. In another experiment, the greedy control policy approach is used to directly design an intervention policy on the large 17-gene network to beneficially change the long-run behavior of the network. Finally, a novel algorithm is developed for selecting only non-isomorphic BNs, while generating synthetic networks, using a method that generates synthetic BNs, with a prescribed set of attractors. The goal of the new method described in this dissertation is to discard isomorphic networks.

In the process of China's rapid economic growth, Chinese Communist Party implemented a series of macro-economic policies --- fiscal policies and monetary policies --- to regulate its economy. As a result, it safely passed through the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the world financial tsunami in 2008, and was able to continue steady growth. This dissertation focuses, under the Chinese Communist economic system, on how to apply the macro policy to control its growth and what has been the practical impact. What role is macro-control playing in the process of China's economic development? Macro-economic policy is actually the main driving force behind China's economic performance. This dissertation emphasizes that under China's unique political economy, macro-control leads China's rapid economic growth. Nevertheless, due to China's economic structure of market imperfections, and the lack of inherent stability of the market mechanism, the Chinese macroeconomic regulation and control has easily lead to economic volatility and to a possible hard crash in years ahead. Although the experience accumulated so far has led to a relatively stable economy, the economic structure is still incomplete. This dissertation argues that China's macro-control¡¦s aggregate demand in driving China's economy needs to be adjusted from investment and export to personal consumption in order to contribute to sustainable economic development in the future.

The traditional (Q,r) inventory control model assumes that the date at which the order is entered is the same as the date at which it is requested or expected to be delivered. Hence, the penalty cost is incurred when the customer places the order if inventory is unavailable. This is a reasonable assumption for retail systems and most distribution centers (DC), but not for an assemble-to-order (ATO) environment. In this scenario, there is a delivery time which is usually pre-negotiated and in addition to considering the manufacturing process time and in some cases the outbound transportation time, it also has some safety time built-in. This safety time is defined by the manufacturer and represents information related to when the penalty is incurred. The main objective of this research is to develop a modified (Q,r) policy that incorporates the safety time, and to evaluate this policy in terms of expected inventory cost and expected penalty cost / late orders. The problem is addressed following the heuristic approach discussed by Hadley and Whitin (1963). Two main models are developed based on the following assumptions: 1) early shipments are allowed by the customer, and 2) no early shipments are allowed. The behavior of both models is analyzed mathematically and by means of numerical examples. It is shown that from a manufacturer perspective, the first model is preferred over the traditional (Q,r) model. However, it poses a threat for the long term business relationship with the customer because the service level deteriorates, and for the implications that early shipments have on the customer inventory. The behavior of the second model is strictly related to the problem being addressed. Its merits with respect to the traditional and the "early shipment" model are discussed. This discussion is centered on the coefficient of variation of the lead-time demand, the ratio (IC/pi), and the location of the supplier. A final model which is a hybrid of the previous two shipping policies is developed. The models developed in the course of this research are generalizations of the traditional (Q,r) model.