The UbuntuNet Alliance, a consortium of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) runs an exclusive data network for education and research in east and southern Africa. Despite a high degree of route redundancy in the Alliance's topology, a large portion of Internet traffic between the NRENs is circuitously routed through Europe. This thesis proposes a performance-based strategy for dynamic ranking of inter-NREN paths to reduce latencies. The thesis makes two contributions: firstly, mapping Africa's inter-NREN topology and quantifying the extent and impact of circuitous routing; and, secondly, a dynamic traffic engineering scheme based on Software Defined Networking (SDN), Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP) and Reinforcement Learning. To quantify the extent and impact of circuitous routing among Africa's NRENs, active topology discovery was conducted. Traceroute results showed that up to 75% of traffic from African sources to African NRENs went through inter-continental routes and experienced much higher latencies than that of traffic routed within Africa. An efficient mechanism for topology discovery was implemented by incorporating prior knowledge of overlapping paths to minimize redundancy during measurements. Evaluation of the network probing mechanism showed a 47% reduction in packets required to complete measurements. An interactive geospatial topology visualization tool was designed to evaluate how NREN stakeholders could identify routes between NRENs. Usability evaluation showed that users were able to identify routes with an accuracy level of 68%. NRENs are faced with at least three problems to optimize traffic engineering, namely: how to discover alternate end-to-end paths; how to measure and monitor performance of different paths; and how to reconfigure alternate end-to-end paths. This work designed and evaluated a traffic engineering mechanism for dynamic discovery and configuration of alternate inter-NREN paths using SDN, LISP and Reinforcement Learning. A LISP/SDN based traffic engineering mechanism was designed to enable NRENs to dynamically rank alternate gateways. Emulation-based evaluation of the mechanism showed that dynamic path ranking was able to achieve 20% lower latencies compared to the default static path selection. SDN and Reinforcement Learning were used to enable dynamic packet forwarding in a multipath environment, through hop-by-hop ranking of alternate links based on latency and available bandwidth. The solution achieved minimum latencies with significant increases in aggregate throughput compared to static single path packet forwarding. Overall, this thesis provides evidence that integration of LISP, SDN and Reinforcement Learning, as well as ranking and dynamic configuration of paths could help Africa's NRENs to minimise latencies and to achieve better throughputs.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-252). / Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of field and capital, this thesis examines the disciplinary differences in the social sciences concerning the possession of scientific capital and levels of engagement with academic and non-academic constituencies in three African universities, Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, Makerere University in Uganda and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Contrary to approaches that regard disciplinary fields as homogeneous epistemic and social spaces on the grounds of the principles of the stratification of scientific fields, this study investigates the relationship between the hierarchical position of selected discipline-clusters and the levels of engagement with both internal and external constituencies. The study reveals that levels of possession of scientific capital have a significant effect on the differentiation of the disciplinary fields, both within and across institutions, and on the levels of engagement with (internal) academic and (external) non-academic entities. The analysis shows that scientific capital does not determine the level and forms of engagement with different constituencies. However, the differences across discipline-clusters at institutional level reflect the engagement with academic rather than with non-academic constituencies. In other words, this means that the level of engagement varies more between different disciplines when the engagement is related to academic entities than is the case when non-academic entities are concerned. Therefore, engagement is not a major discriminator amongst institutions. Scientific capital is what gives academics prestige and symbolic capital to the institution. The significance of this is that academics from different discipline-clusters might have different experiences of engagement with different constituencies. I further conclude that the growing importance that the notion of engagement has for the university is, perhaps, too simple if it does not account for the complex and multifaceted characteristics of disciplinary and institutional fields.

This thesis will examine national/multi-national/international research andeducation networks of the some countries in context of innovation systems,and then Turkish case will be discussed. The developed countries are thepioneers of research and education network efforts, developing andundeveloped countries were integrated to the global research networks.Although Turkey has a lot experience in academic networking, its NREN(ULAKNET) should adapt itself to the global trends(i.e. direct fiber access,IP/DWDM networks, very demanding applications like grid), and networkingand supercomputing requirements in national innovation policies should berevised accordingly. Turkey can acquire some benefits from the globalinnovation policies and practices in order to improve its research networkinginfrastructure.

[pt] O estudo analisa o financiamento das redes municipais de educação do Estado do Rio de Janeiro e os desafios para a gestão da política educacional local, a partir de estudos de caso em três municípios: Angra dos Reis, Itaboraí e Teresópolis. Para tanto, foram utilizadas as informações do Censo Escolar relativas às matriculas, do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) a respeito das características gerais dos municípios, do anuário Finanças dos Municípios Fluminenses sobre os recursos municipais e, sobretudo, informações sobre os gastos em educação disponibilizadas no Sistema de Informações sobre Orçamentos Públicos em Educação. Foi assim possível traçar o perfil do financiamento da educação nos municípios do Estado e seus desafios para a oferta de uma educação de qualidade. Como estratégia complementar de pesquisa foram realizadas entrevistas com técnicos e gestores dos respectivos órgãos municipais de educação, além de sindicalistas. A interlocução com a literatura e o material empírico produzido nos permitiu organizar a análise em torno dos seguintes eixos: divisão de responsabilidades na oferta de matrículas nos níveis prioritário de atuação dos municípios, desenho da política de financiamento, contexto político local e capacidade burocrática local para administrar o financiamento das redes de ensino. Já na década de 1970, os municípios fluminenses respondiam por grande parte das matrículas do ensino fundamental, embora a municipalização tenha sido acelerada a partir da implantação do Fundef. A ampliação da obrigatoriedade da oferta de educação básica gratuita para aqueles com idade entre 4 e 17 anos a partir de 2010, aumentou a responsabilidade dos municípios pela criação de novas vagas. Embora a substituição do Fundef pelo Fundeb em 2007, tenha favorecido o financiamento da educação infantil, observamos que o atual desenho da política de financiamento não é suficiente para a promoção da educação pública de qualidade, dada a reduzida participação da União no financiamento da educação básica e a limitada capacidade econômica e gerencial dos municípios, agravada também pela descontinuidade das políticas locais e de sua gestão. Diante desse cenário, faz-se necessário redefinir, em nível nacional, o papel de cada ente federado, pela regulamentação do regime de colaboração previsto na Constituição Federal de 1988, com a revisão da política de financiamento - incluindo a revisão da repartição de recursos do Fundeb, com vistas à implantação do Custo-Aluno Qualidade previsto no Plano Nacional de Educação. Em nível local, faz-se necessária a definição de regras mais claras para a composição e permanência e a formação continuada dos técnicos e gestores que atuam nas secretarias municipais de educação e o efetivo controle social dos recursos da educação, tendo no Siope importante instrumento para a busca da educação pública de qualidade. / [en] The study analyzes the financing of municipal education networks in the State of Rio de Janeiro and the challenges for local educational policy management, based in case studies in the municipalities of Angra dos Reis, Itaboraí and Teresópolis. In order to do so, we used the information on enrollment, from the Censo Escolar, regarding the enrollment of the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatísticas (IBGE), of finance, based on information from the Finanças dos Municípios Fluminenses yearbook and, above all, information on education expenditures, provided in the the Sistema de Informações sobre Orçamentos Públicos em Educação. It was thus possible to trace the profile of education financing in the municipalities of the State and its challenges for the provision of quality education. As a complementary research strategy, interviews were conducted with technicians and managers of the respective municipal education agencies, as well as trade unionists. The interlocution with the literature and the empirical material produced allowed us to identify the organization of the analysis around the following axes: division of responsibilities in the provision of enrollments in the priority levels of action of the municipalities, design of the financing policy, local political context and local bureaucratic capacity to manage the funding of education networks. In the 1970s, Rio de Janeiro municipalities accounted for a large part of primary school enrollment, although municipalization was accelerated after the implementation of Fundef. The increase in the obligation to offer free basic education to those aged between 4 and 17 years from 2010 has increased the responsibility of municipalities for the creation of new school vacancies. Although Fundef s replacement of Fundeb in 2007 has favored funding for early childhood education, we note that the current design of funding policy is not sufficient for the promotion of quality public education, in fuction the federal government reduced participation in the financing of basic education and the limited economic and managerial capacity of the municipalities, also aggravated by the discontinuity of local policies and their management. Against this backdrop, it is necessary to redefine, at the national level, the role of each federated entity, by regulating the collaboration regime provided for in the Federal Constitution of 1988, as well as changes in the Fundeb, expected to be in force until 2020 and imposing a loss of financial resources to several municipalities of the State, the design of the financing policy, the implementation of the Cost-Student Initial Quality and later the Cost-Student Quality, as provided for in the Plano Nacional de Educação. At the local level, it is necessary to define clearer rules for the composition and permanence and the ongoing formation of the bureaucracies that work in the municipal secretariats of education and the effective social control of the resources of education, with the Siope important instrumental in the search of quality public education.

Submitted by Caroline Falcao (caroline.rfalcao@ufpe.br) on 2017-05-24T18:55:25Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação de Mestrado - Sivonaldo de Melo Sales.pdf: 2717745 bytes, checksum: 14edb0a72fbeb00d1f8ab2a373319dc5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-24T18:55:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação de Mestrado - Sivonaldo de Melo Sales.pdf: 2717745 bytes, checksum: 14edb0a72fbeb00d1f8ab2a373319dc5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-07 / Apresentamos nossa pesquisa de mestrado que buscou investigar as ações de formação continuada implementadas nas Redes Municipais de Ensino da Microrregião do Vale do Ipojuca no Agreste Pernambucano para os professores que ensinam nos anos finais do Ensino Fundamental e, em particular, aquelas que focam o Ensino de Matemática. Como referencial teórico apoiamo-nos nos estudos de autores da área da Educação e da Educação Matemática. Para a coleta dos dados utilizamos os seguintes instrumentos: conversas iniciais, com o intuito de obter as primeiras informações sobre o campo de investigação; questionário semiestruturado, aplicado a diferentes participantes (diretores de ensino, coordenadores pedagógicos ou de área e secretários executivos de ensino, dentre outros); entrevistas semiestruturadas, com a finalidade de complementar as respostas obtidas com os instrumentos precedentes; análise documental, de documentos fornecidos pelas redes de ensino sobre as ações de formação no município no período de 2010 a 2014. Para a análise dos dados, baseamo-nos nas seguintes categorias: ações primárias, associadas aos programas e projetos ofertados pelo Ministério da Educação, Secretarias de Educação e por Organizações não Governamentais; e, ações secundárias, caracterizadas por palestras, aulas atividades, seminários, encontros pedagógicos, dentre outras ações correlatas. Também tentamos aproximar as ações de formação continuada com as características dos modelos de racionalidade técnica e racionalidade prática. Como ações do tipo primárias, identificamos nas Redes Municipais de Ensino investigadas dois programas de formação que contemplam o Ensino de Matemática o Programa Qualiescola II e o Programa Gestão da Aprendizagem Escolar (GESTAR II). Quanto às ações do tipo secundária, as análises revelam que raramente elas abordam o Ensino de Matemática. Um dos principais resultados da pesquisa aponta para uma certa omissão por parte das redes de ensino investigadas quanto à implementação de uma política de formação continuada para os professores e, em particular, para aqueles que ensinam Matemática nos anos finais do Ensino Fundamental. / We present our master ́s research who sought to investigate the continuing education action research implemented in the micro-region of the Teaching Municipal Networks Ipojuca Valley in Agreste Pernambucano for teachers who teach in the final years of primary education and, in particular, those that focus on Education Mathematics. As a theoretical framework we support the studies of authors in the field of Education and Mathematics Education. To collect the data we used the following instruments: initial conversations, in order to obtain the first information about the research field; semi-structured questionnaire, applied to different participants (school directors, coordinators or area, and teaching executive secretaries, among others); semi-structured interviews, in order to complement the responses obtained with previous instruments; documentary analysis of documents provided by the school systems on training activities in the municipality in the period 2010 to 2014. For the data analysis, we rely on the following categories: primary actions associated with the programs and projects offered by the Ministry of Education, Departments of Education and non-governmental organizations; and secondary actions, characterized by lectures, classes, activities, seminars, educational meetings, among other related actions. We also tried to approximate the continuous training activities with the characteristics of technical rationality models and practical rationality. As the primary type actions identified in the investigated Teaching Municipal Network two training programs that include the Teaching of Mathematics - the Qualiescola II Programme and the School Learning Management Programme (GESTAR II). As for the actions of the secondary type, the analysis reveals that they rarely approach the Teaching of Mathematics. One of the main results of the research points to a certain failure on the part of the investigated educational networks, as the implementation of a continuing education policy for teachers and, in particular, to those who teach Mathematics in the final years of elementary school.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2017-07-20T12:47:41Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação de Mestrado - Sivonaldo de Melo Sales.pdf: 2717745 bytes, checksum: 14edb0a72fbeb00d1f8ab2a373319dc5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-20T12:47:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação de Mestrado - Sivonaldo de Melo Sales.pdf: 2717745 bytes, checksum: 14edb0a72fbeb00d1f8ab2a373319dc5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-25 / Apresentamos nossa pesquisa de mestrado que buscou investigar as ações de formação continuada implementadas nas Redes Municipais de Ensino da Microrregião do Vale do Ipojuca no Agreste Pernambucano para os professores que ensinam nos anos finais do Ensino Fundamental e, em particular, aquelas que focam o Ensino de Matemática. Como referencial teórico apoiamo-nos nos estudos de autores da área da Educação e da Educação Matemática. Para a coleta dos dados utilizamos os seguintes instrumentos: conversas iniciais, com o intuito de obter as primeiras informações sobre o campo de investigação; questionário semiestruturado, aplicado a diferentes participantes (diretores de ensino, coordenadores pedagógicos ou de área e secretários executivos de ensino, dentre outros); entrevistas semiestruturadas, com a finalidade de complementar as respostas obtidas com os instrumentos precedentes; análise documental, de documentos fornecidos pelas redes de ensino sobre as ações de formação no município no período de 2010 a 2014. Para a análise dos dados, baseamo-nos nas seguintes categorias: ações primárias, associadas aos programas e projetos ofertados pelo Ministério da Educação, Secretarias de Educação e por Organizações não Governamentais; e, ações secundárias, caracterizadas por palestras, aulas atividades, seminários, encontros pedagógicos, dentre outras ações correlatas. Também tentamos aproximar as ações de formação continuada com as características dos modelos de racionalidade técnica e racionalidade prática. Como ações do tipo primárias, identificamos nas Redes Municipais de Ensino investigadas dois programas de formação que contemplam o Ensino de Matemática o Programa Qualiescola II e o Programa Gestão da Aprendizagem Escolar (GESTAR II). Quanto às ações do tipo secundária, as análises revelam que raramente elas abordam o Ensino de Matemática. Um dos principais resultados da pesquisa aponta para uma certa omissão por parte das redes de ensino investigadas quanto à implementação de uma política de formação continuada para os professores e, em particular, para aqueles que ensinam Matemática nos anos finais do Ensino Fundamental. / We present our master´s research who sought to investigate the continuing education action research implemented in the micro-region of the Teaching Municipal Networks Ipojuca Valley in Agreste Pernambucano for teachers who teach in the final years of primary education and, in particular, those that focus on Education Mathematics. As a theoretical framework we support the studies of authors in the field of Education and Mathematics Education. To collect the data we used the following instruments: initial conversations, in order to obtain the first information about the research field; semi-structured questionnaire, applied to different participants (school directors, coordinators or area, and teaching executive secretaries, among others); semi-structured interviews, in order to complement the responses obtained with previous instruments; documentary analysis of documents provided by the school systems on training activities in the municipality in the period 2010 to 2014. For the data analysis, we rely on the following categories: primary actions associated with the programs and projects offered by the Ministry of Education, Departments of Education and non-governmental organizations; and secondary actions, characterized by lectures, classes, activities, seminars, educational meetings, among other related actions. We also tried to approximate the continuous training activities with the characteristics of technical rationality models and practical rationality. As the primary type actions identified in the investigated Teaching Municipal Network two training programs that include the Teaching of Mathematics - the Qualiescola II Programme and the School Learning Management Programme (GESTAR II). As for the actions of the secondary type, the analysis reveals that they rarely approach the Teaching of Mathematics. One of the main results of the research points to a certain failure on the part of the investigated educational networks, as the implementation of a continuing education policy for teachers and, in particular, to those who teach Mathematics in the final years of elementary school.

[pt] A partir do governo Fernando Henrique Cardoso começou a ser adotado no Brasil um modelo de administração de serviços públicos de caráter público/privado, conhecido como Organização Social (OS). As OS são organizações privadas sem fins lucrativos que administram os mais variados serviços públicos nacionais. Atualmente existem cerca de 200 OSs nos planos municipal, estadual e federal, dentre elas a Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa - RNP, organização que cuida da operação bem como das questões estratégicas da Internet acadêmica brasileira. O objetivo desta dissertação é desenvolver uma análise do caso RNP visando a compreensão de sua atuação internacional e sua contribuição para a política externa brasileira. Minha hipótese pretende demonstrar que a atuação dupla da RNP, nas esferas pública e privada, potencializa sua influência na composição da agenda de política externa brasileira para a sociedade da informação e integração regional na medida em que possibilita a este ator participar simultaneamente de diferentes loci do processo decisório que influenciam na política externa. A partir de uma atuação burocrática, a RNP transita com facilidade pelas instâncias hierárquicas da burocracia e assume um papel análogo ao de uma minoria burocrática. Por meio de estratégias de influência tão, e em alguns casos até mais, capazes quanto às utilizadas pelos principais atores burocráticos, essas minorias asseguram seu espaço na arena do processo decisório de política externa. Em outro diapasão, a atuação não-estatal da RNP insere esta organização na rede horizontal de atores não-estatais em sua área de atuação. Face à relevância destes atores observada no bojo da revolução tecnológico-informacional, os mesmos vêm demonstrando efetiva participação na elaboração da política externa brasileira. / [en] Since Fernando Henrique Cardoso´s administration, Brazil started to adopt a public / private way for public services management, known as Social Organization (SO). The SOs are not-for-profit organizations that operate a variety of national public services. Currently, there are around 200 SOs operating at the local, estate and federal levels, among them Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa - RNP, the organization in charge of the Brazilian academic Internet operation and its strategic matters. The goal of this dissertation is to develop an analysis on RNP case, aiming at understanding its international actorness and its contribution for the Brazilian foreign policy. My hypothesis intends to show that RNP´s double actorness in the public and private realms, leverage its influence in the Brazilian foreign policy agenda for the information society and regional integration. This fact enables RNP to take part simultaneously in the different decision process loci that impact the country foreign policy. From bureaucratic acting, RNP moves with relative ease among the realms of the bureaucratic hierarchy and takes over a role analogous of a bureaucratic minority. By using influence strategies as capable as those used by the major bureaucratic actors, these minorities are able to conquer their space in the foreign policy decision process realm. On the other hand, the non-state RNP acting allows it to participate on the non-state actor network. On the forefront of the relevance of these non- state actors, observed on the realm of the information technology revolution, have been actively taking part in the construction of the Brazilian foreign policy agenda.