CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / The aim of this research was to use emerging technologies on the processing of the prebiotic orange juice added of fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and in prebiotic orange juice produced by enzymatic synthesis. The first stage of the study was evaluated the effect of atmospheric pressure cold plasma (ACP) and high pressure processing (HPP) on the prebiotic orange juice added 7% commercial FOS. The orange juice was directly and indirectly exposed to plasma discharge at 70 kV with processing times of 15, 30, 45 and 60 seconds. For high pressure processing, the juice containing the same concentration of FOS was treated at 450 bars for 5 minutes. After the treatments, the fructo-oligosaccharides were qualified and quantified by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), using densitometer. The organic acids, color analysis and pH values were also evaluated. Both processes did not degrade the FOS. The organic acids and the color of the treated samples were also preserved. On the second stage of the study, the effect of plasma and ozone treatments on prebiotic orange juice produced by enzymatic synthesis were evaluated. The orange juice was directly and indirectly exposed to plasma discharge at 70 kV with processing times of 15, 30, 45 and 60 seconds. For ozone processing, different loads (0.057, 0.128 and 0.230 mg/ O3.mL of juice) were evaluated. After the treatments, the oligosaccharides were quantified by HPLC. The juice pH, color, total phenolic content and total antioxidant activity were also determined. Both processes promoted a partial degradation of the oligosaccharides in the juice. However, the juice maintained an enough amount of oligosaccharides to be classified as a prebiotic food. The other parameters analyzed were preserved. Thus, atmospheric cold plasma and ozone are suitable non-thermal alternatives for prebiotic orange juice treatment. / O objetivo desta pesquisa foi empregar tecnologias emergentes no processamento de suco prebiÃtico de laranja adicionado de fruto-oligossacarÃdeos (FOS) e em suco prebiÃtico de laranja produzido via sÃntese enzimÃtica. A primeira etapa da pesquisa consistiu em avaliar o efeito da aplicaÃÃo das tecnologias de plasma e de alta pressÃo, como mÃtodos de conservaÃÃo, em suco de laranja adicionado de 7% de FOS comercial. O suco foi exposto direta e indiretamente ao processamento por plasma em diferentes tempos: 15 30, 45 e 60 s. Para o processamento com alta pressÃo, o suco foi tratado a uma pressÃo de 450 bars por 5 minutos. ApÃs os tratamentos, a concentraÃÃo de fruto-oligossacarÃdeos foi quantificada pela tÃcnica de cromatografia em camada delgada (CCD), utilizando o equipamento densitÃmetro. DeterminaÃÃes de cor, pH e concentraÃÃo de Ãcidos orgÃnicos foram tambÃm realizadas. Ambos os processos nÃo degradaram os FOS presentes no suco. Ãcidos orgÃnicos e a cor das amostras tratadas tambÃm foram preservados. Na segunda etapa da pesquisa, foi avaliado o efeito da aplicaÃÃo dos tratamentos de plasma e ozÃnio em suco prebiÃtico de laranja produzido via sÃntese enzimÃtica. O suco foi exposto direta e indiretamente ao processamento por plasma, a 70 kV, em diferentes tempos: 15 30, 45 e 60 s. Para o processamento com ozÃnio, diferentes cargas (0,057, 0,128 e 0,230 mg/ O3.mL de suco) foram avaliadas. ApÃs os tratamentos, a concentraÃÃo de oligossacarÃdeos foi determinada pela tÃcnica de HPLC. Os valores de pH, cor, conteÃdo de fenÃlicos totais e atividade antioxidante total tambÃm foram determinados. Ambos os processos promoveram uma degradaÃÃo parcial dos oligossacarÃdeos no suco. Contudo, o suco manteve uma quantidade suficiente de oligossacarÃdeos para ser classificado como um alimento prebiÃtico. Os demais parÃmetros analisados foram preservados. Diante disso, sugere-se que os tratamentos de plasma, alta pressÃo e ozÃnio sÃo alternativas nÃo tÃrmicas adequadas para o tratamento de suco de laranja prebiÃtico.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Within a context of rapid technological change and shifting market conditions, the South African education system is challenged with providing increased education opportunities without increased budgets. Many educational institutions are answering the challenge without increased budgets. Several educational institutions are answering the challenge by developing distance education programs through information technology, but in the case of one institution, strategic intentions involving information technology and distance learning have not been fulfilled. At its most basic level, distance education takes place when a teacher and student(s) are separated by physical distance. Technology, often in combination with face-to-face communication, can be used to bridge instructional gaps. It can be argued that modes of teaching and learning are changing, and we must redefine what is meant by the word “student”. For example: what should we really call an adult involved in life long learning? The term “student” seems inappropriate. These types of programs can provide adults with a second chance at tertiary education, reach those disadvantaged by limited time, distance or physical disability, and update the knowledge base of workers at their places of employment. The aim of this research is to determine and understand the growing role of information technology in promoting quality assurance in higher education, and in expanding the education opportunities and workplace learning through the use of distance learning. This work investigates how distance learning can be improved by making use of IT with particular regard to the underprivileged, and the potential contribution to national transformation. This is summarized in the research question: “How can we improve distance learning in South Africa with emerging technologies?” review of the literature, interviews with experts, and reviews of conference papers provided the principle inputs. The academic literatures were supplemented by studies of papers from the Department of Education and other non-academic sources. Based on the reading of the literature, and the views of experts, questionnaires and field experiments were designed and applied to a statistically significant population of respondents. A combination of statistical analysis and content analysis of open questions from the questionnaires lead to comparative evidence about different learning styles and different communities of learners, and the extent to which different learning styles are effective for the different kinds of learners.

Starch modification is a widely employed and important technique, allowing to obtain ingredients with different characteristics, expanding the range of applications of starches and bringing competitive advantages for different industries. Despite the production of toxic residues, and despite the increasing concern about environmental issues, the use of chemical agents in starch modification by oxidation is still very popular. Ozone can be a solution to change it, since is a very powerful oxidising agent that can be quickly decomposed into oxygen, whose residues meet the global demand for sustainability. Therefore, it can be a safer alternative for both consumers and environment. In this work the use of ozone in aqueous solution as a starch modification method was evaluated. The effects of the different ozonation times on the structure and properties of the potato starch were investigated. With increasing the ozonation time, it was observed an increase in the carbonyl, carboxyl and reducing sugar contents, as well as a decrease in the pH, apparent amylose content and molecular size, demonstrating that the potato starch processed with ozone was modified in its molecular level. Further, X-ray diffraction analysis showed no significant changes in the relative crystallinity of the granules, while in the microscopy analysis it was observed some alterations in the granules morphology. All these changes directly affected the modified starch properties, resulting in significant differences in the pasting properties, gel texture and paste clarity. The obtained results are promising, since they can prove the effectiveness of using ozone, a still little explored and sustainable method, as an efficient oxidizing agent for starch modification. / Modificação de amidos é uma técnica amplamente empregada e muito importante, permitindo a obtenção de ingredientes com diferentes características, ampliando a gama de aplicação dos amidos e trazendo vantagens competitivas para diferentes indústrias. Apesar da produção de resíduos tóxicos, e apesar da crescente preocupação com as questões ambientais, o uso de agentes químicos na modificação de amidos ainda é muito popular. O ozônio pode ser uma alternativa para mudar este cenário, uma vez que é um poderoso agente oxidante que pode ser rapidamente decomposto em oxigênio, cujos resíduos vão de encontro com a demanda global por sustentabilidade. Portanto, esta pode ser uma alternativa mais segura tanto para os consumidores quanto para o meio ambiente. Neste trabalho avaliou-se o uso de ozônio em solução aquosa como método de modificação de amido. Foram investigados os efeitos de diferentes tempos de ozonização na estrutura e nas propriedades do amido de batata. Com o aumento do tempo de ozonização, foram observados aumento nos teores de carbonila, carboxila e açúcares redutores e diminuição no pH, no teor de amilose aparente e no tamanho molecular, demonstrando que o amido de batata processado com ozônio foi modificado a nível molecular. Além disso, análises de difração de raio-X não mostraram alterações significativas na cristalinidade relativa dos grânulos, enquanto nas análises de microscopia foram observadas algumas alterações na morfologia dos grânulos. Todas estas alterações afetaram diretamente as propriedades do amido modificado, resultando em diferenças significativas nas propriedades de pasta, textura de gel e claridade de pasta. Os resultados obtidos são bastante promissores, uma vez que provam a eficácia de se utilizar o ozônio, um método sustentável e ainda pouco explorado, como um eficaz agente oxidante para a modificação de amido.

As business, technologies, and products changes so quickly in the modern day business environment, the complexity of launching new products into global markets increases. Therefore, the significance of the new product development (NPD) concept is rising, according to researchers. This master thesis is based, through a preliminary literature review, on the assumption that traditional NPD frameworks have deficiencies today. This is because as a NPD process is an on-going process that is performed repeatedly, the importance of putting forth new considerations to the NPD based on multi-aspect industrial characteristics today is needed for a sustainable NPD framework. Therefore, this study will put forth a new multi-aspect NPD framework with emphasis on technological-, global collaboration-, and financial elements to target the literature gap that is claimed to exist. The process of the research methodology followed a deductive approach, with an explorative-, descriptive- and analytical study. The collected data was of qualitative type, through 12 semi-structured interviews. A total of six Swedish high-technological manufacturing firms were interviewed, four of which were for empirical purposes, and two for contextual understanding. The author came to the conclusion that various deviations were found in setting the multi-aspect NPD approach in contrast to traditional NPD frameworks. The significance of “Open Innovation” concepts was adamant as being the stepping-stone for idea generation, conceptualization, and strategic partnership that was not brought up by traditional literature. Openness in all elements of the multiple-aspect NPD framework setup in this study was imperative, as the empirical findings suggested that the business environment for high-technological industries shifted towards an increased technological- and financial convergence. During the latter stages, minor deviations were found, with emphasis on collaboration elements between the R&D-, production- and marketing divisions within the firms.

This study examines the role of the Campus Technologist in diffusing innovation at the Central Texas High School. The study defines the CT position, its evolution and the effects of the position on the diffusion of innovation. The study further examines the relationship of the CT with the facilitation, infusion and integration of technology in the classroom at the Central Texas High School. Interview and survey data from both the CT and the faculty provided insight and findings that indicate the role of the CT has evolved. The evolution of the CT position was found to be characterized as three distinct roles a pedagogy specialist, a content specialist and a technology specialist. The study also investigated teacher perception, utilization frequencies and data patterns in relationship to the role of the CT at the Central Texas High School. Finally, the study examined technology integration in the classroom and provided findings in a frequency distribution of technology application practices and integration applications by teachers in their classrooms at the Central Texas High School.

No description available.

With the rise of computationally expensive application domains such as machine learning, genomics, and fluids simulation, the quest for performance and energy-efficient computing has gained unprecedented momentum. The significant increase in computing and memory devices in modern systems has resulted in an unsustainable surge in energy consumption, a substantial portion of which is attributed to the memory system. The scaling of conventional memory technologies and their suitability for the next-generation system is also questionable. This has led to the emergence and rise of nonvolatile memory ( NVM ) technologies. Today, in different development stages, several NVM technologies are competing for their rapid access to the market. Racetrack memory ( RTM ) is one such nonvolatile memory technology that promises SRAM -comparable latency, reduced energy consumption, and unprecedented density compared to other technologies. However, racetrack memory ( RTM ) is sequential in nature, i.e., data in an RTM cell needs to be shifted to an access port before it can be accessed. These shift operations incur performance and energy penalties. An ideal RTM , requiring at most one shift per access, can easily outperform SRAM . However, in the worst-cast shifting scenario, RTM can be an order of magnitude slower than SRAM . This thesis presents an overview of the RTM device physics, its evolution, strengths and challenges, and its application in the memory subsystem. We develop tools that allow the programmability and modeling of RTM -based systems. For shifts minimization, we propose a set of techniques including optimal, near-optimal, and evolutionary algorithms for efficient scalar and instruction placement in RTMs . For array accesses, we explore schedule and layout transformations that eliminate the longer overhead shifts in RTMs . We present an automatic compilation framework that analyzes static control flow programs and transforms the loop traversal order and memory layout to maximize accesses to consecutive RTM locations and minimize shifts. We develop a simulation framework called RTSim that models various RTM parameters and enables accurate architectural level simulation. Finally, to demonstrate the RTM potential in non-Von-Neumann in-memory computing paradigms, we exploit its device attributes to implement logic and arithmetic operations. As a concrete use-case, we implement an entire hyperdimensional computing framework in RTM to accelerate the language recognition problem. Our evaluation shows considerable performance and energy improvements compared to conventional Von-Neumann models and state-of-the-art accelerators.

This paper aims to determine the value of the product based on the mathematical concept of Differential Privacy, by assessing the value of the business opportunities it enables and the value of the possible GDPR-fines it prevents. To delimit the scope of the research the analysis will focus on what the value of personal data is for companies within the mobility sector. Mobility is a cross-industrial sector consisting of companies within connectivity-technology, transportation, and automotive. The method used to assess the final value of anonymizing personal data, such as consumer data, using a DP-solution (meaning, an implementation of the theory) has consisted of both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative analysis aims to assess the ‘Cost of Risk’ for mobility companies that are exposed to personal integrity regulation due to data processing. To further conclude the true cost of the financial impact caused by getting fined for infringing on privacy regulation because of unlawful data processing is done through a complementary qualitative assessment. Lastly, the 'Opportunity Cost', or rather the cost of missed financial opportunities, is determined qualitatively for a case study company within Sweden’s mobility ecosystem to conclude the overall value of a DP-solution for a specific company. The final product of this research paper is to provide a framework assessing the total value, for specifically companies in the mobility sector, of implementing differential privacy solutions. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att fastställa värdet av anonymisering baserat på det matematiska konceptet Differential Privacy, genom att bedöma värdet av de affärsmöjligheter det skapar, samt värdet av de möjliga GDPR- böter det förhindrar. För att avgränsa studiens omfattning består analysen endast av att uppskatta dessa värden för företag inom mobilitetssektorn. Mobilitetssektorn är en tvärindustriell sektor som består av företag inom uppkoppling-, transport- och bilindustrin. Metoden som använts för att ta fram det slutliga värdet av att anonymisera persondata genom en differential privacy lösning, består både av en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ analys. Målet med den kvantitativa analysen är att estimera kostnadsrisken för företag inom mobilitetssektorn som exponeras mot GDPR-böter med avseende på dess datahantering. För att vidare ta reda på den totala finansiella inverkan av sådana böter, kompletteras analysen av en kvalitativ studie, som delvis omfattas av de finansiella möjligheterna ett företag går miste om i en sådan situation. Den kvalitativa analysen består också av en fallstudie av ett svenskt företag inom mobilitetssektorn, med målet att estimera värdet av de affärsmöjligheter som uppstår med hjälp av anonymisering av data. Slutligen är målet med denna uppsats att förse läsaren med att ramverk för att estimera det totala värdet av att implementera differential privacy lösningar i företag inom mobilitetssektorn.

New technologies are continuously emerging, and as technology advances new applications are explored. One such application is in leadership development, an extension of leader development with a key differentiation being an inclusion of the collective as a dimension. Currently, organizations as well as their environment are increasing in complexity, emphasizing a requirement for better equipped leaders able to collectively face the consequential challenges incurred. Virtual reality is an emerging technology that has existed for some time, allowing both the hardware and software to become refined. This thesis explores the potential of this technology, i.e. virtual reality in a leadership development context, mapping out current uses and identifying potential areas for application. Furthermore, the thesis explores how virtual reality could be applied to enhance leadership development in organizations and what enablers and barriers this would entail. This was done by conducting a literature review and by gathering qualitative data, interviewing 6 researchers in the field and 5 practitioners from companies related to virtual reality and leadership development regarding their views and uses of this technology. The data was then utilized in two frameworks, the Dialogue map, categorizing methods of leadership development into 5 distinct categories, and the Multi-level perspective, defining three levels of a socio-technical system and the interactions between them. The findings of the thesis suggest that the technology indeed has potential in a leadership development context, with education and developmental relationships being the two most apparent areas of application of the technology. Furthermore, implementation of virtual reality in an organization should not replace existing leadership development methods such as instructor-led sessions or e-learning, but instead exist as a complement. Lastly, factors such as culture, demographics and the specific leadership development application should be considered. / Genom uppkomsten av ny teknologi uppstår även nya möjligheter för appliceringar av den. En sådan applicering är inom ledarskapsutveckling, vilket är en utökning av ledarutveckling som även inkluderar en kollektiv dimension. I nuläget genomgår både organisationer och det yttre landskapet en ökning i komplexitet, vilket har belyst ett ökat behov på mer kompetenta ledare som kollektivt kan hantera utmaningarna till följd av den ökade komplexiteten. Virtuell verklighet är en framväxande teknologi som har utvecklats både inom hårdvaran och mjukvaran den senaste tiden. Denna uppsats utforskar potentialen av denna teknologi inom ledarskapsutveckling genom att kartlägga nuvarande användningsområden och identifiera framtida områden lämpade för applicering av teknologin. Vidare utforskar studien hur virtuell verklighet kan appliceras i en organisation genom att se på vilka möjliggörare och barriärer detta skulle medföra. Detta gjordes genom utförandet av en litteraturanalys, samt genom att intervjua 6 forskare inom fältet och 5 utövare från företag relaterade till virtuell verklighet och ledarskapsutveckling angående deras uppfattning och användning av teknologin. Empirin var sedan utnyttjad inom två ramverk, nämligen Dialogue map för att kategorisera ledarskapsutveckling i 5 kategorier av processer, samt Multi-level perspective som definierar tre nivåer av ett socio-tekniska system, och beskriver interaktionen mellan nivåerna. Resultatet från uppsatsen föreslår att teknologin besitter potential inom ledarskapsutveckling, med kategorierna “education” och “developmental relationships” som de mest uppenbara appliceringarna av teknologin. Vidare borde inte implementeringen av virtuell verklighet ersätta nuvarande metoder för ledarskapsutveckling såsom lärarledda sessioner och e-lärande, utan komplettera dessa. Slutligen bör faktorer som kultur, demografi och specifik tillämpning övervägas.

The examination of the role of the state in the broader context of socio-technical entanglement within data governance has received less attention due to the emergence of other powerful corporate actors (e.g. Big Tech). This thesis utilizes quantitative content analysis to investigate and compare how state agencies (the White House, FTC, Congress) and CNN framed data governance in 2022, focusing on the role of the state amid growing data privacy concerns following the Roe v. Wade overruling. The ultimate aim is to pinpoint the sociotechnical imaginaries that gain traction, having a constitutive effect on the US data governance order. Empirical results indicate that framings between the two units rather align than differ, particularly in the wake of the overruling. The evidence points to the active and multiple roles of the state and the coexistence of multiple sociotechnical imaginaries within asymmetric power dynamics, with the vision of ensuring consumer trust rising as prominent at the expense of viewing data privacy as a sovereign right of citizens. Despite the emerging perspective of viewing data privacy as a right, CNN, as a significant place of mediation, has amplified rather than challenged the market-based approach. Lastly, evidence indicates that media is not only a significant place for elevating certain sociotechnical imaginaries but could be considered one of the crucial places of initially discursively negotiated policymaking.