Since the turn of the new millennium the UK construction industry has witnessed the naissance of a new paradigm known as ICT-enabled collaborative working. Advocates of this new approach believe that the adoption of ICTs will lead to better project information exchange, communications, integrated processes and therefore more efficient collaborative working. It is expected that ICT-enabled collaborative working will not only overcome the industry's many inherent problems, such as its adversarial and fragmented nature, but that it will also facilitate benefits for all involved. This supposition is based upon the recognition that its exploitation has proven successful at transforming other industries. The EngD thesis pertains to a four-year study on two methodologies currently applied under the concept of ICT-enabled collaborative working, 'Collaborative Prototyping' (CP) and the use of 'Construction Project Extranets' (CPE). The research project utilised literature reviews, case studies, project observations, active involvement, surveys, interviews and workshops to develop expertise and knowledge within the subject area. It shows that a large disparity exists between the use of a shared 3D model and the use of CPEs to promote collaborative working. Conversely, whilst CPEs have become the de facto ICT-enabled approach to seeking improvements in project efficiency (due to their potential to enhance communications, integration and collaboration) they are not being utilised effectively. This was attributed to the use of inadequate procedures that fail to provide proper consideration of all the necessary issues to ensure successful implementation, application and management of the CPE. As a result, project teams are failing to ascertain the full potential benefits offered by such collaboration tools. The research demonstrates that to overcome this, project teams require the development of an industry best-fit framework that defines proficient procedures. It highlights the main factors for inclusion within a protocol. Furthermore, it provides a simple form to promote greater awareness of the key factors that impinge on the successful application of CPE. The thesis concludes by outlining a number of recommendations for consideration by the industry, along with requirements for future work.

根據國際貨幣基金會（International Monetary Fund, IMF）之資料顯示，服務業對一個國家在經濟發展上的貢獻比，已扮演愈來愈吃重的角色。為了因應此發展趨勢，從2006年起，政府部門便計畫能運用臺灣在「ICT科技平台」上的既有優勢，推動特定產業的科技化服務，以帶動服務產業及資訊科技產業升級。 科技化服務（IT-enabled Service, ITeS）一詞泛指善用資通訊尖端科技，提供客戶創新應用或服務，以滿足客戶需求，創造更大效益之模式。全球科技化服務業的運作，可概分為2種模式，分別為透過IT科技傳遞由人提供的服務（Services via IT, SvIT），以及科技本身就是一種服務（IT as a Services, ITaaS）。 本研究採用個案研究法，探討企業推動科技化服務的執行過程以及可能面臨的問題。以利豐集團於2000年投資電子商務的個案為例，應用所建議的科技化服務發展模型去分析個案公司從規劃、建置到營運等階段中所投入的資源及所配置的資產，並歸納出導入過程中的管理性議題，以及所衍生的資訊科技與企業競爭策略、科技化的機會與風險等相關議題。希望透過本研究結果，提供管理部門、服務產業以及資訊科技產業業者在推動以及導入科技化服務之參考。 / In recent years, International Monetary Fund (IMF) statistics show that the service sector’s importance in economic growth is more and more apparent. To cope with the trend, Taiwan government has been planning to elaborate Taiwan’s advantage in Information & Communication Technology (ICT) industry to promote ITeS since 2006, with the promotion and ITeS developing, the stakeholders are looking forward to create long-term revenue and expand this new information service market. IT-enabled Services (ITeS) can be defined as the combination of knowledge regarding certain specific areas and information technologies (IT), or the generation of new application ideas based on IT itself, to create innovative technology-based services, new business model and value added. There are two main groups of ITeS as follows: (1) Mode I: business process services delivered via IT, for example on-line banking, remote healthcare, and so on; and (2) Mode II: technology itself as a service, for example Software as a Service (SaaS). This research adopts case study as research method to discuss ITeS implementation and the potential challenges behind the scenes. By taking Li & Fung’s beta launch of the new business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce portal in August 2000 event as the single case, the study based on the proposed ITeS implementation process framework to review the case, the analysis result shows the IT assets, managerial assets and market assets through the proposal, the planning, the development and the operation phases, and generalizes the managerial issues about ITeS implementation, and the related IT and strategy, IT-enabled opportunities and risks topics. From the research findings, this research aims to provide a reference about the implementation and promotion of ITeS to those enterprises that are service firms or have interest in ITeS, as well as the ICT industry and the authority.

With the ubiquity of digitalization, digital convergence of applications, devices, networks and artifacts presents both challenges and opportunities for individuals, organizations and society. Physical artifacts that were not digital in the recent past are now increasingly becoming intertwined with digital components, providing them with digital capabilities. As a consequence, vast amounts of information that used to be invisible can now be captured, digitized and used in new places and novel ways. Organizations thus seek to innovate IT-enabled services based upon the flows of information across both internal and external organizational boundaries. Because IT-enabled services support organizational actors in communicating and collaborating both inside and outside the organizations’ boundaries, they can also assimilate and diffuse knowledge across these boundaries. The thesis is a collection of five papers and a cover paper reporting an exploration of the role of digitalized equipment in boundary-spanning practices as a contribution to the design and implementation of IT-enabled services. Three embedded case studies of Swedish industrial organizations provide an opportunity to address the research question. The findings are based on studies of remote diagnostics services for industrial equipment enabled by remote diagnostics systems, an application family within ubiquitous computing. The thesis illustrates that remote diagnostics systems have a profound impact on how organizational boundaries that were drawn as ‘cross-overs’ are becoming less limited by constraints of time, space and the type of data shared. These systems permit workers at remote sites to gain access to information about external dispersed equipment and production processes. They also create new boundaries between entities that were not previously connected and across existing boundaries with new information and knowledge. This thesis gives insight into how such information sharing across boundaries may leverage multicontextual practices. This thesis contributes to the existing literature with the development of a conceptual apparatus for understanding how embedded technology transforms boundary-spanning practices from a pure social activity to a boundary-spanning assemblage. Boundary spanning is an increasingly complex sociomaterial practice that fundamentally rests on technology as well as human competencies. The technology is deeply intertwined in the boundary-spanning activity as the sensors installed in the monitored equipment serve as the remote technicians’ eyes and ears. Together, the technology and the technicians form a boundary-spanning assemblage. While information systems research has called for attention to the ‘IT artifact’, this thesis underscores the importance of the characteristics of the specific technology and the profound effects it has had on its surroundings. In contrast to predominant ubiquitous computing research that mainly explores mobile applications, this thesis also shows how the increased embeddedness of IT makes technology an invisible but ever-present part of everyday work practices. Digitalized equipment with embedded technology thus raises not only novel opportunities but also novel challenges for both users and researchers. We can design IT solutions today where people close to the technology have no access to or awareness of it. People can be monitored without visual cues revealing the monitoring. Furthermore, developing or using an IT-enabled service is not merely about developing/using a technology or a system; it also involves issues about the technology’s value creation, its ownership, competencies and customer relationships. IT and services should thus not be considered as separate and subsequent processes: they are deeply intertwined and mutual. This thesis thus suggests that digitalized equipment with embedded technology deserves critical scrutiny.

Studies in recent years have revealed that use of ICT can significantly impact knowledge sharing in organizations by enhancing the knowledge sharing process, reducing knowledge sharing barriers, and introducing technology barriers. While this has been identified in many studies and a significant research has been carried out to identify knowledge sharing barriers, there exists a considerable dearth of research when the question of ‘which knowledge sharing barriers can ICT reduce and how?’ is posed. This thesis aims to address this question by studying the case of an organization using ICT for knowledge sharing. The study was carried out using questionnaire and interview findings and results showed that if ICT is effectively used, a number of knowledge sharing barriers - in addition to time and space barriers - can be successfully reduced. Organizational and individual knowledge sharing barriers saw most reduction by ICT while technology barriers did not see any reduction by use of ICT alone. This is in coherence with different studies that use of ICT for knowledge sharing introduces its own technology barriers. However the results show that if employees are tech-savvy and management considerably supports employee involvement in the process of design and deployment of ICT enabled knowledge sharing, technology barriers can also be greatly reduced and even entirely eliminated.

La fausse qualification de «moyen de défense» attribuée par tradition à l'exception de procédure a conduit le législateur à la soumettre à un régime totalement incohérent et inadapté. L'illustration en est donné par l'échec constaté de l'exclusivité de compétence attribuée au juge de la mise état sur les exceptions de procédure, échec se matérialisant par les nombreuses dérogations que ne cesse d'apporter la jurisprudence à leur régime. Elle se traduit aussi par la quasi-impossibilité pour le demandeur à l'action principale de s'en prévaloir, ce en totale contradiction avec l'esprit des textes. Cette incohérence est illustrée enfin par les confusions opportunistes entre exception de procédure, fin de non-recevoir, incident et défense au fond. L'exception de procédure n'est pas un moyen de défense mais une demande incidente relative à la marche de la procédure qui en termes d'ordre logique doit être examinée par préalable au fond. Elle n'intéresse donc que les rapports procéduraux c'est-à-dire l'instance dont l'ouverture et la conduite aux termes des articles 1 et 2 du Code de procédure civile appartiennent aux parties. La classification et le régime des exceptions de procédure doivent en tenir compte. Il faut donc distinguer les exceptions de procédure opposées à l'ouverture de l'instance de celles qui sont opposées à sa continuation. Seules les premières doivent relever de la compétence exclusive du juge de la mise en état de qui on doit réussir à faire un véritable juge de l'introduction de l'instance. Les exceptions de procédure opposées à la continuation, par contre, doivent pouvoir être proposées au fur et à mesure de leur survenance ou de leur révélation sauf la possibilité pour le juge de les écarter ou de prononcer des condamnations pécuniaires à l'encontre de la partie qui se serait abstenue dans une intention dilatoire ou abusive de les soulever plus tôt. / The false qualification of "defense" awarded by tradition to the procedural objection led the legislator to submit it to a totally inconsistent and unsuitable regime. The illustration is given by the failure noticed by the exclusivity of competence awarded to the judge of the enabled on the procedural objections, failure materializing by the numerous dispensations which the jurisprudence continues bringing to their regime. It is also translated by the quasi-impossibility for the applicant in the main action to claim it in whole contradiction with the spirit of Law. This incoherence is finally illustrated by the opportunist confusions between procedural objection, refusal of the action's receving, incident and defense in fact. The procedural objection is not a defense but an incidental request relative to the step of the procedure which in term of logical order must be examined by prerequisite in fact. It thus interests only the procedural relationships that is to say the instance which the opening and the conduct (driving) in compliance with the articles 1 and 2 of the Code of civil procedure belong to the parties. The classification and the regime of the procedural objections have to take it into account. It is thus necessary to distinguish the procedural objections on the contrary to the opening of the authority of those who are set against its continuation. Only the first ones have to be a matter of the exclusive competence of the judge of the enabled of whom we have to manage to make a real judge of the introduction of the instance. The procedural objections opposed to the continuation, on the other hand, must be able to be suggested according to their emergence or to their revelation except the possibility for the judge ruling out them or pronouncing pecuniary condemnations against the party which would have abstained in a delaying or unfair intention to raise them earlier.

abstract: Newer communication technologies (CTs) will always vie with more mature technologies for the attention of time-constrained legislators. As continual advances in CT make new methods of communication available to legislators, it is important to understand how newly introduced CTs influence novel and changing legislator behaviors. The mixed-method research presented in this study provides deep insights into the relationships between legislators and the CTs they use. This study offers many contributions, among them: it effectively bridges a gap between existing Internet Enabled CT (IECT) behavioral studies on non-legislators by expanding them to include legislator behavior; it expands existing narrowly focused research into the use of CT by legislators by including both IECT and mature CTs such as face-to-face meetings and telephone; it provides a fresh perspective on the factors that make CTs important to legislators, and it uncovers legislator behaviors that are both useful, and potentially harmful, to the process of democracy in the United States. In addition, this study confirms and extends existing research in areas such as minority party constituent communication frequency, and extends the topic of legislator CT behavior into some unanticipated areas such as constituent selective behaviors and the use of text messaging during floor debates which effectively enable lobbyists and paid consultants to participate real-time in floor debates in the Arizona House and Senate. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Public Policy 2014

With the rise of the Web, there is more interest among end-users to create different kinds of software that use elements from the Web or allow for networked interaction between users. Currently however, many available tools for this purpose are hard to use or lack a sufficient level of expressiveness. To provide new insights on the construction of tools that allow end-users to create their own Web-enabled software, this thesis explores design issues and consequences of applying the Turtle metaphor from the Logo-programming language to an end-user programming environment for Web-enabled applications. In order to explore this, CrawLogo was created - a programmable end-user tool that supports the creation of Web-enabled applications using a Turtle-like control metaphor and language adapted from Logo. As a proof-of-concept, several Web-enabled applications were created using this new tool, including CrawLogo Pong, a somewhat alternative version of Atari’s classic Pong game, and a collaborative browsing environment, in which users can browse the Web together. The resulting CrawLogo environment allows for creating Web-enabled applications that - using more traditional programming languages - would be quite complex and require deep technical programming skills. Further, while utilizing a Turtle-like control metaphor in CrawLogo allows for the creation of some new types of applications and some new ways of interacting with the Web, it also raises new problems such as how to successfully design within the CrawLogo metaphor and how to create a meaningful representation of Turtle- geometry-based navigation on the Web.

ICTs have enabled increased mobility and created a new era of workplace connectivity. Due to changes in work organization, global operations, increased mobility, and the new opportunities they are creating; work requires more coordination, more travel and a higher frequency of boundary spanning. ICTs have infiltrated into the personal life of individuals, while similarly, having an increasing impact on how organizations manage their workers‘ work-life balance. This research investigates the work boundary negotiation process in ICT-enabled work.Using an in-depth case study supplemented with visual data, this thesis studies the case of Sigma, an international consulting firm, that serves clients located in a large geographical area. It explores how consultants exhibiting mobile work practices, use ICTs to negotiate work boundaries. It draws on the structurational model of technology and complements it with the boundary object construct. The utilisation of this combined approach allows further understanding of work boundary negotiation.The research reveals that some ICTs as technological artefacts are boundary objects bridging between different groups of actors, crossing work boundaries, and allowing actors to negotiate their work boundaries while challenging traditional boundaries. Thus, allowing consultants to use their ICTs (specifically their smartphone) to negotiate their work boundaries on a need to basis. The boundary negotiation process (as revealed by the structuration process) is the means by which consultants try to make the most out of existing social structures – in this case specifically domination – in their organizational context. The ICT becomes a source of power and is mainly used to manifest domination over available resources. Consultants use them to maintain control over their life, increase their legitimacy and convey that they are professional experts. ICTs allow consultants to continuously redefine their work boundaries which become dynamic, fluid and contextual; the research reaffirms the sociotechnical nature of work boundaries.The thesis also develops a conceptual model of work boundary negotiation that conceptually illustrates how boundary negotiation is the outcome of the structuration process and the negotiation of existing structures of domination, legitimation and signification.

The introduction of Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and lightweight consensus algorithms to aid in the bolstering of security and privacy in both IoT and IoE does show a great deal of promise not only in these areas, but in resource cost over traditional methods of blockchain.  However, several previous studies make claims regarding performance of novel solutions without providing detailed information as to the physical components of their experiments.  This comparative study shows that Proof of Authentication (PoAh) performs the best out of three selected consensus algorithms and that the claims made regarding the performance of PUFChain and Proof of PUF-enabled Authentication (PoP) could not be replicated in this instance.

The aim of this thesis is to create a client xDB database, which supports visualization and management of XML documents and schemas. The first part deals with the introduction of XML, XML schemas (DTD, XML Schema, RelaxNG, etc.) and contextual technologies. After that the thesis deals with the problem of the XML persistence and it focuses on mapping techniques necessary for an efficient storage in a relational database. The main part is devoted to the design and implementation of client application XML Admin, which is programmed in Java. The application uses the XML:DB interface to communicate with the xDB database. It supports storing XML documents to a collection and the XPath language for querying them. The final section is devoted to application performance testing and comparison with existing native database eXist.