Due to the advancements in graphical user interface design and modelingtechnology, model-based user interfaces are becoming more dynamic andmodeling frameworks allow developers to focus more on abstract modelingwhich means they can spend more time on user interface requirements ratherthan focusing model interpretation of executable user interfaces and howtheir codes are generated. Additionally, it can be noticed that the userinterfaces of desktop based applications are fairly faster, more responsive,and more ubiquitous as they are compared with the user interfaces of theirweb based counterparts, even though web based applications are evolvinggradually in the last decades. With the introduction of Ajax technology, userinterfaces of web based applications has become as dynamic as the ones in thedesktop based counterpars. By using this advantage of Ajax technology, themain objective is to implement support for modeling web browser-based userinterfaces to the existing work of Wazaabi project which is currently lack ofhandling them in an adequate way. To sum up, this master thesis describes acontribution to a new framework which is called Wazaabi by implementinga web browser modeling support to its already dened architecture that doesnot support modeling for web browser-based user interfaces as today.Keywords: User Interfaces, Modeling, Eclipse Modeling Framework, DeclarativeLive User Interface Models, Ajax Technology, Ajax Frameworks.

Reflecting on past experiences is crucial for learning from them and reconsider actions that have been taken in order to make better future choices. Different tools have been developed to support reflection both as an individual and collaborative activity. Aim of these tools is to provide individuals with information related to experience in order to make them reflect about it. However reflecting in a setting which is not the one where the object of reflection happened affects the reflective process due to the lack of the context in which the experience took place.This work aims at investigating how the usage of the Augmented Reality can be exploited in order to support reflection. In particular the main goal of the work is to study how Augmented Reality can trigger reflection on work practices that rely on deployment and management of resources in space.The outcome of this work is the analysis of a system that allows users to collect contextual information that has a strong spatial dimension and the design and implementation of an Augmented Reality application for tablet-device in order to visualize the information collected. A high level architecture of both the overall system and the prototype implemented is provided as well as storyboards for the solution proposal. The prototype implemented has been object of an experts evaluation in order to assess the potential usefulness of the application in real settings connected with the Italian Civil Defense. A workshop paper based on the work done in this thesis has been also written in concert with my supervisor Professor Monica Divitini and my co-advisor Simone Mora.

The approaching of user satisfaction in Digital Media is raising new questions andchallenges in the interactivity relationship between creator and audience. In this workinteractivity is defined as a technology attribute that endows a media environmentwith the capability of reciprocal communication amidst user and technology throughthe technology. What are the key focus extents for managing technology based artproject? What I propose is a new layer of interaction, in which the user is viewed aspart of the interactive installation, being prompted by its pro-active behavior, redefininghim as a creative source. In this dimension, in addition to the language of the artist,what changes is also the perspective of use of the Work of Art: The user is now a livingpart of every creation, contributing to change each time the characteristics. Thanks totechnology, it becomes possible to completely revolutionize the way we conceive anddesign any type of cultural experience and to create spaces for an absolutely innovativeuse. This thesis will engineer the artistic Arduino based installation ArTime inorder to make it into a stable system that can function in museums and exhibitions,experimenting the new layer of interaction with scientific approaches.

Alot of research has been done on the rise of m-banking service in Kenya and most notably by Olga in her PHD theses and others and they all have research on how thriving the service is majorly attributed to the adoption and acceptance of the service through ease of use e.t.c.It can be noted that any service like such require ICT in place.Through use of ICT innovation in the mobile industry has grown especially with use of mobile phone to offer financial services in Kenya. Even though Kenya as a country is still lagging behind in other areas with growth and expansion of ICT when it comes to the mobile industry this is different and it is seen as a major leap to offering banking services without necessarily going to the bank. Understanding how the m-banking service is thriving and growing is far from just mere adoption and ease of use, with my thesis i try to analyze the challenges and opportunities that exist for the mobile industry in Kenya. I tackle m-banking service in particular and as can be noted no service can be allowed to operate without rules and regulations and as such what makes this service thrive if not the ICT policies in place and what strategies and practices employed by the mobile operators have worked for them.The research presented here is an interpretative study of the 4 mobile operators in Kenya.To maintain the subscribers the operators have to be innovative enough to create value added services in line with the regulations in place.

In the course TDT4501 - Specialization Project - “ReqSec project”, the preparatory course to this thesis, through purely analytical evaluation of the eight modeling approaches, the advantages and disadvantages were illustrated based on the categories - i*-based modeling approach and Use Case-based modeling approach.However, only a purely analytical evaluation of the modeling approaches does not alwaysreflect their practical usefulness. Hence, the [motivation] of the thesis was selecting two modeling approaches, those are Secure Tropos and Misuse Cases, using an empirical investigation for such evaluations to guide the researchers and practitioners a better overview and understanding of the benefits of the two modeling approaches in a real life usage. The objective was to see if the advantages claimed analytically in the previous project also come true in practice. [Questions] Through a controlled experiment, two core problems shall be investigated: a) How about the participants’ performance when they applied the two modeling approaches to finish tasks in the experiment and b) Their preference for the two modeling approaches after the experiment. The [principle] was using two modeling approaches to perform the experiment, through the participants’ performance on the identified number of threats and mitigations for the experiment cases, and their perception of the two modeling approaches by means of asking them to estimate the usage of modeling diagrams, textual description of cases, and memory in the experiment. And combining with the evaluation of post-questionnaire analysis, the conclusions were summarized based on the empirical study of statistical results and the previous analytical study results, to investigate whether the empirical evaluation could match well with analytical evaluation or not.[Contribution] The experiment project was the first time to compare the Secure Troposand Misuse Cases comprehensibly. The results illustrated that both modeling techniqueshad no significant difference of identifying threats but they had significant difference of identifying mitigations in this controlled experiment with 50 students who apply to both modeling approaches with relevant cases. And through analyzing the same case with the same modeling approach or different modeling approach of the experiment, it was found that Net Shopping case was identified more mitigations and threats by the participants when considering the aspect of technique criteria of threats and mitigations. The participants were complementary regarding goal-based modeling approach in some security issues and performed non-techniques threats and mitigations in this controlled experiment. Hence, Secure Tropos was investigated perceiving more favorable. In the last, comparing with the six dimensions from previous analytical comparison, the investigation shows that most of the two modeling approaches’ advantages were confirmed, and the results also coincided to the previous analytical evaluation.Keywords: Secure Tropos, Misuse Case, Empirical Study, Security Modeling

Effective IT is vital in organization in the low resource settings of developingcountries. This also applies to public sector organizations. However, little researchhas been reported regarding IT implementation in higher education institution.Meanwhile, it is widely believed that information technology could boostdevelopment, strengthen and increase the competitiveness of the university amongothers.The focus of this report is to explain as well as improve the IT implementationprocess in public sector organizations, particularly in higher educationinstitution in developing countries. The motivation for studying the ITimplementation process is to be able to understand the underlying aspectsof the successful of IT implementation process in developing countries whichthen give the possibility to make any improvement on the organization.An action research approach in combination with case study method has beenperformed in one of Indonesia's public universities. Empirical data collectionwas done to support the research investigation including two-times of field work inwhich one of them was getting involved into the organization activity, two roundpre and follow-up semi-structural interviews, direct observation, discussion,meeting, document analysis and previous involvement in the institution. AnOnline Questionnaire was also performed to obtain the perception of researchparticipants regarding the proposed tools.A one initial cycle of action research was done and the study found severalfactors that possibly hamper the implementation process in the university andsuccessfully formulated several strategies that can be used to cope with thosefactors, e.g. limited human resources, lack of management commitment, lack ofclear job description among staffs, lack of appropriate planning and strategyfor systems development and implementation, ineffective communication &coordination, lack of funds, lack of rewards, and government policies.Intervention is then performed by introducing software project managementinto the organization as one of the formulated strategies. Even though theoutcome of the interventions not clearly visible at this time, it gives amotivation for the continuity of the interventions.In conclusion, it can be said that among other public sector organizations indeveloping countries, they share common barriers and challenges in general, andto deal with those challenges require substantial time and appropriate approach.

In this thesis, we present a prototype for search engine to show how such a semantic search application based on ontology techniques contributes to save time for user, and improve the quality of relevant search results compared to a traditional search engine. This system is built as a query improvement module, which uses ontology and sorts the results search based on four predefined categories. The first and important part of the implementation of search engine prototype is to apply ontology to define the meaning and the relations between the queries in default domain of the study. Next, categorization of the results is carried out in order to improve the quality of result search presentation based on categorization-list. The ontology used in this search engine prototype includes sample of terms in safety and security domain, which is capable to be modified in this domain, or can be substituted by another ontology in the other fields of study. The process is continued by searching the enriched query through the Web using Google interface application search engine. The application uses ranking algorithms to categorize and organize the results of Google search in four categories, i.e. History, Mechanism, Prevention, and Case study. The predefined categories can be substituted to the other categories based on user preferences in other studies using different categorizes.

Software innovations can offer organizations with competitive advantages. Research and development entities within the petroleum industry therefore seek to utilize IT capabilities to produce innovative software. Many factors may influence the success or failure of developing and implementing research-based software innovations in organizations. Of these issues the relation between software innovation and IT governance remains largely unexplored in the research literature.This study explores the effects IT governance has on the success or failure of research-based software development projects in an international petroleum company through an interpretive case study. The results of the study are twofold: 1) practical and 2) theoretical.The practical results show that the investigated petroleum company's emphasis on formalization has unfortunate side-effects on successful development and implementation of research-based software in the organization. IT governance, focused on stability of operations, is not well aligned with the corporate strategy of increased innovation. Moreover, the central IT department uses governance structures to guard the boundaries around the department.The theoretical results from the study presented that the impact of IS innovation or digital technology innovation on the research projects and how they can help the researchers to realize their ideas, remain unnoticed in the literature. Furthermore, In IS innovation literature, the organizations’ IS unit is the main responsible for IS innovation and it starts the innovation. However in the presented study R&D department had the main responsibility in innovation and it initiates innovation.

The thesis presents an opinion mining system for song lyrics, which can fetch objects of interest and opinion words about them. Finally, opinion mining result is analyzed in terms of time information and musical genre. In the process of constructing the system, many previous works are reviewed and some of them are applied to the thesis and different methods are compared for reaching a best solution (e.g. explore how to fetch objects f interest). As well, the evaluation of the system has been done by running experiments with a collection of song lyrics containing hundreds of documents. The result from the system is compared with manual identification. The evaluation result shows that the system basically can present topics of one song lyrics and opinion words about them. Finally, opinion mining result from a collection of song lyrics can be analyzed and some interesting things are presented, e.g. fetching most common topics, presenting the number of polarity words for each musical type or different year, opinion change on some common topics as time changes. Besides, we develop a program in Java for collecting song lyrics on Internet from one website. The program can help us collect thousands of song lyrics and search information of song publishing year or musical genre on Wikipedia.org. The work in opinion mining for song lyrics is few at present. The thesis finishes an exploration in the subject and the exploration is valuable and useful for future wok.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Nature Conservation)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2008. / Wildlife monitoring is fundamentally necessary to understand how ecosystems function and how environmental changes affect wildlife populations and natural habitats. Traditionally wildlife monitoring has relied primarily on statistical analysis to interpret trends and patterns. A constraint of these techniques is an inability to detect spatial changes over time. This study investigated the use of geographic information systems (GIS) to add a spatial context to both short- and long-term wildlife monitoring.