Cette thèse démontre dans quelles mesures le recours aux agents secrets permet à Londres de dissimuler ses faiblesses notamment dans ses conflits avec l’Ecosse et l’Irlande. En effet, les mouvements dissidents écossais et irlandais mettent en péril le fondement même du Royaume-Uni en remettant en cause leurs actes d’Union signés avec Londres. Le pouvoir central se base donc sur l’efficacité et la puissance de ses agents secrets pour soutenir ses forces armées. Dès le XVème siècle, les monarques anglais, avides de subterfuges, envoient beaucoup d’espions en France. Par la suite, Londres instaure des forces de police à Dublin, Edimbourg et Londres, qui lui rendent compte des moindres complots grâce à l’infiltration de détectives dans des organisations rebelles comme le Clan na Gael, un fonctionnement qui lui permet de mater les rébellions malgré l'alliance irlando-écossaise. Toutefois, Michael Collins amène Londres à négocier grâce à la guerre d’espions (1919-1921) dans laquelle il cible les agents britanniques en imitant leurs méthodes et en développant un réseau de contre-espionnage performant. A l’aube de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la neutralité de l’Eire proclamée par Éamon De Valera précipite Londres dans un jeu très dangereux de coopération, d’espionnage et de manipulation politique de l’Irlande dans lequel les relations diplomatiques jouent un rôle clé, mais où la collaboration irlandaise auprès des Alliées s’avère précieuse. Cette thèse essaie de démontrer que les conflits opposant Dublin et Edimbourg au pouvoir central poussent ce dernier à s’affirmer, à développer et professionnaliser ses services de renseignement qui, de fait, gagnent une renommée mondiale. / This dissertation illustrates to what extent the use of secret agents allows London to conceal her weaknesses more specifically in her conflicts with Scotland and Ireland. In fact, Scottish and Irish rebel movements question the very founding of the United Kingdom when they want to repel their acts of Union with London. The central power relies on the effectiveness and power of British secret agents to help the army. Since the 15th century, English kings, fond of spying games and manipulation, have sent spies to France. In the 19th century, London installs police forces in Dublin, Edinburgh and London which warn the British government of every single plot raising owing to many detectives infiltrated in rebel organizations like Clan na Gael. This operating is very efficient and permits the central government to stifle the rebellions in spite of the alliance between Ireland and Scotland. Yet, Michael Collins forces the British government to negotiate thanks to the intelligence war (1919-1921) in which his squads target the British agents in Dublin using their methods and developing a large very efficient network of spies and informants. At the beginning of the Second World War, Éamon De Valera’s declaration of Eire’s neutrality urges London to play a very dangerous game of cooperation, espionage and political manipulation with Ireland in which diplomatic relations play a key role and the Irish collaboration with the Allies turns out to be very precious. This thesis tries to demonstrate that when fighting against Scottish and Irish rebels, London must reassert its power by developing and professionalizing its intelligence services which end up with a worldwide reputation.

Författaren vill i denna uppsats identifiera hur en mognadsmodell för att mäta Business Intelligence kan hjälpa en organisation och ett konsultföretag. Författaren vill även identifiera vad som behöver mätas och vad ett BI-system består utav. BI är ett komplext område, som företag kan ha stor affärsnytta av att använda. För att göra en bedömning på hur moget ett företag är i detta område, alltså hur väl de utnyttjar all data och statistik, finns det många olika modeller för att mäta detta. I denna forskning har en kvalitativ undersökning gjorts, där semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts på fyra respondenter varav två är konsulter och två är konsulternas kunder från olika företag. En utav konsulterna har alltså genomfört en analys enligt deras mognadsmodell på de två kunderna. Författarens kom fram till att ett BI-system består utav data, verktyg, människor, beslutsnivåer, förvaltningsteam och organisation. Att analysera ett BI-system i en organisation hjälper framförallt organisationen att få en tydlig och klar nulägesbild över hur det ser ut i dagsläget. Det hjälper även organisationen att vidare kunna utifrån analysens resultat sätta upp ett förändringsarbete och mål med hur organisationen vill att deras BI-system bli. En mognadsmodell hjälper ett konsultföretag med en direkt ekonomisk vinning då företaget kan ta betalt för att genomföra en analys. Ett konsultföretag kan även få fortsatt förtroende av kunden och vara med i förändringsarbetet eller bli partners med kunden. För att mäta mognad i ett BI-system handlar det framförallt om att få människors perspektiv av hur systemet upplevs och fungerar i organisationen. / In this paper, the author wants to identify how a maturity model for measuring Business Intelligence can help an organization and a consulting company. The author also wants to identify what needs to be measured and what a BI system consists of. BI is a complex area that companies can have great business benefits from using. In order to make an assessment of how mature a company is in this area, ie how well they utilize all data and statistics, there are many different models for measuring this. In this research, a qualitative study was conducted, in which four respondents were interviewed, two of whom are consultants and two are clients from different companies. One of the consultants has thus carried out an analysis according to their maturity model on the two customers. The author concluded that a BI system consists of data, tools, people, decision levels, management teams and organization. In particular, analyzing a BI system in an organization helps the organization to get a clear picture of what it looks like today. It also helps the organization to be able to set up a change work and goals based on the results of the analysis with how the organization wants their BI system to be. A maturity model assists a consulting firm with a direct financial gain as the company can charge to perform an analysis. A consulting firm can also gain continued trust from the customer and be involved in the change work or become partners with the customer. To measure maturity in a BI system, it is primarily about getting people's perspectives of how the system experienced and works in the organization

Dans cette thèse, nous nous sommes intéressés à l'impact de la quantité et de la qualité de l'information échangée entre individus d'un groupe sur leurs performances collectives dans deux types de tâches bien spécifiques. Dans une première série d'expériences, les sujets devaient estimer des quantités séquentiellement, et pouvaient réviser leurs estimations après avoir reçu comme information sociale l'estimation moyenne d'autres sujets. Nous contrôlions cette information sociale à l'aide de participants virtuels (dont nous contrôlions le nombre) donnant une information (dont nous contrôlions la valeur), à l'insu des sujets. Nous avons montré que lorsque les sujets ont peu de connaissance préalable sur une quantité à estimer, (les logarithmes de) leurs estimations suivent une distribution de Laplace. La médiane étant un bon estimateur du centre d'une distribution de Laplace, nous avons défini la performance collective comme la proximité de la médiane (du logarithme) des estimations à la vraie valeur. Nous avons trouvé qu'après influence sociale, et lorsque les agents virtuels fournissent une information correcte, la performance collective augmente avec la quantité d'information fournie (fraction d'agents virtuels). Nous avons aussi analysé la sensibilité à l'influence sociale des sujets, et trouvé que celle-ci augmente avec la distance entre l'estimation personnelle et l'information sociale. Ces analyses ont permis de définir 5 traits de comportement : garder son opinion, adopter celle des autres, faire un compromis, amplifier l'information sociale ou au contraire la contredire. Nos résultats montrent que les sujets qui adoptent l'opinion des autres sont ceux qui améliorent le mieux leur performance, car ils sont capables de bénéficier de l'information apportée par les agents virtuels. Nous avons ensuite utilisé ces analyses pour construire et calibrer un modèle d'estimation collective, qui reproduit quantitativement les résultats expérimentaux et prédit qu'une quantité limitée d'information incorrecte peut contrebalancer un biais cognitif des sujets consistant à sous-estimer les quantités, et ainsi améliorer la performance collective. D'autres expériences ont permis de valider cette prédiction. Dans une seconde série d'expériences, des groupes de 22 piétons devaient se séparer en clusters de la même "couleur", sans indice visuel (les couleurs étaient inconnues), après une courte période de marche aléatoire. Pour les aider à accomplir leur tâche, nous avons utilisé un système de filtrage de l'information disponible (analogue à un dispositif sensoriel tel que la rétine), prenant en entrée l'ensemble des positions et couleurs des individus, et retournant un signal sonore aux sujets (émit par des tags attachés à leurs épaules) lorsque la majorité de leurs k plus proches voisins était de l'autre couleur que la leur. La règle consistait à s'arrêter de marcher lorsque le signal stoppait. / In this thesis, we were interested in the impact of the quantity and quality of information ex- changed between individuals in a group on their collective performance in two very specific types of tasks. In a first series of experiments, subjects had to estimate quantities sequentially, and could revise their estimates after receiving the average estimate of other subjects as social information. We controlled this social information through virtual participants (which number we controlled) giving information (which value we controlled), unknowingly to the subjects. We showed that when subjects have little prior knowledge about a quantity to estimate, (the loga- rithms of) their estimates follow a Laplace distribution. Since the median is a good estimator of the center of a Laplace distribution, we defined collective performance as the proximity of the median (log) estimate to the true value. We found that after social influence, and when the information provided by the virtual agents is correct, the collective performance increases with the amount of information provided (fraction of virtual agents). We also analysed subjects' sensitivity to social influence, and found that it increases with the distance between personal estimate and social information. These analyses made it possible to define five behavioral traits: to keep one's opinion, to adopt that of others, to compromise, to amplify social information or to contradict it. Our results showed that the subjects who adopt the opinion of others are the ones who best improve their performance because they are able to benefit from the infor- mation provided by the virtual agents. We then used these analyses to construct and calibrate a model of collective estimation, which quantitatively reproduced the experimental results and predicted that a limited amount of incorrect information can counterbalance a cognitive bias that makes subjects underestimate quantities, and thus improve collective performance. Further experiments have validated this prediction. In a second series of experiments, groups of 22 pedestrians had to segregate into clusters of the same "color", without visual cue (the colors were unknown), after a short period of random walk. To help them accomplish their task, we used an information filtering system (analogous to a sensory device such as the retina), taking all the positions and colors of individuals in input, and returning an acoustic signal to the subjects (emitted by tags attached to their shoulders) when the majority of their k nearest neighbors was of a different color from theirs.

This thesis investigated children's school achievement in terms of an integration of three theories of achievement motivation. The three theoretical outlooks were expectancy-value theory (EVT), implicit theories of intelligence (ITI), and flow theory (FT). The first of two studies was an exploratory investigation of the effectiveness of each theory independently and combined to predict children's achievement in four school subjects. The subject areas were maths, reading, instrumental music and sport. Participants were 84 children (40 females and 44 males) aged 9 to 10 years, one of each child's parents, and school teachers of each child in the four subject areas. All data were collected through questionnaires based on the three models. The results indicated that EVT and FT but not ITI accounted for a significant amount of the variance in children's achievement, including effects for subject area and gender. A second confirmatory study tested EVT, FT and an integrated model for the prediction of achievement in maths, reading and instrumental music. The participants were a further 141 children (74 females and 67 males) aged 10 to 11 years, and a parent and teachers of each child. Data collection using questionnaires occurred early in the school year (Timel) and approximately five months later (Time2). For EVT, children and parents’ competence beliefs were significant predictors of children's achievement in each subject area. Females tended to believe themselves more competent at reading and instrumental music and also valued these subjects more highly than boys. Modeling results for flow theory indicated that children's emotional responses to classes (happiness and confusion) were significant predictors of achievement, the type of emotion varying between subject areas and time periods. Females generally had a more positive emotional reaction to reading and instrumental music classes than males did. The integrated model results indicated significant relationships between EVT and flow theories for each subject area, with EVT explaining most achievement variance in the integrated model. Children's and parents’ competence beliefs were the main predictors of achievement at Timel and 2, Subject area and gender differences were found which provide direction for future research. Anecdotal reports of parents and teachers often attest to individual differences in children's involvement in various school domains. Even among children of apparently similar intelligence, it is not uncommon to find one who likes nothing better than to work on a mathematics problem while another much prefers to read a novel or play a musical instrument Some children appear to achieve good results for most of the activities in which they are engaged while others achieve in a less consistent manner, sometimes particularly excelling in one activity. Some children respond to failure experiences with a determination to improve their performance in the future while others react with resignation and acceptance of their low ability. Some children appear to become totally absorbed in the activity of playing sport while others cannot wait for the game to end. The primary research objective guiding the current thesis is how children's thoughts and feelings about school subjects differ and are related to their school achievement. A perusal of the achievement motivation literature indicates several possible models and concepts that can be applied to explain individual differences in children's school achievement. Concepts such as academic self-concept, multiple intelligences, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-beliefs, competence beliefs, subjective task values, mastery and performance goals, ‘Flow’ experiences and social motivation are just some of the constructs used to explain children's achievement motivation, both within and between various activity domains. These constructs are proposed by researchers from different theoretical perspectives to achievement motivation. Although there is much literature relevant to each perspective, there is little research indicating how the various perspectives may relate to each other. The current thesis will begin by reviewing three currently popular theoretical orientations cited in achievement motivation research: subjective beliefs and values; implicit theories of intelligence, and flow experience and family complexity. Following this review, a framework will be proposed for testing the determinants of children's school achievement, both within each of the three theoretical perspectives and also in combination.

Imagine a world where someone’s personal information is constantly compromised, where federal government entities AKA Big Brother always knows what anyone is Googling, who an individual is texting, and their emoticons on Twitter. Government entities have been doing this for years; they never cared if they were breaking the law or their moral compass of human dignity. Every day the Federal government blatantly siphons data with programs from the original ECHELON to the new series like PRISM and Xkeyscore so they can keep their tabs on issues that are none of their business; namely, the personal lives of millions. Our allies are taking note; some are learning our bad habits, from Government Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ) mass shadowing sharing plan to America’s Russian inspiration, SORM. Some countries are following the United States’ poster child pose of a Brave New World like order of global events. Others like Germany are showing their resolve in their disdain for the rise of tyranny. Soon, these new found surveillance troubles will test the resolve of the American Constitution and its nation’s strong love and tradition of liberty. Courts are currently at work to resolve how current concepts of liberty and privacy apply to the current conditions facing the privacy of society. It remains to be determined how liberty will be affected as well; liberty for the United States of America, for the European Union, the Russian Federation and for the people of the World in regards to the extent of privacy in today’s blurred privacy expectations.