This mini-dissertation relates to the post-conflict period in the DRC, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, juxtaposing the rights-based and interest-based approaches to conflict management and resolution. The study is premised on the lack of significant collaboration between the two approaches, notwithstanding the already existing collaboration. The rights-based approach posits that there exist some crimes of international dimension that should not be left unprosecuted for whatever reason. The approach sees the compliance with international norms on the respect of human rights as more important than coming to a final resolution of conflict. This paradigm therefore postulates that transgressors of international norms cannot take part in peace agreements and must be held individually responsible for the atrocities they have committed. The approach considers justice as a prerequisite to peace. The interest-based approach frowns at the idea of laying blame on persons as being responsible for committing horrendous breaches and rather seeks to be neutral and not blaming any party. The approach encourages more dialogue and cooperation between the two parties which could culminate in a settled agreement. The approach gives more room to inclusiveness, participation and conflict resolution. Peace here is accepted to be a conditio sine qua non to justice and the resolution of conflict thereafter. As a result of this juxtaposition of approaches, proponents of the two approaches have been perpetually suspicious of each other’s approach. This impasse has therefore retarded collaboration in the two paradigms to a sufficient degree. This study therefore argues for a third stand, which is the synergy of the approaches to collaborate to a degree which will enhance sustainability in peace agreements to guarantee durable and long lasting peace in the DRC, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. This third stand depicts that integrating the approaches, insights and knowledge from one approach strengthen and benefit the other. Conflict resolvers will understand how rights denial have the potential of igniting conflict, and human rights actors will enhance their negotiation skills in conflict resolution especially in areas where the access to rebel occupied zones and even to political prisoners is difficult. Finally, the study has also depicted how traditional African methods and concepts like Gacaca and Ubuntu can be enhanced within the broad usage of the two paradigms and not as competitive paradigms. Gacaca is a traditional mechanism in Rwanda whose primordial aim is the settlement and reconciliation of the victim with his perpetrators. Ubuntu seeks to reiterate the connectivity existing between Africans. Conflicts will not exist if we all love one another due to our connectivity. ‘We’ is given more consideration than ‘I’. This is the understanding from the perspective of Ubuntu. Copyright / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Interest-based education and leisure time are important in every person's life and they influence the proper functioning of the whole society. In order to fulfil its functions, it is important to emphasize its quality. The aim of the Diploma Thesis The Management of Interest Based Education Quality in the Ústí Region is to reveal the real status of the quality management of the interest-based education in the leisure time centres; and to identify the possibilities to innovate the leisure time education quality management. The questionnaire survey was used as the main research method of data collection. Interviews were used as the supplementary method. KEYWORDS interest-based education, quality management, leisure centres, quality

The main objective of this research is to build an interest based peer – to – peer network which is structured yet non-DHT. Maintaining DHTs is a complex task and needs substantial amount of effort to handle the problem of churn. So, the major challenge facing such architectures is how to reduce this amount of effort while still providing an efficient data query service. The rationale behind choosing non- DHT based interest based network is that users sharing common interests are likely to share similar contents, and therefore searches for a particular type of content is more efficient if peers likely to store that content type are neighbors. We have used a mathematical model based on modular arithmetic, specifically residue class (RC), to design a two-level structured architecture. To the best of my knowledge, there does not exist any such work that has used this mathematical model.

A presente tese tem por objetivo a análise das convenções processuais entabuladas entre as partes antes ou depois de instaurada a relação jurídica processual. O enfoque da pesquisa são os limites e a eficácia dessas convenções, em respeito à ordem pública processual. São analisados ordenamentos jurídicos estrangeiros e, posteriormente, o tratamento que a legislação brasileira confere ao tema. Outro ponto da pesquisa é a influência das ideologias publicista e privatista no processo civil. Por fim, são examinados o modelo de flexibilização procedimental por calendário e o tratamento dado pelo projeto de novo Código de Processo Civil. / The present thesis has as its objective the analysis of procedural agreements established between parties before or after the case has arrived at a courthouse. The emphasis of the research is the way by which those agreements can be enforced within the procedure without disrespecting relevant public interests. Foreign systems and, later on, the way Brazilian law treats the subject are analyzed. Another point of the research is the influence of the public interest based and the private interest based systems in civil procedure. Finally, the timetabling model of civil procedure and the upcoming reform of the Brazilian Civil Procedure Code are examined.

A presente tese tem por objetivo a análise das convenções processuais entabuladas entre as partes antes ou depois de instaurada a relação jurídica processual. O enfoque da pesquisa são os limites e a eficácia dessas convenções, em respeito à ordem pública processual. São analisados ordenamentos jurídicos estrangeiros e, posteriormente, o tratamento que a legislação brasileira confere ao tema. Outro ponto da pesquisa é a influência das ideologias publicista e privatista no processo civil. Por fim, são examinados o modelo de flexibilização procedimental por calendário e o tratamento dado pelo projeto de novo Código de Processo Civil. / The present thesis has as its objective the analysis of procedural agreements established between parties before or after the case has arrived at a courthouse. The emphasis of the research is the way by which those agreements can be enforced within the procedure without disrespecting relevant public interests. Foreign systems and, later on, the way Brazilian law treats the subject are analyzed. Another point of the research is the influence of the public interest based and the private interest based systems in civil procedure. Finally, the timetabling model of civil procedure and the upcoming reform of the Brazilian Civil Procedure Code are examined.

The college experience for many students is an exciting and sometimes awe-inspiring journey. For the first time many students find themselves responsible for making life altering decisions that will determine the course of their adult lives for years to come. They are making the decisions to participate in specific academic majors, a variety of housing options and a multitude of extra-curricular activities. Unfortunately, without proper guidance and structure many of these students find themselves unable to cope with the new challenges of academia, faculty staff interaction, peer relationships and financial obligations. It is because of these challenges that institutions of higher education must take a proactive approach in addressing the unique needs of their students. Of the estimated three million undergraduate college students entering higher education today ". . . nearly 30-40% of these students drop out without obtaining a college degree" (Enochs & Roland, 2006, p. 63). As a result of the challenges faced by these students, institutions are recognizing the importance of developing initiatives and support services to address the deficiencies in maturity, academics and social skills. One such initiative being implemented by institutions is the development and execution of living learning communities. The strengths of living learning communities are their adaptability, affordability and potential to address institutional concerns such as engagement, student persistence rates and academic success. Growing out of the college retention research of Alexander Astin (1993) and Vincent Tinto (1993), this current study examines the relationships between living learning communities and their influence on academic success and persistence rates of students who first matriculated in the Fall of 2010 or 2011, and were still enrolled in the Fall 2012 semester for first-year and second-year students at the University of South Florida.

One of the challenging issues for mobile ad hoc network (MANET) applications is data replication. Unreliable wireless communication, mobility of network participators and limited resource capacities of mobile devices make conventional replication techniques useless for MANETs. Frequent network divisions and unexpected disconnections should be handled. In this thesis work, a novel mobility and power aware, data interest based data replication strategy is presented. Main objective is to improve data accessibility among a mission critical mobility group. A clustering approach depending on mobility and data interest patterns similarities is introduced. The investigated replica allocation methodology takes care of data access frequency and data correlation values together with mobile nodes&rsquo / remaining energy and memory capacities. Performance of the proposed approach is analyzed in terms of data accessibility / cache hit ratio and traffic metrics. Improvements are observed by data interest based clustering in addition to mobility awareness over sole mobility aware clustering. Advantages of power aware replica allocation are demonstrated by experimental simulations.

This thesis investigates the factors that can sufficiently explain China's policy change on climate change issue. We utilize interest-based theory in environmental politics and constructivism to explore the drivers behind China's climate change policy formulation. The theories are tested by process tracing the historical development of China's policy on climate change. The analysis is further complemented by other explanatory factors based on empirical findings, including domestic policy process and the impact of non-state actors. The study finds out that China's climate change policy has experienced positive changes with growing policy stringency. The result shows that China's climate change policy cannot be sufficiently explained by the interest-based theory, the factor regarding ecological vulnerability can be only partially confirmed. Instead, international norms can provide plausible incentives for policy change through the process of socialization. The final policy outcomes are also connected to the interest of the most influential domestic political actor. The study results help us to better understand the environmental politics in China and provides guidelines to predict China's role in international climate change negotiation after the Conference of Parties in Paris.

No description available.

Abstract This research provides a glimpse into the fast-evolving world of mobile technology and maybe even faster evolving world of communities. The communities of this research are about voluntary activities, centered around an interest or hobby, and are technologically mediated. Traditionally they have used computers for their communication and collaborative activities, but the advances of mobile technology as well as its availability are seen to offer novel opportunities for them. The premise of this research is seeing technology as basis for supporting new ways of interactions, through responding to user needs, hence leaning on the tradition of human-computer interaction and user-centered design. The research comprised of an extensive literature review geared toward understanding of these new forms of communities and their technology, as well as toward understanding how to design for them. Both supported case-study approach of this study, which addressed the designing for virtual stable community and birdwatcher community, and resulted in a concept of a dedicated mobile device (for the virtual stable community), and understanding of the importance of integrated technologies (for the bird watcher community). These results were further developed into new propositions for design criteria, overall providing a fresh perspective toward designing mobile technology. Within this research, design was seen as a social activity, where participants communicate and share their knowledge. Getting relevant, appropriate and useful knowledge from users was therefore imperative for this research. Towards this end, a new online method for user involvement called web based storytelling was developed. Furthermore, emphasis was placed on understanding the concept design process with concepts and theories from knowledge management. The nature of knowledge (tacit/explicit and context-specific) as well as knowledge processes of users and designers and their linkages were introduced and systematically used and interpreted toward improving the concept design process. / Tiivistelmä Tämä tutkimus tarjoaa katsauksen mobiiliteknologian nopeasti kehittyvään maailmaan ja ehkä vielä nopeammin kehittyvään yhteisöjen maailmaan. Tutkimuskohteena ovat vapaaehtoiset harrasteyhteisöt. Perinteisesti nämä yhteisöt ovat käyttäneet tietokoneita ja Internettiä toimintaansa, mutta uudet mobiilit laitteet ja niihin liittyvät teknologiat tarjoavat heille mielenkiintoisia mahdollisuuksia. Tutkimuksen lähtökohtana ovatkin uuden teknologian tarjoamat mahdollisuudet yhteisöjen jäsenille ja näiden käyttäjälähtöinen suunnittelu. Tutkimuksessa esitetään laaja kirjallisuuskatsaus sekä uusien yhteisöjen ja niiden teknologioiden ymmärtämiseen, että konseptisuunnitteluprosessin käyttäjälähtöisyyteen. Niiden avulla suoritettiin case-tutkimus, jonka tuloksena syntyi mobiililaitteen konseptiversio virtuaalitalliyhteisölle ja kuvaus kommunikointiteknologioiden integroinnista lintubongariyhteisölle. Nämä jalostuivat mobiiliteknologian konseptisuunnittelua ohjaaviksi kriteereiksi, mitkä tuovat uutta, yhteisöllisyyttä korostavaa näkökulmaa suunnitteluprosessiin. Suunnitteluprosessi käsitettiin tässä tutkimuksessa sosiaalisena toimintona, missä osallistujat kommunikoivat ja jakavat sekä tietojaan että tietämystään. Tarvittavan, oikean ja hyödyllisen käyttäjätiedon merkityksellisyys tutkimuksessa tuotti yhtenä tutkimuksen tuloksena uuden käyttäjätutkimusmenetelmän (verkkopohjainen tarinankerronta). Kaikenkaikkiaan tutkimuksen kantavana voimana oli tietopohjainen lähestymistapa suunnitteluprosessiin, mikä tarkoitti suunnitteluprosessin ymmärtämistä tietojohtamisprosessina ja tulkitsemista tietojohtamisen käsitteiden kautta. Tiedon ominaisuuksien (hiljainen/eksplisiittinen ja kontekstisidonnaisuus) sekä käyttäjien ja suunnittelijoiden tietoprosessien yhteyksien systemaattisen käytön nähtiin parantavan konseptisuunnitteluprosessia.