SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) are known as the backbone of an economy and they serve in the regional development of a country through the employment opportunities it generates. They differ from the large companies in terms of size, resources (financial, human etc.) and also the role of the entrepreneur where in an SME the entrepreneur is the owner as well as the manager.  Talking about the similarity with large companies, networking also holds an utmost importance to an SME (Small and Medium Sized Enterprise). Networking is one of an important activity of a firm in order to deal with the competitive business market. SMEs having features of less resources require networking in order to be able to have their business running. But as there are differences in SMEs and large companies, there also holds differences in how these companies perceive networking and the benefits they want to acquire through it.   In this paper we study on the factors responsible to motivate or initiate networking activities in SMEs. From our study on these factors we found factors such as, Resource dependency theory, Inter-organizational learning through networks, culture’s influence on networking etc.  With these factors affecting networking, we wanted to find if these were the motives behind networking activities by SMEs. Our empirical study was conducted within the SMEs situated in the Umea region. In this research we used an inductive point of application and the qualitative strategy in order to know the reasons behind SMEs steps towards networking. The data we have used in this thesis consist of both primary and secondary sources. Then after, we gathered the information through face-to-face interview with the owners and the responsible person of respective company. These persons have a good insight into the company’s networking activities as well as its factors.    It is finding out the factors responsible to initiate networking specifically among SMEs. We found that the degree of influence of  factors vary from SMEs to SMEs, depending upon the nature of SMEs, entrepreneurs, network actors and so on. Therefore, some factors have high influence and some factors have low or even neutral influences as well.

Gathering meaningful information from Home Networking (HN) environments has presented researchers with measurement strategy challenges. A measurement platform is typically designed around the process of gathering data from a range of devices or usage statistics in a network that are specifically behind the HN firewall. HN studies require a fine balance between incentives and impediments to promote usage and minimize efforts for user participation with the focus on gathering robust datasets and results. In this dissertation we explore how to gather data from the HN Ecosystem (e.g. devices, apps, permissions, configurations) and feedback from HN users across a multitude of HN infrastructures, leveraging low impediment and low/high incentive methods to entice user participation. We look to understand the trade-offs of using a variety of approach types (e.g. Java Applet, Mobile app, survey) for data collections, user preferences, and how HN users react and make changes to the HN environment when presented with privacy/security concerns, norms of comparisons (e.g. comparisons to the local environment and to other HNs) and other HN results. We view that the HN Ecosystem is more than just “the network” as it also includes devices and apps within the HN. We have broken this dissertation down into the following three pillars of work to understand incentives and impediments of user participation and data collections. These pillars include: 1) preliminary work, as part of the How's My Network (HMN) measurement platform, a deployed signed Java applet that provided a user-centered network measurement platform to minimize user impediments for data collection, 2) a HN user survey on preference, comfort, and usability of HNs to understand incentives, and 3) the creation and deployment of a multi-faceted How's My Network Mobile app tool to gather and compare attributes and feedback with high incentives for user participation; as part of this flow we also include related approaches and background work. The HMN Java applet work demonstrated the viability of using a Web browser to obtain network performance data from HNs via a user-centric network measurement platform that minimizes impediments for user participation. The HMN HN survey work found that users prefer to leverage a Mobile app for HN data collections, and can be incentivized to participate in a HN study by providing attributes and characteristics of the HN Ecosystem. The HMN Mobile app was found to provide high incentives, with minimal impediments, for participation with focus on user Privacy and Security concerns. The HMN Mobile app work found that 84\% of users reported a change in perception of privacy and security, 32\% of users uninstalled apps, and 24\% revoked permissions in their HN. As a by-product of this work we found it was possible to gather sensitive information such as previously attached networks, installed apps and devices on the network. This information exposure to any installed app with minimal or no granted permissions is a potential privacy concern.

Gathering meaningful information from Home Networking (HN) environments has presented researchers with measurement strategy challenges. A measurement platform is typically designed around the process of gathering data from a range of devices or usage statistics in a network that are specifically behind the HN firewall. HN studies require a fine balance between incentives and impediments to promote usage and minimize efforts for user participation with the focus on gathering robust datasets and results. In this dissertation we explore how to gather data from the HN Ecosystem (e.g. devices, apps, permissions, configurations) and feedback from HN users across a multitude of HN infrastructures, leveraging low impediment and low/high incentive methods to entice user participation. We look to understand the trade-offs of using a variety of approach types (e.g. Java Applet, Mobile app, survey) for data collections, user preferences, and how HN users react and make changes to the HN environment when presented with privacy/security concerns, norms of comparisons (e.g. comparisons to the local environment and to other HNs) and other HN results. We view that the HN Ecosystem is more than just “the network” as it also includes devices and apps within the HN. We have broken this dissertation down into the following three pillars of work to understand incentives and impediments of user participation and data collections. These pillars include: 1) preliminary work, as part of the How's My Network (HMN) measurement platform, a deployed signed Java applet that provided a user-centered network measurement platform to minimize user impediments for data collection, 2) a HN user survey on preference, comfort, and usability of HNs to understand incentives, and 3) the creation and deployment of a multi-faceted How's My Network Mobile app tool to gather and compare attributes and feedback with high incentives for user participation; as part of this flow we also include related approaches and background work. The HMN Java applet work demonstrated the viability of using a Web browser to obtain network performance data from HNs via a user-centric network measurement platform that minimizes impediments for user participation. The HMN HN survey work found that users prefer to leverage a Mobile app for HN data collections, and can be incentivized to participate in a HN study by providing attributes and characteristics of the HN Ecosystem. The HMN Mobile app was found to provide high incentives, with minimal impediments, for participation with focus on user Privacy and Security concerns. The HMN Mobile app work found that 84\% of users reported a change in perception of privacy and security, 32\% of users uninstalled apps, and 24\% revoked permissions in their HN. As a by-product of this work we found it was possible to gather sensitive information such as previously attached networks, installed apps and devices on the network. This information exposure to any installed app with minimal or no granted permissions is a potential privacy concern.

Includes bibliography. / With new political developments breeding opportunities for crises, proliferation of new media types increasing exposure to crises, there is a growing awareness of the potential, influence, impact and capabilities of social media. Focusing on South Africa's Secrecy Bill, a crisis with implications on access to information and media freedom, this study provides a discussion of the dynamics of crisis communication online. By undertaking an analysis of the uses of social media during deliberations of the Secrecy Bill and its implications, the study sought to explore how young South Africans have embraced social media as a communication tool. An examination of the literature reveals that younger generations are frequent bloggers and users of Twitter, a popular social media site. Focusing on these two platforms, through a qualitative content analysis, findings show that their contribution to deliberations was mainly to make sense of the crisis and distribute relevant materials relating to the debate.

In enterprise networks, all aspects of the network, such as placement of security devices and performance, must be carefully considered. Even with forethought, networks operators are ultimately unaware of intra-subnet traffic. The inability to monitor intra-subnet traffic leads to blind spots in the network where compromised hosts have unfettered access to the network for spreading and reconnaissance. While network security middleboxes help to address compromises, they are limited in only seeing a subset of all network traffic that traverses routed infrastructure, which is where middleboxes are frequently deployed. Furthermore, traditional middleboxes are inherently limited to network-level information when making security decisions. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a networking paradigm that allows logically centralized control of network switches and routers. SDN can help address visibility concerns while providing the benefits of a centralized network control platform, but traditional switch-based SDN leads to concerns of scalability and is ultimately limited in that only network-level information is available to the controller. This dissertation addresses these SDN limitations in the enterprise by pushing the SDN functionality to the end-hosts. In doing so, we address scalability concerns and provide network operators with better situational awareness by incorporating system-level and graphical user interface (GUI) context into network information handled by the controller. By incorporating host-context, our approach shows a modest 16% reduction in flows that can be processed each second compared to switch-based SDN. In comparison to enterprise networks, residential networks are much more constrained. Residential networks are limited in that the operators typically lack the experience necessary to properly secure the network. As a result, devices on home networks are sometimes compromised and, unbeknownst to the home user, perform nefarious acts such as distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks on the Internet. Even with operator expertise in residential networks, the network infrastructure is limited to a resource-constrained router that is not extensible. Fortunately, SDN has the potential to increase security and network control in residential networks by outsourcing functionality to the cloud where third-party experts can provide proper support. In residential networks, this dissertation uses SDN along with cloud-based resources to introduce enterprise-grade network security solutions where previously infeasible. As part of our residential efforts, we build and evaluate device-agnostic security solutions that are able to better protect the increasing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Our work also shows that the performance of outsourcing residential network control to the cloud is feasible for up to 90% of home networks in the United States.

Networking is a key component of a successful professional career. Studies have shown that between 60-75% of jobs are obtained through an individual’s network. Today many professionals use the social media site such as LinkedIn to make and maintain professional connections. However college students only make up approximately 10% of LinkedIn’s 300+ million users. There has been much research done regarding the use of social networking and academic and corporate use, little has been done to investigate how college students interact with LinkedIn. Therefore the purpose of this study was to gather students’ perceptions of LinkedIn as a professional social networking tool.Three research questions were used to find the use and perception of LinkedIn among college students and if there was a difference in the way that select students used it. A survey administered via Survey Monkey based on demographic, utilization, and perception of LinkedIn was sent to undergraduate students majoring in Kinesiology, Business Administration, and Mechanical Engineering during the spring 2015 semester. A total of 359 students responded to the survey, out of which only 105 owned LinkedIn accounts. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequencies, and percentages, and the one-way analysis of variance test. The results showed that the use of LinkedIn was low, and 38% of account owners reported never using their account. Most of the participants who owned LinkedIn accounts were white males. Students shared a neutral perception about LinkedIn features and LinkedIn as a tool for professional networking. Mechanical Engineers had the largest population of users out of the 3 majors surveyed.The results showed that Business Administration students used LinkedIn more than the other two majors surveyed, and juniors and seniors used the site comparatively the same. In addition, the findings showed that there was no significant difference in the way Mechanical Engineers and Kinesiology majors used LinkedIn. The findings of this study will provide valuable information for students and career counselors on the features of LinkedIn and what guidance students need when using the site.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1993 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / With the ever increasing need for faster data rates and the emergence of faster network interfaces such as Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), the task of adding new network interfaces to a telemetry system and supporting existing ones is becoming increasingly more complex. This complexity can be eliminated if the data acquisition hardware and software allows new network interfaces to be easily integrated into a telemetry system. It is the purpose of this paper to address the issues involved when dealing with multiple, heterogeneous, networking environments in telemetry systems. The paper will show how the use of flexible telemetry hardware and software will simplify the integration of new networks into an existing system, and how this flexibility can allow data acquisition applications to take advantage of a heterogeneous network.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The success of the client/server paradigm for modern networked telemetry systems continues to stress the LAN that carries data generated from the acquisition front ends to the display workstations and the file servers on the LAN. As the number of LAN-attached devices such as Loral's System 500 Model 550 (Loral 550) telemetry front end, workstations, and file servers grows beyond two, the Ethernet LAN collision rates increase and the throughput slows down. At what point the network performance declines is a function of the specific application bandwidth demands required. This paper describes a new method for boosting LAN performance by providing Ethernet switching and protocol filtering. The performance of the LAN is critical to the performance of the complete telemetry enterprise architecture.

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