Identifying the unique ways in which a project can add value to an owner’s organization is an essential part of project delivery. Every project has defined requirements, such as budget, schedule and engineering specifications that must be met; but there are other attributes of a project that are not always immediately evident; yet, when implemented, can add significant value. A delivered project that meets cost, schedule, engineering and operational requirements is not necessarily a project that provides the most value possible. To maximize the value of a project, it is first necessary to identify the ways in which it can add value. Only after that can an effective strategy be developed to exploit fully the value-adding potential of a project. However, because these value adding attributes, or value interests, are not always driven by operational or engineering requirements, they can be difficult to identify. Identification begins with understanding what aspect of a project drives the value interests. Since a single owner may engage in different types of projects and the value set of one may not be the value set of another, it is logical then to conclude it is characteristics of the project itself, not the owner, that drive the presence of value interest. It is this hypothesis, that project characteristics drive value interests, which is presented and validated in this thesis. The hypothesis is supported through the development of a mathematical model in which the parameter estimates show specific project characteristics are significant in explaining the importance of individual value interests to a project. The model was developed through binary logistic regression of industry survey data, and validated statistically and empirically. A sensitivity analysis showed the key cost- and schedule-related value interests are not significantly sensitive, and an examination of the parameter estimates showed realistic and common sense relationships are present. The methodology presented here shows that value interests are, indeed, driven by project characteristics. However, there is neither a single characteristic nor a standard set of characteristics that drive all value interests. Instead, each value interest has its own unique combination of driving characteristics.

To inquire into entrepreneurship, a newly-emerging and interesting subject, our research has selected Taiwan¡¦s information technology electronics components industry as research target. By gathering vast- and primary- data, and using several representative Taiwanese component manufacturers as case studies, we found the ¡¥technical-amateur¡¦ phenomenon. This paper will clearly explain the contents, contextual factors, and advantages of technical-amateur entrepreneurship. These type of entrepreneurs are so-called ¡¥technical-amateurs¡¦ because they lacked previous work experiences in the information technology industry, i.e. outsiders; they also lacked technical ability of the typical blue-collared workers and the engineers, they were previously high-level managers in the manufacturing industry. Thus technical-amateurs tend to have vast- and extended- relationship networks that can quickly transfer capitals, to form capital team and gain the assistance of venture capital to attract the technical team; they also have sharp intuition that can strategize to move toward the mainstream to maximize market benefits; they also have managerial ability that can successfully assimilate the technology team and improve production efficiency while reducing production cost. These concepts are similar to the arguments of ¡¥fitness landscape¡¦, ¡¥co-evolution¡¦, and ¡¥the establishment of shared schema¡¨. There are several important contextual factors that led to the emergence of technical-amateurs. 1) Product technology already exists, but the process technology remains to be explored; 2) Clustering of the local information technology industry, especially the existence of world-class EMS manufacturers; 3) Rapid growths of venture-capitals; 4) Mobility of technology and talents; and 5) Profitability minimization of information products. Comparing to technical entrepreneurs, technical-amateur entrepreneurs have the following advantages: 1.By occupying the advanced-guard position in the information industry, can quickly discover entrepreneurial opportunities. Outsourcing under changes in the global commodity chain and the trend toward lighter- and smaller- information products, give rise to more entrepreneurial opportunities in the component industry. Since technical-amateurs maintain close relationships with venture-capital thus can organize capital team, therefore occupying the advanced-guard position where they can quickly discover emerging opportunities. 2.Powerful Capital Reinforcements. To achieve economies of scale, newly-founded components businesses must quickly improve its productivity. But before this could happen, manufacturer must experience a learning period where budgetary deficits are unavoidable. However due to the reinforcements of the capital team, technical-amateur entrepreneurs can lead through this difficult period and into a most profitable period of significant growths.

Security is today considered as a basic foundation in software development and therefore, the modelling and implementation of security requirements is an essential part of the production of secure software systems. Information technology organisations are moving towards agile development methods in order to satisfy customers' changing requirements in light of accelerated evolution and time restrictions with their competitors in software production. Security engineering is considered difficult in these incremental and iterative methods due to the frequency of change, integration and refactoring. The objective of this work is to identify and implement practices to extend and improve agile methods to better address challenges presented by security requirements consideration and management. A major practices is security requirements capture mechanisms such as UMLsec for agile development processes. This thesis proposes an extension to the popular Scrum framework by adopting UMLsec security requirements modelling techniques with the introduction of a Security Owner role in the Scrum framework to facilitate such modelling and security requirements considerations generally. The methodology involved experimentation of the inclusion of UMLsec and the Security Owner role to determine their impact on security considerations in the software development process. The results showed that overall security requirements consideration improved and that there was a need for an additional role that has the skills and knowledge to facilitate and realise the benefits of the addition of UMLsec.

The Federal Government spends $40 billion dollars a year maintaining its facility portfolio. As a result of the size of investment and current economic conditions, the government and other institutional owners are facing increased pressure to optimize their investment in their portfolios. Green design offers a way for owners to accomplish this. Part of the definition used by the General Services Administration (GSA) for sustainable or green design is minimizing the total life-cycle ownership cost of a facility. Many tools, such as BUILDER or IMPACT, are available to aid institutional owners in this task; however, most do not take into account non-rational behavior since they apply a strict rational logic. In order to develop tools that take non-rational behavior into account, a framework needs to be developed for identifying which actors are worth studying or modeling. This research seeks to fill this gap by developing a framework that can be applied to public sector institutional owners. The framework is based on prior work done in the fields of stakeholder theory and engineering management, and it uses research methodologies from the social sciences as its building blocks. / Master of Science

The diploma thesis, which is based on terrain oral-historical research, presents the phenomenon of chateau owners who bought the property from a town government or restituers after 1989 and therefore became the new lords. The issue presented in the title of the thesis is interpreted from eleven stories of selected owners - specifically what motivation the owners had to buy the property, whether it was their dream or a business plan, or whether they wanted to make altruistic deeds. Not only is this study focused on the motivation of the owners to buy a chateau, but the attention is drawn as well to financial issues, state recognizing the property as cultural inheritance, the meaning and future of the castle in the twenty-first century, the matter of the next generations inheriting the property, or pondering about a likely establishment of a new Czech noble class. The result of this work is a complex summary presenting what it takes to own a chateau in the twenty-first century.

Rights and duties of the owner of the forest This diploma thesis deals with the legal regulation of rights and duties of forest owner and defines the basic terms related to this topic. The thesis consists of seven parts, whereas chapter one is introductory and chapter nine is conclusion. Chapter Two deals with the basic information of the history of the forest legislation. Chapter Three pays attention on the forest in the Czech republic and provides a describtion of different forest types located in our territory. Chapter Four provides legal definitions of basic terminology. Chapter Five mentions the ownership of forest owners and restrictions of their property rights. The main attention is paid to chapter Six and Seven, which include a summary of the most important rights and duties with which the forest ownership is undoubtedly associated. Chapter Eight deals with the liability of forest owner and sanctions, that may be required. The aim of my thesis is to focuse on rights and duties of forest owner within forest inventory etc. The main source of this work is the Forest Act.

Begreppet beneficial owner finns i artiklarna 10, 11 och 12 i OECD:s modellavtal och är viktigt då det krävs att en part utgör beneficial owner för att denne ska ha rätt till den skattelättnad som erbjuds i de relevanta artiklarna. Då begreppet är oklart har OECD gett ut förslag på nya kommentarer till det i avsikt att klargöra dess innebörd. Uppsatsens syfte är att utreda innebörden av beneficial owner i artiklarna 10, 11 och 12 i OECD:s modellavtal från ett tolknings och tillämpnings perspektiv. Av utredningen framkom att begreppet enbart bör tolkas enligt modellavtalet och att det ska tillämpas i situationer, i vilket en mottagare av en inkomst har en skyldighet relaterad till att vidarebefordra inkomsten till en annan part och därför agerar som en mellanhandel. Om en part har en sådan skyldighet kan denne inte utgöra beneficial owner. I nuläget är dock termen relaterad oklar och författaren anser att den bör klargöras av OECD snarast. Vid utredningen om en part utgör beneficial owner bör först ett legalt tillvägagångsätt användas för att undersöka om det finns en skyldighet relaterad till att vidarebefordra inkomsten i partens legala dokument. Om detta inte hittas bör därefter både ett legalt och faktabaserat tillvägagångsätt användas, vid utredningen av fakta och omständigheter för att se om det finns substans som visar på att parten i praktiken är bunden (som om att parten hade en kontraktuell eller legal skyldighet) att vidarebefordra inkomsten.   Författarens slutsats blev att en part för att utgöra beneficial owner måste vara den som har rätten att använda den mottagna inkomsten efter vilja och även vara den som faktiskt åtnjuter de ekonomiska fördelarna av denna. Vidare måste parten också behandlas som ägaren till inkomsten i skattehänseende i hemviststaten, då en skattelättnad inte bör ges om det inte föreligger en risk för dubbelbeskattning. / The term beneficial owner is contained in articles 10, 11 and 12 in the OECD Model Tax Convention and is of importance since it is required that a party is the beneficial owner in order to be entitled to the tax relief offered in the relevant articles. Since the term is unclear, OECD has published proposals for new comments to clarify its meaning. The purpose of this study is to investigate the meaning of the term beneficial owner in articles 10, 11 and 12 in the OECD Model Tax Convention from an interpretation and application perspective. The investigation revealed that the term should only be interpreted in accordance with the OECD Model Tax Convention and that it aims at a recipient who has an obligation related to forwarding an income to another party and who is therefore acting as an intermediary. If a party has such an obligation, then he cannot be the beneficial owner. At present the term related is unclear and the author thinks that it should be clarified by the OECD as soon as possible. When investigating whether a party is the beneficial owner a legal approach should be used first to examine whether there is an obligation related to forwarding the income in the party's legal documents. If this is not found, then both a legal and factual approach should be used when examining the facts and circumstances in order to see if there is substance to show that the party is in practice bound (as if that party had a contractual or legal obligation) to forward the income. The author's conclusion is that a part to be the beneficial owner must be the one who has the right to use the received income as they wish and also be the one who actually enjoys the economic benefits of it. Furthermore, the party must also be treated as the owner of the income for tax purposes in the State of residence, since tax relief should not be given unless there is a risk of double taxation.

Införandet av ett offentligt bostadsrättsregister har diskuterats under en längre tidoch den pågående offentliga utredningen aktualiserar frågan ytterligare, inte minstur ett rättssäkerhetsperspektiv. Ett offentligt bostadsrättsregister har potentialen attunderlätta arbetet för olika myndigheter som till exempel Kronofogdemyndighetensamtidigt som det förenklar finansiella nyttjandet av bostadsrätten. Det offentligabostadsrättsregistret kan användas som bevis för ägande av en bostadsrätt vidpantsättningen av en bostadsrättslägenhet. Idag finns information om befintligapanträtter samt övrig bostadsrättsinformation inom bostadsrättsföreningarna ochinte i ett offentligt register. Den ibland bristfälliga hanteringen inombostadsrättsföreningarna har resulterat i rättsliga tvister, lägre kreditvärden och ettmer komplicerat samspel mellan inblandade parter vid pantsättning av enbostadsrätt. Denna studie syftar till att i detta sammanhang specifikt studera hurinförandet av ett offentligt bostadsrättsregister skulle kunna effektivisera ochunderlätta Kronofogdemyndighetens arbete.För att försöka besvara studiens frågeställningar har metoden utgjorts av enlitteraturstudie samt intervjuer med representanter från relevanta aktörer. I tidigareexamensarbeten har frågan undersökts från ett generellt perspektiv. / The creation of a tenant-owners register has been discussed for a long time and theongoing public inquiry raises the issue further, not least from a legal securityperspective. A public tenant-ownership register has the potential to facilitate thework of various authorities, such as the Swedish Enforcement Authority, while atthe same time simplifying the financial use of the tenant-ownership. The publictenant-owner register can be used as proof of ownership when mortgaging a tenantownership. Today, there is information about existing mortgages as well as othertenant-owner information within the tenant-owner associations and not in a publicregister. The sometimes inadequate handling within the tenant-owner associationshas resulted in legal disputes, lower credit values and a more complicatedinteraction between the parties involved in mortgaging a tenant-ownership. Thisstudy aims to in this context specifically study how the introduction of a publictenant-owner register could streamline and facilitate the Swedish EnforcementAuthority’s work.To try to answer the study's questions, the method consisted of a literature studyand interviews with representatives from relevant actors. In previous degreeprojects, the issue has been examined from a general perspective.

Thesis (MDev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / The purpose of this study was to assess the socio-economic effects of farm evictions in Mogale City Local Municipality, Gauteng Province. Most of the land owners do not adhere to the legislations which govern evictions in general and to the Extension of Security of Tenure Act which governs farm eviction on specific. The key objectives of the study were to identify the socio-economic effects of farm evictions and to analyse how the affected communities responded to the phenomenon of evictions. The key questions were what are the socio-economic effects do eviction have on farm dwellers and how have the affected communities responded to the phenomenon of eviction. The literature revealed that evictions around the world started decades ago and to date are still happening. In Zimbabwe, evictions were initiated by white farmers as a way of redressing the imbalance of the land ownership; in China evictions are mainly caused by rapid population growth and expansion of cities, in Namibia, Germans expropriated land and forcefully removed original owners of such land. Since independence, Namibia has no legislation governing evictions and this pose a thread of tenure insecurity. Although South Africa has legislations which govern the evictions, evictions are still taking place and mostly initiated by white land owners. The quantitative survey study was conducted to determine the distribution of socio-economic variables before and after the eviction. The primary data was collected, using semi-structured questionnaires which the interviewer administered to the evicted households. The findings revealed that electricity supply, garbage collection, personal care, household income, access to health facilities are negatively affected and the condition of the households deteriorated after the eviction. The main recommendation on the basis of the findings is that the MCLM, DRDLR and NDHS should adhere to the principles outlined in the article 25(1) of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. This would reduce the negative impact of evictions.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the use and sophistication of accounting information systems (AISs) and the success of small businesses in South Carolina. Additionally, this study explored the variables that influence South Carolinian small business owners/managers in the extent of adoption (sophistication) of AISs. This study applied the contingency theory of management accounting information systems as the theoretical foundation of the study. The study sought to fill the gap in the literature related to the use of accounting information systems in small businesses. Previous empirical studies of owner/manager behavior have resulted in conflicting findings with respect to accounting and business processes and systems utilized in small businesses. The research question central to this study was whether or not the sophistication of accounting information systems improved the success of South Carolina small businesses. The researcher expected to find that businesses owned by individuals with business-related education and previous business experience would be using more sophisticated AISs, and therefore be more successful. The results of the study did show a positive relationship between the sophistication of the AIS and higher levels of sales in small businesses. Also, the study found a significant positive relationship between the importance the owner/manager placed on AISs and the sophistication of the AIS. The findings indicated no positive significantly related differences in the sophistication of accounting information systems and owner/manager education, experience, ethnicity, or gender.