Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Larry L. Lawhon / Gated communities are a growing residential phenomenon in the United States with almost ten percent of households living in gated communities in 2005 (Knox, 2008; Census, 2005). In this study “gated communities” are defined, according to Low (2003), as a residential neighborhood with walls and gates surrounding the development, which excludes non-residents access to all interior amenities including residences, open space, and activities. People are seeking life behind a gate for many reasons, but include the search for security, safety, privacy, prestige, exclusivity, control, and community (Blakely & Snyder, 1999). As this style of development is expanding and as all socio-economic groups want to live in gated communities, cities are beginning to realize gated communities affect all members of the community, not just the ones secluded behind the gate (El Nasser, 2002). After reviewing literature, the author found, the generally accepted social implications and consequences resulting from gated communities were identified as social segregation, loss of community, and division; although, there were also positive results for some people living within gated communities. This report, through a case study format, investigated if the social implications of gated communities are considered during the development review process. Rockwood Falls Estates and Meadows is a suburban gated community and the surrounding local governments, Johnson County and Overland Park, were the object of the case study. The author concluded that gated communities have benefits and concerns. Further, the author found that gated communities can be effectively controlled if the local governments have adopted specific policies dealing with gated communities and implement this policy through specific design review procedures.

This qualitative inquiry explored the ways in which US-born, Black faculty member participants in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) interact with the National Science Foundation (NSF). Eight Black HBCU STEM faculty members with a range of involvement in NSF-related activities were individually interviewed. Topics of discussion with participants included their prior experiences with NSF, their understanding of the merit review process, and their understanding of their personal and institutional relationships with NSF and the STEM community. Two broad findings emerged from the conversations. The first was that issues of communities and social identity were important to the participants’ work as research scientists. Participants prioritized advancing people and communities over advancing the knowledge of ambiguous, disembodied scientific disciplines, and some participants were motivated by interests in social justice. However, participants maintained strong identities as scientists and the discussions provided no evidence that other social factors influenced their application of the scientific method. The second major finding dealt with the role participants perceived their institutions playing in their involvement with NSF. All participants described challenges associated with pursuing research in HBCU environments and, in some cases, the institutional challenges served as the motivation for participants’ projects, with varying consequences. Finally, this study developed and refined a theoretical framework for explaining the underrepresentation of HBCUs in NSF funding streams. In developing this framework, a brief history of the origination of HBCUs, NSF, and the NSF merit review process is presented.

Context. In this ever-changing world of software development, the process of organizations adopting distributed development is gaining prominence. Implementing various development processes in such distributed environment is giving rise to numerous issues which affects the quality of the product. These issues could be due to the involvement of architects across national borders during the process of development. In this research, the focus is to improve software quality by addressing the impact of maturity and scale between teams and its affect on code review process. Further to identify the issues behind the distribution between teams separated by geographical, temporal and cultural distances. Objectives. The main objective of this research is to identify how different factors such as maturity on quality of deliverables, scale and distribution that impacts the code review process affecting software quality. Based on code review comments in data set, the factors that were examined in this research are evolvability of defects and difference in the quality of software developed by mature and immature teams within code review process. Later on, the issues related to the impact of geographical, temporal and cultural distances on the type of defects revealed during distributed development are identified. Methods. To achieve these objectives, a case study was conducted at Ericsson. A mixed approach has been chosen that includes, archival data and semi-structured interviews to gather useful data for this research. Archival data is one of the data collection method used for reviewing comments in data set and gather quantitative results for the study. We employed approaches such as descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, and graphical representation to analyze data. Moreover, to strengthen these results, semi-structured group interview is conducted to triangulate the data and collect additional insights about code review process in large scale organizations. Results. By conducting this research, it is inferred that teams with a lower level of maturity produce more number of defects. It was observed that 35.11% functional, 59.03% maintainability, 0.11% compatibility, 0.028% security, 0.73% reliability, 4.96% performance efficiency, 0.014% portability of defects were found from archival data. Majority of defects were of functional and maintainability type, which impacts software quality in distributed environment. In addition to the above-mentioned results, other findings are related to evolvability of defects within immature teams which shows that there is no particular trend in increase or decrease in number of defects. Issues that occur due to distribution between teams are found out in this research. The overall results of this study are to suggest the impact of maturity and scale on software quality by making numerical assumptions and validating these finding with interviews. Interviews are also used to inquire information about the issues from dataset related to the impact of global software engineering (GSE) distances on code review process. Conclusions. At the end of this research it is concluded that in these type of projects, immature teams produce more number of defects than mature teams. This is because when large-scale projects are distributed globally, it is always harder to share and acquire knowledge between teams, increase group learning and mentor teams located in immature sites. Immature developers have problems of understanding the structure of code, new architects need to acquire knowledge on the scope and real time issues for improving quality of software. Using results presented in this thesis, researchers can find new gaps easily to extend the research on various influences on code review process in distributed environment.

The large accounting firms recently created U.S.-based audit support groups to advance efficiency and consistency by applying firm-wide methodologies and standard audit procedures in judgmental/routine accounting areas. These groups—hereafter called the centralized audit team (CAT)—service several engagements simultaneously and execute procedures independently without core teams' oversight. However, the core teams are required to review and finalize the CAT's completed assessments and audit conclusions. This authority can result in unintended consequences, such as the core team discounting the results of the CAT's testing, which can reduce consistency across engagements. I investigate this concern by conducting an experiment to examine if the core team's review of the procedures used by the CAT and the client's views about the CAT's evidence requests influence core team reviewers' evaluations of the CAT's work. I predict and find that dissimilarities between the nature and extent of audit procedures used by core teams in prior audits and those currently used by CATs create an association effect such that reviewers are more likely to disagree with the CAT's conclusions. Inconsistent with my prediction that core teams will feel the need to please their clients, I find marginal evidence that reviewers are more likely to agree with the CAT's conclusions when clients complain versus when clients do not complain about CATs' excessive evidence requests. I fail to find evidence of an interaction effect. This study contributes to existing research and practice by highlighting conditions that can affect firms' ability to obtain their anticipated consistency and efficiency goals because core teams may discount the CAT's audit approach. / Doctor of Philosophy / Audit clients hire external audit firms to evaluate their financial information and provide reasonable assurance to the public that the financial information is presented in accordance with U.S. accounting standards, the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Once a client hires a firm, the firm assigns a core team to the audit engagement. The core team performs interim and year-end audit procedures to assess the client's financial statements. To ensure that core teams conduct a sufficient assessment that meets U.S.-based auditing standards, firms employ firm-wide audit methodologies and standard tools that aid auditors in planning, performing, and documenting their procedures. However, inspections conducted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) indicate that some core teams do not adequately follow firms' methodologies, often leading to engagements that do not meet certain requirements in the auditing standards. These types of discrepancies identified during PCAOB inspections could lead to monetary fines and damage firms' reputations. To help combat these issues, audit firms have begun employing Centralized Audit Teams (CATs) whose objective is to assist core teams by using firm-wide methodologies to perform standard procedures on certain audit areas within engagements. By applying standard procedures to multiple audit engagements simultaneously, CATs have the potential to improve the firms' audit consistency and efficiency. While the CAT plans, performs, and documents its audit procedures in the assigned area, the core team remains ultimately responsible for the overall audit. Therefore, the core team must review the CAT's work to ensure they completed sufficient and appropriate procedures. Existing audit research documents that different conditions within an audit can affect reviewers' judgment. For instance, a reviewer is less likely to scrutinize and disagree with the preparer's audit conclusion when the reviewer is familiar with the preparer. In my dissertation, I examine if certain factors that occur during CAT audits impact core team reviewers' judgment, lowering the possibility that firms will achieve their audit efficiency and consistency goals across engagements. Extant research posits that some core teams choose to follow firm standard methodologies while others choose to deviate from the methodologies and perform client-specific procedures. Once the core team chooses to perform standard or client-specific procedures, it does not often change procedure type. Thus, the standard procedures that CATs employ may be similar or dissimilar to the procedures that core teams performed in prior years. In this dissertation, I conduct an experiment using experienced external auditors to determine whether the similarity between core teams' prior audit procedures and CATs' standard procedures impact core team auditors' judgments when reviewing CATs' work. I predict that core team reviewers will form favoritism towards CATs when CATs perform procedures that are similar as opposed to dissimilar to the procedures that their team utilized in prior years. Therefore, the core team reviewers will be less likely to scrutinize and disagree with the CAT's audit conclusion. Audit research also indicates that clients complain when auditors inconvenience them in hopes that the complaint will cause the auditors to behave in a manner that pleases them. For example, clients may complain when auditors ask them to provide a significant amount of evidence to support the reporting of a certain account balance. Since CATs follow standard procedures, they make similar evidence requests to all clients; however, these requests may differ from the core team's prior requests (i.e., clients should be more accustomed to the core team's prior requests). This dissimilarity may cause clients to complain. I predict that core team reviewers are more likely to attempt to please their client by adjusting a CAT's audit conclusion in a manner that favors the client when the client complains about the CAT compared to when the client does not complain. However, prior research also implies that reviewers are more likely to react to a client's complaint if they believe it is authentic. Therefore, I predict that core team reviewers are more likely to adjust a CAT's audit conclusion when the client complains about a CAT that conducts dissimilar versus similar procedures relative to the core team's prior procedures. The results of my study imply that when the CAT's standard audit procedures are dissimilar to the core team's prior procedures, reviewers are more likely to overrule CAT's audit recommendations by making significant changes to the audit results. These results are driven by the reviewer's perception that the CAT is more competent to audit the client's financial information accurately when the CAT uses similar procedures. I also find marginal evidence that when a client complains about the CAT, core team reviewers are more likely to agree with the CAT's conclusions even though the conclusions do not favor the client. I fail to find evidence that reviewers are even more likely to disagree with the CAT when the client complains, and the CAT's procedures are dissimilar as opposed to similar. My study sheds light on how CAT audit engagement conditions can influence core team reviewers' judgment. Given that firms have made significant investments to create and employ CATs, this dissertation provides insight to audit practitioners by highlighting engagement factors that lower firms' ability to achieve their related efficiency and consistency goals.

The Vieux Carré in New Orleans is the second oldest locally designated historic district and serves as a prominent example of local historic preservation efforts; however, the Vieux Carré has a high vacancy rate. This thesis examines the effects of land use policy, including the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance and the design review process in the Vieux Carré, on attempts to return vacant buildings to commerce. The author examines three cases of redevelopment attempts of vacant properties in the Vieux Carré. In two of the three cases, constrictions from the Zoning Ordinance not the design review process held up the redevelopment process. The other case identified owner negligence as the cause for failure in the redevelopment attempt.

Bakgrund: Under 2000-talet har ett antal skandaler skakat om revisionsbranschen, både inom den privata och den offentliga sektorn. Detta har väckt ett intresse för att undersöka hur revisionen går till inom dessa två sektorer. Tidigare forskning som jämför revision inom den privata sektorn med statlig revision är begränsad, vilket motiverar den här undersökningen då en sådan jämförelse kan ge större kunskap kring huruvida företag och myndigheter är föremål för samma nivå av granskning. Vidare är granskningsprocessens påverkan på revisionskvaliteten ett relativt outforskat område, vilket motiverar undersökningen ytterligare. Syfte: Undersökningen jämför granskningsprocessen för revision inom den privata sektorn med granskningsprocessen för statlig revision, i en svensk kontext. Syftet är att undersöka huruvida det finns skillnader eller likheter i hur granskningsprocessen är utformad mellan de två sektorerna, och vidare vad eventuella skillnader eller likheter kan ha för påverkan på revisionskvaliteten inom respektive sektor. Metod: Undersökningen har en induktiv utgångspunkt, och utförs i form av en innehållsanalys bestående av en dokumentgranskning och intervjuer. I dokumentgranskningen ställs relevant lagstiftning, gransknings-standarder, och styrdokument för kvalitetskontroll för de två sektorerna mot varandra. Ett antal intervjuer görs även med revisorer från KPMG och Riksrevisionen, som representerar revision inom den privata respektive den offentliga sektorn. Slutsats: Resultatet visar att granskningsprocessen till stor del ser likadan ut, men att det finns ett antal skillnader som framför allt har att göra med mer långtgående krav på rapportering för myndigheter. Detta kan förklaras med att agent-problematiken är större inom den offentliga sektorn, vilket i sin tur leder till en mer omfattande granskning för den statliga revisionen. God revisionskvalitet kommer av efterföljelse av lagar och regler, samt revisionsstandarder. Den privata sektorn har mer detaljerad lagstiftning, och därmed fler aspekter att beakta för att uppnå god revisionskvalitet. Vad gäller revisionsstandarder är dessa likartade, varför båda sektorerna har samma utgångsläge för att uppnå revisionskvalitet och undvika revisions-misslyckanden. / Background: During the 21st century, a number of scandals have shaken the audit industry - both within the private and the public sector. There is an increasing interest in knowing how the audit process is designed within these two sectors. Previous research comparing private sector audits to public sector audits is scarce; this motivates an investigation such as this one, because a comparison could provide insight into whether corporations and government agencies are subject to the same level of scrutiny. Further, the impact of the audit process on audit quality is a relatively unexplored area of research, which motivates the study even more. Purpose: The investigation compares the review process of private sector audits with the review process of public sector audits, within a Swedish context. The purpose is to find out whether there are differences or similarities in the review process between these two sectors, and if these potential differences could affect the audit quality of the sectors respectively. Method: The investigation has an inductive starting point, with a content analysis of a document review and interviews. The document review compares relevant laws, standards for the review process, and regulations of quality control, for each of the sectors. A number of interviews are carried out with auditors from KPMG and Riksrevisionen (Swedish NAO). The participants are representatives for auditors in the private sector and the public sector respectively. Conclusion: The findings show that the review process overall is very similar, but that there are a number of differences that mostly have to do with the more extensive reporting requirements for the public sector. This could be explained by the fact that the principal-agent problem is more complex within the public sector, which, in turn, leads to a more extensive review in the public sector audit. Audit quality comes from following laws and regulations, as well as audit standards. The private sector has more detailed audit laws, and thereby more aspects to consider in order to achieve good audit quality. The audit standards are similar in the private and the public sector, indicating that they have the same starting ground for achieving audit quality and avoid audit failures.

Software testing is widely considered to be one of the most important parts of software development life-cycle. In this research, we investigated potential improvements in the testing process and design of automated test scripts inside Bombardier Transportation. For the creation of automated test scripts BT is using a group of programs called TAF (Test Automation Framework). These scripts are used for testing Train Control Management System (TCMS), software that is used for managing the train. TAF can export its test scripts in XML format. XML scripts are analyzed in order to identify the most frequent changes. To better understand the life cycle of automated Test scripts official documentation that defines the Verification and Validation process inside BT was analyzed. Also, an interview was conducted with one of the responsible persons for testing. We believe that we have found a possible solution for improving testing process and creation of automated test scripts in BT, and to evaluate it proof of concept tool was developed. The main idea behind the tool is to write the test script using keywords which are based on analysis that was conducted on test specification documentation. These keywords represent frequent actions that are being tested on the train. By storing those actions in keywords re-usability of test script is being increased. Also, because they are based on naturally language, they are having positive effect on readability and maintenance of the test script.

The Swedish public procurement system is well regulated and developed and can also be very hard to understand. The public sector annually carries out public procurements to a large amount of money, and thus constitutes a large part of Sweden’s total GDP. The value of the purchases covered by the procurement acts was estimated at approximately SEK 782 billion in 2018. The purpose of public procurement is to guarantee competition on equal terms, contribute to the efficient use of society's resources and taxpayers' money, while promoting innovative solutions, and have environmental considerations in mind. The purpose of this paper is to examine what the procurement process looks like at one of Sweden's largest authorities, the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) and if improvements should be made. Questions about how tenders are received and evaluated, about what the market looks like, about what improvements that are desired and about what is good about the procurement process. These questions linked to a trust-based governing will be answered and discussed. The main conclusion that are made in this paper is that the Swedish procurement process require some improvements, but the hard thing is to decide what should be improved. My conclusion is that tender evaluation and the review process are areas that needs the most improvement from the empirical data that I have collected, but other areas came to discussion as well. A discussion regarding the trust-based governing is also included in the conclusion.

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