We developed a price-based resource allocation scheme for Differentiated Service (DiffServ) data networks. The DiffServ framework was proposed to provide multiple QoS classes over IP networks. Since the provider supports multiple service classes, we need a differentiated pricing scheme, as supposed to the flat-rate scheme employed by the Internet service providers of today. Charging efficiently is a big issue. The utility of a client correlates to the amount of bandwidth allocated. One difficulty we face is that determining the appropriate amount of bandwidth to provision and allocate is problematic due to different time scales, multiple QoS classes and the unpredictable nature of users. To approach this problem, we designed a pricing strategy for Admission Control and bandwidth assignment. Despite the variety of existing pricing strategies, the common theme is that the appropriate pricing policy rewards users for behaving in ways to improve the overall utilization and performance of the network. Among existing schemes, we chose auction because it is scalable, and efficiently and fairly shares resources. Our pricing model takes the system's availability and each customer's requirements as inputs and outputs the set of clients who are admitted into the network and their allocated resource. Each client proposes a desired bandwidth and a price that they are willing to pay for it. The service provider collects this information and produces parameters for each class of service they provide. This information is used to decide which customers to admit. We proposed an optimal solution to the problem of maximizing the provider's revenue for the special case where there is only one bottleneck link in the network. Then for the generalized network, we resort to a simple but effective heuristic method. We validate both the optimal solution and the heuristic algorithm with simulations driven by a real traffic scenario. Finally, we allow customers to bid on the duration for which the service is needed. Then we study the performance of those heuristic algorithms in this new setting and propose possible improvements.

Thesis (M.ICT.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 112-121.

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-91). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2005--Lüneburg.

Atualmente, pesquisadores e acadêmicos têm beneficiado-se muito com o crescimento acelerado das tecnologias Web, pois os resultados de pesquisa podem ser publicados e acessados eletronicamente tão logo a mesma tenha sido realizada. Esta possibilidade é vantajosa na medida em que minimiza as barreiras de tempo e espaço associadas à publicação tradicional. Neste contexto, surgem as Bibliotecas Digitais como repositórios de dados que, além dos documentos digitais propriamente ditos, ou de apontadores para estes documentos, armazenam os metadados associados. Para permitir que diferentes Bibliotecas Digitais possam interoperar surgiu a Open Archives Initiative (OAI) e, para resolver a questão da padronização dos metadados utilizados pelos repositórios, foi criado o formato Dublin Core (DC). Por outro lado, a enorme quantidade de documentos digitais disponíveis na Web tem causado o fenômeno conhecido como “sobrecarga de informação”. Com o objetivo de suprir esta dificuldade, Sistemas de Recomendação têm sido propostos e desenvolvidos. Estes sistemas visam prover uma interface alternativa para tecnologias de filtragem e recuperação de informações, tendo como foco a predição daqueles itens ou partes da informação que o usuário acharia interessante e útil. Portanto, os Sistemas de Recomendação atuam baseados em personalização da informação sendo que as predições geralmente são realizadas utilizando-se um perfil de cada usuário. A personalização está relacionada com o modo pelo qual a informação e serviços podem ser ajustados às necessidades específicas de um usuário ou comunidade. Esta dissertação descreve um Sistema de Recomendação de artigos científicos, armazenados em bibliotecas digitais. Este sistema é dirigido à comunidade científica da área da Ciência da Computação. Tecnologicamente, o sistema proposto foi desenvolvido sob a perspectiva da Web Semântica, à medida que faz uso de suas tecnologias emergentes tais como: uso de metadados padrão para a descrição de documentos - Dublin Core, uso do padrão XML para a descrição do perfil do usuário - Currículo Lattes, e provedores de serviços e de dados (OAI) envolvidos no processo de geração das recomendações. Este trabalho ainda apresenta e discute alguns resultados de experimentos baseados em avaliações quantitativas e qualitativas de recomendações geradas pelo sistema. / Currently, researchers and academics have been benefited by the expressive growth of web technologies, due to the possibility of publishing and accessing research results as soon as they are achieved. This possibility is advantageous as it minimizes the time and space barriers that traditional publications present. In this context, Digital Libraries emerged as data repositories that, beyond digital documents or links to them, store associated metadata. To allow the interoperability among different Digital Libraries, the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) was defined and, to solve the problem of metadata standardization, the Dublin Core standard (DC) was created. On the other hand, the great amount of available digital documents in the Web has caused the phenomenon known as “information overload”. In order to avoid this difficulty, Recommender Systems have been proposed and developed. These systems intend to provide an alternative interface for information filtering and retrieval technologies, focusing on the prediction of items or information parts that are interesting and useful for the user. Therefore, Recommender Systems act based on information personalization, and the predictions are generally generated using each user’s profile. The personalization is related to the way the information and the provided services can be adjusted to the specific necessities of a user or community. This dissertation describes a Recommender System for scientific articles stored in digital libraries. This system is geared towards the Computer Science scientific community. Technologically, the proposed system was developed under the Semantic Web perspective, as it explores its emergent technologies such as: use of standard metadata for document description - Dublin Core, use of the XML standard for users’ profile description - Lattes Curriculum Vitae, and services and data providers (OAI) involved on the recommendations generation process. In addition, this work presents and discusses some experimental results; the experiments are based on quantitative and qualitative evaluations of recommendations generated by the system.

La recherche que nous menons s’interroge sur l’organisation des innovations incrémentales et radicales, au niveau intra et inter-entreprise, à la lumière des travaux sur l’ambidextrie organisationnelle (Tushman et O’Reilly, 1996, 1999 ; O’Reilly et Tushman, 2004 ; Birkinshaw et Gibson 2004). En prenant le cas de la prestation de services logistiques, secteur relevant de la problématique de l’innovation intensive (Le Masson, Weil et Hatchuel, 2006), notre recherche vise à étudier les modalités organisationnelles mises en œuvre pour innover, à comprendre et à identifier les facteurs explicatifs du recours aux formes d’ambidextrie organisationnelle. De plus, à notre connaissance, aucune étude n’a encore été conduite sur l’ambidextrie organisationnelle dans le secteur des services. Il s’agit donc aussi d’identifier les spécificités liées à l’organisation de l’innovation dans les entreprises de services. Pour mener à bien notre recherche, 8 études de cas ont été conduites auprès de Prestataires de Services Logistiques (PSL). 49 entretiens ont été réalisés auprès des acteurs participant aux processus d’innovation dans chaque entreprise, des données secondaires (documentation interne, presse professionnelle, etc.) ont également été collectées. Les résultats de notre étude éclairent les chercheurs et les praticiens sur les modalités organisationnelles mises en œuvre pour innover dans les entreprises de services et au sein de réseaux d’entreprises interconnectées. Notre étude identifie également les facteurs explicatifs du recours et de la combinaison des formes d’ambidextrie organisationnelle. Ces facteurs sont liés aux caractéristiques de l’entreprise, aux caractéristiques de l’innovation mais aussi aux relations inter-organisationnelles entretenues entre le prestataire et son client. / The research that we carry out examines the organization of incremental and radical innovations, both intra- and inter-enterprise, in the light of organizational ambidextry works (Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996, 1999; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2004; Birkinshaw and Gibson, 2004).Taking the case of logistics service provision, an industry concerned by the extensive innovation dilemma (Le Masson, Weil and Hatchuel, 2006), our research aims to study the organizational modalities implemented to innovate, but also to identify and understand the explanatory factors of the recourse to organizational ambidextry forms. Moreover, to our knowledge, no study has been performed on organizational ambidextry in the service industry. It is therefore, also about the identification of the specificities bound to the organization of innovation on service companies.To successfully achieve our research, case studies were performed with 8 Logistics Service Providers (LSP) companies. 49 interviews were carried out with the actors participating in the innovation process in each company. Secondary data (internal documentation, professional press, etc.) was also collected.The results enlighten the organizational modalities implemented to innovate in service companies and within interconnected companies for both researchers and practitioners. Our study also identifies the explanatory factors of the recourse to, and the combination of, organizational ambidextry forms. These factors are bound to the company’s characteristics as well as the characteristics of the innovation, but also to the inter-organizational relationship between the provider and its costumer.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of the Termination of Pregnancy (TOP) programme in South Africa, using Mpumalanga as focal area, with the view of developing guidelines to assist service providers in the implementation of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP), Act 92 of 1996. The study was conducted in two phases. In phase 1, a qualitative, quantitative, contextual, explorative, descriptive and case study research design was utilised. The purpose was to explore and describe TOP service providers and facility managers’ knowledge regarding the CTOP Act, as well as their experiences and feelings regarding TOP provision, and the feelings and experiences of health care consumers utilising TOP services. Records of attendance regarding the utilisation of the services were also reviewed. Data was collected using unstructured and semi-structured interviews. Phase 2 of the study focused on the development of guidelines to assist in the translation of the CTOP Act to action at service level. The findings revealed that although the TOP programme was operating within the reproductive health for women initiative, TOP service providers and facility managers were not knowledgeable on other legislation that supports the CTOP Act to integrate its implementation. All the participants experienced emotional, physical and psychological discomfort in providing TOP services. Lack of support of the programme also posed a major challenge. These findings formed the basis for the development of the guidelines. / Health Studies / (D.Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies))

The aim of the thesis was "To assess the current state of awareness of the personnel of the social services providers in the field of extraordinary events, to assess the effectiveness of the implemented training program". Based on the stated objective, then, to verify 2 established hypotheses. Hypothesis No. 1, ´Awareness of social service provider staff on the recommended behaviour manners during extraordinary events does not reach 80% of correct response success´ , and Hypothesis No. 2, ´Social service provider staff education leads to an improvement in the current situation of behaviour manners during extraordinary events´. To fulfill this aim, a research survey was created, which I personally carried out in 4 social service providers, fulfilling the following criteria: the social service provider had to provide a ´stay´ form, handicapped individuals had to stay there´, and the place had to be located in the region of South Bohemia. The results were being evaluated via graphics processed in Microsoft Excel Word 2007 programme. To evaluate Hypothesis No. 2 I created an educative material in an e-learning form, containing 5 thematic areas: protection of population, fire, floods, chemical substances, and radio-active substances. I introduced this educative material to the social service provider staff, and subsequently I carried out a second round of interview survey. In the results of this work I was comparing the staff´s responses before the implemented educative programme, and after. The results of my research work have proven that the less staff takes part in education on protection of population, the less individuals are introduced to the recommended manners of behaviour during extraordinary events. The educative programme has brought valuable information for the social service provider staff. An improvement was missing in certain responses, but in my opinion, this is due to an extremely expert or thematic area of questions. The educative programme has brought valuable information for the social service provider staff. A significant improvement was noticed in the second round of questionnaire survey after implementing the educative programme. An improvement was missing in certain responses, but in my opinion, this is due to an extremely expert or thematic area of questions.

The subject of this diploma paper is Inclusion of Mentally Ill People in Some Chosen Parts of Vysočina Region. It is focused not only on service providers, who deal with people suffering from some mental disorders, but also on service users, it means on people with illnesses from the domain of psychoses, above all schizophrenia and affective disorder (according to MKN-10, F20 {--} F29, F30 {--} F39). It is about people, whose social roles have been disrupted because of their illness and they are in danger of isolation and also social exclusion. The aim of this paper is to find out whether and in what way the inclusion is carried into effect in some chosen parts of Vysočina Region. In the theoretical part of this diploma paper the writer deals in a complex way with the problems of inclusion of disordered people from medical, social and juridical point of view. In the introduction the author qualifies the current situation of these problems. The first subchapter is focused on mental disorders, from the domain of psychoses, their description, their social importance, precaution and therapy. The second chapter covers inclusion and its importance. In the following part full rehabilitation and its partial parts are described. The fourth chapter deals with social work, which is focused on helping people with mental disorders and in the last chapter the author writes about problems of rights of mental ill people. The research part is based on qualitative analysis, which examines the above mentioned aim. To examine the results at the service providers it was used a method of semi-standard dialogue, which is done not only on the base of fixed questions but also on the possibility of expressing their own opinions. The case reports were worked out at the service providers. These case reports were based on the method of concerned supervision. According to the results it is obvious, that inclusion of users is carried into effect in given institutions, because 55% of respondents answered yes and 39% of respondents answered more likely yes. The result is above all the cooperation of partial parts of full rehabilitation, whose aim is to contribute mainly to inclusion. The conclusion of this paper is benefit of this knowledge, that during planning of service, intervention, analyses of needs, it is necessary to consider individuality of every client as much as possible and always emphasize individual approach. In this procedure it is also important trained staff. The author has experience of several years, which she can rely on, and she believes, that in the future community centers will be still founded and they will mostly replace big hospitals. This will be a next important step to re-socialization and to following inclusion of mental ill people.

The services for handicapped people and their transformation after 2007 The present graduation thesis deals with screening the situation in the area of social services for persons with different handicap, especially regarding the transformation of social services after 2007. In the theoretical part, I am describing particularly the characteristics of the previous and the current systems of social services. When characterising the previous system of social services, I concentrate on the legislation, governing this system. Further I am presenting the characteristics and status of the consulting services, and socially activating service, as in the further chapters I am dealing with the latter when presenting the services of the KONÍČEK, o. s. association. When presenting the new system of social services, I am describing in particular the basic principles of this system, changes it brings to the users, legislation and quality standards of the social services. A big chapter is devoted to the Social Services Act. Further chapters describe the financing of social services, education of workers in social services, and work of volunteers in social services. The practical part presents my hypothesis and the aims of the present work. Further chapters present the target group and describe the data collection. Data was collected in the form a guided interview, the questions were answered by the representatives of the given non-profit organization. This chapter includes also a presentation of the activities of the KONÍČEK, o. s. association before 2007, when the services were not registered. Further I am presenting the activities of the association in 2008, when the association was already a registered provider of social services. I am presenting, in the Discussion chapter, the screening of the transformation of social services after 2007, the obtained data, and I am offering their comparison with the outputs found out in the KONÍČEK, o. s. association, or with literature data.