M.Ing. / The development of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies offers a novel platform for IP-based service resale via Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) that provide high network coverage and lower infrastructure cost. In this IP-based service resale business, the Access Point (AP) providers sets their pricing policies as IP-based service resellers to maximize their profits, while the resale-users (end users of the WMNs) who are price- and quality-of-service (QoS)- sensitive, respond to AP providers’ pricing policies by controlling their usage. This research exploits the efficiency of dynamic pricing by integrating pricing into best effort based WMNs as an economic control tool to optimize the profit of the AP providers and improve the utilization of their limited uplink bandwidth by taking into consideration the resale-users’ price- and QoS- sensitivity. Two cases are presented in this thesis: a monopoly, where a single AP provider aims to maximize its profit while guaranteeing its resale-users with a minimum allocated bandwidth; and a duopoly, where two AP providers compete to maximize their individual profits based on the resale-users’ price- and delay- sensitivity. For both cases, the limited uplink bandwidth of the AP providers is considered as a bottleneck of the WMN. We propose two dynamic pricing models for these two cases respectively and investigate how pricing depends on the assumptions that we make about the market. Indeed, the pricing model proposed for the monopoly is a preliminary study for the duopoly pricing model. In formulating and analyzing these two pricing models, we see how prices are driven by the profit-maximizing aim of one AP provider and the competition between two AP providers.

The main goal of this thesis is to find an optimal CEP service provider for specific company by using Fuller's pairwise comparison method. The thesis focuses only on B2B field. The products and parameters are chosen on that basis and they also correspond to needs of the company. At the beginning there is theoretical part, which enables to understand the following problematic and analysis properly. The next part explains the needs of companies in B2B field in the terms of CEP services. The last part is mainly about analysis and about the specific case. At the end of the thesis there is a final conclusion.

The master’s thesis deals with design of solution for small business containing usage of public cloud computing. There are theoretical outputs together with critical analysis of present situation in public cloud computing solutions.

Network management systems (NMS) monitor, configure and maintain computer networks. Network operators providing networking services are responding to the evolving bandwidth, availability, and latency requirements by upgrading from legacy management systems to alternatives utilizing modern technologies. This paper addresses the trends and challenges of transitioning from legacy NMS to modern management systems. The academic research on network management systems is limited, and we aim to provide a knowledge base on the subject matter by conducting a literature review. The literature review consisted of 43 primary studies from which eight themes were identified by conducting thematic analysis. An NMS’s typical upgrade and selection process is largely unsystematic and based on anecdotal requirements. We utilize the discovered trends and challenges as the basis for the network management system selection process. The selection process was developed via the design science research methodology. The proposed selection process combines the business problems perceived by network service providers with state-of-the-art network research. The results of the review and the process development outline practical implications in the subject area of NMS and introduce potential future research areas in the field of network management.

This study aims to explore the working methods used by service providers in Germany when working with women affected by sex trafficking, as well as connected challenges and how these can be tackled. The authors used a qualitative research approach, semi-structured interviews were used as a data collection tool. The participants of the study consisted of four service providers working with women affected by sex trafficking in Germany. The collected empirical data was analysed with the ecological systems theory. The collected data was divided into three themes: methods and interventions, challenges, and tackling challenges and desired changes. These themes represented the most important information collected within this study.  These findings illustrate trust-building as the most important method to effectively work with women affected by sex trafficking. Besides that, one of the key challenges identified was lack of awareness and misconceptions on the issue of sex trafficking.

Major cloud service providers have become increasingly popular as the traditional way of storing data locally is turning more and more obsolete. Plenty of large companies have turned to cloud storage which have created business opportunities for the cloud service providers. The cloud service providers have to adapt the availability of their services as well as the security in relationship with the increasing demand of their services. With the growth of these providers, their increased presence in the global internet traffic is a fact as they establish more autonomous systems to increase their availability within the internet topology. This study is based on a couple of these cloud service providers such as Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure and their growth as well as how they route their data with the BGP protocol in general. A topology was created of how these providers have increased their presence on the internet to see how much of the traffic that goes through their autonomous systems today compared to what it looked like nearly 20 years ago. We have also performed a series of remote traceroutes from different locations around the world and compared the announced path from the BGP protocol to the route that the data actually takes for the same route. It is concluded that the tracerouted path is not always the same as the BGP path, and the reason for that is most likely a companies own routing policy that disrupts the announced path in one way or another.

Motel life has existed in the United States for over 100 years. However, it was not until the HEARTH Act in 2009 changed the federal definition of homelessness that those who live in motels more or less permanently were considered homeless persons. This project utilizes qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 18 families with children who are living in motels to explore their experiences with motel life and social service providers, their housing identity, and identity management strategies. Findings show that most of the motel residents did not identify with the conventional definition or image of homelessness and instead negotiated the term to fit their situation. Although they did not initially self-identify as homeless, when discussing policy recommendations all participants adopted a homeless social-identity (i.e., they identified as members of the homeless social category). As members of the homeless community, the participants agreed that homeless families in the area needed more attention and assistance. Participants were aware that outsiders would view them as homeless and during their interviews several identity management strategies were used. Motel residents described a hierarchy of homelessness and placed themselves at the top of it, perceiving themselves to be better people than even other motel residents. The identity management strategies employed by the participants were meant to show how they were good people who were just stuck in a motel because of circumstances outside of their control and how they were deserving of assistance to help their families move out of the motel and obtain adequate, permanent housing.

A paradigm shift from static spectrum allocation to dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is becoming a reality due to the recent advances in cognitive radio, wide band spectrum sensing, and network aware real--time spectrum access. It is believed that DSA will allow wireless service providers (WSPs) the opportunity to dynamically access spectrum bands as and when they need it. Moreover, due to the presence of multiple WSPs in a region, it is anticipated that dynamic service pricing would be offered that will allow the end-users to move from long-term service contracts to more flexible short-term service models. In this research, we develop a unified economic framework to analyze the trading system comprising two components: i) spectrum owner--WSPs interactions with regard to dynamic spectrum allocation, and ii) WSP--end-users interactions with regard to dynamic service pricing. For spectrum owner--WSPs interaction, we investigate various auction mechanisms for finding bidding strategies of WSPs and revenue generated by the spectrum owner. We show that sequential bidding provides better result than the concurrent bidding when WSPs are constrained to at most single unit allocation. On the other hand, when the bidders request for multiple units, (i.e., they are not restricted by allocation constraints) synchronous auction mechanism proves to be beneficial than asynchronous auctions. In this regard, we propose a winner determination sealed-bid knapsack auction mechanism that dynamically allocates spectrum to the WSPs based on their bids. As far as dynamic service pricing is concerned, we use game theory to capture the conflict of interest between WSPs and end--users, both of whom try to maximize their respective net utilities. We deviate from the traditional per--service static pricing towards a more dynamic model where the WSPs might change the price of a service almost on a session by session basis. Users, on the other hand, have the freedom to choose their WSP based on the price offered. It is found that in such a greedy and non-cooperative behavioral game model, it is in the best interest of the WSPs to adhere to a price threshold which is a consequence of a price (Nash) equilibrium. We conducted extensive simulation experiments, the results of which show that the proposed auction model entices WSPs to participate in the auction, makes optimal use of the common spectrum pool, and avoids collusion among WSPs. We also demonstrate how pricing can be used as an effective tool for providing incentives to the WSPs to upgrade their network resources and offer better services.

<p><strong>Background and objectives:</strong> Recently, more attention has been placed on contributing factors for different prevalence rates of ASDs/PDDs in geographical areas. This study examines the association between diagnosis of ASDs and distance to regional intervention centres using a population-based dataset of children attending Senior Kindergarten classes in Ontario. Demographic and socioeconomic variables were also examined to find significant predictors for diagnosis of ASDs.</p> <p><strong>Methods:</strong> Data from all sites of Ontario with completed Early Development Instrument (EDI) in school years 2009/10 and 2010/11 were included. Individual-level variables were derived based on the data provided by EDI. Neighbourhood-level variables on socioeconomic factors of children’s place of residence were obtained through census data.</p> <p><strong>Results:</strong> 708 out of 66,284 children were reported by teachers to have diagnosis of ASDs, which results in a prevalence rate of 1.0% for ASDs. Children living near regional centres were less likely to be in the diagnosed group (OR=0.77). Moreover, children living in neighborhoods with high proportion of adults with high school diplomas and high proportion of single-parent families were more at risk of being reported as diagnosed (OR=1.27 & 0.73; respectively). MCYS region that a child lives in was found to be another significant predictor for teacher-reported diagnosis of ASDs.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> Regional centres were not the only centres providing interventions to children with ASDs in Ontario. Therefore, having in-detailed information about the exact place of receiving intervention for each child would be beneficial. Furthermore, having single-parent family structure as a significant predictor necessitates specific policies for these families to obtain appropriate services, reduce caregiver’s stress, and improve family functioning.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)

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