Changes to the technological landscape of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK have often raised debates on information privacy and patient confidentiality. This has been especially pertinent in the context of HIV health services, where patient records have been historically segregated from hospital notes to protect confidentiality and account for the nature of the condition as a stigmatised terminal illness. However, as current anti-retroviral treatment extends life expectancy, HIV is increasingly managed in ways similar to other chronic conditions and integrated patient management has been proposed as best practice. This shift offers a unique opportunity to study reconfigurations of privacy and confidentiality practices from the perspective of data users. This thesis focuses on a technological integration project between the stand-alone systems used in two HIV specialist outpatient centres and the centralised Electronic Patient Records (EPR) of their respective NHS Hospital Trusts. The case study methodology draws on 46 semi-structured interviews with health and IT professionals, supplemented by an analysis of organisational documents and observation of work practices over a period of six months in the two clinics. In weaving together different theoretical concepts, this thesis contributes to an in-depth, empirically informed understanding of privacy and confidentiality practices in healthcare. Firstly, by looking at how HIV practitioners cultivate their professional identities at the intersection of general medical and HIV-specific confidentiality, this thesis argues that identity work is an important component in the reconfiguration of privacy practices. Secondly, this research draws attention to the role of political negotiations for privacy change, as HIV professionals and EPR developers came in conflict over the ethics of the technological integration project in the hospitals studied here. Thirdly, this thesis illustrates how confidentiality practices are shaped within the co-construction of information infrastructures and medical work, especially in relation to HIV normalisation. A number of implications for practice and policy also emerge from this study.

This thesis investigates the dynamics of knowledge transfer between cultures within multinational firms, with a particular emphasis on subsidiaries located in Sweden and Romania. This study investigates how subsidiaries adjust corporate knowledge to fit local cultural contexts through semi-structured interviews with participants from a range of sectors. It also looks at the wider effects of these changes on organizational knowledge transfer processes. The research methodology used is qualitative research.   The data indicates that local cultural and regulatory variations have an impact on knowledge transfer tactics. Different techniques to integrating and adjusting corporate knowledge are shown by companies in Sweden and Romania, which reflect different operational and cultural contexts. The results show how subsidiaries improve their strategic positioning and operational efficacy within the multinational framework by utilizing both local and global advantages.   The study's methodology involves using thematic analysis to analyze the gathered interview data in order to provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying cross-cultural knowledge transfer. The main results suggest that the effectiveness of knowledge transfer is heavily dependent upon the ability to navigate and incorporate local cultural characteristics alongside international standards.   By offering empirical insights into the difficulties and methods of knowledge transfer within Eastern European contexts, which are less studied than those in the West, this study adds to the body of literature already in existence. Additionally, it has useful ramifications for global firms looking to maximize knowledge management in various cultural contexts.

The transfer of technology to developing countries constitutes one of the major debates in the literature on development economics. The present empirical investigation is intended to contribute to the large existing literature on technological transfer. Its major contribution lies in demonstrating rigorously that the integration of foreign technologies is greatly affected by the socio-economic conditions of the recipient countries. The present study attempts to identify the main socioeconomic characteristics involved in assimilating transferred technlogy. It first provides a quantifiable measure of the rate of technological absorption. Then, in presenting the selection of indicators, the general procedures followed in choosing the sample of countries are summarized and the principles guiding the choice of variables are examined. The model is based on multiple regression analysis, which is discussed in some detail. Another statistical method is used to explore the interdependence of the economic and social indicators, which provides more exact knowledge about their various interactions and lays the groundwork for the problem at hand. Three main indicators are identified that explain a significant-. sixty one percent of the total variance of the dependent variable. These main indicators are the rate of education, trade policies and the availability of certain consumer products. It is found that these variables express different and important dimensions of the third world economy. In general, the results reveal that the rate of technology integration varies greatly with the level of socio economic development. The findings of the investigation are analysed using new and efficient methods of diagnostic techniques, and are also seen within their theoretical perspectives. The analysis of results is concluded with a discussion of intangible factors that cannot as yet be quantified; factors such as political and managerial quality and yet can be expected to have significant effects on the rate of technological integration.

This thesis deals with the integration of ICT services at the technological level. It mainly focuses on the integration of services which are provided by third parties and a user cannot change them. In this work are described the characteristics of web services and the typical methods for designing their application interface. Furthermore, are described various approaches to integration of applications at the technological level and some integration tools. As part of this thesis, was also created an application designed for integration of web services. This application can be categorized as message-oriented middleware. The aim was to create a simple application, which still meets basic requirements for this kind of applications. This thesis also contains a description of the created application and a description of problems that occurred during implementation. During the application development were used some integration design patterns, which are also described in this thesis.

The transfer of technology to developing countries constitutes one of the major debates in the literature on development economics. The present empirical investigation is intended to " contribute to the large existing literature on technological transfer. Its major contribution lies in demonstrating rigorously that the integration of foreign technologies is greatly affected by the socio-economic conditions of the recipient countries. The present study attempts to identify the main socioeconomic characteristics involved in assimilating transferred technlogy. It first provides a quantifiable measure of the rate of technological absorption. Then, in presenting the selection of indicators, the general procedures followed in choosing the sample of countries are summarized and the principles guiding the choice of variables are examined. The model is based on multiple regression analysis, which is discussed in some detail. Another statistical method is used to explore the interdependence of the economic and social indicators, which provides more exact knowledge about their various interactions and lays the groundwork for the problem at hand. Three main indicators are identified that explain a significant-. sixty one percent of the total variance of the dependent variable. These main indicators are the rate of education, trade policies and the availability of certain consumer products. It is found that these variables express different and important dimensions of the third world economy. In general, the results reveal that the rate of technology integration varies greatly with the level of socio economic development. The findings of the investigation are analysed using new and efficient methods of diagnostic techniques, and are also seen within their theoretical perspectives'. The analysis of results is concluded with a discussion of intangible factors that cannot as yet be quantified; factors such as political and managerial quality and yet can be expected to have significant effects on the rate of technological integration. / Ministry of Hydraulics in Algeria

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Marcelo Zanotello / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa De Pós-Graduação em Ensino, História, Filosofia das Ciências e Matemática, 2014. / O ensino de ciências no primeiro ciclo do Ensino Fundamental tem se realizado basicamente a partir da leitura de textos nos manuais didáticos, imagens e esporádicas experiências meramente ilustrativas, contribuindo para um distanciamento entre os conteúdos científicos abordados na sala de aula e suas relações com o dia a dia das crianças, dificultando a contextualização e significância dos mesmos. Diretrizes curriculares e pesquisas atuais recomendam que a educação científica se inicie nos primeiros anos da Educação Básica, com o intuito de desenvolver no aluno uma postura crítica e investigativa. Compreender as transformações sociais à luz da evolução científica e tecnológica e sua história, são essenciais para possibilitar aos sujeitos um protagonismo fundamental para a formação da cidadania. Esta pesquisa propõe e analisa o funcionamento de estratégias metodológicas nas quais o uso das tecnologias integradas ao currículo foram utilizadas com a intenção de promover o ensino e a aprendizagem contextualizada e significativa nas aulas de ciências, através da elaboração de uma Sequência Didática (SD), desenvolvida com 56 alunos do ensino fundamental I com idades entre 6 e 7 anos, em uma escola pública no município de São Bernardo do Campo - SP. A SD teve como ponto de partida o universo fantástico dos contos de fadas e uma abordagem interdisciplinar. A análise das produções das crianças foi organizada em 6 dimensões que evidenciaram, dentre outros aspectos: o envolvimento e a participação ativa delas no decorrer da SD, bem como o gosto pelo uso diversificado de tecnologias com clara intencionalidade pedagógica; uma formação conceitual significativa em certos temas da física; a capacidade dos estudantes em estabelecerem relações entre o que foi realizado na escola e situações cotidianas; e o desenvolvimento da autoria e do protagonismo infantil na construção do conhecimento. / Teaching Science in the first period of Elementary School has been basically performed through reading texts in teaching materials, images and illustrative only sporadic experiences, contributing to a gap between the scientific content covered in classroom and its relationship with children daily routine, making it difficult to context and the significance thereof. Curriculum guidelines and current researches recommend that science education should begin in the early years of Basic Education in order to develop the student¿s critical and investigative approach. Understanding the social changes at the light of scientific and technological developments and their history, to assign a key role to develop the citizenship of the individuals. This study aims and analyzes how the methodological strategies works, in which the use of technology integrated into the curriculum, were used with the intent to promote education, contextualized and meaningful learning in science classes through the development of a Didactics Sequence (DS), performed with fifty-six (56) elementary school I students, between six and seven years old, in a public school in the City of São Bernardo do Campo ¿ SP. The DS had as its starting point the fantastic world of fairy tales and an interdisciplinary approach. The analysis of the children's productions was organized into six dimensions that showed, among other aspects: their involvement and active participation during the course of DS, as well as the liking for diversified use of technologies with clear pedagogical intentionality; a significant conceptual education in certain subjects of Physics; the students¿ ability to establish relationships between what has been achieved in school and everyday situations; and the development of authorship and the children's role in the construction of knowledge.