The growing necessity for meaningful climate change response has encouraged the development of global warming mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Urban solar energy generation is one opportunity that has been investigated by numerous cities through various solar potential Web-applications. However, as solar feasibility can vary considerably across a small geographic area due to variations in local topography and feature shading, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to be implemented. This thesis investigates how a Web-based spatial decision support system (SDSS) can enable non-experts to explore urban solar feasibility and, to a lesser extent, issues related to urban heat. First, a conceptual framework is developed that investigates the linkages between SDSS, Web technologies, public participation, volunteered geographic information, and existing green energy initiatives. This framework identifies the relevance between these fields of study as well as a number of opportunities for improving on past work and taking advantage of new technical capabilities. Second, in order to test the opportunities identified, SunSpot was developed. This Web-SDSS investigates rooftop solar feasibility as well as land cover and surface temperature dynamics relating to the urban heat-island effect in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A number of solar resource datasets were developed in order to facilitate the decision making capabilities of SunSpot. This was done using a combination of different topographical data sources, atmospheric data, and a raster-based irradiance model called Solar Analyst. Third, a number of in-person workshops were conducted to obtain feedback on SunSpot’s usability and ability for users to understand the visual layers and results. Finally, this feedback was analyzed to identify the successes and challenges of SunSpot’s capabilities and design. This revealed a number of recommendations for further development of SunSpot, as well as opportunities for future research relating to the development of local scale solar resource data and the development of similar Web-SDSS applications.

The Internet is an essential resource to an ever-increasing number of businesses and home users. Internet access is increasing dramatically and hence, the need for efficient and effective Web server systems is on the rise. These systems are information engines that are accessed through the Internet by a rapidly growing client base. These systems are expected to provide good performance and high availability to the end user. They are also resilient to failures at both the hardware and software levels. These characteristics make them suitable for servicing the present and future information demands of the end consumer. In recent years, researchers have concentrated on taxonomies of scalable Web server system architectures, and routing and dispatching algorithms for request distribution. However, they have not focused on the classification of commercial products and prototypes, which would be of use to business professionals and software architects. Such a classification would help in selecting appropriate products from the market, based on product characteristics, and designing new products with different combinations of server architectures and dispatching algorithms. Currently, dispatching algorithms are classified as content-blind, content-aware, and Domain Name Server (DNS) scheduling. These classifications are extended, and organized under one tree structure in this thesis. With the help of this extension, this thesis develops a unified product-based taxonomy that identifies product capabilities by relating them to a classification of scalable Web server systems and to the extended taxonomy of dispatching algorithms. As part of a detailed analysis of Web server systems, generic queuing models, which consist of a dispatcher unit and a Web server unit are built. Some performance metrics, such as throughput, server performance, mean queue size, mean waiting time, mean service time and mean response time of these generic queuing models are measured for evaluation. Finally, the correctness of generic queuing models are evaluated with the help of theoretical and simulation analysis.

Die Hochschulbibliothek Zwickau nahm die Aktualität des Semantic Web zum Anlass, die Hauptakteure des Diskurses in Bibliotheken zu einem Vortrag einzuladen. Die Schwerpunkte des Vortrages lagen nicht nur in der Einführung des Semantic Web und der Open Linked Data, sondern dass Bibliotheken in Datenstrukturierung und Datenspeicherung wichtige Akteure sind oder werden können.

El gran volumen de datos que las técnicas de minería Web generan sobre espacios Web puede llegar a ser muy difícil de entender, provocando la necesidad de desarrollar nuevas técnicas que permitan generar conocimiento sobre esos datos con el fin de facilitar la toma de decisiones. Esta tesis explora la utilización de técnicas de InfoVis/VA para ayudar en la exploración de espacios Web. Más concretamente, presentamos el desarrollo de un prototipo muy flexible que ha sido utilizado para analizar tres tipos distintos de espacios Web con distintas metas informacionales: el análisis de la usabilidad de páginas Web, la evaluación del comportamiento de los estudiantes en entornos virtuales de aprendizaje y la exploración de la estructura de grandes conversaciones asíncronas existentes en foros online. Esta tesis pretende aceptar el reto propuesto por la comunidad de InfoVis/VA de llevar a cabo investigaciones en condiciones más reales, introduciendo los problemas relacionados con el análisis de los espacios Web ya mencionados, y explorando las ventajas de utilizar las visualizaciones proporcionadas por nuestra herramienta con usuarios reales. / The vast amount of data that Web mining techniques generate from Web spaces is difficult to understand, suggesting the need to develop new techniques to gather insight into them in order to assist in decision making processes. This dissertation explores the usage of InfoVis/VA techniques to assist in the exploration of Web spaces. More specifically, we present the development of a customisable prototype that has been used to analyse three different types of Web spaces with different information goals: the analysis of the usability of a website, the assessment of the students in virtual learning environments, and the exploration of the structure of large asynchronous conversations existing in online forums. Echoing the call of the Infovis/VA community for the need for more research into realistic circumstances, we introduce the problems of the analysis of such Web spaces, and further explore the benefits of using the visualisations provided by our system with real users. / El gran volum de dades que les tècniques de mineria Web proporcionen sobre els espais Web és generalment molt difícil dʼentendre, provocant la necessitat de desenvolupar noves tècniques que permetin generar coneixement sobre les dades de manera que facilitin la presa de decissions. Aquesta tesi explora la utilizació de tècniques dʼInfovis/VA per ajudar en lʼexploració dʼespais Web. Més concretament, presentem el desenvolupament dʼun prototipus molt flexible que hem utilitzat per analitzar tres tipus diferents dʼespais Web amb diferents objectius informacionals: lʼanèlisi de la usabilitat de pàgines Web, lʼavaluació del comportament dels estudiants en entorns virtuals dʼaprenentatge i lʼexploració de lʼestructura de grans converses asíncrones existents en fòrums online. Aquesta tesi pretén acceptar el repte proposat per la comunitat dʼInfoVis/VA de fer recerca en condicions més reals, introduint els problemes relacionats en lʼanàlisi dels espais Web ja esmentats, i explorant els avantatges dʼutilizar les visualitzacions proporcionades per la nostra eina amb usuaris reals.

"I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind" Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Web metrics offer significant potential for online businesses to incorporate high-quality, real-time information into their strategic marketing decision-making (SDM) process. This SDM process is affected by the firm�s strategic direction, which is critical for web businesses. A review of the widely researched strategy and SDM literature identified that managers use extensive information to support and improve strategic decisions and make informed decisions. Offline SDM processes might be appropriate for the online environment but the limited literature on web metrics has not researched information needs for online SDM. Even though web metrics can be a valuable tool for web businesses to inform strategic marketing decisions, and their collection might be less expensive and easier than offline measures, virtually no published research has combined web metrics and SDM concepts into one research project. To address this gap in the literature, the thesis investigated the differences and commonalities of online and offline SDM process approaches, the use of web metrics categories for online SDM stages, and the issues encountered during that process through four research questions. A preliminary conceptual model based on the literature review was refined through preliminary research, which addressed the research questions and investigated the current state of web metrics. After investigating various methodologies, a multi-stage qualitative methodology was selected. The use of qualitative methods represents a contribution to knowledge regarding methodological approaches to online research. Four stages within the online SDM process were shown to benefit from the use of web metrics: the setting of priorities, the setting of objectives, the pretest stage and the review stage. The results identified the similarity of online and offline SDM processes; demonstrated that Traffic, Transactions, Customer Feedback and Consumer Behaviour categories provide basic metrics used by most companies; identified the Environment, Technology, Business Results and Campaigns categories as supplementary categories that are applied according to the marketing objectives; and investigated the results based on different types of companies (website classification, channel focus, size and cluster association). Three clusters were identified that relate to the strategic importance of the website and web metrics. Modifying the initial conceptual model, six issues were distinguished that affect the use of web metrics: the adoption and use of web metrics by managers; the integration of multiple sources of metrics; the establishment of industry benchmarks; data quality; the differences to offline measures; as well as resource constraints that interfere with the appropriate web metrics analysis. Links to offline marketing strategy literature and established business concepts were explored and explanations provided where the results confirmed or modified these concepts. Using qualitative methods, the research assisted in building theory of web metrics and online SDM processes. The results show that offline theories apply to the online environment and conventional concepts provide guidance for online processes. Dynamic aspects of strategy relate to the online environment, and qualitative research methods appear suitable for online research. Publications during this research project: Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2003) The Use of E-metrics in Strategic Marketing Decisions - A Preliminary Investigation. Business Excellence �03 - 1st International Conference on Performance Measures, Benchmarking and Best Practices in the New Economy, Guimaraes, Portugal; June 10-13, 2003. Weischedel, B., Deans, K. R. and Matear, S. (2004) Emetrics - An Empirical Study of Marketing Performance Measures for Web Businesses. Performance Measurement Association Conference 2004, Edinburgh, UK; July 28-30, 2004. Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2005) "A Qualitative Approach to Investigating Online Strategic Decision-Making" Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 8 No 1, pp. 61-76. Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2005) "The Use of Emetrics in Strategic Marketing Decisions - A Preliminary Investigation" International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, Vol. 2 Nos 1/2, p. 109-125.

The usage of Web sites has been of interest to Web administrators and researchers ever since the Web started. Analysis of Web site usage data helps to understand the behaviour of its users, which is very important, as many important decisions can be made based on it. The user behaviour may be deduced by knowing all the activities each user does from the time s/he starts a session on the Web site until s/he leaves it, which is collectively called a user session. As Web server logs explicitly record the browsing behaviour of site users and are readily and economically available, this thesis explores the use of Web server logs in capturing user sessions on Web. In order to protect users’ privacy, the standard Web server logs in general do not record the user identities or similar measures to uniquely identify the users. This thesis concentrates on heuristic strategies to infer user sessions. The heuristics exploit the background knowledge of user navigational behaviour recorded in the standard Web server logs without requiring additional information through cookies, logins and session ids. They identify relationships that may exist among the log data and make use of them to assess whether requests registered by the Web server can belong to the same individual and whether these requests were performed during the same visit. Researchers have proposed several heuristics, which were adversely affected by proxy servers, caching and undefined referrers. The thesis proposes new heuristics, which effectively address all the limitations, thus extending the work in this field. It also introduces a set of measures to quantify the performance of the heuristics and uses them to investigate their efficiency based on logs from three Web sites and makes recommendations for the Web sites to devise their own heuristics. The investigation has shown satisfactory results and the new heuristics are applicable to wider range of Web sites. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Universiẗat, Diss., 2006--Jena.

Zugl.: Wien, WirtschaftsUniversiẗat, Diplomarbeit, 2008.

Thesis (Ph.D) - Swinburne University of Technology, Faculty of Information & Communication Technologies, 2006. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. Typescript. Bibliography p. 217-233.

Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 2008. / Online publiziert: 2009.