Privacy emerges as a critical issue in an e-commerce environment because of a fundamental tension among corporate, consumer, and government interests. By reviewing prior Internet-privacy research in the fields of information systems, business, and marketing published between 1995 and 2006, we consider the following research questions: 1) how an individual’s privacy behaviour is affected by privacy policy disclosures and by the level of the individual’s involvement regarding the sensitivity of personal information; 2) how companies’ privacy policies vary with respect to regulatory approaches and cultural values; and 3) whether there is a gap between the privacy practices valued by individuals and those emphasized by companies. A three-stage study is conducted to answer these questions. The first two stages, consisting of a Web-based survey and an online ordering experiment with 210 participants, found that individuals are more likely to read the privacy policy statements posted on Web sites and less likely to provide personal information, when they are under a high privacy involved situation as compared to being in a low privacy involved situation. However, the existence of a privacy seal did not affect individuals’ behaviour, regardless of involvement conditions. This study also found a gap between self-reported privacy behaviour and actual privacy behaviour. When individuals were requested to provide personal information, their privacy policy statement reading behaviour was close to their self-report behaviour. However, their personal information providing behaviour was different from their self-reported behaviour. The third stage, which entailed the study of 420 privacy policies spanning six countries and two industries, showed that privacy policies vary across countries, as well as with varying governmental involvement and cultural values in those countries. Finally, the analysis of all the three stages revealed a gap between individuals’ importance ratings of companies’ privacy practices and policies that companies emphasize in their privacy disclosures.

Large-scale mining practices have disturbed many natural watersheds in northern Alberta, Canada. To restore disturbed landscapes and ecosystems functions, reconstruction strategies have been adopted with the aim of establishing sustainable reclaimed lands. The success of the reconstruction process depends on the design of reconstruction strategies, which can be optimized by improving the understanding of the controlling hydrological processes in the reconstructed watersheds. Evapotranspiration is one of the important components of the hydrological cycle; its estimation and analysis are crucial for better assessment of the reconstructed landscape hydrology, and for more efficient design. The complexity of the evapotranspiration process and its variability in time and space has imposed some limitations on previously developed evapotranspiration estimation models. The vast majority of the available models estimate the rate of potential evapotranspiration, which occurs under unlimited water supply condition. However, the rate of actual evapotranspiration (AET) depends on the available soil moisture, which makes its physical modeling more complicated than the potential evapotranspiration. The main objective of this study is to estimate and analyze the AET process in a reconstructed landscape.<p> Data driven techniques can model the process without having a complete understanding of its physics. In this study, three data driven models; genetic programming (GP), artificial neural networks (ANNs), and multilinear regression (MLR), were developed and compared for estimating the hourly eddy covariance (EC)-measured AET using meteorological variables. The AET was modeled as a function of five meteorological variables: net radiation (Rn), ground temperature (Tg), air temperature (Ta), relative humidity (RH), and wind speed (Ws) in a reconstructed landscape located in northern Alberta, Canada. Several ANN models were evaluated using two training algorithms of Levenberg-Marquardt and Bayesian regularization. The GP technique was employed to generate mathematical equations correlating AET to the five meteorological variables. Furthermore, the available data were statistically analyzed to obtain MLR models and to identify the meteorological variables that have significant effect on the evapotranspiration process. The utility of the investigated data driven models was also compared with that of HYDRUS-1D model, which is a physically based model that makes use of conventional Penman-Monteith (PM) method for the prediction of AET. HYDRUS-1D model was examined for estimating AET using meteorological variables, leaf area index, and soil moisture information. Furthermore, Wavelet analysis (WA), as a multiresolution signal processing tool, was examined to improve the understanding of the available time series temporal variations, through identifying the significant cyclic features, and to explore the possible correlation between AET and the meteorological signals. WA was used with the purpose of input determination of AET models, a priori.<p> The results of this study indicated that all three proposed data driven models were able to approximate the AET reasonably well; however, GP and MLR models had better generalization ability than the ANN model. GP models demonstrated that the complex process of hourly AET can be efficiently modeled as simple semi-linear functions of few meteorological variables. The results of HYDRUS-1D model exhibited that a physically based model, such as HYDRUS-1D, might perform on par or even inferior to the data driven models in terms of the overall prediction accuracy. The developed equation-based models; GP and MLR, revealed the larger contribution of net radiation and ground temperature, compared to other variables, to the estimation of AET. It was also found that the interaction effects of meteorological variables are important for the AET modeling. The results of wavelet analysis demonstrated the presence of both small-scale (2 to 8 hours) and larger-scale (e.g. diurnal) cyclic features in most of the investigated time series. Larger-scale cyclic features were found to be the dominant source of temporal variations in the AET and most of the meteorological variables. The results of cross wavelet analysis indicated that the cause and effect relationship between AET and the meteorological variables might vary based on the time-scale of variation under consideration. At small time-scales, significant linear correlations were observed between AET and Rn, RH, and Ws time series, while at larger time-scales significant linear correlations were observed between AET and Rn, RH, Tg, and Ta time series.

This thesis conceptualizes the term movement as a design medium for producing architecture. The Deleuzian discourse which defines movement as mobile section of duration comprises the theoretical frame of the study. Santiago Calatrava&amp / #8217 / s architectural thinking and practice constitute the pragmatic ground on which the Deleuzian formulation of movement is constructed. Mobile structures of Calatrava are analyzed to introduce some design tools that are used to utilize movement as a design medium. These design tools are unfolding, rising, and revolving, which provide actual movements / rhythm and shape, which provide bodily movements / structural illusion, representation of nature, and figura serpentinata, which provide visual movements. Other than these, virtual movement, a term borrowed from Greg Lynn, is discussed as another design tool that is related with movement but produces perceptions of immobility rather than implications of mobility. This discussion emphasizes both the employment of movement issue as a design medium in the architectural production and the uniqueness of Calatrava in the way of conceptualizing the matter architecturally.

The main objective of this master&rsquo / s thesis is to examine the concept of difference according to French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson. In order to explicate this crucial concept and its emphasis in these thinkers&rsquo / philosophies, this dissertation is focused on the notion of time and memory. Through the thesis, first Deleuze&rsquo / s critical attitude towards representational and dialectical approachs for difference is elucidated. After the comprehensive examination for the meaning of difference according to Deleuze, the understanding of time is revealed by means of Deleuzian comprehension of repetition and Bergsonian notion of duration. Throughout the thesis what is virtually hidden beneath the arguments, what is common in both philosophers finally is exposed as the concept of becoming. For Deleuze, whose philosophy of time is certainly dependent on Bergson, time creates a renewed conception in order for subject to be an individual as the state of permanent becoming. And an individual which is qualified as a state of becoming, is the memory of time where the latter is an infinite virtuality.

As the Internet becomes the major information infrastructure in most sectors, the importance of Information Systems (IS) security steadily increases. While reaching a certain level of actual IS security is vital for most businesses, this level must also be perceived as acceptable by stakeholders. Businesses have to maintain a certain level of security and be able to assess the level of other actors’ security. IS security is abstract and complex, however, and difficult to estimate and measure. This thesis uses epistemic and ontological frameworks to study the conceptual nature of IS security and separate the concepts of actual and perceived IS security. A well-known event is used to illustrate the conceptual discussion: the Sasser worm that was spread around the world in 2004. This study also includes a smaller case study from the City of Stockholm, where about 4,000 computers were infected by Sasser. The outcome of the study is that actual IS security should be treated as a dynamic condition that is influenced by three different objects: information assets, threat objects and security mechanisms. Incidents are processes that are ruled by the conditions of these three objects and affect the states of confidentiality, integrity and availability of information assets. The concepts of threat, risk and trust remain at epistemic level, i.e. perceptions. Perceptions of IS security can differ depending on their social establishment and are classified as subjective judgements, inter-subjective judgements or institutional facts. While actual IS security conditions can influence actors’ perceptions of IS security, perceived IS security can also influence actual IS security.

I study to what extent consumers’ expectations of inflation are formed differently in the short run for countries that belong to a monetary union, which implies a common inflation-targeting central bank, in contrast to countries with national inflationtar geting central banks. I measure if there are differences in consumers’ reaction s to inflation deviation from target, persistency of expected inflation and the ability to predict accurate inflation in the respective considered countries. I also measure average deviation and average absolute deviation of actual and expected inflation from the inflation target. The results suggest that the respective country’s average reaction to inflation deviation from target, degree of persistent expectation and the ability to predict accurate inflation rates are in the same range as well as the results for the average and average absolute deviations. Therefore, I conclude that there are no substantial differences in the formation of consumers’ expectations in countries belonging to a monetary union and countries with national inflation-targeting central banks, in the short run.

In the past few years, rapid development of mobile technologies has been changing the way people approach purchasing. Using Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1986), the authors believe that IKEA’s furniture mobile application creates a certain value to its users. The study aims at examining the importance of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and compatibility dimensions of IKEA’s app and their impact on consumers’ behavioral intentions to see whether or not they lead to actual purchase.   The thesis findings reveal that IKEA mobile application is not widely used. The results should have been applicable for similar companies as IKEA especially those which promote in-store app usage. However, it is not possible since the thesis contradicts the assumption of broad usage of such mobile application.   The analysis of the surveys releaved gender having a role in IKEA mobile app perception as well as occupation. The analysis is also contributing by a realization that mobile technologies lead to faster decision-making, more information availability, and therefore, can create better marketing communication strategies.

Año a año Argentina es elegida como sede de todo tipo de reuniones, una modalidad turística vista como una actividad económica rentable que crece sostenidamente a nivel mundial y nacional. El siguiente trabajo de investigación describe la situación actual de La Plata como ciudad sede de este fenómeno, los diferentes eventos realizados durante el año 2013 y características generales del consumidor principal de este segmento. Se realiza una conceptualización y contextualización del turismo de congresos y otras reuniones en el mundo y argentina, finalizando en la ciudad de La Plata. Se determinan los elementos imprescindibles para el desarrollo de la ciudad de La Plata con respecto al turismo de congresos y reuniones y las carencias que frenan el mismo, a su vez, se establecen similitudes y diferencias de La Plata como ciudad sede respecto a casos de éxito a nivel nacional.

La obra pretende encontrar una explicación al estado actual de exigibilidad y vigencia de los Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales.

This thesis explores the interaction between virtual and actual realms in architecture through digital design process and developing environment qualities thereby. The focus will be on the projects that are designed in digital medium to be generated in physical environment. By examining the design attitude of selected four projects in this context, this thesis claims that the two realms of virtual and actual are interdependent. The framework of the study is based on Gilles Deleuze&rsquo / s definitions of &ldquo / actualization of the virtual&rdquo / , and &ldquo / realization of the possible&rdquo / . In this study, besides its connotations of digital technology, the concept of virtual is highlighted with its meaning of &ldquo / potential&rdquo / . The philosophical discourse on virtual and actual proves that the relation between these two realms has a potential to generate new conceptual fields. According to this study, for architecture &ldquo / actualization of the virtual&rdquo / , cultivates the &ldquo / unforeseen relations and new connections&rdquo / in terms of new understandings of space and time. This study introduces the conceptual pairs of form-unform, autoplastic-alloplastic space and linear-nonlinear time to develop discussions on the concerned process. The aim is to explore new space and time considerations both in the design process and in the physical architectural environment generated by this process. The emphasis will be on how responsive and interactive environments speculate the established conceptions of space and time in-between virtual and actual realms. This thesis claims that the architectural projects between virtual and actual are subject to break the traditional understandings of space and time.