Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University. / Bibliography: leaves 165-174. Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

To align firm strategy with the changing environment has always been a challenge for executives. The business literature consists of different perspectives on how to solve the problem and whether to resist change, adapt or do both at the same time. Each got their own implications, inertia could lead to rigidness, adaptability might negatively influence reliability and ambidexterity is seen as a combination of both. The core is exploiting present capabilities meanwhile exploring future opportunities. To study these notions we have conducted a cross-sectional study including four Swedish service-firms which operates in either a stable or dynamic environment. Executives were interviewed and asked to elaborate on their strategies. By doing this we were able to construct a model who suggests when to adapt, when to resist change depending on environmental stability. We also observed that capital- and knowledge-intensity has been somewhat neglected in previous research and could be studied further.

Modern networked systems are complex in such a way that assessing the security of them is a difficult task. Security models are widely used to analyse the security of these systems, which are capable of evaluating the complex relationship between network components. Security models can be generated by identifying vulnerabilities, threats (e.g., cyber attacks), network configurations, and reachability of network components. These network components are then combined into a single model to evaluate how an attacker may penetrate through the networked system. Further, countermeasures can be enforced to minimise cyber attacks based on security analysis. However, modern networked systems are becoming large sized and dynamic (e.g., Cloud Computing systems). As a result, existing security models suffer from scalability problem, where it becomes infeasible to use them for modern networked systems that contain hundreds and thousands of hosts and vulnerabilities. Moreover, the dynamic nature of modern networked systems requires a responsive update in the security model to monitor how these changes may affect the security, but there is a lack of capabilities to efficiently manage these changes with existing security models. In addition, existing security models do not provide functionalities to capture and analyse the security of unknown attacks, where the combined effects of both known and unknown attacks can create unforeseen attack scenarios that may not be detected or mitigated. Therefore, the three goals of this thesis are to (i) develop security modelling and analysis methods that can scale to a large number of network components and adapts to changes in the networked system; (ii) develop efficient security assessment methods to formulate countermeasures; and (iii) develop models and metrics to incorporate and assess the security of unknown attacks. A lifecycle of security models is introduced in this thesis to concisely describe performance and functionalities of modern security models. The five phases in the lifecycle of security models are: (1) Preprocessing, (2) Generation, (3) Representation, (4) Evaluation, and (5) Modification. To achieve goal (i), a hierarchical security model is developed to reduce the computational costs of assessing the security while maintaining all security information, where each layer captures different security information. Then, a comparative analysis is presented to show the scalability and adaptability of security models. The complexity analysis showed that the hierarchical security model has better or equivalent complexities in all phases of the lifecycle in comparison to existing security models, while the performance analysis showed that in fact it is much more scalable in practical network scenarios. To achieve goal (ii), security assessment methods based on importance measures are developed. Network centrality measures are used to identify important hosts in the networked systems, and security metrics are used to identify important vulnerabilities in the host. Also, new network centrality measures are developed to improvise the lack of accuracy of existing network centrality measures when the attack scenarios consist of attackers located inside the networked system. Important hosts and vulnerabilities are identified using efficient algorithms with a polynomial time complexity, and the accuracy of these algorithms are shown as nearly equivalent to the naive method through experiments, which has an exponential complexity. To achieve goal (iii), unknown attacks are incorporated into the hierarchical security model and the combined effects of both known and unknown attacks are analysed. Algorithms taking into account all possible attack scenarios associated with unknown attacks are used to identify significant hosts and vulnerabilities. Approximation algorithms based on dynamic programming and greedy algorithms are also developed to improve the performance. Mitigation strategies to minimise the effects of unknown attacks are formulated on the basis of significant hosts and vulnerabilities identified in the analysis. Results show that mitigation strategies formulated on the basis of significant hosts and vulnerabilities can significantly reduce the system risk in comparison to randomly applying mitigations. In summary, the contributions of this thesis are: (1) the development and evaluation of the hierarchical security model to enhance the scalability and adaptability of security modelling and analysis; (2) a comparative analysis of security models taking into account scalability and adaptability; (3) the development of security assessment methods based on importance measures to identify important hosts and vulnerabilities in the networked system and evaluating their efficiencies in terms of accuracies and performances; and (4) the development of security analysis taking into account unknown attacks, which consists of evaluating the combined effects of both known and unknown attacks.

The number of children identified as emotionally disturbed has been increasing. The success rate for these children has been disappointingly low in both their academic and post-academic lives. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between children identified as emotionally disturbed and their families, and to recommend strategies and family services that could increase the success rate of this particular population.Information was obtained from two self-report instruments, FACES II and a Personal Information Questionnaire, and from social-developmental histories and psychoeducational evaluations. The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scale (FACES II) is a 30-item, self-report instrument that scores a family's view of flexibility and cohesion on the Circumplex Model grid. The Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems is a family typology that is based on the family's degree of flexibility and cohesion. The Personal Information Questionnaire was a demographic instrument used to obtain marital status and economic factors. Grade levels and incidents of child abuse were obtained from social-developmental histories and psychoeducational evaluations.Data were collected from families with children identified as emotionally disturbed. A total of twenty-seven children, ages eight to eighteen, and one parent of each child were included in the study (N = 54). Responses to FACES II and items on the questionnaire were analyzed usingchi-square analysis.Seventy-four percent of the families were classified as dysfunctional based on their responses to FACES II. Less than half of these families rated as disengaged on the cohesion level and more than half of these families rated as rigid on the flexibility level. The school levels of these children were also significant. A higher percentage of families with children in high school were dysfunctional as compared with families with children in elementary school. Parent relational status was not significant. The functional level of the family was not affected if the parents were married, divorced, or widowed. A relationship did exist between families with children identified as emotionally disturbed and reported incidents of child abuse. The dysfunctional families had a higher rate of reported child abuse while those families who were more balanced had fewer reported incidents of child abuse. Finally, socioeconomic status was not a factor in the functional level of the families.Findings from this study may assist school personnel when providing services for children identified as emotionally disturbed and their families. Teachers of students who are emotionally disturbed and general education teachers who will service these students require an accurate understanding of the etiological factors associated with the development of a child identified as emotionally disturbed. By assessing the family's specific areas of strength and weaknesses, school and community services could be provided to meet the needs of the families and their children. / Department of Special Education

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-72).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1992. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-142). Also available via the Internet.

Research paper (M.A.) -- Cardinal Stritch College -- Milwaukee, 1970. / A research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education (Special Education). Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-47).

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 48-55). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-122). Also available via the Internet.

Ministry research project (D. Min.)--Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Mo., 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-79).