The extraordinary conditions of a disaster, require the mobilisation of all available resources, inducing the rush of humanitarian partners into the affected area. This phenomenon called the proliferation of actors, causes serious problems during the disaster response phase including the oversupply, duplicated efforts, lack of planning. The aim of this research is to provide a solution to reduce the partner proliferation problem. To that end the main research question is put forward as “How to reduce the proliferation of partners in a disaster response”? Panel analysis of the historic record of 4,252 natural onset disasters between 1980 to 2013 via regression analysis, MA and AHP gives rise to the formation of a predictive decision-making platform called PREDIS. It is capable of predicting the human impact of the disaster (fatality, injured, homeless) of up to 3% of errors and enables the decision makers to estimate the required needs for each disaster and prioritises them based on the disaster type and socio-economics of the affected country. It further renders it possible to rank and optimise the desired partners based on the decision maker’s preferences. Verification of the PREDIS through a simulation game design using a sample group of decision makers, show that this technique enables the user to decide within one hour after the disaster strike using the widely available data at the time of the disaster. It also enables non-experts to decide almost identically to experts in terms of the similarity of the choices and the speed of the decision. The lack of an extensive database for the potential humanitarian partners from which to choose, is the limitation of this research in addition to the lack of standardised set of minimum requirements for the suitable partners. The model is also as strong as its data feed which is inconsistent in various humanitarian sources.

<p>This thesis paper presents experiences and views on collaborative writing from interviews with university students. Analysis of these interviews, focusing on problems with coordination and technological tools,  shows that problems to some extent can be avoided with knowledge of the tools used and knowledge of coordination.</p>

Effective collaboration is essential for engineers at geographically dispersed locations to accomplish good design with less iteration. Over the last several years, more and more efforts have been put into such research as many industries have distributed their product development to locations with knowledge force. This paper presents a collaborative engine to facilitate collaborations among distributed mechanical designs. Using component-based software technology, collaboration functionality is developed into a set of groupware that makes the collaborative engine applicable to develop new collaborative applications or integrate legacy applications into collaborative environments. An XML-based information representation is developed to streamline the information transmission within the distributed environment. A case study is carried out to show how this engine facilitates designers to collaboratively create a 3D solid model of a same part in real time. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

In a document retrieval system where data is stored and compared with a specific query and then compared with other documents, we need to find the document that is most similar to the query. The most similar document will have the weight higher than other documents. When more than one document are proposed to the user, these documents have to be sorted according to their weights. Once the result is presented to the user by a recommender system, the user may check any document of interest. If there are two different documents' lists, as two proposed results presented by different recommender systems, then, there is a need to find which list is more efficient. To do so, the measuring tool "Search Engine Ranking Efficiency Evaluation Tool [SEREET]" came to existence. This tool assesses the efficiency of each documents list and assigns a numerical value to the list. The value will be closer to 100% if the ranking list efficiency is high which means more relevance documents exist in the list and documents are sorted according to their relevance to the user. The value will be closer to 0% when the ranking list efficiency is poor and all of the presented documents are uninteresting documents to the user. A model to evaluate ranking efficiency is proposed in the dissertation, then it is proved it mathematically. Many mechanisms of search engine have been proposed in order to assess the relevance of a web page. They have focused on keyword frequency, page usage, link analysis and various combinations of them. These methods have been tested and used to provide the user with the most interesting web pages, according to his or her preferences. The collaborative filtering is a new approach, which was developed in this dissertation to retrieve the most interesting documents to the user according to his or her interests. Building a user profile is a very important issue in finding the user interest and categorizes each user in a suitable category. This is a requirement in collaborative filtering implementation. The inference tools such as time spent in a web page, mouse movement, page scrolling, mouse clicks and other tools were investigated. Then the dissertation shows that the most efficient and sufficient tool is the time a user spent on a web page. To eliminate errors, the system introduces a low threshold and high threshold for each user. Once the time spent on a web page breaks this threshold, an error is reported. SEREET tool is one of the contributions to the scientific society, which measures the efficiency of a search engine ranking list. Considerable work were carried, then the conclusion was that the amount of time spent on a web page is the most important factor in determining a user interest of a web page and also it is a sufficient tool which does not require collaborations from other tools such as mouse movements or a page scrolling. The results show that implicit rating is a satisfactory measure and can replace explicit rating. New filtering technique was introduced to design a fully functional recommender system. The linear vector algorithm which was introduced improves the vector space algorithm (VSA) in time complexity and efficiency. The use of machine learning enhances the retrieved list efficiency. Machine learning algorithm uses positive and negative examples for the training, these examples are mandatory to improve the error rate of the system. The result shows that the amount of these examples increases proportionally with the error rate of the system.

Building Collaboration, Building Community: A Home for Northern Learning explores the potential for architecture to support learning endeavors in the Canadian North. Informed by traditional approaches to northern learning for cultural continuity, alongside the assimilative effects of the residential school experience, the thesis strives to develop an environment for contemporary northern learning where both Aboriginal cultures and values can thrive alongside current educational endeavors. Situated within a context plagued by imposed and unsuccessful architectural models, the thesis advocates for a design process rooted in collaborative ideals. At its core, the thesis asserts that both the local knowledge of the community and the training of the architect are vital components in the design process. In the development of an environment for northern learning, both the socio-cultural visions of a northern people and the skill sets of the architect are of necessity. Local stories and perspectives - both past and present - guide project developments. As directed by the community, the scope of work does not focus solely upon the formal learning environment, but rather upon a series of social and cultural structures designed to support learners within the northern educational context. Technically, as informed by traditional architectural predecessors, the contemporary forms are developed in accordance with the local climate: the proposed architecture invites its inhabitants to thrive within the immediate northern landscape. Ultimately, these explorations – of community vision and technical design - are synthesized into a series of design vignettes for a student living community in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The ideas housed within the architectural translations and the broader thesis documentations are not finite conclusions but rather they form the foundation for future investigations: they provide a starting point for continued dialogues and developments.

This thesis paper presents experiences and views on collaborative writing from interviews with university students. Analysis of these interviews, focusing on problems with coordination and technological tools,  shows that problems to some extent can be avoided with knowledge of the tools used and knowledge of coordination.

Building Collaboration, Building Community: A Home for Northern Learning explores the potential for architecture to support learning endeavors in the Canadian North. Informed by traditional approaches to northern learning for cultural continuity, alongside the assimilative effects of the residential school experience, the thesis strives to develop an environment for contemporary northern learning where both Aboriginal cultures and values can thrive alongside current educational endeavors. Situated within a context plagued by imposed and unsuccessful architectural models, the thesis advocates for a design process rooted in collaborative ideals. At its core, the thesis asserts that both the local knowledge of the community and the training of the architect are vital components in the design process. In the development of an environment for northern learning, both the socio-cultural visions of a northern people and the skill sets of the architect are of necessity. Local stories and perspectives - both past and present - guide project developments. As directed by the community, the scope of work does not focus solely upon the formal learning environment, but rather upon a series of social and cultural structures designed to support learners within the northern educational context. Technically, as informed by traditional architectural predecessors, the contemporary forms are developed in accordance with the local climate: the proposed architecture invites its inhabitants to thrive within the immediate northern landscape. Ultimately, these explorations – of community vision and technical design - are synthesized into a series of design vignettes for a student living community in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The ideas housed within the architectural translations and the broader thesis documentations are not finite conclusions but rather they form the foundation for future investigations: they provide a starting point for continued dialogues and developments.

This thesis examines the strategic drivers and processes governing the development of products and/or technologies by multiple economic entities. The thesis adopts an operational approach in addressing the question and examines the how of joint product development. For this purpose, the different mechanisms that enable joint product development licensing, outsourced development, and codevelopment are considered, and the focus is restricted to the analysis and characterization of the optimal management of joint product development mechanisms. Regarding the mechanism of licensing, the thesis examines both its dynamic inter-temporal implications (i.e., how licenses should be structured given that licensing will also occur in the future) as well as the role of the technology in question (i.e., how are licenses affected by the type of technology being licensed). Along the first dimension, the thesis finds that license fees (and the negotiation with potential licensees) may be structured so as to induce a controlled diffusion depending on the technology roadmap the provider firm has laid out for the future. On the second dimension, the study finds that when the technological solution being licensed requires minimal integration from the licensees side, it may be beneficial to restrict attention to a few potential licensees instead of licensing to the entire market. On the codevelopment side, the thesis presents an original case study that uncovers some of the salient features present in many joint development efforts. Subsequently, a mathematical model is proposed that captures the key dimensions of the phenomenon that were identified through the case study. Analysis of the normative model reveals the key role of market and development uncertainty in structuring the formal contractual agreements and sharing the value created through the codevelopment effort.

This thesis investigates the changing boundaries of the firm. Drawing on a study of the aircraft engine industry, it explores the managerial choices faced by firms in the development of complex products. The thesis builds on the literature on the resourcebased view of the firm, and studies on inter-firm division of labour. It integrates comparative quantitative analysis and case study methods. The thesis shows that despite the increasing use of collaborative agreements, aircraft engine manufacturers maintain a broad and deep set of in-house technological capabilities. Collaborative agreements are used to complement in-house technological capabilities and as a means to maintain systems integration capabilities. The thesis also shows that the aircraft engine industry is characterised by (a) increasing product modularization, often entailing a greater division of labour across firms at the product level, and (b) active co-ordination by engine manufacturers at the technological level. These two phenomena demonstrate that the technological boundaries of the firm differ fundamentally from the boundaries of the firm as defined by make-buy decisions. Outsourcing of components does not necessarily entail outsourcing technologies. These findings challenge current managerial prescriptions that suggest that firms should focus on a few technological capabilities. They also challenge the literature that argues that modularity should inform product design as well as firms' technology bases. The thesis proposes a framework to analyse the boundaries of firms developing complex products. Focusing on their role as systems integrators, it identifies two key dimensions of systems integration: synchronic and diachronic. Synchronic systems integration refers to the range of in-house technological capabilities of engine manufacturers required to set the concept design, decompose it, co-ordinate the network of suppliers, and re-compose the engine within a given product architecture. Diachronic systems integration refers to engine manufacturers' capabilities to envisage different paths of product architectures to meet evolving customer and regulatory requirements.

The geographic location of Fezile Dabi District Municipality is unique in the sense that it is one of five district municipalities in the Free State Province that borders on five district municipalities and three provincial boundaries. The Vaal River, a valuable domestic, industrial and agricultural water resource for millions of South Africans, forms one of the administrative boundaries of this district municipality and of the Free State Province. However, despite the vital role the Vaal River plays in the Fezile Dabi region, there is poor water management and assessment system in place. There is a lack of intergovernmental and trans boundary efforts to assess water quality by both district municipalities and provinces. The status of the Vaal River as a visible aquatic boundary line provides an excellent opportunity to develop a trans boundary collaborative water quality monitoring strategy between Fezile Dabi District Municipality and its neighbouring district municipalities. The only way to ensure the safety of water and a healthy environment for all is by addressing the challenges of water quality monitoring in a Trans boundary, integrated and multidisciplinary manner. This study provides a strategy for Fezile Dabi District Municipality and its neighbours by proposing an ideal structure to optimise effective water quality monitoring between them. Firstly, it gives an explanation of what is meant by water quality monitoring as a key performance area of municipal health services. Secondly, information is provided and proposals made on how to integrate water quality monitoring across municipal boundaries. Thirdly, the study suggests how trans boundary collaboration can contribute to improving water quality assessment strategies between Fezile Dabi District Municipality and its adjacent district municipalities. Lastly, an exposition of an ideal organisational structure and methods to optimise effective water quality monitoring between Fezile Dabi District and these municipalities is provided. A way forward is proposed in terms of a structure negotiated and developed at an environmental health workshop held on 28–29 March 2012 in Sasolburg. / Thesis (M. Development and Management (Water Studies))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013