Since information technologies (IT) such as the "Internet" are being heralded as vehicles for increasing economic integration, the focus of this study is to determine ways that Internet technology can be used to increase West African subregional trade. The research design used both the survey and case methods to determine (1) perceptions of how the four independent variables (political, economic, social and technical) influence Internet adoption, and (2) whether Internet adoption has an influence on subregional trade in West Africa. The multilingual questionnaire (English, French and Portuguese) was based on an extensive review of literature and exploratory information taken from Internet discussion groups. The respondent sample frame was taken from embassy trade lists, commercial trade directories, and convenience samples of Internet discussion groups focusing on technological development in Africa. Questionnaires from seven countries were received. Case analysis consisted of a series of structured interviews which took place at a technology conference in Accra, Ghana. These interviews were conducted to supplement the survey response rate. After the data were tested for both reliability (alpha coefficient) and validity (factor analysis), five hypotheses were tested. The study found that (1) out of the four independent variables chosen for the study, only the political variable had a profound influence on Internet adoption and (2) Internet adoption is strongly correlated with subregional trade. Conclusions drawn from this study suggest that, despite the lack of ability to regulate the Internet, the government plays an important role in producing the a hospitable climate for its development. While cost is still a concern for most trade companies, awareness of the Internet is widespread and "technophobia" has been surmounted. Alternative power sources are needed to sustain growth and collaborative efforts are encouraged for subregional integration. Some recommendations are: formation of Internet advocacy groups to influence government technological initiatives; collaboration between subregional organs such as Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), West African Monetary Agency (WAMA) and West African Enterprise Network (WAEN); proliferation of subregional "telecenters"; "West African Internetwork" topology using Internet and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to promote subregional integration.

This study examined the extent to which small businesses, with an international focus, are employing formaI business planning techniques and the extent to which such techniques contribute to the success of these businesses. The study was based on the hypothesis that small business success is associated with formal business planning. Indicators of both formal business planning, the independent variable, and small business success, the dependent variable, were developed. Survey research was conducted to generate and analyze data gathered from one hundred business owners/operators of small businesses, with an international focus, located within the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). A five-page questionnaire was developed and a survey analysis grid was designed. The researcher found that those businesses practicing formal business planning techniques were more successful than those not employing them. The conclusions drawn from these findings suggest that formal business planning contributes to the success of small businesses with an international focus.

This thesis addresses the issue of the relevance of the North Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO) in the Post Cold War era. It has been argued that due to the end of the Cold War, the diminished threat of a nuclear war, and the fall of communism, NATO may no longer be a relevant institution. A content analysis of information in the "Facts on File Yearbook" was done to examine the variables associated with NATO's involvement in 4335 critical international incidents from 1949 to 1993. The research measures NATO's involvement in international events during and after the Cold War. As a content analysis, this study provides an overview of NATO's involvement in aggressive confrontations from 1950 to 1993. The research found that NATO was involved in a substantial amount of non- Cold War, non-nuclear threat and non-Communist threat conflicts, thus leading us to conclude that NATO will be a relevant institution in the Post Cold War era. The examination of the factors associated with NATO's participation in world events, gives useful feedback on its impact, provides a basis for measuring NATO's relevance in the Post Cold War era and is a general contribution to the study of international conflict management and the field of International Affairs.

This thesis examines a number of natural and anthropogenic disturbances within marine macrophyte habitats of the Caribbean. Understanding the effects of disturbance and the patterns associated with such dynamics is fundamental to ecological studies. Dynamics of interest included: interactions between populations; interactions between life history strategies; successional regimes; and alterations of community structure including loss of trophic heterogeneity and the possibility of "alternate" states. First I explored natural physical disturbance and succession. The dominance of macroalgae in the mid-shore, between areas of seagrass, challenged "classic" succession in such communities. I therefore proposed a model that included chronic "stress" by wave energy that could lead to a reversal in the climax state. Next, I investigated the importance of other grazers (i.e. trophic heterogeneity) in mediating the strength of trophic cascades (e.g. overgrazing). The enclosure experiments used suggested that different life history strategies respond differently to experimental conditions and that interference competition between specialist (conch) and generalist (urchins) grazers results in urchins switching to alternate resources and displaying lower condition. This dynamic may indirectly "buffer" the community against population expansions of urchins and overgrazing of diversity enhancing detritus. Under high nutrient enrichment, urchins maintained themselves, the trophic cascade and low diversity by switching to "expanded" autochthonous and "new" allochthonous resources. I continued to examine the effects of increasing nutrient enrichment, which correlated well with increasing human density, by examining eleven seagrass beds. The patterns of increasing consumer density and decreasing consumer diversity corresponded well to increasing enrichment and loss of autochthonous detritus. At high levels of enrichment, the community was dominated (> 90%) b

The majority of existing controlled languages for English language technical documentation for industrial and consumer electronics are in-house, proprietary systems. As a result, limited information or research has been published and disseminated about them. This has created knowledge gaps that are addressed in this thesis. First, the thesis provides a detailed description of existing controlled languages with a stated aim to improve technical documentation comprehensibility and readability for native and non-native English users. This is achieved through obtaining information, much of which was previously unavailable or difficult to obtain, about their rule sets and lexicons. This fills a gap in knowledge about existing controlled languages. Second, the thesis analyses and synthesises the best-practice features of the text in modern, quality technical documentation that have been identified in government, academic and professional literature as contributing to comprehensibility (the cognitive use of the text to process and identify information) and readability (the physical use of the text to visually scan and recognise information). It then uses the identified linguistic, organisational and visual features of the text to analyse the rule sets from existing controlled languages. The main finding of the analysis is that the existing controlled languages fail to address the visual features of the text despite their prominence in the literature as contributing primarily to readability. The thesis seeks to address this failure to adopt a holistic approach to the improvement of technical documentation in existing controlled languages by developing a new, broader controlled language for consumer electronics with comprehensibility and readability-oriented rules that fully address the linguistic, organisational and visual features of the text. This is named COED (an acronym for Controlled English Documentation). Third, the thesis provides a detailed description of a study to evaluate the effect of applying the comprehensibility and readability-oriented rules from COED to extracts from existing technical documentation for consumer electronics. The findings clearly show that the application of the comprehensibility-oriented rules (that aim to make it easier to cognitively process and identify information) allows the native and non-native English users in the study to locate and understand information more accurately. With the additional application of the readability-oriented rules (that aim to make it easier to visually scan and recognise information), the native and non-native English users in the study are also able to locate and understand information more quickly. The study provides an encouraging demonstration of the potential of COED to improve both the accuracy and speed with which information in technical documentation for consumer electronics can be located and understood by native and non-native English users. It also fills a gap in research knowledge about controlled languages.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Investigations into the transmission of real-time interactive speech over local area networks (LAN) in an industriai/commerciai environment to eventually obviate the need for a private automatic branch exchange and ultimately prepare the way for a single interactive integrated information system (PS) that provides work stations, which are networked via a LAN, with a fully interactive speech and graphics facility commensurate with the future requirements in computer integrated manufacturing (CIM). The reasons for conducting this programme of research were that existing LANs do not offer a real time interactive speech facility. Any verbal communication between workstation users on the LAN has to be carried out over a telephone network (PABX). This necessitates the provision of a second completely separate network with its associated costs. Initial investigations indicate that there is sufGcient capacity on existing LANs to support both data and real-time speech provided certain data packet delay criteria can be met. Earlier research work (in the late 1980s) has been conducted at Bell Labs and MIT. [Ref 25, 27 & 28], University of Strathclyde [Ref 24] and at BTRL [Ref 22 and 37]. In all of these cases the real time implementation issues were not fijlly addressed. In this thesis the research work reported provides the main criteria for the implementation of real-time interactive speech on both existing and newly installed networks. With such enhanced communication facilities, designers and engineers on the shop floor can be projected into their suppliers, providing a much greater integration between manufacturer and supplier which will be beneficial as Concurrent and Simultaneous Engineering Methodologies are further developed. As a result, various LANs have been evaluated as to their suitability for the transmission of real time interactive speech. As LANs, in general, can be separated into those with either deterministic or stochastic access mechanisms, investigations were carried out into the ability of both the: (i) Token Passing Bus LANs supporting the Manufacturing and Automation Protocol (MAP)—Deterministic and (u) Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) LANs supporting the Technical Office Protocol (TOP)— Stochastic to support real time interactive speech, as both are used extensively in commerce and manufacturing. The thesis that real time interactive speech can be transmitted over LANs employed in a computer integrated manufacturing environment has to be moderated following the tests carried out in this work, as follows:- The Token Passing LAN presents no serious problems under normal traffic conditions, however, the CSMA/CD LAN can only be used in relatively light traffic conditions i.e. below 30% of its designed maximum capacity, providing special arrangements are made to minimise the access, transmission and processing delays of speech packets. Given that a certain amount of delay is inevitable in packet switched systems (LANs), investigations have been carried out into techniques for reducing the subjective efifect of speech packet loss on real-time interactive systems due to the unacceptable delays caused by the conditions mentioned above.

Begreppet area har visat sig vara svårt att förstå. I de högre åldrarna visar eleverna bristande kunskaper om begreppet i olika mätningar, nationella som internationella. Den här studiens syfte var att ta reda på hur begreppet area behandlas på lågstadiet. Studien är en kvalitativ studie med semistrukturerade intervjuer av både lärare och elever på en lågstadieskola i södra Sverige. Resultatet visar att undervisningen om area börjar redan i årskurs 1 och lärarnas mål är att eleverna ska få en känsla för vad area innebär. Undervisningen utgår från matematikboken vars vanligaste mätmetod är ett rutnät av kvadrater. Eleverna utgår i första hand från sin förmåga att uppskatta en figurs storlek men använder sig även av olika mätverktyg, då främst rutnät. Undervisningen skulle kunna utökas med mer laborativa material och undersökande arbetsmetoder för att ge eleverna bättre förutsättningar att bygga upp sin rumsuppfattningsförmåga.