Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes special report study entitled: Intelligent envelope. Includes bibliographical references.

One of the key factors that determines the success of a shopping centre is how efficient are its human resources utilized to maximize its value. This study investigates how corporate business strategies, as reflected in the perceptions and beliefs of shopping centre managerial staff, affect management efficiency, which is defined as efficiency of human resource utilization in shopping centre management. We measure the management efficiency of a shopping centre’s management by comparing inputs and outputs using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The inputs are defined as the different types of human resources utilized to manage a shopping centre, while outputs are measured by the rental value per floor area holding a range of exogenous factors constant. These exogenous factors include location attributes and physical characteristics of the shopping centres. Data on inputs and the beliefs and perceptions of managerial staff at different levels were collected by questionnaire surveys followed up by telephone calls and interviews. We collected data from 106 shopping centres located along the Mass Transit Railway lines. At the strategic level, we found that management that focused on satisfying the needs of shoppers rather than those of tenants was more efficient. However, whether management adopted a centralized or decentralized approach to shopping centre management had no impact on management efficiency. Management that aimed to maximize short term rental income and that which focused on achieving longer term branding effects had similar levels of management efficiency. For leasing and marketing management, we found that management that focused on achieving a planned optimal tenant mix was more efficient. Contrary to most people’s beliefs, management that believed in maximizing customer flow was less efficient. Our empirical data also suggested that the professional qualifications of leasing and marketing staff were not important as far as the efficiency of shopping centre management was concerned. At the operational level of property and facilities management, we found that shopping centres were more efficiently managed if management at this level believed that professional qualifications were important for property and facilities management, which was in sharp contrast with the findings for leasing and marketing management. We also found that management that aimed to control costs within budget and that which aimed to create value did not differ significantly from each other in terms of management efficiency. Finally, although property and facilities management were at the technical level of overseeing the physical structure, management that believed in satisfying users’ needs more than merely maintaining the physical conditions of the property tended to achieve higher management efficiency. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (MTech. degree in Contact Centre Management) - Tshwane University of Technology, 2007. / The purpose of this study is to assess the experience of contact centre agents who have been trained according to the current Tshwane University of Technology curriculum for the Contact Centre Management qualification. The aim is to develop a more effective outcomes-based curriculum for contact centre agents.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences

No description available.

No description available.

Congestion control has been extensively studied for many years. Today, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is used in a wide range of networks (LAN, WAN, data center, campus network, enterprise network, etc.) as the de facto congestion control mechanism. Despite its common usage, TCP operates in these networks with little knowledge of the underlying network or traffic characteristics. As a result, it is doomed to continuously increase or decrease its congestion window size in order to handle changes in the network or traffic conditions. Thus, TCP frequently overshoots or undershoots the ideal rate making it a "Jack of all trades, master of none" congestion control protocol. In light of the emerging popularity of centrally controlled Software-Defined Networks (SDNs), we ask whether we can take advantage of the information available at the central controller to improve TCP. Specifically, in this thesis, we examine the design and implementation of OpenTCP, a dynamic and programmable TCP adaptation framework for SDN-enabled data centers. OpenTCP gathers global information about the status of the network and traffic conditions through the SDN controller, and uses this information to adapt TCP. OpenTCP periodically sends updates to end-hosts which, in turn, update their behaviour using a simple kernel module. In this thesis, we first present two real-world TCP adaptation experiments in depth: (1) using TCP pacing in inter-data center communications with shallow buffers, and (2) using Trickle to rate limit TCP video streaming. We explain the design, implementation, limitation, and benefits of each TCP adaptation to highlight the potential power of having a TCP adaptation framework in today's networks. We then discuss the architectural design of OpenTCP, as well as its implementation and deployment at SciNet, Canada's largest supercomputer center. Furthermore, we study use-cases of OpenTCP using the ns-2 network simulator. We conclude that OpenTCP-based congestion control simplifies the process of adapting TCP to network conditions, leads to improvements in TCP performance, and is practical in real-world settings.

Congestion control has been extensively studied for many years. Today, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is used in a wide range of networks (LAN, WAN, data center, campus network, enterprise network, etc.) as the de facto congestion control mechanism. Despite its common usage, TCP operates in these networks with little knowledge of the underlying network or traffic characteristics. As a result, it is doomed to continuously increase or decrease its congestion window size in order to handle changes in the network or traffic conditions. Thus, TCP frequently overshoots or undershoots the ideal rate making it a "Jack of all trades, master of none" congestion control protocol. In light of the emerging popularity of centrally controlled Software-Defined Networks (SDNs), we ask whether we can take advantage of the information available at the central controller to improve TCP. Specifically, in this thesis, we examine the design and implementation of OpenTCP, a dynamic and programmable TCP adaptation framework for SDN-enabled data centers. OpenTCP gathers global information about the status of the network and traffic conditions through the SDN controller, and uses this information to adapt TCP. OpenTCP periodically sends updates to end-hosts which, in turn, update their behaviour using a simple kernel module. In this thesis, we first present two real-world TCP adaptation experiments in depth: (1) using TCP pacing in inter-data center communications with shallow buffers, and (2) using Trickle to rate limit TCP video streaming. We explain the design, implementation, limitation, and benefits of each TCP adaptation to highlight the potential power of having a TCP adaptation framework in today's networks. We then discuss the architectural design of OpenTCP, as well as its implementation and deployment at SciNet, Canada's largest supercomputer center. Furthermore, we study use-cases of OpenTCP using the ns-2 network simulator. We conclude that OpenTCP-based congestion control simplifies the process of adapting TCP to network conditions, leads to improvements in TCP performance, and is practical in real-world settings.

No description available.

Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves 192-201. / Photocopy. / Microfilm. / xv, 201 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm