Magister Scientiae Dentium - MSc(Dent) / It is generally agreed that the most troublesome procedure during the fabrication of complete dentures is the measurement of the Vertical Dimension at rest. The aim of this study was to test the reliability and validity of a new instrument called the Facial Anthropological Device (FAD). The measurements recorded were compared to the Willis gauge (being the gold standard) and dividers, which are mechanical aids used to quantify lower third facial height during denture construction. This thesis presents data on 35 edentulous and 35 dentate patients in the age range of 30 to 70 years, who presented at the University of the Western Cape Dental faculty.The FAD incorporates a ‘spirit‐level’ and uses more anatomical landmarks than any other measuring device noted in the literature. It measures facial landmarks in the midline and is not only used to measure the vertical dimension of the face, but with further research, may also be used in forensic studies. The Willis gauge is designed to measure the distance from the lower border of the septum of the nose to the lower border of the chin, and the distance from the outer canthus of the eye to the corner of the relaxed lip with the teeth in occlusion. The dividers measures two arbitrary points on the face.The study showed that the FAD was most similar to the Willis gauge where reliability and reproducibility was compared. There were no statistically significant differences (P > 0.05) between the two devices.The FAD has shown to be a reliable and valid instrument that could be used to measure facial vertical dimension in the edentulous as well as dentate patients, however with some modifications to its design.

Abstract Developments in information technology have had a big impact in healthcare, producing vast amounts of data and increasing demands associated with their secure transfer, storage and analysis. To serve them, biomedical data need to carry patient information and records or even extra biomedical images or signals required for multimodal applications. The proposed solution is to host this information in data using data hiding algorithms through the introduction of imperceptible modifications achieving two main purposes: increasing data management efficiency and enhancing the security aspects of confidentiality, reliability and availability. Data hiding achieve this by embedding the payload in objects, including components such as authentication tags, without requirements in extra space or modifications in repositories. The proposed methods satisfy two research problems. The first is the hospital-centric problem of providing efficient and secure management of data in hospital networks. This includes combinations of multimodal data in single objects. The host data were biomedical images and sequences intended for diagnoses meaning that even non-visible modifications can cause errors. Thus, a determining restriction was reversibility. Reversible data hiding methods remove the introduced modifications upon extraction of the payload. Embedding capacity was another priority that determined the proposed algorithms. To meet those demands, the algorithms were based on the Least Significant Bit Substitution and Histogram Shifting approaches. The second was the patient-centric problem, including user authentication and issues of secure and efficient data transfer in eHealth systems. Two novel solutions were proposed. The first method uses data hiding to increase the robustness of face biometrics in photos, where due to the high robustness requirements, a periodic pattern embedding approach was used. The second method protects sensitive user data collected by smartphones. In this case, to meet the low computational cost requirements, the method was based on Least Significant Bit Substitution. Concluding, the proposed algorithms introduced novel data hiding applications and demonstrated competitive embedding properties in existing applications. / Tiivistelmä Modernit terveydenhuoltojärjestelmät tuottavat suuria määriä tietoa, mikä korostaa tiedon turvalliseen siirtämiseen, tallentamiseen ja analysointiin liittyviä vaatimuksia. Täyttääkseen nämä vaatimukset, biolääketieteellisen tiedon täytyy sisältää potilastietoja ja -kertomusta, jopa biolääketieteellisiä lisäkuvia ja -signaaleja, joita tarvitaan multimodaalisissa sovelluksissa. Esitetty ratkaisu on upottaa tämä informaatio tietoon käyttäen tiedonpiilotusmenetelmiä, joissa näkymättömiä muutoksia tehden saavutetaan kaksi päämäärää: tiedonhallinnan tehokkuuden nostaminen ja luottamuksellisuuteen, luotettavuuteen ja saatavuuteen liittyvien turvallisuusnäkökulmien parantaminen. Tiedonpiilotus saavuttaa tämän upottamalla hyötykuorman, sisältäen komponentteja, kuten todentamismerkinnät, ilman lisätilavaatimuksia tai muutoksia tietokantoihin. Esitetyt menetelmät ratkaisevat kaksi tutkimusongelmaa. Ensimmäinen on sairaalakeskeinen ongelma tehokkaan ja turvallisen tiedonhallinnan tarjoamiseen sairaaloiden verkoissa. Tämä sisältää multimodaalisen tiedon yhdistämisen yhdeksi kokonaisuudeksi. Tiedon kantajana olivat biolääketieteelliset kuvat ja sekvenssit, jotka on tarkoitettu diagnosointiin, missä jopa näkymättömät muutokset voivat aiheuttaa virheitä. Siispä määrittävin rajoite oli palautettavuus. Palauttavat tiedonpiilotus-menetelmät poistavat lisätyt muutokset, kun hyötykuorma irrotetaan. Upotuskapasiteetti oli toinen tavoite, joka määritteli esitettyjä algoritmeja. Saavuttaakseen nämä vaatimukset, algoritmit perustuivat vähiten merkitsevän bitin korvaamiseen ja histogrammin siirtämiseen. Toisena oli potilaskeskeinen ongelma, joka sisältää käyttäjän henkilöllisyyden todentamisen sekä turvalliseen ja tehokkaaseen tiedonsiirtoon liittyvät haasteet eHealth-järjestelmissä. Työssä ehdotettiin kahta uutta ratkaisua. Ensimmäinen niistä käyttää tiedonpiilotusta parantamaan kasvojen biometriikan kestävyyttä valokuvissa. Korkeasta kestävyysvaatimuksesta johtuen käytettiin periodisen kuvion upottamismenetelmää. Toinen menetelmä suojelee älypuhelimien keräämää arkaluontoista käyttäjätietoa. Tässä tapauksessa, jotta matala laskennallinen kustannus saavutetaan, menetelmä perustui vähiten merkitsevän bitin korvaamiseen. Yhteenvetona ehdotetut algoritmit esittelivät uusia tiedonpiilotussovelluksia ja osoittivat kilpailukykyisiä upotusominaisuuksia olemassa olevissa sovelluksissa.

L’Internet a été initialement conçu pour servir des usages fixes et sédentaires, cependant les projections montrent que les futurs utilisateurs d'Internet seront de plus en plus mobiles. A l'heure actuelle, la rapidité avec laquelle cette évolution se déroule et la gestion souvent insuffisante des réseaux d'accès représentent un obstacle majeur au développement de services avancés. Afin de résoudre ces problèmes et répondre aux besoins de l'Internet mobile, les fournisseurs de services ont besoin de maîtriser l'expansion de la capacité nécessaire dans leurs réseaux de collecte, sinon le trafic de donnés va pouvoir boucher leurs réseaux dans le futur. Le déploiement des nouvelles générations de réseaux fournit des hautes bandes passantes et débits mais implique souvent des grandes dépenses en capital et en exploitation. Une alternative économiquement et techniquement viable est représentée par les solutions de déchargement du trafic mobile. Ces solutions peuvent réduire la surcharge sur le spectre radio et sur les stations de base et sur le réseau de collecte. Les solutions de déchargement les plus couramment utilisées sont le déchargement sur les réseaux de femtocellules et les réseaux Wi-Fi. Dans le même contexte, pour résoudre le problème de congestion dans le réseau cellulaire, une nouvelle solution est récemment apparue: Information Centric networking permettant la mise en cache des contenus dans le réseau ce qui minimise le temps d'accès aux contenus. L'objectif de cette thèse est donc d'étudier ces nouvelles solutions de déchargement de trafic et de contenu dans les réseaux cellulaires en prenant en considération les schémas de mobilité et les comportements humains. / The Internet was initially conceived to serve fix and sedentary usages, while current socio-technological trends clearly show that future Internet users will be increasingly mobile and nomadic. At present, the speed at which this evolution takes place and the inadequate management of access networks represent a major obstacle in the development of advanced services. To solve these problems and to meet the needs of mobile Internet, service providers need to master the needed capacity expansion in their backhauling network, otherwise the data traffic will clog their networks in the future. Next-generation network deployments promise to deliver higher bandwidth and speed, but they often imply high capital and operational expenditures. An alternative economically and technically viable way is represented by mobile data offloading solutions. These solutions can reduce the load on radio spectrum, on base stations and on backhauling network. The most commonly used offloading solutions are over small-networks and over Wi-Fi networks. In the same context, and in order to solve the problem of congestion in the cellular network, a new solution has emerged recently : Information Centric Networking for in-network caching that permits to minimize content access latency. The objective of this thesis is to study these new traffic and content offloading solutions in cellular networks while taking into account the mobility patterns and human behavior.

Récemment, les villes sont devenues "de plus en plus intelligentes", avec une multitude de périphériques IoT et de capteurs déployés partout. Parmi ces objets intelligents, les voitures peuvent jouer un rôle important. Les véhicules sont (ou seront), en effet, équipés avec plusieurs interfaces réseau, ils ont (ou auront) des capacités de calcul et des dispositifs capables d'analyser l'environnement. Pour réaliser le concept de "connected-car" il faut un changement de modèle Internet, à partir d'une architecture centrée sur l'hôte (IP) vers un paradigme centré sur l'information, comment l'architecture ICN (Information Centric Networking). Cette thèse analyse ainsi les avantages et les défis du paradigme ICN, en particulier du Named Data Networking (NDN), dans le domaine VANET, en présentant la première implémentation de NDN pour VANET (V-NDN). Il propose ensuite Navigo, un mécanisme de forwarding basé sur NDN pour la récupération de contenu en utilisant les communications V2V et V2I. Ensuite, le problème de la mobilité des fournisseurs de données est traité, proposant une solution distribuée basée sur NDN, MAP-Me. Toutefois, le rôle du véhicule dans les villes intelligentes ne s'arrête pas au niveau de la connectivité. Les voitures, avec leurs nouvelles capacités de calcul, sont les candidates idéales pour jouer un rôle dans l'architecture Fog Computing, en déplaçant des tâches de calcul vers l'edge du réseau. En tant que preuve de concept, cette thèse présente ParkMaster, un système qui combine les techniques de machine learning, le cloud et l'edge pour analyser l'environnement et traiter le problème de la disponibilité du stationnement. / In the recent years we have seen a continuous integration of technology with the urban environment. This fusion aims to improve the efficiency and the quality of living in big urban agglomerates, while reducing the costs for their management. Cities are getting “smarter and smarter”, with a plethora of IoT devices and sensors deployed all over the urban areas. Among those intelligent objects, an important role may be played by cars. Modern vehicles are (or will be) indeed equipped with multiple network interfaces, they have (or will have) computational capabilities and devices able to sense the environment. However, smart and connected cars do not represent only an opportunity, but also a challenge. Computation capabilities are limited, mobility and the diversity of network interfaces are obstacles when providing connectivity to the Internet and to other vehicles. When addressing the networking aspect, we believe that a shift in the Internet model is needed, from a host oriented architecture (IP) to a more content focused paradigm, the Information Centric Networking (ICN) architectures. This thesis thus analyzes the benefits and the challenges of the ICN paradigm, in particular of Named Data Networking (NDN), in the VANET domain, presenting the first implementation running on real cars of NDN for VANET (V-NDN). It then proposes Navigo, an NDN based forwarding mechanism for content retrieval over V2V and V2I communications, with the goal of efficiently discovering and retrieving data while reducing the network overhead. Networking mobility is not only a challenge for vehicles, but for any connected mobile device. For this reason, this thesis extends its initial area of interest — VANET — and addresses the network mobility problem for generic mobile nodes, proposing a NDN-based solution, dubbed MAP–Me. MAP-Me tackles the intra-AS content provider mobility problem without relying on any fixed node in the network. It exploits notifications messages at the time of a handover and the forwarding plane to maintain the data provider “always” reachable.Finally, the “connected car” concept is not the only novel element in modern vehicles. Cars indeed won’t be only connected, but also smart, able to locally process data produced by in-car sensors. Vehicles are the perfect candidates to play an important role in the recently proposed Fog Computing architecture. Such an architecture moves computational tasks typical of the cloud away from it and brings them to the edge, closer to where the data is produced. To prove that such a model, with the car as computing edge node, is already feasible with the current technology and not only a vision for the future, this thesis presents ParkMaster. Parkmaster is a fully deployed edge-based system that combines vision and machine learning techniques, the edge (driver’s smartphone) and the cloud to sense the environment and tackle the parking availability problem.

No description available.

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Network-centric architectures continue to gain acceptance in data acquisition and telemetry systems. Though networks by nature impose non-deterministic transit time of data through a given link, the IEEE 1588 standard provides a means to remove this jitter by distributing time messages to the data acquisition units themselves. But like all standards, they evolve over time. The same is true with IEEE 1588, which is releasing its second version later this year. This paper discusses the challenges of the first version of the IEEE 1588 standard that Version 2 set out to address, potential challenges with Version 2, and interoperability issues that may arise when incorporating a mixture of Version 1 and Version 2 devices.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The growth of the Internet and the resulting increasing speeds and decreasing prices of network equipment have spurred much interest in applying networks to flight test applications. However, the best-effort, variable-latency nature of network transport causes challenges that must be addressed to provide reliable data acquisition and timing performance. This paper describes the major issues that must be addressed when designing and implementing real-time networking applications. An overview of a recently implemented large-scale, network-centric data acquisition, recording, and telemetry system for commercial flight test applications provides a real-world example of what is currently achievable.

Thesis (PhD (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During the past 15 years knowledge management has emerged as a key new organisational practice with numerous organisations implementing processes aimed at facilitating knowledge creation, integration and sharing. With knowledge management positioned as a strategic imperative, numerous studies have explored its resource-base and management alternatives. These studies have played an important role in establishing knowledge management as a field of inquiry within the business sciences, but a number of weaknesses put knowledge management at risk of becoming another passing fad. Previous research tends to prescribe a tool, method or way of looking at knowledge while disregarding any differences in organisational context and displaying little attempt to differentiate organisations in a meaningful way. This assumed homogeneity constitutes a deficiency in knowledge management research. The knowledge-based view of the firm emphasises distinct knowledge as the key source of firm heterogeneity, and the role of the organisation as that of knowledge creation. This view largely ignores the personal and social nature of knowledge, and the role of the firm in providing the organisational context for creating, sharing and integrating knowledge. Knowledge management, as an embodiment of the knowledge-based view, thus also fails to explore organisational context as a possible source of competitive advantage, thereby limiting the potential of knowledge management initiatives. The central theme of the study is that the capacity to provide an institutional context for the creation, sharing and integration of knowledge, henceforth the knowledge-centric capability, rather than distinct knowledge, is the key strategic resource of the organisation. The objective of the study therefore is to understand how different knowledge-centric capabilities configure in different organisational contexts. The objective is achieved by addressing three research questions, namely what dimensions can be used to describe a knowledge-centric capability, what configurations of knowledge-centric capabilities emerge in different organisational contexts, and why do specific configurations of knowledge-centric capabilities emerge in specific organisational contexts? Considering the philosophical foundations of the study, namely knowledge as personal, social and context-specific and the organisation as an open, adaptive system, the study follows a social constructionist research philosophy. The study’s focus on identifying emerging patterns or configurations of knowledge-centric capabilities necessitates a configurational research approach. This allows the study to move beyond uncovering relationships that hold across all organisations, affording the opportunity to identify multi-dimensional constellations of conceptually distinct characteristics that commonly occur together. A sequential mixed-method research methodology is employed to address the research objective and research questions. First a conceptual framework is developed from the extant literature in order to identify the dimensions of a knowledge-centric capability. Next a theorydriven survey, based on the dimensions of the conceptual framework, is employed to obtain data from which the configurations of knowledge-centric capabilities are derived using cluster analysis. Finally, four case studies are presented to explain the emergence of the configurations within specific organisational contexts. This research is important for two main reasons. First, it addresses the identified shortcoming of existing research by providing a mechanism to explore an organisation’s knowledgecentric capability following a context-sensitive approach. Second, the research demonstrates that knowledge-centric capabilities can indeed be used to differentiate between organisations at a strategic level. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die afgelope 15 jaar het kennisbestuur as ‘n belangrike nuwe besigheidspraktyk ontwikkel, met talle ondernemings wat prosesse implementeer wat daarop gemik is om die skepping, integrasie en deel van kennis te fasiliteer. Met die posisionering van kennisbestuur as ‘n strategiese noodsaaklikheid, het verskeie studies die hulpbron-basis en bestuurs alternatiewe ondersoek. Hierdie studies het ‘n belangrike rol gespeel om kennisbestuur as ‘n navorsingsveld te vestig in die bestuurswetenskappe, maar ‘n aantal gebreke laat kennisbestuur die gevaar loop om net ‘n verbygaande gier te word. Bestaande navorsing neig om ‘n instrument, metodiek of manier voor te skryf om na kennis te kyk. Maar terselfdetyd word enige verskille in organisasies se konteks geïgnoreer en is daar min aanduiding van ‘n poging om organisasies op ‘n sinvolle wyse te onderskei. Hierdie veronderstelde homogeniteit vorm ‘n gebrek in kennisbestuur navorsing. Die kennis-perspektief van die organisasie beklemtoon unieke kennis as die belangrikste bron van firma heterogeniteit, en die rol van die organisasie as dié van kennis skepping. Hierdie uitkyk ignoreer grotendeels die persoonlike en sosiale aard van kennis en die rol van die firma in die voorsiening van ‘n organisasie konteks vir die skep, deel en integrasie van kennis. Kennisbestuur, as ‘n vergestalting van die kennis perspektief, faal dus ook om organisasie konteks to ondersoek as ‘n moontlike bron van mededingings voordeel. Sodoende word die potensiaal van kennisbestuur inisiatiewe beperk. Die uitganspunt van die studie is dat die kapasiteit om ‘n institusionele konteks te voorsien vir die skeppping, deel en integrasie van kennis, of te wel die kennis-sentriese vermoë, eerder as unieke kennis die kern strategiese helpbron van ‘n organisasie is. Die doel van die studie is dus om te verstaan hoe verskillende kennis-sentriese vermoëns konfigureer in verskillende organisasie kontekste. Die doel word behaal deur drie navorsingsvrae te adresseer, naamlik watter dimensies kan gebruik word om ‘n kennis-sentriese vermoë te beskryf, watter konfigurasies van kennis-sentriese vermoëns tree na vore in verskillende organisasie kontekste en waarom tree spesifieke konfigurasies van kennis-sentriese vermoëns na vore in spesifieke organisasie kontekste? Met inagneming van die filosofiese grondslag van die studie, naamlik kennis as persoonlik, sosiaal en konteks-spesifiek en die organisasie as ‘n oop, aanpasbare stelsel, volg die studie ‘n sosiaal konstruksionistiese navorsingsfilosofie. Die studie se fokus op die identifisering van patrone en konfigurasies van kennis-sentriese vermoëns, noodsaak ‘n konfigurasionele-benadering tot die navorsing. Dit laat die studie toe om verder te gaan as om bloot verwantskappe te identifiseer wat vir alle organisasies geld, en stel die studie in staat om multi-dimensionele konstellasies van konseptueel-unieke eienskappe wat tipies saam voor kom te identifiseer. ‘n Sekwensieële gemengde metode navorsingsmetodologie is gebruik om die navorsingsdoel en navorsingsvrae te addresseer. Eerstens is ‘n konseptuele raamwerk uit die bestaande literatuur ontwikkel om sodoende die dimensies van ‘n kennis-sentriese vermoë te identifiseer. Volgende is ‘n teorie-gedrewe vraelys, gebaseer op die dimensies van die konseptuele raamwerk, gebruik om die data te versamel waaruit die konfigurasies van kennissentriese vermoëns met die gebruik van trosanalise. Laastens is vier gevallestudies ontwikkel om die figurering van die konfigurasies binne spesifieke organisasie kontekste te verduidelik. Hierdie navorsing is belangrik vir twee bepaalde redes. Eerstens adresseer dit die geïdentifiseerde tekortkoming van bestaande navorsing deur ‘n meganisme te voorsien waarmee ‘n organisasie se kennis-sentriese vermoë ondersoek kan word, deur ‘n kontekssensitiewe benadering te volg. Tweedens demonstreer die navorsing dat kennis-sentriese vermoëns inderdaad gebruik kan word om op ‘n strategiese vlak tussen organisasies te onderskei.

The main aim of the study was to determine which measurement tool, existing or adapted, would be able to determine the levels of customer centricity within the sales channels of a specific organisation, operating in the South African financial industry. A literary study showed that in order to determine the levels of customer centricity, customer experience should be measured. Six questionnaires were administered, namely, EXQ, NPS, CES, Customer satisfaction, Word-of-Mouth and Behavioural loyalty intention. The data showed a statistical significance and a positive relationship between all the constructs within all the questionnaires except with that of CES. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Early in the year 2014 Russia conducted an irregular warfare campaign in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, in a surprisingly swift operation towards an Ukrainian loss . The warfare strategy focus of this thesis is the irregular aspect of the conflict. The conflict was discussed by NATO in a debate earlier this year. Conclusions stated that both NATO and the EU should enhance their defence and resilience against the irregular aspect of warfare, in order to repel and deter such threats in the future. Academics have different arguments about whether the Russian success was achieved using enemy centric or population centric irregular warfare. The aim of this study is to examine Russia´s annexation of Crimea based on theories of irregular warfare. By adding this research based on the conflict in Crimea, other studies based on the case may increase their scientific validity and reliability. The result shows that during the conflict, Russia used population centric irregular warfare, in parallel with a few aspects of enemy centric warfare. Therefore the irregular warfare conducted by Russia could be explained using both of the stated theories.