Magister Artium - MA / Collection development plays a significant role in the successful achievement of the library’s purpose. The reason for the existence of the library is to meet the information needs of the community it serves. To determine if the PIC is responsive to the information needs of parliamentary researchers, the study used a mixed method of data collection. A survey method in the form of a questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from parliamentary researchers. Other researchers at Parliament, for example researchers employed by political parties are not part of this study. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with a selection of librarians involved in the PIC collection development process and an evaluation of the Collection Development Policy of the PIC. Four librarians from the PIC were interviewed, and the PIC Collection Development Policy was analysed to triangulate data collected from the questionnaire and interviews. The information needs of parliamentary researchers are triggered by the information needs of parliamentarians, and therefore it is significant that the PIC provide a collection that responds to the information needs of researchers so they can provide relevant information to parliamentarians. The findings indicate that the responsiveness of the library material varies according to the needs of the researchers. The PIC will benefit from a proactive involvement of parliamentary researchers in the collection development process. Customised orientation, proper needs analysis and collection evaluation will improve usage of the library resources and responsiveness of the library material to the clients.

Hu, Yong. / Thesis submitted in: October 2007. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-129). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1. --- Background and Motivation --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2. --- Objectives of the Thesis --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3. --- Scope of the Thesis --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4. --- Structure of the Thesis --- p.6 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- Review of Related Technologies --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1. --- Scope and Requirements of the Supply Chain Traceability --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2. --- Automatic Identification and Data Collection Technologies --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.1. --- Introduction to the AIDC Technologies --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.1.1. --- The Barcode --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.1.2. --- The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) --- p.17 / Chapter 2.2.1.3. --- The Sensors for Food --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.1.4. --- The Global Positioning System (GPS) --- p.23 / Chapter 2.2.2. --- Frequencies of the RFID Systems --- p.25 / Chapter 2.2.3. --- Encoding Mechanisms for the RFID Tags and Barcode Labels --- p.30 / Chapter 2.3. --- Standards and Specifications of the EPCglobal --- p.34 / Chapter 2.3.1. --- The EPCglobal Architecture Framework --- p.34 / Chapter 2.3.2. --- The EPCglobal EPCIS Specification --- p.39 / Chapter 2.3.3. --- The EPCglobal Tag Data Standards --- p.42 / Chapter 2.4. --- RFID Applications in Food Supply Chain Management --- p.43 / Chapter 2.5. --- Anti-counterfeit Technologies and Solutions --- p.45 / Chapter 2.6. --- Data Compression Algorithms --- p.47 / Chapter 2.7. --- Shelf Life Prediction Models --- p.49 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Architecture and Scope of the Application System --- p.54 / Chapter 3.1. --- Application System Architecture --- p.54 / Chapter 3.2. --- Application System Scope --- p.55 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- The Tracking and Tracing Management Module --- p.60 / Chapter 4.1. --- Overview --- p.60 / Chapter 4.2. --- AIDC Technologies Adopted for the Traceable Items --- p.62 / Chapter 4.3. --- Mechanism to Achieve the Nested Visibility --- p.70 / Chapter 4.4. --- Information Integration in the EPCIS --- p.75 / Chapter 4.5. --- Anti-counterfeit Mechanism --- p.82 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- The Storage and Transportation Monitoring Module --- p.90 / Chapter 5.1. --- Overview --- p.90 / Chapter 5.2. --- Compression of the Sensor Data --- p.93 / Chapter 5.3. --- Management of the Sensor Data --- p.95 / Chapter 5.4. --- Responsive Warning Mechanism --- p.102 / Chapter Chapter 6. --- The Sensor Networks Enabled Assessment Module --- p.108 / Chapter 6.1. --- Overview --- p.108 / Chapter 6.2. --- Management of the Sensor Network Data --- p.110 / Chapter 6.3. --- Active Warning Mechanism --- p.114 / Chapter Chapter 7. --- Conclusions --- p.122 / Chapter 7.1. --- Contributions --- p.122 / Chapter 7.2. --- Future Work --- p.124

Shouting Distance is a collection of ten short stories written by Gary Thomas Smith. Most of the stories take place in Appalachia and rural Kentucky, and the stories set outside of the region still feature characters whose identities are intricately bound to it. The characters' relationships to Appalachia are complex as some embrace the mountains and their culture, while others feel oppressed by that environment. The stories are driven by characters' relationships with family and friends, with their futures and their pasts, or with cultural expectations. The collection explores themes such as poverty, violence, substance abuse, and loss. The natural world is pervasive throughout these stories, and many of them illustrate the effects of human interaction with the environment. While the seeming decline of rural life is at the foreground of this collection, it does not dismiss the beauty of this life. Rather, it suggests that there is promise for the future in spite of loss, hate, and fear.

A Collection of Stories includes a novel excerpt, two non-fiction pieces, and a short story. The novel is the story of a young woman, Amina, who returns home after the death of her father. There she will confront members of her family about various secrets and acts of indiscretion. Amina keeps secrets herself, as she hid her lovers from her current husband. Writing is aphoristic and poet. One non-fiction essay is an examination of the effects of building design on the human psyche. The other is a postpartum journey through womanhood, as the speaker decides which parts of her past to reveal to her new daughter. The short story is about a sarcastic, young girl with Daddy issues.

This Terrible Silence is a collection of nineteen stand-alone stories. The work largely focuses on characters on the fringe of society—alcoholics, gamblers, thieves, liars, cheaters, and loners, who feel trapped or destined to repeat their troubles. In the struggle to break free, either by self-fulfillment or outside interference, these stories showcase the characters’ hearts and wills in the face of often daunting or insurmountable desperation. The stories in this collection are influenced by the work of Raymond Carver, and the Dirty Realism of Larry Brown, Breece DJ Pancake, Jayne Anne Phillips, and others. With minimal exposition, the characters are laid bare with cutting dialogue and active, scenic description. In the title piece, the narrator intends to tell a man vs. nature story of his encounter with a cougar, but quickly dissolves into a battle with his own slipping mental health in the face of a failing relationship. In the first-person point of view, the act of telling the story holds its own exigency for the narrator’s need to understand his or her motives and desires, as is most evident in Carver’s work, such as “Cathedrals.” In theme and style, I’ve sought to put together a collection that might allow readers to find truth and empathy from common, low, sometimes immoral, but largely human characters.

A presente pesquisa tomou como base a vivência do autor em sua empresa de cobrança educacional, a CAMARGO RODRIGUES. A empresa foi constituída em 1996 com o objetivo de cobrar mensalidades atrasadas de Instituições de Ensino Superior Privadas. Ocorre que, a partir de 2009, a empresa começou a perder receita em razão de diversos fatores, sendo os quatro principais: a concorrência, a concentração do setor educacional, cobrança interna pelo cliente e o fundo de financiamento estudantil - FIES. Naquele momento, a alternativa encontrada para compensar as perdas de receita foi constituir a RAF Advogados, para realizar a cobrança judicial dos débitos que permaneciam em aberto após a cobrança amigável, agregando valor ao serviço de cobrança educacional extrajudicial. Entretanto, a partir de 2016 a empresa voltou a ter problemas de receita em razão do aumento do desemprego decorrente da crise no governo Dilma. Com isso o problema a ser resolvido era: Como retomar o crescimento da Camargo Rodrigues. Após realizar pesquisa pelo método de pesquisa-ação, como solução, os estudos revelaram que a empresa precisava se reinventar criando um novo serviço. Dessa forma, criou-se um novo serviço: a compra de recebíveis vencidos há mais de 90 dias. Este novo serviço foi desenvolvido em cima de uma carteira de 2014 que já havia cumprido todo o ciclo de cobrança amigável e judicial. O modelo de precificação foi calculado por um matemático que considerou diversas variáveis, como o tempo de cobrança amigável e de cobrança judicial, taxas de recuperação, taxas de inadimplência, custos de cobrança amigável e judicial e uma taxa de retorno adequada sobre o capital, o que possibilitou chegar a um percentual para a compra dessas carteiras de mensalidades vencidas. Após validação com os dois principais clientes, concluímos que o estudo foi fundamental por que orientou a negociação com os clientes, pois, quando o novo serviço foi apresentado a dois clientes que o aceitaram de imediato, houve um cliente que queria receber um valor muito alto que comprometeria o retorno e o negócio não se concretizou. Notou-se, então, que a negociação deste novo serviço não será fácil, ainda mais porque o valor final terá de ser menor que o percentual apurado para que haja ganho financeiro além do ponto de equilíbrio. Ademais, o estudo demonstrou que o risco neste tipo de operação é alto, pois o devedor está mais resistente à cobrança. E ainda existem os riscos decorrentes da situação econômica. / This research was based on the author\'s experience in his educational collection company, CAMARGO RODRIGUES. The company was incorporated in 1996 with the purpose of charging late tuition from Private Higher Education Institutions. As of 2009, the company started to lose revenue due to several factors, being the four main ones: competition, concentration of the education sector, internal collection by the client and the student financing fund - FIES. At that time, the alternative found to compensate for the loss of revenue was to set up RAF Advogados, to make the judicial collection of debts that remained open after the friendly collection, adding value to the extrajudicial educational collection service. However, from 2016 the company had again revenue problems due to the increase in unemployment due to the crisis in the Dilma government. With this the problem to be solved was: How to resume the growth of Camargo Rodrigues. After researching the action research method as a solution, studies revealed that the company needed to reinvent itself by creating a new service. Thus, a new service was created: the purchase of receivables overdue for more than 90 days. This new service was developed on top of a 2014 portfolio that had already completed the entire friendly and judicial collection cycle. The pricing model was calculated by a mathematician who considered several variables, such as amicable and judicial collection time, recovery rates, default rates, amicable and judicial collection costs, and an adequate rate of return on capital. which made it possible to reach a percentage for the purchase of these overdue monthly loan portfolios. After validation with the two main clients, we concluded that the study was fundamental because it guided the negotiation with the clients, because when the new service was presented to two clients who immediately accepted it, there was one client who wanted to receive a very high value. that would compromise the return and the deal did not materialize. It was noted, then, that the negotiation of this new service will not be easy, especially since the final value will have to be less than the percentage calculated for financial gain beyond the break-even point. In addition, the study showed that the risk in this type of operation is high because the debtor is more resistant to recovery. And there are still risks arising from the economic situation.

This study develops a general procedure for forming a well-defined collection of documents on a research topic, which is suitable for bibliometric analysis. The procedure is applied to one research topic in Library and Information Science, Bradford's Law of Scattering. An analysis is made of the underlying concepts, viz. 'document', 'selection', 'collection comprehensiveness', 'topic', 'research topic', and 'on' and 'relevant to' a research topic. An important distinction is drawn between graphical and semantic attributes of documents, and between their modes of analysis. The central problem of the study is that, while 'topic' is a problematic semantic attribute of documents, a well-defined collection of documents requires a selection criterion formulated on unproblematic graphical attributes. The solution proposed is to let specialist A&I Services legitimate a research topic and to provide a sample of its documents; then to extract a diagnostic graphical pattern from the sample, and from this construct a criterion which can be mechanically applied to all documents. Modifications introduced into the general procedure include the iterative development of the criterion from the growing collection, and allowing a content analysis of documents to suggest diagnostic patterns in the text. The graphical selection criterion developed for the specific collection was composed of six alternative pairs of word-stems separated by at most two words in the body of the text of documents. It has an estimated precision of 96% against the background literature and retrieves 90% of all known documents which might be judged to be on the topic. The final collection consists of 1187 analytical-level and scholarly documents written in 19 languages; it is well-defined, accords with convention, and is judged to be near completion for documents more strongly on and influential in the topic. Inadequacies in the procedure and in the collection formed were examined and improvements have been suggested. For example, the mixing of semantic and graphical methods in the pattern extraction process is clarified, recall can be enhanced by the addition of several small sub-collections, and measures of topic aboutness and topic influence were installed in the collection.

In Cameroon, and most other developing countries, the problem of inefficient municipal solid waste management ( MSWM ) is endemic. This is easily identified by persistent heaps of uncollected waste found on street sides or ubiquitous illegal dumps. This thesis examines the sustainability of MSWM in Cameroon using two contrasting city cases of Yaoundé ( 1.5m people ) and Bamenda ( 300 000 people ). As major contributions the thesis generates the much - needed basic original data, critically examines and compares the sustainability of MSWM in both cities ' systems, evaluates the environmental impacts and uses these findings to suggest valuable research, policy and strategic - planning recommendations needed to make both systems, and others in similar situations, sustainable. To achieve these goals multiple triangulated methods were used. In Bamenda, where reliable basic data are non - existent, solid waste from sampled households was collected and analysed for generation rates, quantities and characteristics. In both cities questionnaire were administered to sampled household units selected from four stratified quarters. The survey questions addressed waste management issues and sustainability indicators that were needed to study, compare and evaluate the systems within the wider concept of the waste management hierarchy. The statistical programme for social sciences ( SPSS ) computer software was used to analyse the survey results. Field observations, interviews and a review of secondary sources complemented the data. New findings show that Bamenda city generates 120 - 160 tonnes of municipal solid waste daily ( 0.40-0.54 kg per capita ), 76 % of which is biodegradable and 24 % non - biodegradable. About 90 % of all solid waste comes from households. Bamenda Urban Council ( BUC ) regularly covers only 1 / 20th of the city area and collects and transports 20 - 30 tonnes of waste from its skips, accounting for only 17 - 25 % of the total daily waste generation. The waste is disposed of at an uncontrolled dump on the Mezam River flood plain. The citizens illegally dump the rest. Skips are crucial to the system but their total capacity and access are grossly inadequate ( 37m ³ over 28 sites ), with a further 465m ³ needed. Citizens move an average of 105 m to waste disposal sites. This suggests a sustainable inter - skip distance of 210 m for Bamenda city, far from the present 700 m. Yaoundé ' s daily per capita MSW generation rate is estimated at 0.79 kgs or 1200 tonnes for the entire city, three - quarters of which is biodegradable. Only one - third of the city area is regularly served with about 40 - 50 % ( ~ 540 tonnes ) of the waste collected and disposed of at the sanitary landfill on the Nfoulou River valley. Total available skip capacity is 1440m ³ with 3048m ³ lacking. The primary waste disposal average distance is 87 m. Yaoundé and Bamenda cities are unique in physical conditions and status but neither is able to deal adequately with the increasing waste generation rates, quantities and varieties that are driven by rapid urban population growth, spatial expansion and improved affluence and consumption among selected groups. Yaoundé ' s management has an edge over Bamenda ' s in terms of performance rates but leaves behind five times more uncollected and illegally dumped waste than Bamenda. Though Yaoundé ' s system is private and Bamenda ' s is public, both systems apply the same conventional approach that concentrates on imported technologies while neglecting waste prevention, recycling, safe disposal, involvement and integration of citizens and other stakeholders. This limited and monopolistic approach makes the system unworkable and equally creates huge environmental and health - related problems present at all the stages of the waste management cycle. Government devolves the waste function to urban councils but centralises funds and power. Its waste policies are limited, fragmented and confusing. The garbage tax law yields only 5 % in Bamenda and 7 % in Yaoundé, making both cities rely heavily on extra financial support from Cameroon and abroad. In all, neither city in the study demonstrates sustainability in any aspects of its MSWM system. The existing systems are not sustainable. A new system based on an integrated sustainable model operated within the context of good urban governance is proposed. This model accommodates the uniqueness of cities and is recommended for other cities in the country, Africa and the developing world. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Social Sciences, 2004.

Garden symphylans (Scutigerella immaculata Newport) are increasingly important pests of below-ground parts of over 100 crops in Oregon. The focus of our work was to improve S. immaculata management through 1) development of a bait sampling method, 2) examination of the susceptibility of selected crops to S. immaculata feeding in the field and laboratory and a reanalysis of previously published results, and 3) investigation of the suitability of selected crops and soil for the development of S. immaculata populations in the field and laboratory. Sample size requirements were developed for the bait and soil sampling methods. Estimating densities of 1 to 20 S. immaculata at fixed precision levels required 1.5 times more sample units for the baiting method than the soil method. Sampling recommendations for the baiting method performed well when validated by resampling a large independent data set. The bait sampling method provides an effective reliable alternative to the standard soil sampling method. In the laboratory, as S. immaculata densities increased, dry weight of spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) seedlings were significantly reduced from 85 to 89%, whereas corn (Zea mays L.) and potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) dry weight were not reduced. As S. immaculata densities increased in the field, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of squash (Cucurbita pepo L.) and broccoli (Brassica oleracea L.) crops sharply decreased, while the NDVI of corn and potato crops was only slightly reduced. In reanalysis of previously published data, the stand counts of crops seeded into S. immaculata infested soil appeared to increase as seed size increased. These findings will be used to help develop action thresholds and sample size requirements, and reduce S. immaculata damage. In the laboratory, S. immaculata population growth was significantly greater on spinach than on tomato, sweet corn, potato, or soil alone, and significantly lower on potato than on spinach, corn, tomato, or soil alone. In the field, greater S. immaculata population decreases were observed in potatoes than in sweet corn or clean fallow. These results provide strong evidence that crop rotation may significantly influence S. immaculata population levels. / Graduation date: 2003

Conventional parallel computer architectures do not provide support for non-uniformly distributed objects. In this thesis, I introduce sparsely faceted arrays (SFAs), a new low-level mechanism for naming regions of memory, or facets, on different processors in a distributed, shared memory parallel processing system. Sparsely faceted arrays address the disconnect between the global distributed arrays provided by conventional architectures (e.g. the Cray T3 series), and the requirements of high-level parallel programming methods that wish to use objects that are distributed over only a subset of processing elements. A sparsely faceted array names a virtual globally-distributed array, but actual facets are lazily allocated. By providing simple semantics and making efficient use of memory, SFAs enable efficient implementation of a variety of non-uniformly distributed data structures and related algorithms. I present example applications which use SFAs, and describe and evaluate simple hardware mechanisms for implementing SFAs. Keeping track of which nodes have allocated facets for a particular SFA is an important task that suggests the need for automatic memory management, including garbage collection. To address this need, I first argue that conventional tracing techniques such as mark/sweep and copying GC are inherently unscalable in parallel systems. I then present a parallel memory-management strategy, based on reference-counting, that is capable of garbage collecting sparsely faceted arrays. I also discuss opportunities for hardware support of this garbage collection strategy. I have implemented a high-level hardware/OS simulator featuring hardware support for sparsely faceted arrays and automatic garbage collection. I describe the simulator and outline a few of the numerous details associated with a "real" implementation of SFAs and SFA-aware garbage collection. Simulation results are used throughout this thesis in the evaluation of hardware support mechanisms.