The ongoing convergence of cell-based wireless systems, from proprietary standards for data transmission toward a unifying approach based on the Internet Protocol (IP), as well as the increasing ability of wireless computer networks to support Quality-of-Service, opens up a tremendous potential for new business models and is expected to significantly alter the way mobile and wireless services are provided. An important field of study is about understanding the implications on the competitive structure of the wireless market. With the technical barriers between di erent technologies more and more diminishing, it becomes possible for customers to select network access on-demand instead of entering long-term contracts with a single wireless network provider based on factors such as connection speed, level of mobility and prices. In such a setting, wireless network providers, but also the regulatory bodies designing the principle market rules, need to learn about new ways of allocating resources among customers to reach their objectives. With resources being available on-demand, pricing becomes an important factor for controlling demand and distributing resources among users. Instead of being fixed over longer periods, pricing can be used for signalling the congestion levels in di erent wireless networks and to let users communicate their willingness-to-pay to the market. Besides presenting a classification framework for pricing in wireless networks and providing a comprehensive review of the relevant literature, the main contributions of this thesis are on the development of behavioural strategies, which di erent entities can follow in the described scenarios. In the first scenario we regard wireless resources as a public good, which should be efficiently allocated among active customers. By letting each provider use a second price auction, with each customer being able to bundle resources from multiple providers, we develop a bidding strategy, which allows customers to distribute their demand among providers. The bidding strategy resembles truth-telling in such a market and is shown to be the best strategy a user can follow to fulfill his demand. We examine the properties of the system analytically and present the results of an extensive simulation study. In the second scenario we model a free market for wireless resources on which prices are determined at the time of request. With customers having more than one option to obtain resources, the task of a provider becomes setting prices so that it maximises revenue under partial or full competition. We discuss the constrained maximisation problem and analyse the situation of a two-provider setting as a game. Simulation is used to analyse the game under uncertainty and to understand if a steady-state situation arises. While the results make use of multiple simplifications to allow us to understand the main model variables, the findings can potentially be of interest for providers and market authorities to develop new ways for resource allocation using dynamic pricing as a tool for reaching their design objectives.

Centruflow is an application that can be used to visualise structured data. It does this by drawing graphs, allowing for users to explore information relationships that may not be visible or easily understood otherwise. This helps users to gain a better understanding of their organisation and to communicate more effectively. In earlier versions of Centruflow, it was difficult to develop new functionality as it was built using a relatively unsupported and proprietary visualisation toolkit. In addition, there were major issues surrounding information currency and trust. Something had to be done, and this was a sub-project of this thesis. The main purpose of this thesis however was to research and develop a set of mathematical algorithms to infer implicit relationships in Centruflow data sources. Once these implicit relationships were found, we could make them explicit by showing them within Centruflow. To enable this, relationships were to be calculated based on providing users with the ability to 'tag' resources with metadata. We believed that by using this tagging metadata, Centruflow could offer users far more insight into their own data. Implementing this was not a straight-forward task, as it required a considerable amount of research and development to be undertaken to understand and appreciate technologies that could help us in our goal. Our focus was primarily on technologies and approaches common in the semantic web and 'Web 2.0' areas. By pursuing semantic web technologies, we ensured that Centruflow would be considerably more standards-compliant than it was previously. At the conclusion of our development period, Centruflow had been rather substantially 'retrofitted', with all proprietary technologies replaced with equivalent semantic web technologies. The result of this is that Centruflow is now positioned on the forefront of the semantic web wave, allowing for far more comprehensive and rapid visualisation of a far larger set of readily-available data than what was possible previously. Having implemented all necessary functionality, we validated our approach and were pleased to find that our improvements led to a considerably more intelligent and useful Centruflow application than was previously available. This functionality is now available as part of 'Centruflow 3.0', which will be publicly released in March 2008. Finally, we conclude this thesis with a discussion on the future work that should be undertaken to improve on the current release.

Centruflow is an application that can be used to visualise structured data. It does this by drawing graphs, allowing for users to explore information relationships that may not be visible or easily understood otherwise. This helps users to gain a better understanding of their organisation and to communicate more effectively. In earlier versions of Centruflow, it was difficult to develop new functionality as it was built using a relatively unsupported and proprietary visualisation toolkit. In addition, there were major issues surrounding information currency and trust. Something had to be done, and this was a sub-project of this thesis. The main purpose of this thesis however was to research and develop a set of mathematical algorithms to infer implicit relationships in Centruflow data sources. Once these implicit relationships were found, we could make them explicit by showing them within Centruflow. To enable this, relationships were to be calculated based on providing users with the ability to 'tag' resources with metadata. We believed that by using this tagging metadata, Centruflow could offer users far more insight into their own data. Implementing this was not a straight-forward task, as it required a considerable amount of research and development to be undertaken to understand and appreciate technologies that could help us in our goal. Our focus was primarily on technologies and approaches common in the semantic web and 'Web 2.0' areas. By pursuing semantic web technologies, we ensured that Centruflow would be considerably more standards-compliant than it was previously. At the conclusion of our development period, Centruflow had been rather substantially 'retrofitted', with all proprietary technologies replaced with equivalent semantic web technologies. The result of this is that Centruflow is now positioned on the forefront of the semantic web wave, allowing for far more comprehensive and rapid visualisation of a far larger set of readily-available data than what was possible previously. Having implemented all necessary functionality, we validated our approach and were pleased to find that our improvements led to a considerably more intelligent and useful Centruflow application than was previously available. This functionality is now available as part of 'Centruflow 3.0', which will be publicly released in March 2008. Finally, we conclude this thesis with a discussion on the future work that should be undertaken to improve on the current release.

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Many mobile learning (m-learning) systems have been constructed to transform traditional classroom or computer-based learning activities to be more efficient and ubiquitous, such as being able to present learners with a shared learning space. The work of learners is increasingly seen as collaborative by nature, and there is more collaboration between learners who have different learning experiences. Although these m-learning systems have promised positive collaborative learning outcomes, there has been little empirical work done to translate them into the learning outcomes which mobile collaborative learning environments can provide, where learners acquire new knowledge by contributing to each member’s existing knowledge. This thesis investigates both mobile learning and collaborative learning, and the focus is on: learning performance in mobile learning, types of knowledge created by collaboration and perceived learning satisfaction from this mobile collaborative learning experience. Several experiments were carried out to understand the nature of mobile-supported collaborative learning against traditional face-to-face (FTF) collaboration. The results revealed that, firstly, the learning performance was enhanced when the participants were learning collaboratively with the mobile device; secondly, mobile collaborative learning with a shared learning space contributed to shared knowledge generation.

Centruflow is an application that can be used to visualise structured data. It does this by drawing graphs, allowing for users to explore information relationships that may not be visible or easily understood otherwise. This helps users to gain a better understanding of their organisation and to communicate more effectively. In earlier versions of Centruflow, it was difficult to develop new functionality as it was built using a relatively unsupported and proprietary visualisation toolkit. In addition, there were major issues surrounding information currency and trust. Something had to be done, and this was a sub-project of this thesis. The main purpose of this thesis however was to research and develop a set of mathematical algorithms to infer implicit relationships in Centruflow data sources. Once these implicit relationships were found, we could make them explicit by showing them within Centruflow. To enable this, relationships were to be calculated based on providing users with the ability to 'tag' resources with metadata. We believed that by using this tagging metadata, Centruflow could offer users far more insight into their own data. Implementing this was not a straight-forward task, as it required a considerable amount of research and development to be undertaken to understand and appreciate technologies that could help us in our goal. Our focus was primarily on technologies and approaches common in the semantic web and 'Web 2.0' areas. By pursuing semantic web technologies, we ensured that Centruflow would be considerably more standards-compliant than it was previously. At the conclusion of our development period, Centruflow had been rather substantially 'retrofitted', with all proprietary technologies replaced with equivalent semantic web technologies. The result of this is that Centruflow is now positioned on the forefront of the semantic web wave, allowing for far more comprehensive and rapid visualisation of a far larger set of readily-available data than what was possible previously. Having implemented all necessary functionality, we validated our approach and were pleased to find that our improvements led to a considerably more intelligent and useful Centruflow application than was previously available. This functionality is now available as part of 'Centruflow 3.0', which will be publicly released in March 2008. Finally, we conclude this thesis with a discussion on the future work that should be undertaken to improve on the current release.

This research examines the application of the ISO 9000 model for quality management in healthcare. Exploratory case study is made of three healthcare provider organisations: community health service; independent practitioner association; Maori health network. Three research models are developed to examine identified gaps and areas of interest in healthcare quality management literature. The first model relates to differences between generic standards and specification standards. The second model relates to the fit of healthcare service delivery systems and ISO 9000. The third model relates to exploration of the linkages and co-ordination of an integrated care delivery network. One proposition and two hypotheses are developed in relation to the models, and are closely associated with gaps in healthcare service quality knowledge. Strong support is found for the first hypothesis though not the second hypothesis, and there are also some unexpected results. There is strong support that the process of implementing the ISO 9000 model will enhance healthcare management performance, even though the outcomes are unpredictable. There are indications supporting the notion that implementation of the ISO 9000 model will increase effective linkages and co-ordination within integrated care delivery networks. The body of evidence accumulated during the study did not, however, permit a valid conclusion regarding the hypothesis. The findings of the study can be extended to other healthcare service areas and through interpretation and extrapolation they add value to healthcare service quality research in general. In particular, the findings of the three case studies in this research suggest that future models for healthcare service quality should include a comprehensive generic model for quality management of individual and integrated healthcare service organisations.