Mobile devices with Internet access and large amounts of sensors, pushes the development of intelligent services towards new forms of pervasive applications. These applications are made context-aware by utilizing information from sensors and hence the context of a situation, in order to provide a better service. Based on this, the focus of this thesis is on the challenge of creating context awareness in mobile applications. That both utilizes dynamic context information from globally available sensors and provides adaptive views of relevant context information to applications. The first challenge is to identify the properties of an architecture that provides scalable access to information from global sensors within bounded time, because existing systems do not support these properties in a satisfactory manner. The majority of related systems employ a centralized approach with limited support for global sensor information due to poor scalability. Therefore, this thesis proposes a distributed architecture capable of exchanging context between users and entities on a peer-to-peer overlay. Pervasive applications can thus utilize global sensor information in a scalable and manageable way within predictable time bounds. The second challenge to support continually changing and evolving context information, while providing it as both adaptive and manageable views to applications. To address this particular problem, this thesis proposes the usage of a locally stored evolving context object called a context schema. In detail, this schema contains all context information that is considered as being relevant for a specific user or entity. Furthermore, this thesis proposes an application interface that can provide snapshots of the evolving context schemas as adaptive views. These views can then be used in context-aware mobile applications, without inducing unnecessary delays. By successfully addressing the challenges, this thesis enables the creation of pervasive and adaptive applications that utilize evolving context in mobile environments. These capabilities are made possible by enabling access to global sensor information based on a distributed context exchange overlay, in combination with evolving context schemas offered as views through an application interface. In support of these claims, this thesis has developed numerous proof-of-concept applications and prototypes to verify the approach. Hence, this thesis concludes that the proposed approach with evolving context information has the ability to scale in a satisfactory manner and also has the ability to dynamically offer relevant views to applications in a manageable way. / MediaSense

This thesis has investigated how the energy consumption can be reduced in a mobile sensor unit by using a dynamic measurement scheme. This was done by developing a scheme based on inspiration from existing works in related areas and on techniques found in literature. The developed scheme was then implemented on a mobile sensor unit and tests were conducted where the energy consumed by the scheme was measured. This was compared to a static baseline approach in order to evaluate the efficiency of the scheme. The results showed that on the platform used in this thesis the developed scheme can reduce the energy consumption in a typical scenario by 4.7% or 6.7% depending on which sensors are used. A conclusion drawn is that the platform has a major impact on how effective the scheme can be.

It has been recognised that the oil sector in developing countries is facing challenges from a dynamic environment characterised by rapid technological change and increased demand. As innovation becomes critical to the survival of organisations, organisational context including organisational culture (OC), structure (OS) and information technology (IT) has been found to have an important influence on innovation, leading to increase social relationships among employees and flow knowledge within organisation through face to face employees interaction and information system. Social capital and knowledge sharing are recognised as the most significant resources for competitive advantage and the key to enhancing innovation. It has long been argued that social capital, a concept represented by the value embedded in the social relationships of individuals and collectives constitute strategic resources for individuals and organisations. Social networks perceived by individuals are a key issue in generating and facilitating knowledge sharing among employees to enhance innovation within organizations. It has also been shown that knowledge management and the promotion of knowledge sharing among the members of an organisation are an important part of the learning process as they help to convert the tacit knowledge embedded in individuals into explicit knowledge through interaction. Prior literature has pointed out that organisational context is one of the most important factors affecting social capital and knowledge sharing and enhanced innovation in an organisation. However, there is a lack of models linking organisational context, social capital and knowledge sharing, and innovation within oil sectors in general within developing countries, particularly Libya. Against this background, the thesis investigates the impact of organisational context on innovation. Using social capital and knowledge sharing, the integrative and comprehensive conceptual model are developed in order to reveal the direct and indirect impacts of organisational context on innovation. The model is then tested with a sample of 418 employees from two sectors; namely, public and the private. These were analysed through a IV multivariate analysis using a variance-based statistical technique known as Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling. The findings of this thesis are three-fold. First, with respect to the direct effect of organisational context on innovation, the study finds that both public and private sectors’ innovation are positively affected by organisational context. Second, regarding the indirect impact of organisational context on innovation, the study confirms its indirect nature through the social capital and knowledge sharing in both sectors. Third, the results show that there are significant differences between the public and private oil sectors in terms of the effect of organisational context on social capital, knowledge sharing and innovation, product and process. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications in that the results have provided empirical evidence on the direct and indirect impact of organisational context and can serve as an indication in practice for both firm managers and policy makers who are looking to establish strategies for achieving innovation. These would benefit from expending their efforts on promoting social capital and knowledge-sharing practices among their employees.

With the the emergence of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), modern computing is now transforming from residing only in the cyber domain to the cyber-physical domain. I focus on one important aspect of this transformation, namely shortcomings of traditional security measures. Security research over the last couple of decades focused on protecting data in regard to identities or similar static attributes. However, in the physical world, data rely more on physical relationships, hence requires CPS to verify identities together with relative physical context to provide security guarantees. To enable such verification, it requires the devices to prove unique relative physical context only available to the intended devices. In this work, I study how varying levels of constraints on physical boundary of co-located devices determine the relative physical context. Specifically, I explore different application scenarios with varying levels of constraints – including smart-home, semi-autonomous vehicles, and in-vehicle environments – and analyze how different constraints affect binding identities to physical relationships, ultimately enabling IoT devices to perform such verification. Furthermore, I also demonstrate that sensing may pose risks for CPS by presenting an attack on personal privacy in a smart home environment.

Dans ce travail de recherche, nous nous sommes intéressés à la conception et au développement d'un système iNformatIque COmmunautaire mobiLe et AdapTatif, appelé NICOLAT. Ce dernier vise à supporter une CoP dans laquelle l'apprentissage s'effectue via la résolution communautaire de problèmes en offrant des solutions qui permettent de limiter les facteurs qui peuvent aboutir à la démotivation des membres de la CoP.Pour expérimenter et valider les solutions que nous proposons à travers ce système, nous ciblons la CoP des enseignants usagers de la méthode pédagogique MAETIC, qui peuvent rencontrer, en classe, des problèmes dans l'usage de celle-ci.Ainsi, nos principales contributions se résument dans les points suivants : 1) La mise en place du noyau communautaire du système NICOLAT. Ce dernier est sous forme d'un réseau social supportant la résolution communautaire de problèmes, 2) La mise en place d'une couche de résolution de problèmes ayant pour objectif d'aider le membre à résoudre son problème par exploitation de l'historique des problèmes résolus dans le passé. Ceci pour minimiser le nombre de demandes d'aide répétitives. Le cycle du raisonnement RàPC (Raisonnement à Partir de Cas) a été utilisé pour guider ce processus, 3) La mise en place de deux couches d'adaptation permettant de supporter les interactions des membres dans les outils d'interaction qu'ils préfèrent ou avec lesquels ils sont familiarisés le plus. L'objectif visé par cette adaptation est, d'une part, de dépasser les problèmes de prise en main de nouveaux outils d'interaction. D'autre part, de permettre l'accès au système en cas de mobilité et minimiser ainsi le temps de réponse, 4) La mise en place d'une approche de sélection des membres qui peuvent contribuer positivement à résoudre un problème à qui faire aboutir la demande d'aide. L'objectif est de permettre à un membre cherchant à résoudre son problème de recevoir une réponse pertinente / In this research work, we focused on design and development of an adaptive and mobile community system, called NICOLAT (iNformatIque COmmunautaire mobiLe et AdapTatif). The latter aims to support a Community of Practice (CoP) in which learning is done through community problem solving by providing solutions that limit the factors that can lead to the demotivation of the CoP members.To experiment and validate the solutions we provide through this system, we target the CoP of teachers users of the MAETIC pedagogical method, who can meet, in classroom, problems in the use of it.Thus, our main contributions are summarized in the following points: 1) Establishment of community kernel of the NICOLAT system. The latter is as a social network supporting the community solving of problems, 2) Implementation of problems resolution layer that aims to help the member solve his problem through the exploitation of the history of problems solved in the past. This is to minimize the number of repetitive help requests. The cycle of the CBR (Case-Based Reasoning) was used to guide this process, 3) Establishment of an interactions adaptation layer to support the members' interactions in the interaction tools they prefer or with which they are most familiar. The purpose of this adaptation is, firstly, to exceed the problems of interaction tools manipulation. On the other hand, to enable access to the system in case of mobility and thereby minimize response time, 4) Establishment of a dynamic approach of selection of members who can contribute positively to solve a problem, to whom bring the help requests. The objective is to enable a member seeking to solve his problem to receive a relevant answer

Abstract My dissertation studies public reception of the works of Ilmari Kianto (1874–1970). The guiding principle of my study is contextual analysis, which is a fruitful approach to the primarily social themes of Kianto’s works. The reception of contemporaries of Kianto did not focus so much on the aesthetic properties of his works but rather on their significance in the societal context of the era in which they were published. Later research into Kianto’s reception has focused on his currently canonised descriptions of Finnish folk life, Punainen viiva (The Red Line) and Ryysyrannan Jooseppi (Jooseppi from Ryysyranta) that are his most valued works from an aesthetic point of view. The purpose of my doctoral dissertation is to bridge the gap that both literary history and research literature have left behind. My study shows that all Kianto’s works – including his lyrics and novels – are invariably tied in with the most pressing societal, political and ethical issues of their time. Based on his works and how they were publicly received, Kianto can be perceived as being a significant participant in the debate on social questions and he brought many social issues to the attention of the public. When Kianto demanded freedom of religion and legalisation of civil marriage in his works, he received considerable support from his contemporaries, but this also led to blasphemy charges. Furthermore, my dissertation shows that the later public image of Kianto does not do any justice to the views of his contemporaries because the image highlights his reputation for being a ruthless “butcher” on the side of the Whites in the civil war, which is a view based on a certain widely distributed propaganda article. Observed through his public reception as a whole, Kianto was generally seen as being a spokesman for the poor and as a pacifist through his book Elämän ja kuoleman kentältä (From The Field of Life and Death), which he completed after the civil war in 1918 but which was rejected by publishers and published first in 1928. Kianto’s sentencing to a correctional institution for attempted high treason during the Finnish Winter War was the most tragic event for his literary reputation, which meant that he was expelled from the Writer’s Union and disfavoured all the way through until the 1950’s. / Tiivistelmä Väitöskirjani käsittelee Ilmari Kiannon (1874–1970) tuotannon julkista reseptiota Suomessa. Tutkimustani on ohjannut kontekstuaalinen analyysi, joka on ollut Kiannon teosten voittopuoleisesti yhteiskunnallisten teemojen kannalta hedelmällinen lähtökohta. Kiannon aikalaisvastaanotossa eivät korostuneet niinkään teosten esteettiset ominaisuudet, vaan teosten merkitys ilmestymisaikansa yhteiskunnallisessa kontekstissa. Myöhempi Kiannon tutkimuksellinen reseptio on keskittynyt tuotannon esteettisesti korkeatasoisimmiksi arvostettuihin ja suomalaisen kirjallisuuden kaanoniin nousseisiin kansankuvauksiin, Punaiseen viivaan ja Ryysyrannan Jooseppiin, jotka ovat jättäneet varjoonsa Kiannon muun tuotannon. Kiannon koko tuotannon läpikäyvää reseptiota käsittelevän väitöskirjani tarkoitus onkin täyttää sitä aukkoa, joka sekä kirjallisuushistorialta että tutkimuskirjallisuudelta on Kiannon osalta jäänyt. Tutkimukseni osoittaa, että Kiannon teokset nivoutuvat aina lyriikkaa ja romaanituotantoa myöten aikansa polttavimpiin yhteiskunnallisiin, poliittisiin ja eettisiin kysymyksiin. Kiantoa voidaankin teosten ja vastaanoton pohjalta pitää aikansa merkittävänä yhteiskunnallisena keskustelijana ja monien sosiaalisten ongelmien esilletuojana. Kiannon teosten vaateet lainsäädännön päivittämisestä modernin ajan ihmisen aatemaailmaa vastaavaksi muun muassa uskonnonvapauden ja siviiliavioliiton laillistamisen puolesta saivat aikalaisvastaanotossa runsaasti vastakaikua, mutta toivat myös jumalanpilkkasyytteitä. Tutkimukseni osoittaa myös, että Kiannosta jälkipolville muotoutunut julkisuuskuva ei tee oikeutta Kiannon koko aikalaisvastaanotolle, josta on jäänyt elämään lähinnä Kiannon maine säälimättömänä valkoisena ”lahtarina” yhden tietyn ahkerasti levitetyn propaganda-artikkelin takia. Koko vastaanoton kautta tarkasteltuna Kianto nähtiin yleisesti köyhälistön puolestapuhujana ja sisällissodan jälkeen jo vuonna 1918 valmistuneella teoksellaan Elämän ja kuoleman kentältä myös sodan vastustajana, joka joutui kustantajien hylkäämäksi ja sai ko. teoksensa julkaistua vasta vuonna 1928. Kiannon talvisodan aikaan saama kuritushuonetuomio sotapetoksen yrityksestä oli Kiannon kirjailijamaineen kannalta traagisin tapahtuma, joka merkitsi hänen erottamistaan Kirjailijaliitosta ja vuosikymmenen kestänyttä hylkimistään vastaanotossa aina 1950-luvulle asti.

Abstract Context-awareness, a state where the device is aware of the situation in which it is used, is a technology which has gained an increasing amount of attention in recent years. A context-aware device can infer the use condition, and adapt its behavior according to the circumstances. Mobile handheld devices, which have been highly adopted by large user groups, especially in the form of mobile phones, constitute an interesting platform for context-awareness. They are used in different kinds of situations, where the preferences of users may vary, and where different features are prioritized. While the increasing complexity and growing number of features set challenges to intuitive and easy use of devices, context-awareness may offer solutions to more efficient use of mobile applications and services. This thesis investigates the interaction issues with context-aware mobile devices. The research has been exploratory including several separate case studies, where interaction and usability matters have been charted. These studies consider topics such as location-awareness, user-defined settings of context-aware applications, and information sharing and privacy. In addition to these case studies, the author has sough to draw a bigger picture on interaction and usability issues with context-aware mobile devices, and incorporated the findings to a more general framework. Through presenting the case studies it is concluded that context-awareness can improve the usability of mobile devices, but careful design in the application development phase must be emphasized. The usability risks identified through case studies relate to numerous themes, such as diminished user control, increased number of interruptions, information overflow, users' subjective understanding of context attributes and privacy threat. As context-aware technology employs greater risks, e.g. due to the uncertain nature of context recognition, the user-centric design practices and testing in the authentic environment of the context-aware applications should be stressed. The author proposes design guidelines, which have been developed based on the findings from distinct case studies. The design guidelines aim to offer tangible help to application designers, who may not be acquaint with the special characteristics of context-awareness, and intend to prevent potential usability problems identified through the individual studies. Moreover, an evaluation for the design guidelines and their iteration to the presented form is demonstrated.

Each year 700,000 to 800,000 parolees are released prison and are returned to the community (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder 2014; Porter, 2011; West, Sabol, Greenman, 2010), of whom approximately two-thirds will be reincarcerated within the three years following their releases (Durose et al., 2014). Although, scholars have pointed to parolees’ needs of services and resources (Hipp, Petersilia, & Turner, 2010), the majority of the literature has been limited to the examination of individual-level predictors of parolee outcomes. The current study aims to extend the parolee literature by identifying whether or not neighborhood disadvantage, mobility, and local institutions (i.e., churches, service providers) have an effect on parolee outcomes. To examine these effects, data on 3,077 parolees living within 209 Census block groups across Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) and the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (PBPP). Furthermore, parolee outcome data were disaggregated by the behavior resulting in reincarceration [i.e., the commission of a new crime (CPV), technical parole violation (TPV)], as well as the length of time between release from prison and reincarceration. A series of multilevel models (HLM) were conducted to examine the effects of neighborhood-level and individual-level predictors of parolee reincarceration, as well as how these effects differed for CPVs versus TPVs, and varied across time. Based on results from the analyses, parolee outcomes were to some extent effected by neighborhood context and institutions (i.e., Evangelical Protestant churches, service providers). Additionally, neighborhood-level and individual-level effects varied based on the reason for reincarceration, and the amount of time that passed between release from prison and reincarceration. Lastly, although DOC referred service providers did not have a direct effect on parolee reincarceration, there were significant interaction effects with disadvantage, such that the effects of DOC service providers decreased the odds of reincarceration in more disadvantaged neighborhoods. The conditional effects of DOC service providers by level of neighborhood disadvantage highlights the need for service providers within such communities. Further investigation of neighborhood context, and the placement of much needed resources in communities where parolees reside, may be advantageous in increasing success amongst parolees.

Master of Science / Department of Psychology / Richard J. Harris / The present study examined the effects of discourse context information on English Monolinguals' and Spanish-English Bilinguals' ability to 1) translate Spanish and Finnish vocabulary words and 2) comprehend inferential and factual comprehension questions based on language-mixed prose. Language-mixed (i.e., codeswitched) prose varied in the number of foreign words presented in each sentence (i.e., 0, 1, 2, or 3 words per sentence). Results indicated that Monolinguals and Bilinguals' ability to translate Finnish words from pre-test to post-test increased due to their use of contextual information as an aid in translation. Furthermore, Monolinguals' translation accuracy increased from pre-test to post-test when tested on Spanish vocabulary words, but Bilinguals' translation difference scores did not increase from pre-test to post-test, due to their high prior knowledge of Spanish. Monolinguals and Bilinguals' comprehension accuracy was high throughout all conditions, even when tested on material conveyed by Finnish and Spanish words. Results from the study suggest that the use of language-mixed prose does not necessarily impair comprehension or translation ability for Monolinguals or Bilinguals, but in fact provides the context to help translate foreign vocabulary words and draw pragmatic inferences and factual information from text. The findings from this study are of importance in suggesting that, through the use of written contextual information, it is possible to learn basic foreign language vocabulary. Implications for foreign language learning, language-mixing as a mode of communication, and models of language acquisition and lexical access are discussed.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The aim of this study was to use a case study approach to explore and describe how students and teachers perceived performance assessment and context-based assessment models that were used within a real world context teaching and learning approach. The topics Electricity and Air and Living Things formed the science knowledge base for the study. Four junior secondary school science teachers and their students in four schools participated. Participants; experiences of the assessment models were achieved through teachers administering and scoring performance assessment tasks and context-based unit tests to their students. Perceptions were obtained through questionnaires and interviews from students. Interviews and informal discussions were used to elicit teachers; perceptions. Observations during the administration of performance assessment tasks were also used for triangulation. / South Africa