Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Farrell J. Webb / The current military family life is punctuated by a series of events that are not present in the lives of most Americans, most notably the stress, fear, and disruption of lives that accompany the periodic absences of one or both adults in the family. These absences fostered by deployments, challenges of readjustments, coupled with combat injuries have tremendous effects on not only the troops and their families, but also the communities that military families live in as well. This investigation examined how military assistance, family connectedness and community networks contribute to the well-being of families affected by anticipated and repeated deployments that cause family interruptions. Despite the myriad of studies on military deployments and the impact on families, there has been little focus on the spouse and children that relates to their resilience during the deployment process. Using an online national all service unit sample from military spouses (n = 185) who have children and have experienced a recent deployment (n = 153) it was possible to isolated the specific components that influenced the well-being of those affected by deployments. The Influence of Interruptions on Family Well-Being Model—which combines ideas from both the ecological systems and boundary ambiguity perspectives—was tested and utilized in this study. It was disclosed that 45% of the variance in well-being could be explained by knowing how families perceive the deployment process, military assistance, community networks, family connectedness, and how these families coped with periodic family interruptions. These data revealed that deployments have a greater impact than originally conceived and that issues addressing deployments must be placed on the national agenda, particularly where family well-being is concerned. The research findings underscore the importance of family to both the deployed personnel and the ones that they leave home. The implications from this investigation are simple and direct—there needs to be a more comprehensive program for children that employ pre-, during- and post-deployment related issues, such as adjustments to absent parents, developing better responses to the authority structure of the remaining parent, and some program focused on the immediate and long-term psychological needs of the children and their families.

Military personnel who have served during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation New Dawn have experienced longer and more frequent deployments than U.S. personnel involved in any previous conflict. These multiple tours in combat zones have resulted in complex psychosocial needs for military personnel. The goal of this action research study was to understand social workers' perceptions and experiences of military personnel who experienced 3 or more deployments in a combat zone. The theoretical foundation for the study was narrative theory. Research questions sought to understand the social workers' perceptions of the psychosocial treatment needs of these veterans, to understand the social workers' experiences in providing services to address their needs, and whether participants perceived that the services provided were enhancing the mental and social well-being of the veterans. Data were collected from a focus group of 8 master's-degree-level social workers who worked with veterans with multiple deployments. Data were analyzed using descriptive coding to determine categories and themes. Findings included increased incidents of posttraumatic stress disorder and complex psychosocial needs, the importance of evidence-based practice and successful reintegration, clinical considerations, and potential barriers to effective service. Findings also focused on the importance of organizational support and continuing education for social workers providing these services. The findings of this study might be used to promote positive social change by highlighting the need for ongoing education for social workers, organizations, and society to provide informed evidence-based treatment for veterans who have experienced multiple deployments.

Microfrontend applications are composed of multiple smaller frontend applications, which are integrated at run-time. As with microservices, microfrontends can be updated in production at any time. There are no technological restrictions for releasing API-breaking updates. Therefore it is difficult to trust microfrontend applications to perform reliably in run-time and to introduce API-breaking updates without the risk of breaking consumers. This thesis presents Plutt, a tool that provides automatic guarantees for safely consuming microfrontends, by ensuring that updates in run-time are compatible. By using Plutt, consumers can be confident that a provided microfrontend will per- form the same during production as in development. Likewise, microfrontend providers can release updates without being concerned about how it will affect consumers. Moreover, a comprehensive survey about microfrontends is presented, where five industry experts are interviewed. Aspects that are not found in existing literature are discovered, which contributes to a broader knowledge base that helps future microfrontend research. / Mikrofrontend-applikationer är sammansatta av flera mindre frontend-applikationer som integreras under exekvering. Precis som med mikrotjänster, kan mikrofrontends bytas ut i produktion när som helst. Det saknas teknologiska restriktioner för att publicera API-brytande uppdateringar. Därför är det svårt att lita på att en mikrofrontend-applikation beter sig tillförlitligt under exekvering samt att introducera API-brytande uppdateringar utan att riskera att förstöra konsumenter. Det här examensarbetet presenterar Plutt, ett verktyg som erbjuder automatiska garantier för att säkert konsumera mikrofrontends genom att säkerställa att uppdateringar som introduceras i körtid är kompatibla. Genom att använda Plutt, kan konsumenter vara trygga i vetskapen att en försedd mikrofrontend presterar likadant under produktion som i utveckling. Samtidigt kan utvecklare som förser mikrofrontends släppa uppdateringar utan att bekymra sig över hur det påverkar konsumenter. Utöver Plutt, presenteras en grundlig kartläggning över mikrofrontends, där fem experter från industrin är intervjuade. Aspekter som inte hittas i existerande litteratur är upptäckta, vilket kunskapsbas och framtida forskning om mikrofrontends.

In indoor environment, the multi-sensor system has been proved to be an efficient solution for target locating process in terms of lower estimation cost. However, the placement of designed multi-sensor has great impact on the location performance in an indoor environment. Based on the time difference of arrival (TDOA), closed-form least-square location methods, including the spherical-interpolation (SI) and the spherical-intersection (SX) methods, are used in the estimation of target locations. The two methods are apart from the usual process of iterative and nonlinear minimization. Consequently, under the influence of noise interference, the performance of the two methods also produce different results. In addition to the above issues, the limitation of these methods will also be examined. The geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) effects of TDOA location on location performance of both inside and outside of the multi-sensor environment in the 2-D scenario have been studied in the past. This thesis aims to further advance the performance of GDOP in 3-D scenarios, analyze the differences, and propose the suitable needs. Programmed 3-D scenario simulations are used in this research, designed according to multiple sensor arrays and the moving latitude of a target. The Setup interprets the degree of multi-sensor separation, and distances from targets to the sensor array. A suitable location algorithm and optimal multi-sensor deployments in an indoor environment were proposed according to the simulation results.

Thesis (MComm (Industrial Psychology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Contemporary militaries are facing an increasing number of deployments compared to their previous counterparts. This is the result of globalisation and the acknowledgement of interdependence between various countries. The demand is even higher in the South African National Defence Force because of its geographical and socio-political position. Emanating from its position it is endowed with the task of stabilising the continent. This is an important task considering the fact that no country can experience stability and economic prosperity if its neighbours are unstable. The people performing the above highly venerated task are members of families with expectations. The demands posed by job demands in a form of deployment put tremendous pressure on even the healthiest of families. The situation is aggravated by the structure of most military families, cohesive nuclear families isolated from the support of extended families. The resulting conflict arising from the incompatibility affects all facets of a soldier’s life and his/her family. The inevitable consequences include stress, and attitudes such as job dissatisfaction, marital dissatisfaction, and low life satisfaction. The culmination of these negative consequences spill over to work performance and family stability. The family is the most disadvantaged domain because the military ethos enjoins soldiers to prioritise their work and treat the rest as secondary. This leads to an irrefutable destabilisation of families, which is a common experience in military families. The effects are more pronounced on women due to the social roles endowed on them. Their role in nurturance and emotional support make their absence more evident. The children are also not spared from the suffering. The effects of the fragmentation in the family affect their psychological wellbeing, their performance at school and their behaviour in general. The reunion often marks an apex of the tragedy. Returning parents find changes at home, some feel out of sync and others force their way into the families. The family roles have to be renegotiated, which is a process fraught with conflicts. The parents who gained prerogatives in the absence of their spouses are usually unwilling to relinquish their prominent positions. This result in conflicts, which prompt the dissolution of families, and in some cases, fathers withdraw and ask for unaccompanied long-term duties away from home.

With the emergence of cloud based solutions, companies such as Ericsson AB have started investigating different means of modernizing current implementations of software systems. With many new programming languages emerging such as Rust and Go, investigating the suitability of these languages compared to C++ can be seen as a part of this modernization process. There are many important aspects to consider when investigating the suitability of new programming languages, and this thesis makes an attempt at considering most of them. Therefore both performance which is a common metric as well as development efficiency which is a less common metric, were combined to provide a holistic view. Performance was defined as CPU usage, maximum memory usage, processing time per sequence and latency at runtime, which was measured on both x86 and ARM based hardware. Development efficiency was defined as the combination of the productivity metric, the maintainability index metric and the cognitive complexity metric. Combining these two metrics resulted in two general guidelines: if the application is constantly under change and performance is not critical, Go should be the language of choice. If instead performance is critical C++ should be the language of choice. Overall, when choosing a suitable programming language, one needs to weigh development efficiency against performance to make a decision.

La croissance phénoménale du trafic pousse les opérateurs mobiles à différencier leurs plans de tarification en se basant sur la bande passante consommée. Afin de maximiser la monétisation du trafic de données, les opérateurs devront envisager des approches plus intelligentes tout en améliorant leurs réseaux actuels ou en déployant de nouvelles infrastructures. Les Small Cells sont une partie intégrante des réseaux cellulaires matures 3G/4G et futurs 5G. Les Small Cells peuvent être de facto déployées dans des architectures hétérogènes pour la densification des réseaux macrocellulaires, ou de façon homogène pour une couverture en haut débit. Pour le deuxième cas de déploiement, de nouveaux défis doivent être résolus: un réseau de collecte fiable et économique est vital pour les déploiements des Small Cells. Le réseau de collecte est spécifiquement plus contraignant pour les déploiements des Small Cells dans les zones dites green-field, où les infrastructures de transport sont absentes ou présentes mais ne peuvent être contrôlées par l'opérateur. En d'autres termes, l'opérateur mobile souhaite garantir une bonne qualité d'accès aux services haut débit en se basant uniquement sur des Small Cells, tout en réduisant le coût global de l'installation. Dans cette thèse, nous nous focalisons sur des solutions de réseau de collecte rentables qui peuvent fournir les capacités minimales requises par les utilisateurs finaux. Notre première contribution vise à assurer une capacité suffisante aux réseaux Small Cells 4G. Tout d'abord, nous proposons une méthode rentable qui minimise les coûts du réseau de collecte tout en respectant les contraintes de : 1) demande de trafic dans le réseau d'accès, et de 2) caractéristiques technologiques des liens de collecte. Cette méthode permet d'obtenir des solutions sur mesure de réseau de collecte à coûts optimal pour un réseau d'accès donné, basé sur des Small Cells; ces solutions sont constituées de différentes technologies de liaison. Deuxièmement, nous analysons l'impact de l'activité des utilisateurs finaux sur le trafic généré à la fois sur les deux interfaces logiques S1 et X2 d'une Small Cell, tout en tenant compte les différentes composantes de trafic moyen d'un utilisateur final. Cette analyse permet d'avoir un aperçu très utile pour la sélection des solutions nécessaires au réseau de collecte. Dans notre deuxième contribution, nous nous focalisons sur l'amélioration des capacités des systèmes WLAN. Nous concevons un protocole d'ordonnancement MAC pour les transmissions uplink multi-utilisateurs : il permet un échange minimal des trames de contrôle requises pour la mise en place des transmissions entre les multiples émetteurs et le récepteur. Les résultats d'analyse et de simulations révèlent des performances améliorées, d'un point de vue du système et de l'utilisateur. / The recent phenomenal traffic growth is driving mobile operators to tier their pricing plans based on consumed bandwidth. To maximize data traffic monetization, operators will need to consider smarter approaches while upgrading their current networks or deploying new ones. Small Cells are an integral part of both mature 3G/4G and future 5G cellular networks. Small Cells may be de facto deployed in heterogeneous architectures for Macro cells densification, or homogeneously for minimum broadband coverage. In this respect, emerging challenges must be tackled: a reliable and economical backhaul is vital for Small Cells deployments. It is specifically more constraining for Small Cells deployments in green-field areas, where transport infrastructure are absent or non-owned. In other words, the mobile operator wants to ensure good quality access to broadband services based only on Small Cells, while reducing overall installation cost. In this thesis, we focus on cost-efficient backhaul solutions that may provide the minimum capacities required by end users. Our first contribution targets the provisioning of 4G Small Cells networks with sufficient capacity. Firstly, we provide a cost-efficient method that minimizes backhaul cost while respecting the constraints of access network traffic demand and connecting technologies characteristics. This method provides with customized cost-optimal backhaul solutions for a given Small Cells access network; those solutions are made up of different linking technologies. Secondly, we analyze the impact of end users activity -i.e. data exchange- on generated traffic on both a Small Cell logical interfaces S1 and X2; by taking into account different traffic components of an end user device. The analysis supplies with valuable insights on selecting the needed backhaul solutions. In our second contribution, we focus on improving capacity in WLAN systems. We design a MAC scheduling scheme for uplink multi-users transmissions: it enables to exchange minimal control frames required for the establishment of transmissions between the multiple transmitters and the receiver. Both analytic results and conducted proof-of-concept simulations show improved efficiency for both system and user oriented performances.

This comparative case study examines how parallel deployments impact on UN peace operations’ legitimacy. It focuses on if and how the two French military operations, Serval and Barkhane, affected the legitimacy of MINUSMA. A theoretical framework on relational dynamics of parallel deployments and on legitimacy was established. The first step was to analyze the legitimacy of Serval/Barkhane. Thereafter, the relational dynamics between Serval/Barkhane and MINUSMA were analyzed. Last step was discussing how the legitimacy of respective military operation and the relational dynamics could explain the parallel legitimacy dynamics. Using assessment reports by different institutions, a qualitative within-case analysis was conducted to identify changes in legitimacy. The study shows that both Serval and Barkhane had a negative impact on MINUSMA’s legitimacy but in different ways. Serval affected the legitimacy negatively by creating high expectations that MINUSMA could not fulfill. Barkhane affected the legitimacy negatively by making the UN peace operation seem partial due to its association with the counterterrorist Barkhane.

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The thesis is a comparative case study, that applies the typology of deployments of history of S. A. Metzger and R. J. Paxton on the World War I video games Battlefield 1 and Valiant Hearts. The objective of the thesis is to compare the studied games and to evaluate the usefulness and limitations of the applied typology as an analytical tool. A. Chapman's analytical framework for the formal analysis of historical video games is used as a methodological guideline. The "texts" of the video games serve as the main data source, complemented by the use of Let's Play videos, that allow a deeper level of analysis in certain areas and offer a glimpse of how historical representations and narratives are being consumed. Results show that both games present a rich and critical view of the World War I history and that they offer space for representation of marginalized groups. The game Valiant Hearts, unlike the game Battlefield 1, has a strong anti-war message and tells its story from a transnational perspective, emphasizing the Franco-German reconciliation. The game Battlefield 1 celebrates the combat heroism of the soldiers of individual nations and avoids completely the portrayal of civilians and the impact of the war on their lives. The World War I in this game is likened to the Second World War and it...