In South Africa, urbanized environments are often studied individually, not taking the surrounding natural environment into account (McConnachie and Shackleton, 2012: 2). Current approaches focussing on the integration of Urban Planning and Urban Ecology seek to address these issues of integrated planning. Urban Ecology practice aims to describe the study of (1) humans in human settlements, of (2) nature in human settlements, and of (3) the joined relationships between humans and nature. Urban Ecology thus forms a major part of Urban and Spatial Planning, with regard to the objectives of sustainable planning and development, green infrastructure planning, and resilience. The role and impact of green spaces to support sustainable human settlements are no new phenomenon (Byrne & Sipe, 2010: 7). This is related to the different benefits which nature provides, referred to in this research as ecosystem services (or environmental benefits) of green spaces. Green spaces, in this sense, are fundamental areas in human settlements, in need of intentional and structured planning approaches to enhance sustainability and said environmental benefits. It is important to realise that the environment in urbanized areas is dependent on the local communities (in terms of conservation and appropriate planning approaches), but that local communities (society) are also dependent on the environment (in terms of certain benefits which are provided by the said green spaces and environment). Rural settlements in South Africa experience various problems and challenges in terms of planning for the environment through green spaces (as well as sustainability), mainly as a result of the fragmentation of these rural areas, the existence of lost spaces, urbanisation, urban sprawl and poverty (Trancik, 1986; Barnett, 1995; IIED, 2000; DEAT, 2006; McMahan et al, 2002). This research attempted to address the challenges of integrated planning and green space provision in a local rural context, by means of: (1) A literature study encompassing research on Urban Ecology; Urban Planning; environmental dimension of planning; provision of ecosystem services; green infrastructure planning; resilience, and relevant policies and legislation; (2) An empirical investigation and comparative evaluation of international case studies, along with a local case study; and (3) drawing conclusions and recommendations for the local case study, based on the international approaches and identified best-practices. This research evaluated the spatial and environmental benefits of green space and enhanced the importance of planning for such benefits in rural South African areas. / MArt et Scien (Urban and Regional Planning), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

In der theoretischen Auseinandersetzung mit mobilen Internet-Diensten sind Quality of Service (QoS) und Quality of Experience (QoE) als hochkomplexe und verbundene Konzepte zu erkennen. QoS umfasst dabei die technische Sicht auf das Telekommunikationsnetz, charakterisiert durch leistungsrelevante Parameterwerte (z. B. Durchsatz und Latenz). QoE hingegen bezieht sich auf die Bewertung des Nutzererlebnisses (z. B. Zufriedenheit und Akzeptanz). Zur gemeinsamen Erklärung bedarf es einer multi- bzw. interdisziplinären Betrachtung zwischen Ingenieurs- und Humanwissenschaften, da neben der Technik auch der Mensch als Nutzer in den QoS-QoE-Zusammenhang involviert ist. Ein mehrschichtiges Modell erfasst die relevanten Einflussfaktoren und internen Zusammenhänge zwischen QoS und QoE sowohl aus Netz- als auch Nutzersicht. Zur Quantifizierung des Zusammenhangs konkreter Werte in einer empirischen QoE-Evaluation wurde ein umfangreiches psychophysikalisches Laborexperiment konzipiert. Das dafür entwickelte Netzemulations-Testbed erlaubt mobiltypische Netz- und Nutzungssituationen gezielt in einem Testparcours zusammenzubringen. Die formulierten Prinzipien zur Testrelevanz, -eignung und -effizienz berücksichtigen hierbei die Besonderheiten des Testaufbaus und -designs mit echten Endgeräten und Diensten. Die Ergebnisse von über 200 Probanden bestätigen die vorhergesagten QoS-QoE-Charakteristiken der sechs untersuchten Dienste als kontinuierlich-elastisch bzw. sprunghaft-fest. Dienstspezifisch lässt sich jeweils von einem angestrebten Grad der Nutzerzufriedenheit auf die notwendigen Werte der QoS-Netzparameter schließen, woraus sich ein QoS-QoE-Zufriedenheitskorridor zwischen einem unteren und oberen Schwellwert ergibt. Teilweise sind dabei QoS-unabhängige Faktoren, z. B. die Art der Präsentation der Stimuli in der App auf dem Endgerät, als ebenso relevant zu erkennen wie die QoS-Netzparameter selbst. / The thesis is centered on the relationship of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) for mobile Internet services. While QoS covers the technical view on the telecommunications network characterized by performance-related parameter values (e.g. throughput and latency), QoE refers to the assessment of the user experience (e.g. satisfaction and acceptability) in the use of the services. In the thesis QoS and QoE are revealed as highly complex and related concepts in theoretical contemplation. Integrating both concepts requires a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach between engineering and human sciences to consider both - technological aspects of the network as well the human user. The designed multilayered model appropriately integrates the technical network view as well as the user's perspective by considering all relevant factors of influence and all internal relationships between QoS and QoE. The conducted extensive psychophysical laboratory experiment with real users, devices and services quantifies the relationship between specific QoS values and specific QoE values. A testbed developed for network emulation allows combining typical mobile network situations with typical usage situations in a controlled and focused manner. The three elaborated principles to test for relevance, suitability and efficiency take into account the special features of the test setup and test design. Test results gained from more than 200 volunteers confirm the predicted QoS-QoE-characteristics of the six tested mobile services to be either elastic or non-elastic. It is possible to conclude from the desired degree of user satisfaction on the necessary values of the QoS network parameters, which results in a QoS-QoE-corridor between lower and upper threshold values. Findings prove that QoS-independent factors, e.g. the type of presentation of the stimuli in the app on the user’s device, can be as relevant for QoE as the evaluated QoS network parameters themselves.

Der Aufenthaltsort eines mobilen Benutzers stellt eine wichtige Information für Anwendungen aus den Bereichen Mobile Computing, Wearable Computing oder Ubiquitous Computing dar. Ist ein mobiles Endgerät in der Lage, die aktuelle Position des Benutzers zu bestimmen, kann diese Information von der Anwendung berücksichtigt werden -- man spricht dabei allgemein von ortsbezogenen Anwendungen. Eng verknüpft mit dem Begriff der ortsbezogenen Anwendung ist der Begriff des ortsbezogenen Dienstes. Hierbei handelt es sich beispielsweise um einen Dienst, der Informationen über den aktuellen Standort übermittelt. Mittlerweile werden solche Dienste kommerziell eingesetzt und erlauben etwa, dass ein Reisender ein Hotel, eine Tankstelle oder eine Apotheke in der näheren Umgebung findet. Man erwartet, nicht zuletzt durch die Einführung von LTE, ein großes Potenzial ortsbezogener Anwendungen für die Zukunft. Das jährlich stattfindende Fachgespräch "Ortsbezogene Anwendungen und Dienste" der GI/ITG-Fachgruppe Kommunikation und Verteilte Systeme hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, aktuelle Entwicklungen dieses Fachgebiets in einem breiten Teilnehmerkreis aus Industrie und Wissenschaft zu diskutieren. Der vorliegende Konferenzband fasst die Ergebnisse des neunten Fachgesprächs zusammen. / The location of a mobile user poses an important information for applications in the scope of Mobile Computung, Wearable Computing and Ubiquitous Computing. If a mobile device is able to determine the current location of its user, this information may be taken into account by an application. Such applications are called a location-based applications. Closely related to location-based applications are location-based services, which for example provides the user informations about his current location. Meanwhile such services are deployed commercially and enable travelers for example to find a hotel, a petrol station or a pharmacy in his vicinity. It is expected, not least because of the introduction of LTE, a great potential of locations-based applications in the future. The annual technical meeting "Location-based Applications and Services" of the GI/ITG specialized group "Communication and Dsitributed Systems" targets to discuss current evolutions in a broad group of participants assembling of industrial representatives and scientists. The present proceedings summarizes the result of the 9th annual meeting.

Mobile applications are becoming more and more important in the daily life and offer interesting and completely new aspects to the field of cartography. The technological possibilities provided by computer science have had a large impact on cartography and therefore cartographers must be familiar with the development of software to present geographic information and make it accessible. With the recent rise of mobile devices like smartphones, it is inevitable that this has to include mobile platforms as well. The main focus of this Bachelor thesis is on the conceptual design and implementation of tutorials to teach the development of mobile applications or 'apps' for the Android platform. The tutorials are going to be part of exercises in a practical course that accompanies the lecture 'Mobile Cartography' held at the Institute of Cartography at the Dresden University of Technology. Five exercises have been created covering key aspects of Android programming with Java. The theoretical part of this thesis starts with providing definitions of important terms of mobile computing and mobile cartography that will play an important role throughout the thesis. After that possibilities of interaction with mobile and web applications are introduced and discussed briefly. Location-based services and their usage in the context of social networks are discussed in the following section before the sensors of mobile devices are analyzed. A brief discussion of the potential for augmented reality applications is also given. The following second section deals with mobile software platforms and focuses on the Android operating system for mobile devices. Within this section, the features of the Android framework are described and some specific characteristics of software development are explained. The third section is all about the conceptual design and implementation of the tutorials. Considering the requirements for the practical course and different aspects of learning, the pedagogical approach is described. Additionally the ECLASS model which has evolved in the context of E-Learning is explained as it provided the structure of the exercises. After that, the content of the five exercises which include basics, layout, internal interaction of components, database access and the integration of maps is reflected. Finally, a brief outlook on further possible exercises is given.

The programmable network envisioned in the 1990s within standardization and research for the Intelligent Network is currently coming into reality using IPbased Next Generation Networks (NGN) and applying Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles for service creation, execution, and hosting. SOA is the foundation for both next-generation telecommunications and middleware architectures, which are rapidly converging on top of commodity transport services. Services such as triple/quadruple play, multimedia messaging, and presence are enabled by the emerging service-oriented IPMultimedia Subsystem (IMS), and allow telecommunications service providers to maintain, if not improve, their position in the marketplace. SOA becomes the de facto standard in next-generation middleware systems as the system model of choice to interconnect service consumers and providers within and between enterprises. We leverage previous research activities in overlay networking technologies along with recent advances in network abstraction, service exposure, and service creation to develop a paradigm for a service environment providing converged Internet and Telecommunications services that we call Service Broker. Such a Service Broker provides mechanisms to combine and mediate between different service paradigms from the two domains Internet/WWW and telecommunications. Furthermore, it enables the composition of services across these domains and is capable of defining and applying temporal constraints during creation and execution time. By adding network-awareness into the service fabric, such a Service Broker may also act as a next generation network-to-service element allowing the composition of crossdomain and cross-layer network and service resources. The contribution of this research is threefold: first, we analyze and classify principles and technologies from Information Technologies (IT) and telecommunications to identify and discuss issues allowing cross-domain composition in a converging service layer. Second, we discuss service composition methods allowing the creation of converged services on an abstract level; in particular, we present a formalized method for model-checking of such compositions. Finally, we propose a Service Broker architecture converging Internet and Telecom services. This environment enables cross-domain feature interaction in services through formalized obligation policies acting as constraints during service discovery, creation, and execution time. / Das programmierbare Netz, das Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts in der Standardisierung und Forschung für das Intelligente Netz entworfen wurde, wird nun Realität in einem auf das Internet Protokoll basierendem Netz der nächsten Generation (Next Generation Network). Hierfür kommen Prinzipien aus der Informationstechnologie, insbesondere aus dem Bereich dienstorientierte Architekturen (Service-Oriented Architecture / SOA) für die Diensterstellung, -ausführung und -betrieb zum Tragen. SOA bietet hierbei die theoretische Grundlage für Telekommunikationsnetze, vor allem jedoch für die dazugehörigen Dienstplattformen. Diese erlauben dem Telekommunikationsbetreiber seine Position in einem offenen Marktplatz der Dienste auszubauen. Dazu bedarf es allerdings möglichst flexibler Dienstumgebungen, die die Kooperation zwischen Dienstanbietern und Nutzern aus unterschiedlichsten Domänen durch Unterstützung geeigneter Werkzeuge und Mechanismen fördert. Im Rahmen dieser Dissertation definieren wir aufbauend auf Forschungsergebnisse im Bereich Overlay-Netze, Netzabstraktion und Zugriff auf exponierte Dienste eine Service Broker genannte Dienstumgebung für konvergente Internet- und Telekommunikationsdienste. Dieser Service Broker stellt Mechanismen für die Komposition von Diensten und Mediation zwischen unterschiedlichen Dienstparadigmen und Domänenspezifika beim Dienstaufruf zur Verfügung. Der Forschungsbeitrag dieser Arbeit findet auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen statt: Aufbauend auf einer Analyse und Klassifikation von Technologien und Paradigmen aus den Bereichen Informationstechnologie (IT) und Telekommunikation diskutieren wir die Problemstellung der Kooperation von Diensten und deren Komposition über Domänengrenzen hinweg. In einem zweiten Schritt diskutieren wir Methoden der Dienstkomposition und präsentieren eine formalisierte Methode der modellbasierten Diensterstellung. Der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit liegt auf der Spezifikation der Service Broker Dienstumgebung und einem zugrundeliegenden Informations- und Datenmodell. Diese Architektur erlaubt die Komposition und Kooperation von Diensten über Domänengrenzen hinweg, um konvergente Internet- und Telekommunikationsdienste zu realisieren. Hierfür wird ein auf Obligationspolitiken basierendes Regelsystemformalisiert, das Interaktionen zwischen Dienstmerkmalen während der Diensterstellung und -ausführung definiert.

No description available.

Der Großteil des geschäftsrelevanten Wissens liegt heute als unstrukturierte Information in Form von Textdaten auf Internetseiten, in Office-Dokumenten oder Foreneinträgen vor. Zur Extraktion und Verwertung dieser unstrukturierten Informationen wurde eine Vielzahl von Text-Mining-Lösungen entwickelt. Viele dieser Systeme wurden in der jüngeren Vergangenheit als Webdienste zugänglich gemacht, um die Verwertung und Integration zu vereinfachen. Die Kombination verschiedener solcher Text-Mining-Dienste zur Lösung konkreter Extraktionsaufgaben erscheint vielversprechend, da so bestehende Stärken ausgenutzt, Schwächen der Systeme minimiert werden können und die Nutzung von Text-Mining-Lösungen vereinfacht werden kann. Die vorliegende Arbeit adressiert die flexible Kombination von Text-Mining-Diensten in einem serviceorientierten System und erweitert den Stand der Technik um gezielte Methoden zur Auswahl der Text-Mining-Dienste, zur Aggregation der Ergebnisse und zur Abbildung der eingesetzten Klassifikationsschemata. Zunächst wird die derzeit existierende Dienstlandschaft analysiert und aufbauend darauf eine Ontologie zur funktionalen Beschreibung der Dienste bereitgestellt, so dass die funktionsgesteuerte Auswahl und Kombination der Text-Mining-Dienste ermöglicht wird. Des Weiteren werden am Beispiel entitätsextrahierender Dienste Algorithmen zur qualitätssteigernden Kombination von Extraktionsergebnissen erarbeitet und umfangreich evaluiert. Die Arbeit wird durch zusätzliche Abbildungs- und Integrationsprozesse ergänzt, die eine Anwendbarkeit auch in heterogenen Dienstlandschaften, bei denen unterschiedliche Klassifikationsschemata zum Einsatz kommen, gewährleisten. Zudem werden Möglichkeiten der Übertragbarkeit auf andere Text-Mining-Methoden erörtert.

The services sector has played an increasingly important role in international trade in recent years. The negotiations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in recent years have initiated a global drive to liberalise services trade. However, this liberalisation process holds many challenges, especially for developing countries that do not have an adequate regulatory system to sufficiently support and promote these new export sectors. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in South Africa recognised a need to undertake scientific research to identify the development and export potential of key services sectors. In the period from 2005 until 2009, the services sector contributed 65% on average to the GDP of South Africa. In 2010, 79% of the labour force in South Africa was employed in the services sector. However, services only contributed 19% to total exports from South Africa in the period from 2005 until 2009 (ITC, 2010a). The largest services export sectors for South Africa over the five–year period were travel (63%), transportation (11%), and business services (9%). This indicates that South Africa?s services exports are mostly concentrated in one sector, namely travel, and this clearly indicates the need for South Africa to diversify exports of services into other sectors. Export promotion is one of the methods that governments can use in order to stimulate the export growth of a country. Given the need to increase and diversify the exports of South African services, this study aimed to investigate the literature in order to establish possible guidelines for the export promotion of services specifically. Export promotion instruments should aim to identify potential export opportunities in order to allocate scarce government resources to the active promotion of the sectors with the highest export potential. In order to aid government with this process, Cuyvers, De Pelsmacker and Roozen (1995) developed a decision support model (DSM) that could determine potential export opportunities for products in Belgium by using a scientifically–based method. This model was adapted for South African products in 2007 and further refined in 2009 and 2010 for the DTI in South Africa. In all cases, the DSM analysis was only applied to products and the services sector was never taken into consideration owing to the data differences and the nature of services. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a similar model for the services sector in South Africa that could identify the sectors and countries with the highest potential for services export diversification. The results of such a model could also be incorporated into a services sector strategy for South Africa. Such a services strategy does not currently exist for South Africa and if the results of this model were incorporated into such a strategy, it would be the first of its kind. The study reviewed the methodology of the DSM for products and found that the methodology of the first two filters could be applied to the available services data in a similar manner. However, owing to the nature of services and the limited availability of data, the third and fourth filters had to be adapted to consider these differences. Therefore, a new model was developed to incorporate the nature of services, and the new model was named the export opportunities model (EOM) for services. A new methodology was developed for the third and fourth filters in the EOM for services. A new cell structure was also constructed to categorise the results of the EOM according to the specific market characteristics, which could be used in export promotion strategies to develop specific promotion instruments for each type of market. The results of the EOM for services on a geographical basis showed that the highest export opportunities for services in South Africa were in Eastern and South–Eastern Asia, followed by the European market. The results also identified specific sectors that have high export potential for South African services. The sectors with the highest export potential are travel, transportation, construction services, communications services and other business services. These results can be incorporated into a services sector export promotion strategy for the DTI in South Africa. The study also compared the results of the DSM for products with the results of the EOM for services, in order to establish guidelines on regional export opportunities for both products and services. The study found that the highest export opportunities were in the Asian and European regions. The DTI in South Africa could use these product/country combinations and services/country combinations to develop specific export promotion instruments and strategies for each region in the world. / Thesis (Ph.D. (International Trade))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

The services sector has played an increasingly important role in international trade in recent years. The negotiations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in recent years have initiated a global drive to liberalise services trade. However, this liberalisation process holds many challenges, especially for developing countries that do not have an adequate regulatory system to sufficiently support and promote these new export sectors. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in South Africa recognised a need to undertake scientific research to identify the development and export potential of key services sectors. In the period from 2005 until 2009, the services sector contributed 65% on average to the GDP of South Africa. In 2010, 79% of the labour force in South Africa was employed in the services sector. However, services only contributed 19% to total exports from South Africa in the period from 2005 until 2009 (ITC, 2010a). The largest services export sectors for South Africa over the five–year period were travel (63%), transportation (11%), and business services (9%). This indicates that South Africa?s services exports are mostly concentrated in one sector, namely travel, and this clearly indicates the need for South Africa to diversify exports of services into other sectors. Export promotion is one of the methods that governments can use in order to stimulate the export growth of a country. Given the need to increase and diversify the exports of South African services, this study aimed to investigate the literature in order to establish possible guidelines for the export promotion of services specifically. Export promotion instruments should aim to identify potential export opportunities in order to allocate scarce government resources to the active promotion of the sectors with the highest export potential. In order to aid government with this process, Cuyvers, De Pelsmacker and Roozen (1995) developed a decision support model (DSM) that could determine potential export opportunities for products in Belgium by using a scientifically–based method. This model was adapted for South African products in 2007 and further refined in 2009 and 2010 for the DTI in South Africa. In all cases, the DSM analysis was only applied to products and the services sector was never taken into consideration owing to the data differences and the nature of services. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a similar model for the services sector in South Africa that could identify the sectors and countries with the highest potential for services export diversification. The results of such a model could also be incorporated into a services sector strategy for South Africa. Such a services strategy does not currently exist for South Africa and if the results of this model were incorporated into such a strategy, it would be the first of its kind. The study reviewed the methodology of the DSM for products and found that the methodology of the first two filters could be applied to the available services data in a similar manner. However, owing to the nature of services and the limited availability of data, the third and fourth filters had to be adapted to consider these differences. Therefore, a new model was developed to incorporate the nature of services, and the new model was named the export opportunities model (EOM) for services. A new methodology was developed for the third and fourth filters in the EOM for services. A new cell structure was also constructed to categorise the results of the EOM according to the specific market characteristics, which could be used in export promotion strategies to develop specific promotion instruments for each type of market. The results of the EOM for services on a geographical basis showed that the highest export opportunities for services in South Africa were in Eastern and South–Eastern Asia, followed by the European market. The results also identified specific sectors that have high export potential for South African services. The sectors with the highest export potential are travel, transportation, construction services, communications services and other business services. These results can be incorporated into a services sector export promotion strategy for the DTI in South Africa. The study also compared the results of the DSM for products with the results of the EOM for services, in order to establish guidelines on regional export opportunities for both products and services. The study found that the highest export opportunities were in the Asian and European regions. The DTI in South Africa could use these product/country combinations and services/country combinations to develop specific export promotion instruments and strategies for each region in the world. / Thesis (Ph.D. (International Trade))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Ortsbasierte Dienste erfreuen sich in den letzten Jahren starker Beliebtheit. Für deren Umsetzung sind sog. Lokalisierungsdienste notwendig, welche eine Ortung von Mobilgeräten erlauben. Das GPS stellt den wohl populärsten Lokalisierungsdienst dar, ist jedoch innerhalb von Gebäuden nur sehr beschränkt einsetzbar. In der Vergangenheit wurden deshalb Methoden vorgeschlagen, die zur Positionsbestimmung auf die Messung der Empfangsfeldstärke von WLAN-Aussendungen zurückgreifen. Im Rahmen der Diplomarbeit soll untersucht werden, ob sich ebenfalls eine Postionsbestimmung anhand von Laufzeiten der WLAN-Signale umsetzen lässt. Bedingung hierbei ist, dass der Lokalisierungsdienst - eine reine Softwarelösung darstellt und keine Modifikationen an Hard- oder Firmware voraussetzt und - die Lokalisierung ohne für diese Zwecke ausgelegte Spezialhardware umsetzbar ist. Diese Anforderungen sollen sicherstellen, dass der zu entwickelnde Lokalisierungsdienst mit bereits installierter, handelsübliche Hardware umsetzbar ist. Es sind in Frage kommende Verfahren zur Bestimmung der Signallaufzeit zu erörtern. Für die Laufzeitmessung in Frage kommenden Zeitquellen sollen zugänglich gemacht und auf ihre Tauglichkeit untersucht werden. Durch Messreihen ist zu untersuchen, ob mit den vorgeschlagenen Messverfahren eine Lokalisierung möglich ist und in welchem Rahmen sich die zu erwartende Genauigkeit bewegt. Die in dieser Arbeit beschriebenen Konzepte sollen im Rahmen einer Proof of Concept Anwendung implementiert werden. Die Software soll unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Wiederverwendbarkeit entwickelt werden, um eine spätere Nutzung im Rahmen anderer Projekte zu ermöglichen.