Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-76) Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-154).

Thesis (MA (Criminology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

The overall aim of this thesis is to corroborate whether the Situation Awareness (SA) of older drivers is deficient to that of younger driving groups, due to the onset of age-related cognitive decrements. This is important to ascertain due to a presumed linkage between the concept and accident causation. In addition, the research undertaken to date to investigate this linkage has exclusively utilised rather artificial driving simulators and simulations. Thus there is a need for data from more ecologically valid methods. The research studies reported here have sought to preference on-road assessments (of different complexity), and to capture what information was selectively perceived, comprehended and reacted to; rather than, as in previous work, what was recalled. To achieve this, a Think aloud methodology was chosen to produce narratives of a driver s thoughts. This method was advantageously unobtrusiveness, but also flexible - it could additionally be used to compare an individual's SA to a driving performance measure, Hazard Perception. The driving-based studies undertaken found that for a relatively non-taxing route, an older driver group could produce cohesive awareness in parity with a younger driver group. However, the concepts from which that awareness was based upon drew more on general, direction based, concepts, in contrast to the younger group s focus on more specific, action based, concepts, and rearward and safety-related cues. For a more cognitively taxing route, the younger group produced significantly higher (p < 0.024) individual SA-related scores than their older counterparts. But the concepts/cues both groups relied upon remained similar - particularly in regards to the ratio of those indicative of a rearward and/or a safety-related focus. In a video-based study, however, and in contrast, the older driver group s SA scores improved sufficient to outperform a younger group, but, despite this, not for video-based scores indicative of Hazard Perception (HP). In this latter regard, age-related decrements appeared to be more influential, as the older group felt they were under time pressure during a HP test. However, the difficulty this presented appeared to advantageously bring more attention and effort to the task, which were argued as important factors for the uplift in their SA scoring. The thesis also showed that older groups judgement of the actual complexity of a driving task could potentially be deficient to that of younger driver groups. This could cause problems as incorrect perceptions could deflate the relevance and cohesiveness of information being processing. In contrast, the perceived complexity of a task could bring a rise or fall in SA score for both groups. Such results raised questions as to the impact of cognitive decrements, relative to task difficulty and related effort whilst driving. It also provided evidence that Situation Awareness, rather than being uniformly good or bad, could, like any other psychological construct, be prone to change. These aspects were drawn together in a proposed model of driving SA.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T16:00:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo6554_1.pdf: 3066452 bytes, checksum: 91820a83661287c92ba4438dd8c7a4d7 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Os dispositivos lógicos programáveis, FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) há algum tempo têm sido uma tecnologia interessante para prototipação de circuitos digitais. Porém, esta realidade tem mudado à medida que a capacidade computacional destes dispositivos tem aumentado e o custo diminuído. Além disso, os FPGAs atuais podem utilizar menos energia que uma CPU convencional utilizaria para realizar a mesma computação. Outra característica, que traz grandes possibilidades, é a capacidade de reconfiguração em tempo de execução (reconfiguração dinâmica). Todos estes avanços permitiram a utilização dos FPGAs não só em aplicações típicas como sistemas embarcados mas também em sistemas de alto desempenho, que realizam processamento massivo de dados. Contudo, apesar das diversas vantagens apresentadas, esta tecnologia ainda não é largamente utilizada para realizar computação. Várias são as razões para isso, entre elas a exigência de um mínimo conhecimento em eletrônica digital para possibilitar o desenvolvimento dos IP-Cores; a complexidade do processo de desenvolvimento destes sistemas; os custos elevados com licenças das ferramentas e com as plataformas de desenvolvimento e a pouca portabilidade das aplicações desenvolvidas. O objetivo deste trabalho é prover uma plataforma reconfigurável que seja capaz, através de um sistema operacional e de maneira eficiente, gerenciar os recursos oferecidos pelos FPGAs. A plataforma proposta recebeu o nome de Aquarius II e foi baseada na plataforma Aquarius desenvolvida no CIn-UFPE. A arquitetura desta plataforma é híbrida e consiste de um FPGA Stratix-II da Altera responsável pelo controle da reconfiguração e tráfego dos dados e de um FPGA Virtex-II da Xilinx que é o elemento reconfigurável propriamente dito. Foram incorporados a esta plataforma um módulo de comunicação (IPCommCore) que é responsável pelo tráfego de dados do sistema operacional para a memória do dispositivo reconfigurável, um device driver para que o sistema operacional uCLinux possa controlar a comunicação através deste módulo e também foi definida uma interface de comunicação padrão para os cores reconfiguráveis que vierem a ser implementados. Para validar esta interface foi implementado e validado um core multiplicador para o Virtex-II utilizado como estudo de caso. Esta plataforma permitirá que sejam realizadas pesquisas em áreas que buscam se beneficiar desta tecnologia, como desenvolvimento de sistemas embarcados e sistemas de alta performance. O desenvolvimento de sistemas computacionais que utilizam hardware reconfigurável em sua arquitetura ainda é pouco comum e complexo. No entanto, propostas como a apresentada neste trabalho procuram solucionar ou atenuar os problemas citados e mudar sensivelmente esta realidade tornando viáveis e mais populares soluções que utilizam esta tecnologia

Le vieillissement de la population conduit à de nouveaux enjeux sociétaux. Une des implications de ce vieillissement concerne la question du maintien de la mobilité des plus âgés afin de préserver leur autonomie le plus longtemps possible. Jusqu'à présent et pour quelques décennies encore, l'essentiel de la mobilité est assurée par l'usage de la voiture. La conduite automobile est une activité complexe qui requiert des capacités sensorielles, fonctionnelles mais aussi des capacités cognitives. Or le vieillissement, même normal, s'accompagne d'une légère détérioration de ces différentes fonctions. Les personnes âgées sont toutefois peu impliquées dans les accidents corporels de la route. En effet, pour beaucoup de conducteurs, la mise en place de stratégies de régulation de la conduite leur permet de continuer à conduire de manière sécuritaire. Ces stratégies consistent en une diminution de leur exposition routière, en diminuant le nombre de kilomètres qu'ils parcourent ou en évitant certaines situations de conduite, avec à terme un arrêt définitif de la conduite. La littérature montre que ce processus de régulation se met en place progressivement dans l'âge et s'accentue avec l'aggravation des déficits. Elle montre également que ce processus se met en place différemment chez les hommes et chez les femmes. Le but de cette thèse est d'approfondir les recherches déjà menées sur le processus de régulation chez les hommes et les femmes âgés, en prenant en compte des déficits sensoriels, physiques et cognitifs, et en s'intéressant particulièrement à la pré-démence et à la démence. Ainsi, nous montrons que les femmes régulent plus, plus tôt, et pour des raisons difficiles à appréhender, alors que les hommes régulent davantage leur conduite en fonction de leur état de santé. Du fait que plus de femmes s'arrêtent de conduire à un stade pré-démentiel, la démence ne joue pas sur la restriction de leur activité de conduite, en distance parcourue ou en évitements de situations de conduite. Elle impacte directement l'arrêt de la conduite. En revanche, chez les hommes qui s'arrêtent moins en phase pré-démentielle, la démence impacte tout le processus de régulation de la conduite, de la restriction à l'arrêt. Concernant les déficits cognitifs, ils ont un effet sur le début du processus de régulation de la conduite des hommes comme des femmes, mais pas sur l'arrêt de la conduite des femmes car elles s'arrêtent avant une dégradation de ces fonctions. D'autres facteurs vont impacter la régulation de la conduite des hommes comme celle des femmes, et d'autres facteurs ont un effet spécifique chez les hommes ou chez les femmes. Notre travail aura contribué à mieux comprendre le processus de régulation dans son ensemble chez les hommes et chez les femmes séparément. Une des perspectives de ce travail sera d'étudier les conséquences de l'arrêt de la conduite avec des conséquences probablement différentes chez les hommes et les femmes. démence ; pré-démence ; facteurs associés ; 3-Cités ; MG-Cog CAPA ; SAFEMOVE / Abstract With increased life expectancy comes an aging of the population, and creates new societal challenges. One challenge of demographic aging is to maintain the independence and mobility of seniors for as long as possible. Today, and likely for decades to come, the private automobile is often the mainstay of personal mobility. Driving a car remains a complex activity, requiring sensory and functional capacities, and also certain cognitive capacities. But the aging process causes a progressive deterioration of these various capacities. In spite of which seniors remain under-represented in road trauma statistics! This can be explained by senior drivers adapting they driving habits in favor of better safety. Typical adaption strategies aim to reduce their exposure to traffic dangers, by driving less and by avoiding at-risk situations, ending up by not driving at all. Available study-reports suggests that such a strategy of adaption occurs progressively, as a reaction to the aging process, and so is accentuated by aggravation of a driver's deficiencies. This literature also suggests that the adaption process may occur differently for men and for women. The aim of the current study has been to further investigate the process of adaption, for senior men and women. Taking into account the decline of sensory, physical and cognitive capacities and with particular attention to the periods just before and after the onset of geriatric senility. Hence we establish that women adapt more their driving habits, and sooner too but for no obvious reason, whilst men tend to adapt in closer correlation with their state of health. As there are many women who have stopped driving already before senility, senility is not then a major influence on the distances they drive nor the situations they avoided, but rather impacts directly the decision to stop driving. Regarding cognitive deficiencies, they influence the adaption process right from the start, both for men and for women, but do not explain that women cease to drive long before a significant decline has occurred. Certain other factors influence the strategies of adaption for both men and women alike, whilst there are still other factors having a specific effect either on men or else on women. Our work in this study has led to a better understand of the adaption process (of driving habits by seniors), as a whole, and for men and women separately. A possible follow-on would be to investigate the impact that ceasing to drive then has, probably different, on the lives of men and of women

This thesis analyzed the Drivers and Implementation Approaches of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Family Businesses. Qualitative Analysis based on Semi-Structured Interviews was conducted in the region of Southern Lower Saxony and later on quantified through category-based Content Analysis. The results suggest that Drivers of CSR can be divided into value-based and strategic, and Implementation Approaches into informal and formal. Family Businesses are more likely to be driven by values and implement an informal approach. Further, a model to define CSR, called Four-Peak Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility, was developed. It consists of two fundamental stones of CSR, Compliance and Profitability, and four peaks called Marketplace, Workplace, Community and Environment.

E-government, in both developed and developing countries, has become the focus of governments' agenda because it offers enormous opportunities to reform the public sector and improve its performance. However, the evolution of e-government initiatives in developing countries is not at a satisfactory level which indicates that there are still enormous barriers and concerns that need to be addressed and solved.The major aim of this research is to investigate the supply-side stakeholders' perspectives of drivers and barriers forces that stimulate or impede the development of e-government initiative in Jordan and recommend strategies to e-government leaders on how to overcome and manage the encountered forces.This is a case study based qualitative research that employs semi-structured interviews as the primary source for data collection. In addition, template analysis approach and NVivo qualitative software have been used to analyze the gathered data. Moreover, a novel conceptual framework was initially developed by the researcher in order to be used as a helpful guide in the process of data collection and analysis. The framework was then applied to the research context to establish an overall view of the key drivers and barriers that influence the implementation of e-government at national level in Jordan.Research findings indicate that there are various drivers and barriers that affect the development of e-government initiative in Jordan. Most of the research findings confirmed what was already revealed by previous studies. However, this study added new and unique findings that were not discovered before including; The Holy Month of Ramadan, Ministers Reshuffling, Religious Beliefs, Preach Without Practicing, Wasta, and Improper Use of Technology. These new findings emerged distinctively from the Jordanian, Arabic and Islamic contexts. Finally, various recommendations have been proposed to demonstrate how challenges could be handled in practice. The value of this study is threefold. First, it contributes as new reference in e-government literature with respect to drivers and barriers to e-government in developing countries in general and in Arab nations in particular. Second, it proposes a conceptual framework that could be used as a tool to understand drivers and barriers that affect the development of e-government and their correlation to e-government initiatives success or failure. Third, it motivates changes in practice as it provides practical recommendations and guidance for practitioners and leaders of e-government in Jordan on how they should take actions to overcome and manage the encountered forces in order to reduce the possibility of the initiative failure and enhance the chance of its success.