Thesis (M. S.)--Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Hunter, Michael; Committee Member: Meyer, Michael; Committee Member: Rodgers, Michael. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Background: Internet, as everybody knows, has a lot of advantages and possibilities. One of these possibilities for companies is changing their business to electronic commerce (e-commerce). Almost all companies might need this type of business to sustain in future and compete with others. Most of the traditional businesses decide to change their business to e-commerce to have more profits in the future. However, this kind of commercial (e-commerce) may have its own risks and difficulties. Therefore, financial drivers can help companies to start or change previous business to e-commerce better and more easily. Purpose: The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance of financial drivers for business to business (B2B) companies when they are starting an e-commerce. Since financial drivers might motivate the companies to start with e-commerce. Design/Methodology/Approach: A qualitative method and two case studies in the plastic industry are used. There are six interviews with a company named Alpha and two with a company named Beta. The researcher chooses the semi-structured interview for this study. The data are collected from mentioned interviews and secondary data. Findings: The finding of this study is divided into two parts. A) The necessity of companies to start an e-commerce, B) The importance of the financial drivers for B2B companies. This study shows that the financial driver has a significant effect to start an e-commerce. The advantages of selling products through e-commerce are as follows: increasing sales and revenues, decreasing transaction costs, improving liquidity problems, introducing the company brand and reaching products in 24/7. Practical implications: The result of this study has several implications for B2B companies such as management motivation to start an e-commerce. This study introduces financial drivers as an important key to motivate management to start with e-commerce.

Dagens samhälle står inför förändringar av klimatet som bland annat är skapade av mänsklig aktivitet (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), 2014). För att mildra effekterna och uppnå hållbarhet är användning av solkraft en möjlig dellösning (Palm & Tengvard, 2009). Uppsatsenundersöker vilka faktorer som påverkar privatpersoner i Sverige att välja solceller som en del i sin energiförsörjning samt analysera vilka drivkrafteroch barriärer som förekommer för att fler ska installera i framtiden. Uppsatsen kommer också att bidra till forskningsfältet som idag är begränsat.Kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts på privatpersoner som bor i kommunerna Linköping och Västerås. De är två av Sverigeskommuner med mest installerad effekt av solel. De viktigaste drivkrafterna som framkommit från respondenterna i uppsatsen vid installation avsolceller är möjlighet till ekonomiskt stöd, miljömedvetenhet och teknikintresse. Barriärer som främst lyfts upp är administrativt arbete,regelförändringar och investeringskostnader. För att fler ska installera solceller behöver tekniken utvecklas, administrationen bli enklare, informationsamlas på ett ställe och bättre batterier för lagring av solel finnas. / Today, the society are facing change in the climate due to human activities (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014). Solar powercan be a part of the solution to mitigate the climate effects (Palm & Tengvard, 2009). The essay will investigate what factors may affect individualsin Sweden to choose solar as a part of their energy supply. It will also analyse drivers and barriers to increase the quantity of installations of solarpower in the future. The essay will also contribute to the research field which today is limited. The chosen method is qualitative semi-structuredinterviews, where the interviewees lives in the municipalities of Linköping and Västerås. These two municipalities in Sweden have the most installedeffect of solar. The most important drivers which has emerged among individuals during installation of solar are the opportunity to apply for financialsupport, environmental awareness and an interest in technology. Barriers that dominates are administrative work, changes of rules and investmentcost. For more people to install solar, the technology needs to develop, the administration needs to be simple, information needs to be gathered inone place and better batteries are needed for storing electricity.

abstract: This research describes software based remote attestation schemes for obtaining the integrity of an executing user application and the Operating System (OS) text section of an untrusted client platform. A trusted external entity issues a challenge to the client platform. The challenge is executable code which the client must execute, and the code generates results which are sent to the external entity. These results provide the external entity an assurance as to whether the client application and the OS are in pristine condition. This work also presents a technique where it can be verified that the application which was attested, did not get replaced by a different application after completion of the attestation. The implementation of these three techniques was achieved entirely in software and is backward compatible with legacy machines on the Intel x86 architecture. This research also presents two approaches to incorporating software based "root of trust" using Virtual Machine Monitors (VMMs). The first approach determines the integrity of an executing Guest OS from the Host OS using Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and qemu emulation software. The second approach implements a small VMM called MIvmm that can be utilized as a trusted codebase to build security applications such as those implemented in this research. MIvmm was conceptualized and implemented without using any existing codebase; its minimal size allows it to be trustworthy. Both the VMM approaches leverage processor support for virtualization in the Intel x86 architecture. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Computer Science 2011

La vitesse représente un enjeu de sécurité routière majeur et constitue l’un des principaux facteurs de risque retrouvé dans l’accidentalité et l’aggravation des blessures des conducteurs de deux-roues motorisés (2RM). Les campagnes de prévention routière ayant recours à la communication persuasive s’attachent à modifier l’attitude des usagers de la route dans le but d’impacter le comportement mais ses effets sont contrastés. Considérer la force de l’attitude des conducteurs de 2RM à l’égard de la vitesse permet de rendre compte des limites de la persuasion et suggère l’adoption d’une méthodologie alternative basée sur un renouveau paradigmatique. L’articulation des connaissances accumulées dans le champ de la communication persuasive et des enseignements tirés de la théorie de l’engagement ont donné lieu à l’émergence et le développement d’une nouvelle approche combinatoire. La communication engageante propose de faire précéder l’exposition à un message persuasif de la réalisation d’un acte peu coûteux et systématiquement accepté de la part de tous les individus. L’optimisation de ce protocole consiste à déterminer l’acte préparatoire et le message persuasif permettant d’accroître le taux d’acceptation de la requête cible problématique. L’ensemble de notre programme de recherches tend à confirmer l’efficacité supérieure de la communication engageante face à la communication persuasive au regard de nombreux critères : intention, amplitude comportementales et comportements auto-déclarés. La communication engageante semble par ailleurs attester de son influence sur les comportements effectifs de vitesse sinon relatifs au style de conduite des motocyclistes. / Speed is a major road safety issue and is identified as one of the main risk factors for accident rate and aggravation of two-wheelers drivers (2WD) injuries. Road safety campaigns resorting persuasive communication which seeks to change the attitude of road users in order to impact behaviour showed contrasting effects. Considering the strength of 2W drivers' attitudes towards speed allows reporting on the limitations of persuasion which encouraged a paradigmatic renewal through the adoption of an alternative methodology.The articulation of knowledge accumulated in the field of persuasive communication with that of the insights drawn from the theory of commitment has given rise to the development of a new combinatorial approach. The binding communication proposes to precede the exhibition with a persuasive message of an inexpensive and systematically accepted act by all individuals. The optimization of this protocol consists in determining the preparatory act and persuasive message making it possible to increase the acceptance rate of the problematic target request.Overall, our research studies tend to confirm the superior effectiveness of binding communication over the persuasive communication with regards to many criteria: intention, behavioral amplitude and self-reported behaviors. Besides, the binding communication seems to attest to its influence on actual speed behavior, if not related to riding style of motorcyclists.

Svevia is a company working with installation, occupancy and operation of infrastructure. They are currently testing and developing a new system called dynamic route optimization (DynOpt) in cooperation with B and M Systemutveckling. This system is able to contribute to a series of improvements for the company, such as automatization of certain processes, conclude demand on a more local level and create dynamic optimized routes which in the best way handles the determined local demands. Svevia sees great potentials of profits with the system, thereby has an interest of a support for decision-making regarding what may or may not be problematic during a potential implementation of such a system. This report regards a case study of the affects that DynOpt can have on its future users and what impact such effects might have on Svevia, with the goal of determining the drivers and barriers of DynOpt related to soft parameters. The soft parameters in this case study relate to how the changes DynOpt entails may affect the users and why or why not they may desire or be willing to accept these changes. The method used to conclude these drivers and barriers is to firstly gather information from the users by interviews and surveys, which then is analyzed in order to determine what advantages and disadvantages the users see with the system. The second step of the data processing consists of a SWOT-analysis execution. The strategic effects are determined through consultation with insight personnel. Lastly the remaining significant results are converted into drivers and barriers by firstly eliminating the information that may not pan out in any driver or barrier and secondly lumping together result describing similar effects into drivers and barriers. Eleven drivers and six barriers are concluded. Such results are for example the driver that the potential future users’ interest in technology may ease the implementation since DynOpt is a technological implementation. One of the barriers on the other hand is that the total driving distance will be reduced through optimization, which results in less available work for the chauffeurs which worsens their working conditions and can result in resistance to the implementation. This driver and barrier as well as the others in conjunction with a discussion, constitute the final result of the report and describe aspects that may hinder or make it easier to successfully implement DynOpt.

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-07-30T14:37:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 SIMONE TAVARES DA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGECA) 2016.pdf: 3397786 bytes, checksum: 0cb91397435440e612394d24d7999543 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-30T14:37:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SIMONE TAVARES DA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGECA) 2016.pdf: 3397786 bytes, checksum: 0cb91397435440e612394d24d7999543 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-28 / Capes / A região semiárida do Nordeste brasileiro caracteriza-se por um baixo regime pluviométrico e uma variabilidade climática natural que se reflete em eventos extremos como secas prolongadas. O bioma Caatinga tem sofrido os impactos das mudanças ora causadas por ações humanas, ora causadas direta ou indiretamente pelas variações no clima. O zoneamento de áreas mais suscetíveis a mudanças, ou historicamente sob forte pressão por causa do crescimento das cidades e outros fatores antrópicos, podem auxiliar em ações de planejamento mais sustentáveis. Fazendo uso de dados bioclimáticos em escala global e, de dados censitários em escala regional, o presente trabalho buscou uma metodologia integradora advinda das Geotecnologias com vistas à obtenção de um indicador das áreas submetidas a forte “pressão por mudanças”, que pode ser exercida por variáveis climáticas, demográficas ou socioeconômicas na região semiárida do Nordeste brasileiro. Faz- se o uso de técnicas de sobreposição Fuzzy, além de um estimador de densidade Kernel e são considerados três vetores principais utilizando variáveis climáticas e censitárias. Um vetor climático impulsionado por variáveis climáticas (Temperatura média, Precipitação média e Sazonalidade da Precipitação); um vetor oriundo de atividade humana demográfica, impulsionado por variáveis demográficas de população (densidade populacional e população rural) e um vetor impulsionado por atividades socioeconômicas (IDHM e PIB agropecuário). A sobreposição destes três vetores permitiu a obtenção de um indicador único de áreas submetidas à forte “pressão por mudanças” na região em estudo. Os resultados apontam áreas submetidas a “forte pressão” no entorno de cidades importantes no contexto atual do semiárido nordestino, o que se reflete em alterações marcantes na forma de uso e ocupação destas regiões. Isto se configura, principalmente, por essas regiões apresentarem alta densidade populacional, acompanhada por um crescimento do PIB agropecuário nos últimos anos. / The semi-arid region of northeastern part of Brazil has low precipitation rates and high natural climate variability. It appears trough extreme events such as prolonged droughts. The Caatinga biome has been under impacts either caused by human actions, as directly or indirectly caused by climate changes. For a better understanding and planning actions about those changes, susceptible areas could be classified and zoned, making possible a visualization of historical and continuous pressures caused by urban growth or other human pressures. This research uses bioclimatic data on a global scale and census data at the regional and local scale in an integrative approach. Geospatial technologies are used to obtain a “pressure for changes indicator” caused by climatic, demographic or socioeconomic variables. Fuzzy overlay techniques are used and a statistical estimator for generate surfaces (Kernel density) for three chosen drivers. One climate driver represented by Temperature, Precipitation and Precipitation Seasonality; One demographic driver represented by Population density and rural population changes; and one socioeconomic driver represented by HDI (Human development index) for each county and agricultural GDP (Gross Domestic Product). This overlay process results in a unique “Change for pressure” index for the Brazilian semi-arid region. The results show the nearest areas from some important middle cities such as “high pressure changes”. In those areas, it is possible to observe the strong correlation between LULCC and high density urban areas and an increasing of GDP (Gross Domestic Product for Livestock and Agriculture) in the last years as well.

This paper addresses the question of how Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) can be implemented in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). It builds on existing knowledge about RRI in business as well as on insights into motivations, drivers and barriers from the related fields of eco-innovation and sustainability innovation. Expert interviews with CEOs of SMEs in the Austrian medical device sector are analyzed to develop insights into the companies' research and innovation activities and potential drivers and barriers for RRI. The findings support the assumption that SMEs are largely unaware of the RRI concept. At the same time, however, it is possible to identify current practices that already operationalize aspects of RRI. It is argued that SMEs could build upon existing practices to further develop ways of being responsible and that implementation of RRI should be in line with specific organizational and contextual factors.

Comment peut-on expliquer que le « stress » devienne une réalité pour les routiers alors qu’ils sont traditionnellement contraints à l’effort physique, et dans quelle mesure est-il sociologiquement organisé ? La gestion de flux en temps réel et la transformation en métier de service amène de nouvelles contraintes dont le stress en est son émanation sociale. Mon enquête se découpe en trois parties. La première vise à présenter le secteur et à montrer les points de tension qui se manifestent à l’échelle économique et macrosociologique. En seconde partie, j’aborde l’histoire du transport routier de marchandises dans son développement pendant les lois de coordination des transports jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Enfin, en troisième je rends compte des observations directes issues des voyages en cabine de conduite et des lieux de socialisation des routiers et je présente enfin une construction idéale-typique du stress en m’appuyant sur le rapport qu’ont les routiers envers les prescriptions et des marges de manoeuvre qu’ils mobilisent. / How can we explain that stress becomes a fact for long-distance truck drivers while they are tradionally forced to physical efforts ? Moreover, to what extend stress is it socialy organized ? Long-distance truck drivers’ work is the object of some complex prescriptions in an open world, in which its transformation from worker to a service job brings new contraints. Among them, stress is gradually imperative. I hope to see how this process enfolds. My investigation stands (out) in three parts. The first one presents the sector of french road freight. My goal is to show some points of tensions in the economic and macrosociological scales. In the second part, I’ll focus on the history of road transport through its development during the French coordination laws until today by following the institutional transformations of regulations and competition in European Union. Then, we shall analyse how stress spreads through our ideal-typical construction.

O interesse principal desta pesquisa é a investigação, o desenvolvimento e a aplicação de um método que permita identificar e avaliar a ocorrência de comportamentos de risco em condutores com habilitação categoria B, na cidade de Porto Alegre. Esse método está fundamentado em trabalhos que caracterizam o cometimento de erros, lapsos e violações que ensejam o envolvimento em acidentes de trânsito. Tais trabalhos embasam a elaboração e a discussão deste estudo e também a teoria da Homeostase do Risco, as funções psicológicas, cognitivas e os aspectos legais envolvidos no ato de dirigir, assim como o desenvolvimento de jogos e simuladores de condução. Os instrumentos utilizados constituem-se de um jogo digital de situações de trânsito e de um questionário digital sobre o comportamento de condutores, ambos desenvolvidos com base no Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ)1 e em dados estatísticos sobre as infrações mais cometidas. Os comportamentos de risco que apresentaram maior incidência, com a aplicação do método, correspondem aos dados estatísticos sobre as principais infrações cometidas por condutores. A correlação entre os dados obtidos com o Questionário e o Jogo demonstrou, na amostra estudada, não haver associação significativa entre os dois instrumentos na maioria das situações abordadas. Isso denota não haver relação direta entre os instrumentos, vistos aqui como independentes, mas complementares. Dessa forma, à luz do método proposto, podem-se tornar maiores as possibilidades de análise sobre o comportamento de risco no trânsito, bem como com a continuidade de pesquisas na área. A identificação de forma precoce de fatores preditores de comportamentos de risco tem sua relevância por corroborar para a efetividade das intervenções preventivas. / This research main interest is the development and implementation of a method for identifying and evaluating the occurrence of risk behaviors in category B drivers license in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil. This method is based on studies characterizing the carried errors, lapses and violations that lead to involvement in traffic accidents. Such works underlie this study’s development and discussion and also the risk homeostasis theory, the physiological functions, cognitive, and the legal aspects involved in driving acts, as well as the games development and driving simulators. The used instruments are made up of a digital role of some traffic situations and a digital questionnaire about the drivers behavior, both developed based on the Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ)1 and in the statistics about more performed infractions. Risk behaviors that had the highest incidence correspond to the statistical data about the major infractions committed by drivers. The correlation among obtained data with the Questionnaire and the game showed no significant association between the two instruments in the most covered situations. This indicates that there is no direct relationship among the instruments seen here as independent but complementary. By the proposed method, the potential for analysis of the traffic risk behavior may become greater, as well as the further research in this area. The risk behavior’s predictors identification in an earlier time has their relevance for the preventive interventions effectiveness.