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This research examines a new concept called information systems (IS) control alignment, which refers to the degree that controls within an IS process such as systems development are similar to an ideal profile of controls. IS controls are used to influence the behaviour of employees, often via approaches such as formal policies or managerial oversight. Many companies continue to struggle with ineffective IS controls, as evidenced by underperforming systems development projects, ongoing security breaches, and inconsistent service from third-party providers. A qualitative case study approach is adopted, drawing on data collected via interviews and company documents. IS controls are found to most effectively achieve their objectives when they are grouped into mutually reinforcing profiles characterized by either agile attributes (e.g. evolution, innovation), traditional attributes (e.g. stability, prevention), or hybrid attributes that are employed based on unique organizational circumstances. Findings from this research will help organizations to better achieve their goals by identifying IS controls that complement, rather than conflict, with one another. By more closely examining the implications of IS control choice, organizations can better understand how to influence employee behaviour and oversee day-to-day operations, a topic that is increasingly on the minds of executives and shareholders in light of the rash of business failures in recent years. Findings will also contribute to the academy by conceptualizing and empirically evaluating the new concept of IS control alignment, as well as building theory regarding the relationships between IS processes, controls, and employee behaviour. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2013-04-17 13:14:32.122

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In recent years the use of portable and wireless equipment is becoming more widespread, and as in many situations communication infrastructure might not be available, wireless networks such as Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are becoming increasingly important. A mobile ad hoc network is a collection of nodes that exchanges data over wireless paths. The nodes in this network are free to move at any time, therefore the network topology changes in an unpredictable way. Since there is no fixed infrastructure support in mobile ad hoc networks, each node functions as a host and a router. Due to mobility, continuous change in topology, limited bandwidth, and reliance on batteries; designing a reliable and scalable routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks is a challenging task. Multicast routing protocols have been developed for routing packets in mobile ad hoc networks. Existing protocols suffer from overheads and scalability. As the number of senders, groups, and mobility speed increases, the routing overhead and the packet collision increases, and therefore the packet delivery ratio decreases. Thus none of the existing proposed multicast routing protocols perform well in every situation. In this study a novel multicast routing protocol for ad hoc networks is proposed. It is an efficient and scalable routing protocol, and named Network Sender Multicast Routing Protocol (NSMRP). NSMRP is a reactive mesh based multicast routing protocol. A central node called mesh sender (MS) is selected periodically from among the group(s) sender(s) to create one mesh in order to be used in forwarding control and data packets to all multicast group(s) member(s). One invitation message will be periodically flooded to all group(s) member(s) by MS to join the group(s). The proposed routing protocol is evaluated by simulation and compared with a well known routing protocol. The results are analyzed and conclusions are drawn.

The involvement of Stakeholders in requirement collection of software projects is essential, and that is evident in the diverse methodologies available that emphasise stakeholder collaboration. However these processes scarcely provide further understanding of the social interaction, and its effect into forming collaboration had not been sufficiently addressed by software development research. It is challenging to identify dominating factors that affect collaboration due to the complexity of stakeholder interaction. This thesis addresses such a challenge. It discusses a systems approach to the evaluation of stakeholder collaboration within requirement collection of software projects. A generic approach has been developed to contribute to our understanding of the problem and support stakeholders’ collaborative involvement. Based on understanding the nature of collaboration between stakeholders in requirement collection, and the concept of perception and its contribution into forming collaboration, the EStaC (Evaluation of Stakeholder Collaboration) approach is developed. EStaC is presented here to describe an integration of multi-methodologies that supports capturing stakeholders' perspectives, and therefore systemically it captures the essence of collaboration within its context. EStaC contributes to the crucial phase of requirement collection with the ultimate objective of extending it to include means of improvement of stakeholder collaboration. It promotes the development of two modes of analysis, the design and diagnosis, which both involves using the principles of the Viable System Model. The novelty of this work is specifically considered with the development of the EStaC approach because unlike other approaches, it focuses on the social act of interaction from a stakeholders viewpoint, by applying systemic strategies and cybernetic driven principles with concepts of fourth generation evaluation. The research recognises evaluation of stakeholder collaboration as an important aspect in the requirement collection process in any software development. It concludes and supports the incorporation of such activities throughout various phases of requirement collection.

This thesis is a critical investigation into the development, application and evaluation of ant colony optimisation metaheuristics, with a view to solving a class of capacitated facility location problems. The study is comprised of three phases. The first sets the scene and motivation for research, which includes; key concepts of ant colony optimisation, a review of published academic materials and a research philosophy which provides a justification for a deductive empirical mode of study. This phase reveals that published results for existing facility location metaheuristics are often ambiguous or incomplete and there is no clear evidence of a dominant method. This clearly represents a gap in the current knowledge base and provides a rationale for a study that will contribute to existing knowledge, by determining if ant colony optimisation is a suitable solution technique for solving capacitated facility location problems. The second phase is concerned with the research, development and application of a variety of ant colony optimisation algorithms. Solution methods presented include combinations of approximate and exact techniques. The study identifies a previously untried ant hybrid scheme, which incorporates an exact method within it, as the most promising of techniques that were tested. Also a novel local search initialisation which relies on memory is presented. These hybridisations successfully solve all of the capacitated facility location test problems available in the OR-Library. The third phase of this study conducts an extensive series of run-time analyses, to determine the prowess of the derived ant colony optimisation algorithms against a contemporary cross-entropy technique. This type of analysis for measuring metaheuristic performance for the capacitated facility location problem is not evident within published materials. Analyses of empirical run-time distributions reveal that ant colony optimisation is superior to its contemporary opponent. All three phases of this thesis provide their own individual contributions to existing knowledge bases: the production of a series of run-time distributions will be a valuable resource for future researchers; results demonstrate that hybridisation of metaheuristics with exact solution methods is an area not to be ignored; the hybrid methods employed in this study ten years ago would have been impractical or infeasible; ant colony optimisation is shown to be a very flexible metaheuristic that can easily be adapted to solving mixed integer problems using hybridisation techniques.