Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Public Administration) / The significance of small, micro, and medium enterprises (SMEs) development cannot be overemphasized because it plays a considerable role in a nation's economy particularly in developing countries. SMEs' contributions include job creation, expanding the means of sustainable livelihoods and ensuring impartial distribution of wealth amongst citizens. This study evaluates monitoring and evaluation systems, policy and programmes of the Small Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to develop and transform the informal sector of the economy. The main purpose of the establishment of SMEDAN is to facilitate the promotion and development of a structured and effective small and medium enterprises sector that will provide informal employment for unemployed, and enhance sustainable livelihood and economic development in Nigeria. Unemployment and increased poverty levels are key challenges to the government of Nigeria, which has resulted in socio-economic and political unrest across the nation. Against the background of high unemployment rate, especially amongst the youth and the deteriorating fortunes of small and medium businesses in Nigeria, questions can be asked in relation to current initiatives and policies to support SME sector.

Sundsvall elnät har länge jobbat med att vädersäkra sitt elnät genom att gräva ner sitt mellanspänningsnät och det finns i dagsläget inga riktlinjer för hur mellanspänningskablar skall inspekteras. Målet med denna rapport var att utveckla en metod för hur Sundsvall elnät skulle kunna bedöma skicket på sina mellanspänningskablar, utreda vilka referensvärden borde användas, samt utforma rekommendationer för hur mätningarna borde tolkas i förhållande till möjligheten att fortsätta att ha kablarna i drift. För att möta målen genomfördes en litteraturstudie där olika diagnostikmetoder undersöks, referensvärden togs fram. Kablarnas åldringsmekanismer undersöktes samt konsekvenser av dåliga kablar förklaras. Utöver detta så utfördes ett antal mätningar i fält med tillgängliga mätmetoder. Rapporten visar på att det finns många tillgängliga mätmetoder för kabeldiagnostik men att få metoder har erkända referensvärden för bedömning. Rapporten påvisar att en kombination av mätningar med tangens med VLF, mätning av partiella urladdningar samt resistansmätning av kabelskärm/följeledare kan vara en bra metod bedöma skicket på mellanspänningskablar. / Sundsvall elnät has been working to weatherproof their grid by placing their medium voltage grid underground and to this date there are no regulations with regards to how to inspect underground cables. The aim of this survey was to develop a method for Sundsvall elnät on how to assess the condition of their medium voltage cables, investigate which reference values should be used, and to formulate recommendations on how measurements should be interpreted with regards to how long the cable can remain in service. To meet the aim of the survey a literature study was conducted where different methods for cable diagnostics, reference values, ageing mechanisms for medium voltage cables and consequences of bad cables was investigated. Furthermore some measurements are performed in field environment with available equipment. The report shows that there are many available methods for diagnostics of medium voltage cables but few methods that have recognized reference values. The report also shows that a combination of measurements containing tangens  with VLF, measurement of partial discharges and a resistance measurement of the cable screen and ground line could be a useful method for assessing the condition of medium voltage cables.

Les Installations de Stockage des Déchets Non Dangereux modernes nécessitent pour satisfaire les enjeux environnementaux, sanitaire et / ou économiques une gestion contrôlée des effluents liquides et gazeux. Le travail réalisé dans cette thèse porte sur la compréhension et la modélisation numérique des phénomènes de transferts de fluides avec une attention particulière pour les différents procédés mis en oeuvre durant l'exploitation des sites (injection de liquide, récupération de liquide et gaz). Pour chacune des trois applications étudiées, les phénomènes physiques majeurs sont identifiés ainsi que les échelles de temps et d'espace associées de manière à pouvoir proposer des versions simplifiées d'un modèle général. Ceci permet en particulier de renseigner ces modèles par des données principalement expérimentales. Un attachement particulier est porté au caractère hétérogène et déformable du matériau déchet. La description fine de l'injection de lixiviat nécessite une description de type double milieu associée à un modèle d'écoulements préférentiels. Ce type d'écoulement est peu favorable à une augmentation de l'humidité du milieu en conditions gravitaires. Concernant le pompage, le milieu semble réagir comme un milieu homogène mais un comportement hystérétique spécifique au matériau est mis en évidence. Enfin, la prise en compte de la déformabilité du déchet conduit à la prédiction d'une structure d'écoulement originale lors du captage de biogaz. / Modern Municipal Solid Waste landfills require, in order to satisfy the environmental, sanitary and / or economical stakes, a controlled management of liquid and gaseous flows. This thesis work concerns the understanding and numerical modelling of fluid transfers considering especially various processes used during landfill site exploitation (liquid injection, liquid and gas recovery). For each of the three studied operational procedures, the major physical phenomena are identified as well as the time and space scales in order to define a simplified version of a general model. These choices aim at reducing the number of fitting parameters and at using mostly experimental characteristics. Particular attention is drawn towards the heterogeneous and deformable nature of waste material. The fine description of leachate injection requires a double medium description associated with a preferential flow model. The resulting flow behaviour makes difficult the increase in moisture content under gravitary conditions. For the pumping operation, the medium seems to have a homogeneous response. However, a specific hysteretic behaviour of the material is demonstrated. Finally, the consideration of waste deformability leads to the prediction of an original flow structure during the recovery of biogas.

Background: Collagens of marine origin are applied increasingly as alternatives to mammalian collagens in tissue engineering. The aim of the present study was to develop a biphasic scaffold from exclusively marine collagens supporting both osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation and to find a suitable setup for in vitro chondrogenic and osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stroma cells (hMSC). Methods: Biphasic scaffolds from biomimetically mineralized salmon collagen and fibrillized jellyfish collagen were fabricated by joint freeze-drying and crosslinking. Different experiments were performed to analyze the influence of cell density and TGF-β on osteogenic differentiation of the cells in the scaffolds. Gene expression analysis and analysis of cartilage extracellular matrix components were performed and activity of alkaline phosphatase was determined. Furthermore, histological sections of differentiated cells in the biphasic scaffolds were analyzed. Results: Stable biphasic scaffolds from two different marine collagens were prepared. An in vitro setup for osteochondral differentiation was developed involving (1) different seeding densities in the phases; (2) additional application of alginate hydrogel in the chondral part; (3) pre-differentiation and sequential seeding of the scaffolds and (4) osteochondral medium. Spatially separated osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation of hMSC was achieved in this setup, while osteochondral medium in combination with the biphasic scaffolds alone was not sufficient to reach this ambition. Conclusions: Biphasic, but monolithic scaffolds from exclusively marine collagens are suitable for the development of osteochondral constructs.

L’Internet des objets amène des contraintes uniques et une immense variété d’applications. Ceci oblige à être capable d’établir des communications efficaces en énergie (et néanmoins à faible délai) au sein de réseaux fortement dynamiques. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur l'amélioration du contrôle d'accès au medium (MAC), afin d’optimiser la gestion des communications sans fils,principale source de consommation d'énergie dans ces réseaux. Cette thèse discute de l’auto adaptation de solutions MAC asynchrones et montre qu’une coopération localisée entre objets communicants permet de maintenir un partage efficace de la ressource de communication face à une forte dynamique (trafic, mobilité, pannes). Outre une réflexion menée sur les outils de simulation et d'expérimentation, nous avons conduit des campagnes d'évaluations complètes de nos contributions qui traitent tant des changements de trafic que de la mobilité dans les réseaux très denses. / The Internet of Things brings unique constraints and a huge variety of applications. This forces to be able to establish energy efficient communications (and never the less low-delay) within highly dynamic networks. We focused on improving the medium access control (MAC) to optimize the management of wireless communications, the main source of energy consumption in these networks. This thesis discusses the self-adaptation of asynchronous MAC solutions and shows that a localized cooperation between communicating objects can maintain an efficient sharing of the communication resource in highly dynamic networks (traffic, mobility, failures). In addition to a reasoning on the tools of simulation and experimentation, we conducted comprehensive evaluation campaigns of our contributions that address traffic changes and mobility in dense networks.

Strategic Marketing is very essential to realize firm’s objectives and thereby take the advantage against the competitors. Innovation becomes the means of taking the firm to the higher level among the existing local and global competitors. Strategic Marketing (SM) is making the firm do well where as Innovation is still enhancing the firms capability of doing things better and it happens to be the need of the hour. Thus Strategic Marketing and Innovation becomes the important components that need to be adopted by any organizations. It becomes essential to analyze the importance of Strategic Marketing for realizing the firm’s innovativeness and there by achieve the higher growth. This research is an attempt to find how Strategic Marketing is affecting the organizations performance by adopting innovation. The literature review gives a clear indication to do the research with reference to our Indian MSME’s. Considering this, the following specific objectives were formulated for the research. • Building the measures of Strategic Marketing and Innovation and develop a conceptual research framework for examining the relationship between them. • Designing a measuring instrument using Strategic Marketing and Innovation measures and test the instrument. • Examine the relationship between Strategic Marketing and Innovation and also its impact on each. • Examine the effect of different dimensions of Innovation on Strategic Marketing dimensions and find which of these needs more thrust in an organization. • Make appropriate suggestions on the need for adoption of SM as a means for any Indian manufacturing organizations to achieve a higher growth rate. The constructs of Strategic Marketing and Innovation are identified for further study. A conceptual framework was formulated with the set of hypothesis which needs to be tested. A structured questionnaire based on likert scale is used for collecting the primary data. The manufacturing organizations falling under Micro, Small and Medium scale are taken for the study through the directory provided by MSME Development Institute of India, Bangalore. The data was collected by approaching the managers of the manufacturing firms who have responsibilities to exhibit different management roles. The purpose of collecting the primary data is to know the management’s view regarding Strategic marketing and Innovation related to their firm. Our work includes both pilot and main study, where in validity and reliability of the measuring instrument is tested during pilot study. In our main study, 150 manufacturing organizations were approached situated in Peenya and Rajajinagar, Bangalore urban region. We got around 91 responses yielding about 60.6 % response rate. The data was obtained from 91 organizations, consisting of 04 Micro, 38 small and 49 medium scale organizations. A detailed statistical analysis is done for the collected data. Highly loading factors for the collected data was found out using confirmatory factor analysis and followed by finding the summated score of the data for the further analysis. The main study data was analyzed using multiple regression method by considering Strategic Marketing(SM) constructs as independent variables and Innovation performance constructs as dependent variables. The different assumptions underlying multiple regression were verified and five regression models estimated. The overall model fit was assessed and hypothesis was tested. The relationship established between SM and Innovation performance clearly indicates that SM has a great impact on the innovation performance of an organization irrespective of whatever may be the type of innovation. Hence achieving of SM performance can lead to the achievement of innovation performance also within organizations. Further the significant variables were identified from the individual regression models, interpreted and the models validated. It was found that out of the four variables of SM considered, as many as three variables viz. Marketing mix, Brand positioning and Entrepreneurial management are having a significant impact in one way or other way on the overall innovation performance of the organization. The strategy of focusing on the identified significant variables of SM was suggested for improving the innovation performance within organizations.

This work is focused on supporting of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Visegrad Four (V4), i.e. the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Poland and Hungary in 2007 - 2013. The work analyzes the governmental support of SMEs in each of these V4 countries, which includes the situation of the SMEs, institutions providing support and individual programs of support. This part is followed by the SWOT analysis of support systems in V4 countries. The final chapter is devoted to the practical application of support system of SMEs in the V4 countries on the example of state assistance to entrepreneurs affected by the floods in June 2013. This work gives a comprehensive look at the issue of support of SMEs in the V4 countries and provides detailed understanding of their position and importance of small and medium-sized enterprises at both, national and international level.

Master thesis deals with the application of international financial reporting standard for small and medium-sized enterprises. The object of this thesis is to define the conceptual framework for financial reporting under IFRS for SMEs, to analyze the differences between CZ GAAP and reporting under IFRS for SME and then apply the acquired knowledge within practical part of master thesis along with the definition of the costs and benefits associated with the transition to IFRS for SMEs.

Institutional policies or terms and conditions of credit allocation complicate the demand and supply of small business enterprise (SBE) credit, causing lost profits. Banks leaders losing 28% of profitable projects because of the high rejection rate of credit applications for SBE loans is a concern. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies Southeastern Nigerian state bank leaders use to minimize lost profit from SBE credit rejections. The conceptual framework that grounded this study was credit rationing focused on the lender-borrower relationship. Data collection involved reviews of company documents and face-to-face semistructured interviews of 6 participants from 3 banks in the Southeastern Nigerian state. Based on the Schorr's modified data analysis approach, 5 themes emerged (a) credit rationing depends on sufficient information (b) business accounts statements are a fall back for credit availability (c) character may be more important than collateral (d) government policies are challenges to the formal banking system (e) profits may be a hedge for high-interest rates. Findings may be used to enhance the profitability of banks in the Southeastern Nigerian state. Implications for positive social change may include the support of community projects for individuals living at or below the poverty level in the region.

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