Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / A laboratory information management system (LIMS) is central to the informatics infrastructure that underlies biobanking activities. To date, a wide range of commercial and open source LIMS are available. The decision to opt for one LIMS over another is often influenced by the needs of the biobank clients and researchers, as well as available financial resources. However, to find a LIMS that incorporates all possible requirements of a biobank may often be a complicated endeavour. The need to implement biobank standard operation procedures as well as stimulate the use of standards for biobank data representation motivated the development of Baobab LIMS, an open source LIMS for Biobanking. Baobab LIMS comprises modules for biospecimen kit assembly, shipping of biospecimen kits, storage management, analysis requests, reporting, and invoicing. Baobab LIMS is based on the Plone web-content management framework, a server-client-based system, whereby the end user is able to access the system securely through the internet on a standard web browser, thereby eliminating the need for standalone installations on all machines. The Baobab LIMS components were tested and evaluated in three human biobanks. The testing of the LIMS modules aided in the mapping of the biobanks requirements to the LIMS functionalities, and furthermore, it helped to reveal new user suggestions, such as the enhancement of the online documentation. The user suggestions are demonstrated to be important for both LIMS strengthen and biobank sustainability. Ultimately, the practical LIMS evaluations showed the ability of Boabab LIMS to be used in the management of human biobanks operations of relatively different biobanking workflows.

The oil and gas industry in Libya has suffered a number of health and safety accidents including environmental disasters due to the nature of the work involved and the hazardous materials it handles in all facets of exploration and production. Such issues have hitherto not received due attention by the Libyan Authorities. The fact that strict HSE assessment standards are neither well-defined nor established in Libya is not helpful. Furthermore, oil and gas industry in new free Libya has suffered immensely during the 2011 Arab Spring and its rebuilding poses a number of critical HSE challenges. The purpose of the research is to develop and validate a HSE Performance Review Methodology for Libyan oil and gas industry based on clearly defined and measurable aspects for assessment. The thesis starts by performing a comprehensive literature review on all aspects of HSE including universal standards. The review indicates that there is a gap in respect of semi-qualitative methods for assessing HSE performance commensurate with other disciplines. The thesis then identifies four key research problems in the context of Libyan oil and gas industries. Based on these problems, an empirical research was conducted and included three distinct Stages. Stage 1 consisted of a pilot study based on an interview questionnaire with 15 experienced HSE professionals working in oil and gas companies in Libya to help identify key issues pertaining to HSE assessment. Data analysis results for Stage 2 have been used to derive a list of 12 main groups of HSE questions which have then been tested on 84 HSE professionals working in Libya stemming from 35 medium and large oil and gas companies. Modal distribution analyses have been performed to scope down the number of HSE performance factors, which would then be used in Stage 3 of the empirical research. This consisted of issuing the same 84 interviewees with a questionnaire requesting their assessment of how Critical, Important and Less Important were the 60 factors identified. Central Tendency, Variation Ratios and Indices of Diversity were used to successfully analyse the data. With the QAA Subject Review in mind as a potential model for the sought methodology, and a mapping of the four research problems with data analysis results from Stages 1, 2 and 3; six HSE Performance Review Aspects emerged: Prevention, Surveillance, Response, Achievements, Resource and HSE Management and Enhancement – judged and graded using a 1 to 4 scale. The HSE Performance Review methodology has been validated by direct application to five comprehensive studies starting from the self-assessment document written by the companies, an extensive review visit by peer-assessors and a final report showing grades, benchmarks and shortcomings. Lessons learned from the validation exercise have been used to revise the definition of the six Aspects and used to propose an appropriate implementation plan in Libya. The results of the validation exercise are very encouraging and readily confirm that the methodology can be applied to other industry sectors.

Workplace bullying caused business owners to lose about 80 million employees' workdays each year. Workplace bullying can cost an organization up to $300 billion for increased medical claims, lost productivity, and employee turnovers, and up to $23 billion in additional expenses, such as costs for employee absenteeism and legal costs. The purpose of this single case study was to explore successful strategies to address workplace bullying used by 7 human resource (HR) managers and executives in 1, small-to-medium-sized organization in Central Florida. The HR managers and executives had 5 or more years of HR experience. The risk management framework and theory of planned behavior were the conceptual frameworks that guided exploration of the phenomenon. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with HR managers and executives and from company artifacts, such as HR and risk management policies. Member checking and transcript review strengthened trustworthiness of data analysis and interpretations. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Five themes emerged from the data analysis: enhanced training, encourage reporting, develop HR business partner model, implement policies and guidelines, and enforce zero-tolerance policy. The findings of this study may contribute to positive social change by building awareness of workplace bullying for employees, organizations, and society, and by providing strategies to reduce the number of bullied victims and enrich social harmony within organizations and communities.

In the integrated public affairs management framework, except information communication, mass communication media also have economic industrial characteristics. Issues from mass communication media must make people have clinical and neutral cognition to avoided influences on people¡¦s judgements about facts. According to the study of the third-person effect, we proved that people mentually exist cognitive biases against communication information. Thus they always become operated subjects of elections. In order to understand subjects¡¦ cognitive and judge models, we employed three major factors, two situations of negative and positive news about THSR (Taiwan High-Speed Railway) to design our Information Integration Theory research. We also compared with the south and north people in Taiwan to show unbalances of the regional development about mass media and population quality. Findings of the research are as follow¡G 1. The north people with different issue involvements, have more movements in the the third-person effect in the negative news situation. 2. In the negative news situation, the north people¡¦s third-person effect and information reliability were represented by a negative correlation. 3. Media expose and people¡¦s third-person effect were represented by a positive correlation. 4. People¡¦s information integration models were following the adding rule. 5. The north people have more intention to support media regulation with the public opinion and actions. At last, we concluded several suggestions: 1. Unbalances of the regional development in Taiwan not only between the south and north, we must invest more resources to study and record. 2. Our study was a tiny subsection of public affairs management framework, researchers could study deeper and wider in the future. 3. The statistic tool of Information Integration Theory need to be updated to simplify importing data.

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) increasingly permeate modern societies nowadays. But in spite of their plethora of successful applications, WSN are often unable to surmount many operational challenges that unexpectedly arise during their lifetime. Fortunately, robotic agents can now assist a WSN in various ways. This thesis illustrates how mobile robots which are able to carry a limited number of sensors can help the network react to sensor faults, either during or after its deployment in the monitoring region. Two scenarios are envisioned. In the first one, carrier robots surround a point of interest with multiple sensor layers (focused coverage formation). We put forward the first known algorithm of its kind in literature. It is energy-efficient, fault-reactive and aware of the bounded robot cargo capacity. The second one is that of replacing damaged sensing units with spare, functional ones (coverage repair), which gives rise to the formulation of two novel combinatorial optimization problems. Three nature-inspired metaheuristic approaches that run at a centralized location are proposed. They are able to find good-quality solutions in a short time. Two frameworks for the identification of the damaged nodes are considered. The first one leans upon diagnosable systems, i.e. existing distributed detection models in which individual units perform tests upon each other. Two swarm intelligence algorithms are designed to quickly and reliably spot faulty sensors in this context. The second one is an evolving risk management framework for WSNs that is entirely formulated in this thesis.

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) increasingly permeate modern societies nowadays. But in spite of their plethora of successful applications, WSN are often unable to surmount many operational challenges that unexpectedly arise during their lifetime. Fortunately, robotic agents can now assist a WSN in various ways. This thesis illustrates how mobile robots which are able to carry a limited number of sensors can help the network react to sensor faults, either during or after its deployment in the monitoring region. Two scenarios are envisioned. In the first one, carrier robots surround a point of interest with multiple sensor layers (focused coverage formation). We put forward the first known algorithm of its kind in literature. It is energy-efficient, fault-reactive and aware of the bounded robot cargo capacity. The second one is that of replacing damaged sensing units with spare, functional ones (coverage repair), which gives rise to the formulation of two novel combinatorial optimization problems. Three nature-inspired metaheuristic approaches that run at a centralized location are proposed. They are able to find good-quality solutions in a short time. Two frameworks for the identification of the damaged nodes are considered. The first one leans upon diagnosable systems, i.e. existing distributed detection models in which individual units perform tests upon each other. Two swarm intelligence algorithms are designed to quickly and reliably spot faulty sensors in this context. The second one is an evolving risk management framework for WSNs that is entirely formulated in this thesis.

ABSTRACT This research is mainly based on the concept of ¡§strategic triangle¡¨described in Mark H. Moore ¡¨Creating Public Value¡GStrategic Management in Government¡¨, and the environment system is surveyed with the viewpoint of ¡§an integrated public affair management framework¡]PAM¡^¡¨ which is developed by Wang, Ming-Shen. In Taiwan, the National Health Insurance Act has been the most important social welfare policy since its launching in 1995. The main purpose of the policy is to reduce the economic barriers of medical care. However, medical service in remote areas, especially in offshore islands, still has been a difficult issue for government. Officers are designated to carry out the politics of the democratically elected head of a local government, and have to create public value by succeeding at the task. Although it is difficult to build rural health care network, the executive officers as managers must achieve it with efforts. Moore has developed a simple and powerful diagram ¡§strategic triangle ¡¨ which is composed of V.C.S. to focus the attention of government managers on three complex issues they had to have considered before¡]or,while¡I¡^committing themselves and their organizations to a particular course of action. This retrospective case study takes the executive officer in local government as the public manager who takes the responsibility of running effectively the Lieyu Branch of Kinmen County Hospital in Lieyu Township in response to its residents demand. In illustration of the medical care project in stages , managers will realize the process and outcome that show¡G¡§an integrated public affair management framework¡¨ enables the public manager to evaluate the overall environment in clear presentation¡Fand ¡§strategic triangle ¡¨ helps the public manager to identify promptly the shortcomings and practical suggestions of the project.

According to governmental delegation-authority and people¡¦s trust, police authority acts as guardians in public field to maintain social order and serve the public as well as a carrying-gun group. However, at present, the so-called people¡¦s police are still restricted because of extrinsic influences and complicated environment. Moreover, they are still satisfied with immersing in subjective achievements. Therefore, it is a pity that they rarely make efforts to analyze and resolve deep-rooted problems. In a pluralist society, in order to manifest governmental effectiveness, police duty must pursuit perfection to meet more and more complicated public issues. Consequently, it is essential to define the implementation of corn value. Namely, it is to deeply discuss and analyze the value definition of research issues, and insist on the principles of planning, making decision objectively, judging subjectively, analyzing, managing and operating practice, realizing society changes and controlling trend with macro perspectives and micro angles to predict the future by reviewing the past so as to combine knowing and doing. This research referred to the viewpoint of ¡§An Integrated Public Affairs Management Framework¡¨ planned by Ming-Shen Wang to discuss the casual relation in the dramatic changes of Kaohsiung society and deeply analyze on the main police functions with V.C.S. strategic management method and focused on promoting the capacity of police organization to draw appropriate projects from out-of-date issue of police on-the-job training education to look forward to advancing police professional functions and response citizens¡¦ eager expectation.

Problem: Då omvärlden är under ständig förändring behöver organisationer anpassa sig med nya strategier, mål och styrningsmetoder för att överleva. FranklinCovey har nyligen tagit fram ett, enligt dem, nytt och revolutionerande styrningsverktyg som kommer styra team och organisationer framåt. Kan detta vara nästa stora teori inom ekonomistyrning? Syfte: Uppsatsen syfte är att kritiskt och empiriskt redogöra för samt analysera ”The 4 Disciplines of Execution” som styrningsverktyg i organisationer. Vidare ämnar studien undersöka om metoden är ett värdeskapande instrument eller enbart ett likvärdigt substitut till existerande och mer etablerade styrningsteorier. Metod: Studien är en kvalitativ enfallsstudie av deskriptiv och explorativ karaktär. Undersökningen har präglats av en induktiv ansats där semi-strukturerade intervjuer på Atea AB stått till grund för studiens resultat. Vidare analyserades resultatet med hjälp av Otleys ramverk för utvärdering av management control systems. Resultat: Studien visar att ”The 4 Discplines of Execution inte är något revolutionerande men likväl ett värdefullt komplement till ekonomistyrning. Då verktyget fokuserar på förändringsprocessen i beteendet hos medarbetare och involverar hela organisationen från företagsledning till individnivå, är det användbart i dagens miljö som ständigt förändras.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are an important part of many companies’ strategic plans, yet they often fail to meet expectations. Part of this failure may be due to a lack of understanding of the risks present during the important period after the initial agreement to merge has been struck and the failure to apply a practical framework for managing these risks. The literature outlines many of the risks managers face and explains risk resolution techniques that can be used to mitigate these risks. Risk management techniques or frameworks have been developed for use in projects involving mergers and acquisitions (M&A), construction, strategic alliances, software requirements development, distributed software projects, and post-merger implementation of information systems. However, to our knowledge, no integrated framework has been developed to manage risks during the post-selection phase of mergers and acquisitions. In this dissertation we identify risks present and the risk resolutions available at this stage of the M&A process via a review of the literature and interviews with experienced managers of mergers and acquisitions. We then develop a practical framework for managing post-selection phase risks in M&A. We analyzed published case studies to evaluate the framework and confirm issues raised in the literature review. Hence, this research contributes to the M&A and risk management literature by identifying and classifying the risks in the post-selection phase of the M&A process, identifying and developing a classification of risk resolution actions linked to those risks, and providing a practical framework that can be used to more comprehensively identify risks and potential risk management strategies.