Business management is characterised by fast and ever–expanding development. Culture and generation play an increasingly important role in the management of businesses worldwide. Although studies have been conducted on the subjects of culture and generation, little attention has been paid to culture and generation as a combination of diversity characteristics. As more managers are realising the challenges that arise when managing diverse work environments, the modern manager must question old assumptions about how diverse people work together. In this modern age, it is important to understand diversity issues on all levels of management. Networks are based on people's backgrounds, and understanding the link between networking and diversity is becoming increasingly important. In a culturally complex country such as South Africa, experiencing the impact of diversity on a daily basis can be anticipated. Culture and generation are two terms that encompass all dimensions of diversity. This study investigates the different networking practices found among diverse cultural and generational groups at a Gauteng mine. The generational classification used in this study is based on the fact that generations differ from country to country; therefore, the classification used in this study is relevant to South African generations. Seven hypotheses were formulated pertaining to differences among cultural and generational groups with regard to networking practices. Furthermore, four cultural–generational groups were identified, namely Black Generation X'ers, Black Baby Boomers, White Generation X'ers and White Baby Boomers. Data was collected from Kusasalethu mine employees. The original sample frame comprised 3630 employees from which a sample was chosen that complied with the criteria for culture, age / generation and education. A total of 1046 employees remained from which the sample elements were chosen by making use of probability, systematic proportionate stratified sampling. Self–completion questionnaires were used for collecting the data. A total of 289 questionnaires were completed which constituted a 100% response rate. The questionnaire used was intended to obtain feedback from respondents regarding their cultural and generational diversity, as well as preferences pertaining to their networking practices. The results from the survey were used to determine the differences between diverse cultures and generations with regards to networking practices. The findings, supported by the rejection of the first null–hypothesis, indicated that there are indeed a number of salient differences between Black Generation X'ers, Black Baby Boomers, White Generation X'ers and White Baby Boomers. Specifically, the results indicated that White Baby Boomers incline to rarely use the medium of SMS when networking while this group also makes use of telephones when networking more often than Black Generation X'ers. Furthermore, Black Baby Boomers more frequently use e–mails when networking while Black Generation X'ers indicated that they rarely use e–mail as network medium. It was found that White Baby Boomers make use of one–on–one face–to–face methods more often when networking than Black Generation X'ers and White Generation X'ers. The largest number of differences was between Black Generation X'ers and White Baby Boomers. The respondents all indicated that they incline to value good relationships at work highly, that they agree that informal work environments are conducive to more effective networking practices, that they frequently have good influences on their families and that they network more during spare time than at work. The results also indicated that the mediums that are used most often when networking include the cell phone and one–on–one face–to–face methods. Respondents tended to rate sharing experiences and exchanging work ideas as very important aims for networking. By dividing diverse workforces into smaller, more manageable units or homogeneous groups, diversity management can be simplified. This is an ability for which managers can be trained and which should be applied correctly within a business environment. In view of the results, it is recommended that managers of diverse workforces should identify different generations and cultures as a way to manage them more effectively. Furthermore, managers should ensure that work environments that are conducive to good relationship building and informality need to be created. Additionally, conflict between Black Generation X'ers and White Baby Boomers should be handled cautiously with a view to ensure that effective solutions are achieved to such conflicts. Preferences with regard to network mediums should be noted, as such awareness may lead to more effective networking / communication within businesses. Management's approach to meetings needs to be reviewed for each group, because differences exist in terms of preferences in this regard. A working environment conducive to exchanging ideas and experiences should be created. Lastly, as all groups value good relationships at work, a climate that encourages openness and conflict resolution should be created. / Thesis (M.Com. (Business Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

The advent of high bandwidth fibre optic links that may be used over very large distances has lead to much research and development in the field of wide area gigabit networking. One problem that needs to be addressed is how loosely coupled distributed systems may be built over these links, allowing many computers worldwide to take part in complex calculations in order to solve "Grand Challenge" problems. The research conducted as part of this PhD has looked at the practicality of implementing a communication mechanism proposed by Craig Partridge called Late-binding Remote Procedure Calls (LbRPC). LbRPC is intended to export both code and data over the network to remote machines for evaluation, as opposed to traditional RPC mechanisms that only send parameters to pre-existing remote procedures. The ability to send code as well as data means that LbRPC requests can overcome one of the biggest problems in Wide Area Distributed Computer Systems (WADCS): the fixed latency due to the speed of light. As machines get faster, the fixed multi-millisecond round trip delay equates to ever increasing numbers of CPU cycles. For a WADCS to be efficient, programs should minimise the number of network transits they incur. By allowing the application programmer to export arbitrary code to the remote machine, this may be achieved. This research has looked at the feasibility of supporting secure exportation of arbitrary code and data in heterogeneous, loosely coupled, distributed computing environments. It has investigated techniques for making placement decisions for the code in cases where there are a large number of widely dispersed remote servers that could be used. The latter has resulted in the development of a novel prototype LbRPC using multicast IP for implicit placement and a sequenced, multi-packet saturation multicast transport protocol. These prototypes show that it is possible to export code and data to multiple remote hosts, thereby removing the need to perform complex and error prone explicit process placement decisions.

An ad hoc network is maintained by the combined efforts of all the mobile nodes themselves, who often operate under severe constraints, such as limited battery power, variable link quality, and limited storage capacity. As a result, there is a growing need for enhanced fault and configuration management solutions to help in tracking problems as well as solving them. Viable network architecture for a wireless ad-hoc environment, which takes advantages of both hierarchical and distributed architectures, has been investigated. A complete design solution is proposed which makes ad-hoc environments less susceptible to faults. Results shows that by applying the proposed power saving technique, network load due to control traffic may be significantly reduced. Based on other gathered statistics, we can set the optimal value of maximum number of nodes allowed in a cluster for efficient performance to be 35 for a specific scenario.

IPv4 has played it big role in spreading Internet and Internet based applications for more than 20 years. Now it will hand over the stage to its more powerful successor IPv6. IP is an important component of the TCP/IP protocol suit and the Internet is built on it.          IPv6 is a new generation protocol suite which has been proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which uses the 128-bit address instead of IPv4 32-bit address. Moving to the next generation of Internet Protocol became an issue to solve many problems in the current generation.          Unfortunately IPv4 and IPv6 are incompatible with each other. It is necessary to create smooth transition mechanisms that a transition mechanism is required during the time of migration from IPv4 to IPv6 networks. This paper aims to supplement this by presenting the design and implementation of IPv4 to IPv6 Transition Scenarios. This paper very clearly illustrates the transition of IPv4-to-IPv6 Transition mechanisms along with how to execute IPv6 commands.

With the growing commercial importance of the Internet and the development of new real-time, connection-oriented services like IP-telephony and electronic commerce resilience is becoming a key issue in the design of TP-based networks. Two emerging technologies, which can accomplish the task of efficient information transfer, are Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and Differentiated Services. A main benefit of MPLS is the ability to introduce traffic-engineering concepts due to its connection-oriented characteristic. With MPLS it is possible to assign different paths for packets through the network. Differentiated services divides traffic into different classes and treat them differently, especially when there is a shortage of network resources. In this thesis, a framework was proposed to integrate the above two technologies and its performance in providing load balancing and improving QoS was evaluated. Simulation and analysis of this framework demonstrated that the combination of MPLS and Differentiated services is a powerful tool for QoS provisioning in IP networks.

This thesis presents a novel approach towards providing a collaboration environment by using Grid Computing. The implementation includes the deployment of a cluster attached to a mural display for high performance computing and visualization and a Grid-infrastructure for sharing storage space across a wide area network and easing the remote use of the computing resources. A medical data processing application is implemented on the platform. The outcome is enhanced use of remote storage facilities and quick return time for computationally-intensive problems. The central issue of this thesis work is thus one that focuses on the development of a secure distributed system for data management and visualization to respond to the need for more efficient interaction and collaboration between technical researchers and medical professionals. The proposed networked solution is envisioned such as to provide synergy for more collaboration on theoretical and experimental issues involving analysis, visualization, and data sharing across sites.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging architecture that is dynamic, manageable, cost-effective and adaptable, making it ideal for the high-bandwidth, dynamic nature of today’s applications. Using SDN, networks can enable a variety of concurrent, dynamically instantiated measurement tasks, that provide fine-grain visibility into network traffic by configuring Ternary Content Address Memory (TCAM) counters in hardware switches. However, TCAM memory is limited, thus the accuracy of measurement tasks depends on the number of resources devoted to them on each switch. In this thesis, we propose a solution that improves Dynamic Resource Allocation for Software-defined Measurements (DREAM), a framework with an adaptive step size search that achieves a desired level of accuracy for measurement tasks. We have enabled prediction capabilities in the framework to generate better counters configurations using previous network traffic information. We implement four estimation techniques (EWMA-based Prediction, Polynomial Curve Fitting, KMeans++ Cluster and Pseudo Linear Extrapolation) that have been tested with simulations running three types of measurement tasks (heavy hitters, hierarchical heavy hitters and traffic change detection) that show the proposed techniques improve task accuracy and tasks concurrency in DREAM. Existing traffic measurements tools usually rely on some predetermined concept of flows to collect traffic statistics. Thus, they usually have issues in adapting to changes in traffic condition and present scalability issues with respect to the number of flows and the heterogeneity of the monitoring applications. We propose an integration of the Programmable MEasurements (ProgME) paradigm, which defines a novel approach to defined measurement tasks in a programmable way using the concept of flowsets, on top of the DREAM framework. This enables better scalability for measurement tasks that deal with large amounts of traffic flows on DREAM while reducing the required number of counters allocations for the tasks.

The lack of analytical models that can accurately describe large-scale networked systems makes empirical experimentation indispensable for understanding complex behaviors. Research on network testbeds for testing network protocols and distributed services, including physical, emulated, and federated testbeds, has made steady progress. Although the success of these testbeds is undeniable, they fail to provide: 1) scalability, for handling large-scale networks with hundreds or thousands of hosts and routers organized in different scenarios, 2) flexibility, for testing new protocols or applications in diverse settings, and 3) inter-operability, for combining simulated and real network entities in experiments. This dissertation tackles these issues in three different dimensions. First, we present SVEET, a system that enables inter-operability between real and simulated hosts. In order to increase the scalability of networks under study, SVEET enables time-dilated synchronization between real hosts and the discrete-event simulator. Realistic TCP congestion control algorithms are implemented in the simulator to allow seamless interactions between real and simulated hosts. SVEET is validated via extensive experiments and its capabilities are assessed through case studies involving real applications. Second, we present PrimoGENI, a system that allows a distributed discrete-event simulator, running in real-time, to interact with real network entities in a federated environment. PrimoGENI greatly enhances the flexibility of network experiments, through which a great variety of network conditions can be reproduced to examine what-if questions. Furthermore, PrimoGENI performs resource management functions, on behalf of the user, for instantiating network experiments on shared infrastructures. Finally, to further increase the scalability of network testbeds to handle large-scale high-capacity networks, we present a novel symbiotic simulation approach. We present SymbioSim, a testbed for large-scale network experimentation where a high-performance simulation system closely cooperates with an emulation system in a mutually beneficial way. On the one hand, the simulation system benefits from incorporating the traffic metadata from real applications in the emulation system to reproduce the realistic traffic conditions. On the other hand, the emulation system benefits from receiving the continuous updates from the simulation system to calibrate the traffic between real applications. Specific techniques that support the symbiotic approach include: 1) a model downscaling scheme that can significantly reduce the complexity of the large-scale simulation model, resulting in an efficient emulation system for modulating the high-capacity network traffic between real applications; 2) a queuing network model for the downscaled emulation system to accurately represent the network effects of the simulated traffic; and 3) techniques for reducing the synchronization overhead between the simulation and emulation systems.

Thesis advisor: Usha Tummala-Narra / Women receive many contradictory messages about what their bodies should look like and how they should behave. These messages necessarily impact how women are socialized to use social media and how they engage with online platforms. Little attention has been paid to the impact of these mixed messages on women’s self-concept and social engagement online, or to the mental health and social consequences of these interactions. The present study, guided by Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) and Relational Cultural Theory (Miller, 1976), intended to gain a deeper understanding of how emerging adult women understand the messages they receive about their bodies and what they should be used for and how these messages influence their relational behaviors online. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 women (ages 19-25), focusing on messages concerning expectations of women’s bodies and sexuality, performance of body and sexuality in social media spaces, social media activism, and social interactions online. Conventional content analysis was used to examine the interviews. Interview data revealed multiple themes, composing four broad domains: (1) expectations of women; (2) social media curation; (3) mental health and social effects of social media use; and (4) activism and advocacy. Notions about how women wanted to perform their identities online were shaped by several factors, including aspirational goals for self-love and body acceptance, an interest in portraying themselves authentically and in the best possible light, and a desire to be part of a movement of social change. The study underscores the impact of social media in individual functioning and wellbeing and reveals deep-seated conflict that women face in integrating messages about who they should be with performance of their own identities. This study highlights the need for situationally responsive clinical practice, intervention, and future research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Spectrum sharing among cellular users has been a promising approach to attain better efficiency in the use of the limited spectral bands. The existing dynamic spectrum access techniques include sharing of the licensed spectrum bands by allowing other 'secondary' users to use the bands if the licensee 'primary' user is idle. This primary-secondary spectrum sharing is limited in terms of design space, and may not be sufficient to meet the ever-increasing demand of connectivity and high signal quality to improve the end-users' wireless experience. The next step to increase spectrum efficiency is to design markets where sharing takes place pervasively among primary providers rather than leaving it to the limited case of when the primary licensee is idle. Attaining contractual pervasive spectrum sharing among primary providers, a.k.a. co-primary spectrum sharing (Co-PSS), involves additional costs for the users, e.g., roaming fee. Co-PSS without additional charge to the users poses two major challenges: 1) regulatory approaches must be introduced to incentivize and encourage providers for sharing spectrum resources, and 2) small providers in Co-PSS markets may freeride on large providers' networks as the customers of the small providers may be using the spectrum and infrastructure resources of large providers. Such freeriding opportunities in Co-PSS markets must be minimized to realize the benefits of primary-level sharing. This dissertation considers a subsidy-based spectrum sharing (SBSS) market to facilitate Co-PSS where providers are explicitly incentivized to share spectrum resources. It focuses on minimizing freeriding in SBSS markets by introducing a novel game-theoretic and heuristic algorithm. It proposes ''Proof of Sharing (PoS)'', an architecture to account spectrum sharing. It also demonstrates how to utilize PoS-like crowdsourced data to predict cellular tower locations which help to generate a truthful coverage map. Finally, this dissertation extends Co-PSS to two new models with government infrastructure and spectrum as rewards.