Despite policy efforts by the Chinese state to eradicate gender inequality, statistics show that the issue of gender discrimination in the work domain has become increasingly acute in modern day China. The prevailing gender inequality derives from China’s deeply rooted masculine oriented cultural and societal structure, and traditional norms and values towards women in the work domain are fighting the policies against gender inequality that the Chinese state has implemented. Studies show that foreign affiliations have the ability to transplant corporate culture internationally, which also infers a transplantation of certain policies. One of the many western countries that have seen its corporations establish offices in China is Sweden - a country which puts a lot of focus and emphasis on promoting gender equality. Chinese and Swedish cultural and societal structure differs a lot, and so does the focus on gender equality. The theory suggests that gender equality is highly prioritized in Sweden, while it is less prioritized in China. This constitutes an interesting phenomena regarding how managers at Swedish based corporations, established in Shanghai, manage Swedish gender equality policies cross-culturally. The purpose of this study is to describe and explore how Swedish based corporations that are established in Shanghai, China, manage gender equality policies cross-culturally. In order to answer our research question, we performed four face to face semi-structured interviews together with four suitable Swedish based corporations at their offices in Shanghai. The results from this study concluded that the Swedish based corporations transfer the vast majority of their policy framework to their offices in Shanghai, particularly gender equality policies. The gender equality policies were often included in the corporations Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) framework. The study could conclude that even though no adaption was done to the policy documents per se, the Swedish corporations did adapt modestly to how they manage the policies in practice in Shanghai. This followed as a consequence of a wish to respectfully adapt to Chinese legal and cultural prerequisites. Due to China's legal prerequisites, some policies, such as parental leave, could not be fully implemented at the Shanghai offices. In other words, in those instances, the policy documents were trumped by legal employment regulations. Cultural prerequisites affected how the managers in the shanghai offices dealt with the policy documents in practice. Our study could found that policy management was closely connected to the corporate culture in the Shanghai offices. Our study could thus conclude that the Swedish based corporations adapt the policy management in practice to the meet Chinese culture, without compromising the Swedish corporate culture and values. / Oberoende av de satsningar som den kinesiska staten har infört för att utrota ojämlikhet mellan män och kvinnor visar statistik att könsdiskriminering inom kinas företagsvärld ökar. Den rådandeojämlikheten härstammar från Kinas maskulint orienterade samhälle, och traditionella normer och värderingar motarbetar de jämställdhetsfrämjande policyer som den kinesiska staten har implementerat. Studier visar att globala företag har möjlighet att överföra och etableraföretagskulturen internationellt, vilket även innefattar specifika policyer. Ett land vars företag har etablerat många företagskontor i Kina är Sverige: ett land som har ett högt fokus på att främjajämställdhet. Den kinesiska kulturen och dess samhällsstruktur skiljer sig avsevärt från den svenska, vilket även inkluderar att arbetet för jämställdhet skiljer sig mycket mellan de två länderna. Teorin förklarar att jämställdhet är högt prioriterat i Sverige, medan den är mindre prioriterad i Kina. Avvikelsen mellan länderna leder till ett spännande forskningsfenomen, nämligen kring hur de svenska företag som är etablerade i Shanghai hanterar jämställdhetspolicyer interkulturellt. Syftet med vår studie är att beskriva och utforska hur svenska företag som är etablerade i Shanghaihanterar jämställdhetspolicyer interkulturellt. För att besvara vår forskningsfråga har vi genomfört fyra semi-strukturerade intervjuer med fyra lämpligt utvalda svenska företag på deras kontor i Shanghai. Resultatet av vår studie visar att de svenska företagen överför majoriteten av sina policyer till kontoren i Shanghai, framförallt de policyerna som är relaterade till jämställdhet. Dessa jämställdhetspolicyer är oftast inkluderade i företagens ramverk för Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR, företagets samhällsansvar). Studien kan dra slutsatsen att svenska företag inte anpassar innehållet och betydelsen av sina jämställdhetspolicyer, men att de anpassar och förändrar hur de hanterar och arbetar med dem på kontoren i Shanghai. Anledningen till anpassningen är att de svenska företagen vill bemöta kinas kulturella och legala förutsättningar. Till följd av Kinas legala förutsättningar kan inte alla policyer etableras likadant i Shanghai som i Sverige; exempelvis vad gäller föräldraledighet. Sådana policyer övervins av de lokala legala bestämmelserna. De kulturella skillnaderna påverkar hur chefer på de kinesiska kontoren hanterar policyerna i praktiken. Studien visar att policyhantering är nära relaterat till företagskultur, och att det är genom företagskulturen som policyerna hanteras i praktiken. Således visar studien att de svenska företag som deltog i vår forskning anpassar hur de hanterar jämställdhetspolicyer i praktiken för att bemöta den kinesiskakulturen, utan att kompromissa den svenska företagskulturen och dess värderingar.

Small business owners in Nigeria submit financial reports to regulators and stakeholders, and they often lack strategies to ensure timeliness in the Nigeria report rendition. Lack of accounting competence and audit lag in the preparation, rendition, and submission of financial statements and reports are some of the contributors to this lack of timeliness. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that owners of small businesses used to ensure timeliness of financial reporting. The population for this study was 5 owners of small businesses in Nigeria. Management by objectives and Hoshin Kanri were the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of company documents. The thematic analysis led to the emergence of the following themes: (a) hiring the right employees, (b) regular training of accountants, (c) working with external accountants, (d) effective leadership and organizational structure, (e) attending accounting courses or workshops, and (f) using or abiding by formal financial reporting standards. Local small business owners may apply these results to hiring professional accountants to prepare timely financial reports to meet stakeholders' needs. Timely preparation of financial reports by owners of small businesses may contribute to positive social change by providing appropriate feedback to regulators, tax administrators, and small business owners, and encouraging and supporting local economic growth.

abstract: With the increasing user demand for low latency, elastic provisioning of computing resources coupled with ubiquitous and on-demand access to real-time data, cloud computing has emerged as a popular computing paradigm to meet growing user demands. However, with the introduction and rising use of wear- able technology and evolving uses of smart-phones, the concept of Internet of Things (IoT) has become a prevailing notion in the currently growing technology industry. Cisco Inc. has projected a data creation of approximately 403 Zetabytes (ZB) by 2018. The combination of bringing benign devices and connecting them to the web has resulted in exploding service and data aggregation requirements, thus requiring a new and innovative computing platform. This platform should have the capability to provide robust real-time data analytics and resource provisioning to clients, such as IoT users, on-demand. Such a computation model would need to function at the edge-of-the-network, forming a bridge between the large cloud data centers and the distributed connected devices. This research expands on the notion of bringing computational power to the edge- of-the-network, and then integrating it with the cloud computing paradigm whilst providing services to diverse IoT-based applications. This expansion is achieved through the establishment of a new computing model that serves as a platform for IoT-based devices to communicate with services in real-time. We name this paradigm as Gateway-Oriented Reconfigurable Ecosystem (GORE) computing. Finally, this thesis proposes and discusses the development of a policy management framework for accommodating our proposed computational paradigm. The policy framework is designed to serve both the hosted applications and the GORE paradigm by enabling them to function more efficiently. The goal of the framework is to ensure uninterrupted communication and service delivery between users and their applications. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2015

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / This research proposed to look at quality standards of evaluations in economic and financial respect undertaken on behalf of the European Commission in order to assess the performance of its development assistance in a policy-driven context. the research found that evaluation on the basis of an individual project is often flawed and lacks quality in terms of the applied evaluation method. / South Africa

知名企業如蘋果與谷歌能透過蒐集使用者的資訊並販售廣告、在 APP Store 、 iTunes 上販售服務與產品，而在消費者消費的過程中獲利。然而上述提及的這兩家都是 B2C 的產業，他們獲利的方式是否也能應用在 B2B 呢？ 晶片製造商英特爾公司 (Intel Corporation) 為世界上盈餘最高的B2B半導體公司，半導體產業是現今世界上產值極高的一個產業。因此本文利用英特爾的個案作為典型的 B2B 企業研究個案。 本研究希望藉由產業經濟學派、交易成本經濟學派、資源基礎論學派三種策略管理的學說，並藉由以生產過程為基礎的獲利策略以及以消費過程為基礎的獲利策略，分析英特爾在中央處理器這項產品的獲利策略。 而經由本研究的探討，發現英特爾的獲利策略可以從其獨特性資源如何建立競爭優勢與進入門檻並提高消費者的移轉成本；相對較低的交易成本讓英特爾獲得成本優勢；五力分析所得出的良好定位以及消費者在英特爾價值鏈上的連結做出發。 最後回顧了三個主流的策略管理學術理論，得出以下兩個結論：1、以消費過程為基礎的獲利策略可以用於 B2B 企業當中，2、英特爾同時透過生產過程為基礎（研發能力與生產經驗）以及以消費過程為基礎（行銷活動與品牌形象）的獲利策略」建立起優良的中央處理器競爭優勢。期許後續研究可以朝向英特爾在轉型後是否能持續建立競爭優勢做分析。 / Successful corporations such as Apple and Google can earn revenue through to the consumption process like selling advertisement after collecting users’ data, selling service or product on the APP Store and iTunes. Nevertheless, both the cases are B2C corporations. Can the same profiting strategy be applicable to B2B corporations? Intel Corporation, which is an integrated device manufacturer, is the largest B2B semiconductor corporation in the world. The semiconductor industry is one of the most valuable industry. Therefore, this research will test the hypothesis based on Intel’s case. This research will employ Industrial Economics, Transaction Cost Economics and Resource-Based View theory from the perspectives of the Production Based Appropriation and Consumption Based Appropriation to analyze the profiting strategy of Intel’s central processing unit product. We find that controlling key resources, lowering transaction costs and occupying fine position all contribute to the success of Intel’s profiting strategy. In addition, we have two conclusions. First, Consumption Based Appropriation can be applicable to B2B corporations. Second, Intel builds its competitive advantage through both Production Based Appropriation and Consumption Based Appropriation strategy.

This Master’s Thesis in Electrical Engineering concerns the introduction of a Parlay gateway in Skanova’s public circuit switched telephone network, what network integrity problems this brings, and how to preserve the integrity of the network. There is a rising demand from the market on Skanova to be able to offer integrated and useful services via their network. Examples of such services are Web Controlled Call Forwarding and Virtual Call Centres. Until now, these services have been implemented with the Intelligent Network concept which is a technology for concentrating the service logic in the telephone network to centralised service platforms within the network operator’s domain. Developing new services in this environment is expensive and therefore, Skanova wants to open the network for third party service providers. The opening of the network is enabled by the introduction of a gateway implementing the open service interface Parlay. The crucial point when opening the network for third party service providers is to maintain the integrity of the network. Parlay is an object oriented Application Programming Interface that enables a third party service access to core network resources in a controlled manner. The authors’ definition of network integrity is: “the ability of a network to steadily remain in a safe state, while performing according to the expectations and specifications of its owner, i.e. delivering the expected functionality and providing means to charge for utilised network resources”. The thesis describes a few services implemented via the Parlay interface and points out examples of activities in these services that may jeopardise the integrity of the network. The described activities belong to one of the two categories: Call Control Functionality or Lack of Charging Instruments. The thesis also describes two important methods for addressing encountered integrity problems. The methods are: Parlay Service Level Agreement and Policy Management.</p> Finally, the solutions are compared and the conclusion is that Policy Management is a conformable and flexible method for addressing lots of integrity problems and that these are important qualities, since new integrity problems will arise all the time.

Third Generation (3G) wireless networks have been well studied and optimized with traditional radio resource management techniques, but still there is room for improvement. Cognitive radio technology can bring significantcant network improvements by providing awareness to the surrounding radio environment, exploiting previous network knowledge and optimizing the use of resources using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. Cognitive radio can also co-exist with legacy equipment thus acting as a bridge among heterogeneous communication systems. In this work, an approach for applying cognition in wireless networks is presented. Also, two machine learning techniques are used to create a hybrid cognitive engine. Furthermore, the concept of cognitive radio resource management along with some of the network applications are discussed. To evaluate the proposed approach cognition is applied to three typical wireless network problems: improving coverage, handover management and determining recurring policy events. A cognitive engine, that uses case-based reasoning and a decision tree algorithm is developed. The engine learns the coverage of a cell solely from observations, predicts when a handover is necessary and determines policy patterns, solely from environment observations. / Ph. D.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:52:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Camilo Rogerio Lara Guimaraes.pdf: 3397543 bytes, checksum: 4843e11b3c1c72b8e1428c4d8152b970 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-11-18 / This dissertation covers the study of different project and management initiatives for the implementation of a municipal scope cultural policy, as well as the understanding of what they mean in the social and political contexts they fit in. The research was about the cultural policy conducted from 1993 to 2008 by the municipal public sector in Belo Horizonte, the capital city of Minas Gerais State. Its specific object covered the management bodies' actions responsible for the Municipal cultural area during the above period the Cultural Municipal Office and the Cultural Municipal Foundation. One searched to apprehend the relation between State and Culture through the analysis of the intervention strategies which gathered state institutional efforts and resources, as well as the economic and political interests underlying these strategies. In this sense, one considered, at first, the comprehension of the public dimensions of cultural policies, implementing them in contexts of tensions and conflicts, in which multiple significations and interests are at stake. Considering that the municipal cultural policy of Belo Horizonte is not characterized by a single directional profile, one points out the several political-cultural perspectives and actions that outlined cultural management implemented from the perspective of, on one side, the cultural and urban entrepreneurship , and on the other, cultural rights / Esta dissertação compreende o estudo dos diferentes projetos e agenciamento de iniciativas para implementação de uma política cultural no âmbito municipal, bem como da compreensão de suas significações nos contextos político-sociais em que se inserem. Tratou-se de pesquisa sobre a política cultural, que se estendeu de 1993 a 2008, encetada pelo poder público municipal na cidade de Belo Horizonte, capital do Estado de Minas Gerais. Seu objeto mais específico compreendeu a atuação dos órgãos gestores, responsáveis pela área cultural da Prefeitura Municipal, no período a Secretaria Municipal de Cultura, e a Fundação Municipal de Cultura. Buscou-se apreender a relação entre Estado e Cultura pela análise das estratégias de intervenção que aglutinou esforços, recursos institucionais estatais, e interesses políticos e econômicos subjacentes às estas estratégias. Nesta direção, partiu-se do entendimento das dimensões públicas de uma política cultural, inserindo-a num contexto de tensões e conflitos, em que se disputam interesses e significados múltiplos. Considerando-se que a política cultural municipal de Belo Horizonte não se caracteriza pelo perfil unidirecional, colocam-se em relevo as várias faces e ações político-culturais que delinearam uma gestão cultural, inserida, por um lado, na perspectiva do empreendedorismo urbano e cultural e, por outro, na perspectiva dos direitos culturais

Profa. Dra. Vanessa Elias de Oliveira / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Planejamento e Gestão do Território, 2014. / Esta pesquisa apresenta um mapeamento das principais políticas públicas e das relações dos seus respectivos atores governamentais aplicadas às terras públicas federais no Litoral Norte de São Paulo. O objetivo é identificar os principais pontos de conflitos na gestão desses espaços e as dificuldades intersetoriais e intergovernamentais, bem como o entendimento sobre as escalas de poder. Frente a estas questões, a pesquisa elabora algumas hipóteses que podem contribuir para a compreensão das atuais formas de uso e ocupação do solo nos espaços litorâneos. / This research presents a mapping of the main public policies and relations of their respective governmental actors applied to federal public lands in the North Coast of São Paulo. The objective is to identify the main points of conflict in the management of these spaces and intersectoral and intergovernmental difficulties as well as the understanding of the scales of power. From these questions, the research draws some hypotheses that may contribute to the understanding of the current forms of use and occupation of land in the coastal areas.

[pt] Esta tese propõe uma reflexão sobre a gestão municipal da política de assistência social, inserida no contexto histórico, social e político brasileiro e na esfera particular do Estado. Para tanto, abordamos as dimensões teórico-metodológica, técnico-operativa e ético-política do campo da gestão da política de assistência social. Analisamos, também, alguns paradigmas presentes na trajetória histórica da gestão desta política social e propusemos, ainda, analisar a gestão da assistência social nos municípios do estado do Rio de Janeiro, a partir de indicadores definidos e sob a perspectiva dos gestores e representantes da sociedade civil. Não obstante as garantias legais previstas na Constituição Federal de 1988 e na Lei Orgânica da Assistência Social (LOAS), a assistência social continuou a enfrentar dificuldades para se materializar como direito social e política pública até o ano de 2005, quando foi implantado um novo modelo de gestão para esta política pública, o Sistema Único de Assistência Social (SUAS), ao qual foram creditadas grandes expectativas e responsabilidades. Por um lado, a expectativa de que esse sistema fosse capaz de promover significativas rupturas no modelo de assistência social vivido no Brasil até então, fortemente marcado por práticas históricas de patronagem, de clientelismo e de oferta de proteção social muitas vezes assistencialistas, tuteladoras e subalternizantes. E, por outro lado, e não menos desafiador para uma área fortemente marcada por ações sociais pontuais e emergenciais, desempenhadas por agentes não profissionais, a expectativa de consolidar uma referência de gestão que demonstre a capacidade estatal de responder de forma ativa, profissional, ágil e modernizada - em seus procedimentos operacionais, administrativos, políticos e institucionais - as novas funções da política de assistência social - de proteção, de vigilância socioassistencial e de defesa de direitos. Para tanto, a gestão da assistência social passa a ter um conjunto de responsabilidades rigorosamente complexas. Partimos da compreensão de que o trabalho da gestão no campo da assistência social não se limita a administração das responsabilidades técnico-operativas, organizacionais e institucionais, previstas na NOB/SUAS 2012. Tem também dimensões política e ética, que permitem observar as decisões dos governos no atendimento às necessidades sociais dos cidadãos e seus compromissos - ou não! - em influir concretamente para a transformação da realidade da desigualdade social. Esperamos que este estudo contribua para ampliar o debate sobre o trabalho da gestão municipal e que fortaleça o compromisso dos gestores com a consolidação qualificada da política de assistência social e do SUAS no Brasil. / [en] This thesis proposes a reflection on the municipal management of social assistance policy, inserted in the Brazilian historical, social and political context and in the particular sphere of the State. Therefore, we approach the theoretical-methodological, technical-operative and ethical-political dimensions of the field of social assistance policy management. We also analyze some of the paradigms present in the historical trajectory of the management of this social policy and we also propose to analyze the social assistance management in the municipalities of the state of Rio de Janeiro, based on defined indicators and from the perspective of managers and representatives of society civil. Notwithstanding the legal guarantees provided for in the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the Organic Law of Social Assistance (LOAS), social assistance continued to face difficulties in materializing as a social right and public policy until 2005, when a new model was implanted of management for this public policy, the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS), which has been credited with high expectations and responsibilities. On the one han, the expectation that this system would be able to promote significant ruptures in the model of social assistance lived in Brazil until then, strongly marked by historical patronage practices, patronage and social protection provision, often assistentialists, curators and subalternators. And, on the other hand, and no less challenging for an area marked by punctual and emergency and quot;social actions and quot; carried out by non-professionals, the expectation of consolidating a management reference that demonstrates the capacity of the state to respond in an active, professional manner, agile and modernized - in its operational, administrative, political and institutional procedures - the new functions of the social assistance policy - of protection, social assistance and defense of rights. To this end, social assistance management has a set of strictly complex responsibilities. We start from the understanding that the work of management in the field of social assistance is not limited to the administration of the technical-operative, organizational and institutional responsibilities, foreseen in the NOB / SUAS 2012. It also has political and ethical dimensions that allow observing the decisions of the governments in meeting the social needs of citizens and their commitments - or not! - to concretely influence the transformation of the reality of social inequality. We hope that this study will contribute to broadening the debate about the work of the municipal management and that it will strengthen the commitment of the managers with the qualified consolidation of the policy of social assistance and SUAS in Brazil.