The Internet of Things (IoT) is a promising networking technology that will interconnect a plethora of heterogeneous wireless devices. To support the connectivity across a massive-scale IoT, the scarce wireless communication resources must be appropriately allocated among the IoT devices, while considering the technical challenges that arise from the unique properties of the IoT, such as device heterogeneity, strict communication requirements, and limited device capabilities in terms of computation and memory. The primary goal of this dissertation is to develop novel resource management frameworks using which resource-constrained IoT devices can operate autonomously in a dynamic environment. First, a comprehensive overview on the use of various learning techniques for wireless resource management in an IoT is provided, and potential applications for each learning framework are proposed. Moreover, to capture the heterogeneity among IoT devices, a framework based on cognitive hierarchy theory is discussed, and its implementation with learning techniques of different complexities for IoT devices with varying capabilities is analyzed. Next, the problem of dynamic, distributed resource allocation in an IoT is studied when there are heterogeneous messages. Particularly, a novel finite memory multi-state sequential learning is proposed to enable diverse IoT devices to reallocate the limited communication resources in a self-organizing manner to satisfy the delay requirement of critical messages, while minimally affecting the delay-tolerant messages. The proposed learning framework is shown to be effective for the IoT devices with limited memory and observation capabilities to learn the number of critical messages. The results show that the performance of learning framework depends on memory size and observation capability of IoT devices and that the learning framework can realize low delay transmission in a massive IoT. Subsequently, the problem of one-to-one association between resource blocks and IoT devices is studied, when the IoT devices have partial information. The one-to-one association is formulated as Kolkata Paise Restaurant (KPR) game in which an IoT device tries to choose a resource block with highest gain, while avoiding duplicate selection. Moreover, a Nash equilibrium (NE) of IoT KPR game is shown to coincide with socially optimal solution. A proposed learning framework for IoT KPR game is shown to significantly increase the number of resource blocks used to successful transmit compared to a baseline. The KPR game is then extended to consider age of information (AoI), which is a metric to quantify the freshness of information in the perspective of destination. Moreover, to capture heterogeneity in an IoT, non-linear AoI is introduced. To minimize AoI, centralized and distributed approaches for the resource allocation are proposed to enable the sharing of limited communication resources, while delivering messages to the destination in a timely manner. Moreover, the proposed distributed resource allocation scheme is shown to converge to an NE and to significantly lower the average AoI compared to a baseline. Finally, the problem of dynamically partitioning the transmit power levels in non-orthogonal multiple access is studied when there are heterogeneous messages. In particular, an optimization problem is formulated to determine the number of power levels for different message types, and an estimation framework is proposed to enable the network base station to adjust power level partitioning to satisfy the performance requirements. The proposed framework is shown to effectively increase the transmission success probability compared to a baseline. Furthermore, an optimization problem is formulated to increase sum-rate and reliability by adjusting target received powers. Under different fading channels, the optimal target received powers are analyzed, and a tradeoff between reliability and sum-rate is shown. In conclusion, the theoretical and performance analysis of the frameworks proposed in this dissertation will prove essential for implementing an appropriate distributed resource allocation mechanisms for dynamic, heterogeneous IoT environments. / Doctor of Philosophy / The Internet of Things (IoT), which is a network of smart devices such as smart phones, wearable devices, smart appliances, and environment sensors, will transform many aspects of our society with numerous innovative IoT applications. Those IoT applications include interactive education, remote healthcare, smart grids, home automation, intelligent transportation, industrial monitoring, and smart agriculture. With the increasing complexity and scale of an IoT, it becomes more difficult to quickly manage the IoT devices through a cloud, and a centralized management approach may not be viable for certain IoT scenarios. Therefore, distributed solutions are needed for enabling IoT devices to fulfill their services and maintain seamless connectivity. Here, IoT device management refers to the fact that the system needs to decide which devices access the network and using which resources (e.g., frequencies). For distributed management of an IoT, the unique challenge is to allocate scarce communication resources to many IoT devices appropriately. With distributed resource management, diverse IoT devices can share the limited communication resources in a self-organizing manner. Distributed resource management overcomes the limitations of centralized resource management by satisfying strict service requirements in a massive, complex IoT. Despite the advantages and the opportunities of distributed resource management, it is necessary to address the challenges related to an IoT, such as analyzing intricate interaction of heterogeneous devices, designing viable frameworks for constrained devices, and quickly adapting to a dynamic IoT. Furthermore, distributed resource management must enable IoT devices to communicate with high reliability and low delay. In this regard, this dissertation investigates these critical IoT challenges and introduces novel distributed resource management frameworks for an IoT. In particular, the proposed frameworks are tailored to realistic IoT scenarios and consider different performance metrics. To this end, mathematical frameworks and effective algorithms are developed by significantly extending tools from wireless communication, game theory, and machine learning. The results show that the proposed distributed wireless resource management frameworks can optimize key performance metrics and meet strict communication requirements while coping with device heterogeneity, massive scale, dynamic environment, and scarce wireless resources in an IoT.

The big data era has driven the needs for data analysis in every aspect of our daily lives. With the rapid growth of data size and complexity of data analysis models, modern big data analytic applications face the challenge to provide timely results often with limited resources. Such demand drives the growth of new hardware resources including GPUs and FPGAs, as well as storage devices such as SSDs and NVMs. It is challenging to manage the resources available in a cost restricted environment to best serve the applications with different characteristics. Extant approaches are agnostic to such heterogeneity in both underlying resources and workloads and require user knowledge and manual configuration for best performance. In this dissertation, we design, and implement a series of novel techniques, algorithms, and frameworks, to realize workload-aware resource management and scheduling. We demonstrate our techniques for efficient resource management across memory resource for in-memory data analytic platforms, processing resources for compute-intensive machine learning applications, and finally we design and develop a workload and heterogeneity-aware scheduler for general big data platforms. The dissertation demonstrates that designing an effective resource manager requires efforts from both application and system side. The presented approach makes and joins the efforts on both sides to provide a holistic heterogeneity-aware resource manage and scheduling system. We are able to avoid task failure due to resource unavailability by workload-aware resource management, and improve the performance of data processing frameworks by carefully scheduling tasks according to the task characteristics and utilization and availability of the resources. / Ph. D. / Clusters of multiple computers connected through internet are often deployed in industry for larger scale data processing or computation that cannot be handled by standalone computers. In such a cluster, resources such as CPU, memory, disks are integrated to work together. It is important to manage a pool of such resources in a cluster to efficiently work together to provide better performance for workloads running on top. This role is taken by a software component in the middle layer called resource manager. Resource manager coordinates the resources in the computers and schedule tasks to them for computation. This dissertation reveals that current resource managers often partition resources statically hence cannot capture the dynamic resource needs of workloads as well as the heterogeneous configurations of the underlying resources. For example, some computers in a clsuter might be older than the others with slower CPU, less memory, etc. Workloads can show different resource needs. Watching YouTube require a lot of network resource while playing games demands powerful GPUs. To this end, the disseration proposes novel approaches to manage resources that are able to capture the heterogeneity of resources and dynamic workload needs, based on which, it can achieve efficient resource management, and schedule the right task to the right resource.

Scheduling forms an important aspect of operating systems because it has a direct impact on system performance. Most existing general-purpose schedulers use a priority-based scheme to schedule processes. Such priority-based mechanisms cannot guarantee proportional fairness for every process. Proportional share schedulers maintain fairness among tasks based on given weight values. In both of these scheduler types, the scheduling decision is done per-process. However, system usage policies are typically set on a per-consumer basis, where a consumer represents a group of related processes that may belong to the same application or user. The COPS framework uses the idea of consumer sets to group processes. Its design guarantees system usage per consumer, based on relative weights. We have added a share management layer on top of a proportional share scheduler to ease the administrative job of share assignment for these consumer sets. We have evaluated our system in real world scenarios and show that the CPU usage for consumer sets with CPU-bound processes complies with the administrator-defined policy goals. / Master of Science

Syftet med studien var att undersöka vad lotsar, befälhavare och bogserbåtsbefälhavare ansåg om den verbala kommunikationen med hänsyn till säkerhet och effektivitet. Detta eftersom majoriteten av alla fartygsolyckor inträffar på grund av den mänskliga faktorn, där kommunikationen är en stor del. I studien genomfördes semistrukturerade intervjuer med två lotsar, två befälhavare och två bogserbåtsbefälhavare. Genom de sex intervjuerna i studien gick det bland annat att utläsa att användandet av standardfraser och closed loop communication varierar. Om användandet inom dessa två områden blev bättre skulle säkerheten kunna ökas. I studien framkom det också att kunskapen i eng­elska varierar vilket kan leda till missuppfattningar. Bättre kunskap i det engelska språket och hur man kommunicerar kan vara två andra sätt att öka säkerheten. / The aim of this study was to examine how pilots, vessel masters and tugboat masters perceive the importance of verbal communication with consideration to safety and efficiency.  This is based on the fact that the vast majority of accidents involving vessels occur because of human error, where lack of communication plays a large part. In the study semi-structured interviews were held with two pilots, two masters and two tugboat masters. After conducting these six interviews it became apparent at the use of standard phrasing and closed loop communication could vary. Based on the information collected one conclusion is that if the usage within these two areas improved safety could increase. It was also apparent in this study that the knowledge of the English language differed greatly which also could lead to misunderstandings with the giving of instructions. A better proficiency in English and better knowledge of verbal communication could be two possible ways of increasing safety.

Human Resource Management tillämpas idag av nästan alla organisationer i världen och är ett sätt för ledningen att hantera och styra medarbetarna. Human Resource Management berör frågor inom personalhantering, utbildning för medarbetarna och rekrytering. Man agerar som en mellanhand mellan medarbetarna och ledningen för att utveckla organisationen. I dagens konkurrenshårda samhälle är det viktigt att ha medarbetare som besitter en kompetens som är aktuell och att man arbetar med att vidareutbilda de egna medarbetarna, vilket är en viktig del i att fortsätta vara framgångsrika. Man behöver rekrytera nya medarbetare i samband med personalförluster, när ny kompetens behövs eller omformulering av mål och strategier för organisationen. Att hitta rätt i sin rekrytering är vitalt för att se till att organisationen arbetar med kompetenta medarbetare som kan driva organisationen framåt. Uppsatsens syfte är att skapa en större förståelse för hur utvecklings- samt utbildningsmöjligheter och rekrytering sker hos organisationer. Uppsatsen avser att identifiera processer för hur organisationer opererar gällande ovannämnda forskningsområden. Uppsatsen har utgått ifrån den hermeneutiska vetenskapsteoretiska ansatsen med en kvalitativ forskningsmetod. Genom tre kvalitativa intervjuer och dokumentation av internt material har data samlats in för uppsatsen. Uppsatsens redovisade resultat visar att det finns likheter i de undersökta organisationerna där utvecklings- och utbildningsmöjligheter mestadels erbjuds genom samverkan med cheferna och genom organisationernas webbportaler. Däremot finns det skillnader i vilken utsträckning som medarbetarna får tid till utbildningar i de undersökta organisationerna. Rekryteringsprocessen hos organisationerna är i grunden av samma slag med vissa skillnader som tydliggörs under processens gång. Där samverkan mellan medarbetarna, HR-avdelningen och avdelningscheferna är den största skillnaden. / Human Resource Management is used today by almost all organizations around the world and is a way for the management to manage and control the employees. Human Resource Management include question within personnel management, training for the employees and recruitment. Human Resource Management acts as an intermediary between the employees and the management to develop the organization. With today's fierce competition it is especially important to have employees who possesses competence and that the organization is continuously working with developing them further to maintain successful. The organization need to recruit new employees when the existing leaves, new competence is required or reformulated objectives for the organization which leads to a demand on new employees. Finding right in the recruitment is vital to ensure the organization continues with competent employees that can drive the organization forward. The purpose of this thesis is to create a greater understanding of how development- and training opportunities together with recruitment occurs. The thesis aims to identify the processes of how organizations operate regarding the above-mentioned research areas. The thesis has been based on the hermeneutic epistemological approach with a qualitative research method. Through three interviews and documentation of internal material data has been collected for the thesis. The results show that there are similarities in all examined organizations where development and training opportunities is offered mostly by interacting with the unit managers and through the organizations web portals. However, there are differences in the extent to which employees are given time to training in the surveyed organizations. The recruitment process of the organizations is alike, but with some differences which made clear during the recruitment process. Where cooperation with the employees, the HR department and the unit managers is the biggest difference.

Despite the significance of understanding the reasons under which talented individuals are more likely or less likely to quit, the nature of the relationship between Human Resource Management Practices (HRMPs) and turnover intentions has proven to be unclear. Prior studies suggest that talented employees’ turnover imposes significant negative impact on organisational performance, e.g. decrease in productivity, profitability, innovation, serviceability and morale of remaining employees. Likewise, a serious talented Frontline Managers (FLMs) turnover is observed in the private banks of Pakistan. The corresponding reason identified is their dissatisfaction with existing conventional HRMPs, which are typically bureaucratic in nature with no provision of training and development, and lack appreciation, seniority-based pay and promotions. Owing to these factors, FLMs are switching towards reputable government and multinational organisations. In fact, FLMs play an important role in the development and success of banks. To investigate this issue, the present study elaborates an examination of the use of synergistic HRMPs in an on-going effort to control the talented FLMs’ turnover intentions. Precisely, it examines the impact of two formative bundles, namely, skills-enhancing practices (SEPs, i.e. training and development) and motivation-enhancing practices (MEPs, i.e. pay, promotion, recognition and job security) on FLMs’ turnover intentions through organisational commitment. The research methodology employs a positivist philosophy, deductive approach and a quantitative method followed by a survey-based research design. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed through random sampling technique; 344 questionnaires were finalised for analysis. PLS-SEM was used to test the research hypotheses. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the findings of this study indicate that both SEPs and MEPs demonstrate no significant direct impact on talented FLMs’ turnover intentions. However, organisational commitment (OC) has been found to fully mediate the relationships between both HRM bundles and FLMs’ turnover intentions. This research contributes to HRM literature particularly in the area of HRMPs—Turnover relationships. Furthermore, this study reveals that socio-economic relationships can be used to influence FLMs’ OC and turnover intentions. The findings further suggest that adoption of effective SEPs and MEPs in local banks enhance talented FLMs’ skills and motivation which eventually reduce their turnover intentions. Additionally, this study highlights the important and critical role of OC in HRMPs—turnover relationships, particularly in the Pakistani banking sector and further recommends management to review their HRMPs, which not only tend to reduce turnover but also lead to FLMs’ enhanced enthusiasm to serve.

This article explores the ways in which a multinational company approaches green human resource management (HRM) in its British, German and Swedish subsidiaries. The authors analyse the similarities and differences in Green HRM approaches in these three European subsidiaries of a US restaurant chain. This enables the comparison of Green HRM practices and behaviours, and considers the factors that influence the subsidiaries in this particular domain. Therefore, this research addresses the current lack of international comparative research in the field of Green HRM. The methodological approach is a multi-case study with 50 participants, using semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The results present evidence of proactive environmental management, reflected through a range of operational and people-centred initiatives across the three European countries. Although there is an overarching commitment to environmental sustainability, the positioning and alignment of the environment and HR function differ amongst the subsidiaries, as does the way in which the subsidiaries choose to engage the workforce in environmental sustainability. The study identified a number of factors that explain the differences in approaches including, amongst others, strategic and performance drivers and cultural dimensions, such as relationships with key stakeholders.

Thesis (M.A.) (Development management) --University of Limpopo, 2010. / Gender equality in local water governance is currently envisaged as a necessary aspect for achieving efficient, effective and sustainable water resources management. Based on the premise that men and women exhibit socially and culturally determined differences in behavior, roles and responsibilities, the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy holds that gender concerns in water resources management, including in all decisions regarding planning, design, location, operation and maintenance have to be based on the recognition of their differences. However, giving the pragmatic effect on the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy within the Water Resources Management Sector has met with many challenges relating to structural issues, sustainability, the commitment of actors involved, and the whole range of aspects of attitudinal change, both at individual and collective levels. The study investigates the challenges involved in the application of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy within the Water Resources Management Sector in the rural community of Mogodi Village in Limpopo Village. The study argues that the challenges involved in the application of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy leads to virtual mismanagement of the water resources within rural communities as attested to by the Mogodi Village. The survey results from Mogodi Village proved that gender mainstreaming was not fully applied within the water resources management. Women do not have access to all the positions in the water committee and furthermore, they are not always consulted and if they get the chance to raise their concerns, they are not always taken into consideration. Additionally, the patriarchal tradition within the village has a great impact on the application of the Gender Mainstreaming Initiatives. Some of the principles of this tradition are that women are household caregivers and men are leaders. The roles that women perform within their homesteads do not allow them time to participate in the water resources management. This leaves the water resources management roles in the hands of men in the village. The study therefore concludes that the genuine benefits of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy in the water resources management would not be realised as long as the context within which it is applied remains traditional in terms of the gender status quo. / Extrata Mine

Water is the root of life and the engine that drives agriculture, industry, economy and services. The demand for water often necessitates desalination, particularly in arid coastal environments where there are several desalination technologies in use today such as Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) and Reverse Osmosis (RO). The key utility requirement for technologies such as desalination and population in general include energy in one form or another. Therefore, desalination and co-generation are often integrated. Another key utility is electricity which is generated from either renewable or non-renewable sources. The demands for water and electricity change over time and are subject to uncertainty. In this dissertation, a country-wide large-scale energy and water cogeneration planning model for Kuwait was proposed and solved. Five different plant technologies where the planning horizon used was set to 37 years starting in year 2014 and until 2050. A Mixed Integer Mathematical programming model was proposed and formulated using General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS), the resulting model was solved using the CPLEX solver engine. In this research obtained detailed data on the consumption on water and energy in Kuwait and performed time series analysis of the population growth and individual behavior of water and energy consumption and novel method to represent cogeneration plants was implemented in the proposed mathematical programming model. ix A modeling framework that involves a data spreadsheet and a proprietary model was implemented. The data spreadsheet and the model were formulated as a template that can receive data from different applications. In addition, automation using Visual Basic for Application (VBA) was made to the data spreadsheets such that the data is sent to the model template, Gams-Cylix, and are written back to the spreadsheet. An analysis was made between oil-based plants, natural gas (NG) plants, and solar-based plants for co-generation. It was found that for water production solar-based plants can supply 50 percent or more of the demand during after period 2020 and after implementation and for electric power generation solar plants are limited. The results indicate the preferred technology for energy generation was NG-RO. With the implementation of solar based plants the electric power load is distributed among the technologies. NG-RO plants are more scalable and therefore were expanded to cope with the future demand. The percentage of the electric power supplied by solar plant was below 35 percent across the planning horizon. By the end of the planning horizon the percentage of electric power supplied by solar base plants was nearly 20 percent. Near 70 percent of the electric power was supplied by NG RO by period 2050. Other technologies had a representation of less than 10 percent by the end of the planning horizon.

Sammanfattning Datum:                               2010-08-30 Kurs:                           Kandidatuppsats i företagsekonomi, FÖA300, 15 hp Handledare:                 Carl G. Thunman Författare:                  Feven Gebretsadkan och Mahabad Minozada Titel:                                   Belöningssystem – ett incitament verktyg för att skapa      motivation. En fallstudie av Sparbanken Rekarne Syfte:                                  Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva vad belöningssystem innebär och anställdas uppfattning av belöningssystemet och dess inverkan på motivation i Sparbanken Rekarne. För att sedan ge rekommendationer till förbättringar för hur Sparbanken Rekarnes belöningssystem kan ge mer motivation till de anställda. Metod:                               För att uppnå syftet samlades vetenskaplig information in från litteratur, vetenskapliga artiklar, tidigare uppsatser och övrig information från internet hemsidor. Undersökningen bestod av intervjuer med chefer och anställda på Sparbanken Rekarne. Intervjuerna bestod av personlig kontakt och individuellt med varje respondent. Två intervjuguider användes, varav en användes till ledningen och den andra till de anställda. Analys:                               I analysen har den teoretiska referensramen och den empiriska undersökningen sammankopplats. Slutsats:                             Rekommendationer till förbättringar för hur Sparbanken Rekarnes belöningssystem kan ge mer motivation till de anställda har tagits fram. Då det ska förbättra bankens framtida arbete med belöningar för att skapa mer motivation. Detta vidare genom att engagera de anställda mer i belöningarnas utformning.  Nyckelord:                         Belöningssystem, motivation, human resource    management, incitement, bank  / Abstract  Date:                                  2010-08-30 Course:                              Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, FÖA300, 15 credits Tutor:                                Carl G. Thunman Authors:                             Feven Gebretsadkan och Mahabad Minozada Title:                                   Reward systems - an incentive tool to create motivation. A case study of the Sparbank Rekarne         Purpose:                            The purpose of this thesis is to describe what a rewarding system means and the understanding of the employee to the rewarding system which gives effect to motivation in the Sparbank Rekarne. Recommendations to improve the rewarding system in the Sparbank Rekarne by which the employee will be more motivated is indicated the purpose. Method:                             In order to reach the purpose scientific information was gathered from literature, scientific articles, previous thesis and additional information from internet. The inquiry was done by interviewing the managers and the employee of Sparbank Rekarne. The interview was held personally and individually with every respondent. Two interview guides were used, one to the leaders and the other one to the employee.       Analysis:                           In the analysis the theoretical frame of reference and the empirical enquiry are combined. Conclusion:                      The recommendations to improve how the Sparbank Rekarne rewarding system can give more motivation to the employee have taken out. This can improve the future of the bank with rewarding in order to get motivation by involving the employee in working out the rewarding system. Keywords:                        Reward system, motivation, human resource management,    incentive, bank