Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Research Problem: Research commences at the point where within our department we begin to reflect on penetrating a new market. At first this reflection can be a very unstructured thought, a conjecture, a question, or hypothesis. In our case, it was about entering the Brazilian telematics or more commonly known the ‘tracking’ market. One of the most competitive markets in the world in terms of lower margins and a high number of competitors. Thus, the need to conduct research and CI analysis was paramount; this was because we had no idea about the Brazilian Telematics market. Therefore, we used research primarily to identify key issues relating to telematics (segment, competitors, customers etc) in Brazil. Like most companies however, our resources was limited in terms of investment and manpower. Apart from commissioning a very specific research, a great deal of desk, or secondary research was undertaken, this proved very valuable when formulating our strategy and achieving actionable results. Overall Objectives: The aim was to utilise mostly Competitive Intelligence and Market Research, two key components within Knowledge Management, to obtain and analyse competitive information from multiple sources to aid DigiCore’s international expansion. For the International team Competitive Intelligence was more than analyzing competitors - it was about making DigiCore more competitive relative to its existing set of competitors and potential competitors in international markets. Predictive analysis - analysing and documenting the likely moves of foreign markets and competitors was a key objective, especially in aiding our final strategy in Brazil. Various aspects of CI and Knowledge Management became indispensable to formulate and implement our strategy in Brazil. Research Design/Methodology: sampling, representativeness and data collection, CI, analysis and interpretation were key activities we conducted. In essence, for DigiCore a well-defined research problem is a precondition for our Brazilian project. The development of a research design thus follows logically from the research problem. A set of guidelines and instructions needed to be followed in order to address our research problem. Main Results: there is the misconception that CI and market research duplicate activities, whilst there may be some truth, for DigiCore CI was undertaken to understand our environment better – beyond percentages, graphs and statistic analysis. CI helped us to forecast, validate industry rumours and ultimately make effective decisions and thus being able to act rather than react. In fact, beginning any competitive intelligence project is a daunting task, but the end results made the whole process worth it. A further component was Managing Information Systems - Our technology is based on ‘complicated’ internal and external environments that need to be considered. So whilst, market research and competitive analysis may aid in the final decision making and ongoing strategies, without juxtaposing these efforts within an information systems environment, the whole project would be futile. Conclusion: there is no doubt in our minds, that by using CI, Market Research, and Knowledge Management in all of our key stages and activities we came closer to our overall objective of penetrating the Brazilian telematics market. Whilst it is too soon to evaluate our success and overall long-term growth, without the above tools we know for certain that there would not have been any success at all.

This thesis deals with a specific area of telematics systems - intelligent transport systems for private vehicles. The main objective is to compare telematics services in the insurance industry in the Czech Republic and in selected foreign countries (UK, USA, Germany and Russia) and propose an extension of these services, which could be implemented in a particular society dedicated to the insurance industry. Proposal to extend the product service from the insurance telematics is drawn through two project plans. The main goal is accomplished through several other sub-objectives, in identifying the theoretical concepts related to these issues and overall definition of telematics for analysis of telematic services. Another sub-goal is to monitor the Czech market providers of navigation systems and vehicle monitoring, comparison and evaluation of the products aimed at this issue. Contribution of the work is mainly mapping market, what products and services are offered. The solution also helps to compare the chosen methodology through the evaluation criteria. Evaluation of this situation will be reflected as a recommendation for a specific provider from the insurance industry. Analysis of products and services is also beneficial for the customer, provides an overview of the products and their evaluation, which basically points out what is appropriate to focus on making these products.

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Although research findings to date have documented that computer-mediated communication (CMC) gets students involved, a substantial gap remained in determining the impact of CMC on academic and social integration of community college students. Because computer technology, specifically CMC, has proliferated within teaching and learning in higher education and because of the importance of academic and social integration, this study was significant in documenting through quantitative data analysis the impact that CMC had on the academic and social integration of community college students. The following research question was addressed: Does computer-mediated communication have an impact on the academic and social integration of community college students as measured by the CCSEQ? The study hypothesized that data analysis will show that there will be no difference in the integrations reported by the control and experimental groups. The overall approach was to conduct a pretest-posttest control-group experimental study using CMC as the experimental treatment. The Community College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CCSEQ) was given to collect data that were used to measure the academic and social integration of the control and experimental groups. After an in-depth analysis of data using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and ANCOVA, the finding of this study was that there is no statistically significant difference between the control and experimental groups on their academic and social integrations as measured by the CCSEQ. In other words, CMC did not have a positive or negative impact on the integrations of community college students. This study examined for the first time the impact that CMC had on the integrations of community college students and provided an experimental methodology that future researchers might replicate or modify to further explore this topic. Because CMC will continue to increase as technology becomes more available and accessible to faculty and students and because of the importance of academic and social integration, further study on this relationship is vital to higher education research.

This paper deals with road charging. Especially reasons, goals and possible ways of road charging, EFC systems and their applications in telematics are described. The second part of this paper is dedicated to road charging system in Austria with its instrument and future trends.

With the increasing demands of rising medical costs in combination with a boom in elderly patients in need of quality patient care medical practices are being stressed. Patient to nurse ratios are increasing and government spending in the medical domain is at an all-time high threatening the futures of government medical programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. In this thesis we propose a framework for the monitoring of a patient's vital statistics in a home-based setting using a mobile smart device. We believe that in taking advantage of the wireless sensor technology which is readily available today we can provide a solution that is both economically and socially viable offering a solid quality of healthcare in a comfortable and familiar environment. Our framework exposes both 802.11 and Bluetooth wireless protocol transmitting medical sensor devices using an Android platform device as a monitoring hub. / by Mark Conaster. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

A psychological experiment based on a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) sequence auditory interface was conducted initially to examine the rationale of using acoustic information in teleoperation. The experiment was designed to separately test subjects' perceptions of obstacle location and proximities of obstacles. The results revealed the potential use of audio stimuli in teleoperation tasks as well as several drawbacks about this interface. The interface translates information into a single audio stream, as a result, fails to exploit the spatial ability of the ear. Therefore, it was considered to represent the information acquired from the robotic communication sensors---microphones pair and one camera---by means of spatial audio in an ecological way. Firstly, a monitoring method based on the two microphones has been developed to supplement the narrow view of the camera, so that a better understanding of the environment can be formed. The developed bio-mimetic algorithm based on a new Aibo's head model is able to locate the sound event with 10° resolution. Afterwards, a new strategy for vision to audio sensory substitution has been proposed in which the task is concentrated on the spatial motion perception for mobile robot operation. After tracking a moving target from monocular image sequence by an active contour model, the spatial positions of the moving were determined by a pinhole camera model and camera calibration. Accordingly, the corresponding relations of the two modalities, e.g., spatial direction and scaled depth, were built for translation. / A scientific way of using auditory feedback as the substitute for visual feedback is proposed in the thesis to guarantee that the E-healthcare robotic system still functions under the conditions of image losses, visual fails and low-bandwidth communication links. This study is an experimental exploration into a relatively new topic about real-time robotic control. / Conclusions and recommendations for further research about the successful and extended usage of auditory display in teleoperation are also included. / Finally, an experimental e-healthcare robotic system has been developed with which high-frequency interactive contacts between patients and physicians or/and family members can be realized. Specifically, a new network protocol, Trinomial Protocol, has been implemented to facilitate data communication between client and server. Using two protocols: TCP and Trinomial Protocol, we have conducted experiments over a local network and the trans-pacific Internet. The experimental results about roundtrip time (RTT) and sending rate showed that there were large spikes corresponding to severe delay jitters when TCP was used and much less variance in RTTs when Trinomial protocol was used. To sum up, the Trinomial Protocol achieves better performance than the TCP. With this system, we also carried out some psychological experiments to compare the teleoperation performance under different sensory feedback conditions. The time it took to finish the task and the distance away to the target when the robot was controlled to stop were recorded for all the experiments. In addition, subjective workload assessments based on a set of NASA Task Load Index were collected. For the completion time of the task, the difference between the different modalities was not large. Even for vision only feedback, the average completion time was slightly larger than the auditory feedback. After pair t-test analysis, it was found there was no significant difference. Results of distance perception showed that the target was perceived more correctly using bimodal audiovisual integration than vision only condition, but less precise when compared with auditory only condition. As to the workload assessments, the average workload was 9.5973 for the auditory condition and 8.6147 for the visual one. There was no significant difference between them. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed auditory display approaches in navigating a robot remotely. / Liu Rong. / "September 2006." / Adviser: Max O. H. Meng. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: B, page: 1765. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-140). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Thesis (DPhil (Informatics))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2018. / As in many parts of the world, the need for healthcare services is increasing rapidly in South Africa. Owing to many official languages in the country, health service delivery is continuously challenged by spoken language and semantics. The challenges result to poor health services in many areas of the country. Thus, this study was undertaken with the aim: to develop a framework which can be used to guide the selection and implementation of mobile systems in the translation of language semantics for improved healthcare service delivery in South Africa. For this purpose, the study was based on one significant research question: How can the challenge(s) of semantics and language translation in South African healthcare delivery be addressed using mobile systems? In achieving the aim of the study, a qualitative study was conducted using the semi-strtructured interviews to collect the data. The analysis of the data was carried out using the hermeneutic approach within the interpretative paradigm, which was guided by two theories, actor network theory (ANT) and diffusion of innovation (DOI). The ANT was used to focus on the interaction and relationship between human and non-human actors within a heterogeneous networks, in the activities of healthcare. The DOI was employed to examine how mobiles systems can be diffused, in addressing the challenges and barriers which the health facilities encounter from language perspective. The case study approach was followed, based on three cases, two healthcare organisations, and a community in the northern part of South Africa were used in the study. Based on the analysis of the data, the influencing factors were found, and interpreted. The interpretation helps gain deeper understanding of the challenges, from which a framework (see Figure 6.5 in Chapter 6) was developed. From an understanding of the factors that influence language semantics, and its translaton by using mobile systems, challenges in the South African healthcare can be reduced, and quality improved. The way in which the theories were used brought a fresh perspective to the study. In practice, the framework can be used by both healthcare practitioners and ICT specialists to guide the selection, use and support of mobile systems for the translation of language semantics in South Africa. The complementary use of ANT and DOI in the study contributes methodologically.

Educational change can be defined as a systematic, sustained effort at change in learning conditions and other related internal conditions in one or more schools, with the ultimate aim of accomplishing goals more effectively (Miles 1987). One project designed to bring about educational change was the Country Areas Program National Element (NATCAP) distance education by telematics project, funded by the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training. It was designed to increase curriculum options to students in schools in the western region of New South Wales. All curriculum was delivered through the telematic delivery. This project formed the basis of the research for this thesis. The aim of the study was to examine the roles of change agents and determine who enacted the roles through the process of implementing the NATCAP distance education by telematics project in western New South Wales. Telematics refers to the transmission of signals usually generated in a computer circuit board over distance. It involves using computers, facsimile machines, modems and telephones. Through audio visual links students in western New South Wales can engage in lessons delivered by teachers located in the Australian Capital Territory. This was achieved through a pilot distance education via telematics project conducted in 1991 which was expanded in 1992-1995 to include students in six rural schools. The students were located in both Catholic and Government schools in four rural town in New South Wales. The NATCAP distance education project was administered by the Catholic Education Office, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn and a project manager was appointed to facilitate the implementation of the new project. The question of who enacted the roles of change agents through the process of implementing the distance education project in 1992-1995 became the focus of the study. Change is a process that involves the phases of initiation, implementation and adoption according to Fullan (1991b). There are a number of factors that affect implementation including teachers, principals and outside agencies (Fullan 1991b). The initiative of change does not occur, however without an advocate or change agents. Havelock (1973) has identified four roles of a change agent which are described as the catalyst, the solution giver, the process helper and the resource link. Though the examination of the literature the question of who enacted the roles of the change agents through the process of implementing the NATCAP distance education project was refined and clarified. The qualitative research method, with the researcher as an active participant in the process, was the approach which enabled the research question of this thesis to be examined. The researcher was the project manager for the NATCAP distance education project and was placed in a central position to explore the question of who enacted the roles of the change agents through the process of implementing distance education by telematics. Three research instruments, two questionnaires and a semi-structured interview, were used to gather data based on the perceptions of the six participating school principals. This data ensured that the information gathered by the researcher as an active participant was reliable and valid. The results of the first questionnaire, which examined the role of the project manager as a change agent, indicated that the manager was a catalyst, facilitating the introduction of the new method of teaching and learning. The results also indicated that the roles of the solution giver and the resource link were also enacted by the project manager according to the majority of principals who responded to the questionnaire. The role of the process helper, involved in problem-solving, monitoring and reviewing, was also a part of the project manager's role as a change agent according to all the respondents. The results of the second questionnaire which examined the three phases of implementing change indicated that all six schools involved in the NATCAP distance education project were involved in the initiation stage of implementation. This was achieved by trialing the telematic mode for teaching and learning in each school. All six schools moved into the second stage. This developed into the implementation of Indonesian language and culture lessons, Art/Design and Remedial and Extension Mathematics classes. For two schools the implementation stage included the introduction of the Year 11 and 12 curriculum. The project progressed into the third stage, continuation, for five out of the six schools. One school did not move from the implementation to the continuation stage. As a result of the data collected through the examination of the factors that affect implementation it was stated that the principals enacted a role of resource providers and in some cases on the spot support for teachers. In the schools administered by the New South Wales Department of School Education the cluster director was also a resource provider. In some schools the principal was also a "teacher" actively involved in the implementation of the NATCAP distance education project. The project manager, cluster director (where applicable), principal, assistant principals and teachers were listed as being involved in the identification of needs. Need was identified as the most important factor which affected the change. As a result of the data collected and the interpretations made relating to the findings of this research a number of conclusions were drawn. Educational change goes through a process involving three phases from the initial introduction of the innovation to the initial use and then full implementation as part of the school practice. Change involves a change agency, not one agent of change but a team of change agents or a change agency. The change agency includes the project manager, the principal, assistant principal, teachers and cluster directors (where applicable). The agency enacts the roles of catalyst, solution giver, resource link and process helper. Implementation requires an agent of change from within the school and an agent of change from without of the school working together as part of the change agency. This can be seen by examining the factors affecting implementation. Need, practicality, clarity, complexity and quality all affect implementation of an innovation and all required an agent of change from without and agent of change from within the school to identify each factor and address it. The key personnel affecting implementation are the project manager and cluster directors (where applicable) from the external level and the principal and the teachers from the local level. These key personnel are factors which affect implementation and belong to the change agency. The leadership role of the principal impacts on the degree of implementation of the initiative. Teacher involvement through observation, exchanging ideas, team-teaching and collegiality is required to bring about full implementation of the change. Clustering schools to form learning networks where schools share ideas, knowledge and resources enhances the possibility of initiatives becoming implemented. Schools in the cluster should not only include those in the same education system, schools should go outside their system for new ideas. In the NATCAP distance education by telematics project there were four schools administrated by the NSW Department of School Education and two schools administered by the Catholic Education Office, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn who formed a NATCAP cluster. Together these schools implemented the new method of teaching and learning called telematics. They brought about change in the learning conditions and extended the curriculum.

Password based logon schemes have many security weaknesses. For secure environments smart card and biometric based authentication solutions are available as replacement for standard password based systems. Nevertheless, the cost of deployment and maintenance of these systems is quite high. On the other hand, mobile network operators have a huge base of deployed smart cards that can be reused to provide authentication in other spheres significantly reducing costs. In this project we present a study of how mobile phones can be used to provide a secure low-cost two-factor workstation logon solution.To find and study the available mobile phone based authentication architectures and come up with workstation logon architecture the study of relevant technologies utilized in these solutions: UMTS networks, Bluetooth communication, Remote Authentication Dial in User Service (RADIUS), authentication and authorization in Windows, Linux, and MAC OS X. The analysis of available mobile phone based authentication schemes like SIM Strong schemes based on EAP-SIM, Session-ID based schemes, and OTP based schemes are also added.A solution for Linux workstation logon process has been proposed in the thesis using the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM). The Solution uses 2 factors for authentication, one is the static password and the second factor is the mobile based authentication using a 13 character long OTP. With adding the existing technology and giving the administrator the option of selecting the authentication method for user makes the solution more suitable for an enterprise.