Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Design des services – Tunisie'

La présente thèse s’est intéressée à une conjonction rarement posée, celle du design et du Marketing des services, et ce pour une meilleure identification des leviers d’optimisation des possibilités de réussite de l’offre des prestataires des services. Leur articulation en « un design des services », a le mérite d’explorer tout un système de représentations cognitives d’innovation en vue de mieux éclairer un tel concept émergent, multiforme et par ailleurs complexe. Aussi, en portant notre réflexion sur le design des services d’un point de vue marketing, nous avons cherché à faire le point sur les différentes approches qui lui sont relatives, et à considérer des référents complexes et systémiques en vue de mobiliser les représentations cognitives du marché (structurées selon des modèles cognitivistes). A ces avancées d’ordre théorique, nous avons opté pour un terrain empirique à savoir le secteur des services touristiques autour des gsour du Sud-est Tunisien. Notre démarche exploratoire a été menée auprès des professionnels des services (36) et des consommateurs-touristes (67) au travers de guide d’entretien semi-directif. Dans un tel schéma multi-acteurs, les résultats ont révélé un foisonnement de représentations cognitives des innovations touristiques-culturelles dans le Sud-est Tunisien. Nous en dégageons des pistes d’enrichissement théorique et méthodologique pour une vision croisée du Marketing des services et du design, dans un contexte d’innovation.

Depuis deux décennies, la Tunisie traverse une période d'ajustements économiques généraux marqués par une place prépondérante du marché et un libéralisme économique plus prononcé. Face à ce nouveau contexte macroéconomique marqué par des transitions démographiques et épidémiologiques, l'Etat est contraint de réviser sa place et ses modes d'intervention dans les divers secteurs, notamment celui de la santé. La série de réformes «comptables» déclenchée dans les années 90 pour contrer l'accroissement des dépenses de santé constatées ces dernières années, n'était pas convaincante ni à l'échelle macro économique (5,6% du PlB en 2000 contre 5,3% en 1990) ni à l'échelle microéconomique puisque la part de financement des ménages n'a cessé d'augmenter et a atteint les 49%. Les réformes des systèmes de santé mises en œuvre ces dernières années dans tous les pays quels que soient leurs modes d'organisation (Beveridgien, Bismarkien, libéral…) ont abordé, abordent et aborderont la question du financement du système de santé et l'universalisation de la couverture maladie. La décentralisation a été, avec la concurrence, une des idées-forces qui ont sous-tendu les réformes des systèmes de santé en cette dernière période. Peut-on tirer profit de ces expériences étrangères en matière de réforme? Peuvent-elles nous servir d'un guide pour mener à bien la réforme de notre système? Cette thèse abordera ces types de questions afin de prévoir un modèle qui s'adaptera au contexte économique, social, culturel et politique actuel
For the last two decades, Tunisia has been going through a period of general economic adjustments with the market playing an increasingly key role and economic liberalism becoming more vocal. Against this novel macroeconomic context marked with both demographic and epidemiological transitions, the state has to reconsider its role and the ways it intervenes in the various sectors, including the health. The series of accounting reforms initiated in the 90's to counter the rise of health spendings notice d over the last few years, was badly convincing on both macro scale (5. 6% of the GDP in 2000 against 5. 3% in 1990) and micro scale since family contributions have been steadily growing to reach 49%. Reforms of the health system implemented over the last few years in aIl countries alike regardless of their respective organizations (beveridgian, bismarkien, or liberal. . . ) tackled, are still tackling and will be tackling the issue of financing the health system and the universalization of the heaIth coverage. Decentralization along with competition have been two key ideas that have underpined public health reforms over the last period. Could we benefit from foreign experiences as far as reform is concerne ? Could they serve as a model to follow when reforming our own system? This thesis will address these self-questions with the aim of setting up a model that takes into account the current economic, social, cultural and political contexts

L'information statistique, en tunisie, est le produit d'institutions diverses qui composent le systeme statistique tunisien et qui entretiennent des relations particulieres entre elles, pour concourir a l'elaboration des statistiques, des etudes et des syntheses qui en decoulent, en liaison avec les choix economiques de la tunisie. La structure du systeme a ete examinee selon deux approches : le partage des competences d'une part, selon les themes abordes d'autre part. Ce systeme appelle, cependant, un certain nombre d'ameliorations ayant trait aux institutions, aux objets de la statistique et aux syntheses afin qu'il puisse repondre a de nouveaux besoins et etre au service du developpement economique et social du pays
Statistical information, in tunisia, is a product of varied institutions that forms a tunisian statistical system which maintains particular relations between themselves to cooperate to the elaboration of the statistics, research, and synthesis. That information is in liaison with tunisian economic choices. The structure of the system has been examinated according to two approaches : the sharing of competences on one hand and according to the themes approached on the other hand. This system calls, nevertheless, a certain number of ameliorations tied to the institutions, to the subjects of statistical and the synthesis, in order to answer new purposes and to be to the service of a social and economical development of the country

La signature par la Tunisie des accords du GATS et le désengagement de l'Etat du système bancaire suggèrent une concurrence potentielle plus dynamique que celle des années quatre vingt dix. L'objet de la thèse est d'étudier l'effet du changement concurrentiel sur les processus stratégiques des banques. Les recherches sur la stratégie sont fondées, le plus souvent, sur une conception statique de la concurrence. Par conséquent, les stratégies bancaires ne prennent pas en considération l'aspect dynamique de la concurrence. Cette recherche prouve d'une part, que la vision limitée de la concurrence conduit les banques à un comportement stratégique qui n'est pas toujours performant, et d'autre part constitue une source de problèmes de mise en œuvre stratégique
Under GATS accords, banking competition in Tunisia will be more dynamic. The object of the thesis is to study competition change effect on the strategic proccesses in banking corporations. Strategic research is often founded on static vision of competition. Thus, banking strategies miss the dynamic side of competition, and are not always competitive. The second finding of this work is that banks have problems of strategy implementation because of missing a dynamic competition's vision

Le tertiaire occupe, dans les pays en voie de développement, une place importante en termes d'emploi et de valeur ajoutée. Une première analyse quantitative aboutit à remettre en cause la validité des théories les plus conventionnellles énoncées pour le cas des économies de marché développées. Il apparaît ainsi que dans les pays en voie de développement, la tertiarisation a précédé l'industrialisation et qu'elle est liée à l'exode rural. Les services aux entreprises, qui semblrent quantitativement atrophiés dans les pays en voie de développement, peuvent jouer un rôle important dans le processus d'in,dustrialisation de ces pays, sous réserve qu'ils permettent une réelle assimilation des connaissances par les bénéficiaires. Les conditions de tels transferts de connaissances par le biais des services sont diverses. Elles dépendent, en partie, de la nature du service qui doit être considéré, pour une prestattion de qualité, commme un processus intéractif. Or, dans les pays en voie d'industrialisation, les industriels réduisent le plus souvent le service à une forme simplifiée d'assistance et limitent ainsi les chances d'apprentissage. Elles dépendent également des canaux de diffusion du service et des types de prestataires. Les transferts de connaissances auront des impacts différents sur les industriels selon qu'ils émanent de prestattaires de services locaux indépendants, de membres de réseaux internationaux, ou encore des maisons-mères de filiales industrielles (atelier ou relais), implantées localement. Les limites d'utilisation des services comme leviers du développement industriel (et dans le cas particulier de l'industrie tunisienne choisie comme cas d'étude), tiennent donc au fait que les transferts de connaissances s'éffectuent le plus souvent selon un modèle de sous-traitance, caractérisé& d'une part, par un engagement limité du bénéficiaire, et d'autre part, par une faible adaptation de l'offre aux conditions économiques locales.

L’engagement organisationnel a un effet réducteur sur les comportements déviants au travail. Cette recherche se propose de relever et de chiffrer les conséquences du déficit d’engagement puis d’identifier et d’analyser ses causes pour pouvoir, grâce au management et à la gestion stratégique des ressources humaines, élaborer et tester des propositions susceptibles d’améliorer durablement l’engagement dans un souci de performances socio-économiques.Notre terrain de recherche est le service nettoiement d’une collectivité territoriale en Tunisie où nous avons mené une recherche-intervention qui montre que l’estime et la valorisation du travail et du statut de l’employé, aussi bas dans l’échelle soit-il, est nécessaire pour augmenter l’engagement et le sentiment d’appartenance à l’organisation et par là l’amélioration des performances. Mots clés : engagement organisationnel, comportements déviants, management, performance socio-économique
Organizational commitment has a reductive effect on deviant behaviors at work.This research intend to show up and calculate the cost of a lack of commitment and then identify and analyse its causes to be able, by the mean of the strategic management of human resources, to work up and test proposals that enhance durably commitment and socio-economic performance.Our research terrain is a local authority cleaning service in Tunisia where we conducted a research-intervention that shows that respect and valuation of employee labor and status, especially when he’s in the bottom end of the scale, is necessary to enhance commitment and strengthen the sense of belonging to the organisation and thereby performance.Keywords : commitment, dark side behaviors, socio-economic performance, management

Le système de santé tunisien fait l’objet depuis une quinzaine d’années d’un vaste champ de réflexions et de réformes. L’objectif est de consolider les réalisations du passé tout en améliorant l’impact et l’efficacité des services dispensés. L’hôpital public, au cœur de cette vague réformiste , ne semble pourtant pas sortir de la crise. Ce constat nous a conduit à énoncer la problématique suivante : dans quelle mesure une orientation stratégique des pratiques et instrumentations managériales reposant sur l’élaboration d’un projet d’établissement, la mise en place d’une démarche qualité et la réorganisation du travail autour des processus de prises en charge permettrait à l’hôpital d’être plus performant ? Notre objectif est de mener une réflexion sur les outils de gestion susceptibles d’améliorer le fonctionnement de l’hôpital tunisien ainsi que sur les leviers d’action qui sous-tendent la réussite de ces changements permettant ainsi de dépasser les constats d’échecs successifs

Cette thèse analyse les effets de la libéralisation du commerce des services en Tunisie. Le premier chapitre, étudie à l’aide d’un modèle DSGE, l'effet global de la libéralisation du secteur des services marchands sur la croissance économique tout en estimant les barrières à l'entrée que doivent supporter les investisseurs afin d’accéder à ce marché. Le deuxième chapitre analyse le cas particulier de la libéralisation du secteur bancaire ainsi que les effets sur l’accumulation du capital. En particulier, il suggère que l'accroissement de la concurrence via plus de libéralisation est bénéfique pour le secteur bancaire tunisien et permettra de doubler la quantité de capital réellement accumulé. Le troisième chapitre procède à l’estimation des effets direct et indirect de la libéralisation du transport aérien sur les flux de touristes dans les pays Méditerranéens. Les accords signés par ces pays seront considérés au même titre que ceux signés entre pays tiers. En effet, lorsque ces pays tiers disposent d'aéroports de transit par lesquels passent les touristes pour se rendre dans les pays de la Méditerranée, un accord de libéralisation les concernant peut ainsi être bénéfique aux derniers. Nous constituons une base originale pour tenir compte de tous ces accords. Nos résultats montrent que la libéralisation des secteurs de service en Tunisie a un effet positif et dépend essentiellement de la performance su secteur des biens et barrières à l'entrée, évalués à 37% de la production totale. En ce qui concerne le secteur bancaire tunisien, la libéralisation a un impact positif sur l'accumulation de capital pouvant aller jusqu'à 200% de l'accumulation actuelle. Enfin, l'étude de la libéralisation du transport aérien sur le tourisme montre qu'il y a une augmentation des flux de touristes utilisant des routes directes et indirectes. L'effet direct d'un accord (suite à l'accroissement d'une unité de l'indice de libéralisation) accroît de 3 à 4% les flux touristiques, tandis que l'effet indirect est compris entre 2% et 3%
This dissertation focuses on the effects of trade service liberalization in Tunisia. Using a DGSE model, the first chapter studies the overall effect of service liberalization on economic growth while considering the non-tariff barriers preventing investors to access this market. The second chapter analyzes the particular case of the banking sector liberalization by estimating its effect on capital accumulation. In particular, it suggests that increasing bank competition via liberalization is benefitting to the Tunisian banking sector up to a doubling of its capital accumulation. The third chapter shall estimate the direct and indirect effect of air transport liberalization on tourist flows in the southern Mediterranean countries. The agreements signed by these countries will be considered as well as those signed between third countries. In particular, when these third countries have transit airports through which pass tourists to visit Mediterrenean countries, liberalization can also be beneficial to the latter. For this purpose we have collected an original database to account for all of these agreements. Our results show that the liberalization of the service sector in Tunisia has a positive effect and depends mainly on the performance of the goods sector as well as the value of non-tariff barriers, evaluated at 37% of total of production. Morever, the liberalization of the Tunisian banking sector has a positive impact on capital accumulation running up to about 200 % of the current accumulation. Finally, the study of air transport liberalization on tourism shows that there is an increase in tourist flows using direct and indirect routes. The direct effect (following one unit increase of the liberalization index) increases the tourist flows by 3 to 4 percent, while the indirect effect is between 2 and 3 percent

Cette recherche vise à relever les dynamiques de l'appropriation tunisienne d'Internet à travers les Publinets. Ceux-ci sont des structures d'accès publics à Internet. On considère la Tunisie dans sa dimension arabo-islamique. La sphère arabo-islamique présente un contexte particulièrement complexe de "greffe" d'Internet à cause des contraintes politico-socio-culturelles. Seulement, Internet suscite engouement et "fascination" parmi les populations. Le réseau se présente comme moyen d'affirmation de soi, d'existence et "d'extériorisation". Mais, la Tunisie comme le reste des pays arabo-islamiques ne sont pas les seuls à tant attendre d'Internet et à appréhender les retombées du système mondial. Le rêve des pays en développement de réaliser le saut technologique en se connectant à la société de l'information nourrit un imaginaire technologique largement développé depuis les indépendances. Entre rêve et réalité, Internet finit par jouer un rôle mythique dans l'esprit des uns et des autres
This research intends to demonstrate the dynamics of Tunisian appropriation of the Internet through the so-called "Publinets" which are structures of public access to Internet facilities. The case of Tunisia is considered in this research in his Arabic and Islamic dimensions. Ln fact, the arab-islamic sphere presents a particularly complex ,context of "graft" of Internet due to political, social and cultural constraints. However, Internet arises rush and "fascination" among the populations. The network portrays itself like a means of self-affirmation, existence and "exteriorisation". But, Tunisia as well as other arab-islamic countries are not the only to expect much from the Internet and to learn about the disadvantages of the worldly network. The dream of developing countries to realise a technological advance by joining to the society of information nourishes a technological imagination developed largely since the independences. Between dream and reality, Internet ends-up to play a mythical role in the mind of one another

Recently, infotainment system has been used in the majority of new cars. It is considered as one of the car’s specifications. Nowadays, the consumers become bored from using the traditional infotainment systems because these systems are customized for the driver and disregard the passengers who want to be able to access the Internet and keep in touch with their friends any time they want besides getting entertained through watching movies and listening to the music. This study illustrates the portal design and the features of a new infotainment system that serves three kinds of users: drivers, passengers, and children. Moreover, this system adds a new feature which allows the users to share the information, such as locations and multimedia contents, and chatting between cars using VANET services. In addition, combines many features of some famous cars’ infotainment system to be in a single system and provide the passengers with some important services such as touristic services and health and safety services. While designing in car infotainment system, there are some constraints that aim to increase drivers and passengers safety in the same time decrease drivers distraction besides offering some entertainment and provide the needed information. Therefore, this paper studies some important guidelines that should be followed in designing the user interface of any infotainment system. Furthermore, we demonstrate the three phases of the design process: discovery phase, design phase and implementation. Using the collected data we designed a first mockup prototype that we submitted for some users’ evaluation. Some problems were spotted and corrected. This resulted in the development of a first functional prototype that was implemented in iOS. This design was tested as well. We finally propose an improved version of the interface and we test it in simulation using a tablet (iPad). The different prototypes will be exposed in this document along qualitative (satisfaction) and quantitative (time) results of their usability. These results are encouraging and showed the validity of our approach.

Cette thèse vise à évaluer les réformes du secteur de l'eau en Tunisie souffrant de pénurie hydrique croissante sous l'angle d'approches de gestion durable et moyennant l'étude comparée des expériences internationales, surtout française et britannique. Loin de tout mimétisme, la démarche préconisée cible dans une perspective d'évolution à moyen et long terme des structures institutionnelles qu'on cherche à optimiser une amélioration impérative de la valorisation des usages. Devenant ainsi plus exigeante dans une ère de démocratie participative où le financement privé et la gestion associative de certaines composantes des infrastructures de l'eau sont incontournables, la politique de l'eau, outre l'option barragiste et la grande hydraulique demeurant du ressort de l'Etat, est de plus en plus astreinte à la déréglementation des entreprises publiques du secteur, à la reconsidération des règles tarifaires en vigueur pour divers usages et à l'examen des autres modes de gestion (quotas, marchés de l'eau). Mais, la transformation de l'industrie de l'eau en réseau singulier d'activités prônant le partenariat public-privé oblige à recouper l'approche économique avec d'autres approches multidisciplinaires, en particulier en vue de capter les requis de la gestion intégrée de l'eau tant comme bien économique privé que comme bien public. L'hypothèse fondamentale est que la question de la privatisation relève plus des enjeux des décisions politiques, prises sous pression financière internationale, que des incitations économiques.

La présente thèse, relative aux matériaux locaux et innovation dans les métiers d’"art-isanat" en Tunisie, vise, dans un premier temps, l'étude des ambiguïtés définitionnelles liées au métiers d’art avec toutes leurs déclinaisons dans le contexte socio-économique et culturel tunisien. Ces métiers seront comparés avec ceux de la France, pays partenaire de la Tunisie,pour en tirer les points de similitudes et de différences pour faire ressortir les principaux moteurs d'expansion. Dans un second temps, notre recherche se tourne vers l’établissement d’un bilan des connaissances des matériaux locaux répartis par régions tunisiennes. La poterie/céramique artisanale et la bijouterie ont constitué les deux créneaux majeurs de notre ensemble d’études. Des argiles locales et des pigments de la Tunisie utilisés ou pas par les artisans (es) dans les métiers liés à la poterie artisanale ont fait l’objet d'une caractérisation scientifique (minéralogique, chimique et géotechnique), réalisée dans des laboratoires spécialisés. Cela a permis d’améliorer les compositions des pâtes d'argiles et de découvrir des couleurs naturelles authentiques pouvant constituer un vecteur d'innovation. D’autres matériaux locaux, comme le quartz fumé bi-pyramidé pour la bijouterie, peuvent constituer un créneau valide et important pour la promotion des métiers d’artisanat en Tunisie. Cette recherche est basée essentiellement sur des analyses scientifiques et des réflexions épistémologiques et s’intègre principalement dans le cadre de la recherche en Design
The present thesis, relating to local materials and innovation in the craft trades of “art-isanat”in Tunisia, aims, initially, at studying the definitional ambiguities related to craft trades with all their variations in the Tunisian socio-economic and cultural context. These trades will becompared with those of France, Tunisia's partner country, to draw points of similarities and differences to highlight the main drivers of expansion. In a second stage, our research isaimed at drawing up an assessment of the knowledge of local materials distributed byTunisian regions. Artisanal pottery/ceramics and jewellery were the two major niches of ourset of studies. Local clays and pigments from Tunisia used or not by craftsmen in tradesrelated to artisanal pottery have been scientific characterization (mineralogical, chemical and geotechnical), carried out in specialized laboratories. This has allowed us to improve the composition of the clay pastes and discover authentic natural colors that could be a vector ofinnovation. Other local materials, such as bi-pyramid smoked quartz for jewelers, can constitute a valid and important niche for the promotion of crafts in Tunisia. This research isessentially based on scientific analyses and epistemological reflections and is mainly part of the design research

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2009.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-128).
The objective of this thesis is to understand the unique features of Professional Services Firms and the challenges associated with effective knowledge management in these firms. A framework is developed to analyze innovations in this industry, based on: type and process of innovation, readiness of the firm for the innovation, alignment criteria, and the effect of the marketplace. Many firms are attempting to implement a Web 2.0-based knowledge management tool to institutionalize the knowledge of their employees. Cognizant is one of the very few who, at this writing, have rolled out a firm-wide Web 2.0-based tool. This innovation is analyzed through the framework, and recommendations are made for Cognizant and other firms in the industry seeking to harness the elusive-yet critical-tacit knowledge carried by employees, for competitive advantage.
by Shridhar Waman Kulkarni.
S.M.

Network virtualization allows operators to host multiple client services over their base physical infrastructures. Today, this technique is being used to support a wide range of applications in cloud computing services, content distribution, large data backup, etc. Accordingly, many different algorithms have also been developed to achieve efficient mapping of client virtual network (VN) requests over physical topologies consisting of networking infrastructures and datacenter compute/storage resources. However as applications continue to expand, there is a growing need to implement scheduling capabilities for virtual network demands in order to improve network resource utilization and guarantee quality of service (QoS) support. Now the topic of advance reservation (AR) has been studied for the case of scheduling point-to-point connection demands. Namely, many different algorithms have been developed to support various reservation models and objectives. Nevertheless, few studies have looked at scheduling more complex "topology-level'' demands, including virtual network services. Moreover, as cloud servers expand, many providers want to ensure user quality support at future instants in time, e.g., for special events, sporting venues, conference meetings, etc. In the light of above, this dissertation presents one of the first studies on advance reservation of virtual network services. First, the fixed virtual overlay network scheduling problem is addressed as a special case of the more generalized virtual network scheduling problem and a related optimization presented. Next, the complete virtual network scheduling problem is studied and a range of heuristic and meta-heuristic solutions are proposed. Finally, some novel flexible advance reservation models are developed to improve service setup and network resource utilization. The performance of these various solutions is evaluated using various methodologies (discrete event simulation and optimization tools) and comparisons made with some existing strategies.

Le ksar (pluriel 'ksour'), cet espace architectural et patrimonial propre à la culture berbère (amazigh), était destiné autrefois à emmagasiner les biens et les réserves de provisions des tribus semi-nomades du Sud-tunisien qui en étaient propriétaires. Avec le temps et le passage à la modernité, il s’est produit un glissement de valeurs et de significations dans l’environnement social et culturel des populations établies dans ces lieux, provoquant ainsi une menace pour les ksour qui s'en sont trouvés délaissés ou abandonnés. La thèse fait l’hypothèse que le concept d’hétérotopie proposé par Michel Foucault pourrait permettre une lecture de ces sites susceptible d’ouvrir un espace de projet innovant afin de mettre en valeur les ruines des ksour derrière lesquelles, ainsi que le montre l’enquête de terrain que nous y avons conduite, se cachent des conflits institutionnels, sociaux et intergénérationnels. C’est dans une telle perspective, par la mise en œuvre d’une démarche de recherche-projet appuyée sur un projet de design d’événement qui s’est déroulé pendant quatre jours en avril 2018, que nous nous sommes employée à exploiter le gisement d’intelligence collective propre à la dynamique du système des acteurs liés à ce patrimoine archéologique et architectural délaissé et promis sinon à une simple exploitation touristico-économique. Nous croyons que par une telle approche inspirée de l’innovation sociale par le design (ou design social), il sera possible d’assurer aux ksour un avenir durable et culturellement fécond sans dénaturer leur signification et leur richesse historique, anthropologique et patrimoniale
As an architectural and heritage space peculiar to Berber (Amazigh) culture, the ksar (plural ksour) was used in the past as a granary and storage space by its owners, the local semi-nomadic tribes of Southern Tunisia. With time and the change to modernity, a shift in the socio-cultural values and worldview of the local population led to the neglect or mere abandonment of the ksour. The thesis hypothesizes that the concept of heterotopia coined by Michel Foucault could help provide an interpretation of these sites leading to the opening of an innovative project space that would restore value to the ruins of the ksour, behind which, as highlighted by our field inquiry, there lie institutional, social, and intergenerational conflicts. It is in such prospect, through a project-grounded research approach grounded on an event design project that took place during four days in April 2018, that we ventured to capitalize upon the available collective intelligence resulting from the dynamics of the system of stakeholders connected with this archeological and architectural heritage, otherwise promised to a mere touristic-economic exploitation. We believe that such an approach, consonant with social innovation by design methodologies (or social design), will make it possible to secure a sustainable and culturally fruitful future to the ksour without compromising their historical, anthropological, and patrimonial richness and meaningfulness

The notion of service design as a design field has emerged during the last 10-15 years and seems to be growing more and more; a 2007 textbook on interaction design states: “The new frontier of interaction design is services” (Saffer, 2007, p. 174). Since the field is so young, there still are areas which hardly have been explored. One of these is cultural effects on service expectations. This thesis aims to help to fill in the knowledge gap by applying a model of cultural differences. The model used is the one developed by Geert Hofstede, which has been proved to be valid within a large number of varyingfields. This was done through the research question “Is Hofstede’s model applicable to service design in general, and individualization of services in particular?”.

The question was explored through two parallel research processes; a quantitative questionnaire distributed via the web and a qualitative evaluation of 47 different service web sites. The qualitative evaluation was done through a new method called Cultural Walkthrough. Four key countries were chosen; the questionnaire was aimed at natives of these countries and the web sites all came from these countries. The countries in question were Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the USA.

The results indicate that Hofstede’s model can’t be applied to service design straight off. Neither can they be used as a basis to deem the want for the possibility to individualize services, which seems to be dependent on the individual. The results indicate a large number of interesting questions for further research.

Le service de l'eau potable en Tunisie est géré depuis plus de quarante ans par une entreprise publique. Une politique sociale, basée sur un système de tarification progressif et une péréquation nationale, avait accompagné le développement du service pendant toute cette période. Le secteur affiche aujourd'hui de bonnes performances avec un accès de la totalité de la population urbaine et environ 92 % de la population rurale à l'eau potable, selon les données de l'année 2007. Il entre ainsi dans une nouvelle phase de développement. Les objectifs d'augmentation quantitative de la desserte cèdent la place à la logique d'amélioration qualitative : rabaissement du seuil maximal de salinité de l'eau distribuée, raccordement en branchement individuel de la population rurale dispersée... En face, le coût d'approvisionnement du service ne cesse de croître. Dans cette nouvelle situation, des mécanismes en contradiction avec les objectifs initiaux du système de péréquation risquent de se produire... Cette thèse se propose de présenter d'abord une vision renouvelée des impératifs d'équité qui doivent guider les politiques sociales d'un service de l'eau potable, et ceci dans le cas où l'accès à l'eau potable de la population est généralisé. Il s'agit d'insérer ensuite les mécanismes de compensation construits dans un dispositif de régulation économique qui englobe à la fois la conception de la structure tarifaire et les institutions en charge de sa mise en oeuvre.

This paper is a study and comparison between the two Wireless LAN (WLAN) standards HiperLAN/2 and IEEE 802.11a. WLANs are used instead or together with ordinary LANs to increase mobility in for example an office. HiperLAN/2 is an European standard developed by ETSI and the IEEEs standard is American.

A WLAN-card consists roughly of a Medium Access Control (MAC), Physichal layer (PHY) and an antenna. The antenna is the same for the different standards.

Both standards operates at 5.4 GHz with a maximum transmission rate at 54 Mbit/s and they use OFDM to modulate the signal. This means that the physical layer in the two standards is similar.

The differences between the standards are in the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. HiperLAN/2 has a much more complex MAC since it is developed with the starting point in cellular phones. Therefore this MAC is not very similar to ETHERNET that is the protocol used by regular network. On the other hand it is built to be compatible with cellular phones and other applications.

The 802.11a MAC is very much the same as in the 802.11b standard that is the most used standard at present. The difference is that 802.11a can send at much higher data rates. This MAC is build with starting point in ETHERNET so it has a similar interface to the computer. This makes it less complex.

The different MACs can provide different services. The greatest difference is that 802.11a can use a distributed send mode where any STA can send if the medium is idle. This reminds a lot of ETHERNET but they use different methods to sense if the medium is idle. In HiperLAN/2 are all transmissions scheduled by the AP. 802.11a can operate in a similar way but at the moment this mode is not as fully developed as in HiperLAN/2. There are working groups in IEEE that works toward an improvement of 802.11a so it can use queues with different priorities, this is already implemented in HiperLAN/2.

Another important issue in wireless environment is security. Both standards use encryption to protect their messages. The difference is that HiperLAN/2 changes their encryption key for every connection where 802.11a uses the same key the whole time. This gives HiperLAN/2 a better security with todays standard but thereare working groups dealing with implementing key-exchange functions and Kerberos use in 802.11a. Chapter 8 is a description of a program that we developed in C++. The program is used to monitor the different registers and ports a WLAN-card use. It is written for a 802.11b card and should be used together with Windows 2000. The source code can be found in appendix C.

This project is a continuation of research work done by (Asif, 2009) which proposed an extended architecture of Mobile Student Information System (MSIS) to integrate the systems available for the students to provide student centric services on mobile devices. The architecture was developed by using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to provide services for collaboration and communication among the students or between students and the teachers. The mobile services are built by integrating MSIS to Twitter, Feed based systems and NTNU email system. The services have the potential to provide students an experience of a virtual environment of class, project work and discussion groups anytime-anywhere. The project has been carried out in accordance with design-science research model over a number of implementation and evaluation iterations. A user-driven evaluation of the MSIS service has been conducted among a diverse group of NTNU students. The utility as well as the usability of the system were evaluated by applying observational and empirical evaluation methods in a real-world environment at the university. The usability test identified few issues with the initial design of services, and received feedback for enhancements. The Mobile Service Acceptance Model (MSAM) has been used to examine the factors that are influential for user adoption of mobile services in the light of this project. The MSAM instrument measures different facets of a mobile information service, such as the perceived usefulness, ease of use, and usage intention. Our findings confirm that the utility of the student centric mobile services are perceived as high, and students would likely benefit from such kind of services. There is no doubt about the great potential for a service like MSIS and it is believed to be a useful addition to the existing systems.

Distributed, computer based communication is becoming established within many working environments. Furthermore, the near future is likely to see an increase in the scale, complexity and usage of telecommunications services and distributed applications. As a result, there is a critical need for a global Directory service to store and manage communication information and therefore support the emerging world-wide telecommunications environment. This thesis describes research into the design of distributed Directory services. It addresses a number of Directory issues ranging from the abstract structure of information to the concrete implementation of a prototype system. In particular, it examines a number of management related issues concerning the management of communication information and the management of the Directory service itself. The following work develops models describing different aspects of Directory services. These include data access control and data integrity control models concerning the abstract structure and management of information as well as knowledge management, distributed operation and replication models concerning the realisation of the Directory as a distributed system. In order to clarify the relationships between these models, a layered directory architecture is proposed. This architecture provides a framework for the discussion of directory issues and defines the overall structure of this thesis. This thesis also describes the implementation of a prototype Directory service, supported by software tools typical of those currently available within many environments. It should be noted that, although this thesis emphasises the design of abstract directory models, development of the prototype consumed a large amount of time and effort and prototyping activities accounted for a substantial portion of this research. Finally, this thesis reaches a number of conclusions which are applied to the emerging ISO/CCITT X. 500 standard for Directory services, resulting in possible input for the 1988-92 study period.

This research investigates the general user interface problems in using networked services. Some of the problems are: users have to recall machine names and procedures to. invoke networked services; interactions with some of the services are by means of menu-based interfaces which are quite cumbersome to use; inconsistencies exist between the interfaces for different services because they were developed independently. These problems have to be removed so that users can use the services effectively. A prototype system has been developed to help users interact with networked services. This consists of software which gives the user an easy and consistent interface with the various services. The prototype is based on a graphical user interface and it includes the following appJications: Bath Information & Data Services; electronic mail; file editor. The prototype incorporates an online help facility to assist users using the system. The prototype can be divided into two parts: the user interface part that manages interactlon with the user; the communicatIon part that enables the communication with networked services to take place. The implementation is carried out using an object-oriented approach where both the user interface part and communication part are objects. The essential characteristics of object-orientation, - abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism - can all contribute to the better design and implementation of the prototype. The Smalltalk Model-View-Controller (MVC) methodology has been the framework for the construction of the prototype user interface. The purpose of the development was to study the effectiveness of users interaction to networked services. Having completed the prototype, tests users were requested to use the system to evaluate its effectiveness. The evaluation of the prototype is based on observation, i.e. observing the way users use the system and the opinion rating given by the users. Recommendations to improve further the prototype are given based on the results of the evaluation.

This system is concerned with the design and implementation of a community health information system which fulfils some of the local needs of fourteen nursing and para-medical professions in a district health authority, whilst satisfying the statutory requirements of the NHS Korner steering group for those professions. A national survey of community health computer applications, documented in the form of an applications register, shows the need for such a system. A series of general requirements for an informations systems design methodology are identified, together with specific requirements for this problem situation. A number of existing methodologies are reviewed, but none of these were appropriate for this application. Some existing approaches, tools and techniques are used to define a more suitable methodology. It is unreasonable to rely on one single general methodology for all types of application development. There is a need for pragmatism, adaptation and flexibility. In this research, participation in the development stages by those who will eventually use the system was thought desirable. This was achieved by forming a representative design group. Results would seem to show a highly favourable response from users to this participation which contributed to the overall success of the system implemented. A prototype was developed for the chiropody and school nursing staff groups of Darlington health authority, and evaluations show that a significant number of the problems and objectives of those groups have been successfully addressed; the value of community health information has been increased; and information has been successfully fed back to staff and better utilised.

The fast paced evolution of technology has changed the way people interact with service providers in a significant way; the introduction of new service delivery channels has mainly been based on technological advances rather than on customer needs. During the last 20 years the banks have extended their service offerings from just having the branch offices to the multichannel service delivery systems of today, including; phones, computers and smartphone apps. Previous research has concluded that there were many barriers for mobile banking to become a widespread service delivery channel for banks, such as technical limitations, trust issues and social obstacles. In order to understand the role of the smartphone in this multichannel ecology, a qualitative interview study was undertaken focusing on the customers’ perception of the bank. The results show that the choice of channel is dependent on personal characteristics, perceived risk, context and how the task itself is perceived. The results show that the current role of the smartphone is complementary to the other channels, providing the customer with basic banking services wherever they are; it supports the customer in the activity of managing ones private economy and providing the informant with the feeling of control. The results also include insights into the life of three customers and their interaction with their bank over the course of one month in the form of customer journey maps.

L'interès en l'aplicació de les tècniques de ludificació en diferents contextos ha augmentat en els darrers anys i s'ha convertit en una tendència prometedora en diverses àrees, com la interacció home-màquina (human-computer interaction -HCI-) o les tecnologies educatives. Desafortunadament, en molts d'aquests casos en què es fan servir no s'arriben a complir els objectius de motivació, principalment a causa d'un disseny deficient o un enfocament completament ad hoc. Els resultats revelen que una estratègia de disseny formal és la clau de l'èxit. Aquesta tesi presenta el desenvolupament i la validació d'un marc formal per al disseny de serveis personalitzats de ludificació. Aquest marc, anomenat framework for agile gamification of personalized learning experiences (FRAGGLE), es basa en l'ús de les metodologies àgils per a obtenir ràpidament un disseny inicial, llest per a ser testat i iterat. Es focalitza en l'aplicació de diferents tècniques a nivells més baixos d'abstracció per mitjà del seu procés guiat pas a pas, que inclou un procés de validació en relació amb la motivació intrínseca (SPARC). Aquesta proposta fou aplicada i avaluada en dos cursos de grau d'Enginyeria Informàtica en un format d'aprenentatge en línia, amb l'objectiu de promoure entre els estudiants la resolució d'activitats formatives no avaluables i augmentar la sensació de pertinença, i també l'interès pel grup de classe. Un primer cas va revelar una avaluació positiva moderada de l'experiència dissenyada, partint d'una proposta de talla única, mentre que el segon cas d'estudi va permetre avaluar quins elements de disseny van tenir més repercussió. Els resultats en un cas d'estudi posterior també van revelar que la personalització funciona millor que els enfocaments genèrics previs en tots els elements estudiats en relació amb la immersió dels estudiants tant pel que fa a comportament com pel que fa a la part emocional. Finalment, el marc de disseny es va aplicar en un entorn real relacionat amb la cura de la salut per mitjà de Preventive Neuro Health, una eina ludificada desenvolupada i inspirada en el model de proveïment participatiu (crowdsourcing) per a prevenir el deteriorament cognitiu en gent gran sana. Aquesta eina va permetre un alt grau de personalització amb perspectives tant clíniques com de motivació amb el propòsit de promoure'n l'ús regular.
El interés en la aplicación de las técnicas de ludificación aplicadas a los diferentes contextos ha aumentado en los últimos años, y se ha convertido en una tendencia prometedora en diversas áreas, tales como la interacción hombre-máquina (human-computer interaction -HCI-) o las tecnologías educativas. Desafortunadamente, muchos de estos casos en los que se hace uso de dichas técnicas no llegan a cumplir sus objetivos de motivación, principalmente debido a un diseño deficiente o a un enfoque completamente ad hoc. Los resultados revelan que una estrategia de diseño formal es la clave del éxito. Esta tesis presenta el desarrollo y la validación de un marco formal para el diseño de servicios personalizados de ludificación. Este marco, llamado framework for agile gamification of personalized learning experiences (FRAGGLE) se basa en el uso de las metodologías ágiles para obtener un diseño inicial rápidamente, listo para ser testeado e iterado. Se enfoca a la aplicación de diferentes técnicas a niveles más bajos de abstracción por medio de su proceso guiado paso a paso, que incluye un proceso de validación en relación con la motivación intrínseca (SPARC). Esta propuesta fue aplicada y evaluada en dos cursos del grado de Ingeniería Informática basados en un formato de aprendizaje en línea, con el objetivo de promover entre los estudiantes la resolución de actividades formativas no evaluables y aumentar su sensación de pertenencia, así como el interés por el grupo. Un primer caso reveló una evaluación positiva moderada de la experiencia diseñada y la motivación de los estudiantes en una propuesta de «talla única», mientras que el segundo caso de estudio permitió evaluar qué elementos de diseño tuvieron un mayor impacto. Los resultados también revelaron en un caso de estudio posterior que la personalización funcionó mejor que los enfoques genéricos previos en todos los elementos estudiados con respecto a la inmersión de los estudiantes tanto en cuanto a comportamiento como en lo que hace referencia a la parte emocional. Finalmente, el marco de diseño se aplicó en un entorno real relacionado con el cuidado de la salud por medio de Preventive Neuro Health, una herramienta ludificada desarrollada e inspirada en el modelo subcontratación masiva (crowdsourcing) para la prevención del deterioro cognitivo en gente mayor sana. Esta herramienta permitió un alto grado de personalización con perspectivas tanto clínicas como de motivación con el propósito de promover su uso regular.
Interest in applying gamification techniques to different contexts has increased in recent years and has become a promising trend in many areas, such as human-computer interaction (HCI) and educational technologies. Unfortunately, many instances in which these techniques are used do not meet their motivational objectives, primarily due to poor design or a completely ad hoc approach. Findings reveal that a formal design strategy is the key to success. This thesis presents the development and validation of a framework for the design of personalized gamification services. This framework, called FRAGGLE (FRamework for AGile Gamification of personalized Learning Experiences), is based on the use of agile methodologies to obtain a fast design that is ready for testing and reproduction. It is aimed at applying different techniques, all the way down to the lowest levels of abstraction, through a guided, step-by-step process, including a design validation process of intrinsic motivation (SPARC). This approach was tested and assessed in two courses on an e-learning-based bachelor's degree in computer science, its goals being to encourage learners completing non-graded training activities, and to increase their sense of kinship and interest in the class group. The first case revealed a moderately positive assessment of the designed experience and student engagement in a "one-size-fits-all" proposal; meanwhile, the second case of study allowed assessment of which design elements had a greater impact on student engagement. Results from a further case of study also revealed that personalization worked better regarding students' behavioural and emotional engagement than previous generic approaches. Finally, the framework was also applied in a real healthcare environment through Preventive Neuro Health, a gamified, crowdsourcing-inspired tool developed for cognitive impairment prevention in healthy older adults. Aiming to motivate its regular use among these adults, it enabled a high degree of personalization both from clinical and engagement perspectives.

There are unique challenges and opportunities related to the integration of electric vehicles into the future power grid, especially the modern distribution grid since electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities and fast-charging stations are usually tied to low-voltage and medium-voltage power networks. The grid-connected EVs, if properly controlled, can operate as distributed energy storage and provide various ancillary services, such as peak shaving, fast-response reserve capacity, frequency regulation, voltage control and reactive supports. The purpose of this thesis is to integrate EVs to the power grid and provides suitable ancillary services to improve the grid reliability and stability. The larger future penetration of EVs and renewable energies is also taken into account to develop the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) control scheme with the constraints of EV charging and communication infrastructures. The main contents include: V2G mathematical model and system configuration; impact evaluation of EV integration and the V2G control framework; energy scheduling of EVs integration; V2G dynamic regulation services; control method of EV aggregator for dispatching a fleet of EVs; and the evaluation of V2G control scheme and hardware-in-the-loop experimental system design. 　　In the thesis, the impact of EV charging demand on the conventional distribution grid is firstly estimated to reveal the negative effects of the arbitrary EV charging and the necessity to control the EV charging process. The potential benefits EVs can bring into the power grid support are discussed and a V2G control framework is proposed to perform the V2G optimization and various regulation services. The current power electronics applied EV charging facilities and communication network are integrated into the V2G operation in the future distribution grid with microgrid and smaller installation of renewable generation units. 　　Next, mathematical model of V2G power control is formulated. Two optimization methods are proposed to schedule the EV charging and discharging energy to minimize the power losses and the operating cost while satisfying the mobility needs and the power system limitations. Subsequently, the dynamic regulation of V2G power is investigated to unleash the potential of EVs to provide multiple ancillary services simultaneously. In addition to V2G optimal energy scheduling, EVs can also be employed for dynamic power regulation which requires the fast response to the instantaneous imbalance between the power supply and demand. V2G power is controlled to mitigate the power fluctuation caused by the intermittent wind energy resources, and thus stabilize the system frequency and voltage. Finally, an EV-centric hybrid energy storage system is proposed, which combines the merits of V2G operation and superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) to enhance the power quality and system frequency stability. The critical issues in V2G applications are summarized in the end.
published_or_final_version
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy

Corporations and government agencies that use Avatars claim there are substantial benefits for using them in their respective organizations; including 24/7 service availability, quick answers without a phone queue, and improved consistency in the responses provided. “There are also potential cost savings by having an Avatar answering questions compared to using personnel” (Lind and Salomonson, 2006). However, these benefits may not be great enough as the lack of possible human communication may lead to alienation between individuals and organisations. Furthermore, a robot may “miss out” on business opportunities that a human would act on. A robot will not hear and understand nuances in speech, with the risk that a potentially problematic situation may not be adequately resolved, leading to dissatisfaction with products and services delivered. Many companies measure the satisfaction with Avatars by analysing question and answer logs to see if the Avatar appears to give satisfactory answers. Few of these companies have actually asked their customers (e.g. IKEA and SAS until recently) what they really feel about the quality of the answers they receive. User Centered Design, Participatory Design and other methods are the preferred ways of developing such systems, but these do not include all stakeholders. This thesis addresses this exclusion of all stakeholders by applying a co-design research approach for developing avatars for e-Services.Case studies from Mark Municipality, Sweden and Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS) are presented in this thesis showing how improvements of service quality aspects with Avatars can be managed by applying a four-step Co-Design research approach. From the first step of Co-Design, through interviews, log analysis and a channel survey, findings show that the failed dialogues with Avatars Eva (SAS) and Elin (Mark) are mainly concerned with five factors: interactivity; dialogue capability; consistency; knowledge; and synonyms. In the second step of carrying out customer workshops, a number of ideal scenarios are suggested for the Avatars to perform better. In the third step, SAS decision makers decided to implement the first three scenarios: Eva’s synonyms, knowledge and consistency. Mark decision makers decided to shut down their Avatar Elin, as they did not believe they had the necessary resources. In the fourth step, another channel survey was carried out for SAS as well as a new log analysis in order to know the impact of the redevelopment of the above three scenarios. An important result of the study was that the company adopted the continuous use of Co-Design as an approach to continuous improvement of the service quality performed by the Avatar Eva. This, for example, led to an increase of 14 percentage points on the users overall satisfaction level. The results also open a new set of questions framing the relation and transformation between Co-Design as a research approach for knowledge creation and Co-Design as a method for innovation and service quality improvements. This thesis also presents an Extended Co-Design Model, which illustrates how Co-Design inspires SAS staff. In addition, the staff of the supplier of the Avatar use it for other functions within and without SAS.

Abstract. The growing age of populations brings widespread problems for a range of services, including health care services. Another challenge is the areas of dispersed settlement and decreasing population in rural areas. Urbanization and movement to the larger cities after employment, education, and services has led to decreasing the services in the remote areas even further. In the changing needs of the requirements and challenges of health care entities the use of mobile health care services may provide many benefits to the systems to develop flexible and adjustable health services to citizens. With the help of mobile health care services, the requirements of ever-changing service needs may be responded more efficiently than traditional onsite health care centers. The purpose of this study is to understand the opportunities of user-centric service design and practices in the design processes of mobile health care services. In the future, mobile health care services may potentially be a medium for implementing the health and social service delivery as one of the standard mediums in order to reduce inconsistencies between habitant areas in Finland. By designing user-centric services with methods that leave room for ongoing development and improvement of mobile health care services. The nature of the study is a qualitative case study. The research phenomenon is approached by semi-structured interviews, to define practicalities in the planning of a mobile health care services. The target group of the interview is particularly chosen participants from representative organizations from both private and public health sector. The results of the study confirm the adaptability of user-centric service design in mobile health care services. It also reveals many practical aspects regarding the design process and the possibilities in co-design activities. More precisely, this study suggests that the user of the service can be included in all stages of service design process of mobile health care services in several ways — from defining the need to the implementation and ongoing development. The user-centricity in the context of this study means the users of the service that are involved in the service operations along its way — including employees and other encounters to the service. The results of the study contribute to the model of service design by assessing its suitability to designing mobile health care services with user-centric approach, and gathering concrete practices of those methods.

WebRTC est une technologie récente de communication qui permet d’établir des échanges multimédia conversationnels directement entre navigateurs. Nous nous intéressons dans cette thèse à des locuteurs dans un Smart Space (SS) défini comme un environnement centré-utilisateur instrumenté par unensemble de capteurs et d’actionneurs connectés. Nous analysons les capacités nécessaires pour permettre à un participant d’une session WebRTC d’impliquer dans cette même session, les flux induits par les objets connectés appartenant au SS d’un utilisateur quelconque de la session. Cette approche recèle un gisement de nombreux nouveaux usages. Nous limitons notre analyse à ceux concernant l’exercice distant d’une expertise et d’un savoir-faire. Techniquement, il s’agit d’articuler de façon contrôlée WebRTC et IoT/WoT. Nous procédons à une extension de WebRTC par WoT pour fournir à tout utilisateur d’une session WebRTC, un accès aux objets connectés du SS de tout autre participant à la session, en mettant l’accent sur la sécurisation de cet accès ainsi que sur sa conformité aux exigences de respect de la vie privée (RGPD) de l’utilisateur concerné. Le positionnement de notre approche dans le contexte des services de communication opérant dans les villes connectées, impose la prise en compte de SSs multiples et variés induisant chacun ses propres politiques de routage et de sécurité. Pour répondre à nos objectifs, il devient nécessaire au cours d’une session WebRTC, d’identifier, sélectionner, déployer et appliquer les règles de routage et de sécurité de façon à garantir un accès rapide et sécurisé aux différents SSs concernés et distribués sur tout le réseau. Nous développons une architecture originale répondant à ces besoins et intégrant un contrôleur SDN du fait de l’étroite imbrication entre les problématiques de routage et de sécurité. Un prototype illustrant notre approche a été mis en oeuvre et testé afin d’évaluer la performance et la sécurité du système. Nous illustrons finalement notre approche dans le domaine de la santé en démontrant son apport pour gérer une infrastructure de grande taille telle qu’un hôpital
The richness and the versatility of WebRTC, a new peer-to-peer, real-time and browser based communication technology, allowed the imagination of new and innovative services. In this thesis, we analyzed the capabilities required to allow a participant in a WebRTC session to access the smart Things belonging to his own environment as well as those of any other participant in the same session. The access to such environment, which we call “SmartSpace (SS)”, can be either passive, for example by monitoring the contextual information provided by the sensors, or active by requesting the execution of commands by the actuators, or a mixture of both. This approach deserves attention because it allows solving in an original way various issues such as allowing experts to remotely exercise and provide their expertise and/or knowing how. From a technical point of view the issue is not trivial because it requires a smooth and mastered articulation between two different technologies: WebRTC and the Internet of Things (IoT) /Web of Things (WoT). Hence, the first part of the problem studied in this thesis, consists in analyzing the possibilities of extending WebRTC capabilities with theWoT. So as to provide a secure and privacy-respectful access to the various smart objects located in the immediate environment of a participant to any otherend-user involved in the same ongoing WebRTC session. This approach is then illustrated in the ehealth domain and tested in a real smart home (a typical example of a smart space). Moreover,positioning our approach in the context of communication services operating in smart cities requires the ability to support a multiplicity of SSs,each with its own network and security policy. Hence,in order to allow a participant to access one of his own SSs or one of another participant (through a delegation of access process), it becomes necessary to dynamically identify, select, deploy, and enforce the SS’s specific routing and security rules, so as to have an effective, fast and secure access. Therefore, the second part of the problem studied in this Ph.D.consists in defining an efficient management of the routing and security issues regarding the possibility of having multiple SSs distributed over the entire network

Thesis (S.M. in Transportation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and, (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-154).
Many transit agencies operate limited-stop or Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) services overlapped with local services in corridors with high demand. These service strategies have the potential to improve bus performance as well as service quality. However, the implementation of these service strategies may lead to an increase in access times and waiting times for some passengers compared with an all-local service configuration. Therefore, agencies face trade-offs between reducing bus running times and reducing total passenger travel time when designing a service plan for these overlapping strategies. This thesis focuses on developing a methodology for the design and evaluation of service configurations for limited-stop (or BRT) services overlapping with local services. The developed methodology proposes evaluating limited-stop (or BRT) service configurations by six measures of effectiveness including: market share (passengers always waiting for the limited-stop service, passengers always waiting for the local service, and passengers always taking the first bus that comes), demand split, average passengers per trip, service running times, change in average passenger travel time, and change in corridor ridership. A model was developed to obtain the proposed measures of effectiveness for user-defined service configurations. This model is an improvement to that developed by Schwarcz (2004) since it allows forecasting ridership changes due to the implementation of these service configurations, assigns demand using a probabilistic choice approach, and models running time changes when BRT elements are introduced. The methodology developed to evaluate limited-stop and BRT services was applied to two CTA case studies: Chicago Avenue and 7 9th Street. Different scenarios of limited-stop and BRT services overlapped with local services were tested, examining variations in stop spacing, service frequencies, and different BRT elements such as: right-of-way segregation, enhanced boarding, and Transit Signal Priority. The results of the analysis shows the critical importance of the enforcement of preferential rights-of-way (in BRT scenarios) to achieve high corridor performance and that frequency shares (the ratio of limit-stop services buses to local buses serving the corridor in an hour) should be greater than 50% for limited-stop services and greater than or equal to 60% for BRT services. Additionally, total demand, concentration of origins and destinations, average trip length, and trip length distribution were shown to be critical to the effectiveness of limited-stop and BRT services.
by Harvey Scorcia.
M.C.P.
S.M.in Transportation

The purpose of this thesis is to compare the performance characteristics of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Representational State Transfer (REST), which are methods of supporting interactions among Web services. They differ in both context and usage; SOAP is a protocol while REST is architecture. SOAP is a well-developed protocol used in the Web industry and is standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). REST is the outcome of Dr. Roy Thomas Fielding’s 2000 PhD dissertation, “Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-Based Software Architecture.” REST is gaining in popularity due to its simplicity, scalability, and architectural dependence on the World Wide Web. Major software companies, such as Google and Amazon, among others, have started using REST. The main difference between the two methods is SOAP is a tightly coupled system, whereas REST is a loosely coupled system; both have advantages and disadvantages. We built SOAP and REST based Web services that performed the GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE functions on a database. We utilized response time and throughput metrics to compare the performance of these Web services. In comparing the two technologies, we found REST was considerably faster, compared to SOAP, because the response times of REST were better than those of SOAP. As an ancillary outcome, we found building Web services using SOAP was easier, due to considerable tool support, whereas developing Web services using REST was time consuming, as it provides no tool support.

This paper takes a look at the challenges mayors of Czech small towns face in they day-to-day job and presents a comprehensive overview of ways they can be addressed. It then focuses on the non-financial and non-legislative tools of cooperation and external support in particular, which are introduced under a collective name "services for effective rural governance". The thesis then presents on the concept of "service design" and its uses in the public sector. Consequently, this method is used to analyze and propose changes to the currently available services for effective rural governance so that they best serve the small town mayors.

In the fast moving word of sofware engineering many are trying to get their piece of the pot of gold. To do that the engineering process needs to be as cost efficient as possible.Since time is money smartly designed systems make full use of already implemented sofware to save time and money with new development. The usage of services have become a well used strategy for the re-usage of software within as well as between businesses. Loose coupling has long been an architectural strategy for achieving modifiability. The loose coupling between services within a system has lately also been a subject of discussion, since there may be several advatages of using the principles regarding loose coupling and high cohesion within and between services. This document will examine the possible benefits as well as concern of decoupling already tightly coupled services. As well as discovering patterns and anti-patterns regarding coupling and services using Visma Spcs as a case study.

The work presented in this thesis is based on the assumption that modern computer technologies are already potentially pervasive: CPUs are embedded in any sort of device; RAM and storage memory of a modern PDA is comparable to those of a ten years ago Unix workstation; Wi-Fi, GPRS, UMTS are leveraging the development of the wireless Internet. Nevertheless, computing is not pervasive because we do not have a clear conceptual model of the pervasive computer and we have not tools, methodologies, and middleware to write and to seamlessly deliver at once services over a multitude of heterogeneous devices and different delivery contexts. Our thesis addresses these issues starting from the analysis of forces in a pervasive computing environment: user mobility, user profile, user position, and device profile. The conceptual model, or metaphor, we use to drive our work is to consider the environment as surrounded by a multitude of services and objects and devices as the communicating gates between the real world and the virtual dimension of pervasive computing around us. Our thesis is thus built upon three main “pillars”. The first pillar is a domain-object-driven methodology which allows developer to abstract from low level details of the final delivery platform, and provides the user with the ability to access services in a multi-channel way. The rationale is that domain objects are self-contained pieces of software able to represent data and to compute functions and procedures. Our approach fills the gap between users and domain objects building an appropriate user interface which is both adapted to the domain object and to the end user device. As example, we present how to design, implement and deliver an electronic mail application over various platforms. The second pillar of this thesis analyzes in more details the forces that make direct object manipulation inadequate in a pervasive context. These forces are the user profile, the device profile, the context of use, and the combinatorial explosion of domain objects. From the analysis of the electronic mail application presented as example, we notice that according to the end user device, or according to particular circumstances during the access to the service (for instance if the user access the service by the interactive TV while he is having his breakfast) some functionalities are not compulsory and do not fit an adequate task sequence. So we decided to make task models explicit in the design of a service and to integrate the capability to automatically generate user interfaces for domain objects with the formal definition of task models adapted to the final delivery context. Finally, the third pillar of our thesis is about the lifecycle of services in a pervasive computing environment. Our solutions are based upon an existing framework, the Jini connection technology, and enrich this framework with new services and architectures for the deployment and discovery of services, for the user session management, and for the management of offline agents.

A l’ère de la troisième révolution internet, celle de l’internet des objets (IoT), beaucoup d’espoir sont tournés vers les technologies numériques pour développer les économies et notamment dynamiser le commerce local. Dans les pays du Maghreb, en Tunisie notamment, ses espoirs sont tournés du côté de la demande. Plus précisément, à l’issu du printemps arabe, et en raison du rôle qu’ont joué les réseaux sociaux (Facebook notamment) pour mobiliser les jeunes à manifester dans les rues de Tunis, le nouveau ministère du commerce fonde ses espoirs dans cette population jeune pour développer le commerce électronique. Partant de ce constat, cette thèse propose d’étudier si les jeunes tunisiens sont les early adopters qui permettront de diffuser le commerce électronique en Tunisie. Pour cela, la problématique de recherche porte sur les facteurs d’adoption du commerce électronique par les jeunes en Tunisie. Pour répondre à cette question de recherche, la thèse propose dans un premier temps de dresser l’état des lieux de la diffusion de l’internet au sein d’un population de jeunes étudiants. Préalablement, elle propose dans la première partie de la thèse un état des lieux de la couverture du territoire en technologies d’accès aux services numériques. Cet état des lieux est discuté à l’appui d’une revue de la littérature sur la fracture numérique. Dans un deuxième temps, elle propose une analyse empirique et exploratoire menée auprès d’un échantillon de 400 étudiants tunisiens environ. Cette étude porte sur les facteurs d’adoption de l’internet et des services marchands (commerce électronique). Structurée en deux parties, le premier volet de l’enquête est exploité à l’aide de statistiques économétriques et le deuxième volet mobilise les méthodes d’analyse d’équations structurelles. Les résultats de la thèse montrent que si l’usage de l’internet est relativement bien diffusé auprès des jeunes tunisiens, la disposition à adopter le commerce électronique doit en revanche être encouragée. Pour cela, un modèle d’adoption est proposé en deuxième partie de la thèse. Il met en évidence quels facteurs favorisent ou inhibent l’adoption du commerce électronique en Tunisie. Les résultats de ce modèle et des travaux menés dans la partie 1 permettent dans la partie conclusive de la thèse de formuler différentes recommandations à l’égard des entreprises engagées dans un projet de mise en ligne de leur activité commerciale d’une part, et d’autre part envers les acteurs publics pour favoriser l’adoption des services internet marchands en Tunisie
In the era of the third Internet revolution, that of the Internet of Things (IoT), a lot of hope is turned to digital technologies to develop economies and boost local trade. In the Maghreb countries, especially in Tunisia, those hope are turned on the demand side. More specifically, at the end of the Arab Spring, and because of the role played by social networks (Facebook in particular) to mobilize young people to demonstrate in the streets of Tunis, the new Ministry of Commerce hopes in this population young to develop e-commerce. Based on this observation, this thesis proposes to study whether young Tunisians are the early adopters who will disseminate e-commerce in Tunisia. For this, the research problematic focuses on the factors of adoption of e-commerce by young people in Tunisia. To answer this research question, the thesis proposes at first to draw up the inventory of the diffusion of the internet within a population of young students. Before doing so, we propose in the first part of the thesis an inventory of the technologies territory’s coverage of the access to digital services. This inventory is discussed in support of a review of the literature on the digital divide. In a second step, she proposes an empirical and exploratory analysis conducted with a sample of about 400 Tunisian students. This study focuses on the adoption factors of the Internet and market services (e-commerce). Structured in two parts, the first part of the survey is exploited using econometric statistics and the second part uses structural equation analysis methods. The results of the thesis show that while the use of the internet is relatively well distributed to young Tunisians, the willingness to adopt e-commerce should be encouraged. For this, an adoption model is proposed in the second part of the thesis. It highlights what factors encourages or inhibit the adoption of e-commerce in Tunisia. The results of this model and the work carried out in Part 1 allow in the concluding part of the thesis to make various recommendations to companies engaged in a project to put their commercial activity online on one hand, and on the other hand towards the public actors to encourage the adoption of the internet marketing services in Tunisia

This thesis is concerned with the provision of multimedia services (involving voice, video, text and graphics) in an office environment. The office of the future is expected to comprise a heterogeneous collection of workstations and multimedia components (including fileservers, voice and video codecs, document scanners, laser printers, etc) interlinked by a high speed (digital) local area network. Every office is likely to have one or more connections to a public Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) providing integrated access (involving various types of traffic) to a very large number of subscribers. This thesis considers general issues relating to the design of such an office. Particular attention is given to the problem of the integration of media both at the network and user levels. Much of this discussion draws on practical experience gained during the Alvey Unison Project in which experimental multimedia offices were interconnected using a pilot ISDN. The architecture of the Unison network is discussed with particular reference to its suitability for the support of multimedia services. The bulk of this thesis is devoted to a description of the design and implementation of a number of prototype multimedia applications, and to an evaluation of their performance over the network. The handling of slow-scan video and high resolution images have been particular areas 01 interest. Much emphasis is placed on the problem of control in a distributed environment, and a model is presented for the management of control based on the use of a directory-like service. This model also provides a mechanism for locating an office service based on the name of the user to whom it belongs.

The development of computer systems in UK hospitals has in recent years been focused on the provision of hospital-wide information systems, known as Hospital Information Support Systems (HISS). This development has been motivated by National Health Service reforms and a realisation that earlier fragmented systems were not meeting the requirements of clinical and nursing staff in the most effective way. Such systems were often developed by external, centralised agencies using systems analysis techniques appropriate to the development of information systems in product orientated organisations. However, the hospital ward, an environment existing at the 'sharp end' of health care, in which many diverse and non-computer related activities take place, presents the system designer with many of the classic problems with which the discipline of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is concerned. Although a HISS has the potential to improve both the work conditions of clinical staff and the delivery of health care, this may be impeded by many of the common obstacles associated with the introduction of a large and complex computer system into a work environment where tasks are ill defined. This thesis reports on a project that is based upon the application of HCI methods to the health care environment and their contribution to the solution of the problems that such an environment presents. Requirements for the users' interface to the potential HISS are derived using a task analytic approach, involving Task Analysis for Knowledge Descriptions (TAKD). A prototype system has been designed and subsequently evaluated in a hospital ward. The contribution of TAKD to the design and its further applicability to the environment are assessed. The research represents an original application of a formal task analysis method to the design of ward based computer systems, and as such makes a valuable contribution to the areas of medical informatics and HCI. It shows that TAKD has real but limited applicability in this sphere, in that its use can lead to the design of more usable interfaces, while there is a need to combine it with methods aimed at broader systems design if these benefits are to accrue in the development of a HISS. The potential for the integration of task analysis with Design Rationale methods is also demonstrated.

Anycast in next generation Internet Protocol is a hot topic in the research of computer networks. It has promising potentials and also many challenges, such as architecture, routing, Quality-of-Service, anycast in ad hoc networks, application-layer anycast, etc. In this thesis, we tackle some important topics among them. The thesis at first presents an introduction about anycast, followed by the related work. Then, as our major contributions, a number of challenging issues are addressed in the following chapters. We tackled the anycast routing problem by proposing a requirement based probing algorithm at application layer for anycast routing. Compared with the existing periodical based probing routing algorithm, the proposed routing algorithm improves the performance in terms of delay. We addressed the reliable service problem by the design of a twin server model for the anycast servers, providing a transparent and reliable service for all anycast queries. We addressed the load balance problem of anycast servers by proposing new job deviation strategies, to provide a similar Quality-of-Service to all clients of anycast servers. We applied the mesh routing methodology in the anycast routing in ad hoc networking environment, which provides a reliable routing service and uses much less network resources. We combined the anycast protocol and the multicast protocol to provide a bidirectional service, and applied the service to Web-based database applications, achieving a better query efficiency and data synchronization. Finally, we proposed a new Internet based service, minicast, as the combination of the anycast and multicast protocols. Such a service has potential applications in information retrieval, parallel computing, cache queries, etc. We show that the minicast service consumes less network resources while providing the same services. The last chapter of the thesis presents the conclusions and discusses the future work.

With the emergence of advanced integrated services networks, the need for effective performance analysis techniques has become extremely important. Further advancements in these networks can only be possible if the practical performance issues of the existing networks are clearly understood. This thesis is concerned with the design and development of a measurement system which has been implemented on a large experimental network. The measurement system is based on dedicated traffic generators which have been designed and implemented on the Project Unison network. The Unison project is a multisite networking experiment for conducting research into the interconnection and interworking of local area network based multi-media application systems. The traffic generators were first developed for the Cambridge Ring based Unison network. Once their usefulness and effectiveness was proven, high performance traffic generators using transputer technology were built for the Cambridge Fast Ring based Unison network. The measurement system is capable of measuring the conventional performance parameters such as throughput and packet delay, and is able to characterise the operational performance of network bridging components under various loading conditions. In particular, the measurement system has been used in a 'measure and tune' fashion in order to improve the performance of a complex bridging device. Accurate measurement of packet delay in wide area networks is a recognised problem. The problem is associated with the synchronisation of the clocks between the distant machines. A chronological timestamping technique has been introduced in which the clocks are synchronised using a broadcast synchronisation technique. Rugby time clock receivers have been interfaced to each generator for the purpose of synchronisation. In order to design network applications, an accurate knowledge of the expected network performance under different loading conditions is essential. Using the measurement system, this has been achieved by examining the network characteristics at the network/user interface. Also, the generators are capable of emulating a variety of application traffic which can be injected into the network along with the traffic from real applications, thus enabling user oriented performance parameters to be evaluated in a mixed traffic environment. A number of performance measurement experiments have been conducted using the measurement system. Experimental results obtained from the Unison network serve to emphasise the power and effectiveness of the measurement methodology.

Many companies within the transport and logistics sector face problems with integrating telematics and information systems within their organizations. The problem is often the lack of standardization between different solution providers. Cybercom Telematics Proxy Platform (TPP) aims to bridge these different systems together by acting as a message broker. In the thesis the MSI Group XML format was chosen as the internal format of TPP. As a technical platform Microsoft BizTalk Server was chosen instead of developing a C# application from scratch. A demo solution with two fictive external systems was developed and proved TPP possible to work as a broker between a mobile and a stationary system.

The Internet data traffic constant growth caused by the popularization of cloud services, mobile and social networks, demand changes to the networks in order to enable scalable growth in traffic volume, while supporting a high level of dynamic connectivity, full flexibility, reduced end-to-end latency and increased energy-efficiency. Cost-effective and energy efficient solutions for flexible network subsystems are also required to provide future sustainable networks. This thesis is focused on pushing the current state of the art of metro and access networks to provide a new flexible infrastructure supporting 5G services. To achieve that objective, it is presented cost-effective and flexible all-optical commutation nodes—reconfigurable add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) and optical cross-connect (OXC)—and transceivers that can be remotely managed by a software defined networking (SDN) controller, able to satisfy the requirements of future converged metro-access networks. Network simulations are conducted to prove the capabilities of presented solutions as network elements for different traffic conditions. Benefits of proposed solutions are the usage of off-the-shelf components, reduced cost, pay-as-you-grow, low response time, reduced power consumption and coexistence with legacy systems. This thesis also investigates experimentally new modulation formats that can triple the current transmission data rate in both metro and access networks, while simultaneously reducing the total power consumption, using low-cost commercial devices. Thanks to that, the use of investigated modulation can also be extended to mobile fronthaul and data center (DC) networks, where cost and power consumption are key parameters as well. Specifically, alternative 5G multicarrier modulation formats—filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), universal filtered multicarrier (UFMC) and generalised frequency division multiplexing (GFDM)—and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are assessed and compared for a high-layer split fronthaul scenario. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) combined with multi-band carrierless amplitude phase modulation (MB-CAP) is proposed and evaluated for high-capacity passive optical networks (PONs) and DC optical interconnects. Finally, it is also demonstrated the convergence of wireless NOMA-CAP waveform and PAM-4 wired signal in a PON scenario.
El crecimiento constante del tráfico de datos de Internet causado por la popularización de los servicios en la nube, las redes móviles y sociales, exige cambios en las infraestructuras de red que permitan un crecimiento escalable del volumen de tráfico, al mismo tiempo que ofrezcan una mayor conectividad, flexibilidad, una mayor eficiencia energética y la reducción de la latencia en las comunicaciones. Además, para que las futuras redes sean sostenibles, se requieren nuevas soluciones de subsistemas de red flexibles que sean rentables y energéticamente eficientes. Esta tesis se centra en impulsar el estado actual del arte de las redes metro y acceso para proporcionar una nueva infraestructura de red flexible que soporte los servicios 5G. Para lograr este objetivo, se proponen nodos de conmutación totalmente ópticos rentables y flexibles ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Rrop Multiplexer) y OXC (Optical Cross-Connect) y transceptores que se pueden administrar de forma remota mediante un controlador SDN (Software-Defined Networking), capaz de satisfacer los requisitos de las futuras redes metro-acceso. Simulaciones de red se realizan para demostrar las capacidades de las soluciones presentadas como elementos de red para diferentes condiciones de tráfico. Los beneficios de las soluciones propuestas son el uso de componentes disponibles en el mercado, costo reducido, modularidad, bajo tiempo de respuesta, menor consumo de energía y la coexistencia con los sistemas existentes. En esta tesis también investiga experimentalmente nuevos formatos de modulación que permiten triplicar la velocidad de transmisión de datos actual tanto en las redes metro como acceso, al tiempo que reducen el consumo total de energía, utilizando dispositivos comerciales de bajo costo. Gracias a ello, el uso de las modulaciones investigadas también puede extenderse a redes fronthaul y centros de datos (DC), donde el costo y el consumo de energía también son parámetros clave. Específicamente, se evalúan y comparan los alternativos formatos de modulación multiportadores 5G FBMC (Filter Bank Multicarrier), UFMC (Universal Filtered Multicarrier) y GFDM (Generalised Frequency Division Multiplexing) y OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) para escenarios fronthaul de alta capacidad. NOMA (Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access) combinado con MB-CAP (Multi-Band Carrierless Amplitude Phase Modulation) se propone y evalúa para redes PON (Passive Optical Network) de alta capacidad e interconexiones ópticas en DCs. Finalmente, también se demuestra la convergencia de NOMA-CAP, considerada como señal móvil, y la señal cableada PAM-4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation-4) en un escenario PON.

Today telecommunication service users expect to access a similar set of services independently of what network they happen to use, they expect services to adapt to new surroundings and contexts as they move around, and they expect to get access to new and useful services as soon as they become available. Building services operating satisfactorily under such requirements poses new challenges and requires new solutions and new engineering methods for rapid service development and deployment.

The PaP project at NTNU was initiated in order to define a framework for service development and execution that supports the dynamic composition of services using Plug-and- Play techniques. By dynamic composition, we mean that services and service components can be designed separately, and then composed at run-time. In the frame of the PaP project, this doctoral work has addressed two issues: the design and the validation of Plugand- Play services.

Service design is complex. In a PaP context, this complexity increases further as services are designed to be dynamically adapted to changing contexts. A design approach based on service roles is proposed, and role composition is proposed as a means to achieve adaptability.

We model service role behaviours and their composition using state machines that interact asynchronously. Describing system behaviours in terms of state machines has proven to be of great value, and is widely adopted in most teleservice engineering approaches. We favour the use of the modelling language SDL because of its formal semantics that enables an unambiguous interpretation of the system specification. However, our design and validation results are not bound to SDL. They may be applied on systems specified using other modelling languages that support state machines, as for example UML.

In our work, we investigate how SDL-2000 can be used to model composition. Differently from process algebra, SDL and other approaches using state machines do not explicitly define composition operators. By defining design patterns and rules for expressing composition in SDL, this thesis contributes to promote using SDL as a behaviour composition language. SDL is not only a language for the modelling of state machines. SDL-2000 has newly been released, and to the best of our knowledge little experimentation using the new concepts of SDL-2000 has been done. We propose original and innovative employment of some of the newly introduced SDL concepts, that should be of interest for the SDL community.

Dynamic composition of services requires incremental and compositional validation methods. It should be possible to validate components introduced in a system at run-time, and to restrict the analysis to the parts of the system affected by the dynamic modifications. This thesis proposes a validation approach suited for dynamic service composition. Validation analysis is complex and requires simplification. Two simplification schemes, projection and incrementation, are proposed. Projection and incrementation are two main contributions of this thesis:

• A projection is a simplified system description or viewpoint that emphasises some system properties while hiding some others. Rather than analysing the whole system, projections are analysed. In our work, the projection only retains the aspects significant for the purpose of validation of associations between service roles.

• Incrementation means that validation can be applied incrementally. The proposed validation approach is tightly integrated with the composition of service roles. Elementary roles are first validated, and then the roles composed of elementary roles, and then the composite of composites. In that way, the proposed validation techniques enable us to validate parts of systems and the composition of system parts.

Another contribution of this thesis are design rules that enable the designer to avoid making certain dynamic errors and to develop well-formed state machines. Error search is not postponed until after the specification phase: ambiguous and conflicting behaviours can be identified already at design time.

The projection of service roles lead to interface descriptions that are described using state machines. In that way, our interface descriptions overcome the limitations of static object interfaces. In our work, the interface descriptions represent the dynamic behaviour of interactions between service roles. It is also possible to determine required interfaces from provided interfaces. The results of this thesis should then be of interest for the research related to the definition of semantic interfaces.

A major concern in our work has been to provide validation techniques that are easy to understand and apply. Current verification and validation techniques often require high competence and knowledge in formal modelling and reasoning on the part of the system developer, and their use in the software industry is rather moderate. We believe that our approach, although thoroughly justified, remains easy to understand and use. In that way, the applicability of the proposed approach is wider than the context of dynamic validation. It should also be of interest for the validation of static systems.