Network Analysis Methods for Modelling Tourism Inter- Organizational Systems

This chapter discusses the emerging network science approach to the study of complex adaptive systems and applies tools derived from statistical physics to the analysis of tourism destinations. The authors provide a brief history of network science and the characteristics of a network as well as different models such as small world and scale free networks, and dynamic properties such as resilience and information diffusion. The Italian resort island of Elba is used as a case study allowing comparison of the communication network of tourist organizations and the virtual network formed by the websites of these organizations. The study compares the parameters of these networks to networks from the literature and to randomly created networks. The analyses include computer simulations to assess the dynamic properties of these networks. The results indicate that the Elba tourism network has a low degree of collaboration between members. These findings provide a quantitative measure of network performance. In general, the application of network science to the study of social systems offers opportunities for better management of tourism destinations and complex social systems

Unified architecture of mobile ad hoc network security (MANS) system

In this dissertation, a unified architecture of Mobile Ad-hoc Network Security (MANS) system is proposed, under which IDS agent, authentication, recovery policy and other policies can be defined formally and explicitly, and are enforced by a uniform architecture. A new authentication model for high-value transactions in cluster-based MANET is also designed in MANS system. This model is motivated by previous works but try to use their beauties and avoid their shortcomings, by using threshold sharing of the certificate signing key within each cluster to distribute the certificate services, and using certificate chain and certificate repository to achieve better scalability, less overhead and better security performance. An Intrusion Detection System is installed in every node, which is responsible for colleting local data from its host node and neighbor nodes within its communication range, pro-processing raw data and periodically broadcasting to its neighborhood, classifying normal or abnormal based on pro-processed data from its host node and neighbor nodes. Security recovery policy in ad hoc networks is the procedure of making a global decision according to messages received from distributed IDS and restore to operational health the whole system if any user or host that conducts the inappropriate, incorrect, or anomalous activities that threaten the connectivity or reliability of the networks and the authenticity of the data traffic in the networks. Finally, quantitative risk assessment model is proposed to numerically evaluate MANS security

Online assessment of graph theory

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University London.The objective of this thesis is to establish whether or not online, objective questions in elementary graph theory can be written in a way that exploits the medium of computer-aided assessment. This required the identification and resolution of question design and programming issues. The resulting questions were trialled to give an extensive set of answer files which were analysed to identify whether computer delivery affected the questions in any adverse ways and, if so, to identify practical ways round these issues. A library of questions spanning commonly-taught topics in elementary graph theory has been designed, programmed and added to the graph theory topic within an online assessment and learning tool used at Brunel University called Mathletics. Distracters coded into the questions are based on errors students are likely to make, partially evidenced by final examination scripts. Questions were provided to students in Discrete Mathematics modules with an extensive collection of results compiled for analysis. Questions designed for use in practice environments were trialled on students from 2007 – 2008 and then from 2008 to 2014 inclusive under separate testing conditions. Particular focus is made on the relationship of facility and discrimination between comparable questions during this period. Data is grouped between topic and also year group for the 2008 – 2014 tests, namely 2008 to 2011 and 2011 to 2014, so that it may then be determined what factors, if any, had an effect on the overall results for these questions. Based on the analyses performed, it may be concluded that although CAA questions provide students with a means for improving their learning in this field of mathematics, what makes a question more challenging is not solely based on the number of ways a student can work out his/her solution but also on several other factors that depend on the topic itself

A mixed methods study exploring early career doctors’ and medical students’ seasonal influenza vaccination

Seasonal influenza is an acute, contagious respiratory infection that causes considerable morbidity and mortality each year. The Chief Medical Officer for England recommends that healthcare workers have a seasonal influenza vaccination in an attempt to protect both patients and NHS staff. Despite current recommendations and campaigns targeted at improving vaccination uptake, many healthcare workers do not have a seasonal influenza vaccination. It is clear that more research is necessary to fully understand the vaccination decision of healthcare workers. This mixed methods thesis employed a range of novel methodological approaches to understanding the influences on the seasonal influenza vaccination decision by medical students and junior doctors. Social network analysis is a well-established research approach that looks at individuals in the context of their social connections. I used an outbreak simulation model to investigate to assess whether an individual’s risk of infection could be linked with their position in the social network. Expanding further on this, the auto-logistic regression model was applied to social network data to predict an individual’s likelihood of vaccinating given the behaviour of their peers. Finally, a qualitative approach was used to explore the factors informing vaccination decisions. Findings gathered throughout this programme of work were synthesised together to produce a more detailed evaluation of seasonal influenza vaccination amongst medical students and junior doctors. These have been disseminated widely, particularly to occupational health practitioners and the wider academic community – demonstrating that this public health research has impact in practice. By gaining a better understanding of the social effects on influenza vaccination it will be possible to improve seasonal influenza vaccination uptake by healthcare workers, in turn better protecting patients and staff

Critical Thinking Skills Profile of High School Students In Learning Science-Physics

This study aims to describe Critical Thinking Skills high school students in the city of Makassar. To achieve this goal, the researchers conducted an analysis of student test results of 200 people scattered in six schools in the city of Makassar. The results of the quantitative descriptive analysis of the data found that the average value of students doing the interpretation, analysis, and inference in a row by 1.53, 1.15, and 1.52. This value is still very low when compared with the maximum value that may be obtained by students, that is equal to 10.00. This shows that the critical thinking skills of high school students are still very low. One fact Competency Standards science subjects-Physics is demonstrating the ability to think logically, critically, and creatively with the guidance of teachers and demonstrate the ability to solve simple problems in daily life. In fact, according to Michael Scriven stated that the main task of education is to train students and or students to think critically because of the demands of work in the global economy, the survival of a democratic and personal decisions and decisions in an increasingly complex society needs people who can think well and make judgments good. Therefore, the need for teachers in the learning device scenario such as: driving question or problem, authentic Investigation: Science Processes

Algorithmes stochastiques d'optimisation sous incertitude sur des structures complexes. Convergence et applications

Les principaux sujets étudiés dans cette thèse concernent le développement d'algorithmes stochastiques d'optimisation sous incertitude, l'étude de leurs propriétés théoriques et leurs applications. Les algorithmes proposés sont des variantes du recuit simulé qui n'utilisent que des estimations sans biais de la fonction de coût. On étudie leur convergence en utilisant des outils développés dans la théorie des processus de Markov : on utilise les propriétés du générateur infinitésimal et des inégalités fonctionnelles pour mesurer la distance entre leur distribution et une distribution cible. La première partie est dédiée aux graphes quantiques, munis d'une mesure de probabilité sur l'ensemble des sommets. Les graphes quantiques sont des versions continues de graphes pondérés non-orientés. Le point de départ de cette thèse a été de trouver la moyenne de Fréchet de tels graphes. La moyenne de Fréchet est une extension aux espaces métriques de la moyenne euclidienne et est définie comme étant le point qui minimise la somme des carrés des distances pondérées à tous les sommets. Notre méthode est basée sur une formulation de Langevin d'un recuit simulé bruité et utilise une technique d'homogénéisation. Dans le but d'établir la convergence en probabilité du processus, on étudie l'évolution de l'entropie relative de sa loi par rapport a une mesure de Gibbs bien choisie. En utilisant des inégalités fonctionnelles (Poincaré et Sobolev) et le lemme de Gronwall, on montre ensuite que l'entropie relative tend vers zéro. Notre méthode est testée sur des données réelles et nous proposons une méthode heuristique pour adapter l'algorithme à de très grands graphes, en utilisant un clustering préliminaire. Dans le même cadre, on introduit une définition d'analyse en composantes principales pour un graphe quantique. Ceci implique, une fois de plus, un problème d'optimisation stochastique, cette fois-ci sur l'espace des géodésiques du graphe. Nous présentons un algorithme pour trouver la première composante principale et conjecturons la convergence du processus de Markov associé vers l'ensemble voulu. Dans une deuxième partie, on propose une version modifiée de l'algorithme du recuit simulé pour résoudre un problème d'optimisation stochastique global sur un espace d'états fini. Notre approche est inspirée du domaine général des méthodes Monte-Carlo et repose sur une chaine de Markov dont la probabilité de transition à chaque étape est définie à l'aide de " mini-lots " de taille croissante (aléatoire). On montre la convergence en probabilité de l'algorithme vers l'ensemble optimal, on donne la vitesse de convergence et un choix de paramètres optimisés pour assurer un nombre minimal d'évaluations pour une précision donnée et un intervalle de confiance proche de 1. Ce travail est complété par un ensemble de simulations numériques qui illustrent la performance pratique de notre algorithme à la fois sur des fonctions tests et sur des données réelles issues de cas concrets.The main topics of this thesis involve the development of stochastic algorithms for optimization under uncertainty, the study of their theoretical properties and applications. The proposed algorithms are modified versions of simulated an- nealing that use only unbiased estimators of the cost function. We study their convergence using the tools developed in the theory of Markov processes: we use properties of infinitesimal generators and functional inequalities to measure the distance between their probability law and a target one. The first part is concerned with quantum graphs endowed with a probability measure on their vertex set. Quantum graphs are continuous versions of undirected weighted graphs. The starting point of the present work was the question of finding Fréchet means on such a graph. The Fréchet mean is an extension of the Euclidean mean to general metric spaces and is defined as an element that minimizes the sum of weighted square distances to all vertices. Our method relies on a Langevin formulation of a noisy simulated annealing dealt with using homogenization. In order to establish the convergence in probability of the process, we study the evolution of the relative entropy of its law with respect to a convenient Gibbs measure. Using functional inequalities (Poincare and Sobolev) and Gronwall's Lemma, we then show that the relative entropy goes to zero. We test our method on some real data sets and propose an heuristic method to adapt the algorithm to huge graphs, using a preliminary clustering. In the same framework, we introduce a definition of principal component analysis for quantum graphs. This implies, once more, a stochastic optimization problem, this time on the space of the graph's geodesics. We suggest an algorithm for finding the first principal component and conjecture the convergence of the associated Markov process to the wanted set. On the second part, we propose a modified version of the simulated annealing algorithm for solving a stochastic global optimization problem on a finite space. Our approach is inspired by the general field of Monte Carlo methods and relies on a Markov chain whose probability transition at each step is defined with the help of mini batches of increasing (random) size. We prove the algorithm's convergence in probability towards the optimal set, provide convergence rate and its optimized parametrization to ensure a minimal number of evaluations for a given accuracy and a confidence level close to 1. This work is completed with a set of numerical experiments and the assessment of the practical performance both on benchmark test cases and on real world examples