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Educators often inquire about the readability of books and other documents used in the classroom, with the idea that readability supports students' reading comprehension and growth. Documents used in classrooms tend to be language-based, so readability metrics have long focused on the complexity of language. However, such metrics are unsuitable for multimodal documents because these types of documents also use non-language modes of communication. This is problematic because multimodal reading is increasingly recognized as a 21st-century skill. One information theoretic solution is transinformation analysis, an approach that measures readability as the difference between the objective entropy of a document and the subjective entropy of its reader. Higher transinformation indicates more information complexity. This study explored the viability of transinformation analysis as a measure of multimodal readability. Think aloud screen recordings from 15 eighth grade "advanced readers" of Episode 2 of the born-digital novel, "Inanimate Alice" served as the dataset. Findings showed that 14 of the readers attended to less than half the information in the story. Mean readability was 0.57, indicating a complex reading experience. Readers attended to and recalled information primarily from the linguistic mode, which may have been a strategy for reducing cognitive load, or it may have reflected beliefs that reading is a language-based activity. The strong traditional readers in this study appeared to be weak at multimodal reading. In addition to its theoretical and methodological implications, the study's findings have implications for the practical need to create more opportunities for multimodal reading experiences in contemporary classrooms and libraries. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Clinical communication is a major contributing factor to a culture of safety for competent and effective patient care. Communication is a salient factor in the enculturation of nursing students as they transition to practice. The mnemonic for situation, background, assessment, and recommendation (SBAR) has been used to improve information transfer in many industries and recently in healthcare. Nursing students are educated in the use of the SBAR clinical communication mnemonic in the classroom and simulation settings to improve their clinical communication skills. However, there is little known about the nursing student experience with SBAR use within the clinical environment. The purpose of this basic qualitative study, which utilized in-depth interviews, was to gain a better understanding of how senior associate degree nursing students or recent nurse graduates from these schools describe their experience with the SBAR mnemonic within the clinical learning environment. Evaluation of the data led to the development of multiple themes sorted into categories of nursing student's perceived benefits and challenges in the use of SBAR and resiliency strategies employed to overcome these barriers. Nursing students in this study experienced various challenges learning to organize and prioritize data when receiving or providing clinical communication due to their inexperience, lack of confidence, and the student role within the clinical setting. The nursing students overcame these challenges with support from their faculty and internal and external resources to negotiate their role as they transition to the practice of nursing. The information gained from this study can assist nursing curriculum designers, faculty, and academic partnership clinical sites to address the learning needs of nursing students and novice nurses to facilitate their clinical communication skills. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation is a qualitative research investigation that explores the educational experiences and perceptions of public school teachers (K-8) as they relate to the usage of educational video games in their classrooms. To shed light on the phenomenon, the study focused on providing in-depth descriptions of public school teacher narratives of their educational game-based experiences and what they perceive as values and limitations. Phenomenological research methods based on the works of van Manen (1997) and Moustakas (1994) were used to collect and analyze the data. Data collection was undertaken primarily through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The interviews of fifteen public school teachers describing their experiences and perceptions of educational video game usage were audio and video recorded until a point of saturation. Findings reveal teachers' experiences with educational video games, including the types of educational video games used, notably: 1.) Kahoot, 2.) IXL, and 3.) Quizlet. In addition, key themes arose from the interview data. These themes detail challenges teachers faced to use video games and include: 1.) Allocation and Lifespan of Devices, Limitations of Resources, and Lack of Funding; 2.) The Struggle for Time; and 3.) Video Games Disrupting the Managed Classroom. The findings of this study highlight the inherent complexities of educational video game usage, performance gaps, and bridges. In this context, performance gaps are obstacles that pose challenges for game-using teachers. For example, if the bandwidth is strained from too many teachers on the server, this would qualify as a gap that interferes with the teacher's ability to use games as intended; thus, a performance gap. The bridges teachers build are described as methods or techniques participants have employed to resolve or work-around said gaps. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The aim of this dissertation study was to identify and describe the use of electronic health records (EHRs) for information sharing between patients and clinicians in primary-care encounters and to understand work system factors influencing information sharing. Ultimately, this will promote better design of EHR technologies and effective training suggestions to incorporate EHRs into overall communication during patient visit, and overall work system design. This topic is particularly important as computers and other technologies are increasingly implemented in multi-user health-care settings where interactions and communication between patients and clinicians are integral to interpersonal and organizational outcomes. A sequential mixed method was used in the overall study. First, an ethnographic approach was used to classify the encounters into distinct technology-use patterns based on clinicians' interactions with the technology and patients. Each technology-use pattern was quantitatively including sequential analysis and descriptive statistics analyzed to assist with comparison. Quantitative analysis was based on duration of patient and clinician gaze at EHR. Then, a qualitative approach was employed to understand work system factors related to organization, individual, environment, task and technology, which influence technology- mediated information sharing (monitor sharing) behaviors of physicians in primary care encounters. This qualitative approach explored work systems factors with a content analysis of semi-structured interviews, which was conducted with primary care physicians. Results showed that physicians employed three different styles to share information using EHRs: (1) active information sharing, in which a clinician turns the monitor towards the patient and uses the computer to actively share information with the patient; (2) passive information sharing, when a clinician does not move the monitor, but the patient might see the monitor by leaning in if they choose and (3) technology withdrawal, when a clinician does not share the monitor with the patient. In addition, interview results also indicated several factors which influence physicians' decisions to decide which style to follow. In conclusion, a variety of technology-mediated information-sharing styles may be effective in providing patient-centered care. New EHR designs may be needed to facilitate information sharing between patients and clinicians. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Due to their high fault-tolerance, ease of installation and scalability to large networks, distributed algorithms have recently gained immense popularity in the sensor networks community, especially in computer vision. Multi-target tracking in a camera network is one of the fundamental problems in this domain. Distributed estimation algorithms work by exchanging information between sensors that are communication neighbors. Since most cameras are directional sensors, it is often the case that neighboring sensors may not be sensing the same target. Such sensors that do not have information about a target are termed as ''naive'' with respect to that target. State-of-the-art distributed state estimation algorithms (e.g., the Kalman Consensus Filter (KCF)) in the sensor networks community are not directly applicable to tracking applications in camera networks mainly due to this naivety issue. In our work, we propose generalized distributed algorithms for state estimation in a sensor network taking the naivety issue into account. For multi-target tracking, along with the tracking framework, a data association step is necessary where the measurements in each camera's view are associated with the appropriate targets' tracks. At first, under the assumption that the data association is given, we develop distributed state estimation algorithms addressing the naivety issue. In this process, first, we propose the Generalized Kalman Consensus Filter (GKCF) where an information-weighting scheme is utilized to account for the naivety issue. Next, we propose the Information-weighted Consensus Filter (ICF) which can achieve optimal centralized performance while also accounting for naivety. This is the core contribution of this thesis. Next, we introduce the aspect of multi-target tracking where a probabilistic data association scheme is incorporated in the distributed tracking scheme resulting the Multi-Target Information Consensus (MTIC) algorithm. The incorporation of the probabilistic data association mechanism makes the MTIC algorithm very robust to false measurements/clutter. The aforementioned algorithms are derived under the assumption that the measurements are related to the state variables using a linear relationship. However, in general, this is not true for many sensors including camera sensors. Thus, to account for the non-linearity in the observation model, we propose non-linear extensions of the previous algorithms which we denote as the Extended ICF (EICF) and the Extended MTIC (EMTIC) algorithms. In-depth theoretical and experimental analysis are provided to compare these algorithms with existing ones. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

For nearly three decades, foreign assistance from the United States and Europe was the major contributor to funding education development in Sub-Saharan Africa. There was, however limited research on international collaboration as a strategic approach. Many African countries are facing a serious education crisis, at the heart of which lays a severe shortage of textbooks. The problem under investigation was a unique international collaboration that focused on the efficacy of educational resources to improve the education process, specifically student achievement. The purpose of this mixed methods case study was to examine, analyze, and divulge the impact of a successful collaborative partnership and educational resources on the education process in general and student achievement in particular. This mixed methods study employed both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches in analyzing an international collaboration between university researcher and secondary school teachers. In "Phase 1-Qualitative," this case study investigated complex and multidimensional collaborative processes that came into being, the development of millions of educational resources, and its efficacy on student achievement. The study further examined the ways the international collaboration attempted to impact capacity building and comprehend cultural differences. The analysis of archival documents, observations, and interviews with collaborative leaders, collaborative writers, principals, teachers, and students generated the theory of "visionary" leadership as an essential characteristic of successful international collaboration. The visionary leadership style is developed through consensus building, cross-cultural communication, constructing mutual respect and understandings, as well as transforming educational infrastructure. Thus, a theory of visionary leadership was generated and employed by this study's international collaborations and had a significant impact on the outcome of the collaborative partnership. In "Phase II-Quantitative," through data analysis using the Statistical Analysis System (SAS-Series 9.0), Descriptive Statistics, Cronbach Alpha Reliability, and Analysis of Variance, the researcher examined Pre-project and Post-project student achievement in science subjects as measured by national examination results. The Results indicates that the availability of science and mathematics educational resources positively impacted student achievement in biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. The collaboration between university researchers and teachers was found to generate an overwhelming strategic philosophy of joint ownership in knowledge creation and knowledge exchange. The study argues that in its attempt to build institutional and individual capacity, as well as produce educational resources, successful collaborations embodied certain core themes. The investigation revealed five emergent themes essential to successful international collaboration between organizations, particularly university researchers and secondary school teachers: visionary leadership, communication, environment, purpose, and process and structure. This study illuminated the ways that future collaboration in the context of creating sustainable programs in a "communitarian society" inevitably incorporates visionary leadership, multiculturalism, and communication strategy into solving traditional but complex communal problems. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Philosophers and scientists have long debated how communication can arise in circumstances in which it is not already present. This dissertation uses the techniques of evolutionary game theory to address this puzzle. Following David Lewis (1969), communication is envisioned as occurring between players in a game. One player, who has private knowledge about the state of the world, sends a signal to the second player, who then performs an action. Lewis assumed that the players in this game share a perfect common interest in communicating; i.e., he assumed that when they game ends they both receive identical payoffs. In this dissertation the assumption of common interest is abandoned. Three case studies presented here demonstrate that information transfer robustly arises even when the interests of the sender and receiver diverge. But there's a twist. These same three case studies also indicate that in situations of divergent interests, the communication schemes that emerge only transmit partial information about the state of the world. In other words, although some information is conveyed by the signal, it does not perfectly identify the state. This form of partial communication is sometimes overlooked by philosophers, and is not a phenomenon predicted by Lewis's original framework. Since many real-life interactions are not best modeled by perfect common interest games, these three case studies jointly suggest that partial information transfer may be ubiquitous in actual social systems. These three studies also reveal a limitation of static equilibrium analysis, which is a dominant methodology in game theory. The systems investigated here to do not converge to the equilibria that this style of analysis traditionally identifies as the rational choices or most likely outcomes of play. In fact, in one case the system does not convert to an equilibrium at all. This suggests that a single-minded focus on Nash equilibria (or worse, a refinement thereof) may yield a misleading picture of the prospects for the emergence of communication. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Information Assurance (IA) is a relatively new field in the Information Technology (IT) construct. Strategies for establishing standards, training, and evaluations for IA are still developing and growing across the IT field. As new threats and vulnerabilities are identified in IA, new information, policies, and procedures must be established and maintained. Organizational efficiency is one of the areas in IA that is understood and implemented the least within government and commercial organizations. E-Learning tools and concepts offer a conduit for effective collaboration between IA professionals for the purpose of establishing increased organizational efficiency through information sharing and baselining for standardization, training, and evaluation synergy. The purpose of this study was to ascertain IT/IA professionals' attitudes concerning eLearning tools and their effect on organizational efficiency. The Research Questions (RQ) relate directly to this purpose: RQ 1: What are the prevailing attitudes of IT/IA professionals concerning eLearning tool usage? RQ 2: What is the prevailing attitude toward organizational efficiency of IT/IA professionals concerning eLearning tool usage? Findings revealed evidence that IT/IA professionals who show increased use of eLearning tools tend to have an elevated attitude toward eLearning tools for IT/IA and organizational efficiency. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that age, gender, work area, and experience level play no significant role in attitudes toward eLearning tool use for IT/IA and organizational efficiency. The findings also indicated there was an overall positive attitude toward eLearning tool use in IT/IA and for organizational efficiency, revealing a possible area of growth for such technologies within the IT/IA sphere. Additionally, the research revealed applications of the study for use of additional eLearning tools in the IT/IA sphere as well as implications for future research for additional eLearning tool use. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Delaware Technical Community College employees possess critical knowledge and expertise that could be lost should they leave College employment. This paper investigates best practices in knowledge transfer and high-level staff and administrator responses to a survey concerning the critical knowledge and leadership skills needed to be successful in their positions for the purpose of making recommendations for enhancing knowledge transfer practices in order to ensure effective transitions when positions are vacated. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to explore human resource (HR) managers' perceptions of training practices (i.e., needs assessment, trainee preparation, training program review, accountability, management support, knowledge transfer, and performance improvement) in Saudi private sector organizations. The research questions were: (1) How do HR managers perceive the importance and or occurrence of training needs assessment, trainee preparation, training program review, accountability and management support? (2) How do HR managers perceive knowledge transfer and performance improvement as a function of training? and (3) What training factors do HR managers identify as being important to the delivery of training? Data were collected with the Survey of Training Policy Effectiveness, which the researcher developed for the purpose of this study, and semi-structured interviews. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data for research questions 1and 2, and theme analysis was used to analyze question 3. Results showed that overall scale means depict agreement (i.e., scale mean greater than 3.5) for all scales but Accountability (M = 3.28). Moderate agreement (i.e., mean greater than 3.5 and less than 4.0) occurred for three scales, Trainee Preparation (M = 3.81), Needs Assessment (M = 3.70), and Knowledge Transfer (M = 3.98). Respondents indicated strong agreement (i.e., mean greater than 4.0) with the constructs presented in three of the scales, Training Program Review (M = 4.14), Management Support (M = 4.10), and Performance Improvement (M = 4.07). Five themes were generated as a result of the thematic analysis used to answer research question 3: (1) Training Needs Assessment Methods and Tools; (2) Trainee Preparation Techniques; (3) Training Accountability System; (4) Management Training Support Practices; and (5) Knowledge Sharing and Skills Transfer. In sum, the results of this study found that Saudi HR mangers indeed perceive that the factors explored in this study contribute to changes in the trainee and resulting on-the-job performance. Recommendations for implementation of the study's findings and additional research are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Timely identification and reporting of rare infectious diseases has important economic, social and health implications. In this study, we investigate how different stakeholders in the existing reporting system influence the timeliness in identification and reporting of rare infectious diseases. Building on the vision of the information supply chain (Marinos, 2005; Sun & Yen, 2005) and drawing upon co-ordination theory to investigate inter-organizational dependencies, this dissertation treats information processing and transfer as an information supply chain system whose key performance indicator is timeliness. Jajosky and Groseclose (2004) identified that information reporting lead time is related to the number of layers of reporting. In this dissertation, we look at three layers of reporting rare infectious diseases in the Ohio Disease Reporting System (ODRS), and identify factors that influence the delay in processing and reporting of these diseases. The three layers considered are those for which the county public health system is responsible for the preventive and control measures of any event of rare infectious diseases and is also responsible for entering the confirmatory information into the state reporting system i.e. ODRS. This dissertation investigates the rare infectious disease reporting system in a way different from traditional approaches. Our view of a reporting system is an information supply chain, just as any product supply chain, with different layers in reporting, in which exist interactions between the members (hospitals, laboratories and public health system). We no longer treat the rare infectious disease information supply chain system as point-to-point, but instead as layer-to-layer relationships and examine in detail the factors influencing the delay in these layers. We use simulation based modeling to represent in a more natural way the individual interactive entities in the information supply chain system and to investigate the lead times at various stages during the transfer of information between these entities. In this dissertation, we demonstrate that interactions between different stakeholders in the reporting system have plausible consequences on the information supply chain performance for managing rare infectious diseases. In particular, we looked at the lead times at various stakeholder sites including laboratories, hospitals and local health jurisdictions. Through the trace-driven simulation study, using data collected for last two years, we replicated the results in real life settings in a decentralized system of reporting and compared it with a centralized, actively monitored reporting system and confirmed that the proposed centralized reporting method ensures considerable reduction in lead time in an information supply chain system for managing rare infectious diseases. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Since the days Internet traffic proliferated, measurement, monitoring and analysis of network traffic have been critical to not only the basic understanding of large networks, but also to seek improvements in resource management, traffic engineering and security. At the current times traffic in wireless local and wide area networks are facing similar upsurge. This calls for a similar vigor in traffic analysis studies. This thesis focuses on several traffic analysis studies in both cellular data networks and WiFi LANs. The broad goal is (i) to improve the understanding of the traffic dynamics, to explore structures in the traffic to help cost-effective monitoring and building of new traffic management strategies-in the context of cellular networks, and (ii) understanding the interference properties and detecting misbehavior--in the context of WiFi networks. We first use a large-scale data set collected inside a nationwide 3G cellular data network and conduct a detailed measurement analysis of network resource usage and subscriber behavior. We characterize subscriber mobility and temporal activity patterns and identify their relation to traffic volume. We also investigate how efficiently radio resources are used by different subscribers as well as by different applications. Our analysis using different statistical techniques shows existence of significant spatial correlation in radio resource usage in the base stations. We also use the concept of Granger Causality to understand the underlying functional connectivity and flow of influence in the network. Broadly, our observations deliver important insights into network-wide resource usage. Next, we propose a new traffic management technique for cellular data networks to improve networks' resource crisis situation in the face of exponential increase in mobile data traffic volume. Here we consider the existence of a higher-layer, agent-based scheduling system that could potentially delay scheduling of low priority flows at peak loads. The priorities are assumed to be user or application tagged, either automatically or manually. The general goal is to potentially move the low priority flows in time and space opportunistically to reduce the overall resource needs. We develop and evaluate two scheduling schemes. Simulation results using our large-scale cellular network trace data show the potential of these approaches in reducing base station resource requirements. Next, we present a scalable traffic measurement and monitoring technique for cellular data networks. We use a machine learning technique to learn the underlying conditional dependence structure in the base station traffic loads to show how such probabilistic models can be used to reduce the traffic monitoring efforts. The broad goal is to exploit the model to develop a spatial sampling technique that estimates the loads on all the base stations based on actual measurements only on a small subset of base stations. To understand the tradeoff between the accuracy and monitoring complexity better, we also study the use of this modeling approach on real applications. Two applications are studied-energy saving and opportunistic scheduling. They show that load estimation via such modeling is quite effective in reducing the monitoring burden. In the last part of our thesis, we turn our attention to WiFi networks. We present a tool to estimate the interference between nodes and links in a live WiFi network by passive monitoring of wireless traffic. Our approach requires deploying multiple sniffers across the network to capture wireless traffic traces. These traces are then analyzed using a machine learning approach to infer the carrier-sense relationship between network nodes. We also demonstrate an important application of this tool-detection of selfish carrier-sense behavior. This is based on identifying any asymmetry in carrier-sense behavior between node pairs and finding multiple witnesses to raise confidence. We evaluate the tool using extensive experiments and simulation which demonstrate the effectiveness of both the applications. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Weather forecasting consists of two processes, model integration and analysis (data assimilation). During the model integration, the state estimate produced by the analysis evolves to the next cycle time according to the atmospheric model to become the background estimate. The analysis then produces a new state estimate by combining the background state estimate with new observations, and the cycle repeats. In an ensemble Kalman filter, the probability distribution of the state estimate is represented by an ensemble of sample states, and the covariance matrix is calculated using the ensemble of sample states. We perform numerical experiments on toy atmospheric models introduced by Lorenz in 2005 to study the information flow in an atmospheric model in conjunction with ensemble Kalman filtering for data assimilation. This dissertation consists of two parts. The first part of this dissertation is about the propagation of information and the use of localization in ensemble Kalman filtering. If we can perform data assimilation locally by considering the observations and the state variables only near each grid point, then we can reduce the number of ensemble members necessary to cover the probability distribution of the state estimate, reducing the computational cost for the data assimilation and the model integration. Several localized versions of the ensemble Kalman filter have been proposed. Although tests applying such schemes have proven them to be extremely promising, a full basic understanding of the rationale and limitations of localization is currently lacking. We address these issues and elucidate the role played by chaotic wave dynamics in the propagation of information and the resulting impact on forecasts. The second part of this dissertation is about ensemble regional data assimilation using joint states. Assuming that we have a global model and a regional model of higher accuracy defined in a subregion inside the global region, we propose a data assimilation scheme that produces the analyses for the global and the regional model simultaneously, considering forecast information from both models. We show that our new data assimilation scheme produces better results both in the subregion and the global region than the data assimilation scheme that produces the analyses for the global and the regional model separately. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Tourism is a growing and significant component of the world economy and competition for tourism revenues is intense. For countries or regions seeking community development through tourism, communication strategies are an essential element of success. The Internet plays an increasingly large role in how we communicate in the 21st century and with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, travel promotion and information sharing have been irrevocably changed with as yet unknown new advances in development. For the travel industry, which includes many small destination marketing organizations (DMOs), this means those adopting these new communication tools are more likely to gain a competitive advantage or at minimum keep up with competition. Studies of innovation adoption among such small DMOs indicate that they are significantly deficient in adopting Web 2.0 technologies. As it is also known that social capital may play an important role in information diffusion, this research proposed that social capital would be an important asset that helps DMOs gain information that facilitates the adoption of Web 2.0 technology. In other words, this study tried to assess the role of social interactions in technology adoption by DMOs. More specifically, this study addressed three research questions related to the roles of social capital on technology adoption: a) What are the characteristics of social ties that DMO managers rely on for gaining information relevant to tourism technology? b) What is the relationship between the characteristics of a DMO manager's social capital (networks) and the DMO's technology adoption? c) How does social capital affect a DMO's technology adoption process? As key components of social capital, this study has chosen the most agreed upon and common components of social capital: "social networks", "trust (competency trust)" toward networked people and "norms (subjective norms)". "Social networks" was further specified based on a tie's strength (stronger and weaker ties) and externality (bonding and bridging ties). Besides the three main components of social capital, associational activity (the number of memberships in various voluntary organizations) was also considered as an important social capital-related factor influencing technology adoption. Based on the roles of social capital in facilitating information gain and encouraging DMO managers' Web 2.0 adoption, the research model for this study proposed that social capital may not only directly, but also indirectly affect DMOs' technology adoption by increasing positive perceptions about, and attitude toward, technology use. To assess direct and indirect roles on technology adoption, the research model was developed by adopting two theoretical models (Theory of Reasoned Action and Technology Acceptance Model) that explain a DMO manager's decision processes for Web 2.0 technology adoption. In the proposed research model, the components of social capital were expected to directly and indirectly influence DMO managers' perceptions (perceived usefulness and ease of use) and attitudes about Web 2.0 technology adoption, which subsequently affects the level of a DMO's actual Web 2.0 use for destination marketing. The managers from a total of 1,166 DMOs were chosen as key informants for this study whose social ties and attitudes relevant to technology adoption were investigated. A total of 303 responses were obtained for data analysis, and multiple regression was mainly used to address the research questions. First, the patterns of the DMO directors' social networks were explored. The bridging tie was identified as the dominant tie; that is, it appeared that DMO directors relied more on bridging ties for technology-related information gain. However, when respondents were divided into three groups according to the level of actual Web 2.0 use, the high adoption group showed that their social networks tended to be composed more of bonding ties than bridging ties. In addition, it appeared that the high adoption group was involved in more associational activity and a higher volume of social networks than the low adoption group. Regarding the direct impact of social capital on the adoption of Web 2.0 technology by DMOs, this study strongly supported the conclusion that social capital is an influential factor that facilitates the adoption of new technology by DMOs. Except for trust and weaker ties, most social capital variables showed significant effects on the level of DMO Web 2.0 use. The multiple regression analysis also confirmed that although directors' bridging ties also have a significant influence on technology adoption, the effect of bonding ties was stronger than bridging ties. With regard to the indirect impact of social capital on perceptions about, and attitude toward, using Web 2.0, the findings clearly distinguished the roles of different components of social capital in facilitating technology adoption. Competency trust was identified as an important factor influencing directors' perceptions about Web 2.0 use. In addition, the trust also moderated the effect of bridging ties on perceived usefulness. Importantly, it turned out that the weaker ties themselves did not have a significant effect on perceived usefulness, and an interaction effect with trust was found. That is, directors' weaker ties would be more helpful for increasing perceived usefulness if there is strong trust in their ties' competency as related to technology knowledge. Directors' bridging ties showed a negative impact on perceived usefulness, and through further analysis, this study concluded that excessive dependency on bridging ties would not be beneficial for perceived usefulness. Subjective norms also showed strong influence on both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. In addition, it appeared that directors' attitudes toward using Web 2.0 were largely influenced by subjective norms rather than perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. From a theoretical viewpoint, this study provided strong evidence that social capital plays a critical role in technology adoption in the tourism context. As this study distinguished the direct and indirect effects of social capital on technology adoption, the present study is believed to significantly contribute to the advancement of knowledge in innovation and social capital-related literature. From a practical viewpoint, as the findings emphasize the importance of social interactions in information gain and facilitating new technology adoption, meaningful practical implications are suggested to increase chances for DMOs to extend their social networks. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation is motivated by two problems. First, existing literature characterizes patient handoff as an information transfer activity in which safety and quality are compromised by practice variation. This has prompted a movement to standardize practice. However, existing research has not closely examined how practice variations may be responses to situational and organizational factors or evidence of involved parties accomplishing important functions beyond information transfer. Consequently, standardization efforts run at least two risks: overlooking opportunities for improvement, and engendering negative unintended consequences. Second, despite the fact that roughly 50% of all hospitalized patients are handed off from emergency departments to inpatient units, such handoffs are significantly understudied. I conducted a two-year ethnographic study of handoffs occurring between Emergency Department and General Medicine physicians when patients were admitted to one highly-specialized tertiary referral, teaching hospital. Using theoretical sampling informed by a Grounded Theory methodology, I conducted observations (n=349 hours) and semi-structured interviews (n=48) and recorded handoff conversations (n=48). I analyzed data by means of immersion, various qualitative coding approaches, and memo writing. Findings are organized in three chapters. First, I challenge the dominant model of handoff as information transfer by demonstrating that physicians actively construct understandings of their patients, over time, as they encounter, interpret, assemble, and reassemble information through socially-interactive processes within particular contexts and situations. Consequently, multiple understandings of a single patient are not only possible but likely. Second, I characterize admission handoffs as negotiations, situated by entangled webs of motives and concerns which produce ambiguities. Involved parties must navigate these ambiguities as they develop their differing understandings of patients, resolve conflicts over approaches to care, and agree regarding additional work. Third, I show that boundaries between units are ongoing, effortful accomplishments, re-enacted through interactive negotiations. Over time these negotiations have the potential to shift boundaries and alter the divisions of labor in the hospital, with potential consequences for organizational outcomes. Recommendations for practical improvements and further research are presented. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Broadband holds a critical position in the progress of economic and social indicators by connecting consumers, businesses and governments. South Korea has consistently been the global leader in broadband deployment since 1999. In the last ten years the Korean government has pursued several strategies for its broadband policy. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore South Korea's implementation of its Broadband Convergence Network (BcN) project with special emphasis on its objectives of achieving media convergence, ubiquitous connectivity; and coordination among network stakeholders. The study uses the theoretical framework of institutionalism to identify factors that help explain how the policy agenda for the BcN was implemented. The BcN is Korea's most recent high speed Internet infrastructure project and is envisioned as a conduit through which broadband services, applications and content will flow to reflect a robust high speed Internet infrastructure. This broadband infrastructure project began in 2004 as a consortium that includes the government and private sector firms. This infrastructure was launched as a three-phase project. The first phase of the BcN extended from 2004 through 2005, the second phase extended from 2006 through 2007 and the third phase extended from 2008 through 2010. The study asks four specific research questions: (1) which institutional level factors best explain media convergence, ubiquitous connectivity and network stakeholder coordination?; (2) at the BcN level how do different factors explain media convergence?; (3) at the BcN level how do different factors explain ubiquitous connectivity? (4) at the BcN level how do different factors explain network stakeholder coordination? To answer the questions the study adapts two central methodological approaches. The first entails a documentary research procedure of official policy documents published between 2004 and 2007. The texts are purposively selected on the basis of their relevance to the evolution of South Korea's policy agenda for the BcN. The second procedure involves fieldwork in South Korea comprising face-to-face interviews with key informants who have professional experience with the country's broadband policy. The informants were selected by a snowball sampling technique and they were drawn from universities, non-profit research institutes, private sector firms dealing with broadband and government bodies and agencies. The study finds that of the ten key factors identified by policy planners of the BcN model, six of them were successfully implemented between 2004 and 2007. The factors where the objectives were met are: (1) the deployment of networks that integrate distinct media; (2) the integration of wireless and wired infrastructure; (3) upgrading IP platforms; (4) the role of stakeholders in providing resources or funding for R&D projects; (5) the role of stakeholders in identifying which platforms best fit with launching the BcN; (6) and the role of stakeholders in devising strategies for the pilot projects. The four areas where they failed to achieve success are: (1) the integration of telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology infrastructure; (2) promoting R&D projects to expand connectivity; (3) deploying wireless broadband access; (4) deploying Fiber-To-The Home (FTTH)/HFC (Hybrid Fiber and Cable) networks. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Targeted email attacks to enable computer network exploitation have become more prevalent, more insidious, and more widely documented in recent years. Beyond nuisance spam or phishing designed to trick users into revealing personal information, targeted malicious email (TME) facilitates computer network exploitation and the gathering of sensitive information from targeted networks. These targeted email attacks are not singular unrelated events, instead they are coordinated and persistent attack campaigns that can span years. This dissertation surveys and categorizes existing email filtering techniques, proposes and implements new methods for detecting targeted malicious email and compares these newly developed techniques to traditional detection methods. Current research and commercial methods for detecting illegitimate email are limited to addressing Internet scale email abuse, such as spam, but not focused on addressing targeted malicious emails. Furthermore, conventional tools such as anti-virus are vulnerability focused examining only the binary code of an email but ignoring all relevant contextual metadata. This study first documents the existence of TME and characterizes it as a form of malicious email attack different than spam, phishing and other conventional illegitimate email. The quantitative research is conducted by analyzing email data from a large Fortune 500 company that has been subjected to these targeted emails. Persistent threat features, such as threat actor locale and weaponization tools, along with recipient oriented features, such as reputation and role, are leveraged with supervised data classification algorithms to demonstrate new techniques for detection of targeted malicious email. The specific tools, techniques, procedures, and infrastructure that a threat actor uses characterize the level and capability of a threat; the recipient's role and repeated targeting speak to the intent of the threat. Both sets of features are used in a random forest classifier to separate targeted malicious email from non-targeted malicious email. Performance of this data classifier is measured and compared to conventional email filtering techniques to demonstrate the added benefit of including these features. Performance evaluations are focused on false negative reduction since the cost of missing a targeted malicious email is far greater than the cost of mistakenly flagging a legitimate email as malicious. Several findings are made in this study. First, targeted malicious email demonstrates association to persistent threat features as compared to non-targeted malicious email that does not. Second, targeted malicious email demonstrates association to recipient oriented features as compared to non-targeted malicious email that does not. Finally, detection of targeted malicious email using persistent threat and recipient oriented features results in significantly fewer false negatives than detection of targeted malicious email using conventional email filtering techniques. This improvement in false negative rates comes with acceptable false positive rates. Future research can expand upon the features introduced in this study. For example, additional persistent threat features can be harvested from file level metadata (e.g. author names, document path locations) and additional recipient oriented features can be incorporated from organization databases. In this study, a binary outcome is defined: emails are either targeted malicious or non-targeted malicious. Future work can explore multi-class outcomes that pair specific threat actor campaigns and targeted recipients. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

My dissertation contains three studies centering on the question: how to motivate people to share high quality information on online information aggregation systems, also known as social computing systems? I take a social scientific approach to "identify" the strategic behavior of individuals in information systems, and "analyze" how non-monetary incentive schemes motivate information provision. In my first study, I use statistical modeling to infer users' information provision strategies from their actions. Information system users' strategies for contribution (e.g., I only contribute if others have contributed a certain amount) are often not directly observable, but identifying their strategies is useful in system design. With my co-authors, Jeffrey MacKie-Mason and Paul Resnick, I constructed a maximum likelihood model with simultaneous equations to estimate strategic feedback reciprocation (i.e., I only provide feedback if you give me feedback first) among the traders on eBay. We found about 23% of the traders strategically reciprocate feedback. In my second study, I focus on truthful provision of information in information markets--markets in which the participants trade bets about future events. The resulting market price reflects an aggregated prediction for the event. Theory predicts that when traders' private information is substitutable--contains similar information--they profit most by trading honestly. But when traders' private information is complementary--contains exclusively different information--traders are better off bluffing, i.e., first trading dishonestly to mislead others and later profiting from others' mistakes. Using human-subject experiments, my co-author Rahul Sami and I found traders indeed bluff more in markets with complements than in markets with substitutes. In my third study, I use game theory to analyze two non-monetary mechanisms for motivating information provision: the minimum threshold mechanism (MTM), under which one can access the public goods if she contributes more than a threshold, and the ratio mechanism (RM), under which a user consumes at most an amount proportional to her contribution level. I found whenever RM can achieve the social optimum, MTM can achieve the same. Furthermore, if RM implements a no-exclusion equilibrium, the same outcome can always be implemented by MTM. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Health information exchange (HIE) is the process of electronically sharing patient-level information among different organizations with the objectives of quality and cost improvements. The adoption of HIE in the United States is not widespread, but numerous efforts at facilitating HIE exist and the incentives for electronic health record system usage in the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act increases the number of providers who will be engaged in the process. Using diffusion of innovation theory as an overarching framework, this dissertation examines the factors associated with adoption, implementation and effectiveness of HIE in three separate studies. The first study demonstrates that factors beyond the technological are associated with hospitals' adoption and implementation of HIE. Specifically, competition is negatively associated with implementation. The second study, using data from an operational HIE, examines the factors associated with individual usage of an HIE system. For emergency department encounters, usage of HIE systems was negatively affected by how busy the facility was that day and if the patient had been to that department previously. Results suggest providers utilize the system to help find more appropriate sources of care for frequently seen patients. The third study, examines the question of whether or not usage of an HIE was associated with improvements in patient utilization patterns. Although system usage was associated with older patients, those with more comorbidities and patients with frequent prior utilization, usage was not negatively associated with emergency department usage, inpatient hospitalizations or hospitalizations due to ambulatory care sensitive conditions. The results of these three studies provide guidance on improving policy surrounding and operation of HIE efforts. First, numerous barriers exist at the organizational and individual level to widespread effective HIE. Additionally, even once implemented, usage of HIE systems may minimal. Low levels of usage, or barriers to individual usage, may make it hard for evaluators and organizations to find beneficial effects for their patients. In order to see anticipated benefits, national policy must encourage broad and easy information sharing and organizations must fit system usage into existing work processes so that system usage can meet the needs of users. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In the first part of this dissertation, we study the competition among network service providers in a parallel-link network with the presence of elastic user demand that diminishes both with higher prices and congestion. First we analyze a game where providers strategically price their service for single class of traffic. Later we analyze a game where we consider two types of traffic differing in their sensitivity to delay, and service providers choose a rate to offer traffic of each type. We compare the situation in which a priority queue is provided by each provider for the delay sensitive traffic, to another situation in which each provider treats traffic of both types the same way. In these games, we measure the performance degradation of equilibrium relative to social optimum. Finally we study the value of service providers committing to offering a quantity of bandwidth to a market versus having the amount of bandwidth offered be conditional on the prices that the market settles upon. In Part II, we study strategic upgrade decisions of multiple interconnected agents in a network. The key feature is that an agent's revenue depends not only on its upgrade decision, but also on the upgrade decisions of others. We investigate the effect of lack of information about other agents incentives and the effect of the option to form coalitions. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Rapid growth in eBusiness has made industry and commerce increasingly dependent on the hardware and software infrastructure that enables high-volume transaction processing across the Internet. Large transaction volumes at major industrial-firm data centers rely on robust transaction protocols and adequately provisioned hardware capacity to ensure that the high-volume flow of daily business transactions is not interrupted. This research analyzes the robustness of eBusiness transaction infrastructure using Petri nets and simulation to characterize two critical elements that were found to be problematic in industry: 1) a widely used electronic messaging protocol for eBusiness transactions called RosettaNet (RN), and 2) capacity planning for the bottlenecked application-server tier of hardware infrastructure used to process eBusiness transactions. Analysis of the RN protocol is based on reusable patterns for Petri net modeling of common protocol mechanisms such as retries, time-outs, and fault handling. These new patterns translate abstract representations of the RN standard into an executable model. A stochastic Petri net constructed from the patterns is simulated to generate performance curves based on varying network conditions, and analyzed using linear temporal logic to prove that the protocol can end processing in unsynchronized failure states that make resolution of the interchange problematic. This leads to suggested improvements in the protocol. Analysis of the application-server tier of the infrastructure used for processing eBusiness transactions is also performed to enable better capacity planning for robust operations. Improved planning for this infrastructure requires characterization of resource consumption patterns driven by two key factors affecting service performance and capacity: 1) the varying transaction load patterns, and 2) the variable delays incurred by downstream application services. Both factors are considered because servers consume and hold computing resources both when transactions arrive and also while requesting and waiting for responses from external services needed to fulfill transaction requests. A two-step, emulation-simulation approach is used that empirically determines consumption patterns for a single test server by emulation testing under controlled load and latency conditions; then data from the emulation tunes a scaled-up discrete event simulation model to predict production server consumption. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The role of international regulatory standards within the current global environment has become of the most importance. The age of the global system and free market capitalism carried us into the unprecedented age of regulations, and standard setting. Regulations are now becoming the emerging mode of global governance. This study focuses on information aimed at promoting international standards and good practices in policy domain areas that cut across national agendas (e.g., financial instability) and, as such, are addressed through global frameworks and global institutions. More specifically, this study examines the differences in international standards' adoption by focusing on World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a case study. Transferring international standards-related information from international organizations comes with challenges, many of which result from differences in the characteristics of elements involved in the information transfer process: differences in the characteristics of the sender and receiver, varying types of content, and differences in external context characteristics. Recognizing that relatively little empirical research exists on this subject, this study examines how key determinants in the transfer of international regulatory standards-related information affect the effectiveness of the information transfer. My principal proposition is that adoption of a specific international standard can be explained by individual-level attributes (i.e., information type, adaptation of standards) as well as by country-level attributes (i.e., absorptive capacity, linguistic distance, incentives for adoption of standards). The study's primary research setting is a joint World Bank/IMF initiative, the Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC), which is aimed at promoting international standards and good practices. My study combines the use of primary and secondary sources with open-ended interviews conducted in the World Bank and IMF. I use ROSC-related documentation substantiated by on-site interviews conducted with ROSC project leaders and subject matter experts in World Bank and IMF, as well as secondary data sources, such as the World Bank and eStandards Forum. Multilevel modeling is used to test the overall research model. The findings provide strong evidence that individual client's lack of transparency regarding standard's compliance, use of standardized templates for data gathering do matter for standard's adoption. Additionally, at the country level, absorptive capacity of the overall government and WTO membership does affect the country's adoption of the standard. This study is one of the first to demonstrate the integration of several theoretical traditions on regulations, information transfer and international development institutions using multiple levels of analysis. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study was designed to explore the phenomenon of college students who illegally file-share. The main research question was, "What are the experiences of college students who file-share and what are their perspectives on the moral and legal implications for doing so?" Data were collected from six students using interviews, focus groups, and online communication. This study revealed five themes common to the students in the study. The first theme, Old School Morality vs. Contemporary Morality, revealed that the college students in this study saw a contemporary issue like file-sharing differently then they did other moral issues. The second theme, Absurdity of Buying vs. Benefits of Free, explained how college students found it absurd to pay for files when they knew they could get them for free. The third theme, Malicious Intent vs. No Harm Done, revealed that the students did not see file-sharing the same as stealing because they were not intending to hurt anyone. The fourth theme, Repercussions vs. Everyone Does It, showed that the students were unable to internalize the consequences or repercussions of their file-sharing behavior. The fifth theme, Prolonging Needs vs. Satisfying Needs, explained that students file-share because they value the immediacy and convenience of it. In conclusion, this study revealed that college students did not see file-sharing as a moral dilemma and were unable to internalize the legal side of file-sharing. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The importance and use of data and information to make sound programmatic decisions are receiving increased attention as state and federal funding for public health programs grows tighter and as demands for accountability continue. This dissertation provides insight into fundamental questions regarding the utilization of a Web-based reporting system on knowledge management practices for Tobacco Prevention Programs and examines what happened in Texas after the merger of the Tobacco Prevention Program into the Substance Abuse Prevention Program. A phenomenological qualitative approach was used to explore meaning of actions and to identify common themes as they relate to information sharing and utilization of Texas' Program Management and Tracking System (PMATS). Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted. First, core functions of PMATS are examined through the experiences of its end-users; and second, the impact of the merger on retention and use of PMATS within the Department of State Health Services is explored. Four themes were identified as they relate to core functions of PMATS, including its use as a codification system, its use to track performance measures, and its use for report generation and for programmatic decision-making. These four primary uses of PMATS remained the same pre- and post-merger, although how the systems were utilized during these periods differed. A central theme that permeated all interviews was the impact of the merger of the Tobacco Control Program into the Substance Abuse Program on individual beliefs and attitudes (i.e., job security, low morale, etc.), on systems characteristics (i.e. feedback, internal reporting structures, etc.), and on organizational culture (i.e., training, leadership, etc.). Since entering into PMATS was contractually required, individual attitudes and beliefs did not impact its use. However, competing IT systems, lack of a champion, lack of knowledge and support by upper management, and lack of communication were identified as key influences on systems characteristics and on organizational culture, which ultimately contributed to the termination of PMATS. Both applied research and practice recommendations are discussed, including IT due diligence, creating a knowledge culture, and network analysis of information sharing practices. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The use of Service Oriented Architectures, namely web services, has become a widely adopted method for transfer of data between systems across the Internet as well as the Enterprise. Adopting a similar approach to embedded devices is also starting to emerge as personal devices and sensor networks are becoming more common in the industry. This research examines web service encoding mechanisms currently in place and their system resource utilization on both a full computer system and an embedded device. Research was conducted to first baseline SOAP and JSON serialization and deserialization performance, and then develop a web service architecture for an embedded device and verify similar performance characteristics exist. In the process of developing the second experiment, a flexible Python-based web service architecture is developed and implemented on an embedded device. Performance of SOAP, XML over HTTP, and JSON encoding mechanisms are measured and compared in this environment. Attempts to implement a similarly functioning architecture using a Java framework called XINS failed due to resource constraints imposed by the embedded device. In every case tested, JSON encoding significantly outperformed the tested XML-based encoding, showing clear advantages in both processing performance and network bandwidth utilization. Also shown is that XML over HTTP has performance characteristics similar to that of JSON for smaller, less complicated data objects, but JSON is significantly more efficient when more complicated data objects are used. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This work proposes an organizational framework for creating a community to share personal health record (PHR) information in the form of a Health Records Social Network (HRSN). The work builds upon existing social network community concepts as well as the existing Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) model used by the medical community and introduces a formal model for creating such a network. Furthermore, our work also presents the motivation and institutes the theory to normalize the aforementioned formal model. While a dynamic social network will allow sharing of medical data and help enhance awareness within the medical community, concerns will arise regarding the privacy of individual data. We propose effective techniques that lay the groundwork to address these concerns. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Thesis Statement: "Availability-dependent global predicates can be efficiently and scalably realized for a class of distributed services, in spite of specific selfish and colluding behaviors, using local and decentralized protocols". Several types of large-scale distributed systems spanning the Internet have to deal with availability variations among their constituent nodes. In dealing with churn and low availability nodes, we believe it is important to link the availability of a node to the service the node receives "from" the distributed system. In other words, high availability has to be incentivized with better service. There are two types of requirements for this problem. First, metrics such as message overhead, CPU usage, memory overhead and latency need to be optimized to achieve scalability and efficiency. Secondly, in open distributed systems spanning multiple organizations, the protocols have to tolerate selfish and colluding nodes, i.e., low availability nodes that attempt to receive better service. This thesis approaches this problem by "explicitly" linking each node's service to its availability, via the notion of a "global predicate". We present a class of novel distributed protocols that achieve a given availability-dependent global predicate, efficiently and scalably. These protocols execute in a fully decentralized manner, realizing the global predicates in an emergent fashion. Predicate satisfaction is resilient to churn, and to selfish and colluding nodes. The eventual goal of the predicates is to help incentivize nodes to improve their availability in order to get better service. Our approach includes using random and consistent techniques to build overlays, as well as probabilistic local actions such as message forwarding, monitoring, and auditing. This combination of techniques leads to realizing the predicates, and to probabilistic tolerance to failures, both churn-related as well as from selfish and colluding behaviors. Concretely, this thesis makes three major contributions that are closely related to each other. First we present AVMON, the first distributed availability monitoring service. AVMON builds random and consistent overlays for accurate and decentralized monitoring of the long term availability of each node. Second, we present AVMEM, the first availability-aware overlay. Nodes in AVMEM build their membership by using a globally assigned predicate, leveraging our AVMON work. On top of AVMEM we implement management functions that query nodes based on their availability--range/threshold multicast and range/threshold anycast. Finally, we present AVCOL, the first availability-aware network aggregation system that realizes availability-dependent predicates. The predicates specify the probability that a node's aggregate becomes part of the global aggregate, as a function of the node's availability. We evaluate our systems through mathematical analysis, and thorough experimentation. We carry out our experiments using synthetic and real system traces. Our results demonstrate the probabilistic correctness, scalability, fault-tolerance, and efficiency of our protocols. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]