In this report we highlighted the significance of the taxicab industry for three main sectors of the economy and, furthermore, to what extent could some changes in labour and taxi regulations be detrimental to the perception of safety by taxicab passengers leading to a reduction in the number of journeys and an economic downturn in several industries. We considered the lack of effectiveness of current applications for giving security to the passengers when they hire a taxi in the street. Taking the taxicab regulation schemes and the issues concerning their passengers as a starting point, we set three groups of security requirements: User safety, Quality service and system’s capabilities and efficiency. The novel TAXI Authentication scheme was created as a response to the need to address those requirements. It is based on the increasingly accepted NFC technology and the tamper-resistant smart cards to construct the Front-office processes, particularly noteworthy is the TAXI Authentication protocol designed as a DDA authentication protocol for efficiency and scalability reasons and the quality service feedback that preserves the anonymity of users facilitating the quality assessment. Whereas, a robust Key Management System supports the Back-office processes grounded in certificates using ECDSA digital signatures due to its efficient performance in smart cards and short-length keys providing a high level of security. We conducted the preliminary security analyst against the proposed security requirements. After that, we applied to real world criminal use-cases concerning the taxicab passengers. The scheme shows promise of combating potential crime under whichever type of taxicab regulation scheme demonstrating great flexibility to adapt to a great number of circumstances and future attacks against the industry.

The main Topic of this dissertation is to critically analyze the obligations of States’ parties to the TRIPS Agreement in relation to the extent of protection that they are bound to confer on first and second medical use patents. In this sense, the Viagra case illustrates the tensions between the national pharmaceutical industries of the States members of the Andean Community and a leading pharmaceutical company like Pfizer. The dissertation pretends to demonstrate that the decisions taken by the authorities in the Andean Region were consistent with the international minimum standards of IPRs as embodied in the TRIPS Agreement. The Viagra case is the most important series of administrative and judicial decisions concerning first and second use patents in the Andean region. It is composed of the administrative rulings of the member States national authorities of the Andean Community, by the administrative rulings of the Andean Community Secretariat and by the judicial decisions of the Andean Tribunal of Justice. This case was elected as the topic of the dissertation because it doesn’t follow the international trend to expand the levels of patent protection, which has occurred in two ways. First, the scope of patentable subject- matter has been given an inclusive interpretation. Secondly, the restrictions on patentability have been narrowly interpreted.

The communications services market is undergoing a transition as the growing interconnection of providers is diminishing the importance of coverage as a differentiator, and shifting the focus to the value-added service portfolio and customer experience. At the same time, new options are emerging to deliver optimized technologies for the IT service management framework within the internet sphere.  Orange Business Services, communications service provider, develops and understands together with Accenture consultants, both clients needs and customer experience strategies for deploying an improved management service portal. The process to enable this competitive strategy for OBS includes the research of new tends in technology, the comprehension of customers expectations and needs, and the introduction of the evolutions that competitors are implementing within the market.

On the one hand food waste is generated in huge amounts throughout the food supply chain, which has environmental, economic and social consequences. On the other hand, consumers’ knowledge of safe food handling practices has an important role to play in preventing foodborne diseases which represent a growing public health issue all over the world. Though households are the largest contributor to these two issues, little is known about the effects that the consumers’ level of food safety knowledge can have on the production of food waste. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of consumers’ knowledge of safe food handling practices on the amount of food thrown away. A survey of 57 London consumers examined the level of food safety handling knowledge and practices as well as food waste behaviour. The results showed that respondents’ shopping behaviour tended to result in the production of food waste, yet there were some motivations that could decrease the likelihood of food being thrown out. For instance, they were aware of how much food they had at home and checked their cupboards before buying more food. Furthermore, it was found that economic status and feelings of guilt also contributed to respondents behaviour regarding food safety and waste. The findings indicated that most of the respondents (78%) always read the expiry dates but that their level of understanding of what these mean was low. Similarly, participants on the whole knew how to handle and store their leftover food correctly and knew the correct temperature at which a fridge or freezer should be set. However, their reported behaviour did not always match the knowledge that they demonstrated. Therefore, their responses suggested that some poor food handling practices due to knowledge not being implemented could lead to food going off before it could be eaten, thus increasing the amount of wasted food. This suggests that in order to improve consumers’ food safety handling practices and knowledge to reduce the amount of food waste, efforts should be made to develop food safety education strategies aimed at schools and households as well as new technologies to improve the interpretation of these practices.

In a Fiber to the Home (FTTH) system, the fiber is connected until the household users. A passive optical network (PON) is a particular type of FTTH networks that uses P2MP (point-to-multipoint fiber premises) in which part of the infrastructure is shared, to allow sending information of multiple channels through one fiber. This study presents a summary of the main concepts about access networks and PON systems and some technologies used to its development, including Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) and Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), independently or in hybrid configuration (TWDM). From here the key commercial devices for its implementation are identified and modelled, specifying its characteristic parameters to fulfill the minimum requirements of the new international standard ITU-T G.989 for FTTH networks. This project evaluates this standard, which proposes the implementation of NG-PON2 systems at 4x10Gbit/s, that will use the hybrid architecture TWDM and tunable transceivers and ensures coexistence with other legacy PON systems, allocating the downstream and upstream traffic in appropriate wavelength bands without overlapping. The work of analysis is focused in the identification of key devices, such as tunable transmitters and tunable receivers at ONU to achieve the minimum specified requirements. Besides, a first approximation to the coexistence element (CE) is made, for supporting the legacy PON systems. Once the minimum requirements are specified and the key devices identified, the network is designed and built in the commercial simulator VPIphotonicsTM, using CW lasers, external intensity modulators, wavelength multiplexers and the appropriate power splitters. In reception a direct detection scheme is implemented using PIN and APD photodiodes and tunable filters at ONU. Once the design is completed different test are run, the results are analyzed and the design is optimized, in order to dimension the network in terms of fiber reach, number of users, power budget, bandwidth capacity, etc. En un Sistema de Fibra hasta el hogar (FTTH, Fiber to the Home), la fibra es conectada hasta el hogar de los usuarios. Una red óptica pasiva (PON) es un tipo particular de red redes FTTH que utiliza instalaciones punto a multipunto (P2MP), en las cuales se comparte parte de la infraestructura permitiendo enviar información de múltiples canales a través de una sola fibra. Este trabajo presenta un compendio de los principales conceptos sobre redes de acceso y sistemas PON y algunas de las tecnologías usadas para el desarrollo de los mismos, incluyendo multiplexación por división en el tiempo (TDM, Time Division Multiplexing) y multiplexación por división de la longitud de onda (WDM, Wavelength Division Multiplexing), independientes o en configuración híbrida (TWDM). A partir de aquí se identifican y modelan los dispositivos comerciales clave para su implementación, especificando sus parámetros característicos para cumplir con los requerimientos del nuevo estándar internacional ITU-T G.989 para redes FFTH. Este proyecto evalúa dicho estándar, el cual plantea la implementación de sistemas NG-PON2 a 4x10GBit/s, los cuales usarán una arquitectura híbrida TWDM y transceptores sintonizables, además de garantizar la coexistencia con otros sistemas PON heredados, ubicando el tráfico en downstream y upstream en unas bandas de longitud de onda adecuadas sin solapamiento. El trabajo de análisis se enfoca en la identificación de los dispositivos clave, como transmisores y receptores ópticos sintonizables en la ONU para alcanzar los requerimientos mínimos especificados. Además se da una primera aproximación al diseño del elemento de coexistencia (CE, Coexistence element) para el soporte de los sistemas PON heredados. Una vez especificados los requerimientos mínimos e identificados los dispositivos clave, se diseña e implementa la red en el simulador VPIphotonicsTM usando láseres de onda continua, moduladores externos de intensidad, multiplexores de longitud de onda y divisores de potencia apropiados. En recepción se usa detección directa con fotodiodos PIN y APD y filtros ópticos sintonizables en la ONU. Una vez completado el diseño, se realizan diferentes test, se analizan los resultados y se optimiza el diseño para dimensionar la red en términos de número de usuarios, alcance, balance de potencias, capacidad de acho de banda, etc.

Today, firms are essential to the development and protection of Human Rights, and are expected to act as necessary partners to governments and international organizations in their promotion and respect. Nevertheless, corporations are not legally compelled to act under guidelines of the United Nations (UN) HR framework. This in turn, alongside globalization, has created a governance gap in enabling a permissive environment for wrongful acts by companies without proper sanctioning or reparation. The main objectives of the Business and HR predicament lie in tackling these deficiencies in the global order. Although CSR policies are supposedly adopted in a voluntary manner, the reality is private businesses are in the centre of a “System of CSR Promotion and Advocacy”, determined by a number of drivers, pressures and incentives, shaped by diverse sources and actors. Hence, the business case for CSR differs between developed countries and emerging economies. The drivers of CSR engagement are one of the key elements that differentiate emerging economies from the developing world. Given that literature on business and HR has focused mostly on finding ways to strengthen regulatory schemes in the developed world, this research aims to shed light on why indigenous third world country corporations uptake CSR policies in a voluntary manner.

Due to the continue trend of technology for circuit scaling; optimal sizes for transistors and cables are needed, this scaling comes along with power increase and undesired cross talk effects between the wires which might affect the signal itself. A trade-off curve between power, area and delay is required so that a tuned solution for a specific problem might be found.  Here, an approach based on the dominant time constant optimization technique for modelling of the delay is investigated for an initial square topology with uniform wire and repeater sizing based on convex optimization and Linear Matrix Inequalities. Results with optimal buffer insertion across the bus are also investigated. 

The purpose of this paper is to consolidate a body of research, which will explain the opportunities the knowledge economy and innovating in design education can offer to emerging economies specifically in the context of Colombia. Colombia is a country that is growing economically but is also being held back by extremely complex social and political issues that are being addressed by the government, the public sector, and financial institutions but are still far from being solved.

Nordic countries experience post-glacial rebound, a movement where geographical contours slowly change elevation with respect to the mean sea level. The glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) model aims to explain the phenomena, which combined with seismic data allows geoscientists to reconstruct elastic coefficients and viscosities of the Earth's lithosphere and upper mantle. The use of standard commercial codes are not adequate for GIA simulations and result in significant errors in the displacement field. This negative outcome suggests the development of GIA codes that include advection of pre-stress in the model. The problem set up consists on a solid 2D elastic layer under a flat Earth approximation, described by three different models suggested by current studies in geophysics.For space discretization the mixed finite element method (mFEM) is used and efficient preconditioners are built for the resulting algebraic system in saddle point form. A three level GMRES iterative solution strategy is proposed, based on Schur Complement preconditioners coupled with Multigrid techniques. The implementation is presented as a ready-to-use toolbox that easily deals with problem parameters, geometries, compressible and fully incompressible materials and provides higher accuracy for the displacement field compared with the previously existent codes. It also can be easily extended to 3D geometries and allows the implementation of a viscoelastic mantle. The code is written in C++ using the deal.II library designed for FEM, permitting the use of readily-made software packages, such as Trilinos that are straightforwardly parallelizable.

"Freshwater ecosystem degradation in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins is increasing due to rising human population numbers, and large water development projects. Therefore, monitoring ecosystem condition in these rivers of high biodiversity is of global conservation importance. This dissertation evaluated the potential of using river dolphins as indicators of ecosystem condition in large tropical rivers of South America. First, population estimates of river dolphins were obtained by line-strip transect surveys and mark-recapture methods on photo-identifications. Using this information, I identified critical habitat, hotspots, and areas of concern for river dolphins, as well as the relationship between dolphin density and group size estimates with ecological features. Second, I evaluated the relationship between dolphin estimates and human stressors. Higher densities of dolphins occurred in rivers with low indices of overall freshwater degradation, such as rivers with high water quality and the lowest human population numbers. Thus, dolphin density estimates seem to be good indicators of freshwater ecosystem degradation in the Amazon and Orinoco basins. These top predators not only are indicator species, but also have the potential to act as flagship and sentinel species, indicating freshwater ecosystem degradation and stimulating conservation action. This dissertation highlights the large changes in the Amazon and Orinoco that are approaching fast. Indicator, flagship and sentinel species can become science-based conservation tools not to only document freshwater ecosystem degradation, but to raise awareness about broader implications of human stressors on biodiversity and river systems."