http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/210 2026-06-25T04:13:57Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33501 Title: Smart cities in Qatar toward a sustainable digital transformation Authors: Majareh, Maryam Abstract: The rapid progression of digital transformation has reshaped urban landscapes globally, fostering the development of smart cities. This thesis investigates the sustainability of digital transformation within the context of smart cities, focusing specifically on Qatar. With its ambitious national vision and substantial investments in smart city technologies, Qatar is a critical case study for understanding how digital transformation can be implemented to drive long-term sustainability. The research delves into critical areas such as governance frameworks, technological infrastructure, data management, and citizen engagement, all crucial for building resilient and sustainable smart cities. It also explores how digital solutions contribute to environmental, social, and economic sustainability, highlighting the role of emerging technologies like AI, IoT, and blockchain in improving city operations, resource management, and quality of life. The study uses quantitative and qualitative data from a survey and interviews with expert stakeholders to evaluate digital transformation efforts in Qatar's smart cities, including Lusail and Msheireb Downtown. It assesses their alignment with sustainability goals and recommends fostering an inclusive, efficient, and future-proof digital infrastructure. It also identifies challenges related to cybersecurity, regulatory frameworks, and digital inclusion, offering insights on how these can be mitigated to ensure the sustainability of Qatar's smart city initiatives. This research identifies key lessons applicable to other developing smart cities through evaluating Qatar’s approach, including the requirement of a well-defined regulatory framework, which can help in maintaining a balance between innovation and security, the significance of public-private partnerships in increasing technological adoption, and the role of digital literacy programs in ensuring inclusive participation. The thematic map and PRISMA synthesis together show that long-term sustainability depends not only on infrastructure investment, but also on governance capacity, interoperability, stakeholder trust, and adaptive regulation. This research contributes to the broader discourse on smart cities by presenting a comprehensive framework for sustainable digital transformation that is supported by survey analysis, stakeholder interviews, thematic mapping, and PRISMA-based evidence synthesis. It offers valuable lessons for Qatar's policymakers, technologists, urban planners, and others. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33430 Title: Understanding the search space: Investigations into the nature of software modularisation Authors: Mann, Ashley J. Abstract: A relationship exists between the functionality of software systems and their complex-ity. As the number of features implemented increases, the systems complexity also grows, accompanied by the expansion of the number of artefacts and their intricate in-terrelationships [1]. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33356 Title: Towards an Adaptable Architecture for Digital Twin (AADT) Authors: Nwogu, Chukwudi Abstract: A Digital twin (DT) is a virtual replica of a physical object, which has the capability of integrating with a virtual object, such that they exchange data and use the data exchanged to improve each other. It is a confluence of Industry 4.0 technological innovations, such as big data, artificial intelligence, modelling and simulation, Internet of things, optimisation techniques, cyber-physical systems, amongst others; the blend of these technologies fused together for the development of a DT is driven by its use case. A DT has enormous potential, and there is a consensus among the industry, academia and governments that it is one of the most pivotal technologies in Industry 4.0 era that will play a major role in shaping the society. This widely acknowledged notion about DT has not translated into a joint effort to standardise it. As a result, there exists neither a generally accepted definition nor architecture for digital twin. The lack of standard definition, framework or architecture for DT may have a negative impact on the wider adoption and development of DT. The state-of-the-art in DT architecture, for instance, reveals that most of the architectures are designed for specific domains and/or technologies and have components that are named in such a manner that it is difficult to identify commonality in purpose and functionalities. To contribute to the taxonomy of DT architectural components, this study proposes an adaptable architecture for DT (AADT), which is developed based on design science research (DSR) principles. AADT directly addresses the architectural chaos inherited from the growth era of the digital architectural development by establishing standard components traceable to digital twin definitions, requirements, and mandatory functionalities. Rather than proposing yet another domain-specific architecture, AADT provides a systematic process for deriving architectures from requirements, enabling consistent yet flexible implementations. To support the implementation of digital twins, this research develops an implementation framework for digital twin (IFDT) that is a confluence of software development lifecycle and principles of project controls. IFDT consists of a stage gate within every lifecycle phase, which ensures that a digital twin development project is subject to business case viability test and stakeholders’ approval as it progresses from one lifecycle phase to another. AADT is evaluated with the guidance of framework for evaluating design science (FEDS) and ISO Standard 9126. The evaluation of AADT results in the development of a taxonomy of architectural adaptiveness for digital twin systems. The taxonomy organises structural, behavioural, functional and quality adaptiveness into a coherent analytical framework; and therefore, serves as both a conceptual contribution and a practical guide for evaluating future digital twin architectures. In summary, this research, contributes to the taxonomy of digital twin architectural components; develops a technology-agnostic digital twin architecture that can adapt to the requirements of disparate use cases from a wide range of domains; proposes an implementation framework for digital twin; and develops a taxonomy of architectural adaptiveness of digital twin systems. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33181 Title: User information security behaviour in sub-Saharan Africa: A case of Ghana from an extended protection motivation perspective Authors: Baba, Abdul-Malik Abstract: Personal computer users are increasingly becoming the prime targets of cybercriminals. With the standing of the individual user as the “weakest link” in the information security chain, compounded by noncompliance with security protocols, and the assumption that they are solely responsible for their online safety, maintaining the protection of the information security of the individual computer user also known as personal computer security is thus a necessary part of overall information security. Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) has been extensively applied to explain how users behave regarding information security. Despite the above progress, several opportunities remain for enhancing our grasp of information security behaviour within the personal computing context. First and foremost, a primary gap seems to be the lack of studies concerning PMT, concerning how home computer and mobile device users approach information security behaviour. Whilst the current research acknowledges the contributions of studies that have explored this subject matter through the lens of PMT in various settings, there seems to be a lack of exploration in non-Western contexts where factors such as inadequate infrastructure, unconventional usage patterns, and IT identities prevalent in those regions. In addition, to the above, past PMT studies have also explored factors influencing user information security behaviour in this domain of research, however, the impact of perceived severity in shaping security intention is not yet fully understood. Additionally, the literature underscores the importance of investigating how factors such as security routines impacts security behaviour. In that regard, addressing these gaps in the literature is vital, as implementing security solutions designed in developed nations, without accounting for the local context, may prove to be ineffective. The present study seeks to explore how individuals in Ghana (a sub-Saharan country) protect their personal computers from information security breach based on the framework of PMT. By utilising a mixed method approach specifically an explanatory sequential mixed method design, 632 individual personal computer users consisting of home computer and mobile device users were investigated using surveys and focus groups. Collated quantitative data was meticulously analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) whilst NVivo was employed for the qualitative data analysis. The results demonstrate the crucial role of IT-identity in shaping an individual information security behavioural choice through threat and coping mechanisms of PMT, including security habit. Most of the threat and coping components of PMT significantly influence security intention. However, it was evident that there is no significant difference between home computer users and mobile device users regarding the determinants of their security behaviour. The overall sample attitudes towards information security were consistent across device types. Beyond the substantive findings, this study contributes theoretically to the academic discourse within circles on user information security behaviour research by introducing the concept of IT-identity as a factor that influences the cognitive processes of PMT, including the formation of security habits. It also adds to list of limited number of existing studies that have applied an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach to this area of research (using a novel dataset) which has traditionally been explored through quantitative methods. Practically, it offers insights for various stakeholders across the sub-Saharan African region such as practitioners in the field and those responsible for designing security controls and training programs by recommending the implementation of a holistic IT-identity-PMT model. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z