In recent years ICT has gotten sustained interest in which it’s seen as a tool for development andsocial transformation. There have been a rise of ICT4D (ICT for development) initiatives in theinternational arena. The Philippine organization Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) isworking with the intersection of ICT and women’s empowerment to advocate women’s rights andissues in the online space as well as increasing women’s strategic use of ICT. This paper is aMinor Field Study conducted in Quezon City, the Philippines, which explores FMA’s Gender andICT program. The aim of the study is to examine the strategies and practices for womenempowerment through ICT as well as mapping the major challenges in their work. The study wasconducted through observations and interviews with the members of FMA as well as women froman assisted urban poor community. The result outlines the main practices taken in the program toreach an understanding of the work done for women’s empowerment. Furthermore, the studyportrays that the full potential of the practices can’t be fulfilled due to the current environmentFMA are operating in. The experienced challenges in their work have been characterized into fivecommon areas; funding, the political environment, the cooperation, the unsafe online space andlastly the socioeconomical divide in the society.

This thesis deals with applications of multi-criteria evaluation of alternatives for creating a benefit system for employees. My work consists of a theoretical part, which describes methods suitable for these purposes. It is a method based on utility function and a method based on the minimum distance from the ideal alternative. The second part describes a complete evaluation process used to evaluate employees who work in accounting and tax consultancy and calculation of their deserved benefits base on the evaluations. In the application the criteria for evaluation of employees, weights of individual criteria were specified and I also counted the amount of utilities for each employee and distances from the ideal employee. The calculation of utilities and distances from the ideal employee were aggregated on the basis of summarizing values for individual companies according to the employees. Profit share of each employee was calculated as the sum of utilities and distances from ideal variant, which was related to work performance for the previous year.

The aim of the work is the selection of individuals or groups of employees using the methods multicriteria evaluation of alternatives. First outline the issue of human resources and focusing specifically on the acquisition, selection and recruitment of employees. Then we move on the theory of decision making, testing of non-dominated solution and calculation of the Saaty's weights. We will describe in detail the methods: ORESTE, WSA, TOPSIS, ELECTRE I, ELECTRE III and Cook-Seiford method for the selection of the expert team. In other parts of the work of the above findings apply to a particular fictional example, carry out a comparison of the methods for the multicriteria evaluation of the alternatives and choose group of 10 candidates, to which we will use the group expert choice for group selection. At the conclusion we summarize the work and we determine the winning candidate or the winning group.

nÃo hà / This thesis aims facing the skeptical argument classic type from the contrastivist knowledge theory. The problem we will approach is when we accept the epistemic logic principle called closing principle. The principle states that knowledge is closed under implication and seems to regulate the way we expand our ordinary knowledge. Basically the closure affirms that for every epistemic subject S, target proposition p and logic Contrary q, If S knows that p and S knows that p logically implies q, so S knows that q. The problem arises when the contrary logic is a skeptical hypothesis, a hypothesis we can't know. Operating a modus tollens in the beginning closure a skeptic concludes logically that we can't know anything. To contextualize the skeptical problem contrastive solution problem that makes uses of closing we will show two theories treatment that will serve as preliminaries. The first is Fred Dretske's Relevant Alternatives Theory and the secondd is David Lewis' Contextualism. Dretske acknowledged accepting closure means surrendering to skepticism, for this reason tried to solve the problem rejecting the closing validity. The Closure rejection by Dretske, however, was considered ad hoc, therefore, unable to solve the problem. David Lewis contextualist solution, however, accepts the closure principle validity and seeks problem resolution by accusing the skeptic of misunderstand as to semantic term know. For Lewis, "knowledge" is an indexical term and , as such, undergoes contextual (semantic and epistemic) variations. Understand adequately the knowledge indexicality, for the contextualist, will show the paradox is only apparent. We will show Lewis theory advantages, but we will also show that it is unsatisfactory to solve skepticism problem. We will defend, finally, that the theory that best accommodates ordinary knowledge against skeptical arguments is Jonathan Schaffer's Contrastivism. The contrastivist theory will look to dodge the problem appealing to an epistemic revisionism. For Schaffer, the knowledge relation is essentially ternary and when we look at the skeptic puzzle by contrastivist bias we will perceive the problem is mitigated, that is, it is weakened in a most intuitive way than Dretske and Lewis theories. The contrastivist theory will defend, in an innovative way, that ordinary knowledge is compatible with skeptical doubt. / Esta tese tem por objetivo enfrentar um tipo clÃssico de argumento cÃtico a partir da teoria contrastivista do conhecimento. O problema que abordaremos surge quando aceitamos o princÃpio de lÃgica epistÃmica chamado princÃpio de fechamento. O princÃpio afirma que o conhecimento à fechado sob implicaÃÃo e parece regular o modo como expandimos nosso conhecimento ordinÃrio. Basicamente o fechamento afirma que para todo sujeito epistÃmico S, proposiÃÃo alvo p e contrÃria lÃgica q, se S sabe que p e S sabe que p implica logicamente q, entÃo S sabe que q. O problema surge quando a contrÃria lÃgica à uma hipÃtese cÃtica, uma hipÃtese que nÃo podemos conhecer. Operando um modus tollens no princÃpio de fechamento o cÃtico conclui logicamente que nÃo podemos conhecer qualquer coisa. Para contextualizar a soluÃÃo contrastivista do problema cÃtico que faz uso do fechamento apresentaremos o tratamento de duas teorias que nos servirÃo de preliminares. A primeira à a Teoria das Alternativas Relevantes de Fred Dretske e a segunda à o Contextualismo de David Lewis. Dretske reconheceu que aceitar o fechamento significa se render ao ceticismo, por esta razÃo tentou resolver o problema rejeitando a validade do fechamento. A rejeiÃÃo do fechamento por Dretske, entretanto, foi considerada ad hoc e, por isso, incapaz de resolver o problema. A soluÃÃo contextualista de David Lewis, entretanto, aceita a validade do princÃpio do fechamento e busca resolver o problema acusando o cÃtico de equivocar-se quanto à semÃntica do termo conhecer. Para Lewis o âconhecimentoâ à um termo indexical e, como tal, sofre variaÃÃes (semÃnticas e epistÃmicas) contextuais. Compreender adequadamente a indexicalidade do conhecimento, para o contextualista, mostrarà que o paradoxo à apenas aparente. Mostraremos as vantagens da teoria de Lewis, mas mostraremos tambÃm que ela à insatisfatÃria para resolver o problema do ceticismo. Defenderemos, por fim, que a teoria que melhor acomoda o conhecimento ordinÃrio frente aos argumentos cÃticos à o Contrastivismo de Jonathan Schaffer. A teoria contrastivista buscarà esquivar-se do problema apelando para um revisionismo epistÃmico. Para Schaffer, a relaÃÃo de conhecimento à essencialmente ternÃria e quando olharmos para o puzzle cÃtico pelo viÃs contrastivista perceberemos que o problema à mitigado, ou seja, à enfraquecido de um modo mais intuitivo do que as teorias de Dretske e Lewis. A teoria contrastivista defenderÃ, de maneira inovadora, que o conhecimento ordinÃrio à compatÃvel com a dÃvida cÃtica.

O trabalho busca o desenvolvimento de um método experimental implementado em um software Web voltado à tomada de decisão, abordando mais especificadamente os processos de levantamento de ideias e geração de alternativas. Referências teóricas foram utilizadas para subsidiar os elementos, processos e tecnologias do software frente à áreas de tomada de decisão e sistemas colaborativos. As principais ferramentas disponíveis foram analisadas sob o contexto de tecnologias abertas, tendo algumas características de resolução de problemas observadas. A proposta combina elementos do brainstorming em seu formato eletrônico e do método de apresentação de dados da tabela de estratégias, com referência nas funcionalidades de sistemas amplamente utilizados e que operam sobre a priorização das informações por pequenos grupos de usuários. Fundamentações teóricas foram desenvolvidas e funcionalidades chave destes sistemas voltados à resolução de problemas foram analisadas. Para fins de demonstração, um caso prático foi realizado no Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, com ganhos e limitações encontradas no processo do software e da prática empregada. com a finalidade de apresentar os ganhos e limitações encontradas com o uso da ferramenta. / The work seeks to develop an experimental method in a Web software focused on decision-making, addressing more specifically the processes of gathering ideas and generation of alternatives. References in theory were used to support elements, processes and software technologies over the areas of decision-making and collaborative systems. The main tools available were analyzed in an open technology context. The proposal combines elements of brainstorming in its electronic format and the data presentation of the strategy table, seeking functionality in widely used systems that operate on the prioritization of information by small groups of users. Theoretical foundations are developed and key features of these systems are analyzed with a problem solving focus. For demonstration purposes, a case study was conducted in the Institute of Nuclear and Energy Research, presenting the advances and limitations encountered in the software process and the practice that was applied.

A total of 9 brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) were trained to perform a two-manipulanda, conditional discrimination task. The possums learned to press a right lever in the presence of a tone (80 dB(A)) during tone-on trials, and a left lever in the absence of the tone on tone-off trials. Overall sessions of 11 conditions contained tone frequency between 100 Hz and 35 kHz were tested. Each condition contained training and then probe sessions. In training sessions, the possums were presented with tone-on and tone-off trials, pseudo-randomly. Once the possums responded with over 90% accuracy for five consecutive sessions, then probe sessions were introduced. Probe sessions were similar to the training sessions, except that the tone intensity for tone-on trials was reduced by 8 dB(A) across blocks of 20 trials until their response accuracy in a block fall below 60% or reached 24 dB(A). Data were analysed using overall percentages correct and log d analysis. Both measures indicated that overall response accuracy decreased for all possum as tone intensity reduced. Based on these data analyses, threshold values were calculated using the criterions at 75% correct and a log d of 0.48. The threshold values for each possum and across all possums were plotted as a function of the tone frequency to produce an audiogram. A curvilinear regression was fitted for each threshold values. The functions of both measures were very similar. Both audiograms showed that the possums could hear the tones between 100 Hz and 35 kHz, and were most sensitive to tones between 15 and 20 kHz. This experiment involved many difficulties with producing and measuring tones especially outside of human hearing range. Due to these difficulties, several problems and concerns were raised during the experiment, these were discussed in this study and also recommendations for future research were then presented.

La population européenne est par excellence urbaine. Les européens ont clairement affiche leur volonté pour l'amélioration de la qualité de la vie urbaine. Quand les autres sources de pollution sont maîtrisées, les eaux pluviales deviennent la source principale de pollution en zone urbaine. Parallèlement les inondations dues au ruissellement deviennent de plus en plus importantes en raison de l'imperméabilisation de la surface des bassins versants urbanises. Les techniques alternatives peuvent aider à résoudre plusieurs problèmes (qualité des milieux récepteurs, qualité de vie, ressources en eau, inondations urbaines) mais elles nécessitent le changement du paradigme technique "hygiénistique" pour établir un nouveau paradigme de "gestion à la source". Ceci entraîne plusieurs changements d'ordre organisationnel. L'assainissement des eaux pluviales redevient une affaire "publique" et les ouvrages visibles. La mise en œuvre de techniques alternatives dépendent de bien d'autres facteurs que les facteurs techniques. Notre étude a eu pour objectif d'analyser et de comparer la gestion de l'eau pluviale et surtout l'application des techniques alternatives dans sept pays européens (Suède, Danemark, Pays-Bas, Allemagne, France, Royaume-Uni, Grèce), sur les plans contextuel (liens avec d'autres secteurs techniques et politiques) et organisationnel et dans la mise en place des politiques publiques. Le pays choisis partagent une histoire technique et ont un patrimoine urbain semblable. Ils sont tous membres de l'union européenne dont la volonté politique est l'harmonisation, technique et organisationnelle, de la gestion de l'eau. La recherche a conduit a préciser les facteurs déterminants pour la mise en œuvre des techniques alternatives et a proposer des actions pour la promotion des techniques alternatives en Europe.

Dans ce travail, nous proposons des procédures de test paramétriques et nonparamétriques localement et asymptotiquement optimales au sens de Hajek et Le Cam, pour deux modèles de données de panel. Notre approche est fondée sur la théorie de Le Cam d'une part, pour obtenir les propriétés de normalité asymptotique, bases de la construction des tests paramétriques optimaux, et la théorie de Hajek d'autre part, qui, via un principe d'invariance, permet d'obtenir les procédures nonparamétriques. Dans le premier chapitre, nous considérons un modèle à erreurs composées et nous nous intéressons au problème qui consiste à tester l'absence de l'effet individuel aléatoire. Nous établissons la propriété de normalité locale asymptotique (LAN), ce qui nous permet de construire des procédures paramétriques localement et asymptotiquement optimales (“les plus stringentes”) pour le problème considéré. L'optimalité de ces procédures est liée à la densité-cible f1. Ces propriétés d'optimalité sont hautement paramétriques puisqu'elles requièrent que la densité sous-jacente soit f1. De plus, ces procédures ne seront valides que si la densité-cible f1 et la densité sous-jacent g1 coincïdent. Or, en pratique, une spécification correcte de la densité sous-jacente g1 est non réaliste, et g1 doit être considérée comme un paramètre de nuissance. Pour éliminer cette nuisance, nous adoptons l'argument d'invariance et nous nous restreignons aux procédures fondées sur des statistiques qui sont mesurables par rapport au vecteur des rangs. Les tests que nous obtenons restent valide quelle que soit la densité sous-jacente et sont localement et asymptotiquement les plus stringents. Afin d'avoir des renseignements sur l'efficacité des tests fondés sur les rangs sous différentes lois, nous calculons les efficacités asymptotiques relatives de ces tests par rapport aux tests pseudo-gaussiens, sous des densités g1 quelconques. Enfin, nous proposons quelques simulations pour comparer les performances des procédures proposées. Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous considérons un modèle à erreurs composées avec autocorrélation d'ordre 1 et nous montrons que ce modèle jouit de la propriété LAN. A partir de ce résultat, nous construisons des tests optimaux, au sens local et asymptotique, pour trois problèmes de tests importants dans ce contexte : (a) test de l'absence d'effet individuel et d'autocorrélation; (b) test de l'absence d'effet individuel en présence d'une autocorrélation non spécifiée; et (c) test de l'absence d'autocorrélation en présence d'un effet individuel non spécifié. Enfin, nous proposons quelques simulations pour comparer les performances des tests pseudogaussiens et des tests classiques.

Plants, more precisely their chloroplasts with their bacterial-like expression machinery inherited from their cyanobacterial ancestors, can potentially offer a cheap expression system for proteinaceous pharmaceuticals. This system would be easily scalable and provides appropriate safety due to chloroplasts maternal inheritance. In this work, it was shown that three phage lytic enzymes (Pal, Cpl-1 and PlyGBS) could be successfully expressed at very high levels and with high stability in tobacco chloroplasts. PlyGBS expression reached an amount of foreign protein accumulation (> 70% TSP) that has never been obtained before. Although the high expression levels of PlyGBS caused a pale green phenotype with retarded growth, presumably due to exhaustion of plastid protein synthesis capacity, development and seed production were not impaired under greenhouse conditions. Since Pal and Cpl-1 showed toxic effects when expressed in E. coli, a special plastid transformation vector (pTox) was constructed to allow DNA amplification in bacteria. The construction of the pTox transformation vector allowing a recombinase-mediated deletion of an E. coli transcription block in the chloroplast, leading to an increase of foreign protein accumulation to up to 40% of TSP for Pal and 20% of TSP for Cpl-1. High dose-dependent bactericidal efficiency was shown for all three plant-derived lytic enzymes using their pathogenic target bacteria S. pyogenes and S. pneumoniae. Confirmation of specificity was obtained for the endotoxic proteins Pal and Cpl-1 by application to E. coli cultures. These results establish tobacco chloroplasts as a new cost-efficient and convenient production platform for phage lytic enzymes and address the greatest obstacle for clinical application. The present study is the first report of lysin production in a non-bacterial system. The properties of chloroplast-produced lysins described in this work, their stability, high accumulation rate and biological activity make them highly attractive candidates for future antibiotics. / Lytische Enzyme aus Bakteriophagen bieten Eigenschaften, die sie zu vielversprechenden Medikamenten im Einsatz gegen bakterielle Krankheiten machen. Obwohl sie speziell beim Einsatz gegen bakterielle Infektionen, welche durch Antibiotika resistente Erreger hervorgerufen werden, eine maßgebende Rolle spielen könnten, waren bisher die hohen Produktionskosten ein Hindernis für die medizinische Anwendung. Ein kostengünstiges und einfach zu handhabendes System, wie beispielsweise Chloroplasten in Pflanzen, würde diese lytischen Enzyme zu einer effizienten Alternative zu herkömmlichen Antibiotika machen. In dieser Arbeit wird erstmals die erfolgreiche Produktion von lytischen Enzymen in Tabak-Chloroplasten vorgestellt, welche mit einem Fremdproteingehalt von mehr als 70% des gesamtlöslichen Proteins der Pflanze eine Menge beschreibt, die bisher mit diesem Verfahren noch nicht erreicht wurde. Alle in Chloroplasten hergestellten lytischen Enzyme zeigten hohe spezifische bakteriolytische Aktivität gegen die gewählten Humanpathogene und waren innerhalb von Minuten in der Lage diese Bakterien abzutöten. Zur Herstellung von zwei lytischen Enzymen wurde in dieser Arbeit ein spezieller Shuttle-Vektor entworfen, der die Expression von toxischen Genen innerhalb von E. coli Zellen im Zuge der DNA Replikation vermeidet, jedoch die Herstellung einer ungehinderten Expression der toxischen Gene in den Chloroplasten nach Beseitigung des Selektionsmarkers erlaubte. Ein Vergleich zwischen einem herkömmlich verwendeten Transformationsvektor und dem Shuttle-Vektor mittels eines Reportergens zeigte, dass das neu entwickelte System bis zu 4 mal mehr Protein produzierte. Diese Ergebnisse zeigen das Potential von Chloroplasten als kostengünstige und leicht zu handhabende Produktionsplattform für lytische Enzyme, welche als neue Generation von Antibiotika attraktive Alternativen zu herkömmlichen Therapien bieten.

Dans cette thèse, nous utilisons et contribuons à la théorie des produits de matrices aléatoires afin d'étudier des propriétés génériques des éléments et des sous-groupes des groupes linéaires. Notre premier résultat donne une version probabiliste de l'alternative de Tits : nous montrons que si M_n et M'_n sont deux marches aléatoires indépendantes sur un groupe linéaire de type fini non virtuellement résoluble alors presque sûrement les deux marches finiront par engendrer un sous-groupe libre non abélien à deux générateurs. Cela répond par l'affirmative à une question de Guivarc'h et de Gilman, Miasnikov et Osin. Plus précisément, nous montrons que la probabilité que M_n et M'_n n'engendrent pas un sous-groupe libre décroit exponentiellement vite vers zéro. Notre outil principal est la théorie des produits de matrices aléatoires. Durant la preuve, nous établissons de nouveaux théorèmes limites dans cette théorie, d'une part en généralisant des résultats connus dans le cadre des produits de matrices à valeurs dans les corps archimédiens à tout corps local, d'autre part en donnant des résultats qui sont nouveaux même sur R. Par exemple, nous montrons que sous des hypothèses naturelles sur la marche aléatoire, les composantes suivant K de M_n dans la décomposition KAK deviennent asymptotiquement indépendantes avec vitesse exponentielle. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, nous utilisons ces résultats pour étudier la transience des sous-variétés des groupes algébriques. Un de nos résultats peut être formulé comme suit: soient H un sous-groupe non élémentaire de SL_2(R), une probabilité adaptée sur H ayant un moment exponentiel, alors pour toute sous-variété algébrique propre V de SL_2(R), la probabilité que la marche aléatoire appartienne à V décroit exponentiellement vite vers zéro. Par conséquent, la sous-variété algébrique V est transiente pour la marche aléatoire. Nous généralisons cet énoncé au cas ou la marche aléatoire est adaptée sur un groupe Zariski dense des points réels d'un groupe algébrique défini et déployé sur R. Ces résultats sont à comparer avec des travaux récents de Kowalski et de Rivin.