The first essay investigates how individual characteristics influence sales outcomes for houses they help transact. It develops hedonic housing models to assess the impacts of agent characteristics such as the level of recent and concurrent agent activity on sales outcomes (price and time on market). This is done in a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) setting using seven years of data obtained from a large Midwestern city. I find evidence that more active listing agents sell homes more quickly, though they do so to the detriment of final sales price. I also find that more listings concurrently held by agents have a statistically significant, negative effect on price. Selling agents appear to be quite neutral in the process and have little effect on either sales price or time on market. The second essay defines market concentrations of residential real estate brokerage services across one hundred diverse U.S. markets. Since real estate is immobile, each geographical location constitutes a local market and thus national measures of market concentration, of the type espoused by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), are of little value. The only way to get a meaningful picture of the market in general is to collectively examine observations at the city/town level. Once indices of concentration are obtained, it may be possible to get a sense of minimum and maximum scale efficiencies as well as what market specific characteristics give rise to high or low concentrations. The third essay examines the “just-below” pricing strategy in the context of home sales. Many retailers price their goods/services directly below some round amount (i.e. pricing at $2.99 instead of $3.00) and a number of studies document the effectiveness of this strategy on the demand for relatively inexpensive items (clothing, groceries, small appliances, etc). A lesser developed strand of literature examines the prevalence and effectiveness of just-below pricing in the context of larger purchases, namely real estate. This essay affirms the prevalence of just-below pricing in home transactions and finds evidence that just-below pricing can yield a higher final transaction price compared to homes initially priced on an even price point.

Les intermédiaires financiers - on parle alors de courtiers en ligne - peuvent utiliser le réseau internet pour recevoir des ordres d'achat et de vente de leur clientèle, pour leur faire parvenir toute information et toute proposition d'opérations à réaliser. Et ils peuvent tenir des sites permettant à leurs clients de réaliser les opérations qu'ils souhaitent accomplir ou permettent à leurs clients de consulter un certain nombre d'informations, notamment les cours de bourse et les opérations qui sont en cours de réalisation. Préalablement à la passation d'ordres de bourse par Internet , et afin de protéger l'investisseur non professionnel, le prestataire et le donneur d'ordre sont tenus de suivre et de respecter plusieurs étapes . En effet, l'utilisation d'Internet dans la passation des ordres de bourse ne dispense pas le prestataire de services d'investissement - courtier en ligne - de son obligation d'établir avec le donneur d'ordre, deux conventions imposées par la réglementation, conventions pouvant être néanmoins réunies en un même document : une convention d'ouverture de compte ; une convention de service écrite. / Financial intermediaries - brokers are referred to as online - can use the Internet to receive orders for the purchase and sale of their customers, to send them any information and any proposed operations to be performed. And they can keep their sites that allow customers to complete the transactions they wish to do or allow their customers to access a number of information, including stock prices and transactions that are underway. Prior to the execution of trading orders via the Internet, and to protect non-professional investor, the provider and the payer are required to monitor and follow several steps. Indeed, Internet use in the awarding of stock orders does not absolve the provider of investment services - online broker - from its obligation to establish with the client, two conventions imposed by the regulations, conventions can still be gathered in one document: a convention account opening, a written service agreement.

An integration solution must sustain multiple PeopleSoft upgrades, which is necessary to preserve investment in system integrations. Since the underlying structures and connection technologies of PeopleSoft have been and can be migrated from version to version in order to enhance features and performance, it is critical for any external component of integration to be built based on publicly visible interfaces of the PeopleSoft component. We have developed a standard-based solution to integrate “PeopleSoft Campus Solution” into “Microsoft SharePoint” using Web services generated by PeopleSoft’s Pure Internet Architecture. We have illustrated such kind of integration in two examples that emulate some of the imminent problems in the University’s current information systems between the PeopleSoft Campus and SharePoint Workflow. The methodology used in this is applicable to integrations of general COTS software systems into modern enterprise information systems.

No description available.

The acquisition of the Indian land by the Cherokee Commission between 1890 to 1892 was a series of events that changed the future of many indian nations and parts of american history. In the midst of these great changes, Kiowa interpreter for the Cherokee commission: Joshua H Given, ended up in a controversial position. He was accused of having deliberately cheated and mislead the Indians to get them to sign the agreements to allot their land to the goverment. This led to several attempts by the Indian tribes to annul the agreements with the commission and the condemnation of Joshua Given by many Kiowas. This essay is an attempt to clarify parts of Joshua H Givens life, actions and death through a source-critical analysis of the sources used in the research of Joshua Given. The views of two historians, C. Blue Clark and William T. Hagan, is used to contrast and compare the actions and life of Given to get a fuller view of the complicity of this individual. Hagans views is more focused on the image of a trying mediator, while Clark focuses on the images of a deceiving interpreter, By the work and theories of Nancy L. Hagedorn and Margaret Connell Szasz on the cultural broker as an cultural intermediate, Givens complexe relation to the clashing cultures and tradition of his own Kiowa nation and his newly learned western and Christian culture can be undersood as a failiure to gain the extremely important trust required for such mediation between the parties.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2017-05-24T16:53:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ivam Guilherme Wendt_.pdf: 2573131 bytes, checksum: 364b08dccce8d5d89f93cdf8605772d8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-24T16:53:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ivam Guilherme Wendt_.pdf: 2573131 bytes, checksum: 364b08dccce8d5d89f93cdf8605772d8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-23 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A Internet das Coisas (IoT - Internet of Things) é considerada a próxima grande evolução na era da computação após a Internet. Na Internet das Coisas muitos objetos que nos rodeiam serão conectados em redes e se comunicarão entre sí sem auxílio ou intervenção humana. Implementações de grande escala têm potencial para criar um enorme tráfego agregado. Muitas vezes Brokers ou Intermediários, são utilizados para possibilitar esta comunicação machine-to-machine (M2M), utilizando o modelo de comunicação Publish/- Subscribe que possui diversas bibliotecas particulares para uso na Internet das Coisas. Alguns trabalhos desenvolvidos pela comunidade visam tratar o desempenho no ambiente de Brokers Publish/Subscribe, no entanto impõem modificações e restrições quanto aos Brokers e arquitetura utilizada. Neste cenário, visando atender a necessidade de escalabilidade citada, é proposto um modelo de elasticidade chamado PSElastic. PSElastic fornece um modelo de elasticidade multinível para Brokers Publish/Subscribe, fazendo uso da elasticidade provida pela Computação em Nuvem, sem afetar o desempenho do sistema e sem a necessidade de investimentos ou ajustes por parte dos clientes e aplicações que fazem uso deste modelo. O modelo oferece a elasticidade de forma automática, reativa e multinível, onde multinível refere-se aos níveis de Broker e de Orquestrador do modelo. Buscando avaliar o modelo PSElastic foram definidos três cenários diferentes para a execução dos testes: Cenário 1, sem elasticidade; Cenário 2, elasticidade na camada de Brokers e Cenário 3, elasticidade multinível. Diferentes limites de réplicas de máquinas virtuais foram utilizados, assim como combinações de thresholds para avaliar o Tempo de Execução, quantidade de Mensagens por Segundo tratadas e a Eficiência na utilização dos recursos computacionais. PSElastic apresentou excelentes resultados ao reduzir em até 81,2% o tempo necessário para o tratamento de uma carga de dados e aumentar o throughput do ambiente com Broker Mosquitto de 54,95 mensagens por segundo (Mps) para 235,29 Mps e de 38,02 Mps para 202,02 Mps no ambiente com Broker RabbitMQ. / The Internet of Things (IoT) is considered the next big evolution in the computing era after the Internet. In Internet of Things many objects around us will be connected in networks and will communicate among themselves without assistance or human intervention. Large scale implementations has potential to create a huge aggregate traffic. Often brokers or intermediaries, are used to enable this machine-to-machine (M2M) communication using the Publish/Subscribe communication model that has several private libraries for use in Internet of Things. Some works developed by the community aim to treat performance in Publish/Subscribe brokers environment, however impose modifications and restrictions regarding brokers and architecture used. In this scenario, aiming to fulfill the need for cited scalability, we propose a elasticity model called PSElastic. The model provides an model with multilevel elasticity for Publish/Subscribe Brokers, making use of the elasticity promoted by cloud computing, not affecting system performance and without the need for investments or adjustments by customers and applications that make use of this model. PSElastic offers elasticity in the following manners: automatic, reactive and uses the multilevel elasticity, where multilevel refers to Broker level and Orchestrator model. In order to evaluate the model PSElastic, three different scenarios for execution of tests were defined: Scenario 1, without elasticity; Scenario 2, elasticity in the layer of Broker and Scenario 3, multilevel elasticity. Different limits of replica of virtual machines were used, as well as thresholds to evaluate Execution Time, number of Messages per Second handled and Efficiency in the use of computational resources. PSElastic showed excellent results by reducing the time needed to handle a data load by up to 81.2% and increase the throughput of the environment with Mosquitto Broker from 54.95 messages per second (Mps) to 235.29 Mps and from 38.02 Mps to 202.02 Mps in the environment with RabbitMQ Broker.

O atual modelo de alocação espectral implementado pelas autoridades governamentais somado à crescente demanda por recursos imposta pela implementação de modernas aplicações e serviços de rede irá resultar em um problema relacionado à escassez de recursos em um futuro próximo. Lidar com este problema demanda esforços no sentido de melhorar a alocação de recursos. Uma das maneiras de atingir este tipo de melhoria é permitir o compartilhamento de recursos entre operadores em redes homogêneas e heterogêneas que podem implementar diferentes tecnologias, como a utilização coletiva do espectro e de recursos licenciados. Diversos trabalhos relacionados à esta pesquisa foram propostos. Entretanto, estes trabalhos geralmente identificam a necessidade de obter recursos adicionais, porém buscam por esses recursos sem levar em conta os requisitos de qualidade de serviço e o custo envolvido no compartilhamento desses recursos. Considerando esse contexto, nesta tese, uma nova arquitetura é proposta para permitir a implementação do compartilhamento de recursos e para encorajar operadores a alugarem recursos sobressalentes levando em conta o custo e a qualidade de serviço oferecida. Esta abordagem permite que operadores tenha ganhos com o aluguel dos recursos, ao mesmo tempo em que o cliente recebe serviços com maior qualidade. As principais contribuições da arquitetura proposta incluem o projeto de um controlador de recursos para coordenar o processo de compartilhamento. Esse controlador busca estabelecer contratos de serviço dinâmicos levando em conta a qualidade de serviço requerida. Para tanto, é necessária a troca de informações que, no caso da arquitetura proposta, é mantida baixa para evitar que a rede seja sobrecarregada e acabe interferindo com o tráfego de dados. Além disso, a solução proposta é capaz de tomar decisões rápidas sobre a alocação de recursos, o que permite o redirecionamento do tráfego sem que ocorram interferências com os demais usuários. A arquitetura proposta é modela analiticamente e simulada com o auxílio da ferramenta Matlab. O desempenho da proposta é medido em três diferentes cenários, considerando tanto redes homogêneas, quanto heterogêneas. A sobrecarga gerada pela troca de informações de controle corresponde a menos de 1% do tráfego total da rede, o que é desprezível do ponto de vista da interferência com o tráfego de dados. As decisões rápidas tomadas pela arquitetura são baseadas na previsão acurada do tráfego futuro da rede e permitem o redirecionamento do tráfego para outras redes em um tempo até 46% abaixo do limite máximo especificado na literatura para este tipo de redirecionamento. Os resultados mostram ainda que as métricas de atraso e variação do atraso também são mantidas abaixo dos limites especificados, o que indica que a qualidade de serviço é garantida nos cenários avaliados. / The static model currently applied by governmental authorities for allocating the spectrum of frequencies and the increasing demand for network resources imposed by modern applications and services may lead to a resources scarcity problem in the near future. Dealing with this problem demands improvements on resources allocation. One of the ways of providing such improvements is by allowing resources sharing among network operators in both homogeneous and heterogeneous network scenarios. These network operators may implement different technologies, such as collective use of spectrum and licensed shared access to the spectrum of frequencies. Many related works have been proposed in the same context of the presented research, however these related works generally identify the need for additional resources and search for available resources without taking into account the QoS requirements of the resources renter and the costs involved in the resources sharing initiative. Therefore, in this thesis, a novel architecture is proposed to facilitate the implementation of resources sharing and consequently encourage network operators to lease their underutilized resources taking into account both the cost and the QoS requirements. This approach allows the network operator which is serving the resources to improve its profits at the same time that allows quality of service improvements to the resources renter. The main contributions of the proposed architecture include but are not limited to the design of a multilevel resources broker to control the resources sharing process. This broker is concerned on dynamically establishing a service level agreement that takes into account the quality of service requirements of resources renter. This process focuses on exchanging a small amount of control information to prevent the overhead from interfering with the legitimate traffic of the network operators. Another important contribution of the proposed approach is to improve the resources allocation in comparison with related work. Furthermore, the proposed solution is capable of taking fast decisions regarding resources allocation, what leads to the implementation of fast handover, allowing the traffic steering without interfering with incumbent users. The proposed architecture is modeled analytically and simulated using Matlab to evaluate its behavior in three different scenarios, considering both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. The overhead in practical operation scenarios is kept under 1% of the total network traffic, what is considered not to interfere with the transmissions of the network operators. The fast decisions taken by the resources sharing architecture are based on accurate traffic load forecasting, what leads to fast handover, attaining times up to 46% lower than the maximum allowed handover duration. Results also show that both delay and jitter metrics are controlled to be maintained below their specific thresholds of the analyzed applications and therefore, the QoS is guaranteed for the resources renter, considering the coexistence of up to 500 devices.

Master's thesis discusses the issue of valuation of property within the market conditions in Czech Republic. The problem is treated in the theoretical, as well as in practical basis, based on available literature and Internet sources. In the beginning of the theoretical part the author pays attention to the most important and most frequent terms used in valuation, then to division of real estate markets and to definition of terms value and price. The second part of the theory briefly and clearly processes methodology of market valuation. It also talks more about comparative and yield method of valuation. The third issue discussed in theoretical part is marketing process of property selling, recommendations for selecting real estate agent and the essential particulars relating to the purchase agreement and transfer of immovable property. In the practical part is located economic, social and real estate situation in the region of Hradec Králové and Czech Republic. In this section there is also a market valuation of real property located in the spa town Janské lázně through the comparative method. Value of the property is determined by qualitative, quantitative and mixed analysis.

This diploma thesis deals with the comparison of car insurance products of chosen insurers on the Czech insurance market. It searches this complexity of problem in the meaning of global macroeconomic background, but also with the microeconomic ones, which are fundamental for issuing a insurance plan. It answers the ethical, moral attitudes of insurance basis.

Swiss bank traders are affected by technological and regulatory challenges, which may affect their broker voting process and may result in a change of trading and evaluation behavior in 2018. Compounded challenges exist when broker evaluation strategies are not effective or Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II compliant. This qualitative, single case study, built on efficient capital market hypothesis and innovative disruption theory, was focused on effective broker evaluation strategies after MiFID II in Switzerland. The sample consisted of 4 buy-side traders, who shared their unique perspectives. Methodological triangulation was achieved through semistructured interviews, a review of the institution's publicly available data, and a literature review. The data analysis process consisted of a manual and systematic coding procedure for the sources of inquiry. In the findings, 3 strategies emerged: improvement of the existing organizational structure of the internal voting process, creation of advanced resources and internal technology as well as automation, and improvement of communication internally and externally to expand the trading desk profitability. Participants agreed that, although not regulatory or necessary in Switzerland yet, the broker review process at the organization under study needed to change dramatically to reach European MiFID II compliance. Implications for positive social change include strategies to help traders, trading desk leaders, and bank managers achieve regulatory compliance with MiFID II. The insight gained from this research may help banks and brokers to improve investment responsibility, broaden insight on research, trading, and client service, and promote stronger enforcement of regulations of electronic trading.