Realizou-se, no contexto deste trabalho, o estudo de espécies tropicais de madeira e a qualificação destas a partir de suas características físicas, de resistência e rigidez. Os ensaios para a determinação das propriedades foram realizados no Laboratório de Madeiras e de Estruturas de Madeira, do Departamento de Engenharia de Estruturas, Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos, seguindo as recomendações do anexo B da NBR 7190/1997 - Projeto de Estruturas de Madeira. O objetivo fundamental é gerar informações que possam fornecer suporte para um direcionamento e perspectiva de novas possibilidades de aplicação na construção civil: construção de estruturas para diferentes finalidades (coberturas, pontes, cimbramentos); industriais para componentes de edificações (pisos, caixilhos); armazenamento; obras portuárias; entre outras. / It was realized, in the context of this work, a study about tropical wood species and their qualification, based on the physical and mechanical properties. The tests to the determination of such properties were realized in Wood and Timber Structures Laboratory, Structural Engineering Departament, São Carlos Engineering School, according to the recommendations of the Annex B, NBR 7190/1997 - Timber Structures Design. The mean subject is to generate information to permit new application in civil construction: structures for different purposes (roofs, bridges, formwork); industrial to building components; storage; among others.

This study investigates the reasons why Working Holiday Makers (WHMs) in Australia decide to complete the 88 days of specified regional work to obtain a Second Working Holiday (WH) visa. The research follows a qualitative approach via the use of semi-structed interviews on a sample of fifteen current or former WHMs. The resulting data are analysed in connection to the theoretical framework of migrants’ role in bifurcated labour markets, with a further focus on the micro-level neoclassical economics principles and the concept of self-improvement through hardship. It is argued that the 88-day scheme represented for all the interviewees a form of investment to achieve a greater goal. The findings revealed that, while only a few completed the 88 days driven by the desire to achieve self-actualisation, most of the informants were driven by an economic rationale: some focused on the short-term financial benefits of a further year of work in the country, while others planned to use their Second WH as a pathway towards permanent residency.

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<p>Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods have evolved over the past several decades. In today’s world with rapidly growing industries, MCDM has proven to be significant in many application areas. In this study, a decision-making model is devised using reinforcement learning to carry out multi-criteria optimization problems. Learning automata algorithm is used to identify an optimal solution in the presence of single and multiple environments (criteria) using pareto optimality. The application of this model is also discussed, where the model provides an optimal solution to the food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) problem.</p>

The diploma thesis titled is focused on the perception of evaluation in a selected sample of respondents. The main objective is to describe, analyze and process the evaluation system, which is also an important motivational element, in the chosen company in the field of electrical engineering. The theoretical part is devoted to the definition of the term evaluation and of evaluation process. The practical part is focused on the characteristics of the chosen company, it´s evaluation system and the results of the analysis dealing with the current state of evaluation of the employees. The final part of thesis describes suggested approaches which will help to decrease fluctuations in the company.

This thesis is devoted to the development of extensions of dynamic programming to the study of decision trees. The considered extensions allow us to make multi-stage optimization of decision trees relative to a sequence of cost functions, to count the number of optimal trees, and to study relationships: cost vs cost and cost vs uncertainty for decision trees by construction of the set of Pareto-optimal points for the corresponding bi-criteria optimization problem. The applications include study of totally optimal (simultaneously optimal relative to a number of cost functions) decision trees for Boolean functions, improvement of bounds on complexity of decision trees for diagnosis of circuits, study of time and memory trade-off for corner point detection, study of decision rules derived from decision trees, creation of new procedure (multi-pruning) for construction of classifiers, and comparison of heuristics for decision tree construction. Part of these extensions (multi-stage optimization) was generalized to well-known combinatorial optimization problems: matrix chain multiplication, binary search trees, global sequence alignment, and optimal paths in directed graphs.

Railways are one of the largest transportation networks in the world that play an important role in the mass transportation of both the passengers and freight. The speed of trains and as well as the axial load carrying capacity have been increasing significantly during the past few decades to keep in pace with the population and economy growth and to compete with other modes of transportation such as the road, air and water transportation system. Billions of dollars are spent annually for maintenance of rail tracks in the world. The efficient and optimum use of these funds is a challenging task that demands innovative and cutting edge technologies in railway engineering. The railway subgrade is an important part of railway foundation and should be capable of providing a suitable base supporting the ballast and subballast to accommodate the stresses due to traffic loads without failure or excessive deformation. The progressive shear failure is a well-known and age old challenging problem for railways over the world for centuries. The subgrade of railway track which typically constitutes of fine-grained material tends to fail through the accumulation of soil movements up- and sideward developing a path for the least resistance along which progressive shear failure occurs under repeated train-induced loads and due to the effects of climate factors. To-date, limited number of studies have addressed failure mechanism associated with the progressive shear failure, especially using the mechanics of unsaturated soils. In this thesis, a novel and first of its kind, Visual Basic program developed in AutoCAD environment based on Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria and unsaturated soil mechanics theory. This program is capable of taking account of the influence of matric suction and simulate progressive shear failure in the subgrade under moving train. Simulation results suggest several parameters that include stress distribution, matric suction, cohesion, coefficient of lateral earth pressure at rest, and coefficient of residual friction as well as the angle of internal friction have a significant effect on the progressive shear failure and the shape of failure planes in the subgrade. The progressive shear failure in subgrade can be reduced by increasing matric suction, cohesion, coefficient of lateral earth pressure at rest, and coefficient of residual friction as well as the angle of internal friction, and optimizing combination of these parameters. The simulation results suggest the progressive shear failure can be well simulated with the Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria. Several suggestions are made for railway subgrade construction and maintenance based on the results of this study.

This thesis tries to research the term “robust controllers”. Its aim is to compare the robustness of discrete PID controllers (Discrete Equivalent Continuous Controller, Discrete Impulse Area Invariant, Takahashi, Feed-Forward), adaptive discrete PID controllers (Discrete Impulse Area Invariant, Takahashi, Feed-Forward), optimal controllers (quadratic optimal), and adaptive optimal controllers (quadratic optimal) on chosen transfer functions. Its aim is also to check the influence of A/D and D/A converters. The aims to obtain are demarked at the beginning of the text and also there is an explanation of the term “robustness.” Later on there is a description and an approximation to each of the chosen kinds of controllers and the identification methods used in the thesis (for adaptive controllers the method of recursive least-squares was used). The Kharitonov's Theorem are made on the chosen transfer function. Next there is a description of the methods with which the robustness of the controllers will be tested. The first method is the integral criteria, particular ITAE criterion and quadratic criterion. The second one is the analysis of the generalised circle criterion. Furthermore there are various displays of the results obtained and their corresponding comments. The results obtained are graphically displayed and by means of these schemes the particular types of controllers are compared. All of the simulations and results obtained were acquired through the use of the program MATLAB- Simulink. In the end of the thesis there is an overall evaluation.

This diploma thesis is focused on the evaluation of web pages of economic faculties of universities, both public and private, using appropriate criteria and metrics, which are collected from marketing research and professional articles. Data generated from analysis are used to create a proposal for optimal solution of website.

Diplomová práce se zabývá určením rozsahu oprav telefonů ve firmě Mobilshop Valenta Petr, přičem jsou použity pokročilé metody modelování, konkrétně pak fuzzy logika. Cílem práce je vytvoření modelu, který usnadní, zpřesní a urychlí práci pří zpracování každé zakázky.