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Everything in the universe has an opposite, and exists in complete harmony. Without one, we would not experience the other. It is this duality of experiences, perspectives and actions that I seek to study in this thesis. Dual natures are typically found in the unconventional life of Latin America, where barriers are not strictly defined and there is a constant mix of formality and informality. It is in this region, with its culture and history, that I plan to build a type of architecture that seeks to inspire the inhabitant to explore the possibility that one element can act in two opposing ways. Carnaval and Ash Wednesday will be the backdrops of the study, as I plan on designing both a market place and a church dedicated to these holidays. How can we perceive an element one way, but then completely different the next day? To answer this question I will develop both a church and a market in Panama City, Panama. / Master of Architecture

Thesis advisor: M. Utku Ünver / Thesis advisor: M. Bumin Yenmez / This collection of two essays in market design examines the designs of affirmative action policies. In the first chapter, “Affirmative Action in Two Dimensions: A Multi-Period Apportionment Problem”, we study affirmative action policies that take the form of reserved seats or positions and apply at two levels simultaneously. For instance, in India, beneficiary groups are entitled to their proportion of reserved seats in public universities at both university and at department levels. We theoretically and empirically document the shortcomings of existing solutions. We propose a method with appealing theoretical properties and empirically demonstrate advantages over the existing solutions using recruitment advertisement data from India. Our problem also suggests possible extensions in the theory of apportionment (translating electoral votes into parliamentary seats). In the second chapter, “Impartial Rosters for Affirmative Action’’, we present an answer to this question for the case where all positions are homogeneous. Devising methods is particularly necessary when the number of seats is small. For instance, a university appoints at most one assistant professor of economics every year, while the country’s affirmative action policy has more than one beneficiary group. To ensure that, over a period of time, each beneficiary group respects the spirit of an affirmative action policy, India devised a tool called roster. We present a theory of designing rosters to argue that only a few rosters can be considered impartial in that they do not favor some beneficiaries over others. We provide a method that constructs the set of impartial rosters. We show that the existing roster of India is not one of them and favors categories with a larger proportion of seats relative to the smaller ones. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Cities are a way of life. They are an amalgamation of cultural background and urbanism, which determine the quality of life, environmental sustainability, social behavior and economic well-being. Since the ancient times, cities have been the way to define the growth and development. The development of the cities depended upon availability of resources for a better livelihood and the way humans utilize the resources. Even today as cities develop, people hope for better living conditions. Urbanism plays a major role in the development of cities, being a combination of cultural and urban living. Urbanism has brought various downfalls along with progress. Has urbanism made development a monotonous concept? These days, cities are urbanizing at a fast rate not considering their future consequences. Having lived in Mumbai, I have seen it grow into a megacity. The countless problems that urbanism has brought to accommodate the massive amount of people migrating into the city has affected the quality of life of people immensely. However, is it for the better or worse? People all over the country want to have a piece of Mumbai, the city of dreams. This growth in the population has overpowered the city. Mumbai is famous for its railway system. It is the lifeline of the city. However, due to the amount of people using this system, the travel is more of a chaos. Every railway station has a main access road filled with hawkers and commercial storefronts. People in Mumbai are always in a rush, so these hawkers and commercial stores are a necessity to their daily life. People shop for their daily necessities while returning home to save time. However, these streets are extremely chaotic and crowded. My thesis focuses on how this space can be utilized by three consumers - the traveler, the shopper and the one who does both. It aims to decongest this main street and make travelling by local trains convenient. The site I have chosen is located in the heart of Mumbai city and is one of the most important railway station on the Western Suburban railway system. It is known as Dadar railway station. More than 500,000 people use this railway station daily. With the maximum number of incoming pedestrian traffic, my design can be used as an example for other railway stations throughout Mumbai. / Master of Science / Cities are a combination of culture and development. As a city develops, the infrastructure of the place changes. These days, cities are developing at a very fast pace. This development along with the positives has brought numerous negatives. I come from a city in India called Mumbai which thrives on this development. Within the last decade, it has turned into a Megacity. Being the financial capital of India, a large number of people migrate to Mumbai daily in search of employment. The population is increasing at a fast rate and has reached a point where it's unmanageable. Controlling the population is a long-term project. But can we make the lives of all these people easier? Mumbai is famous for its railway system, which is the lifeline of the city. The business district is located in the South and the people working here live in the North of the city, due to cheaper housing. The railway system is the fastest and cheapest mode of transportation in the city. However, due to the amount of people using the system, the travel is more of a chaos. Every railway station has a main access road filled with hawkers and commercial storefronts. People in Mumbai are always in a rush, so they shop for their daily necessities while returning home to save time. However, these streets are extremely chaotic and crowded. This Urban design thesis emphasizes on making this street space a convenience rather than a chaos. It aims to decongest this main street and making it user friendly.

Globalization has driven the internationalization of both SMEs and large enterprises and has caused new opportunities and challenges to emerge. As a result of these new challenges, such as increased foreign competition, or due reasons such as lack of international experience, change in strategy, or dissatisfaction about their performance, many internationalized firms withdraw from their international operations. Permanent exit of international markets may not always be the best option. Re-entering these markets can be rewarding as the intangible resources gained from their initial internationalization experience may facilitate their international market re-entry, thereby having an advantage over newly internationalizing firms.   The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the concept of the re-internationalization process. This is done by exploring the relationship between international heritage and the different stages of the re-internationalization process, which consists out of: the initial internationalization experience, de-internationalization, the international time-out stage and the firm’s international market re-entry.   Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that SMEs apply international heritage differently, based on their level of resource commitment to the international market. This study shows that firms with a higher level of resource commitment tend to apply their international heritage on a global level, whereas firms that commit less resources only apply their international heritage in the market in which the international heritage was gained. Furthermore, while the disruptiveness of the market exit varied between the case companies, all four firms continued to commit resources to the exited market, albeit to varying degrees. Lastly, the empirical findings show that the role of international heritage is not a facilitating one, but that it causes the firm to be more careful.

It has been widely acknowledged that today’s business world is characterized by severe competition. To remain competitive, firms have to employ alternative strategies to keep up with the fast paced development. One such strategy is coopetition; firms collaborate in some areas to combine their resources while competing in other areas. Thus, instead of trying to master everything within a company’s own walls, emphasis is towards gaining access to external resources and coordinating the wide array of expertise in the best possible way to achieve competitive advantage. In addition, growing requirements from the customer end force firms to combine their resources to be able to put together tailored solutions. This entails a notable customer input in product development and firm’s ability to utilize market knowledge can not be undermined. However, before the feedback gained from the market can act as a source of competitive edge, it has to be further processed into a form in which it offers strategic value for the company. This research aims to study how market knowledge is utilized to create competitive in the interface of inter- and intra-organizational coopetition. Even though competition is often considered to take place between firms, competitive elements can also be found within firms. For that reason, we include both inter- and intra-organizational coopetition in the research. In terms of the process involved in market knowledge utilization, three steps are appointed; transfer, translation and transformation of knowledge. To perform the research, we selected a high technology company belonging to SME category present in the information security business as case company. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted on three different occasions. Due to the sensitive nature of the research topic, the case company remains anonymous and is referred to as Case Company in the research. By ensuring respondents’ anonymity, the gained responses are more likely to be honest and thus more reliable and comprehensive. The empirical findings revealed differences in market knowledge utilization between inter- and intra-organizational coopetition. While coopetition taking place between firms was characterized with dominating competitive element and protection of one’s own assets, only preliminary stages of market knowledge utilization were found to be present. This entailed that knowledge transformation was absent in the inter-organizational context. On the other hand, on the intra-organizational level a collective approach to knowledge coordination was employed and attention had been paid on establishing sufficient structural conditions to support the knowledge utilization process. Thus, the process within the company was more efficient and it completed the knowledge utilization process at the inter-organizational level as knowledge transformation took place only within Case Company. While coopetition is a rather new field of study, we believe that the performed research provided information on inter- and intra-organizational coopetition in an SME present in the high technology industry and gave insights of the knowledge exchange both within and across companies. In the end, we have built up a model including the most important findings of the study. The figure entails the market knowledge utilization processes visualized in both inter- and intra-organizational contexts.

The aim of my master thesis is an overall analysis of the window market in the Czech Republic and determining the main characteristics of this market. In the description of the Czech window market I focus on the analysis of market players, who are forming the microenvironment. I describe the effects of macro environment and it's expected developments. SWOT analysis reflects the individual strengths and weaknesses of the Czech doors manufactures, and also the opportunities and threats which can concerns to the market of hole fillings. Market potential, market capacity, market saturation and market share of the Company Window Holding a.s.. are the main market characteristics that we find (přehodit slovosled). The forecast of the future development of the market potential is of the medium-term: until 2013. In my master thesis I'm using the marketing research and market research. Primary data are obtained by observation and questioning. The future development of disability have used educated guesses. To sum up, the aim of my master thesis was fullfiled. The conclusion of my work is the stagnation of the window market.

This thesis deals with supervision over the financial market and its legal framework. I chose the topic because I have always been interested in the issue concerning the financial market. This thesis enables readers to get familiarized with the current situation of the financial market supervision in the Czech Republic, European Union and three member states of European Union, i.e. United Kingdom, France and Slovakia. The Chapter One is an introduction to the theme. The second chapter deals with the basic terms used in the thesis as financial market, supervision, inspection etc. It is a theoretical part of the thesis. The third chapter examines relevant legislation of the European Union and it is dedicated to the EU financial supervision. A new structure for EU financial supervision was agreed in 2010 following the adoption of the de Larosière report in November 2008. At the beginning of 2011 the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) and three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) were established. The purpose of the new structure is to ensure effective surveilance of the EU financial market. The ESRB is responsible for monitoring and assessing potential threats to the stability of the financial system. It can issue risk warnings when necessary, and can make recommendations for remedial action,...