Résumé Association Agreement with Ukraine This thesis is devoted to the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Being an innovative and comprehensive instrument of the EU external action this Association Agreement represents a relevant topic, which draws not only professional audience's attention. The thesis comprises of an introduction, three chapters and conclusion. The introduction of the thesis outlines its purpose and content, defines the main points of research the thesis is focused on, indicates the reasons of its relevance and explains the structure of the thesis. The first chapter of the thesis describes legal framework of the relevant changes in the area of the EU external action after the Treaty of Lisbon and examines possible legal basis of the Association Agreement with Ukraine in the scope of these changes. In this part there is a short description of the basic principles of the EU external action, the EU legal personality, new EU bodies for external action after the Treaty of Lisbon, EU power in external action. Later this thesis is devoted to Article 8 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) as a new possible legal basis in the EU external action, its relation to other legal bases and possible prospects of its application. After that Article 217 of the TEU is analyzed as a "classic" broad basis for...

The Pogamut toolkit designed for rapid prototyping of computer game agents has been so far used for prototyping the agents based on 3D FPS Unreal Tournament 2004 and its sequels. After the environment of RTS Defcon was connected to Pogamut a question arose how difficult it would be to connect some other significantly different environments and action selection mechanisms. In order to test this flexibility of Pogamut we have interconnected it with more complex RTS video game StarCraft:Brood War and large neural network simulator Emergent, together with Jason and POSH action selection mechanisms. The work analyzes created connections to detail and demonstrates their functionality on examples. An integral part of the work is also web with video tutorials and guides. In this work we also analyze Pogamut's readiness to be connected to other environments.

La présente thèse a pour objet l’extension de la gestion des déplacements quotidiens à l’échelle des espaces périphériques et des régions urbaines. L’enjeu des déplacements se cristallise dans la gouvernabilité des métropoles, notamment devant : leurs fragmentations socioéconomique et politique, le processus de décentralisation et l’enchevêtrement de multiples échelons territoriaux, et enfin la présence de nombreuses structures intercommunales déployées dans les espaces issus de la périurbanisation. Après avoir rappelé l’intérêt d’une approche par la gouvernance, cette thèse aborde les différentes « formules », politiques comme techniques, pour répondre aux fragmentations dans le champ du transport public. L’élargissement des périmètres ou du moins l’adaptation du système de régulation par une coordination plus intégrée, apparaît localement nécessaire, voire indispensable, pour appréhender les enjeux de la mobilité quotidienne et notamment les déplacements d’échanges entre les secteurs périurbains et les agglomérations centrales. Cette thèse contribue à identifier l’administration territoriale des régions urbaines et l’institutionnalisation d’un acteur tiers, en l’occurrence l’acteur périurbain ; à questionner les projets routiers et leur capacité à répondre aux enjeux de la transition urbaine ; à réfléchir sur les cadres organisationnels du transport public et l’extension des périmètres d’action ; à éclairer sur les modes coopératifs entre les différents échelons territoriaux ; à illustrer les solutions techniques ; et enfin à envisager les déplacements dans leur rapport à la ville. / This study aimed to objective the extension of daily trips management on the scale of the peripheral areas and on the urban regions. The daily trip’s stakes are focused on the “governability” of metropolises, notably in front of: their divisions socioeconomic and politic, the process of decentralization and the tangle of multiple territorial levels, and finally the presence of various intermunicipal structures unfolded in outlying suburbs areas. Through of an approach by the “governance”, this study analyses different "expressions", political as technical, to answer divisions in the field of the public transportation. The enlargement of perimeters or at least the adaptation of the regulation system by a more integrated coordination, appears necessary, or still essential, to arrest stakes of daily trips between outlying suburbs areas and central agglomerations. This thesis contributes to identify the territorial administration of the urban areas and the institutionalization of a third actor, in this case the periurban actor ; to question road plans and their capacity to be answered stakes of urban transition; to think on the organizational frames of the public transportation and the perimeters extension; to give light on cooperative modes between the different territorial levels; to illustrate technical resolutions; and finally to envisage daily trips in their report in the city.

Univerzita Karlova v Praze Právnická fakulta Kristína Kapuscinská ŽALOBA A ROZSUDEK (VZÁJEMNÝ VZTAH) Diplomová práce Abstrakt v anglickém jazyce Action and Judgment (mutual relation) Action and judgment are the key instruments of procedural law. The central topic of my thesis is the mutual relation between them; nevertheless we can not define the mutual relation without the basic definitions and a brief description of the action and judgment as process instruments, especially concentrating on its requirements, so that it should be possible to formulate the essence of its procedural consistency. I tried to express its mutual relation and complex context in my thesis. The mutual relation is evident when interpreting the law action theories, which tried in more or less successful way to resolve the relation between substantive and procedural law. Finally, the whole development of the action is illustrated by the comparison with the system of actions in Roman law which were understood as pure substantive institutes. The mutual relation is reflected in the components of the action and judgment. It is clearly evident in the case of the petit and the body of judgment which follows. The mutual relation is also evident in the case of the dispositive acts, the applicant may within his procedural rights dispose of the...

This thesis is an ethnographic study of collaborative action and notions of value in San Isidro, an indigenous community of c.90 families in Ecuador’s central highlands. Drawing on Arendt’s theory of action as a mode of human togetherness, it focuses on forms of activity that are both affective (appealing to particular values, principles and practices) and productive (engaging in struggles to reorder social and economic relations). These include communal gatherings, shared work-parties, assemblies, meetings, campaigns and celebrations. Developing work by Lambek and Graeber, the thesis explores how such actions are used to generate different kinds of ethical and material value, the criteria people use to evaluate competing visions of hope and possibility, and the related dynamics of division and cooperation. I argue that such a focus on action and value allows us to build on insights from existing regional literature which tends to interpret indigenous collective action as either predominantly expressive (through cultural revival) or instrumental (in terms of economic and political practice). A core theme that emerges is how localised expressions of what people hold to be vital or desirable interact with coordinated efforts to defend and secure livelihoods. In San Isidro, such efforts contend with a limited land base, ongoing conflicts rooted in histories of dispossession, and widespread patterns of migratory labour (mainly for shift-work in the Amazon-based oil industry). At the same time, many residents participate in collective work to maintain shared infrastructure, protest against land inequalities, and manage areas of the communally-held páramo hills (registering as a ‘comunidad’ as recently as 2009). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over fifteen months, I analyse how such collaborative actions are combined with everyday forms of paid and unpaid work, memories of conflict, and a sense of duty toward future generations. Through chapters that focus on shared labour, coordinated campaigns, the legacies of land reform and accounts of labour migration, the thesis also examines how cooperation is fostered within a community that is increasingly diverse in access to resources, income and outlook, and how those involved negotiate the ruptures and tensions that intentional actions entail.

The case study examined how three preservice teachers within a Master of Arts in Teaching program at a small, private university negotiated meaning around an educational practice--collaborative action research. Preservice teachers must negotiate multiple, and often competing, internal and external discourses as they sort out what educational practices, policies, organizational structures to accept or reject as presented in the teacher education program. This negotiation is a dynamic, contextual, unique meaning-making process that extends, redirects, dismisses, reinterprets, modifies, or confirms prior beliefs (Wenger, 1998). Korthagen's (2004) model for facilitating understanding and reflection was used to explore the process of negotiating meaning. Known as the Onion Model, it includes six levels: the environment, behavior, competencies, beliefs, identity, and mission. When alignment occurs between all levels, Korthagen explained that individuals experience wholeness, energy, and presence. In contrast, tensions can occur within a level or between levels of the Onion Model and limit the effectiveness of the preservice teacher regarding the area in question. Reflecting on the collaborative action research experience through the layers of the Korthagen's model may allow preservice teachers (and professors) to identify degrees of alignment and areas of tension as preservice teachers negotiate meaning. Once identified, areas of tension can be deconstructed and better understood; self-understanding can empower individuals to assume an active and powerful role in their professional developmental. To explore how preservice teachers negotiated their identity regarding collaborative action research, the following research questions guided the study: (1) How do preservice teachers' trajectories align with the practice of collaborative action research? (2) How do individuals negotiate meaning regarding the practice of collaborative action research? (3) How do preservice teachers frame collaborative action research in relation to their future practice? Triangulated data from interviews, observations, and document analysis was collected, analyzed, and interpreted to provide insight into preservice teachers' process of negotiating meaning around a nontraditional educational practice. Each participant traveled a unique and emotional journey through the process of collaborative action research and their personal trajectory did influence the way they negotiated the practice of collaborative action research. Findings included: (a) each participant had a dominant trait that influenced areas of alignment and misalignment between their trajectory and the practice of collaborative action research; (b) some participants exhibited visible misalignments while the misalignments of others were hidden; (c) participants relied on personal strengths to reestablish the perception of alignment as they negotiated meaning through the practice of collaborative action research; (d) the way misalignments were negotiated limited the transformational potential of the learning experience of collaborative action research; and (e) participants' expectations for their future use of the practice of collaborative action research aligned with their dominant traits.

Our dissertation concerns robotic navigation in dynamic indoor environments using image-based visual homing. Image-based visual homing infers the direction to a goal location S from the navigator’s current location C using the similarity between panoramic images IS and IC captured at those locations. There are several ways to compute this similarity. One of the contributions of our dissertation is to identify a robust image similarity measure – mutual image information – to use in dynamic indoor environments. We crafted novel methods to speed the computation of mutual image information with both parallel and serial processors and demonstrated that these time-savers had little negative effect on homing success. Image-based visual homing requires a homing agent tomove so as to optimise themutual image information signal. As the mutual information signal is corrupted by sensor noise we turned to the stochastic optimisation literature for appropriate optimisation algorithms. We tested a number of these algorithms in both simulated and real dynamic laboratory environments and found that gradient descent (with gradients computed by one-sided differences) works best.

Master of Science / Civil Engineering / Hani G. Melhem / Bill Zhang / Composite action is the joint behavior of two elements connected or bonded together. It is a phenomenon that is utilized in several applications throughout engineering. Previous studies have shown that cold formed steel (CFS) sheathed with structural wood panels exhibits a degree of partial composite action behavior. However currently in the design process, CFS and wood sheathing systems are considered separately in a non-composite manner due to the absence of sufficient supporting data. These systems can include the floors, roofs, and walls of a building. In order to determine the level of composite action present, the slip modulus is needed. The slip modulus describes the relationship between the shear force and the displacement exhibited by two elements in a composite system. The scope of this research is to determine the influence of fastener spacing on the slip modulus and provide a foundation of information to fully define the composite action between CFS and wood sheathing.

The South African government introduced Affirmative Action in 1998 to redress historical workplace discrimination. The South African moral imperative considers Affirmative Action to be a necessary instrument of change influencing social and economic equality, which impacts on the development of Blacks. Affirmative Action is being researched in academic circles for reasons other than moral concern, which calls for a new breed of scientist to take equitable academic demographics into consideration. The exploratory study in question aimed to identify employees’ perceptions on Affirmative Action within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Witwatersrand. The survey method was utilized in the study and opinions were elicited from 108 respondents in the Faculty. The results were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively in order to gain a comprehensive insight into the perceptions. The focus of the study included: profile of the respondents, staffing and standards, employee development and mentorship, attitudes, training and culture. The findings of the investigation indicated that progress achieved by Affirmative Action within the Faculty was generally perceived to be slow. However, there appeared to be no problems related to holistic practices established in support of Affirmative Action. / Prof. W. Backer

Each of us has knowledge but it is not complete. When we come together to listen, we learn, we grow in understanding and we can analyze better the course that needs to be taken. One thing I learned over the past several years is that words and their interpretation have power. Grand Bayou community member This dissertation examines the question of change in the non-community people who have interacted or come into contact with the Grand Bayou Participatory Action Research (PAR) project. Who Changes?, a book on institutionalizing participation in development, raises the issu of "where is the change?" in a participatory project (Blackburn1998). Fischer (2000), Forester (1992), and Wildavsky (1979) indicate that a participatory process is beneficial to all stages of planning policy development, and analysis. However, planners, academics, and practitioners who work with high risk communities are often of different cultures, values, and lived experience than those of the community. Despite the best intentions of these professionals, these differences may at times cause a disconnect from or a dismissal of the community's knowledge, values or validity claims as the participatory process transpires. The outside experts often fail to learn from the local communities or use the community's expertise. The Grand Bayou Participatory Action Research (PAR) project, funded in part by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, investigated the viability of PAR in a post-disaster recovery project. The NSF report revealed that the community did gain agency and political effectiveness; the study and evaluation, however, did not focus on the outside collaborators and their change. Freirian and Habermasian theories of conscientization and critical hermeneutics would assume that those engaged with the project have changed in some way through their learning experience and that change may be emancipatory. The change builds on a core tenet of PAR in developing relational knowledge while honoring the other. This study used a case study methodology utilizing multiple sources of evidence to explore the answer to this question. A better understanding of the change in outside collaborators in a PAR project can be helpful in developing a more holistic participatory community planning process.