This thesis deals with Business Intelligence and its testing. It seeks to highlight the differences from the classical software testing and finally design a methodology for BI solutions testing that could be used in practice on real projects of BI companies. The aim of thesis is to design a methodology for BI solutions testing based on theoretical knowledge of Business Intelligence and software testing with an emphasis on the specific BI characteristics and requirements and also in accordance with Clever Decision's requirements and test it in practice on a real project in this company. The paper is written up on the basis of studying literature in the field of Business Intelligence and software testing from Czech and foreign sources as well as on the recommendations and experience of Clever Decision's employees. It is one of the few if not the first sources dealing with methodology for BI solutions testing in the Czech language. This work could also serve as a basis for more comprehensive methodologies of BI solutions testing. The thesis can be divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part tries to explain the purpose of Business Intelligence use in enterprises. It elucidates particular components of the BI solution, then the actual software testing, various types of tests, with emphasis on the differences and specificities of Business Intelligence. The theoretical part is followed by designed methodology for BI solutions using a generic model for the BI/DW solution testing. The practical part's highlight is the description of real BI project testing in Clever Decision according to the designed methodology.

Offentliga företag har fått ett större intresse av att införa Business Intelligence-lösningar. Graden av framgång varierar mellan olika typer av industrier på grund av komplexa processer som är relaterade till höga kostnader. Syftet med studien var att identifiera de kritiska framgångsfaktorerna för att framgångsrikt införa en BI-lösning ur ett CFO-perspektiv. BI har en bred kategori av olika applikationer och teknologier som används för att samla in, lagra och analysera data för att sedan extrahera den. Denna data görs sedan tillgänglig för anställda i företaget för att hjälpa beslutsfattare att skapa professionella och informerade affärsbeslut. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys tillsammans med semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuer genomfördes med sju olika CFO:er för att få sina perspektiv angående vilka som är de kritiska framgångsfaktorer för att införa en BI-lösning. Innehållsanalysen genererade nio kategorier med flera underkategorier. Varje kategori och underkategori identifierar CSF ur ett CFO-perspektiv. De kategorier som identifierades var: Företagsledare med genomtänkta arbetslag, hållbar datakvalitet, slutanvändaren i fokus, extern hjälp bidrar med ett bredare perspektiv och kapacitet, mål och visioner, stöd från ledningen, iterativt tillvägagångssätt, affärsdriven expansion och agila tekniska ramar, och att ha rätt förutsättningar under hela implementeringen. Både studielitteraturen, CFO:erna och CFO:ernas rankning av CSF drar slutsatsen att alla framgångsfaktorer verkligen behövs för en framgångsrik BI-lösning. Alla CSF prioriteras däremot olika inom alla tre datakällor som fanns tillgängliga för studien. / Public companies have gotten a bigger interest in implementing Business Intelligence solutions. The level of success rate varies between various types of industries because of complex processes that are related to high costs. The aim of the study was to identify the critical success factors for implementing a BI-solution successfully from a Chief Financial Officers perspective. BI has a broad category of various applications and technologies that are used to collect, store and analyze data and then extract it and make the data available to employees in the company in order to help decision makers to create professional and informed business decisions. The study was conducted using a qualitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews making use of seven different CFO’s to follow up on their perspective on organizational critical successfactors for implementing a BI-solution. The content analysis generated nine categories with several sub-categories. Each category and sub-category defining CSF from a CFO’s point of view. The categories identified were: Business leaders with well-thought-out work teams, sustainable data quality, the end user in focus, external help contributes witha broader perspective and capacity, goals and visions, management support, iterative approach, business-driven expansion and agile technical framework, and having the right conditions through out the implementation. Both the study literature, respondents and the respondents’ ranking of the CSF conclude that all success factors are indeed CSF needed for a successful BI-implementation. However, the CSF were prioritized differently within all three data sources of material that were available for the study.

The objective of this thesis is a complete implementation of the Financial and Property Analysis of Municipalities (FAMA) methodology using open-source Business Intelligence (BI) tools. The FAMA methodology was developed at the Institute of Public Administration and Regional Development at University of Economics in Prague and monitors wide range of aspects of management of municipalities. The main objective of this work is to create an application that would allow users to clearly analyze the management of municipalities with indicators of this methodology, using open source BI tools. The first, theoretical part, consists of two parts. The first half of the theoretical part of this thesis is devoted to the analysis of municipal finances and describes the FAMA methodology itself. Furthermore, methods used by the Ministry of Finance to evaluate municipalities are described. The second half of the theoretical part introduces readers to principles and components used in BI, some of which are used in the actual implementation. The second, practical part, initially deals with selection of suitable open-source BI tools and these tools are subsequently used to create an application that is used to analyze the management of municipalities. The implementation itself is divided into several parts. Firstly an initial study is performed, which is based on analysis of source data and user requirements. Based on the initial analysis, data warehouse is designed. Subsequently, an ETL project is created to process financial reports of municipalities and store them in the data warehouse. After filling the data warehouse, several OLAP cubes are created, which are used for multidimensional data analysis and finally, the presentation layer of the application is introduced and suitable graphical outputs for data presentation are designed. The main contribution of this thesis is the actual implementation of the FAMA methodology using the selected tools. The solution includes all indicators of the methodology and covers financial data of all municipalities of the Czech Republic in the years 2001 to 2012. Due to the scope of this work, a complete solution was made, that is ready for use.

Subject of honor thesis is self-service business intelligence. Its goal is to prove that it is pos-sible to create a unified industry-specific dashboard above set of different ERP systems. First part familiarizes readers with the main theme of the paper, business intelligence, and selected tool for dashboard creation, Microsoft Power BI. The next part characterizes Soli-tea holding of which project is used and described later in this paper. There is also a place for analysis of all ERP systems provided by the group, from which is in the end chosen a sample for dashboard design. Own contribution to this field of study is proven fact that it is possible to achieve universal business intelligence solution in Power BI in a manner of single dashboard above any ERP system.

Recently, Bi₂Se₃ was added to a new class of materials known as topological insulators. While several studies have provided tantalizing hints towards novel physical properties, such as backscatter suppression and spin-polarized transport, several concerns remain in actual materials. In particular, high defect densities, strong surface band bending, and potential fluctuations have been observed. Here, scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy are used to reveal surface effects in Bi₂Se₃ and CuxBi₂Se₃. First, a detailed examination of defects in bulk-grown samples is described. Then, I provide an analysis of molecular beam epitaxy results, done in collaboration with colleague Yuxuan Chen. Following this, I provide a detailed study of individual point defects in Cu-doped Bi₂Se₃ and examine how Cu is incorporated into the Bi₂Se₃ lattice. Finally, through spectroscopic analysis, a novel depth-sensitive measurement of the local band bending field is developed. Furthermore, for the first time, fluctuations of the Dirac point can be correlated to specific near-surface defects, namely Se vacancies. These analyses provide valuable insights into the preparation of future samples for the investigation of topological insulators. / text

Reduction of cholesterol ester (CE) from lipid burden lesion-associated macrophage foam cells has been shown to reduce plaque volumes. Hydrolysis of CE to free cholesterol (FC) in macrophages is an essential step for removal of CE from the macrophage and its transport to the liver by high density lipoprotein (HDL) for further metabolism. Since CE must again be hydrolyzed into FC in the liver catalyzing this hydrolysis, it becomes imperative to find the identity of these enzymes. In this study the role of key enzyme in catalyzing the hydrolysis of CE to FC, neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase (CEH) was evaluated. Further, ability of this CEH to hydrolyze CE delivered via scavenger receptor BI (SR-BI) or SR-BII was also monitored. CE hydrolysis and FC efflux were monitored from cells transfected with CEH expression vector. No significant difference was noted in either the intracellular CEH activity or FC efflux between cells transfected with an empty vector or a CEH expression vector. Further no difference was seen when experiments were repeated with cells stably transfected with SR-BI or SR-BII. Future experiments with more optimization of the cells system used will be required to reach any conclusions on the role of CEH in hydrolyzing HDL-CE delivered via SR-BI/BII.

La luzerne est une plante fourragère, de la famille des Fabacées, largement cultivée en France du fait de sa richesse en protéines. Industriellement, cette plante est pressée, puis séchée sur tambour rotatif. L’étape de pressage conduit à l’obtention de grandes quantités de jus, lui aussi riche en protéines. L’objectif de cette thèse a été de développer un procédé de bioraffinerie de la luzerne, applicable aux autres plantes fourragères, permettant la valorisation des toutes les fractions de la plante. La première étape consiste en un fractionnement thermo-mécanique de la luzerne entière par extrusion bi-vis. Deux fractions sont obtenues : un résidu fibreux solide en partie déshydraté, pouvant être utilisé dans la filière agro-matériaux, et un filtrat vert, riche en protéines. L’extrusion bi-vis est une alternative intéressante aux procédés classiques de déshydratation, car l’étude de l’optimisation des paramètres d’extrusion a permis de montrer qu’il est possible de récupérer la grande majorité des protéines de la plante dans le filtrat. Ce filtrat subit par la suite une séparation liquide/solide par centrifugation, permettant la récupération d’un culot vert, dont on peut extraire la chlorophylle. Le jus clarifié est ultrafiltré, puis traité par chromatographie hydrophobe, avec l’huile de tournesol comme solvant extracteur, de manière à séparer différentes protéines. L’étude plus fondamentale de la fixation des protéines sur résine a permis de modéliser le fractionnement des protéines par interactions hydrophobes. / Alfalfa is a common Legume, cultivated as a forage crop, thanks to its high protein content. In the green crop industry, alfalfa is pressed and dried on a rotative cylinder. The pressing step leads to the production of large amounts of green juice, rich in proteins. The aim of this work was to develop a biorefinery process for alfalfa, which could be adapted to other green crops, allowing the valorization of each fraction. The first step is the whole plant thermo-mechanical fractionation in the twin-screw extruder. Two fractions are obtained: a solid fibrous residue, partly dehydrated which could be valorized as an agro-material, and a green filtrate, rich in proteins. Twin-screw extrusion is an interesting alternative to usual industrial dehydration processes. Indeed, the study of the extruder parameters optimization showed that most of the alfalfa proteins can be recovered in the filtrate. This green extract is then centrifuged, in order to separate the solid particles. Chlorophyll can be extracted from the centrifugation pellet. The clarified juice is treated by ultrafiltration, and lastly fractionated thanks to hydrophobic chromatography, with sunflower oil as the solvent, in order to separate the proteins. The more fundamental study of proteins fixation on resins allowed us to modelize proteins fractionation using hydrophobic interactions.

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.

In this series of essays about professional burnout, a veteran teacher seeks a way to continue her work and enthusiasm in it, for the sake of both her and her students. To that end, she explores her relationships with her father and mother, and how the practices of teaching and learning she brought from home have affected her present classroom experiences. A complicating factor is the presence of chronic illness and its demands both primary and secondary: her father's Alzheimer's, her mother's bi-polar disorder, and the demands of eldercare for her mother. She also explores her own habitual practice of being a student, in a reflective inquiry into the mind and situation of students from inside her own experiences. Interleaved vignettes of student interaction illustrate the kinds of difficulty that the speaker has with her teaching. They appear chronologically to suggest a developmental movement.

Thesis advisor: Celeste Wells / This study examined the influence of a popular Youtuber in creating social discourse surrounding concepts of health, fitness, and beauty, employing a case study approach of the popular Youtube channel, Blogilates. Both visual and rhetorical analyses were conducted on the titles and thumbnail images of the top 50 most viewed Blogilates videos, and 10 videos were studied in depth. The findings established the concept of a unique power relationship between Youtubers and their viewers, which also explains the marked dissonance between the discourse posited by the channel’s marketing and the discourse posited in the actual video content. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Communication.