Large--scale distributed environments can be seen as a conflict between the selfish aims of the participants and the group welfare of the population as a whole. In order to regulate the behavior of the participants it is often necessary to introduce mechanisms that provide incentives and stimulate cooperative behavior in order to mitigate for the resultant potentially undesirable availability outcomes which could arise from individual actions.The history of economics contains a wide variety of incentive patterns for cooperation. In this thesis, we adopt bartering incentive pattern as an attractive foundation for a simple and robust form of exchange to re-allocate resources. While bartering is arguably the world's oldest form of trade, there are still many instances where it surprises us. The success and survivability of the barter mechanisms adds to its attractiveness as a model to study.In this thesis we have derived three relevant scenarios where a bartering approach is applied. Starting from a common model of bartering: - We show the price to be paid for dealing with selfish agents in a bartering environment, as well as the impact on performance parameters such as topology and disclosed information.- We show how agents, by means of bartering, can achieve gains in goods without altruistic agents needing to be present.- We apply a bartering--based approach to a real application, the directory services.The core of this research is the analysis of bartering in the Internet Age. In previous times, usually economies dominated by bartering have suffered from high transaction costs (i.e. the improbability of the wants, needs that cause a transaction occurring at the same time and place). Nowadays, the world has a global system of interconnected computer networks called Internet. This interconnected world has the ability to overcome many challenges of the previous times. This thesis analysis the oldest system of trade within the context of this new paradigm. In this thesis we aim is to show thatbartering has a great potential, but there are many challenges that can affect the realistic application of bartering that should be studied.The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate resource allocation using bartering mechanism, with particular emphasis on applications in largescale distributed systems without the presence of altruistic participants in the environment.Throughout the research presented in this thesis we have contributed evidence that supports the leitmotif that best summarizes our work: investigation interactions amongst selfish, rational, and autonomous agents with incomplete information, each seeking to maximize its expected utility by means of bartering. We concentrate on three scenarios: one theoretical, a case of use, and finally a real application. All of these scenarios are used for evaluating bartering. Each scenario starts from a common origin, but each of them have their own unique features.The final conclusion is that bartering is still relevant in the modern world.

This Diploma thesis focuses on a set of commodities dealt on world-wide trades. It mainly discuss the business environment of commodities with physical delivery, not so much the speculative deals. The goal of the Diploma thesis is to select a set of appropriate commodities for Internet (web-based) business. The first part contains the overview of the actual level of knowledge in the area of Internet-based business with commodities. The second one focuses on the analysis of the commodity exchange and non-commodity exchange environment in Czech Republic and the world. Result of each analysis is a list of commodities dealt on the specific market. It also contains the comparison the commodity exchange and non-commodity exchange environment. The goal of before mentioned steps was to define the set of commodities for trading on an Internet portal -- opentrade.cz. Third part describes the functionality of the opentrade.cz and its' specifics -- barter trades. It also contains the list of commodities.

Mon doctorat porte sur les objets de parure de l'aire atlantique méridionale de l’Europe (Portugal, Nord de l'Espagne, Aquitaine méridionale) du premier âge du Fer (VIIIe – Ve siècles avant J.-C.). Longtemps considérés comme de simples traceurs chronologiques, et parfois appréciés pour leur seul caractère somptuaire, ils n'ont, pour l'heure, jamais fait l'objet d'un travail de synthèse. J’ai orienté mon investigation selon deux trajectoires : d'une part, prendre en compte l'ensemble des objets de parure, quel que soit le matériau et, d'autre part, engager une étude sur les interactions artistiques des Pyrénées à l’Atlantique. Une telle démarche peut aujourd'hui être entreprise grâce aux données archéologiques récentes valorisées dans des monographies régionales et dans les travaux portant sur la paléo-ethnogénèse des peuples de la péninsule Ibérique.La première étape de la recherche consiste à rassembler et ordonner le corpus des parures fabriquées par les ateliers nord-péninsulaires et aquitains sous la forme d'un catalogue raisonné. L'angle d'approche privilégié dans ce travail est l’analyse du style dans le but de différencier les parures locales des importations. Cette démarche est associée à une analyse spatiale, temporelle et fonctionnelle afin d'établir des aires de répartition stylistiques et des réseaux de circulation. À partir des continuités et les variations de style établies d'une aire à l'autre, la question des échanges d'art est mise en perspective avec les motivations identitaires, socio-culturelles et économiques des sociétés protohistoriques. En effet, une approche globale de ce mobilier ne pouvait faire l’impasse sur son mode d’expression qu’il se rapporte à l’identité individuelle ou collective. J’ai abordé cette question selon deux angles d’approche : la première appréhende la manière dont une communauté donnée construit un discours identitaire par rapport à ses voisins alors que la seconde interroge la manière dont l’individu structure son rapport à l’autre en utilisant tel ou tel ornement. / My PhD thesis deals with the personal ornaments of the South Atlantic area (Portugal, northern Spain, southern Aquitaine) of the first Iron Age (8th - 5th centuries BC). Long regarded as simple chronological tracers, and sometimes only appreciated for their sumptuary character, they have, for now, never been subject to a synthesis work. My investigation focused on two directions: first, to take into account all the personal ornaments, regardless of types and materials and, then, to initiate a study on the artistic interaction from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic. This approach can now be undertaken through recent archaeological evidence recovered in regional studies and researches on the paleo-ethnogenesis of Iberian Peninsula communities. The first step in the research is to collect and order the corpus of personal adornments made by the north-peninsular and Aquitanian workshops to provide a descriptive catalogue. The strategy chosen is a stylistic analysis in order to differentiate the local production from the importations. This method is associated with a spatial, temporal and functional analysis in order to establish stylistic areas and traffic networks. From stylistic continuities and changes established from one area to another, the question of art exchanges is put into perspective with identity, socio-economic and cultural-historic societies motivations. Therefore, a global approach to these personal ornaments could not overlook its mode of expression whether it refers to the individual or collective identity. I have discussed this issue from two angles: the first apprehend how a given community build its identity in relation to its neighbors while the second asks how one person makes its individual identity in its relationship with others in using a particular ornament.

L’ambition de cet ouvrage est non seulement de mettre à disposition un inventaire raisonné, et relativement exhaustif, des objets métalliques issus des contextes funéraires et d’habitat de la fin de l’âge du Bronze et du premier âge du Fer (900-450 av. n è.), mais aussi et surtout de proposer une étude synthétique des nombreux types d’objets rencontrés au sein d’une région cohérente, d’un point de vue géographique, historique et historiographique ; à savoir la France méditerranéenne : Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude, Hérault, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var et Alpes-Maritimes. Cette démarche devrait par ailleurs permettre d’harmoniser, de regrouper et d’actualiser l’ensemble des études précédentes ayant trait à ce type de mobilier, tout en facilitant l’identification du matériel issu des fouilles à venir, et plus généralement les études portant sur cette frange spécifique de la culture matérielle. Au-delà de sa fonction encyclopédique, ce mémoire aborde également une série de thèmes annexes, comme l’analyse des divers réseaux d’échanges à partir du mobilier d’importation et leur évolution au cours du temps, ou encore la présence d’une approche « évolutionniste » des quelques grandes panoplies protohistoriques (outillage, armement, et parure). Ces quelques problématiques nous ont ainsi permis d’observer dans quelle mesure le Midi avait joué un important rôle d’intermédiaire entre les sphères méditerranéennes et le domaine celtique, mais aussi à quel point cette fonction d’interface eut un impact majeur sur l’évolution des panoplies indigènes et dans une moindre mesure de nombreux effets sur le développement technique et social des communautés indigènes. / The ambition of this book is not only to provide a reasoned and relatively complete inventory of the metal objects found in funerary contexts and habitats, dating from the end of the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age (900 - 450 B.C.), but also to provide an overview of the many types of objects encountered in a coherent region from a geographical and historical point of view ; namely Mediterranean France : Pyrenees-Orientales, Aude, Herault, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhone, Var and Alpes-Maritimes. This should also help to harmonize, consolidate and update all previous studies dealing with these types of objects, while facilitating both the identification of the material found in future excavations, and the studies concerned by this particular area of the material culture. Beyond its encyclopaedic function, this work also investigates a whole series of sub-themes, such as the analysis of the various bartering networks, based on the imported objects and their evolution over time, or the presence of an "evolutionary" approach of some of the main protohistoric outfits (tools, weapons, and ornaments). These few issues have enabled us to observe to what extent the South of France had played an important intermediary role between the Mediterranean spheres and the Celtic area, but also how this interface function had a major impact on the evolution of the indigenous outfits and to a lesser extent, numerous effects on the technical and social development of the local communities.

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在可預見之未來無線點對點的世界裡，資訊交易就如同現實世界人與人間的交易模式，需考量到交易資訊的成本、價值與人際關係衡量之因素；傳統廣告行銷的效率問題也待創新的資訊交易平台來解決。本研究提出的資訊交易模型，以人性考量為基礎，在各種不同情境下，動態衡量資訊成本、價值與使用者間關係，透過助理軟體，協助加入資訊交易平台之個體，以更便利方式進行資訊交易，預期讓交易結果更貼近使用者的需求；而企業方面也能透過點與點之間快速傳遞資訊的特性，預期以更低成本、更高效率，完成商務行銷目的，達到破壞性行銷之目標。 / This paper presents a novel ambient e-service aiming at distributed marketing through sensible bartering in foreseeable wireless Peer-to-Peer (WP2P) environments. A variety of influential factors (e.g., cost, value, relationship) are proposed and formalized for empowering the bartering mechanism, unfolding a rich arena of ambient distributed trading and a disruptive paradigm of e-marketing.