Doctoral dissertation presents an analysis of the Serbian economy in the mutual relations between the European Union (EU) and the Western Balkans. The assumption that the EU and Serbia, as an integral part of the Balkan region, have interests in the partnership and cooperation is the baseline of the research. The following aspects have been singled out, by method of ranking, which is based on achieving the highest turnover in the last six years: trade, foreign direct investment and energy. Gravity model was used to analyze routes of trade and energy. A models of trade import and export between Serbia and the EU 28 member countries and the countries of the Western Balkans, as well as models of imports and exports of energy between Serbia and the EU 28 member countries and the countries of the Western Balkans, were used in order to assess the potential of trade and energy trade. Method of trend line and trend extrapolation of foreign direct investment (FDI) was used in order to determine the degree of the presence of FDI in Serbia and their predictions, which could be an indicator of investment climate in Serbia. The conclusion is that Serbia has strategic importance as a candidate for membership in the EU because of its regional importance. Entering the Western Balkan countries in the EU should not happen without Serbia, because Serbia has a regional importance, which arise from the economic, historical, cultural, infrastructural and geopolitical links with countries in the region, of which some are already members of the EU.

The Diploma thesis is focused on the mortgage loan as a part of national economy. It deals with the main features of the mortgage market in the Czech Republic. The objective/aim of this thesis is to analyze the dependence of the mortgage loans on the development of the selected macroeconomic indicators. This dependence will be firstly described theoretically and verified by the statistical methods afterwards. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to the theoretical characteristics of the mortgage loans. The next part, which deals with the analysis of the mortgage market, is divided into several stages according to the mortgage market development. The third part deals with the macroeconomic importance of the mortgage loans and examines the dependence of the mortgage market development on the selected quantities. The hypotheses expressed in the previous part are verified by using statistical analysis in the last part of this thesis.

The aim of this multidisciplinary-oriented dissertation is to explicate the value and importance (the role) of human knowledge in context of informatization of socio-economic environment. The effort to bring interpretation in context is supported by theoretical and methodological background, which were formulated/defined based on number of relevant domestic and foreign resources. The analysis was performed using both quantitative and qualitative research methods and provides results applied to three areas within the document - economic system, education and information management. The issue of education is proving to be essential. Although we should react to the conditions changed due to an ongoing process of informatization, individual knowledge is being instrumentalized and fragmented. The conclusion shows that informatization may contribute to the fragmentation of knowledge and to reduce its value.

This thesis aims to analyse the system of employee evaluation at a specific company by comparing theoretical knowledge and its practical application and, after evaluating the findings, to propose an optimisation of the current system if necessary. The thesis is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. The theoretical part uses available literature to define basic concepts in employee performance management and informs about the importance, objectives, prerequisites and criteria for a successful implementation of an employee evaluation system at a company. It also discusses commonly used methods of employee evaluation and the most frequent mistakes encountered in their application. The practical part introduces a specific company and then analyses its current employee evaluation system. This analysis has several parts - the first of them is a situational analysis, determining the current state of employee evaluation at the company, followed by an analysis of the perception of this system by the employees, both managers and executives. The third part evaluates the system's strengths and weaknesses, leading to proposed recommendations that should improve the current state of the employee evaluation system at the company.

Cette thèse s’intéresse au problème de l’inférence bayésienne dans les modèles probabilistes dynamiques. Plus précisément nous nous focalisons sur les méthodes de Monte Carlo pour l’intégration. Nous revisitons tout d’abord le mécanisme d’échantillonnage d’importance avec rééchantillonnage, puis son extension au cadre dynamique connue sous le nom de filtrage particulaire, pour enfin conclure nos travaux par une application à la poursuite multi-cibles.En premier lieu nous partons du problème de l’estimation d’un moment suivant une loi de probabilité, connue à une constante près, par une méthode de Monte Carlo. Tout d’abord,nous proposons un nouvel estimateur apparenté à l’estimateur d’échantillonnage d’importance normalisé mais utilisant deux lois de proposition différentes au lieu d’une seule. Ensuite,nous revisitons le mécanisme d’échantillonnage d’importance avec rééchantillonnage dans son ensemble afin de produire des tirages Monte Carlo indépendants, contrairement au mécanisme usuel, et nous construisons ainsi deux nouveaux estimateurs.Dans un second temps nous nous intéressons à l’aspect dynamique lié au problème d’inférence bayésienne séquentielle. Nous adaptons alors dans ce contexte notre nouvelle technique de rééchantillonnage indépendant développée précédemment dans un cadre statique.Ceci produit le mécanisme de filtrage particulaire avec rééchantillonnage indépendant, que nous interprétons comme cas particulier de filtrage particulaire auxiliaire. En raison du coût supplémentaire en tirages requis par cette technique, nous proposons ensuite une procédure de rééchantillonnage semi-indépendant permettant de le contrôler.En dernier lieu, nous considérons une application de poursuite multi-cibles dans un réseau de capteurs utilisant un nouveau modèle bayésien, et analysons empiriquement les résultats donnés dans cette application par notre nouvel algorithme de filtrage particulaire ainsi qu’un algorithme de Monte Carlo par Chaînes de Markov séquentiel / This thesis deals with integration calculus in the context of Bayesian inference and Bayesian statistical filtering. More precisely, we focus on Monte Carlo integration methods. We first revisit the importance sampling with resampling mechanism, then its extension to the dynamic setting known as particle filtering, and finally conclude our work with a multi-target tracking application. Firstly, we consider the problem of estimating some moment of a probability density, known up to a constant, via Monte Carlo methodology. We start by proposing a new estimator affiliated with the normalized importance sampling estimator but using two proposition densities rather than a single one. We then revisit the importance sampling with resampling mechanism as a whole in order to produce Monte Carlo samples that are independent, contrary to the classical mechanism, which enables us to develop two new estimators. Secondly, we consider the dynamic aspect in the framework of sequential Bayesian inference. We thus adapt to this framework our new independent resampling technique, previously developed in a static setting. This yields the particle filtering with independent resampling mechanism, which we reinterpret as a special case of auxiliary particle filtering. Because of the increased cost required by this technique, we next propose a semi independent resampling procedure which enables to control this additional cost. Lastly, we consider an application of multi-target tracking within a sensor network using a new Bayesian model, and empirically analyze the results from our new particle filtering algorithm as well as a sequential Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm

This study focuses on children’s perception on free play in relation to their learning and how they perceive the presence of a pedagogue and its role in the play. To answer the study's research questions, we conducted a qualitative study in which interviews were used as a data collection method. A total of 17 children in grade 3 were interviewed. Results from the study show that play for children is mainly associated with something that they do in interaction with others. Play is something that they themselves get to decide and most importantly something that is fun. Furthermore, the study shows that children have a broad definition of what play can include in comparison with how adults define play. One example where children and adults have a difference in their definition is when it comes to drawing, where children can call that to play while adults might not. Another outcome of the study is that children don't play to learn, but rather because it’s fun and can see a learning situation as play. Most important learning situation in conjunction with play for the children is when rules and new games are introduced. Almost all associations that the children make about learning are thus linked to play. Furthermore, according to the interviewed children the play gives their life a meaning and is therefore something very important. Play is also, according to the children, of great value as a method to get new friends. Finally, the results from this study show that the children have double perceptions about the pedagogue’s involvement in the play. On the one hand, they see pedagogues as guardians of some kind whose presence is needed to protect the game. The guardian’s role is to make sure that no one cheats, does harm or is disturbing. On the other hand the pedagogues are described as disturbing, because of the rules they create that the children have to follow. The children see it as if the pedagogue is forcing their rules, games, or participants on the play, which removes the free part in free play. That gives the children dissatisfaction about the play as their play is being destroyed. / Med den här studien belyses barnens upplevelse av den fria leken, dess innebörd, med betoning på lärandet och barnens upplevelse av pedagogers roll i leken. Studien har gjorts för att undersöka barnens definition av lek och deras subjektiva uppfattningar om vad de lär sig i den fria leken och vilken roll de anser att en pedagog har. För att besvara studiens forskningsfrågor gjordes en kvalitativ studie där semistrukturerade intervjuer har använts som insamlingsmetod av data, totalt intervjuades 17 barn i årskurs 3. Resultat från studien visar att lek för barnen främst associeras med något som de gör i samspel med andra. Lek är något som de själva får bestämma, där det centrala är att göra något roligt. Studien visar att barnen har en bred definition av vad lek kan innefatta i jämförelse med hur vuxna definierar lek. Exempelvis anser barnen att rita är en lek. Vidare visar resultatet att barnen inte leker för att lära, utan för att det är kul. Barnen kan ändå se att lek kan vara en situation där lärande sker. Det barnen främst ser att de lär är; regler på lekar samt nya lekar. Nästan all association som barnen gör om lärandet kopplas alltså till lek. Vidare visar resultatet att lek upplevs av barnen som något väldigt viktigt och något som ger barnen en mening med livet. Exempelvis är det genom lek man skaffar sig vänner, enligt barnen. Avslutningsvis visar resultatet från denna studie att barnen har komplexa uppfattningar om pedagogens inblandning i leken. Dels ser de på pedagoger som någon form av väktare, vars närvaro behövs för att skydda leken. Där pedagogen förväntas att se till att ingen fuskar eller gör sig illa, eller är störande. Pedagogerna uppfattas som de styr lekarna med regler och ibland tvingar in barn i leken, vilket barnen upplever resultera i att leken förstörs.

This thesis proposes a concept of sampling, especially for path tracing like algorithms, for faster convergence of the scene, using a local radiance approximation in the scene with hemispherical harmonics, which allows more effective way of ray casting on the given surface. In the first part, the basics of photorealistic rendering are introduced together with commonly used algorithms for image synthesis. The mathematical apparatus used in this thesis is defined in the second part of the thesis. Subsequently, existing solutions in this area are presented. The following chapter summarizes state-of-the-art methods in this branch. The rest of this thesis is focused on proposal and implementation of already mentioned extension.

The diploma thesis focuses on the analysis and evaluation of proposals to increase customer satisfaction in Paolo Caff. The first part is devoted to the theoretical background of the topic. The next part is an analysis of the current situation of the internal and external environment of the company, as well as an analysis of customer satisfaction following an evaluation of questionnaire-based

Les simulations Monte Carlo de transport de particules sont un outil incontournable pour l'étude de problèmes de radioprotection. Leur utilisation implique l'échantillonnage d'événements rares grâce à des méthode de réduction de variance qui reposent sur l'estimation de la contribution d'une particule au détecteur. On construit cette estimation sous forme d'une carte d'importance.L’objet de cette étude est de proposer une stratégie qui permette de générer de manière adaptative des cartes d'importance durant la simulation Monte Carlo elle-même. Le travail a été réalisé dans le code de transport des particules TRIPOLI-4®, développé à la Direction de l’énergie nucléaire du CEA (Salay, France).Le cœur du travail a consisté à estimer le flux adjoint à partir des trajectoires simulées avec l'Adaptive Multilevel Splitting, une méthode de réduction de variance robuste. Ce développement a été validé à l'aide de l'intégration d'un module déterministe dans TRIPOLI-4®.Trois stratégies sont proposés pour la réutilisation de ce score en tant que carte d'importance dans la simulation Monte Carlo. Deux d'entre elles proposent d'estimer la convergence du score adjoint lors de phases d'exploitation.Ce travail conclut sur le lissage du score adjoint avec des méthodes d'apprentissage automatique, en se concentrant plus particulièrement sur les estimateurs de densité à noyaux. / Monte Carlo methods are a reference asset for the study of radiation transport in shielding problems. Their use naturally implies the sampling of rare events and needs to be tackled with variance reduction methods. These methods require the definition of an importance function/map. The aim of this study is to propose an adaptivestrategy for the generation of such importance maps during the Montne Carlo simulation. The work was performed within TRIPOLI-4®, a Monte Carlo transport code developped at the nuclear energy division of CEA in Saclay, France. The core of this PhD thesis is the implementation of a forward-weighted adjoint score that relies on the trajectories sampled with Adaptive Multilevel Splitting, a robust variance reduction method. It was validated with the integration of a deterministic module in TRIPOLI-4®. Three strategies were proposed for the reintegrationof this score as an importance map and accelerations were observed. Two of these strategies assess the convergence of the adjoint score during exploitation phases by evalutating the figure of merit yielded by the use of the current adjoint score. Finally, the smoothing of the importance map with machine learning algorithms concludes this work with a special focus on Kernel Density Estimators.

Multi-Stage Stochastic Programming with CVaR: Modeling, Algorithms and Robustness RNDr. Václav Kozmík Abstract: We formulate a multi-stage stochastic linear program with three different risk measures based on CVaR and discuss their properties, such as time consistency. The stochastic dual dynamic programming algorithm is described and its draw- backs in the risk-averse setting are demonstrated. We present a new approach to evaluating policies in multi-stage risk-averse programs, which aims to elimi- nate the biggest drawback - lack of a reasonable upper bound estimator. Our approach is based on an importance sampling scheme, which is thoroughly ana- lyzed. A general variance reduction scheme for mean-risk sampling with CVaR is provided. In order to evaluate robustness of the presented models we extend con- tamination technique to the case of large-scale programs, where a precise solution cannot be obtained. Our computational results are based on a simple multi-stage asset allocation model and confirm usefulness of the presented procedures, as well as give additional insights into the behavior of more complex models. Keywords: Multi-stage stochastic programming, stochastic dual dynamic programming, im- portance sampling, contamination, CVaR