Mergers and incorporations are relatively new phenomena in the South African higher education landscape. The unbundling of Vista University, and the subsequent incorporation ofVUDEC into the merger between Unisa and TSA, posed a major challenge to all affected employees. This thesis focuses on how these employees experienced the various stages of the incorporation process. A social construction of inner and outer voices heard, shared, and read during the different phases of the incorporation process attempts to describe how to conserve the self in a merger. The aim of the thesis is to build towards a framework for dealing with the human aspect during institutional mergers and incorporations. The thesis consists of a prologue, a series of four manuscripts that report on the experiences of employees during the different phases of the merger process, and an epilogue. Each manuscript focuses on a specific phase or aspect of the incorporation process, with its own research focus, aims, and methodology. The first two manuscripts reflect on the pre-merger phase. The first manuscript reports on employees' preparation for the incorporation. Following a social constructionist grounded theory approach, four participating employees gained the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences of well-being during the pre-merger phase. The manuscript also reports on a wellness development workshop, attended by 35 representatives from various departments and units of Vista University during the pre-merger phase. The second manuscript reports on how employees embraced the VUDEC institutional culture. A case study approach was selected for semi-structured interviews with 17 participants from governance, academic and administrative departments, and post-graduate programmes. By means of content analysis, the institutional culture ofVUDEC was captured on the eve of the incorporation into Unisa. The third manuscript focuses on employees' experiences of the four-year transition and implementation phases of the incorporation. This manuscript follows a social identity approach, and through thematic analysis, reports on how 24 participants experienced the four-year implementation of the incorporation process. The fourth manuscript provides an overview of the human side of mergers as depicted in both national and international literature. The aim is to position the current longitudinal investigation and its findings in the broader higher education landscape, and a survival kit for conserving the self in a merger is proposed. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

The integration of computer technology in education has been a worldwide issue that has been supported and equally criticized by many. However, the practicability of computer technology in education cannot be overlooked, and this reality led to this study. This qualitative study aimed to explore the extents to which computer technology has been integrated in teaching and learning in Namibian schools, and three central schools in the town of Katima Mulilo (Zambezi Region) were investigated in this regard. The study explored possible benefits of computer technology in education, and sought to understand the way learners perceive computer technology. The study findings showed that teachers were unable to use computers to teach due to lack of resources and skills, whereas learners indicated willingness to embrace computer technology in education. Findings further showed greater need to equip schools with computer technology and training teachers. Based on the findings, recommendations were made to train teachers in integrating computer technology, and that schools should be provided with necessary computer technology resources. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Comparative Education)

La construction d'algorithmes classifiant des images à grande échelle est devenue une tache essentielle du fait de la difficulté d'effectuer des recherches dans les immenses collections de données visuelles inetiquetées présentes sur Internet. Nous visons à classifier des images en fonction de leur contenu pour simplifier la gestion de telles bases de données. La classification d'images à grande échelle est un problème complèxe, de par l'importance de la taille des ensembles de données, tant en nombre d'images qu'en nombre de classes. Certaines de ces classes sont dites "fine-grained" (sémantiquement proches les unes des autres) et peuvent même ne contenir aucun représentant étiqueté. Dans cette thèse, nous utilisons des représentations état de l'art d'images et nous concentrons sur des méthodes d'apprentissage efficaces. Nos contributions sont (1) un banc d'essai d'algorithmes d'apprentissage pour la classification à grande échelle et (2) un nouvel algorithme basé sur l'incorporation d'étiquettes pour apprendre sur des données peu abondantes. En premier lieu, nous introduisons un banc d'essai d'algorithmes d'apprentissage pour la classification à grande échelle, dans le cadre entièrement supervisé. Il compare plusieurs fonctions objectifs pour apprendre des classifieurs linéaires, tels que "un contre tous", "multiclasse", "ranking", "ranking pondéré moyen" par descente de gradient stochastique. Ce banc d'essai se conclut en un ensemble de recommandations pour la classification à grande échelle. Avec une simple repondération des données, la stratégie "un contre tous" donne des performances meilleures que toutes les autres. Par ailleurs, en apprentissage en ligne, un pas d'apprentissage assez petit s'avère suffisant pour obtenir des résultats au niveau de l'état de l'art. Enfin, l'arrêt anticipé de la descente de gradient stochastique introduit une régularisation qui améliore la vitesse d'entraînement ainsi que la capacité de régularisation. Deuxièmement, face à des milliers de classes, il est parfois difficile de rassembler suffisamment de données d'entraînement pour chacune des classes. En particulier, certaines classes peuvent être entièrement dénuées d'exemples. En conséquence, nous proposons un nouvel algorithme adapté à ce scénario d'apprentissage dit "zero-shot". notre algorithme utilise des données parallèles, comme les attributs, pour incorporer les classes dans un espace euclidien. Nous introduisons par ailleurs une fonction pour mesurer la compatibilité entre image et étiquette. Les paramètres de cette fonction sont appris en utilisant un objectif de type "ranking". Notre algorithme dépasse l'état de l'art pour l'apprentissage "zero-shot", et fait preuve d'une grande flexibilité en permettant d'incorporer d'autres sources d'information parallèle, comme des hiérarchies. Il permet en outre une transition sans heurt du cas "zero-shot" au cas où peu d'exemples sont disponibles.

<p>Постојеће законодавство ЕУ не пружа довољан правни основ за слободно кретање привредних друштава међу државама чланицама ЕУ из разлога недовољне легислативне активности органа ЕУ. Одредбе о слободи настањивања из Уговора о функционисању Европске уније не дају јасну слику о томе коју теорију о припадности привредних друштава треба примењивати како би привредна друштва несметано уживала слободу настањивања &ndash; теорију оснивања, теорију стварног седишта или, пак, неку трећу. Вишегодишњи неуспеси органа ЕУ да правно уреде питање припадности привредних друштава дали су слободу Суду ЕУ да буде веома активан у креирању судске праксе поводом припадности привредних друштава, а путем тумачења слободе настањивања. Видна је разлика између либералистичког приступа Суда са једне стране и протекционизма ког поједине државе чланице ЕУ потенцирају у својим националним правима, као и кроз органе ЕУ.<br />Пракса Суда ЕУ показала је да се разлике између теорија о припадности привредних друштава могу премостити, а да при томе не дође до напуштања једне од њих. Тако би се из теорије оснивања прихватило начело аутономије воље оснивача, док би се из теорије стварног седишта прихватио став да државе чланице имају право да интервенишу у одређеним питањима из домена права привредних друштава, када је то потребно ради заштите одређеног општег интереса. Разлике између теорије оснивања и теорије стварног седишта суштински представљају разлике у поимањима обима државног суверенитета од стране различитих држава чланица ЕУ. Тако се оне државе које желе да стимулишу развој привреде привлачењем страних инвеститора одлучују за прихватање теорије оснивања, док са друге стране теорију стварног седишта прихватају оне државе које желе да остваре што је могуће већу контролу привредних активности које се врше на њеној територији.<br />Иако су и Суд ЕУ и правна теорија покушавали да реше питање сукоба између две преовлађујуће теорије о припадности привредних друштава &ndash; теорије оснивања и теорије стварног седишта &ndash; то се до данашњег дана није догодило, превасходно јер су наведене теорије засноване на двема супротстављеним филозофијама. Филозофија којом се води теорија оснивања потиче из држава које имају традиционално јаку међународну трговину и које, стога, проблему прилазе на један отворенији и флексибилнији начин, стављајући у први план пре свега слободу трговине и принцип сигурности у привредним односима. Теорија стварног седишта проблему прилази сагледавајући стварну везу између одређеног привредног друштва и одређене државе.&nbsp;<br />Из скоријих пресуда Суда ЕУ може се закључити да право ЕУ све више иде ка прихватању теорије оснивања као преовлађујуће теорије о припадности привредних друштава, која, међутим, не може бити примењивана без корективних мера којима би се штитила права трећих лица. Оно што би требало да буде повезујући чинилац и за теорију оснивања и за теорију стварног седишта јесте управо то што је њихов коначан циљ исти, а то је што мање ограничење слободе настањивања привредних друштава.</p> / <p>Postojeće zakonodavstvo EU ne pruža dovoljan pravni osnov za slobodno kretanje privrednih društava među državama članicama EU iz razloga nedovoljne legislativne aktivnosti organa EU. Odredbe o slobodi nastanjivanja iz Ugovora o funkcionisanju Evropske unije ne daju jasnu sliku o tome koju teoriju o pripadnosti privrednih društava treba primenjivati kako bi privredna društva nesmetano uživala slobodu nastanjivanja &ndash; teoriju osnivanja, teoriju stvarnog sedišta ili, pak, neku treću. Višegodišnji neuspesi organa EU da pravno urede pitanje pripadnosti privrednih društava dali su slobodu Sudu EU da bude veoma aktivan u kreiranju sudske prakse povodom pripadnosti privrednih društava, a putem tumačenja slobode nastanjivanja. Vidna je razlika između liberalističkog pristupa Suda sa jedne strane i protekcionizma kog pojedine države članice EU potenciraju u svojim nacionalnim pravima, kao i kroz organe EU.<br />Praksa Suda EU pokazala je da se razlike između teorija o pripadnosti privrednih društava mogu premostiti, a da pri tome ne dođe do napuštanja jedne od njih. Tako bi se iz teorije osnivanja prihvatilo načelo autonomije volje osnivača, dok bi se iz teorije stvarnog sedišta prihvatio stav da države članice imaju pravo da intervenišu u određenim pitanjima iz domena prava privrednih društava, kada je to potrebno radi zaštite određenog opšteg interesa. Razlike između teorije osnivanja i teorije stvarnog sedišta suštinski predstavljaju razlike u poimanjima obima državnog suvereniteta od strane različitih država članica EU. Tako se one države koje žele da stimulišu razvoj privrede privlačenjem stranih investitora odlučuju za prihvatanje teorije osnivanja, dok sa druge strane teoriju stvarnog sedišta prihvataju one države koje žele da ostvare što je moguće veću kontrolu privrednih aktivnosti koje se vrše na njenoj teritoriji.<br />Iako su i Sud EU i pravna teorija pokušavali da reše pitanje sukoba između dve preovlađujuće teorije o pripadnosti privrednih društava &ndash; teorije osnivanja i teorije stvarnog sedišta &ndash; to se do današnjeg dana nije dogodilo, prevashodno jer su navedene teorije zasnovane na dvema suprotstavljenim filozofijama. Filozofija kojom se vodi teorija osnivanja potiče iz država koje imaju tradicionalno jaku međunarodnu trgovinu i koje, stoga, problemu prilaze na jedan otvoreniji i fleksibilniji način, stavljajući u prvi plan pre svega slobodu trgovine i princip sigurnosti u privrednim odnosima. Teorija stvarnog sedišta problemu prilazi sagledavajući stvarnu vezu između određenog privrednog društva i određene države.&nbsp;<br />Iz skorijih presuda Suda EU može se zaključiti da pravo EU sve više ide ka prihvatanju teorije osnivanja kao preovlađujuće teorije o pripadnosti privrednih društava, koja, međutim, ne može biti primenjivana bez korektivnih mera kojima bi se štitila prava trećih lica. Ono što bi trebalo da bude povezujući činilac i za teoriju osnivanja i za teoriju stvarnog sedišta jeste upravo to što je njihov konačan cilj isti, a to je što manje ograničenje slobode nastanjivanja privrednih društava.</p> / <p>The current EU legislation does not provide a sufficient legal basis for the free movement of companies within the member states of the EU, due to insufficient legislative activities of the EU institutions. The provisions on the freedom of establishment contained in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union do not show a clear picture on which of the theories on the nationality of companies ought to be applied in order for companies to enjoy the freedom of establishment without a hindrance &ndash; the incorporation theory, the real seat theory or some other theory. Perennial failures of the EU authorities to put in order the legislation pertaining to the question of the nationality of companies have resulted in wide discretion of the Court of Justice of the European Union to actively create the case-law in regards to the nationality of companies, by means of interpretation of the freedom of establishment. The difference between the liberal approach adopted by the Court, on one side, and the protectionism that some member states are so prone to in their national laws and which they eagerly advocate via the institutions of the EU, on the other side, is blatant.&nbsp;<br />The case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU has shown that the differences between theories for establishing the nationality of companies could be overcome, without abandoning one or the other. This could be done by accepting the principle of autonomy of will, characteristic for the incorporation theory, whereas the stance that member states are entitled to intervene in certain matters of company law, if necessitated by the protection of certain public interests, could be harvested from the real seat theory. The distinction between these two theories basically stems from divergent conceptions of the scope of state sovereignty advanced by different member states of the EU. This means that states keen to stimulate industry growth opt for the incorporation theory, while on the other hand, the real seat theory is adopted by those states avid to control, to the fullest possible extent, the economic activities performed on their territory.<br />Although both the Court of Justice of the EU and the doctrine have attempted to resolve the contention between the two dominant theories on the nationality of companies&nbsp; &ndash; the incorporation theory and the real seat theory &ndash; no solution has hitherto been found, mainly because the two theories are strongly based on two opposing philosophical viewpoints. The mindset that navigates the incorporation theory is derived from states with traditionally substantial international trade and which states, accordingly, approach the pertinent problem in a more open and flexible manner, putting first and foremost the freedom of trade and the principle of certainty in economic relations. The real seat theory, however, approaches the issue by contemplating the actual connection between a company and a certain state.<br />&nbsp; It can be deduced from recent judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union that the law of the European Union is more and more inclined to adopt the incorporation theory as the dominant theory on the nationality of companies; this theory, however, cannot be implemented without applying corrective measures to safeguard the rights and freedoms of third persons. What ought to be the connecting factor for both the incorporation theory and the real seat theory is precisely the fact that their final goal is identical &ndash; that is to reduce, to the fullest possible extent, the limitations on the freedom of establishment of companies.</p>

This investigation into local government and politics surrounding the liquor question significantly unveils the turmoil within a community over an issue of intense interest, It illustrates how a gap in legislation enabled subversion of incorporation laws and violation of the majority will by a small but determined group. The pressures and tactics used by both opposing interests in this crisis reveal misuse of the law, possible pay-offs, secret meetings of public bodies, and other illicit occurrences. More importantly, it demonstrates the respect well-meaning citizens have for established law and order. Both sides fought hard for their interests and beliefs, but when appeals had been made to the highest authority, and the ultimate decision had been rendered, then all adherents accepted the reality of the situation, and co-exist on increasingly friendly terms.

La diversification des résultats de recherche (DRR) vise à sélectionner divers documents à partir des résultats de recherche afin de couvrir autant d’intentions que possible. Dans les approches existantes, on suppose que les résultats initiaux sont suffisamment diversifiés et couvrent bien les aspects de la requête. Or, on observe souvent que les résultats initiaux n’arrivent pas à couvrir certains aspects. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une nouvelle approche de DRR qui consiste à diversifier l’expansion de requête (DER) afin d’avoir une meilleure couverture des aspects. Les termes d’expansion sont sélectionnés à partir d’une ou de plusieurs ressource(s) suivant le principe de pertinence marginale maximale. Dans notre première contribution, nous proposons une méthode pour DER au niveau des termes où la similarité entre les termes est mesurée superficiellement à l’aide des ressources. Quand plusieurs ressources sont utilisées pour DER, elles ont été uniformément combinées dans la littérature, ce qui permet d’ignorer la contribution individuelle de chaque ressource par rapport à la requête. Dans la seconde contribution de cette thèse, nous proposons une nouvelle méthode de pondération de ressources selon la requête. Notre méthode utilise un ensemble de caractéristiques qui sont intégrées à un modèle de régression linéaire, et génère à partir de chaque ressource un nombre de termes d’expansion proportionnellement au poids de cette ressource. Les méthodes proposées pour DER se concentrent sur l’élimination de la redondance entre les termes d’expansion sans se soucier si les termes sélectionnés couvrent effectivement les différents aspects de la requête. Pour pallier à cet inconvénient, nous introduisons dans la troisième contribution de cette thèse une nouvelle méthode pour DER au niveau des aspects. Notre méthode est entraînée de façon supervisée selon le principe que les termes reliés doivent correspondre au même aspect. Cette méthode permet de sélectionner des termes d’expansion à un niveau sémantique latent afin de couvrir autant que possible différents aspects de la requête. De plus, cette méthode autorise l’intégration de plusieurs ressources afin de suggérer des termes d’expansion, et supporte l’intégration de plusieurs contraintes telles que la contrainte de dispersion. Nous évaluons nos méthodes à l’aide des données de ClueWeb09B et de trois collections de requêtes de TRECWeb track et montrons l’utilité de nos approches par rapport aux méthodes existantes. / Search Result Diversification (SRD) aims to select diverse documents from the search results in order to cover as many search intents as possible. For the existing approaches, a prerequisite is that the initial retrieval results contain diverse documents and ensure a good coverage of the query aspects. In this thesis, we investigate a new approach to SRD by diversifying the query, namely diversified query expansion (DQE). Expansion terms are selected either from a single resource or from multiple resources following the Maximal Marginal Relevance principle. In the first contribution, we propose a new term-level DQE method in which word similarity is determined at the surface (term) level based on the resources. When different resources are used for the purpose of DQE, they are combined in a uniform way, thus totally ignoring the contribution differences among resources. In practice the usefulness of a resource greatly changes depending on the query. In the second contribution, we propose a new method of query level resource weighting for DQE. Our method is based on a set of features which are integrated into a linear regression model and generates for a resource a number of expansion candidates that is proportional to the weight of that resource. Existing DQE methods focus on removing the redundancy among selected expansion terms and no attention has been paid on how well the selected expansion terms can indeed cover the query aspects. Consequently, it is not clear how we can cope with the semantic relations between terms. To overcome this drawback, our third contribution in this thesis aims to introduce a novel method for aspect-level DQE which relies on an explicit modeling of query aspects based on embedding. Our method (called latent semantic aspect embedding) is trained in a supervised manner according to the principle that related terms should correspond to the same aspects. This method allows us to select expansion terms at a latent semantic level in order to cover as much as possible the aspects of a given query. In addition, this method also incorporates several different external resources to suggest potential expansion terms, and supports several constraints, such as the sparsity constraint. We evaluate our methods using ClueWeb09B dataset and three query sets from TRECWeb tracks, and show the usefulness of our proposed approaches compared to the state-of-the-art approaches.

- Companies in Private International Law The purpose of this diploma thesis is to examine regulation of companies in private international law in the Czech Republic and also from the European Union law perspective. The thesis is divided into four main chapters. First chapter provides a brief definition of the basic legal concepts that are central to this thesis - definition of a company and definition of a private international law. Second chapter explains the concept of lex personalis and two opposing conflict of law theories, which link companies to a certain system of law; the incorporation theory and the real seat theory. Third chapter focuses on the relevant Czech legislation, especially on the Czech Commercial Code, which contains provisions on determining lex personalis of a company as well as rules on cross-border transfer of seat of a company. Forthcoming re-codification of private law in Czech Republic is also discussed with regard to the regulation of companies in private international law. Fourth, the most extensive chapter of this thesis describes and analyzes the European Union law relating to the freedom of establishment of companies. First, the very concept of freedom of establishment is explained with references to primary EU law. Subsequently, six landmark decisions of the Court...

The object of this diploma thesis is the incorporation of Luxembourg among the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. This theme was chosen primarily for the reason that it have not been compiled and analyzed by historiography so far. Available literature usually takes the incorporation of Luxembourg in the Bohemian Crown automatically as a fact without further reasoning. As a result of this approach there is considerable amount of inaccuracies and mistakes in literature. Primary inaccuracy is in a date or in a time period determining the incorporation of Luxembourg in the Bohemian Crown, when literature often indicate the reign of King Charles IV or even the reign of King John of Luxembourg. The purpose of this diploma thesis is not only analyzing the process of incorporation, but also disproves continuing inaccuracies. For this reason the diploma thesis draws and analyzes essential facts primarily from original sources and confront them with available literature. First chapter briefly introduces the institution of the Bohemian Crown for her distinguish from the Kingdom of Bohemia. Further it analyzes the terms "crown" and "incorporation". At last it describes a beginning of the Bohemian Crown and analyzes fundamental documents of this institution. Following second chapter describes the personal union...

A convenção de arbitragem pode possuir uma abrangência subjetiva maior do que aquela que aparentemente lhe é conferida pelo contrato no qual está inserida. Podem ser partes sujeitos que a ela não aderiram expressamente, o que não contraria a autonomia da vontade, pois o fato de não terem consentido por escrito não impede que o tenham feito de maneira tácita. Dessa forma, é possível que não signatários sejam partes da convenção de arbitragem. A prática arbitral identificou algumas situações que frequentemente colocam os julgadores diante da missão de determinar se há consentimento por parte de não signatários: a existência de um grupo de sociedades ou de um grupo de contratos; a incorporação por referência; a estipulação em favor de terceiro; a existência de representação; a transferência de um contrato por meio de cessão ou sucessão e a subrogação; e o desvio da personalidade jurídica, que pode levar à sua desconsideração. Além disso, os tribunais norte-americanos se utilizam da teoria chamada estoppel, de acordo com a qual um sujeito, sob determinadas circunstâncias, fica impedido de negar a aplicabilidade da cláusula compromissória. Os limites subjetivos da convenção de arbitragem são objeto de estudo no meio arbitral há bastante tempo, mas não faz muitos anos que a questão começou a ser debatida no Brasil. A análise da Lei de Arbitragem brasileira demonstra que muitas das lições aprendidas no cenário internacional podem ser aproveitadas no país. / The arbitration agreement may have a larger subjective scope than the one that is actually conferred to it by the agreement in which it operates. Individuals who have not adhered expressly to the arbitration agreement may be subject to it, and such situation does not imply that referred arbitration agreement is against their free will, since the fact that they have not consented in writing does not mean that they have not done so tacitly. Thus, it is possible that non-signatories are parties to the arbitration agreement. The arbitral practice identified several situations in which judges and arbitrators often have to determine whether there is a consent by non-signatories: the existence of a group of companies or a group of contracts; incorporation by reference; the stipulation in favor of third party; the existence of representation; the transfer of an agreement by assignment or succession and subrogation; and the abuse of legal personality, which can lead to the piercing of the corporate veil. Moreover, U.S. courts make use of a theory called estoppel, according to which an individual, under certain circumstances, is estopped from denying the enforceability of the arbitration clause. The limits of the arbitration agreement have been object of study in the arbitration scene for a long period of time, but only recently the question began to be discussed in Brazil. Analysis of the Brazilian Arbitration Law demonstrates that many of the lessons learned in the international arena may be applicable in Brazil.

With regard to the gradual economic globalisation markets of States become more and more interconnected, especially so in the European Union which aims to create a single internal market without internal borders and barriers to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Naturally, it influences behaviour of economic participants on the market. With increase of competition it is necessary to be more innovative, active and to search for new opportunities for expansion not only in one's own State but also abroad which entails entering into relations with foreign entities. In the course of time it might be useful or even necessary to relocate the place of business. Such need might not and, indeed, does not concern only natural person but also legal entities such as companies. However, the status of companies in cross-border relations has some specific features in comparison to the status of natural persons. A company is only an artificial product of law, a mere legal fiction, and therefore, its existence is much more closely linked with a specific legal order. A company has legal personality only insofar as some legal order acknowledges it. Different approaches how to link a company to a certain State have been evolved in different States - either the connecting factor is the statutory...