The independence number of a graph is the maximum number of vertices from the vertex set of the graph such that no two vertices are adjacent. We systematically examine a collection of upper bounds for the independence number to determine graphs for which each upper bound is better than any other upper bound considered. A similar investigation follows for lower bounds. In several instances a graph cannot be found. We also include graphs for which no bound equals $\alpha$ and bounds which do not apply to general graphs.

Pendant la dernière décennie, le format de données XML est devenu l'un des principaux moyens de représentation et d'échange de données sur le Web. La détection de l'indépendance entre une requête et une mise à jour, qui a lieu en absence d'impact d'une mise à jour sur une requête, est un problème crucial pour la gestion efficace de tâches comme la maintenance des vues, le contrôle de concurrence et de sécurité. Cette thèse présente une nouvelle technique d'analyse statique pour détecter l'indépendance entre requête et mise à jour XML, dans le cas où les données sont typées par un schéma. La contribution de la thèse repose sur une notion de type plus riche que celle employée jusqu'ici dans la littérature. Au lieu de caractériser les éléments d'un document XML utiles ou touchés par une requête ou mise à jour en utilisant un ensemble d’étiquettes, ceux-ci sont caractérisés par un ensemble de chaînes d'étiquettes, correspondants aux chemins parcourus pendant l'évaluation de l’expression dans un document valide pour le schéma. L'analyse d'indépendance résulte du développement d'un système d'inférence de type pour les chaînes. Cette analyse précise soulève une question importante et difficile liés aux schémas récursifs: un ensemble infini de chaînes pouvant être inférées dans ce cas, est-il possible et comment se ramener à une analyse effective donc finie. Cette thèse présente donc une technique d'approximation correcte et complète assurant une analyse finie. L'analyse de cette technique a conduit à développer des algorithmes pour une implantation efficace de l'analyse, et de mener une large série de tests validant à la fois la qualité de l'approche et son efficacité. / In the last decade XML became one of the main standards for data storage and exchange on the Web. Detecting XML query-update independence is crucial to efficiently perform data management tasks, like those concerning view-maintenance, concurrency control, and security. This thesis presents a novel static analysis technique to detect XML query-update independence, in the presence of a schema. Rather than types, the presented system infers chains of types. Each chain represents a path that can be traversed on a valid document during query/update evaluation. The resulting independence analysis is precise, although it raises a challenging issue: recursive schemas may lead to infer infinitely many chains. This thesis presents a sound and complete approximation technique ensuring a finite analysis in any case, together with an efficient implementation performing the chain-based analysis in polynomial space and time.

This diploma thesis deals with various aspects of the status of a judge as it is stated in the Czech legal order. Firstly, author focuses on the formation of the office of a judge. There is also described controversial approach of the former president of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus on the appointment of new young judges. Final part of the chapter deals with comparison with the United Kingdom in the way of becoming the judge. In the next chapter, there are described particular duties arising from the Czech legislation. Attention is focused on preserving the dignity of the judicial function, confidentiality and maintaining a certain standard of professionalism The section dealing with duration of the status ends with third chapter relating to a termination of the office of a judge. There are mainly described legal terms that could be confusing, because they sound similar, but have different meaning. At the end of this part, author discusses the age limits for termination of the office of the judge. Next chapter analyze guarantees of independence and impartiality of the judge. Those are an essential part of just decisions of the courts. Major part deals with disciplinary proceedings and its procedure. The fifth chapter deals with specific issues of the office the judge. There are discussed...

DIPLOMA THESIS A comparison of the legal regulation of the Central Bank in the CR and selected countries of the European Union Abstract The aim of this thesis is to analyze and evaluate the central bank legislation in the Czech Republic and in selected countries of the European Union. Major focus is on banks' degree of legal independence from the executive power and from potential negative impact of executive power representatives on governance of the institution as well as on monetary policy decision making. The issue of independence is closely linked to monetary stability, especially to level of inflation, where the politicians' excessive influence may result in undesirable fluctuations in the state's economy. The thesis results in a comparison of the banks' legislation and in a positive assessment on the question of selected banks' affiliation within the category of most appropriately regulated institutions. Initial hypotheses about the privileged status of the central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany and its suitability as a template for banks of central Europe's transition economies in the Nineties of 20th century are also positively evaluated. Apart from the key parts of the thesis, i.e. the introduction of theoretical models and works dealing with measurement of central banks' independence in...

The aim of the master thesis "Freedom and independence in business" is to find out the Czech entrepreneurs' (restaurant owners in Prague) attitude towards independence; how free and independent they do feel in business. In theoretical part there is defined the notion "business", there are also presented the characteristic features, dominated in the personalities of entrepreneurs. There are mentioned the factors and the motives those lead a person to starts his/her one business. In the following methodical part there is defined the aim of the thesis with the research question. Further there are formalized several hypothesis. The last, empirical part contains the description of the results its discussion. The work traditionally ends with conclusion.

Thesis advisor: Sylvia Sellers-García / Between 1812-1829, the Spanish American colonies waged a war of independence against the Spanish crown. In Northern South America, this movement was spearheaded by the Enlightenment-educated Simón Bolívar, who understood that expelling the Spaniards necessitated winning widespread support from Spanish America's many distinct interest groups. Bolívar capitalized on his leadership and love for public speaking to wage a war of words against the Spanish that framed the actual revolution in such a way as to give it meaning. This campaign featured a number of varied rhetorical devices; each device intended in a unique way to appeal to its unique audience. By appealing to South America's many interest groups, Bolívar united South Americans under the common banner of independence and provided justification for the acts of violence that revolution necessitated. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: History.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Field dependent and field independent cognitive styles are contrasting ways of perceiving and processing information. This study investigated how the cognitive styles of field dependence (FD) and field independence (FI) affect the achievement levels of distance learners. Cognitive style refers to the manner in which an individual perceives and processes information. As described by Allport style is the "particular manner of execution which permeates any highly integrated volitional activity" (Allport, 1937, p. 494). In distance education, spontaneous learner-instructor interaction is frequently neither as flexible nor as timely as it would be in conventional instruction. This research examined the effects of matching or mismatching the design of asynchronous distance education to the field dependent and the field independent learner. Horn's construction of Information Mapping© (Horn, R.E., 1989) was employed to add structure compatible with the Field Dependent learner. Subjects were administered the GEFT, a measure of field dependence-independence. Only those in the first and fourth quartiles of the resulting distribution participated the study. The first quartile was comprised of Field Dependent (FD) subjects and the fourth quartile was comprised of Field Independent (FI) subjects. Half of each group was randomly selected to receive asynchronous online instruction designed to match their cognitive style, and half received asynchronous online instruction designed to mismatch their cognitive style. Analysis of the results showed that matching the cognitive style of the FD asynchronous distance learner resulted in significant differences between the pre and post test scores. However, an analysis of the test results for the FI learners whose instruction was designed to match their cognitive style showed no significant differences from pre to post test. The FI learners whose instruction was designed to mismatch their cognitive style did show a significant difference from pre to post test. A two-by-two factor analysis showed a significant effect for the design of the modules, but no effect for cognitive style or the interaction of cognitive style and module design. Matching the FD cognitive style, in asynchronous distance education had a positive impact on achievement for both Field Dependent and Field Independent learners as measured from pre to post test. / 2031-01-02

Query answering over big data is cost-prohibitive. A linear scan of a dataset D may take days with a solid state device if D is of PB size and years if D is of EB size. In other words, polynomial-time (PTIME) algorithms for query evaluation are already not feasible on big data. To tackle this, we propose querying big data with bounded data access, such that the cost of query evaluation is independent of the scale of D. First of all, we propose a class of boundedly evaluable queries. A query Q is boundedly evaluable under a set A of access constraints if for any dataset D that satisfies constraints in A, there exists a subset DQ ⊆ D such that (a) Q(DQ) = Q(D), and (b) the time for identifying DQ from D, and hence the size |DQ| of DQ, are independent of |D|. That is, we can compute Q(D) by accessing a bounded amount of data no matter how big D grows.We study the problem of deciding whether a query is boundedly evaluable under A. It is known that the problem is undecidable for FO without access constraints. We show that, in the presence of access constraints, it is decidable in 2EXPSPACE for positive fragments of FO queries, but is already EXPSPACE-hard even for CQ. To handle the undecidability and high complexity of the analysis, we develop effective syntax for boundedly evaluable queries under A, referred to as queries covered by A, such that, (a) any boundedly evaluable query under A is equivalent to a query covered by A, (b) each covered query is boundedly evaluable, and (c) it is efficient to decide whether Q is covered by A. On top of DBMS, we develop practical algorithms for checking whether queries are covered by A, and generating bounded plans if so. For queries that are not boundedly evaluable, we extend bounded evaluability to resource-bounded approximation and bounded query rewriting using views. (1) Resource-bounded approximation is parameterized with a resource ratio a ∈ (0,1], such that for any query Q and dataset D, it computes approximate answers with an accuracy bound h by accessing at most a|D| tuples. It is based on extended access constraints and a new accuracy measure. (2) Bounded query rewriting tackles the problem by incorporating bounded evaluability with views, such that the queries can be exactly answered by accessing cached views and a bounded amount of data in D. We study the problem of deciding whether a query has a bounded rewriting, establish its complexity bounds, and develop effective syntax for FO queries with a bounded rewriting. Finally, we extend bounded evaluability to graph pattern queries, by extending access constraints to graph data. We characterize bounded evaluability for subgraph and simulation patterns and develop practical algorithms for associated problems.

Abstract There are approximately 5.5 Million individuals in South Africa infected with HIV-1, predominantly subtype C (HIV-1C). The emergence of drug resistance to the current Antiretroviral (ARV) regimes is of great concern, thus development of novel, effective drugs/vaccines is vital. Certain conserved and thus vulnerable epitopes within the viral envelope (Env) involved in coreceptor binding are usually protected from the immune system in peripheral blood by the variable loops. However, in immune-privileged sites the Env of CD4-independent viruses may exist in a pre-triggered state where these coreceptor binding epitopes are exposed. Targeting the conserved sites could effectively neutralize HIV-1. This study aimed to adapt an HIV-1C primary isolate towards CD4- independence in the Cf2Th cell line through serial in vitro passage. Primary viruses from 20 drug-naïve HIV-1 AIDS patients were isolated and genotypically and phenotypically characterized. The highest percentage (30%) of CXCR4-usage amongst primary isolates from HIV-1C (and CD recombinant) infected AIDS patients worldwide was detected. These data may illustrate the increasing frequency of HIV-1C CXCR4- utilizing (X4) viruses with time and may support the theory that env is capable of evolving. The emergence/evolution of HIV-1C X4 viruses may have profound implications for viral pathogenesis, disease progression and future use of CCR5 antagonists as ARVs. Longitudinal follow-up studies on larger cohorts may confirm this finding. The CXCR4-utilizing isolate 05ZAFV03 was successfully adapted and serially passaged 12 times through Cf2Th cells, whilst gradually decreasing amounts of CD4 expressing cells numbers over time. Viral growth was detected with 10% CD4 expressing cells however, 100% CD4-independence was not reached. Proviral DNA from each stage of the adaptation process was sequenced and analyzed for mutations acquired within env. The only amino acid change noted was an E152K mutation within the V1 region at passage 4. Overall, the extent of env diversity appears to be a complex relationship between isolate-specific and cell-type specific factors. Future attempts to obtain and characterize an HIV-1C CD4-independent isolate will provide potential sites for therapeutic intervention by compounds such as small molecule inhibitors and/or neutralizing antibodies against the most globally prevalent HIV-1 subtype.

Programs that address the needs of the elderly are especially important in Canada today as it experiences population aging. There are currently no pretest-posttest studies evaluating functional independence of patients attending the Geriatric Day Hospital at Bruyère Continuing Care in Ottawa, Ontario using the set of indicators and outcome measurement instruments in this study. Evaluation of older patients (age over 65) in this program using various outcome measures was carried out using a single group pretest-post test design. Results showed that there was statistically significant improvement between pretest and post-test scores measuring fear of falling, balance, and functional exercise capacity. However, no significant difference was found between pre- and post-scores for caregiver stress, for which various hypothesized reasons are proposed. There were similar findings for the subgroups analyzed (patients with a history of: stroke or TIA; previous falls; or osteoarthritis) with the exception of fear of falling, which did not show a significant decrease in the stroke subgroup. Some caregivers suggested that “burden” was not an appropriate word for describing their experience, as care-giving was often seen as a moral obligation or an act of love. Future evaluation research using a mixed methods approach and repeated measures design is recommended for a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of this Day Hospital. It may also be of value to compare the different geriatric day hospital programs at the local and regional levels.