The core of diploma thesis lies in analysis of public procurement procedure of which defining features in all the world public procurement systems are elimination of competition and constraints to the transparency, which opens up the scope especially for disguised breaches of law, discrimination of suppliers and corruption - negotiated procedure without notice. Existence of negotiated procedure without notice is not overseen in the Czech legal environment. Frequency of its use currently amounts to significant 20 per cent of all awarded contracts. This procurement procedure has been traditionally justified in all procurement systems by specific circumstances, which from its nature either eliminate competition, or there is another public interest, which outweigh free competition. Thus balancing of such interests tends to be the major problem when assessing permission to use this non-transparent procedure. Negotiated procedure without notice has already occurred in the Czech law in the first legal act, which governed public procurement. The respective groundbreaker was the Act No. 199/1994 Coll., which was inspired by the UNCITRAL Model law on public procurement. After the accession to the European Union, the Czech Republic was forced to reflect common procurement framework and to implement provisions...

The master's thesis focuses on one aspect of public procurement law in the Czech Republic. Specifically, it provides with thorough interpretation of the Czech legal regulation of conditions allowing for using negotiated procedure with prior notice or negotiated procedure without prior notice to award a public tender. In order to achieve such purpose, the thesis uses information from the 137/2006 Coll., Public Procurement Act, as amended, available doctrinal literature and case law of the Office for the Protection of Competition, Czech courts and the European Court of Justice. The interpretation is performed to compare the Czech regulation with the one contained in relevant European directives (2004/17/EC, 2004/18/EC and 2009/81/EC). After interpretation of these directives focused majorly on differences from the Czech law, the thesis provides conclusions about correctness of transposition of the directives into Czech legal system, which is the core of its focus.

La définition et la mesure de la confiance restent toujours une ambiguïté en économie, sociologie et philosophie. Les "trois papiers" de cette thèse comparent, tout en considérant le niveau de confiance deux mécanismes de vente: la vente de gré à gré et la vente aux enchères. Le marché de Boulogne-sur-Mer, caractérisé par la coexistence stable de deux systèmes de vente constitue le centre de notre analyse empirique. Ces trois papiers sont précédés par une introduction générale et une revue de la littérature. Le premier papier est dédié à la comparaison des deux structures en termes de robustesse et de "nestedness", en s’appuyant sur de outils de réseaux employés par les écologistes. Le deuxième papier analyse la création des liens de confiance du côté de l’acheteur à l’aide d’un modèle de durée. La taille des acheteurs a son rôle sur la confiance. Le troisième papier s’intéresse à l’effet de l’indice de confiance sur les "outcomes" des transactions. Des graphes bipartis et homogènes montrent une différence de structure. Nos résultats affirment que le marché de gré à gré est plus atteint par la confiance comme l’information est centralisée. Les agents se basent sur cette confiance comme alternative au risque. Cela n’est pas le cas des enchères où l’information est connue. / How to define and measure trust is still an enigma in economics, philosophy and sociology. This "three papers" thesis compares two different mechanisms - egotiated(decentralised submarket) and auction (centralised submarket) - on the basis of trust. Through an empirical study, the level of trust is evaluated and its impact is analysed on the "Boulogne-sur-Mer" fish market characterised by a stable coexistence of these two mechanisms. The three papers are preceded by a general introduction and a literature review. Paper one aims at comparing the nestedness and the robustness of both submarkets. Social network tools of ecologists are applied in order to provide an answer. Paper two models trust creation on both structures from the buyer side using the survival analysis and considering the buyer size. Paper three studies the effect of a trust index on the outcomes of transactions. Bipartite and projected graphs reveal the difference between submarkets. This thesis shows that the negotiated market is marked by a higher level of trust as agents interact and are not fully informed about the market situation unlike the auction one where information is centralised. We believe that trust is a way out of risk when there is lack of information.

Existing research has shown that negotiated peace agreements are less likely to sustain an enduring peace in the aftermath of civil wars. A large proportion of research concentrates on the effects of either agreement design or agreement implementation on the likelihood of civil war resumption. Generally, existing studies fail to integrate design and implementation as separate parts of an interdependent process. Studies also tend to ignore the implication of preceding agreement design on subsequent implementation. This research develops an integrative framework that engages both the agreement design and implementation stages in the civil war peace process. It also examines the effects of third-party mediation on the durability of peace agreement in the aftermath of civil wars through its in uence on the quality of agreement design and implementation. The presence of third-party mediation helps to resolve future uncertainty and fear resulting from the \commitment problem" between war combatants, and thus makes peace agreements more durable. By using compiled data from the UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset, the Civil War Mediation (CWM) dataset, and the Power-Sharing Event Dataset (PSED), this research employs a Cox Proportional Hazards model to test the implication of design and implementation on the durability of postwar peace. The results suggest that the effect of mediation on peace durability is conditional upon the stages of the peace process. Peace agreements designed and implemented by mediators are more likely to sustain lasting peace. The results also indicate that not all implementation of power-sharing pacts, as promised in the design stage, can produce pacifying effects given the fact that implementing certain types of power-sharing pacts disrupts peace processes.

This dissertation reports on studies of the application of lexicographic graph searches to solve problems in FPGA detailed routing. Our contributions include the derivation of iteration limits for scalar implementations of negotiation congestion for standard floating point types and the identification of pathological cases for path choice. In the study of the routability-driven detailed FPGA routing problem, we show universal detailed routability is NP-complete based on a related proof by Lee and Wong. We describe the design of a lexicographic composition operator of totally-ordered monoids as path cost metrics and show its optimality under an adapted A* search. Our new router, CornNC, based on lexicographic composition of congestion and wirelength, established a new minimum track count for the FPGA Place and Route Challenge. For the problem of long-path timing-driven FPGA detailed routing, we show that long-path budgeted detailed routability is NP-complete by reduction to universal detailed routability. We generalise the lexicographic composition to any finite length and verify its optimality under A* search. The application of the timing budget solution of Ghiasi et al. is used to solve the long-path timing budget problem for FPGA connections. Our delay-clamped spiral lexicographic composition design, SpiralRoute, ensures connection based budgets are always met, thus achieves timing closure when it successfully routes. For 113 test routing instances derived from standard benchmarks, SpiralRoute found 13 routable instances with timing closure that were unroutable by a scalar negotiated congestion router and achieved timing closure in another 27 cases when the scalar router did not, at the expense of increased runtime. We also study techniques to improve SpiralRoute runtimes, including a data structure of a trie augmented by data stacks for minimum element retrieval, and the technique of step tomonoid elimination in reducing the retrieval depth in a trie of stacks structure.

Local communities, individuals, visitors, and special interest groups are often called upon to participate in the decision making processes of the National Park Service (NPS). Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CAHA) engaged in a Negotiated Rulemaking process to create an Off Road Vehicle Management Rule. The rulemaking process involved park stakeholders working with the NPS as a Negotiated Rulemaking Advisory Committee with the goal of creating an Off Road Vehicle Management Rule for CAHA. This dissertation used Senecah's practical theory Trinity of Voice to evaluate CAHA's negotiated rulemaking process. Interviews with park staff and negotiated rulemaking participants provided information about the presence of the grammars of TOV in this decision making process. This dissertation described the affects of negotiated rulemaking on the perceptions of participants towards the park resources and management of the national seashore. The effect of the negotiated rulemaking process was an increase in the knowledge of participants about the decision making process employed by the NPS. In general, participants also developed a stronger relationship with park management. This research suggests critical dimensions for achieving widespread social legitimacy through meaningful public involvement in decision making.

<p>There have been few efforts to evaluate the actual and perceived effectiveness of environmental management programs created by consensus-based, multi-stakeholder negotiation or negotiated rulemaking. Previous evaluations have used perceived success among participants as a proxy for actual effectiveness, but seldom have investigated the ecological outcomes of these negotiations. Fewer still, if any, have compared the actual and perceived outcomes. Here I evaluate and compare the social and ecological outcomes of the negotiated rulemaking process of marine mammal take reduction planning. Take reduction planning is mandated by the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) to reduce the fisheries-related serious injuries and mortalities of marine mammals (bycatch) in U.S. waters to below statutory thresholds. Teams of fishermen, environmentalists, researchers, state and federal managers, and members of Regional Fisheries Management Councils and Commissions create consensus-based rules to mitigate bycatch, called Take Reduction Plans. There are six active Take Reduction Plans, one Take Reduction Strategy consisting of voluntary measures, and one plan that was never implemented. It has been 20 years since marine mammal take reduction planning was incorporated into the MMPA. Early evaluations were promising, but identified several challenges. In the past decade or more, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has implemented measures to set up the teams for success.</p><p>I used data from formal Stock Assessment Reports to assess and rank the actual ecological success of five Take Reduction Plans (Harbor Porpoise, Bottlenose Dolphin, Atlantic Large Whale, Pelagic Longline, and Pacific Offshore Cetacean) in mitigating the bycatch of 17 marine mammal stocks. In addition, I employed social science data collection and analytical methods to evaluate Take Reduction Team participants' opinions of the take reduction negotiation process, outputs, and outcomes with respect to the ingredients required for successful multi-stakeholder, consensus-based negotiation (team membership, shared learning, repeated interactions, facilitated meetings, and consensus-based outputs). These methods included surveying and interviewing current and former Take Reduction Team participants; using Structural Equation Models (SEMs) and qualitative methods to characterize participant perceptions across teams and stakeholder groups; and identifying and exploring the reasons for similarities and differences among respondents, teams, and stakeholder groups. I also employed SEMs to quantitatively examine the relationship between actual and perceived ecological success, and contrasted actual and perceived outcomes by comparing their qualitative rankings.</p><p>Structural Equation Models provided a valid framework in which to quantitatively examine social and ecological data, in which the actual ecological outcomes were used as independent predictors of the perceived outcomes. Actual improvements in marine mammal bycatch enhanced stakeholder opinions about the effectiveness of marine mammal Take Reduction Plans. The marine mammal take reduction planning process has all of the ingredients necessary for effective consensus-based, multi-stakeholder negotiations (Chapter 2). It is likely that the emphasis that the National Marine Fisheries Service places on empirical information and keeping stakeholders informed about bycatch, marine mammal stocks, and fisheries facilitated this relationship. Informed stakeholders also had relatively accurate perceptions of the actual ecological effectiveness of the Take Reduction Plans (Chapter 3). The long timeframes over which the teams have been meeting generally have increased cooperation. The professionally trained, neutral facilitators have produced fair negotiations, in which most individuals felt they had an opportunity to contribute. Participant views of fairness significantly influenced their satisfaction with Take Reduction Plans, which significantly affected their perceptions about the effectiveness of those plans (Chapter 2). The mandate to create a consensus-based output has, for the most part, minimized defections from the negotiations and facilitated stakeholder buy-in. </p><p>In general, marine mammal take reduction planning is a good negotiated rulemaking process, but has produced mixed results (Chapters 1 and 2). Successful plans were characterized by straightforward regulations and high rates of compliance. Unsuccessful plans had low compliance with complex regulations and sometimes focused on very small stocks. Large teams and those in the northeastern U.S. (Maine to North Carolina) were least successful at reducing bycatch, which was reflected in stakeholder views of the effectiveness of these teams. Take Reduction Team negotiations have not always produced practical or enforceable regulations. Implementation of take reduction regulations is critical in determining plan success and identifying effective mitigation measures, but because of a lack of monitoring, has not been characterized consistently across most teams. Additionally, elements like the "Other Special Measures Provision" in the Harbor Porpoise Take Reduction Plan have undermined the negotiation process by allowing the National Marine Fisheries Service to alter consensus-based elements without consensus from the team, which has led to hostility, mistrust, and frustration among stakeholders. </p><p>The final chapter of this dissertation provides recommendations to improve the outcomes and make them more consistent across teams. I based these recommendations on the information gathered and analyzed in the first three chapters. They are grouped into four broad categories - team membership, social capital, fairness, and plan implementation. If the National Marine Fisheries Service implements these suggestions, both perceived and actual ecological effectiveness of marine mammal Take Reduction Teams should improve, allowing these teams to fulfill their maximum potential.</p> / Dissertation

Striving to reduce the environmental impact of our growing energy demand creates tough new challenges in how we generate and use electricity. We need to develop Smart Grid systems in which distributed sustainable energy resources are fully integrated and energy consumption is efficient. Customers, i.e., consumers and distributed producers, require agent technology that automates much of their decision-making to become active participants in the Smart Grid. This thesis develops models and learning algorithms for such autonomous agents in an environment where customers operate in modern retail power markets and thus have a choice of intermediary brokers with whom they can contract to buy or sell power. In this setting, customers face a learning and multiscale decision-making problem – they must manage contracts with one or more brokers and simultaneously, on a finer timescale, manage their consumption or production levels under existing contracts. On a contextual scale, they can optimize their isolated selfinterest or consider their shared goals with other agents. We advance the idea that a Learning Utility Management Agent (LUMA), or a network of such agents, deployed on behalf of a Smart Grid customer can autonomously address that customer’s multiscale decision-making responsibilities. We study several relationships between a given LUMA and other agents in the environment. These relationships are semi-cooperative and the degree of expected cooperation can change dynamically with the evolving state of the world. We exploit the multiagent structure of the problem to control the degree of partial observability. Since a large portion of relevant hidden information is visible to the other agents in the environment, we develop methods for Negotiated Learning, whereby a LUMA can offer incentives to the other agents to obtain information that sufficiently reduces its own uncertainty while trading off the cost of offering those incentives. The thesis first introduces pricing algorithms for autonomous broker agents, time series forecasting models for long range simulation, and capacity optimization algorithms for multi-dwelling customers. We then introduce Negotiable Entity Selection Processes (NESP) as a formal representation where partial observability is negotiable amongst certain classes of agents. We then develop our ATTRACTIONBOUNDED- LEARNING algorithm, which leverages the variability of hidden information for efficient multiagent learning. We apply the algorithm to address the variable-rate tariff selection and capacity aggregate management problems faced by Smart Grid customers. We evaluate the work on real data using Power TAC, an agent-based Smart Grid simulation platform and substantiate the value of autonomous Learning Utility Management Agents in the Smart Grid.

Climatic change has sparked a broad range of responses on all societal levels. New initiatives and negotiations, scientific findings, and technological developments, have established a novel framework for policymaking and industrial abatement investments. Lessons on the evolving framework should be analysed and utilised to handle the dynamic reality of climate policymaking processes. Governments in the majority of economies only have an indirect and long-term influence on reducing industrial emissions, as they do not own the emitting operations. As representing one-third of the global carbon dioxide emissions, industry is therefore a key stakeholder group in whether or not the political agenda will be fulfilled. How industry perceives that obstacles and opportunities affect investment calculi are thus important. Hence, policymakers should facilitate policy learning (PL) to aid the creation of effective and efficient political agendas. This is important to acknowledge the policy and investment experiences of industrial actors and to deal with a number of plausible investment obstacles identified under the novel framework. Taking stock of PL and other policy theories, this thesis is aimed to develop recommendations for facilitating PL and thus contributing to more effective and efficient climate policy frameworks. The results highlight the role of industry in abatement and political strategies where policymakers need to gain knowledge on how industries perceive abatement investment obstacles and how these may be bridged. The intrinsic learning values of government-industry negotiated agreements (NAs) are emphasised and a framework for operationalising PL through NA designs is developed. PL is furthermore identified as important, and NAs are recommended as a policy instrument, to fill knowledge gaps identified in two case-studies of promoting complex and novel industrial operations. This thesis also recommends a participatory policy evaluation tool that is sensitive to industrial competitiveness and establishes a forum for discussions on perceived investment obstacles and opportunities under different conditions. The results are not aimed to provide a blueprint for a comprehensive climate policy framework but as a contribution to literature and the incremental learning that this thesis strongly promotes.

This dissertation reports on studies of the application of lexicographic graph searches to solve problems in FPGA detailed routing. Our contributions include the derivation of iteration limits for scalar implementations of negotiation congestion for standard floating point types and the identification of pathological cases for path choice. In the study of the routability-driven detailed FPGA routing problem, we show universal detailed routability is NP-complete based on a related proof by Lee and Wong. We describe the design of a lexicographic composition operator of totally-ordered monoids as path cost metrics and show its optimality under an adapted A* search. Our new router, CornNC, based on lexicographic composition of congestion and wirelength, established a new minimum track count for the FPGA Place and Route Challenge. For the problem of long-path timing-driven FPGA detailed routing, we show that long-path budgeted detailed routability is NP-complete by reduction to universal detailed routability. We generalise the lexicographic composition to any finite length and verify its optimality under A* search. The application of the timing budget solution of Ghiasi et al. is used to solve the long-path timing budget problem for FPGA connections. Our delay-clamped spiral lexicographic composition design, SpiralRoute, ensures connection based budgets are always met, thus achieves timing closure when it successfully routes. For 113 test routing instances derived from standard benchmarks, SpiralRoute found 13 routable instances with timing closure that were unroutable by a scalar negotiated congestion router and achieved timing closure in another 27 cases when the scalar router did not, at the expense of increased runtime. We also study techniques to improve SpiralRoute runtimes, including a data structure of a trie augmented by data stacks for minimum element retrieval, and the technique of step tomonoid elimination in reducing the retrieval depth in a trie of stacks structure.