This diploma thesis is concerned with a financial tool called factoring. It involves an assignment of account receivables before their maturity date onto the factoring company and thus taking over their administration while providing immediate cash to the original creditor in order to sustain liquidity. Legislation of this method of financing is not yet fully resolved therefore it is crucial to focus primarily on the ecnomic substance of individual contracts. Basically, there are two major types of factoring: recourse and non-recourse depending on the level of assumed risk, together with transfer of ownerwhip of the account receivable. This fundamental distinction is inevitable for correct financial reporting which should reflect not only the accounting principles but also it should respect other implications, such as taxation.

The aim of this thesis is to provide detailed analysis of selected legal aspects with practical importance of the assignment of business receivables. Particular topics are focused on problematic legal features of cession, that have so far not been sufficiently elaborated in expert literature, mainly with regards to the impacts of the recent transformation of the Czech civil law. The issues are approached as comparison between the previous law and the current law, which is in force since 1st January 2014, alongside taking account of solutions for chosen issues under German law.

Transport demand planning in South Africa is a neglected field of study, using obsolete methods to model an extremely complex, dynamic system composed of an eclectic mix of First and Third World transport technologies, infrastructure and economic participants. We identify agent-based simulation as a viable modelling paradigm capable of capturing the effects emerging from the complex interactions within the South African transport system, and proceed to implement the Multi-Agent Transport Simulation Toolkit (MATSim) for South Africa's economically important Gauteng province. This report describes the procedure followed to transform household travel survey, census and Geographic Information System (GIS) data into an activity-based transport demand description, executed on network graphs derived from GIS shape files. We investigate the influence of network resolution on solution quality and simulation time, by preparing a full network representation and a small version, containing no street-level links. Then we compare the accuracy of our data-derived transport demand with a lower bound solution. Finally the simulation is tested for repeatability and convergence. Comparisons of simulated versus actual traffic counts on important road network links during the morning and afternoon rush hour peaks show a minimum mean relative error of less than 40%. Using the same metric, the small network differs from the full representation by a maximum of 2% during the morning peak hour, but the full network requires three times as much memory to execute, and takes 5.2 times longer to perform a single iteration. Our census- and travel survey-derived demand performs significantly better than uniformly distributed random pairings of home- and work locations, which we took to be analogous to a lower bound solution. The smallest difference in corresponding mean relative error between the two cases comes to more than 50%. We introduce a new counts ratio error metric that removes the bias present in traditional counts comparison error metrics. The new metric shows that the spread (standard deviation) of counts comparison values for the random demand is twice to three times as large as that of our reference case. The simulation proves highly repeatable for different seed values of the pseudo-random number generator. An extended simulation run reveals that full systematic relaxation requires 400 iterations. Departure time histograms show how agents 'learn' to gradually load the network while still complying with activity constraints. The initial implementation has already sparked further research. Current priorities are improving activity assignment, incorporating commercial traffic and public transport, and the development and implementation of the minibus taxi para-transit mode. Copyright / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / unrestricted

Orientador: Mauricio Ferreira Magalhães / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T01:20:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Zuliani_LuizGustavo_M.pdf: 512812 bytes, checksum: cab94937633f70467669b12635e8ccb1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Redes totalmente ópticas (fotônicas) controladas por GMPLS (Generalized MultiProtocol Label Switching) são a promessa para lidar com o crescente volume de tráfego IP. Os protocolos de sinalização e roteamento GMPLS, principalmente OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) e RSVP (Resource ReSerVation Protocol), trabalham de tal modo que o cálculo da rota para circuitos ópticos não considera a disponibilidade de comprimentos de onda (labels). Esta solução não é ótima em termos do uso de recursos de rede e da probabilidade de bloqueio de novos circuitos. Para aprimorar este quadro, algoritmos RWA (Routing and Wavelength Assignment) mais eficientes poderiam ser usados para calcular a rota e o comprimento de onda simultaneamente. Estes algoritmos RWA necessitam conhecer a topologia óptica de um modo ainda não descrito pelas atuais especificações do protocolo OSPF. Esta dissertação propõe extensões de Engenharia de Tráfego para o protocolo OSPF para permitir que o plano de controle GMPLS se beneficie do uso de algoritmos RWA mais eficientes. Um protótipo foi desenvolvido e instalado em uma rede óptica emulada para verificar a praticabilidade da solução proposta baseado na sobrecarga de tráfego gerado no plano de controle / Abstract: GMPLS-controlled all-optical networks are the promise to handle the increasing volume of IP traffic. The GMPLS routing and signaling protocols, mainly OSPF and RSVP, work in such a way that the route calculation for optical circuits does not take into account the wavelength (label) availability. This is not optimal in terms of network resources usage and blocking probability of new circuits. To deal with this scenario, more efficient RWA algorithms could be used to calculate the route and the wavelength assignment at one time. These RWA engines need to know the optical topology in a way that is not described by current OSPF standards. This dissertation proposes Traffic Engineering extensions to the OSPF protocol to enable the GMPLS control plane to take advantage of the most effective RWA classes. A prototype was developed and deployed in an optical-emulated copper-based network to verify its feasibility based on the bandwidth overhead generated in the control plane / Mestrado / Engenharia de Computação / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

Les ressources humaines jouent un rôle crucial dans les systèmes de production. D’une part, elles doivent être polyvalentes et flexibles pour pouvoir effectuer des tâches variées. D’autre part, elles doivent être affectées aux différentes machines du système de façon qu’elles puissent satisfaire  les performances industrielles. Toutefois, il est souvent difficile de prendre des décisions concernant le nombre, les compétences et les stratégies d’affectation des opérateurs, en particulier dans les systèmes où la demande est aléatoire, changeante et fluctuante et lorsqu’il y a plusieurs objectifs à optimiser. Dans ce contexte, la présente thèse vise en premier lieu à déterminer comment affecter les opérateurs aux machines. En second lieu, elle vise à définir le nombre d’opérateurs et les compétences requises afin de réduire les durées de fabrication et le coût de la main d’œuvre. Deux heuristiques sont proposées pour affecter les opérateurs de façon dynamique, et en ligne, à chaque fois ils deviennent disponibles. Le choix de la machine se fait en se basant sur une analyse multicritère de l’état actuel du système avec la méthode TOPSIS pour la première heuristique et avec une méthode de restriction basée sur des seuils numériques pour la deuxième. Les critères utilisés ont été choisis à l'aide d’un jeu sérieux (simulation interactive visuelle dédiée) en utilisant le logiciel ARENA. Pour optimiser les poids de ces critères et les seuils numériques et afin d’adapter les heuristiques proposées, nous avons utilisé l’optimisation basée sur la simulation, qui intègre la dimension à la fois aléatoire et fluctuante de la demande. Les résultats des comparaisons avec les stratégies d’affectation les plus utilisées dans la littérature ont montré l’intérêt et la pertinence de nos heuristiques. Pour optimiser le nombre d’opérateurs et leurs compétences, nous avons proposé une approche basée sur la simulation et sur un algorithme évolutionnaire multi objectif (NSGAII). Nous suggérons d’accepter une certaine redondance aux niveaux des compétences afin de réduire l’impact de l’absentéisme des opérateurs sur la performance du système. Pour prendre en compte le comportement changeant et fluctuant des systèmes de production, nous avons intégré dans l’approche d’optimisation l’heuristique d’affectation la plus performante sur les heuristiques proposées. Un modèle de simulation d’un système de type Job-shop a été utilisé pour illustrer notre approche. Les résultats obtenus sur l’ensemble des solutions non dominées ont montré la pertinence de l’approche proposée. / Human resources play a crucial role in production systems. On one hand, they have to be multi-skilled and flexible to carry out various tasks. On the other hand, they must be assigned to the different machines in the system so as to satisfy industrial performances. However, it is often difficult to make decisions about the number, skills and workers assignment strategies, particularly when systems are characterized by random, changing and fluctuating demand and when there are multiple objectives to be optimized. In this context, the present thesis aims first to determine how to assign workers to machines. Second, it aims to define the number of workers and the required skills in order to reduce production times and manpower costs. Two heuristics are then proposed to assign workers dynamically, on line, each time they become idle. The choice of the machine is based on a multi criteria analysis of the current state of the system using TOPSIS method for the first heuristic and a restriction method based on numerical thresholds for the second one. The criteria used are chosen through a serious game (a dedicated Visual Interactive Simulation) implemented using ARENA software. In order to optimize the weights of these criteria and the numerical thresholds and to adapt the proposed heuristics, we used a simulation optimization, which integrates both of the random and fluctuating dimensions of the demand. The results of comparisons with the most used assignment strategies in the literature have shown the interest and relevance of our heuristics. In order to optimize the number of workers and their skills, we proposed an approach based on simulation and an evolutionary multi-objective algorithm (NSGAII). We suggest accepting some redundancy on skills so as to reduce the impact of worker absenteeism on system performance. In order to take into account the changing and fluctuating behavior of production systems, we have integrated in our optimization approach the most efficient assignment heuristic among the proposed ones. A simulation model of a job shop system has been used to illustrate our approach. The results obtained on all non-dominated solutions showed the relevance of the proposed approach.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the primary school principals' experiences and perceptions regarding the work to manage child poverty. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted by meaningful selection of four principals at municipal primary schools. A conventional content analysis was performed to identify codes and categories in the data. Four main categories were identified. The results were presented on the basis of the main categories: The concept of child poverty and awareness of child poverty, Cooperation and engagement, School governance and responsibility, and The compensatory assignment. The work to manage child poverty perceived to be directly linked to the school's compensatory assignment, but there were differences in how the assignment was comprehended. At the schools where the compensatory assignment led to increased equality, rules and regulations had been introduced by the municipality and the principal. Which shows that child poverty has to be recognized, the term must be established and communal strategies and policies has to be adopted to prevent poverty from having a negative impact on children's and adolescent's schooling.

Human reproduction is increasingly commodified, which paves the way for reproductive enhancement rather than just assistance. Non-medical gender/sex selection is one of the reproductive enhancement services that is offered on the fertility market, and it is a practice that raises severe concerns regarding the social and political impact of biotechnologies. Through Critical Discourse Analysis and Biomedicalization theory, I analyse how non-medical gender/sex selection is legitimised in online forum discussions. I argue that gender/sex selection is legitimized through gender- and family-conservative and neoliberal ideologies, and that gender/sex selection can be understood as a tool to enhance the family, increase privilege, and attain hypernormativity.

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Diploma thesis provides an introduction to the ns-3 network simulator. It describes the basic abstactions and components of the instrument. This work further discusses the theory, which was applied during simulation creation. The concept of unicast, the issue of IP addressing and routing in networks are specificaly analyzed. The practical part is focused on the creation of four laboratory tasks within the scope of Advanced Communication Techniques. The first task is dedicated to the the issue of static unicast routing in the network. It clarifies the impact of metrics on the process of routing. The following task compares the different types of ICMPv4 and ICMPv6 messages. The third task discusses additional functions of the ICMPv6. Specifically, it focuses on five different types of ICMPv6 messages defined by NDP (Neighbor Discovery Protocol) and their role in the network traffic. The last task focuses on ensuring the quality of services (QoS) in wireless networks, by setting priorities and thereby dividing the traffic into different classes. Attention is focused on parameters such as throughput, delay and jitter.

Optimalizace toku v síti je klasickou aplikací matematického programování. Tyto modely mají, mimo jiné, široké uplatnění také v logistice, kde se tak snažíme docílit optimálního rozdělení dopravy, např. vzhledem k maximalizaci zisku, či minimalizaci nákladů. Toto pojetí ovšem často problém idealizuje, poněvadž předpokládá existenci jediného rozhodovatele. Takový přístup je možný ve striktně organizovaných sítích jako např. v logistických sítích přepravních společností, železničních sítích či armádním zásobování. Úloha ''Traffic Assignment Problem'' (TAP) se zaměřuje na dopady teorie her na optimalizaci toku, tj. zkoumá vliv více rozhodovatelů na celkové využití sítě. V práci se zaobíráme úlohou TAP s působením náhodných vlivů, k čemuž využíváme metod stochastické a vícestupňové optimalizace. Dále zkoumáme možnosti zlepšení stávajícího využití sítě za rozhodnutí autoritativního rozhodovatele, kterému je umožněn zásah do samotné struktury sítě, k čemuž využíváme víceúrovňové programování.