Organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) is a membrane-based sustainable alternative to conventional separation techniques because it is non-thermal and energy-efficient. The fabrication of membranes usually includes fossil-based polymers and toxic solvents that present significant challenges. For example, its declining availability, concerns about its degradability and cross-contamination that involve toxicity risks. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest in the development of more sustainable membranes that maintain an optimum performance even in harsh solvents. The aim of my thesis research is to develop stable OSN membranes from cellulose acetate and explore the use of deacetylation reactions. The effect of the degree of acetylation on the membrane performance and stability in different organic solvents was investigated. The chemical composition and morphology were investigated using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). It was found that cellulose acetate membranes with less than 22% acetylation present a satisfactory solvent resistance and rejection in harsh solvents, such as DMF and acetone. In the performance tests were identified two main trends: one for polar protic solvents and one for polar aprotic solvents. This was attributed to their capacity to interact with the membrane via H-bond formation. The molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) was in the range of 735–325 g mol–1 in aprotic solvents and higher than 885 g mol–1 for polar protic solvents. The results found in this research can be translated into a reduce in costs, waste generated, energy required, and time employed in the fabrication of membranes. Also, it opens potential areas in the industry as it can be implemented in harsh solvent environments.

The United Nations Security Council is primarily responsible for maintenance of international peace and security according to the Charter of the United Nations. To achieve this goal, it is authorized to adopt resolutions binding on member states under Chapter VII of the Charter. Considering the character of situations to which the Security council responds through its Chapter VII resolutions, this legal instrument often stirs emotions among the general public. But what does the law itself say about the Chapter VII resolutions? What is their legal nature and value in the field of public international law? This thesis provides an analysis of the Chapter VII resolutions, offers a definition of a Chapter VII resolution and analyzes some specific resolutions by which the Security Council acted more as a quasi-judicial or a quasi-legislative body. Through analysis of content limits of the Security Council powers, the thesis endeavors to confirm that binding nature of the Chapter VII resolutions as well as an obligation of member states to give effect to those resolutions do have its boundaries; and despite the special role of the Security Council in the field of public international law, its Chapter VII resolutions cannot have unlimited content. First of all, the resolutions cannot be in conflict with...

This thesis deals with the Syrian conflict. The Syrian conflict has continued for over three years (April 2014) and still constitutes a topical and developing affair. It represents a pressing and unresolved national and international issue. There is a vast amount of groups with different ideas involved in this conflict. During the conflict, conventional, as well as chemical weapons were used. The consequences of the fighting are mostly faced by local inhabitants who have been severely suffering due to the harsh living and humanitarian conditions. The aim of this thesis is to depict the problems of the Syrian conflict, evaluate the role the UN has had up to the present, and answer the question whether the UN has totally failed in solving the Syrian conflict, or not.

Název diplomové práce: Aspekty registrace plavidel v mezinárodním právu (oblast mezinárodního práva mořského a registrace námořních plavidel) (Aspects of the registration of vessels in the International Law) Abstrakt: Along with fishing, navigation is the oldest use of the sea, and remains one of the most important. Ships are the most important means of transporting goods on such routes: ninety-five per cent, by weight, of all international trade is seaborne. On the military side is it same important battle field. While almost all costal States and some landlocked (right now without Czech Republic) ones have a merchant navy of some description, one of the remarkable features of the international shipping industry is the degree to which ships are concentrated under the flags of relatively few States. This does not necessarily indicate a similar distribution of ownership. We are talking about "flags of convenience" and it is one of the topics of this thesis. This thesis deals transformation from customary international law to current codified regulation of the registration of vessels. The ascription of nationality to ships is one of the most important means by which public order is maintained at sea. As well as indicating what rights a ship enjoys and to what obligations it is subjects, the nationality of a...

Content Centric Networking (CCN) est une architecture pour l'Internet du futur. CCN inclut des fonctionnalités de cache dans tous les noeuds du réseau. Son efficacité dépend largement de la performance de ses stratégies de cache. C'est pour cela que plusieurs études proposent des nouvelles stratégies de cache pour améliorer la performance d'un réseau CCN. Cependant parmi toutes ces stratégies, ce n'est pas évident de décider laquelle fonctionne le mieux. Il manque un environnement commun pour comparer ces stratégies. De plus, il n'est pas certain que ces approches soient les meilleures alternatives pour améliorer la performance du réseau. Dans cette thèse, on vise le problème de choisir les meilleures stratégies de caches pour CCN et les contributions sont les suivantes. On construit un environnement commun d'évaluation dans lequel on compare via simulation les stratégies de caches disponibles: Leave Copy Everywhere (LCE), Leave Copy Down (LCD), ProbCache, Cache "Less For More" et MAGIC. On analyse la performance de toutes ces stratégies et on décide la meilleure stratègie de cache pour chaque scénario. Ensuite, on propose deux stratégies de cache basées sur la popularité pour CCN. On commence avec un étude de la popularité de contenu et on présent la stratégie Most Popular Caching (MPC). MPC privilèges la distribution de contenu populaire dans les caches afin d'ameliorer les autres stratégies de cache. Dans une deuxième étape, on présent une stratègie de cache basé dans l'information des réseaux sociaux: Socially-Aware Caching Strategy (SACS). SACS privilèges la distribution de contenu publié par les utilisateurs les plus importantes / Content Centric Networking (CCN) is a new architecture for a future Internet. CCN includes in-network caching capabilities at every node. Its effciency depends drastically on performances of caching strategies. A lot of studies proposing new caching strategies to improve the performances of CCN. However, among all these strategies, it is still unclear which one performs better as there is a lack of common environment to compare these strategies. In this thesis, we address the challenge of selecting the best caching strategies for CCN. The contribution of this thesis are the following. We build a common evaluation scenario and we compare via simulation the state of the art caching strategies: Leave Copy Everywhere (LCE), Leave Copy Down (LCD), ProbCache, Cache "Less" For More and MAGIC. We analyze the performance of all the strategies in terms of Cache Hit, Stretch, Diversity and Complexity, and determine the cache strategy that fits the best with every scenario. Later on, we propose two novel caching strategies for CCN based on popularity. First, we study popularity of content and we present Most Popular Caching (MPC) strategy. MPC privileges distribution of popular caches into the caches and thus, it overcomes other caching strategies. Second, we present an alternative caching strategy based on social networks: Socially-Aware Caching Strategy (SACS). SACS privileges distribution of content published by influential users into the network. Both caching strategies overcome state of the art mechanisms and, to the best of our knowledge, we are the first to use social information to build caching strategies

1 Summary This thesis deals with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals and their interpretation of the crime of genocide. There are two United Nations courts: The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. These ad hoc Tribunals were the first international Tribunals since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. They were established by Security Council Resolutions in accordance with Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter as subsidiary organs of the Security Council. The Tribunals were the first international bodies which, after almost 50 years of existence, interpreted and applied the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which was adopted by United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Their practice has shown the whole world that individuals can be charged with the crime of genocide and consecutively sentenced. The purpose of this thesis is to briefly describe the historical development of the international criminal justice until the establishment of these two United Nations International Criminal Tribunals, characterize both Tribunals and find out how they interpret the crime of genocide and the contribution of their case law to the international criminal law. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The...

(anglický jazyk) The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the activities of United Nations' peacekeep-ing operations and thus provide an answer to the question of how and with what results they contribute to providing international peace and security. The work deals with peace-keeping operations appointed under UN Security Council resolutions. I chose this topic because of the great importance of peacekeeping operations status within UN activities and because of the interest in clarifying the role of their impact on world peace and security. This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first one deals with the role of the United Nations and its position within the international peace and security. The second chapter focuses on the definition of basic terminology that most often occurs in relation to the characteristics of UN peacekeeping operations and distinguishes them from each other. The third chapter defines their types and provides the role of peacekeeping operations by showing the essential characteristics of their development, mandate, and working princi-ples. The fourth chapter presents the issue of formation of the peacekeeping operation start-ing with the process of its establishment, continuing with the law applicable to the opera-tion, ending with its financing. The fifth chapter...

Master's diploma thesis Cyprus dispute -- current challenges deals with the current political situation in Cyprus and bi-communal talks between divided Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot entity living on the island. Negotiations are conducted under the auspices of external actors, and under the influence of the parties interested in the conflict, and the primary responsibility has been assumed by the political representation of the Republic of Cyprus and TRNC. Thesis introduces alternatives of the conflict settlement, perspectives of the potential development of events in the unification process and their possible impacts on the Cypriot environment. It presents the most signifiant plans of the international community on the political settlement of the island and reaching the agreement in the chronological order from the end of the World War Two up to the current solutions based on the actual tendencies of development. These suggestions have been conceived on the basis of the international political context and intra-political situation in Cyprus in the time period of anti-colonial struggle leading to the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, Constitution collapse, outbreak of violence, Turkish invasion, declaration of independence of the Turkish Republic of the Northern Cyprus, accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU up to the presence.

The content of the thesis is concentrated on the confirmation, that the poverty is the basic problem when balancing the global discrepancies. First part of the thesis is dedicated to globalization, its social economic impacts in the context of least developed countries and world poverty. The next part describes the MDG's from the point of view of poverty.

The thesis primarily aims to describe main events and a role of the United Nations in Iraq in 2002-2005. However, since broader knowledge in needed, the thesis also deals with historical events in Iraq and in the UN Security Council. Equally, it seeks to explain in a concise manner the specificities in Iraq that played or play an essential role. In the period after the American invasion in 2003 the thesis confront US expectations and plans with the reality on Iraqi soil and UN standpoints. In fact, the link through the whole thesis is the depiction of the relationship between the US and the Security Council and after the invasion also with UN Assistance mission in Iraq (UNAMI). Given the limited extent the thesis is concluded by the elections to the permanent Iraqi parliament in December 2005.