Nowadays when users navigate in internet they find lots of types of communication scattered across diverse sites. Due to the lack of users’ interests in advertisements, primarily caused by not matching their preferences, today’s advertisements have a low rate of success. Recently, owing to semantic web generation, some companies started to use personalized marketing in communication as a way to turn the conversions around and thus increase customer retention and loyalty. As a matter of fact, the retention and loyalty stages on the internet are, on average, the least crafted of the whole cycle. The customers’ conception of one-to-one marketing is quite ambiguous as they conceive that they need to be more efficient while shopping online but at the same time they feel stalked due to privacy concerns, and oversaturated with non-valuable information. The purpose of this paper is to explore from a holistic view online personalized communication strategies and how they can be implemented in order to increase customer satisfaction thus retaining customers and, in the long-term, gaining their loyalty. The main communication areas the study treats ranges from onsite the online store, where the company wants to sell the product, to offsite advertisements in websites, social media platforms and via email. In the empirical section, the study carried out a quantitative online survey to investigate customers’ perception and complete it with the literature. To answer the research questions, the study identified 19 hypotheses comprising of all primary aspects that define the exploration. The result could be gold dust for e-shop managers to help them maximize the marketing communication factor using personalization. The authors identified potential improvements to motivate customers to register in the online shop, whether communication channels are suited to implementing the strategy or not, and possible aspects to adapt in order to obtain maximal benefits. There were some limitations in terms of an analysis of the companies’ point of view and the necessity to analyze every communication channel more in depth as the study is an initial step.

This thesis focuses on online communities - both their historic and current form. Various forms of communications are described, main focus is then given to identity online and self-presentation - various forms it can take, which expressive devices are used, how trustworthy is it and how is it perceived by other others. Influence of anonymity is mentioned. Empirical part of this work explores online friendship relations, cornerstone of the current wave of social networking services. It asks several questions about ways in which they affect communication between users. Relation between several factors (reciprocity, direction of initiation of said relation) and both quantity and frequency of communication between those users before and after that friendship is established.

[pt] Nesse trabalho, estudamos online packing integer programs, cujas colunas são reveladas uma a uma. Já que algoritmos ótimos foram encontrados para o modelo RANDOMORDER– onde a ordem na qual as colunas são reveladas para o algoritmo é aleatória – o foco da área se voltou para modelo menos otimistas. Um desses modelos é o modelo MIXED, no qual algumas colunas são ordenadas de forma adversária, enquanto outras chegam em ordem aleatória. Pouquíssimos resultados são conhecidos para online packing IPs no modelo MIXED, que é o objeto do nosso estudo. Consideramos problemas de online packing com d dimensões de ocupação (d restrições de empacotamento), cada uma com capacidade B. Assumimos que todas as recompensas e ocupações dos itens estão no intervalo [0, 1]. O objetivo do estudo é projetar um algoritmo no qual a presença de alguns itens adversários tenha um efeito limitado na competitividade do algoritmo relativa às colunas de ordem aleatória. Portanto, usamos como benchmark OPTStoch, que é o valor da solução ótima offline que considera apenas a parte aleatória da instância. Apresentamos um algoritmo que obtém recompensas de pelo menos (1 − 5lambda − Ó de epsilon)OPTStoch com alta probabilidade, onde lambda é a fração de colunas em ordem adversária. Para conseguir tal garantia, projetamos um algoritmo primal-dual onde as decisões são tomadas pelo algoritmo pela avaliação da recompensa e ocupação de cada item, de acordo com as variáveis duais do programa inteiro. Entretanto, diferentemente dos algoritmos primais-duais para o modelo RANDOMORDER, não podemos estimar as variáveis duais pela resolução de um problema reduzido. A causa disso é que, no modelo MIXED, um adversário pode facilmente manipular algumas colunas, para atrapalhar nossa estimação. Para contornar isso, propomos o uso de tecnicas conhecidas de online learning para aprender as variáveis duais do problema de forma online, conforme o problema progride. / [en] We study online packing integer programs, where the columns arrive one by one. Since optimal algorithms were found for the RANDOMORDER model – where columns arrive in random order – much focus of the area has been on less optimistic models. One of those models is the MIXED model, where some columns are adversarially ordered, while others come in random-order. Very few results are known for packing IPs in the MIXED model, which is the object of our study. We consider online IPs with d occupation dimensions (d packing constraints), each one with capacity (or right-hand side) B. We also assume all items rewards and occupations to be less or equal to 1. Our goal is to design an algorithm where the presence of adversarial columns has a limited effect on the algorithm s competitiveness relative to the random-order columns. Thus, we use OPTStoch – the offline optimal solution considering only the random-order part of the input – as a benchmark.We present an algorithm that, relative to OPTStoch, is (1−5 lambda− OBig O of epsilon)-competitive with high probability, where lambda is the fraction of adversarial columns. In order to achieve such a guarantee, we make use of a primal-dual algorithm where the decision variables are set by evaluating each item s reward and occupation according to the dual variables of the IP, like other algorithms for the RANDOMORDER model do. However, we can t hope to estimate those dual variables by solving a scaled version of problem, because they could easily be manipulated by an adversary in the MIXED model. Our solution was to use online learning techniques to learn all aspects of the dual variables in an online fashion, as the problem progresses.

No description available.

No description available.

This qualitative study examined online teaching and learning in a rural community college setting from the instructors' points-of-view. The research questions focused upon what the instructors viewed as the benefits and detriments of online teaching and learning, both for them and their students, their views of the effects of online learning on their students, the nature of teaching online in a rural community college, and the interaction between instructors and students, and among students, in online classes. Constructivist learning theory served as the theoretical framework of this study. The findings are based on an analysis of the data collected from two rounds of in-depth interviews with nine participants, observations of the participants' online courses, and the review of related documents.The key findings related to the rural setting dealt with the lack of sophisticated Internet infrastructure in rural service areas and a lack of student readiness for online instruction. A gap in theory and practice also exists; with one exception, online instruction was not grounded in any theoretical framework. The interaction in online classes varied from class to class, with e-mail correspondence and discussion threads constituting the bulk of the interaction. The lack of face-to-face contact emerged as a troublesome issue, with no instructor believing that the online course was superior to the traditional, seated course. Several instructors cited practical and learning benefits specific to online courses, and all recognized the need to offer courses online.The benefits of online teaching and learning included both practical and learning benefits. Flexibility and convenience were cited as key practical benefits, and learning benefits included additional opportunities to reflect and interact online, to draw from personal experiences, and learn at one's own pace. The acquisition of time-management, reading, writing, research, technological, and problem-solving skills on the parts of the students were also viewed as learning benefits. The negative aspects included feelings of isolation, a lack of academic preparedness to learn online on the part of the students, the problems related to dial-up Internet access in rural areas, and the increased amount of preparation required to teach an online course.The study discusses patterns in the data as well as contradictions to these patterns. Limitations of the study and recommendations for the community college and for future studies are also addressed.

An online Ramsey game is a game between Builder and Painter, alternating in turns. In each round Builder draws an edge and Painter colors it either red or blue. Builder wins if after some round there is a monochromatic copy of the fixed graph H, otherwise Painter is the winner. In this thesis we investigate the computational complexity of the related decision problem and we show that it is PSPACE-complete. Moreover, we study a version of the game when Builder can draw only planar graphs and a generalization of the game for hypergraphs. We found a new class of graphs unavoidable on planar graphs. We provide a result showing that Builder wins the online Ramsey game on 3-uniform hyperforests when the goal graph H is 1-degenerate. 1

New Trends in International Commercial Arbitration Abstract: The purpose of my thesis is to analyze two leading trends in international commercial arbitration. Those trends are (i) the influence of electronic means of communication on arbitration proceedings and (ii) confidentiality and its actual development in respect to implied duty of confidentiality in arbitration proceedings. The main methodology of research was to compare recently revised arbitration rules with its previous wordings (UNCITRAL Rules, ICC Rules, SCC Rules and CAM Rules) and examine changes related to the above enlisted topics. Furthermore diverse sources were used in the thesis such as arbitration rules of different institutions, experts' publications and also e-mail correspondence with representatives of observed arbitration institutions. The thesis is composed of three chapters. The first chapter summarizes actual revisions of observed arbitration rules without making any conclusions. The second chapter describes the influence of modern technologies on arbitration proceedings. The chapter consists of four parts. The first part introduces online arbitration and presents possible ambiguities in this term. The second part focuses on specific stages of arbitration proceedings and analyzes in detail, how those stages are influenced by...

My thesis is titled Trolling and other unusual online behaviours. It focuses on deviant behaviours of internet users in Czech and foreign context. Trolling and hate became inseparable part of online environment, it is sort of a side product of the development of technology. The aim of this thesis is to reveal strategies hidden behind behaviour of users of the internet who intentionally disrupt the continuity of online environment (trolling etc.), also depicting the profile of this kind of internet user, characterizing him and describing his way of doings and his impact on other users. In the theoretical part I characterize fundamental terms which are related to the topic. These include terms like flame wars, hoax etc. In this part I also attempted to describe the troubled history of online deviant behaviour which dates back to the eighties. Historic analysis of huge amount of online articles was a big help in this task because the scientific literature related to the topic is not available. In the practical part I used quantitative and qualitative analysis. Using questionnaire survey in which 225 respondents took part I explored public attitude to deviant behaviour (trolling). By qualitative interviews with five trolls I investigated the motives of deviant users of internet, how they are influenced...

Popular Online Social Networks (OSNs), such as Facebook or Twitter, are logically centralized systems. The massive information aggregation of sensitive personal data at the central providers of these services is an inherent threat to the privacy of the users. Leakages of these data collections happen regularly – both intentionally, for example by selling of user data to third parties and unintentionally, for example when outsiders successfully attack a provider. Motivated by this insight, the concept of Decentralized Online Social Networks (DOSNs) has emerged. In these proposed systems, no single, central provider keeps a data collection of all users. Instead, the data is spread out across multiple servers or is distributed completely among user devices that form a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. Encryption is used to enforce access rights of shared content and communication partners ideally connect directly to each other. DOSNs solve one of the biggest privacy concerns of centralized OSNs in a quite forthright way – by getting rid of the central provider. Furthermore, these decentralized systems can be designed to be more immune to censorship than centralized services. But when decentralizing OSNs, two main challenges have to be met: to provide user privacy under a significantly different threat model, and to implement equal usability and functionality without centralized components. In this work we analyze the general privacy-problems in DOSNs, especially those arising from the more exposed metadata in these systems. Furthermore, we suggest three privacy-preserving implementations of standard OSN features, i.e. user authentication via password-login, user search via a knowledge threshold and an event invitation system with fine-grained privacy-settings. These implementations do not rely on a trusted, central provider and are therefore applicable in a DOSN scenario but can be applied in other P2P or low-trust environments as well. Finally, we analyze a concrete attack on a specific decentralized system, the Tor anonymization network, and suggest improvements for mitigating the identified threats. / Populära sociala nätverkstjänster som Facebook och Instagram bygger på en logiskt centraliserad systemarkitektur. Tjänsteleverantörerna har därför tillgång till omfattande ansamlingar av känsliga personuppgifter,vilket innebär en oundviklig risk för integritetskränkningar. Med jämna mellanrum läcks dessa informationsansamlingar till tredje part – antingen när tjänsteleverantören själv säljer eller ger dem tillexterna aktörer, eller när obehöriga får åtkomst till tjänsteleverantörens datasystem. Decentraliserade sociala nätverkstjänster (eng. Decentralized Online Social Networks, DOSNs) är en lovande utveckling för att minska denna risk och för att skydda användarnas personliga information såväl från tjänsteleverantören som från tredje part. Ett vanligt sätt att implementera ett DOSN är genom en icke-hierarkisk nätverksarkitektur (eng. peer-to-peer network) för att undvika att känsliga personuppgifter samlas på ett ställe som är under tjänsteleverantörens kontroll. Kryptering används för att skydda kommunikationen och för att realisera åtkomstkontrollen av information som ska delas med andra användare. Att inte längre ha en tjänsteleverantör som har tillgång till all data innebär att den största riskfaktorn for integritetskränkningar tas bort. Men genom att ersätta den centrala tjänsteleverantören med ett decentraliserat system tar vi även bort ett visst integritetsskydd. Integritetsskyddet var en konsekvens av att förmedlingen av all användarkommunikation skedde genom tjänsteleverantörens servrar. När ansvaret för lagring av innehållet, hantering av behörigheterna, åtkomst och andra administrativa uppgifter övergår till användarna själva, blir det en utmaning att skydda metadata för objekt och informationsflöden, även om innehållet är krypterat. I ett centraliserat system är dessa metadata faktiskt skyddade av tjänsteleverantören – avsiktligt eller som en sidoeffekt. För att implementera de olika funktioner som ska finnas i ett integritetsskyddande DOSN, är det nödvändigt både att lösa dessa generella utmaningar och att hantera frånvaron av en betrodd tjänsteleverantör som har full tillgång till all data. Användarautentiseringen borde till exempel ha samma användbarhet som i centraliserade system. Det vill säga att det är lätt att ändra lösenordet, upphäva rättigheterna för en stulen klientenhet eller återställa ett glömt lösenord med hjälp av e-post eller säkerhetsfrågor – allt utan att förlita sig på en betrodd tredje part. Ett annat exempel är funktionen att kunna söka efter andra användare. Utmaningen där är att skydda användarinformationen samtidigt som det måste vara möjligt att hitta användare baserad på just denna informationen. En implementation av en sådan funktion i ett DOSN måste klara sig utan en betrodd tjänsteleverantör som med tillgång till alla användardata kan upprätthålla ett globalt sökindex. I den här avhandlingen analyserar vi de generella risker för integritetskränkningar som finns i DOSN, särskilt de som orsakas av metadata. Därutöver föreslår vi tre integritetsskyddande implementationer av vanliga funktioner i en social nätverkstjänst: lösenordsbaserad användarautentisering, en användarsökfunktion med en kunskapströskel och en inbjudningsfunktion för evenemang med detaljerade sekretessinställningar. Alla tre implementationerna är lämpliga för DOSN-scenarier eftersom de klarar sig helt utan en betrodd, central tjänsteleverantör, och kan därför även användas i andra sammanhang såsom icke-hierarkiska nätverk eller andra system som måste klara sig utan en betrodd tredje part. Slutligen analyserar vi en attack på ett specifikt decentraliserat system, anonymitetstjänsten Tor, och diskuterar hur systemet kan skyddas mot de analyserade sårbarheterna. / <p>QC 20161115</p>