För att förbättra organisationens marknadsposition och reducera kostnaderna förverksamheten har ett förändringsarbete genomförts inom företagets logistikavdelning. Arbetet har genom undersökningar och observationer bidragit till slutsatsen om att organisationens transporter står mycket av sin tid i kö, vilket leder både till högre kostnader för verksamheten, sämre hållbarhet och större miljöpåverkan. För att reducera detta har således ett förbättringsförslag presenterats för organisationen där transportens schema har förändrats och många större kunder med ett flertal och regelbundna leveransturer har förflyttats från dag till nattkörning och på det viset finnas tillgängliga för kunden direkt på morgonen av leveransdag. Detta tror sig leda till bättre hållbarhet, mindre miljöpåverkan, högre kundnöjdhet och kostnadsreduceringar för organisationen då transporterna obehindrat kan utföra sina leveranser under natten. Rapporten presenterar även en kostnadskalkyl för att påvisa den eventuella kostnadsreduceringen som nämns ovan och även kunna konstatera de fördelar som finns i att genomföra förbättringarna för organisationen. En presentation av en implementeringsplan är även inkluderad i förändringsarbetet som ett led i hur organisationen ska gå till väga och vad som är viktigt att tänka på vid genomförande av att byta det nuvarande schemat, till ett förändrat och nyare schema. / To improve the company's market position and reduce the cost, an improvement of the logistics department of the company has been proposed. The work has through studies and observations contributed to a conclusion that the transports of the company spend a lot of their time in traffic congestions. This leads to higher costs for the business, worse sustainability and a larger environmental impact. To reduce this impact, a proposal of change has been presented for the company. The schedule for the logistics has been changed and some larger customers with regular tours of deliveries have been transferred from day to night schedule. This way the customers' goods arrives in the morning of the delivery day. The improvement of the logistics department will lead to better sustainability, less impact on the environment, higher customer satisfaction and cost eduction for the company, as the transport unhindered can make their deliveries during the night. The report additionally presents a calculation of costs, where the potential reduce of costs and moreover the advantages of implementing these improvements are shown. Furthermore, a presentation plan for the implementation is included in the report, as one way of how the company may approach the execution. This includes the important aspects that might be significant when implementing the exchange of the old schedule to a new and improved on.

Hydraulic characteristics are the most important properties of soil, i.e. retention curve of soil moisture and hydraulic conductivity. Hydraulic conductivity of soil characterizes the ability of the soil to conduct water. Retention curve expresses the relationship between moisture and moisture potential of soil. The running of retention curve is influenced by many factors, eg. grain size and mineralogical composition, content of humus, reduce bulk density and structure of soil. Measurement of retention curves takes a lot of time and money in laboratory conditions therefore pedotransfer functions seem to be an alternative solution. The thesis aims to estimate moisture retention curves of soil in a selected area of interest in South Moravia using program Rosetta (Schaap, 2003). Data of granularity (% content of clay, sand and dust), bulk density of soil and hydrolimits field water capacity and wilting point were used as predictors in individual models of program Rosetta. Data of grain were matched by FAO / USDA system. Retention curves of soil moisture were measured on a sand tank and overpressure devices. The measured retention curves were parameterized by RETC program. Estimated retention curves were graphically compared with measured to determine the quality of the estimate. The accuracy of the estimate was assessed by correlation coefficient R of determination coefficient R2 and standard error SMRE. Usability own derivatives pedotransfer functions is hard to say due to the size of the input data file. I would recommend further verification of data at the other localities in south Moravia.

Les systèmes multi-agents (MAS) et la commande coopérative ont fait l'objet de nombreuses recherches ces dernières années. Les domaines d'application sont très diverses et dans le cas des systèmes multi-véhicules, des approches ont été développées pour des unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), satellites, avions... Les types de missions envisagées sont des missions complexes telles l’exploration ou la surveillance de zones, la recherche et le suivi de cibles d'intérêt. Cependant, la coopération requière des échanges de communication entre les agents. Lorsque ceux-ci sont nombreux, cet échange peut conduire à des saturations du réseau, à l'augmentation des délais de transmission ou l’occurrence de pertes de paquets, d'où l'intérêt de réduire le nombre de communication. Dans les méthodes event-triggered, une communication est envoyée quand une condition, basée sur des paramètres choisis et un seuil prédéfini, est remplie. La principale difficulté est de définir une condition qui permettra de limiter les échanges sans dégrader l'exécution de la mission choisie. Dans le cas d'un système distribué, chaque agent doit maintenir une estimation de la valeur de l'état des autres agents afin de remplacer l'absence d'informations due à la communication réduite. L'objectif de cette thèse est de développer des lois de commandes et des estimateurs distribuées pour un système multi-agent afin de réduire le nombre de communication par méthode event-triggered, tout en prenant en compte la présence de perturbations. L'étude est divisée en deux grandes parties. La première décrit une méthode de communication event-triggered permettant de converger vers un consensus pour un système multi-agents de modèle d'évolution dynamique linéaire généralisée et en présence de perturbations d'état. Pour réduire les communications, un estimateur précis de l'état des agents est proposé, couplé à un estimateur de l'estimation de l'erreur, ainsi qu'un protocole de communication adapté. En prenant en compte la commande appliquée à chaque agent, l'estimateur proposé permet d'obtenir un consensus avec un nombre bien inférieur de communication que de la méthode de référence dans l'état de l'art. La seconde partie propose une stratégie de réduction de communication pour une commande de vol en formation permettant de suivre une trajectoire de référence. La dynamique des agents est décrite par un système Euler-Lagrange incluant des perturbations et des méconnaissances sur les paramètres du modèle. Différentes structures d'estimateurs sont proposées pour reconstruire les informations manquantes. La condition d'event-triggered distribuée proposée est basée sur l'écart relatif entre les positions et vitesses réelles et désirées des agents, ainsi que l'erreur relative entre la valeur estimée de l'état de l'agent et la valeur réelle. Une trajectoire de référence unique est déterminée pour guider la flotte. L'effet des perturbations sur la formation et la communication a été analysé. Enfin, les méthodes proposées ont été adaptées pour tenir compte des dégradations de performances dues aux pertes de données et aux délais de communication. Pour les deux types d'approches présentées les conditions de la stabilité du MAS ont été obtenues par l'intermédiaire de fonctions de Lyapunov et l'absence de paradoxe de Zeno a été étudiée. / A large amount of research work has been recently dedicated to the study of Multi-Agent System and cooperative control. Applications to mobile robots, like unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), satellites, or aircraft have been tackled to insure complex mission such as exploration or surveillance. However, cooperative tasking requires communication between agents, and for a large number of agents, the number of communication exchanges may lead to network saturation, increased delays or loss of transferred packets, from the interest in reducing them. In event-triggered strategy, a communication is broadcast when a condition, based on chosen parameters and some threshold, is fulfilled. The main difficulty consists in determining the communication triggering condition (CTC) that will ensure the completion of the task assigned to the MAS. In a distributed strategy, each agent maintains an estimate value of others agents state to replace missing information due to limited communication. This thesis focuses on the development of distributed control laws and estimators for multi-agent system to limit the number of communication by using event-triggered strategy in the presence of perturbation with two main topics, i.e. consensus and formation control. The first part addresses the problem of distributed event-triggered communications for consensus of a multi-agent system with both general linear dynamics and state perturbations. To decrease the amount of required communications, an accurate estimator of the agent states is introduced, coupled with an estimator of the estimation error, and adaptation of communication protocol. By taking into account the control input of the agents, the proposed estimator allows to obtain a consensus with fewer communications than those obtained by a reference method. The second part proposes a strategy to reduce the number of communications for displacement-based formation control while following a desired reference trajectory. Agent dynamics are described by Euler-Lagrange models with perturbations and uncertainties on the model parameters. Several estimator structures are proposed to rebuild missing information. The proposed distributed communication triggering condition accounts for inter-agent displacements and the relative discrepancy between actual and estimated agent states. A single a priori trajectory has to be evaluated to follow the desired path. Effect of state perturbations on the formation and on the communications is analyzed. Finally, the proposed methods have been adapted to consider packet dropouts and communication delays. For both types of problems, Lyapunov stability of the MAS has been developed and absence of Zeno behavior is studied.

In this thesis I describe my research activities and results of the last 4 years. I also provide an outlook and guidelines on how to proceed with our project, that we named SEDNS - Security-Enhanced Domain Name System. This project’s ambitions are to complement DNS, the Domain Name System, in a way that allows us to keep using it in the future. The main reason for this strategy is, that it has proven to be difficult to change any part of the Internet infrastructure, such as parts of the protocols stack or well established Internet authorities, like ICANN or IANA. The main problems of DNS are twofold. (1) The DNS protocol does not contain any measures to prevent data from being tampered with. (2) Furthermore, it is difficult to configure DNS correctly since most of the configuration is done within the DNS data itself, e.g., delegating authority. It is well known that DNS problems lead to reduced availability of Internet-based services in many different ways. In this thesis, I present four main results. All of them contribute to improvements and deeper understanding of DNS’ dependability issues. First, I discuss, how well established cryptographic tools can be used to enhance DNS’ security without getting into the same problems that prevent DNSSEC from being globally deployed. These problems are explained as well. This is an important topic for the Internet and DNS community, since at the moment most of the protocol improvements are connected to DNSSEC. Second, I thoroughly discuss the technique that was used in the recent years to overcome any problems related to client-server architectures, i.e., peer-to-peer systems. Such solutions have been proposed to improve DNS’ availability and reduce configuration effort. I show, that those systems do not keep up with the expectations, neither as client side tools nor as server infrastructure replacement. To reach this conclusion, a novel DHT scheme has been developed. The evaluation of it is shown as well. Third, results of our DNS data mining show that it is useful to improve the quality of DNS data and therefore, to protect clients from malicious or erroneous information. And fourth, an outlook is presented, which combines all the results of the first three points to suggest an architecture that indeed can improve our supply with DNS data, omitting the shortcomings of the classical client-server-architecture and its peer-to-peer replacements. Note, that although the development of future DNS standards and protocols is subject to political struggle, e.g., on whether or not an international organization should maintain the root zone instead of the USA, this thesis focuses only on technical aspects. / In dieser Dissertation beschreibe ich meine Forschungsaktivitäten und Ergebnisse der letzten 4 Jahre. Ich gebe auch einen Ausblick und Hinweise, wie unser Project, das wir SEDNS - Security-Enhanced Domain Name System genannt haben, fortgesetzt werden sollte. Die Ambitionen dieses Projektes sind, DNS, das Domain Name System, zu in einer Art und Weise zu erweitern, die es uns erlauben soll, dieses System auch in der Zukunft weiter zu benutzen. Der Hauptgrund für diese Strategie ist, dass es sich in der Vergangenheit als schwierig erwiesen hat, Teile der Internet-Infrastruktur, wie zum Beispiel Teile des Protokollstapels oder gut etablierte Internet-Behörden wie ICANN oder IANA, zu ändern bzw. auszutauschen. Daher wollen wir nicht versuchen, DNS komplett zu ersetzen. DNS hat zwei Hauptprobleme: (1) Das DNS Protokoll bietet keinerlei Möglichkeiten, Daten vor Verfälschung zu schützen, und (2) es ist schwierig, DNS korrekt zu konfigurieren, weil ein Großteil der Konfiguration direkt innerhalb der DNS Daten selbst stattfindet, wie zum Beispiel die Delegation von Verantwortungsbereichen, und diese oft nicht global konsistent und korrekt sind. Diese Probleme sind umso bedeutender, weil es allgemein bekannt ist, dass DNS Probleme auf verschiedene Art und Weisen zu reduzierter Verfügbarkeit von wichtigen Internet-basierten Diensten führen. In dieser Arbeit präsentiere ich vier Hauptergebnisse. Zuerst diskutiere ich, wie gut etablierte kryptographische Werkzeuge benutzt werden können um die Sicherheit von DNS zu verbessern, ohne dabei auf dieselben Probleme zu stoßen, die DNSSEC davon abhalten, weltweit benutzt zu werden. Diese Probleme werden dabei erläutert. Es handelt sich dabei um ein wichtiges Thema für die Internet- und DNS-Community, weil im Moment die meisten Weiterentwicklungen des DNS Protokolls mit DNSSEC zusammenhängen. Als zweites diskutiere ich im Detail die Technik, die in den vergangenen Jahren benutzt wurde um Probleme beliebiger Client-Server Anwendungen zu überwinden: Peer-to-Peer Systeme. Derartige Lösungen wurden vorgeschlagen, um DNS' Verfügbarkeit zu verbessern und Konfigurationsaufwand zu reduzieren. Ich zeige allerdings, dass solche Lösungen nicht die in sie gesetzten Erwartungen erfüllen, weder als Client-seitige Tools noch als Ersatz für die Server-Infrastruktur. Um diesen Schluss zu ziehen, wurde ein neues, auf die Bedürfnisse von DNS zugeschnittenes DHT Schema entwickelt und evaluiert im Vergleich zu DNS und existierenden Systemen. Als drittes werden DNS Data Mining Ergebnisse präsentiert, die zeigen, wie sinnvoll es ist, die Qualität der DNS Daten zu verbessern, und somit Clients vor bösartigen oder fehlerhaften Informationen zu schützen. Als viertes wird ein Ausblick präsentiert, der die Ergebnisse der vorherigen drei Punkte kombiniert und eine Architektur vorschlägt, die unsere Versorgung mit DNS Daten tatsächlich verbessern kann und die Nachteile der klassischen Client-Server-Architektur und ihrer Peer-to-Peer Nachfolger vermeidet. Zu beachten ist, dass obwohl die Entwicklung zukünftiger DNS Standards und Protokolle Gegenstand politischer Konflikte ist, z.B. darüber ob anstelle der USA eine internationale Organisation die Root-Zone verwalten sollte, diese Arbeit nur auf die technischen Aspekte ausgerichtet ist.

Byggsektorn bidrar, genom en stor resursanvändning, med höga växthusgasutsläpp. Den största delen av utsläppen kommer frånmaterialanvändningen vid produktion av byggnader. En mer hållbar omställning bör ske inom byggbranschen för att minska utsläppen och därmedminska dess klimatpåverkan. I denna uppsats har respondenter från tre nyproduktionsprojekt i Sverige intervjuats för att synliggöra på vilka sätt deminskar sin klimatpåverkan samt vad som påverkar deras val för att möjliggöra en minskad klimatpåverkan. De tre projekten är projekt Högasten iHelsingborg, projekt Daggkåpan i Malmö och projekt Brf Viva i Göteborg. De främsta faktorerna som påverkar arbetet med minskadklimatpåverkan är i form av projektens ambitioner, kunskap om material, normer gällande användning av material inom branschen, svenskaregelverk samt kommun och myndigheter. Uppsatsen föreslår att erfarenheter från projekten bör synliggöras för andra svenska byggaktörer för attde ska få inspiration av tillvägagångssätt och kunskaper kring material. Erfarenheterna från projekten bör även synliggöras av myndigheter somutformar de svenska regelverken för att kunna möjliggöra ett effektivare arbete med minskad klimatpåverkan vid nyproduktion. / The construction sector releases high amounts of greenhouse gases, through the large use of resources. The majority of the emissions comes fromthe use of materials within the production of buildings. This essay has studied three projects that focus on reducing its climate impact in Sweden. Interviews with people who have worked on these projects will give the essay different influencing factors that they experienced within the workwith reducing climate impact. The three projects are project Högasten in Helsingborg, project Daggkåpan in Malmö and projekt Brf Viva in Göteborg. The factors affecting the projects´ work with the climate impact are the projects´ ambition, knowledge about building materials, normsof certain material use within the industry, Swedish regulations, municipalities and agencies. The newfound knowledge about the buildingmaterials and the development of Swedish regulations could lead to further possibilities for the construction industry to reduce the climate impactin future production of buildings in Sweden

The Effect of a Quality Improvement Initiative on Reducing Hospital Transfers of Nursing Home Residents by Denise Eileen Jarboe MSN, Walden University, 2010 BS, University of Maryland, 1981 Project Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice Walden University February 2015 Nursing homes (NH) in the 21st century provide skilled healthcare services for resident populations who are older, frailer, and often suffering from multiple incurable chronic medical conditions. Nurses practicing in this setting must be keen observers and effective communicators with the ability to recognize and report subtle changes in health status that may lead to an avoidable or unnecessary hospital transfer. The purpose of this DNP project was to evaluate the impact of a quality assurance performance improvement (QAPI) initiative implementing the INTERACTTM (interventions to reduce acute care transfers) SBAR (situation, background, assessment/appearance, recommendation) communication tool in a skilled NH setting. The Synergy Model, which posits that optimal patient outcomes are possible when nurse competency is matched or synergized with patient care needs, provided the conceptual framework for this project. To evaluate the effect of the program, resident hospital transfer events groups before and after SBAR utilization (n = 295) were analyzed using a dependent t test to determine if significant differences existed in the groups in overall number of transfers, clinical condition categories, and those leading to an inpatient hospitalization. Although analysis of the data did not demonstrate significant decreases in resident transfer events, the results did provide valuable baseline information for future studies. This project contributed to social change by evaluating communication among care providers in a skilled NH setting, establishing baseline information and identifying the need for future projects. This information is vital for determining which resident transfers to the hospital are avoidable and for developing future programs addressing this practice issue.

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Интерес к вопросу выбора эффективной модели корпоративное управления не спадает вот уже три десятилетия. Причиной этому стали крупные события и тенденции, повлиявшие на развития мировой экономики: мировая волна приватизации последних трех десятилетий; волна поглощения в 1980-х годах; дерегулирование и интеграция рынков капитала; кризис в Восточной Азии 1998 г., который поставил в центр внимания корпоративное управление на развивающихся рынках (страны БРИК); скандал с Enron и его банкротство вызвали серьезные сомнения в защите инвесторов в США и привели к еще большему реформированию и регулированию финансового рынка во всем мире. Эффективная система корпоративного управления призвана обеспечить успешное долгосрочное развитие экономики стран, привлечь инвестиции и повысить доверие инвесторов. Объектом исследования являются механизмы корпоративного управления стран БРИК и условия их формирования. Предметом исследования являются особенности национальных моделей корпоративного управления в странах БРИК. В связи с этим цель исследования – на основе сравнительного анализа выявить основные особенности национальных систем корпоративного управления в странах БРИК для разработки рекомендаций по политике их совершенствования. Были получены следующие выводы: Сформулированы ключевые характеристики и особенности страновых моделей корпоративного управления. Выявлены, что для всех стран БРИК характерна достаточно высокая концентрации собственности, инсайдерский контроль. Найдены ключевые недочеты в имплементации принципов корпоративного управления: прозрачности и раскрытия информации, защиты прав акционеров, гендерного разнообразия советов директоров, выполнения рекомендаций по доле независимых директоров. Выявлен критерий эффективности стран (совокупные инвестиции) и разработаны рекомендации по их совершенствованию. / Interest in the issue of choosing an effective corporate governance model has not subsided for three decades. The reasons for this were major events and trends that influenced the development of the world economy: the global wave of privatization of the last three decades; absorption wave in the 1980s; deregulation and integration of capital markets; the 1998 East Asian crisis, which brought corporate governance in emerging markets (BRIC countries) into focus; The Enron scandal and bankruptcy have raised serious doubts about protecting US investors and led to further reform and regulation of the financial market around the world. An effective corporate governance system is designed to ensure the successful long-term development of countries' economies, attract investment and increase investor confidence. The object of the research is the corporate governance mechanisms of the BRIC countries and the conditions for their formation. The subject of the research is the peculiarities of national models of corporate governance in the BRIC countries. In this regard, the purpose of the study is, on the basis of a comparative analysis, to identify the main features of the national systems of corporate governance in the BRIC countries in order to develop recommendations for the policy of their improvement. The following conclusions were obtained. Formulated key characteristics and features of country models of corporate governance. It was revealed that all BRIC countries are characterized by a fairly high concentration of ownership, insider control - It was found key gaps in the implementation of corporate governance principles: transparency and disclosure of information, protection of shareholders' rights, gender diversity of boards of directors, implementation of recommendations on the share of independent directors. A criterion for the effectiveness of countries (total investment) was identified and recommendations for their improvement were developed.

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