The importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the economy should not be overlooked. The main function of SMEs is to contribute to the economic activities in a country, through the provision of goods and services to the public or other firms. These goods and services could be traded internationally, thus increasing a country?s export performance. It is important for economic growth that SMEs grow within their respective economies. One way that SMEs can achieve growth is through internationalisation. Firms are internationalising faster than ever before (because of advances in telecommunications and transportation) and internationalisation theories that can provide practical guidance to firms are more important today than in the past. A firm?s ability to internationalise no longer only depends on the quality of the product, the delivery terms and competitive prices. Internationalisation increasingly depends on the ability and willingness of financial institutions to grant credit. Obtaining trade finance has become a major hindrance to SME internationalisation, especially in Africa. By overcoming the difficulties in obtaining trade finance, African SMEs will be able to expand into foreign markets. The purpose of this study is to determine how African SMEs can overcome trade finance barriers to internationalisation. SMEs can do so by mitigating the risks involved in every international transaction and by becoming ?trade finance ready?. A trade finance facility that is well suited for African SMEs (because it revolves around identifying and mitigating the risks involved with their international transactions) is structured trade and commodity finance. In trading with China, African SMEs can obtain structured trade and commodity finance from a specialist financial institution that focuses on the Chinese market (which is the focus of this study). China Construction Bank (Johannesburg branch), through their association with Rand-Asia Trade Finance, provides structured trade and commodity finance to African SMEs. The key to receiving structured trade and commodity finance is that these SMEs, together with China Construction Bank (Jhb) and Rand-Asia Trade Finance have to mitigate the risks involved with their international transactions so that the SMEs can become ?trade finance ready?. / Thesis (M.Com. (International Commerce))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

The development and implementation challenges associated with a proposed load allocation paradigm for fault risk assessment and system health management based on uncertain fault diagnostic and failure prognostic information are investigated. Health management actions are formulated in terms of a value associated with improving system reliability, and a cost associated with inducing deviations from a system's nominal performance. Three simulated case study systems are considered to highlight some of the fundamental challenges of formulating and solving an optimization on the space of available supervisory control actions in the described health management architecture. Repeated simulation studies on the three case-study systems are used to illustrate an empirical approach for tuning the conservatism of health management policies by way of adjusting risk assessment metrics in the proposed health management paradigm. The implementation and testing of a real-world prognostic system is presented to illustrate model development challenges not directly addressed in the analysis of the simulated case study systems. Real-time battery charge depletion prediction for a small unmanned aerial vehicle is considered in the real-world case study. An architecture for offline testing of prognostics and decision making algorithms is explained to facilitate empirical tuning of risk assessment metrics and health management policies, as was demonstrated for the three simulated case study systems.

The importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the economy should not be overlooked. The main function of SMEs is to contribute to the economic activities in a country, through the provision of goods and services to the public or other firms. These goods and services could be traded internationally, thus increasing a country?s export performance. It is important for economic growth that SMEs grow within their respective economies. One way that SMEs can achieve growth is through internationalisation. Firms are internationalising faster than ever before (because of advances in telecommunications and transportation) and internationalisation theories that can provide practical guidance to firms are more important today than in the past. A firm?s ability to internationalise no longer only depends on the quality of the product, the delivery terms and competitive prices. Internationalisation increasingly depends on the ability and willingness of financial institutions to grant credit. Obtaining trade finance has become a major hindrance to SME internationalisation, especially in Africa. By overcoming the difficulties in obtaining trade finance, African SMEs will be able to expand into foreign markets. The purpose of this study is to determine how African SMEs can overcome trade finance barriers to internationalisation. SMEs can do so by mitigating the risks involved in every international transaction and by becoming ?trade finance ready?. A trade finance facility that is well suited for African SMEs (because it revolves around identifying and mitigating the risks involved with their international transactions) is structured trade and commodity finance. In trading with China, African SMEs can obtain structured trade and commodity finance from a specialist financial institution that focuses on the Chinese market (which is the focus of this study). China Construction Bank (Johannesburg branch), through their association with Rand-Asia Trade Finance, provides structured trade and commodity finance to African SMEs. The key to receiving structured trade and commodity finance is that these SMEs, together with China Construction Bank (Jhb) and Rand-Asia Trade Finance have to mitigate the risks involved with their international transactions so that the SMEs can become ?trade finance ready?. / Thesis (M.Com. (International Commerce))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

This thesis addresses the challenges associated with thermal management systems (TMS) evaluation and selection in the conceptual design of hypersonic, air-breathing vehicles with sustained cruise. The proposed methodology identifies analysis tools and techniques which allow the proper investigation of the design space for various thermal management technologies. The design space exploration environment and alternative multi-objective decision making technique defined as Pareto-based Joint Probability Decision Making (PJPDM) is based on the approximation of 3-D Pareto frontiers and probabilistic technology effectiveness maps. These are generated through the evaluation of a Pareto Fitness function and Monte Carlo analysis. In contrast to Joint Probability Decision Making (JPDM), the proposed PJPDM technique does not require preemptive knowledge of weighting factors for competing objectives or goal constraints which can introduce bias into the final solution. Preemptive bias in a complex problem can degrade the overall capabilities of the final design. The implementation of PJPDM in this thesis eliminates the need for the numerical optimizer which is required with JPDM in order to improve upon a solution. In addition, a physics-based formulation is presented for the quantification of TMS safety effectiveness corresponding to debris impact/damage and how it can be applied towards risk mitigation. Lastly, a formulation loosely based on non-preemptive Goal Programming with equal weighted deviations is provided for the resolution of the inverse design space. This key step helps link vehicle capabilities to TMS technology subsystems in a top-down design approach. The methodology provides the designer more knowledge up front to help make proper engineering decisions and assumptions in the conceptual design phase regarding which technologies show greatest promise, and how to guide future technology research.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:14:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 61070100623.pdf: 435548 bytes, checksum: b66651487a8f6639fd39ff2b9bf5d7ad (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-04-17T00:00:00Z / This study examines whether the sale of credit portfolios are used by financial institutions for risk management, according to Stanton (1998) and Murray (2001) or to capture resources, as indicated in Cebenoyan and Strahan (2001) and Dionne and Harchaoui (2003). Two hypotheses on credit portfolio sales were tested: 1) promote rating improvement to the remaining portfolio, or 2) drive to financial leverage - with worsening on the remaining portfolio -, controlling for recourse existence and to whom those assets were sold. The sample includes quarterly information from 145 financial institutions from the first quarter 2001 to second quarter of 2008. The results provide empirical evidence that financial institutions use these sales to improve the rating of the remaining credit portfolio, i.e. they transfer, in most cases, low quality assets, assuring good ratings and improving liquidity. Additionally, following Harchaoui and Dionne (2003) proposal - which besides testing, demonstrating that regulatory requirements promote leveraging in high-risk assets – it was observed the relationship between the Basel Index and credit portfolio rating. The conclusions were similar to those found by Dionne and Harchaoui(2003): the more adequate – higher Basel Index - the financial institution, the greater its chances of having a bad quality credit portfolio. / Este estudo analisa se as vendas de carteiras de crédito são utilizadas por instituições financeiras para gestão de risco, de acordo com Stanton(1998) e Murray(2001) ou para captação recursos, como apontado em Cebenoyan e Strahan(2001) e Dionne e Harchaoui(2003). Duas hipóteses foram testadas quanto às vendas de carteira de crédito: 1) implicam em melhor rating na carteira remanescente; ou 2) promovem alavancagem financeira - com piora na carteira remanescente -, controlando para a existência de coobrigação e para quem esses ativos foram transferidos. A amostra inclui informações trimestrais de 145 instituições financeiras do primeiro trimestre de 2001 ao segundo trimestre de 2008. Os resultados oferecem evidências empíricas de que as instituições financeiras utilizam estas vendas para melhora do rating da carteira de crédito remanescente, ou seja, elas transferem, em sua maioria, ativos de baixa qualidade, garantindo bons ratings e melhorando a liquidez. Adicionalmente, seguindo a proposta Dionne e Harchaoui(2003) - que além de testar, evidenciam que exigências regulatórias promovem alavancagem em ativos de alto risco - foi observada a relação entre o Índice de Basiléia e rating da carteira de crédito. As conclusões foram semelhantes às encontradas por Dionne e Harchaoui(2003): quanto mais adequada – maior Índice de Basiléia - uma instituição financeira for, maiores as chances de ela possuir uma carteira de crédito com qualidade ruim.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to analyze the production enterprise under the risk conditions and to identify the risk factors which have the influence on agricultural business. The theoretical part gives a definition of risk, risk classification and risk management with different methods of risk treatment. The special part is focused on agricultural risk management, its objectives and principles. The analytic part of the thesis contains characteristics of the analyzed enterprise. Special attention is paid to the calculation formula in plant and livestock production and the break even analysis. The risk analysis is performed in the following order: threat identification and risk-ranking matrix determination according to probability of occurrence and severity of consequences. Based on a strategy are identified ways to reduce risk and determined the risk mitigation. Improvements for the enterprise are suggested on the basis of the results.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:32:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gerson Bergas Grecco.pdf: 2559394 bytes, checksum: 58c4ebaf997581725ae8601c357ef570 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-21 / The concept of fiscal intelligence brought by the S PED (Public System of Digital Bookkeeping) has a direct impact on the tax risk of all taxpayers, mainly companies, due to the scope of provided ancillary information, to the demand for accuracy in tax information and, yet, to the increasing potential of inspection from tax authorities, especially at this transition period, where new and former obligations coexist, which causes duplicity. Errors, supposedly reasonable in such a complex environment , are potentiated at this deploying stage, when contributories are reformulating their routine s and find themselves yet in a learning phase, generating tax contingencies. In corporate e nvironment tax compliance activity is exerted by the accountant, acting internally or as outsourcing. The Brazilian Civil Code, since its reform in 2002, gives responsibility to the acc ountant over provided tax information. For accounting organizations, their professionals accum ulate the amount of tax risk incurred by their clients (taxpayers), which may cause severe c onflict of economic capacity, given the inequality between their firm size and the incurred risk magnitude, proportional to their clients operations. In this context, this study pr esents a proposal for mitigation of tax risks under responsibility of accounting organizations, f rom measures suggested by these professionals. The research is exploratory in natur e since there have not been found any study about specific tax risk for accountants. It has bee n split in two parts. In the first one, a list of risk issues and mitigation measures were produced t hrough inquiries conducted with professionals in the tax area. In the second one, a survey applied over a sample of accountants from the state of São Paulo collected its evaluatio n on the significance of risks and effectiveness of mitigation measures listed by spec ialists and, yet, the effective adoption of such measures. The proposal for mitigation of tax r isks on accounting organizations has been made by presenting a framework, which contains coll ected risks inside each activity exercised in the accounting office, as well as mitigation mea sures related to these risks issues. The accounting office is the main user of this proposal ; however it is extensive to all tax advisors from any taxpayers. Risk issues and mitigation meas ures never considered before may be added to pre-existing ones after the presentation o f these results, contributing to risk management. / O conceito de inteligência fiscal trazido na implan tação do Sistema Público de Escrituração Digital (SPED) exerce impacto direto sobre o risco fiscal sofrido pelos contribuintes, especialmente pelas empresas, devido à abrangência das informações acessórias prestadas, da exigência da precisão da informação fiscal e, ainda , da elevação do potencial de detecção do Fisco, principalmente neste período de transição, o nde obrigações novas e antigas coexistem gerando duplicidade. Os erros, supostamente razoáve is em um ambiente tão complexo, são potencializados nesta fase de implantação, quando o s contribuintes estão reformulando suas rotinas e ainda se encontram em processo de aprendi zagem, gerando contingências de ordem tributária. No ambiente corporativo a atividade de conformidade fiscal é exercida pelo contador, atuando internamente ou como externo ( outsourcing ). O Código Civil brasileiro, desde sua reforma em 2002, imprime ao contador resp onsabilidade sobre a informação fiscal prestada. No caso das organizações contábeis, seus profissionais recebem a carga do somatório do risco fiscal sofrido pelos seus client es contribuintes, o que pode gerar um grave conflito de capacidade econômica, dada a disparidad e entre o porte dessas entidades e a magnitude do risco sofrido, proporcional às operaçõ es. Nesse contexto, este estudo buscou apresentar uma proposta para mitigação do risco fis cal das organizações contábeis, a partir das medidas sugeridas por estes profissionais. A pe squisa tem caráter exploratório por não terem sido encontrados na literatura estudos que tr atem do risco fiscal específico para os contadores. Ela foi dividida em duas partes. Na pri meira, um elenco de riscos e medidas foi produzido a partir de entrevistas com profissionais da área tributária. Na segunda parte, um questionário eletrônico aplicado sobre uma amostra de contadores do estado de São Paulo coletou sua avaliação da importância dos riscos e d a eficácia das medidas de mitigação elencadas pelos especialistas, e, ainda, a adoção e fetiva de tais medidas. A proposta de mitigação do risco fiscal das organizações contábei s foi feita por meio da apresentação de um quadro onde constam os riscos levantados, dentro da cada atividade exercida no escritório contábil, bem como as medidas de mitigação para est es riscos. O escritório de contabilidade é o usuário principal dessa proposta, mas ela é exten siva a todos os profissionais que trabalhem com a assessoria tributária nas empresas contribuin tes. Entende-se que riscos e medidas nunca consideradas poderão ser acrescidos aos preexistent es após a apresentação destes resultados, contribuindo com o gerenciamento dos riscos.

In human-robot collaborative (HRC) scenarios where humans and robots work together sharing the same workspace, there is a risk of potential hazard that may occur. In this work, an AI-based risk analysis solution has been developed to identify any condition that may harm a robot and its environment. The information from the risk analysis is used in a risk mitigation module to reduce the possibility of being in a hazardous situation. The goal is to develop safety for HRC scenarios using different AI algorithms and to check the possibilities of improving efficiency of the system without any compromise on the safety. This report presents risk mitigation strategies that were built on top of the robot’s control system and based on the ISO 15066 standard. Each of them used semantic information (scene graph) about the robot’s environment and changed the robot’s movement by scaling speed. The first implementation of risk mitigation strategy used Fuzzy Logic System. This system analyzed the riskiest object’s properties to adjust the speed of the robot accordingly. The second implementation used Reinforcement Learning and considered every object’s properties. Three networks (fully connected network, convolutional neural network, and hybrid network) were implemented to estimate the Qvalue function. Additionally, local and edge computation architecture wereimplemented to measure the computational performance on the real robot. Each model was evaluated by measuring the safety aspect and the performance of the robot in a simulated warehouse scenario. All risk mitigation modules were able to reduce the risk of potential hazard. The fuzzy logic system was able to increase the safety aspect with the least efficiency reduction. The reinforcement learning model had safer operation but showed a more compromised efficiency than the fuzzy logic system. Generally, the fuzzy logic system performed up to 28% faster than reinforcement learning but compromised up to 23% in terms of safety (mean risk speed value). In terms of computational performance, edge computation was performed faster than local computation. The bottleneck of the process was the scene graph generation which analyzed an image to produce information for safety analysis. It took approximately 15 seconds to run the scene graph generation on the robot’s CPU and 0.3 seconds on an edge device. The risk mitigation module can be selected depending on KPIs of the warehouse operation while the edge architecture must be implemented to achieve a realistic performance. / I HRC-scenarier mellan människor och robotar där människor och robotar arbetar tillsammans och delar samma arbetsyta finns det risk för potentiell fara som kan uppstå. I detta arbete har en AI-baserad lösning för riskanalys utvecklats för att identifiera alla tillstånd som kan skada en robot och dess miljö. Informationen från riskanalys används i en riskreduceringsmodul för att minska risken för att vara i en farlig situation. Målet är att utveckla säkerhet för HRC-scenarier med olika AI-algoritmer och att kontrollera möjligheterna att förbättra systemets effektivitet utan att kompromissa med säkerheten.Denna rapport presenterar strategier för riskreducering som byggdes ovanpå robotens styrsystem och baserade på ISO 15066-standarden. Var och en av dem använder semantisk information (scendiagram) om robotens miljö och förändrar robotens rörelse genom skalning av hastighet. Den första implementetationen av riskreducerande strategi använder Fuzzy Logic System. Detta system analyserade de mest riskabla objektens egenskaper för att justera robotens hastighet i enlighet därmed. Den andra implementeringen använder förstärkningslärande och betraktade varje objekts egenskaper. Tre nätverk (fully connected network, convolutional neural network, and hybrid network) implementeras för att uppskatta Q-värde-funktionen. Dessutom implementerade vi också lokaloch edge-arkitektur för att beräkna beräkningsprestanda på den verkliga roboten. Varje modell utvärderas genom att mäta säkerhetsaspekten och robotens prestanda i ett simulerat lagerscenario. Alla riskreduceringsmoduler kunde minska risken för potentiell fara. Fuzzy logicsystem kunde öka säkerhetsaspekten med minsta effektivitetsminskning. Förstärkningsinlärningsmodellen har säkrare drift men har en mer begränsad effektivitet än det fuzzy logiska systemet. I allmänhet fungerar fuzzy logicsystem upp till 28 % snabbare än förstärkningslärande men komprometterar upp till 23 % när det gäller säkerhet (medelrisk hastighetsvärde). När det gäller beräkningsprestanda utfördes kantberäkningen snabbare än lokal beräkning. Flaskhalsen för processen var scengrafgenerering som analyserade en bild för att producera information för säkerhetsanalys. Det tog cirka 15 sekunder att köra scengrafgenerering på robotens CPU och 0,3 sekunder på en kantenhet. Modulen för riskreducering kan väljas beroende på KPI för lagerdriften medan edge-arkitekturen måste implementeras för att uppnå en realistisk prestanda.

В диссертации рассматривается методика митигации риска в отношении реальных инвестиционных проектов компании сервисного обслуживания транспорта. Данная методика будет видоизменяться в зависимости от сценарных условий и специфики инвестиционных проектов. Основой для принятия решения ее использования послужил положительный опыт использования формирования резервов банками под возможные потери ссудной задолженности с установлением процента формирования резерва. / The рареr discusses the methodology of risk mitigation in relation to real investment projects of a transport service company. This methodology will be modified depending on the scenario conditions and the specifics of investment projects. The basis for the decision to use it was the positive experience of using the formation of reserves by banks against possible losses of loan debt with the establishment of the percentage of the formation of the reserve.

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