Considerando as complexidades envolvidas no processo de tomada de decisão nas organizações de hoje, é fácil ver que este processo representa um ponto importante para a obtenção de vantagens na competição pelo mercado. Portanto, observa-se que a função de gerenciamento é fundamental para a empresa, seja qual for o seu setor de atividade, tamanho, complexidade e tecnologia dos produtos ou serviços por ela oferecidos. Por este motivo, é importante que seja dada uma atenção particular ao aperfeiçoamento desta função e, para que isto seja possível, é necessário que, primeiro, seja feita uma análise detalhada do Sistema de Gerenciamento existente na empresa através da utilização de uma ferramenta que permita criar um modelo que represente as informações necessárias. De acordo com esta necessidade, este trabalho tem como objetivo propor uma técnica que auxilia na criação do modelo da Estrutura de Decisão associada ao Sistema de Gerenciamento da empresa. A técnica descrita está baseada no método de refinamentos sucessivos, e visa permitir que, a partir do modelo macro da estrutura de decisão, sejam criados modelos específicos, com um nível de formalização adequado para a implementação de sistemas de informação automatizados, que possam apoiar o processo da tomada de decisão. A preocupação principal foi propor uma técnica que forneça a facilidade de uma ferramenta gráfica, a qual permita um rápido aprendizado e proporcione ao analista um canal de comunicação com o usuário, assim como também permita a criação de um modelo com um alto grau de detalhamento. Para que isto seja possível a proposta alia o uso das Redes de Petri e do modelo TF-ORM. Ao final é apresentado um estudo de caso focando a estrutura de decisão em um ambiente de manufatura, o qual é utilizado para mostrar a aplicação prática da técnica. / Considering the complexities involved in the process of decision-taking in organizations nowadays, it is easy to realize that this process represents an important point in the acquisition of advantages concerning the competition for the market. Therefore, it is observed that the function of the management is fundamental to the enterprise, whatever its section of activity, size, complexity, technology of its products or services are. That is why it is important to give particular attention to the improvement of that function, and for that to be possible, first it is necessary to do a detailed analysis of the Management System that exists in the enterprise through the utilization of a tool which permits to create a model to represent the needed information. According to this necessity, this paper proposes a technique which helps in the creation of a model of the Decision Structure associated with the Enterprise Management System. This technique has been based on the method of successive refinement and aims at allowing to be created, from the macro model of the decision structure, specific models and with a formalization level adequate to the implement of automatic information's systems that can support the process of decision-taking. The goal was to propose a technique that provides the facility of a graphic tool and permits a fast learning, providing the analyst with a way to communicate with the user, as well as it should permit the creation of a model with a high level of details. For this to be possible, the proposal associates the use of Petri Nets and TF-ORM model together. At the end a case study focusing on the decision structure in a manufacturing environment, with is used to show the practical application of the technique is presented.

När meddelanden som förmedlas till konsumenter är avsättningsfrämjande och har rent kommersiell karaktär anses de utgöra marknadsföring, och omfattas av reglerna i Marknadsföringslagen (2008:486) (MFL). Marknadsföring ska bl.a. följa regler om reklamidentifiering som stadgar att kommersiella meddelanden ska märkas på ett så tydligt sätt att en konsument redan vid flyktig kontakt inser att det är fråga om marknadsföring. Reglerna om reklamidentifiering ska underlätta för konsumenter att identifiera vilka meddelanden som utgör reklam, och mot bakgrund av denna vetskap kunna ta ställning till meddelandets trovärdighet och betydelse. Meddelanden som innehåller allmänna upplysningar, är opinionsbildande, eller på annat sätt har en annan än rent kommersiell karaktär, faller utanför tillämpningsområdet för MFL och omfattas istället av det grundlagsstadgade yttrandefrihetsskyddet. Frågan om när ett meddelande har rent kommersiell karaktär och därmed utgör marknadsföring, är särskilt komplicerad när meddelandet förmedlas i redaktionell text och publiceras av någon annan än näringsidkaren själv. Meddelanden som t.ex. utgör nyheter eller ger uttryck för en publicists personliga åsikter, skyddas av yttrandefrihet. Om den som publicerar ett meddelande gör det på uppdrag av en näringsidkare och mottar någon form av vederlag för publiceringen, får meddelandet dock anses utgöra marknadsföring. När meddelanden i redaktionell text utgör marknadsföring, uppkommer frågan om vilken märkning som ska användas för att uppfylla lagens krav på tydlig reklammarkering. Vilken märkning som krävs skiljer sig beroende på hur meddelandet är utformat och genom vilket medium det förmedlas. För kommersiella meddelanden som förmedlas i nyhetstidningar, på nätet eller i pappersform, synes det krävas att meddelandets layout skiljer sig från övrig redaktionell text, samt att meddelandet märks med ordet ”annonssida” eller motsvarande begrepp. För meddelanden som publiceras i sociala medier är det svårare att utröna vad som generellt utgör en tillräcklig reklammarkering, eftersom det varierar beroende på vilket socialt medium som används, och vilken kunskap den genomsnittlige mottagaren av meddelandet har. Ett krav som dock framstår som gemensamt för kommersiella meddelanden i sociala medier, är att det redan överst i inlägget eller i inledningen av en text ska framgå att inlägget utgör marknadsföring.

The form of the energy function (i.e. Total, Hellinger-Reissner, Hu-Washizu or Complementary energy functions) has a significant influence on FEM performance. Motivated by the ability of the force-based method to satisfy the equilibrium equation and ability of the displacement-based method to satisfy compatibility equation, this thesis proposes a mathematical framework, namely the ‘Hybrid Force-Based Method’ which employs two physical concepts; the Total and Complementary Potential Energy functions. Satisfaction of both the Total and Complementary Potential Energy function is critical to the success of the Hybrid Force-Based Method. The Hybrid Force-Based Method is constructed using these two independent energy functions in order to perform inelastic structural analyses. The method has been proposed, implemented and evaluated across the entire structure, element, section and material domains first considering each domain separately and then in combination. The equilibrium and compatibility equations are satisfied simultaneously by discretisation of these two equations, and accuracy is controlled by specifying the upper and lower bounds of the results. Outcomes following evaluation of the proposed method can be classified into the following three categories: (i) structure-level performance (see Chapter 2), (ii) material-level performance (see Chapter 3), and (iii) element level performance (see Chapter 4). The proposed Hybrid Force-Based Method is constructed by deriving the governing equations directly from the Total and Complementary Potential Energy functions, leading to two distinct variants of the hybrid approach (i) the so-called ‘augmented Hybrid Force-Based Method’, and (ii) the so-called ‘unaugmented Hybrid Force-Based Method’. A number of numerical posterior process tests were devised and used to demonstrate the performance of these two variations of the hybrid method (see Sections 2.9.4.1 and 2.9.5.1) to demonstrate those methods ability in convergence in contrast to the Large Increment Method. Due to the occurrence of numerical instabilities experienced when using various established solution algorithms in solving the fundamental equations at the material level, within implicit approach (such as the Standard Implicit Method, the Cutting Plane Method, and the Closest Point Projection Method). A new form of the constitutive equation solver is proposed in Sections 3.9, referred to as the General Implicit Method (GIM). It is shown that the GIM can be implemented both in the strain and stress domains, and is therefore appropriate for use in both the displacement- and the force-based solution family of methods. The GIM is then evaluated by comparing its predictions to those of other common solution algorithms for inelastic analysis. Performance evaluation involves the use of a new error indicator that guarantees the uniqueness and accuracy of a solution in both the stress and the strain domains. Three iso-error maps serve to emphasis the accuracy, reliability, and computational performance of the General Implicit Method as a solution method compared to those are evaluated for the defined Stress Increment Ratio. The fundamental equations at the element level are followed, based on structured fibre discretisation. The decomposition of the various degrees of freedom into deformational and rigid-body motion serve as a mechanism by which independent equilibrium equations can be determined for each element. The subsequent equation is able to involve axial force, torsion, and both in and out of plane moments while a general form of shear strain distribution is also involved. The original form of the solution at the cross section of the elements leads to novel governing equations that are based on the characteristics of the hybrid force-based approach. The numerical evaluation in Section 4.11.7.1 demonstrates the performance of the proposed method. The newly defined error indicators demonstrate the accuracy and computational performance of the method and the uniqueness of the solution in satisfying both the equilibrium and compatibility equations for Euler-Bernoulli, Timoshenko, and Reddy strain distributions across the element section. Further to the structured fibre, distributed, semi-distributed and concentrated inelastic approach elements, as a simplified form of the element are implemented and evaluated. Although performance of those original formulations is evaluated independently in in comparison with the conventional approaches, compatibility of those as an important issue is followed as well. The numerical evaluation demonstrates higher accuracy and reliability by following the proposed method, further to the higher computational performance respect to the conjugate approaches.

Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder. The etiology of autism still remains unclear due to the heterogeneous and complex nature of the disorder, however synergistic actions between genetic components and environmental factors have been suggested. Acetaminophen (APAP) is one of the most popular over-the-counter drugs that possess antipyretic and analgesic effects. It is considered a relatively safe and effective within therapeutic doses. Recently, early exposure to APAP has been suggested to be one of the underlying cause of autism. Children are often prescribed APAP to lessen fever or irritability after vaccination during the first year, and APAP may adversely affect the normal brain development. In order to better understand the association with APAP and autism, we used an inbred mouse strain BTBR T+tf/J (BTBR). BTBR exhibits behavioral deficits that mimic the core behavioral deficits of human autism. In the study, investigated 1) if BTBR mice showed differences in thiol biochemistry and EAAT3 levels in brain compared with C57BL/6J (C57) mice, 2) if early exposure to APAP induced behavioral changes worsening the autistic phenotypes of BTBR in adolescence, and 3) if APAP exposure in neonatal mice induced possible toxicity at various doses. As a result, we observed that BTBR mice have significantly lower plasma sulfate levels and EAAT expression levels in the frontal cortex compared to C57 mice. Surprisingly, neonatal therapeutic dose of APAP administration did not induce behavioral changes in both C57 and BTBR in adolescence. However, we showed that a supratheraputic dose of APAP significantly elevated levels of oxidative stress marker in the brain. Overall, the results suggested that BTBR mice would be a useful mouse model to investigate effects of various environmental factors that have been associated with autism. In addition, early exposure to APAP at supratherapeutic doses may negatively affect normal brain development.

The goal of the master thesis project was to develop an application for tracking of actual events in the surrounding area of the users. This application should allow the users to view events, create new events and add comments to existing ones. Beyond the implementation of developed application, this project deals with an analysis of the presented problem. The analysis includes a comparison with existing solutions and search for available technologies and frameworks applicable for implementation. Another part inside this work is description of the theory in behind of data classification that is internally used for event and comment analysis. This work also includes a design of appliction including design of user interface, software architecture, database, communication protocol and data classifiers. The main part of this project, the implementation, is described aftewards. At the end of this work, there is a summary of the whole process and also there are given some ideas about enhancing the application in the future.

This work deals with methods of web page classification. It explains the concept of classification and different features of web pages used for their classification. Further it analyses representation of a page and in detail describes classification method that deals with hierarchical category model and is able to dynamically create new categories. In the second half it shows implementation of chosen method and describes the results.

This master's thesis presents methods for mining important pieces of information from text. It analyses the problem of terms extraction from large document collection and describes the implementation using C# language and Microsoft SQL Server. The system uses stemming and a number of statistical methods for term extraction. This project also compares used methods and suggests the process of the dictionary derivation.

The Diploma thesis is focused on reballing of BGA packages with the device PACE TF 2700. It describes the general types of BGA packages, their defects, importance of thermal management to the solder techniques, where it is also talked about the meaning of solders and fluxes for the joint. The work informs about the most common methods of reballing, the proper handling of components and the current situation with BGA stencils on the market. It briefly describes the device operation of PACE TF 2700, that is working on the convection and IR principle of heating components. It deals with the manufacturing of the template, dummy BGA packages, the test plates, creation of the thermo profile, comparing and examining the defects and their causes, which had the most significant impact on the results. The achievements would serve for comparing them with the results of the future laboratory exercises or as a subject for further works.

This work addresses the need for an alternative to keyword-based search for sifting through large PDF medical journal article document collections for literature review purposes. Despite users' best efforts to form precise and accurate queries, it is often difficult to guess the right keywords to find all the related articles while finding a minimum number of unrelated ones. Failure during literature review to find relevant, related research results in wasted research time and effort in addition to missing significant work in the related area which could affect the quality of the research work being conducted. The purpose of this work is to explore the benefits of a retrieval system for professional journal articles in PDF format that supports hybrid queries composed of both text and images. PDF medical journal articles contain formatting and layout information that imply the structure and organization of the document. They also contain figures and tables rich with content and meaning. Stripping a PDF into “full-text” for indexing purposes disregards these important features. Specifically, this work investigated the following: (1) what effect the incorporation of a document's embedded figures into the query (in addition to its text) has on retrieval performance (precision) compared to plain keyword-based search; (2) how current text-based document-query similarity methods can be enhanced by using formatting and font-size information as a structure and organization model for a PDF document; (3) whether to use the standard Euclidean distance function or the matrix distance function for content-based image retrieval; (4) how to convert a PDF into a structured, formatted, reflowable XML representation given a pure-layout PDF document; (5) what document views (such as a term frequency cloud, a document outline, or a document's figures) would help users wade through search results to quickly select those that are worth a closer look. While the results of the experiments were unexpectedly worse than their baselines of comparison (see the conclusion for a summary), the experimental methods are very valuable in showing others what directions have already been pursued and why they did not work and what remaining problems need to be solved in order to achieve the goal of improving literature review through use of a hybrid text and image retrieval system.

This study presents the results of an exploratory study investigating the current level of awareness of blockchain technology among IT administrative staff and educators in the context of higher education in Sweden, by employing a qualitative method for data collection. This study has gained useful insight and perspective of participants’ level of understanding of blockchain technology in the context of higher education.The results demonstrate varied awareness levels of participants by highlighting the level of understanding about blockchain technology and their attitude towards acceptance of it. The study also sheds some light on the challenges associated with blockchain from the perspective of the participants. The study has tried to identify viable solutions to improve the acceptance and gradual adoption of blockchain technology in higher education.In conclusion, the results indicate that existing frameworks like the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) could be extended by adding a perception of cost to understand the acceptance and adoption of blockchain technology in the context of higher education. Further research is required to investigate the importance of cost perspective to UTAUT and TAM models and its relevance in the context of blockchain technology in higher education. Furthermore, the study suggests that addressing the knowledge gap by producing and distributing educational resources and programs focused on blockchain technology could raise the awareness level and understanding among various stakeholders in higher education which will help in the gradual adoption of blockchain technology in higher education.