A presente dissertação tem como escopo principal a análise da figura do terceiro, sua relação com o agente público para a caracterização do ato de improbidade e as cominações daí advindas, servindo como referência principal a Lei nº 8.429/92. O estudo parte da contextualização e definição de improbidade administrativa, visto que a norma é silente sobre a matéria, valendo-se o autor da doutrina e da racionalidade sistemática proposta pela citada lei para tal mister. Superada essa fase introdutória, os capítulos seguem praticamente a ordem cronológica disposta na regra, ou seja, são analisados: (i) os sujeitos passivo e ativo do ato de improbidade administrativa, dando-se especial atenção aos terceiros, (ii) os atos tipificados como ímprobos e suas especificidades, (iii) a obrigatoriedade do ressarcimento do dano ao patrimônio público e a perda dos valores percebidos em decorrência de enriquecimento ilícito, pontuadas, aqui, as medidas de indisponibilidade e seqüestro de bens, (iv) as sanções aplicáveis e (v) a prescrição das ações destinadas a levar a efeito as medidas repressivas. Com o objetivo de aprofundar o estudo e dar suporte aos temas intrínsecos de cada ponto acima delineado, foram abordados em capítulos próprios (i) a problemática da causalidade adequada, segregando a mera irregularidade da improbidade, (ii) o elemento subjetivo caracterizador do ato de improbidade administrativa e (iii) o litisconsórcio existente entre o agente público e o terceiro. Para todas as questões postas, além da doutrina e do texto legal, a jurisprudência serviu de importante ferramenta, sobretudo, nos temas mais intrincados. / The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship between public agent and a third party, especially when defining an act of improbity and its comminations, using law number 8.429/92 as main reference. This study initially sets a context and a definition of administrative improbity since the norm is silent on this matter. The author uses the above mentioned laws systematic rationality and doctrine. Going forward, the chapters practically follow the same order as in the rule, analyzing (i) passive and active roles in an act of administrative improbity, with emphasis on the third party, (ii) definition of improbity and its specifications, (iii) mandatory indemnity to public property and the loss of perceived value due to illicit enrichment, including measures of unavailability and sequestration of assets, (iv) applicable sanctions and (v) prescription of actions destined to enforce corrective measures. Aiming to deepen the understanding of the issues above, specific chapters were dedicated to (i) the problem of adequate causality, differentiating irregularity from improbity, (ii) subjective elements to administrative improbity and (iii) the union between public agent and a third party. For all these questions, jurisprudence was a valuable tool to complement legal texts and doctrine, above all in the most complicated subjects.

De meados da década de 80 até a atualidade as atividades básicas que fazem parte da logística deixaram de ser somente consolidadoras de uma relação de compra e venda, e passaram a ter uma importância estratégica bastante grande em busca de uma maior vantagem competitiva. Esta nova importância para a logística surgiu com a abertura econômica e o acirramento da competitividade mundial. Assim, empresas se especializaram em projetar, implantar e gerenciar as atividades de logística para outras empresas (Operadores Logísticos). A tomada de decisão entre realizar as atividades logísticas através de competência interna da empresa ou repassa-las aos operadores logísticos se tornou mais freqüente nos dias de hoje. O trabalho propõe um procedimento de auxílio a tomada de decisão para empresas em fase de análise da viabilidade da utilização de operadores logísticos. Por fim o procedimento é testado no campo com dados reais uma empresa de grande porte. / From the middle of 80\'s until today, the basic logistic activities are not only to consolidate buy and sales relationship, these activities became important in strategic planning, being important to reach new markets. This new logistic importance started with openning of Brazilian economy and with the increase in world competitiveness. For this reason, enterprises improvement the logistic activities techniques, as project, implementation an management and starting to execute these activities to another enterprises with do not have logistic as core competence, these enterprises are called Third Party Logistic Provider. The decision make between insourcing or outsourcing logistic activities became more frequently nowadays. This thesis propose a procedure to help enterprises in the viability analysis phase to use third party logistic provider in its supply chain. In the end the procedure is tested in a global company with real data.

The third-party tracking ecosystem continuously evolves in scope, therefore, understanding of it is at best elusive. In this thesis, we investigate this complex ecosystem from three dimen-sions. Firstly, we examine third-party trackers from a geographical perspective. We observe a non-uniform presence of local third-party trackers between regions and countries within re-gions, with some trackers focusing on specific regions and countries. Secondly, we focus on how trackers share user-specific identifiers (IDs). We identify user-specific IDs that we suspect are used to track users. We find a significant amount of ID-sharing practices across different organ-isations providing various service categories. Our observations reveal that ID-sharing happens at a large scale regardless of the user profile size and profile condition such as logged-in and logged-out. Finally, we quantify the effect of tracker-blockers, a popular option for the users to protect their privacy, on the page-load performance. The effect of such tools on the over-all user browsing experience is questionable as the blockage of trackers can disrupt the general website loading process. The tracker-blockers we studied have a considerable negative effect on page-load performance. Unexpectedly, we find that even highly popular websites are negatively affected. This thesis points to significant gaps in our knowledge about the inner workings of this complex ecosystem. Moreover, it highlights some of the challenges that we face when attempting to preserve user's privacy by using tracker-blockers.

Title: Annuity modelling in MTPL Author: Bc. Agáta Eštóková Department: Department of Probability and Mathematical Statistics Supervisor: Mgr. Karolína Kočová Supervisor's e-mail address: kkocova@koop.cz Abstract: This diploma thesis focuses on the possibilities of using generational mortality tables for third party liability insurance, mainly for bodily injured. It describes the construction of generational mortality tables and the creation of RBNS claims reserves. Besides the demonstration of these models, the work analyzes the results of calculating reserves in accordance with generational mortality tables and actual mortality tables of the Czech Republic. An impor- tant element in provision calculating is the simulation of future life expectancy of the insured, i.e. random generation of life expectancy based on generational mortality data. Characteristics of the distribution of reserves are derived from simulations. Furthermore, we compare the results of stochastic and determi- nistic approach of computing the reserves. Keywords: third party liability insurance, RBNS, annuity, generational morta- lity tables.

O estudo aborda as características de relacionamento entre empresas montadoras e operadores logísticos no Brasil, tendo em vista o caráter estratégico da prestação de serviços de logística integrada na indústria automobilística, setor que vem apresentando uma transformação muito grande em suas práticas e organização. O foco de análise é a logística de suprimento em montadoras de automóveis, não se abordando a distribuição de veículos prontos. O processo de globalização tem exigido a reestruturação das empresas para sua sobrevivência e desenvolvimento, a busca de vantagem competitiva, pela incorporação a seus produtos, da cadeia de valor dos clientes, e, no relacionamento interempresarial, novas formas de administração de suas cadeias de suprimentos. Os serviços de logística se mostram mais abrangentes, na estratégia e processo produtivos, numa nova caracterização da atuação de operadores logísticos. Na sua terceirização, tendência firme que se constatou, teoricamente, poderiam se apresentar alianças estratégicas entre empresas. As características de relacionamento nessa direção são abordadas nesta tese. O estudo foi conduzido com base em fontes secundárias e pela realização de entrevistas junto a montadoras e operadores logísticos. Metodologicamente, adotou-se o estudo de multicasos na identificação de arranjos institucionais da operação da logística por operadores especializados. Foi identificado um ambiente em transição, em que a terceirização é um fato, com operadores logísticos, assumindo, cada vez mais, parcelas importantes das atividades dos contratantes. No entanto, o relacionamento está longe de caracterizar verdadeiras alianças estratégicas, apresentando-se uma interação dinâmica e, muitas vezes contraditória, entre as empresas. A consciência mútua das interdependências, aceitação e entendimento de interesses individuais, a serem conciliados em alianças estratégicas, com o objetivo comum de melhor condição competitiva e compartilhamento justo de riscos, custos e recompensas, podem ser fundamentais na implantação de novas formas de produção na indústria e na adoção de operadores logísticos únicos. / This study analyses the relationship among automotive industries and third party logistics (3PL) providers in Brazil, regarding the strategic aspect of the integrated logistics service in that industry, which is showing a remarkable changing in its organization and production practices. This analysis focuses the inbound logistic in car assembling plants. The globalization process requires firms restructure to enable survival and development, the search for competitive advantages, reflecting in their products their clients value chain and, in the relationship among firms, innovative ways of supply chain management. Logistics services assume a broader scope in the production process and in the company strategy, reflecting their providing by 3PL firms in a new way. In this outsourcing, theoretically, strategic alliances among firms could take place. The relationships characteristics towards this direction are analyzed in this thesis. The study used secondary sources and interviews were conducted with automotive and logistic services providers executives. For identifying institutional arrangements in logistics services providing industry, the basic methodology adopted was multicase studies. This work identifies a transition environment with outsourcing as a fact and logistics providers increasingly assuming relevant portions of the automotive industry activities. Nevertheless, their relationships are far from actual strategic alliances, occurring a dynamic and, many times, contradictory interaction among the firms. Consciousness of mutual interdependence, agreement and understanding of individual interests to be conciliated for the achievement of the common objective of better competitive condition and fair risks, costs and rewards sharing are needed. This could be a sound basis for the new production ways and define solids fundamentals for the new trend of full logistic provider implementations, already seen in the industry.

Design of computing systems — from pocket-sized smart phones to massive cloud based data-centers — have one common daunting challenge : minimizing the power consumption. In this effort, power management sector is undergoing a rapid and profound transformation to promote clean and energy proportional computing. At the hardware end of system design, there is proliferation of specialized, feature rich and complex power management hardware components. Similarly, in the software design layer complex power management suites are growing rapidly. Concurrent to this development, there has been an upsurge in the integration of third-party components to counter the pressures of shorter time-to-market. These trends collectively raise serious concerns about trust and security of power management solutions. In recent times, problems such as overheating, performance degradation and poor battery life, have dogged the mobile devices market, including the infamous recall of Samsung Note 7. Power outage in the data-center of a major airline left innumerable passengers stranded, with thousands of canceled flights costing over 100 million dollars. This research examines whether such events of unintentional reliability failure, can be replicated using targeted attacks by exploiting the security loopholes in the complex power management infrastructure of a computing system. At its core, this research answers an imminent research question: How can system designers ensure secure and reliable operation of third-party power management units? Specifically, this work investigates possible attack vectors, and novel non-invasive detection and defense mechanisms to safeguard system against malicious power attacks. By a joint exploration of the threat model and techniques to seamlessly detect and protect against power attacks, this project can have a lasting impact, by enabling the design of secure and cost-effective next generation hardware platforms.

In recent years the service-oriented design paradigm has enabled applications to be built by incorporating third party services. With the increasing popularity of this new paradigm, many companies and organizations have started to adopt this technology, which has resulted in an increase of the number and variety of third party providers. With the vast improvement of global networking infrastructure, a large number of providers offer their services for worldwide clients. As a result, clients are often presented with a number of providers that offer services with the same or similar functionalities, but differ in terms of non-functional attributes (or Quality of Service – QoS), such as performance. In this environment, the role of provider recommendation has become more important - in assisting clients in choosing the provider that meets their QoS requirement. / In this thesis we focus on provider recommendation based on one of the most important QoS attributes – performance. Specifically, we investigate client-perceived performance, which is the application-level performance measured at the client-side every time the client invokes the service. This performance metric has the advantage of accurately representing client experience, compared to the widely used server-side metrics in the current frameworks (e.g. Service Level Agreement or SLA in Web Services context). As a result, provider recommendation based on this metric will be favourable from the client’s point of view. / In this thesis we address two key research challenges related to provider recommendation based on client-perceived performance - performance assessment and performance prediction. We begin by identifying heterogeneity factors that affect client-perceived performance among clients in a global Internet environment. We then perform extensive real-world experiments to evaluate the significance of each factor to the client-perceived performance. / From our finding on heterogeneity factors, we then develop a performance estimation technique to address performance assessment for cases where direct measurements are unavailable. This technique is based on the generalization concept, i.e. estimating performance based on the measurement gathered by similar clients. A two-stage grouping scheme based on the heterogeneity factors we identified earlier is proposed to address the problem of determining client similarity. We then develop an estimation algorithm and validate it using synthetic data, as well as real world datasets. / With regard to performance prediction, we focus on the medium-term prediction aspect to address the needs of the emerging technology requirements: distinguishing providers based on medium-term (e.g. one to seven days) performance. Such applications are found when the providers require subscription from their clients to access the service. Another situation where the medium-term prediction is important is in temporal-aware selection: the providers need to be differentiated, based on the expected performance of a particular time interval (e.g. during business hours). We investigate the applicability of classical time series prediction methods: ARIMA and exponential smoothing, as well as their seasonal counterparts – seasonal ARIMA and Holt-Winters. Our results show that these existing models lack the ability to capture the important characteristics of client-perceived performance, thus producing poor medium-term prediction. We then develop a medium-term prediction method that is specifically designed to account for the key characteristics of a client-perceived performance series, and to show that our prediction methods produce higher accuracy for medium-term prediction compared to the existing methods. / In order to demonstrate the applicability of our solution in practice, we developed a provider recommendation framework based on client-perceived performance (named PROPPER), which utilizes our findings on performance assessment and prediction. We formulated the recommendation algorithm and evaluated it through a mirror selection case study. It is shown that our framework produces better outcomes in most cases, compared to country-based or geographic distance-based selection schemes, which are the current approach of mirror selection nowadays.

In this thesis 5 Swedish companies that use logistics service providers (LSPs: carriers, intermediaries and third party logistics providers) are interviewed to establish how Swedish LSPs fare in terms on coordination. More specifically, the research is focused on answering 3 questions: (1) what are users’ perceptions about their LSPs’ coordination, (2) what coordination behaviors are the LSPs most and least successful in, and (3) what factors are affecting LSPs’ coordination.

Purpose: Corporations today see a greater responsibility towards society regarding the environmental impact of their actions, using available transportation options that are more eco-friendly can reduce this impact significantly. Martinsen and Björklund (2012) identifies a set of gaps between supply and demand of green logistics services. This paper aims to address what it is that affects the demand for these alternative solutions and what could be done to increase the usage of them, thereby decreasing this gap. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative study with six Logistics Service Providers (LSP) and 24 companies that purchase transportation services, all operating in Sweden. Data is collected through semi-structured telephone interviews with people responsible for the purchasing of transports as well as key account managers within the service providing companies. Findings: Just as the LSP’s interviewed in this paper thought, the main focus of the transport buying companies are the costs. Therefore paying extra only to benefit the environment and not the economy of the company is not something a lot of companies are prepared to do at this time. However there are solutions such as intermodality which are highly demanded, these are often both cost effective and more environmentally friendly, the problem as many companies see it, is that the rail network needs to expand to be able to cover bigger areas and increase the capacity. Research limitations/implications: The research paper focuses on companies operating on the Swedish market, for that reason findings cannot be generalized to other countries and sectors. Practical implications: Findings can be used by LSP’s and political decision making parties to get a better understanding of the demand for this type of services and what is perceived as important by the customers. Originality/value: There is a lack of earlier studies that mainly focus on the demand of more environmentally friendly transport services. Therefore a study of this kind is important to create an understanding and thereby improve the overall situation on the market in terms of environmental sustainability.

The last few years have witnessed a significant increase in the frequency and magnitude of involving third-party application developers in software platforms. While this involvement offers great opportunities in building and sustaining platform innovation, it also exposes platform owners to significant challenges. Typically, platform owners facilitate the involvement of third-party developers by providing resources, referred to in this thesis as boundary resources, that give access to the platform, shift design capability, and facilitate the use of the platform’s core technologies. At the same time, these resources have the potential to be used to maintain platform control. This involves seemingly conflicting goals that creates a challenge for platform owners in finding the right balance. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate and understand the role of boundary resources in platform owners’ efforts to stimulate third-party development. To this end, this thesis proposes a theoretical model of boundary resources. This model centres on various drivers behind boundary resources design and use, and how these drivers interact in third-party development. The thesis also presents a comprehensive view of governance and strategizing practices used by platform owners through boundary resources. This thesis comprises a cover and a collection of five published research papers. The thesis applies a qualitative research method and employs multiple case studies. Boundary resources, innovation networks and platform governance perspectives have been synthesized to build a theoretical  basis to analyze the empirical findings. This thesis complements and extends the literature on software platforms, and the insights derived from the thesis enhance previous research on third-party development. In addition, it provides a focused theoretical account of the interfaces between platform owners and third-party developers that contributes to the body of knowledge developed around using tools for innovation.