The primary focus of this study was to compare the efficiency of six filter samplers in the collection of inhalable soluble platinum (Pt) salts at a South African base metal refinery. Inhalation remains the major route of occupational exposure to platinum groups metals (PGMs). South Africa would benefit from the study since it’s amongst the major countries where PGMs are produced and hence, monitoring of worker exposure with the most efficient sampler is of utmost importance. The IOM is currently being used in routine exposure monitoring although no studies have been carried out to compare its performance to that of the other samplers under the actual base metal refinery conditions. Method: The button, closed face cassette (CFC), Gesamtsstaubprobenhome (GSP), (Institute of Medicine) IOM, PAS-6 and seven hole (SH-sampler) samplers were randomly allocated to six different positions in presumably high exposure areas. The samplers were moved around in the subsequent sampling days and the process repeated 3 times. The average dust mass and Pt concentrations were used as a basis of sampler performance and comparisons from which sampler hierarchies were determined. Results: The average relative humidity ranged between 37% and 43% and the average dry bulb temperature of 22.4°C was measured. Comparison of the dust mass concentrations revealed no statistically significant differences amongst the six filter samplers tested. The SH-sampler and CFC however collected the highest and lowest dust mass and Pt concentrations respectively. Discussion: The SH-sampler was found to be a sampler with more reliability than the the IOM for the collection of dust mass and soluble Pt. The IOM collected 98% of the SH-sampler dust mass and Pt concentrations. This was in spite of the larger variations indicated by the highest relative standard deviations and confidence intervals shown by the IOM than the other samplers. The GSP sampler, however, showed better precision than all the other samplers in the collection of platinum. The seven 4 mm orifices of the SH-sampler sampler allow for uniform distribution of sampled particles onto the filter supporting its better precision than the IOM which has only one 4 mm opening. The worst performing sampler was the CFC sampler since it collected the lowest dust mass and Pt concentrations. The CFC and the PAS samplers have downward facing inlets that are affected by gravity especially in lower wind speeds which, therefore, influences their efficiency. The GSP sampler concentrations placed it as 4th and 3rd best in Pt and dust mass hierarchies respectively even though it showed better precision than SHS in the sampling of Pt. The button sampler did not perform as well as would have been expected considering that its many evenly spaced orifices and the stainless steel are meant to reduce sample losses. Conclusion: The sampler hierarchy according to dust mass concentrations was in the following order: SH-sampler, IOM, PAS, GSP, button and CFC. The hierarchy obtained from Pt concentrations gave the order as SH-sampler, IOM, GSP, button, PAS and CFC. Similar studies have to be undertaken in primary and secondary platinum workplaces to validate the study results. Such studies should compare better performing samplers (SHS, IOM, Button and GSP) as well as incorporate particle size determination and distribution in those areas. / MSc (Occupational Hygiene), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

<p>Mobbning kan leda till långvariga psykosociala, psykiatriska och psykosomatiska problem och sker vanligtvis under skoltid. Tidigare studier har visat att elever och lärare kan bedöma mobbning olika beroende på mobbningsform. Hur individen bedömer situationer är beroende av en mängd kognitiva processer och synen på vad som är mobbning bidrar till om man ingriper eller inte. En surveyundersökning genomfördes på 268 högstadieelever och 70 lärare. En enkät beskrivande olika mobbningssituationer utformades i syftet att se om det fanns skillnader i dessa gruppers bedömning av olika former av mobbning. Resultatet visade att lärare, särskilt äldre lärare, bedömde samtliga mobbningsformer mer som mobbning än eleverna. Eleverna bedömde fysisk mobbning mer som mobbning än övriga mobbningsformer. Mobbningssituationer innehållande flera aktiva angripare sågs mer som mobbning än situationer med en aktiv angripare. Kognitiva processer vilar på individens kunskap, föreställningar, förväntningar och mål, något som kan bidra till elevers och lärares olika bedömning av mobbning.</p>

1 Abstract This thesis provides an extensive comparative analysis of India and China. This analysis may be divided into two parts. The first one deals with the political development and the contemporary political situation in these countries, and the second one focuses on the economic development and the present state of the economy. The first part of the first chapter examines the political development of China. It is focused on the history in the 19th and the 20th century and it shows that it was quite turbulent after the fall of the feudalism. It concludes with the period after the death of Mao. The second part of the first chapter talks about the political development in India, mainly while India was a British colony. Second chapter provides a comparative analysis of the contemporary political systems in India and China. It shows that in India the citizens are able to influence the politics more than in China. With the third chapter, the second part of the thesis begins. The third chapter analyzes the development of the Chinese economy especially since 1980s. That is when the Chinese government started to implement substantial economic changes into the system. These changes have changed the planned economy of China to something what resembles very closely the market economy. The fourth chapter is...

Remuneration of members of the governing bodies of joint stock companies from a comparative perspective The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the law regarding remuneration of members of the governing bodies of joint stock companies in comparative perpective. This thesis deals with comparison of Czech and English jurisdiction. The topic is a highly relevant with regard to events of financial crisis 2008. The thesis primarily devotes its attention to the law contained in the Act on Business Corporation however it also takes into account the Commercial Code. Introductory part of the thesis outlines theoretical background of remuneration. It is followed by chapter describing concept of remuneration and introducing specific types of remuneration. Third part analyzes Czech law on remuneration of boards of directors contained in Act on Business Corporations and it is divided according individual titles that give rise to right on remuneration. In the last part of the thesis author describes English company law. Key words: remuneration, board of directors, comparison

This thesis focuses on legal capacity of minors. Maturity of a person depends on his or her age and the development of a personality is consecutive, therefore each legal system must deal with a question how to incorporate a capacity of minors (going through this development) to cause legal effects with own acts. These persons need a higher degree of protection and a different intensity of control or surveillance. Based on general description of several theoretical approaches to the issue the solution chosen in the Czech Republic and in Germany is being closely analyzed. The text of this thesis is divided into five chapters. Firstly, the Czech legislation concerning the issue is being explained. In the first chapter all the basic terms are defined and also the system of legislation regarding legal capacity is shortly outlined. The second chapter includes detailed analysis of legislation concerning legal capacity of minors. The basic criterion for assessment of capacity to cause legal effects with own acts is intellectual and volitional maturity. This criterion is complemented with special cases of a minor acting with consent of his legal representative, operation of business and performance of dependent work. The thesis also mentions acquisition of full legal capacity before reaching the age of majority...

The topic of the thesis is divorce and its consequences on property - comparison of Czech and German legal regulation. The thesis is divided into four basic chapters, in which there is described the history of divorce, then there is explained the term of divorce itself followed by definition of different matrimonial property regimes in the Czech republic and in Germany. In the end the thesis concerns settlement of property between spouses after the divorce. The thesis profits from both analytical and comparative methods of approach. Each chapter is divided into subchapters for better clarity and easier orientation. The subchapter consists of first explonation of Czech legal regulation, followed by German legal point of view and both of them are compared at the end of each section. The aim of this thesis is to explore similarities and differences between both legal regulations. First chapter deals with the history of divorce. The periods concerned are medieval times, the 18th and 19th Century and the whole 20th Century's development in the end. The second chapter is dedicated to the term divorce itself. First the termination of marriage in general is explained, then the thesis pays attention to a qualified breakdown as the only possible legal reason of divorce. At the end of this same chapter the...

This dissertation examines to what extent social comparison is emphasized in performance evaluations of work organizations, how employees react to it, and whether there is an alternative to it. Operationalizing social comparison as an evaluation process that compares an employee’s performance to their coworkers’ performance, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that social comparison is emphasized to a stronger extent in collectivistic cultures than in individualistic cultures. Studies 3 and 4 find that employees in collectivistic cultures perceive higher procedural fairness when they receive social comparison evaluations as compared to employees in individualistic cultures. The mediation analyses from Studies 2 and 4 indicate that these findings are explained by the perceived descriptive and injunctive norms of social comparisons within collectivistic versus individualistic cultures, which shape people’s general attitudes toward using social comparison in evaluation settings. In collectivistic cultures that put strong emphasis on people’s social context, social comparison is considered to be a necessary component of performance evaluations. In contrast, in individualistic cultures where people focus on the specific characteristics of each person, social comparison is believed to be more or less irrelevant. Given the aversive effect of social comparison in individualistic cultures, the second chapter of this dissertation investigates whether there is a proper alternative to social comparison in the context of performance evaluations. It finds that temporal comparison—which compares an employee’s performance to his or her own past performance—can be such an alternative. Temporal comparison secures employees’ perceptions of fairness by providing the beliefs that their evaluators are focusing on them and their specific characteristics. These findings imply that employees in individualistic cultures want their independent identities to be acknowledged at work, and providing temporal comparison evaluations is one way to fulfill such needs.

To fulfil global energy demand and to mitigate economical, geopolitical and ecological challenges associated with fossil fuel utilisation, the energy sector is moving towards greater use of sustainable and environmentally friendly energy sources, including biofuels. The ideal transport biofuel would be hydrocarbons that are identical to fossil petroleum. However, to date characterised hydrocarbon biosynthetic pathways include a decarbonylation or decarboxylation reaction, which involves the loss of one carbon resulting in odd-numbered carbon chain hydrocarbons. This carbon loss decreases carbon efficiency for alkane production, which reduces microbial fuel economic competitiveness. Therefore, it is key that new pathways for alkane production are identified. The sulphate-reducing bacteria genus Desulfovibrio was previously reported to synthesise even-numbered carbon chain alkanes, which suggests an alternative route for alkane production without carbon loss. This investigation aimed to verify Desulfovibrio alkane biosynthesis and characterise the possible synthetic pathway. Ten Desulfovibrio strains, representing seven species, were screened for alkane synthesis using isotopically labelled growth media. The ability to produce alkanes within the Desulfovibrio genus was confirmed and was shown to be strain-specific under a set of culture conditions. The biogenic alkanes detected were octadecane (C18), nonadecane (C19) and eicosane (C20), with a predominance of even-numbered carbon chain alkanes. Fatty acid analysis of Desulfovibrio strains showed an alkane biosynthetic pathway was unlikely to involve a decarbonylation or decarboxylation step. A novel hypothesis was therefore proposed that alkane biosynthesis by Desulfovibrio follows a metabolic route, which has not previously been characterised, involving a series of reduction reactions from the fatty acid pool. The characterisation of the putative Desulfovibrio hydrogenation pathway for alkane biosynthesis was undertaken via a target-directed genome mining approach. The genomic DNA of nine Desulfovibrio spp. was purified, sequenced, de novo assembled and annotated. Seven of these nine genomes are unpublished to date. No homologs of previously characterised alkane biosynthetic enzymes from bacteria were in silico identified in the genomes and proteomes of alkane producing Desulfovibrio spp., suggesting that Desulfovibrio alkane biosynthetic pathway is likely to be catalysed by currently uncharacterised enzymes. The 16S rRNA-based phylogeny of Desulfovibrio spp. supported the hypothesis that the Desulfovibrio alkane biosynthetic pathway was acquired by a common ancestral strain via horizontal gene transfer. The ability of Desulfovibrio to produce alkanes was therefore hypothesised to be due to the presence of recruited genes encoding enzymes involved in alkane synthesis. A comparative genomic analysis intersecting six-alkane producing and four non-alkane producing Desulfovibrio genomes resulted in the in silico identification of 33 hypothetical proteins considered with high confidence to be exclusive to alkane producing Desulfovibrio strains. A novel hypothetical Desulfovibrio alkane biosynthetic pathway was proposed involving a V-type ATPase, an uncharacterised protein, named as a putative reductase in this investigation, and a putative methyltransferase, which were predicted to be exclusive to alkane producing Desulfovibrio spp. The inorganic phosphates resulting from the ATP hydrolysis catalysed by the V-type ATPase would be involved in a reaction with fatty alcohols to form alkyl phosphates, which are putative activated intermediates required for the hydrogenation route from fatty alcohols to alkanes. The putative reductase and the methyltransferase, predicted to share similar structural features with known alkane-binding proteins, would subsequently reduce alkyl phosphates to alkanes and to iso-alkanes respectively. Empirical investigation of the candidate molecular basis function in Desulfovibrio alkane biosynthesis was undertaken. The Desulfovibrio alkane biosynthetic pathway remains to be fully characterised.

Prace charakterizuje tento systém, představuje jeho klady a zápory a srovnavá vybraná data se standardem zemí OECD s důrazem kladeným na srovnání s Českou republikou. V práci je zahrnuta část věnována popisu Chilské republiky

This thesis is dedicated to the production of electricity with special focus on nuclear energy. Current energy issues in the world are crucial and the today's world situation is putting pressure on energy industry to be sustainable. Goal of this work is to analyze current energy mix in the world and objectively evaluate advantages and disadvantages of different methods of electricity production from economic, as well as ecological and political view.