This research encompasses the automated design and structural optimization of reinforced concrete slab frame bridges, considering investment costs and environmental impacts. The most important feature of this work is that it focusses on realistic and complete models of slab frame bridges rather than on optimization of only individual members or sections of a bridge. The thesis consists of an extended summary of publications and three appended papers. In the first paper, using simple assumptions, the possibility of applying cost-optimization to the structural design of slab frame bridges was investigated. The results of the optimization of an existing constructed bridge showed the potential to reduce the investment cost of slab frame bridges. The procedure was further developed in the second paper. In this paper, automated design was integrated to a more refined cost-optimization methodology based on more detailed assumptions and including extra constructability factors. This procedure was then applied to a bridge under design, before its construction. From the point of view of sustainability, bridge design should not only consider criteria such as cost but also environmental performance. The third paper thus integrated life cycle assessment (LCA) with the design optimization procedure to perform environmental impact optimization of the same case study bridge as in the second paper. The results of investment cost and environmental impact optimization were then compared. The obtained results presented in the appended papers highlight the successful application of optimization techniques to the structural design of reinforced concrete slab frame bridges. Moreover, the results indicate that a multi-objective optimization that simultaneously considers both environmental impacts and investment cost is necessary in order to generate more sustainable designs. The presented methodology has been applied to the design process for a time-effective, sustainable, and optimal design of concrete slab frame bridges. / <p>QC 20170316</p>

От эффективности эксплуатации основных средств предприятий топливно-энергетического комплекса зависит уровень затрат на их содержание. Большая часть основных средств предприятий выработала свой срок эксплуатации и требует принятия решения по их ликвидации, реконструкции или ремонту с продлением срока эксплуатации в соответствие с требованиями действующего законодательства. Целью магистерской диссертации является разработка теоретико-методических положений по эффективному использованию основных средств на объектах топливно-энергетического комплекса. В работе рассматривается адаптивный для практического применения методический подход к оценке эффективности эксплуатации оборудования с истекающим сроком назначенного ресурса. Он описывает последовательность действий при подготовке формирования планов по реконструкции, диагностике, техническому обслуживанию и ремонту основного и вспомогательного оборудования, назначенный ресурс, или ресурс, продленный после проведения ЭПБ, которого подходит к концу. В качестве источников использовалась учебно-методическая и научно-исследовательская литература, результаты аналитических исследований автора и данные корпоративной статистики. В магистерской диссертации был разработан подход к оценке эффективности эксплуатации основных средств, в том числе с истекшим сроком службы, который способствует росту экономических показателей предприятий топливно-энергетического комплекса. / The level of maintenance costs depends on the efficiency of the operation of fixed assets of fuel and energy complex enterprises. Most of the fixed assets of enterprises have developed their service life and require a decision on their liquidation, reconstruction or repair with the extension of the service life in accordance with the requirements of current legislation. The purpose of the master's thesis is to develop theoretical and methodological provisions for the effective use of fixed assets at the facilities of the fuel and energy complex. The paper considers an adaptive for practical application methodological approach to assessing the efficiency of equipment operation with the expiration of the assigned resource. It describes the sequence of actions in preparing the formation of plans for the reconstruction, diagnosis, maintenance and repair of main and auxiliary equipment, the assigned resource, or the resource extended after the EPB, which is coming to an end. The sources used were educational, methodological, and research literature, the results of the author's analytical research, and corporate statistics. In the master's thesis, an approach was developed to assess the efficiency of the operation of fixed assets, including those with an expired service life, which contributes to the growth of economic indicators of fuel and energy complex enterprises.

No description available.

The problem of fleet design and fleet modelling; for decades problems regarding determining fleet sizes and optimized routing problems have formed the groundwork into the fleet design and fleet optimization for a wide range of business sectors. In most of these problems only single entities or fixed design resources are optimized for a certain route and delivery objective based on minimizing operational costs. In the naval industry, there has been a growing need for numerical methods that are able to predict what kind of fleets, in terms of size and capabilities, would be suited to achieve certain operational needs. Further than that, for shipbuilders and designers, what kind of design requirements the individual vessel platforms in such a fleet must contain constitutes the bridge in translating operational needs to ship design and system integration requirements. Especially in an era where technology advances more quickly than it takes to design a naval vessel, creating tools that are able to predict something about future fleet resilience could become an effective asset for future naval fleet development. For this, studies that contribute to developing methods that can evaluate the combined effect of individual vessel platforms from a fleet perspective are still fairly limited. The overall goal of this study was to determine how the development and application of fleet modelling tools can contribute to designing naval fleets that are more robust against future threats and missions. The objective was to extend and build on a fleet modelling method based on Systems Engineering, that is able to generate fleet compositions and produce basic individual platform design requirements for early-stage design phases of naval fleets through scripted naval scenario's. The aim was to construct a functional numerical simulation model through Mixed Integer Linear programming and extend the abilities of the method to be able to include 'future' technologies, with UXV's receiving the main focus. The overall potential and results that the numerical model produces are interesting, through an optimization process it is able to build a fleet from a wide range of platform choices and deliver basic platform design requirements. Actual combat performance of the fleets that are generated, is debatable and needs to be further investigated and tested/verified through different means. The conclusion from the study is that to design future resilient fleets, more research and development is needed in the area of naval fleet modelling and simulation since the functionality of tools available can not overcome the amount of uncertainty that the future brings. Besides that, the method under review does make it able to generate interesting fleet combinations that could spark new ideas on how we could regard the future potential of uprising technology and their combined capabilities with naval vessel platforms. / Problemet med flottdesign och flottmodellering; i årtionden har problem med att bestämma flottans storlek och optimerade routingproblem bildat grunden för flottans design och flottans optimering för ett brett spektrum av affärssektorer. I de flesta av dessa problem är mätvärden för enkel design eller fasta fartyg optimerade för en viss rutt och antal hamnar baserat på minimering av driftskostnader. Inom marinindustrin har det funnits ett växande behov av numeriska metoder som kan förutsäga vilken typ av flotta, när det gäller storlek och kapacitet, som skulle vara lämplig för att möta vissa operativa behov. För varvsbyggare och konstruktörer fungerar dessutom att tillskriva designkrav till enskilda fartygsplattformar i en sådan flotta som bron som översätter operativa behov till krav på fartygsdesign och systemintegration. Särskilt i en tid där tekniken går snabbare än vad som krävs för att utforma ett marinfartyg kan skapandet av verktyg som kan förutsäga motståndskraften hos en framtida flotta vara en effektiv tillgång för framtida marinutveckling. För detta är studier som bidrar till att utveckla metoder som kan utvärdera den kombinerade effekten av enskilda fartygsplattformar ur ett flottperspektiv fortfarande ganska begränsade. Det övergripande målet för denna studie var att avgöra hur utvecklingen och tillämpningen av verktyg för modellering av flottor kan bidra till att utforma marinflottor som är mer robusta mot framtida hot och uppdrag. Målet var att utöka och bygga på en flottmodelleringsmetod baserad på Systems Engineering, som kan generera flottanheter och producera grundläggande individuella plattformskrav för designfasen i de tidiga stadierna av marina flottar genom scenarier för manusskrivning. Syftet var att konstruera en funktionell numerisk simuleringsmodell genom Mixed Integer Linear Programmering och utöka metodens förmåga för att kunna inkludera 'framtida' teknologier, med UXV: er som huvudfokus. Den övergripande potentialen och resultaten som den numeriska modellen ger är intressanta, genom en optimeringsprocess kan den bygga en flotta från ett brett spektrum av plattformsval och leverera grundläggande krav på plattformsdesign. Den faktiska stridsprestandan för de genererade flottorna kan inte bedömas och måste undersökas vidare och testas / verifieras med olika metoder. Studien drar slutsatsen att utformning av framtida motståndskraftiga flottor kräver mer forskning och utveckling inom marinmodellering och simulering, eftersom funktionaliteten hos nuvarande tillgängliga verktyg inte kan övervinna osäkerheten i framtiden. Förutom det gör metoden under granskning det möjligt att generera intressanta flottkombinationer som kan utlösa nya idéer om hur vi kan betrakta den framtida potentialen för upprorsteknologi och deras kombinerade kapacitet med sjöfartygsplattformar.

Microservice-based applications thrive when each service performs a specific, well-defined task independently, contributing to the overall system. However, what happens when these independent services overlap? Could consolidating some of these services yield substantial benefits? This thesis delves into the securities overlap among services within the Nasdaq Risk Platform. By evaluating metrics such as memory consumption, JVM overhead, and CPU utilization, it identifies potential candidates for consolidation. A proof-of-concept consolidation of actual Nasdaq Risk Platform services was deployed and compared against a non-consolidated version. The analysis revealed that the consolidated version performs similarly but exhibits a more uniform and stable usage curve. Additionally, by reducing the number of JVMs and combining the service securities cache, the total RAM usage decreased by 28%.

Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) is a tool that ensures the operation and longevity of products and systems throughout their lifecycle. The method structures logistics support activities and yields results that simplify, prevent, or mitigate risk areas, ultimately aiming to minimize lifecycle costs. ILS was developed within the defense industry, but its use in the civilian sector is still limited, indicating untapped potential. The purpose of the research is to investigate the process of ILS implementation and the potential benefits it could bring to the civilian industry. The emphasis is on comprehending the process and methodically developing guidelines that organizations can adopt. This purpose is achieved through an initial literature review examining integrated logistics support. The ideas are then implemented in a case study to demonstrate the process and generate improvement strategies. Based on the case study, the conclusion is drawn that the method achieves the desired effects. A generalized methodology is presented, which can be utilized by civilian companies and organizations.

Структура магистерской диссертации включает в себя введение, три главы, заключение, список использованных источников. В первой главе рассматриваются теоретические основы, включая раскрытие понятий «затраты», «издержки» и «расходы», их сравнительный анализ, изучение классификации и структуры затрат предприятия, а также функций, принципов и методов управления затратами. Во второй главе осуществляется детальный анализ финансового положения исследуемого объекта, а также изучаются особенности структуры и формирования затрат. В третьей главе работы выделяются основные проблемы управления затратами предприятия, разрабатывается комплекс мероприятий для оптимизации затрат, который включает в себя инвестиционный проект, который направлен на оптимизацию затрат и на увеличение прибыли. / The structure of the master's thesis includes an introduction, three chapters, conclusion, list of used sources. The first chapter deals with theoretical foundations, including the disclosure of the concepts of "costs", "costs" and "expenses", their comparative analysis, the study of the classification and structure of enterprise costs, as well as the functions, principles, and methods of cost management. In the second chapter, a detailed analysis of the financial position of the object under study is carried out, as well as studying the features of the structure and formation of costs. In the third chapter of the work highlights the main problems of cost management of the enterprise, develops a set of measures to optimize costs, which includes an investment project, which is aimed at optimizing costs and increasing profits.

This thesis is organized into two parts, one for my main area of research in the field of stochastic games, and the other for my contributions in the area of service systems. We first provide an abstract for my work in stochastic games. The field of stochastic games has been actively pursued over the last seven decades because of several of its important applications in oligopolistic economics. In the past, zero-sum stochastic games have been modelled and solved for Nash equilibria using the standard techniques of Markov decision processes. General-sum stochastic games on the contrary have posed difficulty as they cannot be reduced to Markov decision processes. Over the past few decades the quest for algorithms to compute Nash equilibria in general-sum stochastic games has intensified and several important algorithms such as stochastic tracing procedure [Herings and Peeters, 2004], NashQ [Hu and Wellman, 2003], FFQ [Littman, 2001], etc., and their generalised representations such as the optimization problem formulations for various reward structures [Filar and Vrieze, 1997] have been proposed. However, they suffer from either lack of generality or are intractable for even medium sized problems or both. In our venture towards algorithms for stochastic games, we start with a non-linear optimization problem and then design a simple gradient descent procedure for the same. Though this procedure gives the Nash equilibrium for a sample problem of terrain exploration, we observe that, in general, it need not be true. We characterize the necessary conditions and define KKT-N point. KKT-N points are those Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) points which corresponding to Nash equilibria. Thus, for a simple gradient based algorithm to guarantee convergence to Nash equilibrium, all KKT points of the optimization problem need to be KKT-N points, which restricts the applicability of such algorithms. We then take a step back and start looking at better characterization of those points of the optimization problem which correspond to Nash equilibria of the underlying game. As a result of this exploration, we derive two sets of necessary and sufficient conditions. The first set, KKT-SP conditions, is inspired from KKT conditions itself and is obtained by breaking down the main optimization problem into several sub-problems and then applying KKT conditions to each one of those sub-problems. The second set, SG-SP conditions, is a simplified set of conditions which characterize those Nash points more compactly. Using both KKT-SP and SG-SP conditions, we propose three algorithms, OFF-SGSP, ON-SGSP and DON-SGSP, respectively, which we show provide Nash equilibrium strategies for general-sum discounted stochastic games. Here OFF-SGSP is an off-line algorithm while ONSGSP and DON-SGSP are on-line algorithms. In particular, we believe that DON-SGSP is the first decentralized on-line algorithm for general-sum discounted stochastic games. We show that both our on-line algorithms are computationally efficient. In fact, we show that DON-SGSP is not only applicable for multi-agent scenarios but is also directly applicable for the single-agent case, i.e., MDPs (Markov Decision Processes). The second part of the thesis focuses on formulating and solving the problem of minimizing the labour-cost in service systems. We define the setting of service systems and then model the labour-cost problem as a constrained discrete parameter Markov-cost process. This Markov process is parametrized by the number of workers in various shifts and with various skill levels. With the number of workers as optimization variables, we provide a detailed formulation of a constrained optimization problem where the objective is the expected long-run averages of the single-stage labour-costs, and the main set of constraints are the expected long-run average of aggregate SLAs (Service Level Agreements). For this constrained optimization problem, we provide two stochastic optimization algorithms, SASOC-SF-N and SASOC-SF-C, which use smoothed functional approaches to estimate gradient and perform gradient descent in the aforementioned constrained optimization problem. SASOC-SF-N uses Gaussian distribution for smoothing while SASOC-SF-C uses Cauchy distribution for the same. SASOC-SF-C is the first Cauchy based smoothing algorithm which requires a fixed number (two) of simulations independent of the number of optimization variables. We show that these algorithms provide an order of magnitude better performance than existing industrial standard tool, OptQuest. We also show that SASOC-SF-C gives overall better performance.

The awareness and concern regarding social and environmental issues is growing among representatives of the business sector and they cannot eliminate the impact that they have. Corporate Social Responsibility is a complex strategy to govern the whole process of doing business. The objective of the Diploma Thesis is to prepare comprehensive analysis of current CSR practices in the Czech Republic and find out what type of impact the socially responsible practices of a company can have on a customers behaviour. The used literature represents pervious findings in the field, mainly researches done among Czech customers. In the practical part personal interviews with the company representative will be held in order to examine practical implications of CSR practices for the biggest brewery; Anheusher-Busch InBev.

This diploma’s thesis deals with a cost optimization of the concrete investment plan, which is a public procurement called Hospital in Hodonín reconstruction. In the theoretical part of the thesis there is information about construction (investment) project, about its organization and legislation focused on contract for work. The practical part contains cost optimization of concrete project. In the end the final evaluation of the procurement for competitive tendering and the confrontation with other contenders’ procurements are made.