This master's thesis is a study of the comic strip and its tradition in the Czech Republic. It covers development of this format and its occurrence in Czech periodicals as well as the gradual use of comics' visual language and different views on the comic strip definition. Taking views from several different perspectives including artists, writers, magazine editors and publishers this thesis will show the principles of cooperation between the comic creator and the editors of the magazine in which it is published. This is supported by original research (see Appendix) and has the goal of showing the motivations, perceptions and approaches to the comic strip from the perspective of the creator as well as the magazine editor. The research uses case studies based on structured interviews with editors of cultural magazines in the Czech Republic and with the creators of the comic strips that they publish. The results of this research combined with the historical and contemporary context offer a close look into the current perception of the comic strip as a format for creative expression, but also the magazine editor's responsibility in publishing the comic strip.

DEFINITION OF INVESTMENT IN INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION AND PROTECTION AGREEMENTS Abstract Definition of the investment is of particular importance in terms of scope of the rights and obligations arising out of the investment protection treaties. This is the case especially when we are in the presence of dispute between the foreign investor and the host state where definition forms the basis of the tribunal's jurisdiction. The object of this thesis is in spite of the absence of globally accepted legal definition of "foreign investment" to attempt to summarize most of the historical and current concepts of this notion and to provide by means of the various legal sources, case law as well as the doctrinal points of view the comprehensive approach to its content in the modern international investment law. However this absence of the general legal definition of the international investment was not considered as the obstacle for its use. Instead it represents the advantage in terms of potentially wide field of its application and the flexibility resulting from its openness. Bilateral investment treaties representing the mainstream of the regulation of international investments covers quite a wide field of economic activities to which the investment tribunals in the course of their function attempted to draw some...

Disruptive change transforms existing organizational processes. Newspaper organizations such as Orlando Sentinel Communications (OSC) tend to resist process change. As with most newspaper companies in the United States, OSC management was confronted with unprecedented disruptive change and challenges by the accelerated evolution of its business models and processes. This investigation identified and modeled OSC circulation processes to support disruptive change initiatives. The XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) is an XML specification and process modeling solution developed by the Workflow Management Coalition (WFMC) designed to exchange workflow process semantics and graphics. This investigation focused on developing an XPDL process model of OSC circulation processes to address process transformations inherent to disruptive change. The method was a case study of OSC circulation processes through the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) framework to develop a reproducible XPDL process model for OSC to use in planning for disruptive change. The investigation found that XPDL to be well-suited as the language for expressing workflow models to plan, align, and implement processes that anticipate disruptive change. The results of this research also confirmed that organizational values, workflow activities, and subflows play a prominent role in an incumbent organization's response to disruptive change. Finally, this study established that process model metainformation associated with workflow activities, transitions, and resources are core attributes in planning for disruptive change.

Resumé Práce zkoumá definici uprchlíka a její výklad a aplikaci v současném mezinárodním právu. Vymezení zpracovávané látky je dáno smluvním instrumentem z roku 1951, kterým státy přijaly definici uprchlíka, Úmluvou o právním postavení uprchlíků. Zkoumána je zahrnující část definice, která říká, kdo je uprchlíkem. Za něj považujeme osobu, která (...) "se nachází mimo svou vlast a má oprávněné obavy před pronásledováním z důvodů rasových, náboženských nebo národnostních nebo z důvodů příslušnosti k určitým společenským vrstvám nebo i zastávání určitých politických názorů, je neschopna přijmout, nebo vzhledem ke shora uvedeným obavám, odmítá ochranu své vlasti (...)". Disertační práce pracuje s následujícími hypotézami: 1) došlo k posunu ve výkladu a aplikaci definice uprchlíka. Zde je zároveň sledováno, zda došlo k vytvoření nové obyčejové definice a jaký je případně její obsah; 2) došlo ke vzniku regionální obyčejové definice - a zde je opět brán zřetel na to, jaký je případně její obsah; a 3) restriktivní praxe států před a při vstupu cizince na území ovlivňují výklad a aplikaci definice uprchlíka. Text je členěn do čtyř částí. První se zabývá historickým vývojem definice uprchlíka a zkoumá, co státy ovlivnilo při formulování jejího pozitivního zakotvení. Mezinárodněprávní reakce na fenomén uprchlictví je...

Perçue au départ comme un phénomène marginal, la corruption est apparue comme un phénomène endémique au point de fragiliser les fondements de la démocratie d'une part, et d'autre part d'engendrer des pertes économiques considérables pour la société. Face à ce fléau, certaines organisations internationales et européennes notamment l'Organisation de coopération et de développement économique (OCDE), l'Union européenne, le Conseil de l'Europe et l'Organisation des Nations unies se sont mobilisées en adoptant des conventions visant à lutter contre la corruption. Ce mouvement de lutte s'est poursuivi avec la participation de l'autorité judiciaire et de la société civile. Enfin, les États parties à ces conventions se sont joints également au mouvement en intégrant dans leur droit interne ces instruments de lutte contre la corruption. Intégration en droit interne, cependant, qui peut différer d'un État à un autre d'où une mobilisation variable. Malgré tout, le mécanisme de suivi sur la mise en œuvre des conventions anti-corruption, propres à certaines conventions de lutte contre la corruption, tente d'amoindrir cette variabilité. / Initially regarded as a marginal phenomenon, corruption appeared as an endemic phenomenon at the point to weaken the foundations of the democracy on the one hand, and to generate considerable economic losses to society on the other hand.Faced with this plague, some European and international organizations including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations organization were mobilized by adopting conventions to fight against corruption. This movement of fight has continued with the participation of the judicial authority and the civil society. Finally, States parties to these conventions also joined the movement by integrating into their domestic law these instruments of fight against corruption. Integration in internal law, however, which can differ from one state to another from where variable mobilization. Despite of everything, the mechanism of follow-up on the implementation of anti-corruption conventions, specific to certain conventions of fight against corruption tries to reduce this variability.

Most people have experienced toothache and know how much it effects the health. It hurts to eat, it ́s hard to sleep and sometimes a small gesture as a smile is avoided because it pains to much. Of course animals have the same issue and feel pain but they can’t tell us how they feel, instead we have to look for signs from their behavior. The recommendation to regularly check the horse’s teeth does minimize the risk of pain. The knowledge within the field of equine dentistry is on the rise and educations and regulations is developing to give the best dental care possible. This has created a need of the right tools adopted to this specific field and this is where a company like Accesia has a chance to be at the forefront of this development. Accesia is a company that have developed tools and educations about the animal dental profession since 2009. Until now the focus has been on smaller animals like cats, dogs and rodents but now they are widening their customer field and develops for this new market, equine dentistry. To get a understanding of this new customers some field studies has been performed and needs that are separate from the previous customer needs has been identified. It ́s not only the size that differs from the dentist working with cats and dogs, it ́s also the working environment and the anatomic conditions that looks completely different. For this thesis the main goal has been to identify how a unit for the tools used by equine dentists should be structured and what parts that should be included to endure the transportation and environment where it will be used. To gain this information, several interviews were conducted with the main users and the experts working on Accesia. The gathered information where later analyzed, concretized and explored in a product concept. This report will go through the different stages in the design process that led to a final design concept which were presented with a prototype and posters at a thesis fair organized by Jönköping University.

In this article, we propose an innovative way of delineating local markets based on easily accessible data. We apply this concept to the day care industry and investigate providers' location choices relative to local market characteristics to evaluate the widespread presumption that local markets for child care services are geographically very small. Using a panel of all day care centers for the metropolitan region of Vienna, Austria, for nearly a decade, as well as geographically extremely disaggregated data on the spatial distribution of children under the age of six at the 250m×250m grid cell level, we find that the location of children and day care centers are strongly related, but this relationship diminishes as soon as the distance between a child's place of residence and the day care center's location increases. We conclude that local markets for day care services in metropolitan regions are indeed very small (about 500m or 550 yards).

Um crescente número de empresas produtoras de software tem adotado um modelo organizacional de Fábrica de Software (FS), que facilita a terceirização por intermédio da segmentação das atividades e adoção de um sistema de produção mais flexível, dinâmico e controlado. Uma FS pode atender a múltiplas demandas de natureza e escopos distintos com o intuito de prover as necessidades específicas de cada cliente. Em face da diversidade e complexidade deste contexto, uma das questões principais a resolver é como mapear todos os processos envolvidos, identificando claramente o que, quem e, sobretudo como cada trabalho deve ser executado e controlado, visando o alinhamento dos processos à estrutura organizacional e conceitual de FS com foco nos processos de integração, alinhamento e reuso. Este estudo tem como objetivo mapear, definir, reestruturar e estabelecer processos de Fábrica de Software, conduzidos pelo método de pesquisaação em uma organização produtora de software do setor público, considerando seu contexto operacional, técnico e cultura organizacional. O desenvolvimento, execução, acompanhamento e resultados são descritos pelos ciclos da pesquisa-ação envolvendo o estudo de estruturas organizacionais, metodologias de desenvolvimento de sistemas, e mudanças organizacionais. Para isso foram definidas uma Estrutura Organizacional de Referência de FS, uma Arquitetura de Definição de Processos para FS e uma Metodologia de Desenvolvimento de Sistemas e Integração com foco organizacional, concebidos e desenvolvidos com base na literatura, experiência profissional e pesquisa empírica, que serviram como guia de condução da pesquisa-ação, culminando na associação do estudo empírico com o estudo teórico. As contribuições empíricas e teóricas geradas referem-se à melhoria dos processos organizacionais e operacionais de uma empresa de TI do setor público com base nos conceitos de FS. / A growing number of software producing companies have adopted an organizational model of Software Factory (SF), which facilitates outsourcing by segmenting activities and by adopting a more flexible, dynamic and controlled production system. A SF can serve the multiple demands of different nature and scopes with the purpose of providing each customers specific needs. Because of the diversity and complexity of this context, one of the main issues to be solved is how to map all the processes involved, clearly identifying what, who and mainly how each work must be executed and controlled, aiming at aligning the processes to the organizational and conceptual structure of SF focusing on the integration, aligning and reuse processes. The purpose of this study is mapping, defining, restructuring and establishing the Software Factory process, conducted by the action research method in a software producing organization of the public sector, considering its operational, technical and organizational culture context. The development, execution, follow-up and results are described by the action research cycles involving the study of organizational structures, system development methodologies and organizational changes. For this, a Reference Organizational Structure of SF, and Processes Definition Architecture for SF and a Integration System Development Methodology with organizational focus were defined, conceived and developed based on the literature, professional experience and empirical research, which served as a guiding line of the action research, peaking at the association of the empirical study with the theoretical study. The generated empirical and theoretical contributions refer to the improvement of the organizational and operational processes based on the SF concepts.

La fibrose cardiaque fait le lit des arythmies cardiaques, qu’elles soient atriales ou ventriculaires. L’IRM est devenue un outil non invasif indispensable pour diagnostiquer la présence de fibrose au niveau cardiaque, mais offre également des informations pronostiques, ainsi que pour le suivi des patients atteints de fibrillation auriculaire (FA), notamment persistante. La technique de référence reste le rehaussement tardif après injection de gadolinium, permettant de révéler des régions localisées de fibrose. Notre travail a consisté en la mise au point d’une technique non invasive (par la mesure du T2 avec IRM à haut champ à 11,75 T) afin de quantifier la fibrose myocardique interstitielle diffuse dans un modèle de souris diabétiques. La fibrose a été significativement corrélée à une survenue plus importante des arythmies ventriculaires en comparaison avec un groupe de souris contrôles. L’étape suivante a été de transposer cette technique de mesure de T2 en IRM clinique chez des patients devant bénéficier d’une procédure d’ablation de FA. La deuxième technique, cette fois-ci invasive pour évaluer la fibrose (notamment atriale) pour les patients atteints de FA est la cartographie de voltage au niveau de l’oreillette gauche. Nous avons utilisé un nouveau système de cartographie à ultra-haute définition afin de quantifier la fibrose (zones cicatricielles denses) correspondant aux régions dont les signaux enregistrés avaient une amplitude bipolaire inférieure à 0,015 mV, soit très en deçà des seuils précédemment rapportés concernant la fibrose. / Fibrosis represents the main substrate for cardiac arrhythmias, either atrial or ventricular. MRI has become a critical tool to not only diagnose the presence of cardiac fibrosis, but also provides important informations on the prognosis and the follow-up of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), especially in its persistent type. The gold standard is the Late Gadolinium Enhancement, allowing to reveal localized regions of fibrosis. Our study reported a technique for non invasive quantification of interstitial diffuse ventricular fibrosis in diabetic mice (T2 measurement high field MRI at 11,75 T). This fibrosis was significantly correlated to the occurrence of ventricular arrhythmias in comparison with the control group. The next step was the transposition of this T2 measurement with MRI in the clinical setup of patients who undergo an AF ablation procedure. The second technique for atrial fibrosis assessment for patients suffering from AF is the invasive realization of left atrial voltage mapping. A new ultra-high definition system was used to quantify the fibrosis (dense scar) in regions with bipolar amplitude electrograms of less than 0,015 mV. This cutoff was far lower than the previously published definition of the dense scar in the literature (< 0,1 mV).

Esta dissertação estabelece a incompletude de um sistema formal cujas únicas constantes não-lógicas são 0 e s (respectivamente, o número natural 0 e a função sucessor segundo a interpretação standard), fundamentando-se, para tanto, em um teorema cuja prova necessita essencialmente da maquinária lógica de segunda-ordem e que foi designado de Teorema das Definições Recursivas. / We establish here the incompleteness of the formal system S2 for arithmetic_a formal system whose signature is {0, s}_by means of the Theorem of the Definition by Recursion (TDR). However, unlike the standard proofs of incompleteness, the proof of TDR, by virtue of restricted signature, uses essentially the power of second-order logic.