A patent is an intellectual property right granted as a reward for the labours of the inventor so as to commercially exploit the invention in return for disclosure of the invention. The benefits of the patent system find perfect expression in the employment situation since the employer is better equipped to exploit the invention through provision of resources and capital whereas the employee is provided with an opportunity to develop his technical know-how. A comparative study of the laws pertaining to employee inventions in the United Kingdom, Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America reveals a variety of approaches to the subject of employee inventions. The approach of the South African law on the subject is inadequate and legal reform is a necessity. The recommendations for such reform encapsulates a blend of the best features of each of the three national approaches to employee inventions. / Mercentile Law / LL. M. (Law)

Dans cette thèse nous nous sommes intéressés à l'extension du problème job-shop en ajoutant la contrainte du transport des jobs entre les différentes machines. Dans cette étude nous avons retenu l'existence de deux types de robots, les robots de capacité de chargement unitaire (capacité=1 veut dire qu'un robot ne peut transporter qu'un seul job à la fois) et les robots de capacité de chargement non unitaire (capacité>1 veut dire qu'un robot peut transporter plusieurs job à la fois). Nous avons traité cette extension en deux étapes. Ainsi, la première étape est consacrée au problème du job-shop avec plusieurs robots de capacité de chargement unitaire et en seconde étape en ajoutant la capacité de chargement non unitaire aux robots. Pour les deux problèmes étudiés nous avons proposé :* Une modélisation linéaire ;* Une modélisation sous forme de graphe disjonctif ;* Plusieurs heuristiques de construction de solutions ;* Plusieurs recherches locales qui améliorent les solutions obtenues ;* Utilisation des algorithmes génétiques / mémétiques comme schéma global d'optimisation ;* De nouveaux benchmarks, des résultats de test de nos approches sur nos benchmarks et ceux de la littérature et ces résultats sont commentés et comparés à ceux de la littérature. Les résultats obtenus montrent la pertinence de notre modélisation ainsi que sa qualité.

Le commerce a connu à travers le temps de nombreuses évolutions, tant dans sa forme que dans son implantation, passant de grands magasins prestigieux dans le cœur des villes au début du XXe siècle à de grands centres commerciaux à la jonction d’autoroute dans les années 2000. Le lifestyle center est la forme commerciale la plus aboutie, concept américain existant depuis les années 80, il est apparu pour la première fois au Québec en 2006 à Brossard sur la Rive-Sud de Montréal. Ses caractéristiques hors du commun ; une surface de vente de près de 2 000 000 pi² faisant de lui un centre d’envergure supra régional, son agencement de boutiques en plein air regroupé autour d’une rue piétonne ainsi qu’un mix commercial extrêmement varié rompt avec les traditionnels centres commerciaux existants. Ainsi en s’implantant à Brossard le Quartier DIX30 est venu modifier profondément la structure commerciale de la Rive-Sud en s’imposant comme un contre poids de taille par rapport à la domination du pôle des Promenades Saint-Bruno. Cependant, le Quartier DIX30 ne va pas seulement modifier cette structure commerciale, mais plus globalement la centralité urbaine de la Rive-Sud en s’imposant comme un pôle central majeur. Le Quartier DIX30 grâce à sa mixité d’activité et son concept favorisant les interactions sociales est en train d’insuffler un mouvement de concentration d’activité commerciale et tertiaire. Ainsi aujourd’hui se développe au pourtour du Quartier DIX30 de nombreux locaux à bureaux. Cependant, cette nouvelle centralité créée par le Quartier DIX30 soulève des interrogations notamment vis-à-vis de la privatisation d’un espace s’imposant de plus en plus comme un des pôles principaux de croissance de la Rive-Sud. Ainsi, une question légitime se pose, ne sommes-nous pas en train d’assister à une privatisation d’un centre-ville en devenir ? / Over the time, trade has knew numerous changes in term of location and form, passing from prestigious department stores in the heart of cities in the early twentieth century to large shopping centers at the junction of highways in the years 2000. The lifestyle center is the most accomplished commercial form, the American concept exists since the years 1980 and it appeared for the first time in Quebec in 2006 in Brossard on the South Shore of Montreal. Its unusual features: a sales area of almost 2 000 000 square feet (making it a center of supra-regional scale), a mix of shops clustered around a pedestrian street and numerous other activities, breaks with the traditional agencement of the existing shopping malls. Thus, by becoming established in Brossard, the Quartier DIX30 modifies profoundly the commercial structure of the South Shore of Montréal. The Quartier DIX30 imposes itself as a major commercial pole against the domination of the Promenades Saint Bruno. The Quartier DIX30 will not only change the commercial structure of the South Shore, but more generally the urban centrality of the South Shore established itself as a major center pole. Due to the variety of activities and its concept of mix of shops clustered around a pedestrian street permitting social interaction, the Quartier DIX30 creates a commercial and office concentration. Thus, today develops around the Quartier DIX30 many building with offices. However, this new centrality created by the Quartier DIX30 raises interrogations in particular with respect to the privatization of a space imposing itself more and more like one of the principal poles of growth of the South Shore. Thus, a question legitimate is posed, does we aren't attending a privatization of a downtown area in becoming?

This study was made to gather data and information to aid the Burleson Independent School District in initiating an industrial arts general shop program in the Pauline G. Hughes Middle School. The data and information were obtained from the Texas Education Agency, the Burleson Independent School District records, the vocational director, the assistant superintendent, a questionnaire, and the Brodhead-Garrett 1976-1977 Catalog. The majority of the general shop programs in the north Texas area conduct classes five days a week for fifty-five minutes a day and accommodate twenty-four students per class. Furthermore, the majority of the general shop programs offer three units of instruction per year and teach one unit of instruction each quarter.

Atualmente, os hospitais se veem obrigados a melhorar sua produtividade. Os centros cirúrgicos, além de ser um dos setores com maiores custos, também é o que mais gera receita dentro de um hospital, dessa forma torna-se extremamente importante o gerenciamento eficiente desse setor. Os métodos de otimização para programação de cirurgias podem ser usados como ferramentas para reduzir filas e ociosidade nos centros cirúrgicos, aumentando sua produtividade. O Problema de Programação de Cirurgias Eletivas com Múltiplos Recursos e Múltiplas Etapas consiste em alocar os recursos às etapas do processo cirúrgico dos pacientes, considerando as diferentes necessidades e rotas de cada paciente e, então, programar essas etapas no tempo respeitando a disponibilidade dos recursos e a sequência das etapas do processo cirúrgico dos pacientes. Esse problema é classificado na literatura como NP-hard e pode ser descrito como um Job Shop Flexível com blocking e função objetivo de minimização do número de pacientes não atendidos e do instante de término da última etapa, o makespan. O Objetivo desse trabalho é propor um modelo matemático e uma heurística construtiva para a resolução desse problema. O modelo matemático Multi-Mode Blocking Job Shop (MMBJS) apresentado em Pham e Klikert (2008) é explorado e algumas melhorias são apontadas neste trabalho. Um modelo matemático de Programação Linear Inteira Mista alternativo é proposto, a fim de reduzir o esforço computacional, ajustar o cálculo do makespan e sugerir uma estratégia de priorização de pacientes. Testes computacionais foram realizados, afim de comparar o modelo MMJBS e o modelo proposto. Para instâncias em que todos os pacientes são atendidos, as soluções encontradas pelo CPLEX para ambos modelos são iguais, porém o tempo computacional necessário para encontrar uma solução ótima é em média 45% menor no modelo proposto. Também foram realizados testes computacionais com objetivo de observar o comportamento do modelo com diferentes configurações de recursos. Para instâncias com 15 pacientes, os testes apontam que o tempo computacional para encontrar a solução ótima é superior a 2h de processamento. Dessa forma, uma heurística construtiva é proposta, com objetivo de gerar soluções factíveis com pouco esforço computacional. A heurística proposta aloca cada etapa do tratamento de cada paciente aos recursos necessários, respeitando as janelas de disponibilidade dos recursos e buscando reduzir a folga no sistema. Um exemplo de aplicação da heurística construtiva é apresentado. As propostas para trabalhos futuros são apresentadas no capítulo final desta dissertação. / For the past few years, hospitals have been forced to improve their productivity, with surgical centers being one of the sectors with higher costs within such organizations, but also the ones that generate the most revenue. Thus, optimization methods for surgical programming are tools that can be used to reduce queues and idleness in these sectors and consequently achieve the aforementioned goals. The \"Problem of Programming Multiple Surgical Resources with Multiple Steps\"consists in allocating the existing resources to each surgery stage that a patient will need to go through, considering the different needs, sequence and specificities of each of them, and then scheduling these steps in time. This type of problem is classified in the current literature as an NP-hard problem, being described as a Flexible Job Shop with blocking and an objective function that seeks to minimize the number of patients not served and the total makespan. The general purpose of this research is to propose a mathematical model and a constructive heuristic for this type problem. The proposed model explores the mathematical model Multi-Mode Blocking Job Shop (MMBJS) presented in Pham and Klikert (2008) suggesting improvements through the use of an alternative Mixed Integer Linear Programming that aims to: reduce the computational effort, adjust the makespan calculation and suggest a strategy of patients prioritization. In order to prove the benefits of the proposed enhancements, computational tests were performed to compare the MMJBS model and the proposed model, identifying that for instances where in which all patients are attended, the solutions found by CPLEX for both models are the same, but with a lower computational time the proposed model (45% average reduction). Also, other computational tests were performed to observe the behavior of the model with different configurations of resources. For instances with 15 patients, the tests indicate that the computational time to find the optimal solution is greater than 2 hours of processing. Thus a constructive heuristic is proposed, it aims to generate feasible solutions with little computational effort. The proposed heuristic allocates each surgery stage of a patient to the necessary resources, respecting the available windows and seeking to reduce the total slack in the system. An example of the application of the constructive heuristic is also presented. At last, future works proposals are presented in the final chapter of this dissertation.

Alternative food networks in a post-communist context:: Farmers' markets and farm shops in Czechia Marie Syrovátková ABSTRACT The emergence of farmers' markets (FMs) and farm shops (FSs) in Czechia is a follow-up of the expansion of alternative food networks (AFNs) from Western Europe and North America where they have been developing for several decades. AFNs are an up-to-date topic as they respond to the growing concerns about the negative effects of the globalized conventional food system on social, economic and environmental aspects of food production, distribution and consumption. Each form of AFNs emphasizes a different aspect of the food system sustainability. FMs and FSs should primarily enable direct selling of quality local products made by small producers to support local economy, rural development, environmental protection and to improve quality of life. Based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the aim of the dissertation is to explore the emergence and development of AFNs in Central Europe. Using the example of Czechia, considering the communist past of the region, the work evaluates the contribution of AFNs to build a more sustainable system of food production and consumption and the weak points of the phenomenon in Czechia and, using a comparison of the AFN evolution...

Growing concerns over global warming and increasing fuel costs have pushed the traditional fuel-based centralized electrical grid to the forefront of mounting public pressure. These concerns will only intensify in the future, owing to the growth in electricity demand. Such growths require increased generation of electricity to meet the demand, and this means more carbon footprint from the electrical grid. To meet the growing demand economically by using clean sources of energy, the electrical grid needs significant structural and operational changes to cope with various challenges. Microgrids (µGs) can be an answer to the structural requirement of the electrical grid. µGs integrate renewables and serve local needs, thereby, reducing line losses and improving resiliency. However, stochastic nature of electricity harvest from renewables makes its integration into the grid challenging. The time varying and intermittent<br>nature of renewables and consumer demand can be mitigated by the use of storages and dynamic load scheduling. Automated dynamic load scheduling constitutes the operational changes that could enable us to achieve energy efficiency in the grid.<br>The current research works on automated load scheduling primarily focuses on scheduling residential and commercial building loads, while the current research on manufacturing scheduling is based on static approaches with very scarce literature on job shop scheduling. However, residential, commercial and, industrial sector, each contribute to about one-third of the total electricity consumption. A few research<br>works have been done focusing on dynamic scheduling in manufacturing facilities for energy efficiency. In a smart grid scenario, consumers are coupled through electricity<br>pool and storage. Thus, this research investigates the problem of integrating production line loads with building loads for optimal scheduling to reduce the total electricity<br>cost in a µG.<br>This research focuses on integrating the different types of loads from different types of consumers using automated dynamic load scheduling framework for sequential decision making. After building a deterministic model to be used as a benchmark, dynamic load scheduling models are constructed. Firstly, an intelligent algorithm is developed for load scheduling from a consumer’s perspective. Secondly, load scheduling model is developed based on central grid controller’s perspective. And finally, a reinforcement learning model is developed for improved load scheduling by sharing<br>among multiple µGs. The performance of the algorithms is compared against different well-known individualistic strategies, static strategies and, optimal benchmark<br>solutions. The proposed dynamic load scheduling framework is model free with minimum assumptions and it outperforms the different well-known heuristics and static strategies while obtains solutions comparable to the optimal benchmark solution.<br>The future electrical grid is envisioned to be an interconnected network of µGs. In addition to the automated load scheduling in a µG, coordination among µGs by<br>demand and capacity sharing can also be used to mitigate stochastic nature of supply and demand in an electrical grid. In this research, demand and resource sharing<br>among µGs is proposed to leverage the interaction between the different µGs for developing load scheduling policy based on reinforcement learning. <br>

The thesis is analysing methods of increasing the visit rate of the internet shop fotodekorace.cz, especially it is concerned about the utilities of the internet marketing. The aim of the master's thesis is, on the basis of undertaken analysis suggest internet marketing strategy of this particular internet project, which should lead to an increase in sales. The premises of the thesis is to analyse the effectively of online marketing activities. One of the outcomes is the outline of the effective optimized advertising campaign in search engines. The master's thesis is relying mainly on mentioned theoretical project, which is subsequently applied. At the end there are formulated advices for the future development of the internet shop, which should be beneficial for the following increase in the potential of the website.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse legal regulation of liability for defects and guarantee in Czech civil code and to elaborate problematic paragraphs of this area of law. Thesis defines general regulation, specific regulation for separate contracts and also specialities of consumer law according to civil codes no. 40/1964 and no. 89/2012. There are defined principles of liability for defects and guarantee liability, rights from liability for defects and complaint procedure. Thesis also contains comparision of Czech legal regulation with the English one. Law of European Union is added too, there is summarized the accuracy and suitability of implementation of European directive no. 1999/44/ES into the Czech Civil Code.

O tema da cultura organizacional tem sido visivelmente aprofundado a partir de mudanças na sua base epistemológica (de um paradigma funcionalista para um interpretativista) e na utilização de diferentes perspectivas conceituais (de uma abordagem gerencial para uma simbólica) e metodológicas (de pesquisas quantitativas para qualitativas). Todavia, a despeito de todos esses avanços, o tema não tem acompanhado o desenvolvimento alcançado pelos estudos antropológicos que enfocam o corpo como modo de repensar a problemática cultural. É meu objetivo nesta tese, portanto, desvelar de que modo um enfoque no corpo humano propicia um melhor entendimento da noção de cultura organizacional, a partir de dois eixos teóricos que trabalham com a relação corpo-cultura: o ‘corpo artefato’ (corpo sócio-histórico-cultural) e o ‘embodiment’ (experiência cultural incorporada). Para realizar ambas as análises, parto de observações oriundas de uma etnografia organizacional junto a uma grande livraria de shopping center, a Livraria Cultura de Porto Alegre. O grupo de informantes privilegiado nessas análises foi a equipe de vendedores. Com base nesse material empírico e, primeiramente, com base em estudos da Antropologia do Corpo (capítulo 2), na primeira parte deste trabalho, analisei o corpo do trabalhador como um artefato organizacional que se singulariza por seu caráter dinâmico, sua hierarquização e sua dimensão política. A partir dessas análises, foi possível repensar o caráter de objeto inanimado e a pouca atenção que é oferecida para questões como classificação, hierarquização e dimensão política dos artefatos organizacionais. Na segunda parte (capítulo 3), aponto para a relação cultural pré-objetiva (pré-reflexiva) que trabalhadores estabelecem com as organizações e com os produtos que comercializam, ou seja, como a cultura organizacional é experienciada e incorporada. Para isso, parto de estudos da Filosofia e de Ciências Sociais e Humanas para buscar compreender como os estudos de embodiment possibilitam um novo modo de se conduzir metodologicamente as pesquisas de cultura organizacional e como incrementam sua conceituação. Levantei que o foco no embodiment desvela o papel ativo que o corpo tem na vida organizacional e permite uma melhor compreensão da dinâmica do conceito de cultura. / The theme of organizational culture has been visibly deepened – changing its epistemological base (from a Functionalist paradigm to an interpretative one) generating different conceptual (from a managerial to a symbolic approach) and methodological perspectives (from quantitative to qualitative researches). However, in spite of all these advances, the theme has not been following the development reached by anthropological studies, which focus the body as a form of representing the culture. Therefore, it is my aim in this thesis to unveil in what way the focus on the human body propitiates a better understanding of the notion of organizational culture, starting from two theoretical orientations which work with the relation body-culture: the ‘body artifact’ (socio-historiccultural body) and the ‘embodiment’. In order to perform both analyses, I begin with observations resulting from an organizational ethnography in a great bookstore of shopping center, Livraria Cultura de Porto Alegre. The group of informers who have been privileged to participate in these analyses was the team of shop assistants. Based on this empirical material and, firstly, on studies of The Anthropology of Body (chapter two), I analyzed the body of the worker as an organizational artifact which is singularized by their dynamic feature, hierarchization, and political dimension. Based on these analyses, it was possible to reconsider the feature of inanimate object and the little attention that is offered to questions like classification, hierarchization, and political dimension of organizational artifacts. In the second part (chapter three), I indicate the pre-objective cultural relation (pre-reflexive) that the workers establish with the organizations and the products they commercialize, that is, the embodiment of organizational culture. Hence, I start from studies of Philosophy, Social, and Human Sciences to understand how studies of embodiment enable a new form of conducting methodologically researches about organizational culture and how they develop their conceptualization. I indicate that the focus on embodiment unveil the active role the body has in the organizational life and allows a better understanding of the dynamics of cultural concept.