This master thesis provides an analysis of the legality of preemptive self-defence under international law. In assessing the lawfulness of preemptive self-defence two basic sources of international law: customary and treaty law are examined. The analysis of the UN Charter rules showed that there is strong disagreement between scholars regarding the legality of anticipatory self-defence. However, the term “armed attack” in article 51 UN Charter should embrace imminent threats. Two basic reasons are: the advent of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and new methods of warfare; the inherent right of anticipatory self-defence was not exhausted after the adoption of the UN Charter. The examination of customary international law showed that the Caroline doctrine allows states to act in anticipation of an armed attack if the requirements of necessity and proportionality are fulfilled. In addition, the analysis of state practice and opinion juris prior and after September 11, 2001, revealed that anticipatory self-defence is not prohibited. The conclusion is maid that the right of anticipatory self-defence, if requirements of necessity and proportionality are fulfilled, is not illegal under international law. In contrast, the analysis of the UN Charter rules showed that preemptive self-defence against perceived threats is not legal under the UN Charter, because there is no actual armed attack or imminent threat against which state can legally defend itself. In addition, preemptive... [to full text] / Šioje magistro tezėje analizuojamas preventyviosios savigynos teisėtumo tarptautinėje teisėje klausimas. Du pagrindiniai tarptautinės teisės šaltiniai: sutarčių bei paprotinė tarptautinė teisė yra nagrinėjami siekiant išsiaiškinti, ar preventyvioji savigyna yra legali tarptautinė teisėje. Pirmoje darbo dalyje nagrinėjamas preventyviosios savigynos prieš neišvengiamas grėsmes (angl. anticipatory self-defence) legalumas dviejų pagrindinių tarptautinės teisės šaltinių atžvilgiu. Pagrindinė tarptautinė sutartis reguliuojanti karinės galios naudojimą yra Jungtinių Tautų (JT) Chartija. Nagrinėjant preventyviosios savigynos prieš neišvengiamas grėsmes legalumo JT Chartijos normų, reguliuojančių savigyną, atžvilgiu, buvo nustatyta, kad autoriai nesutaria dėl to, ar JT Chartija leidžia naudoti karinę galią prieš neišvengiamas grėsmes. Pagrindiniai mokslininkų nesutarimai kyla dėl JT Chartijos 51 straipsnio, kuris leidžia JT valstybėm narėm savigynos tikslais naudoti karinę galią, ginkluoto užpuolimo atveju, formuluotės. Iš esmės, nesutariama dėl dviejų frazių vartojamų JT Chartijos 51straipsnyje: „prigimtinė teisė“ bei „ginkluotas užpuolimas“ (angl. „the inherent right“, „armed attack“). Autorių susiskaidymas šiuo klausimu neleido nustatyti, ar preventyvioji savigyna prieš neišvengiamas grėsmes yra legali. Dėl to, buvo nagrinėjama, ar JT Chartijos 51 straipsnyje minima ginkluoto užpuolimo sąvoka apima neišvengiamas grėsmes ir tokiu būdu minėta tarptautinė sutartis leidžia... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:47:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SeverinoPGN_TESE.pdf: 2322839 bytes, checksum: eda5c48fde7c920680bcb8d8be8d5d21 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-27 / The camera motion estimation represents one of the fundamental problems in Computer Vision and it may be solved by several methods. Preemptive RANSAC is one of them, which in spite of its robustness and speed possesses a lack of flexibility related to the requirements of applications and hardware platforms using it. In this work, we propose an improvement to the structure of Preemptive RANSAC in order to overcome such limitations and make it feasible to execute on devices with heterogeneous resources (specially low budget systems) under tighter time and accuracy constraints. We derived a function called BRUMA from Preemptive RANSAC, which is able to generalize several preemption schemes, allowing previously fixed parameters (block size and elimination factor) to be changed according the applications constraints. We also propose the Generalized Preemptive RANSAC method, which allows to determine the maximum number of hipotheses an algorithm may generate. The experiments performed show the superiority of our method in the expected scenarios. Moreover, additional experiments show that the multimethod hypotheses generation achieved more robust results related to the variability in the set of evaluated motion directions / A estima??o de pose/movimento de c?mera constitui um dos problemas fundamentais na vis?o computacional e pode ser resolvido por v?rios m?todos. Dentre estes m?todos se destaca o Preemptive RANSAC (RANSAC Preemptivo), que apesar da robustez e velocidade apresenta problemas de falta de flexibilidade em rela??o a requerimentos das aplica??es e plataformas computacionais utilizadas. Neste trabalho, propomos um aperfei?oamento da estrutura do Preemptive RANSAC para superar esta limita??o e viabilizar sua execu??o em dispositivos com recursos variados (enfatizando os de poucas capacidades) atendendo a requisitos de tempo e precis?o diversos. Derivamos do Preemptive RANSAC uma fun??o a que chamamos BRUMA, que ? capaz de generalizar v?rios esquemas de preemp??o e que permite que par?metros anteriormente fixos (tamanho de bloco e fator de elimina??o) sejam configurados de acordo com as restri??es da aplica??o. Propomos o m?todo Generalized Preemptive RANSAC (RANSAC Preemptivo Generalizado) que permite ainda alterar a quantidade m?xima de hip?teses a gerar. Os experimentos demonstraram superioridade de nossa proposta nos cen?rios esperados. Al?m disso, experimentos adicionais demonstram que a gera??o de hip?teses multim?todos produz resultados mais robustos em rela??o ? variabilidade nos tipos de movimento executados

O cenário competitivo e globalizado em que as empresas estão inseridas, sobretudo a partir do século XXI, associados a ciclos de vida cada vez menores dos produtos, rigorosos requisitos de qualidade, além de políticas de preservação do meio ambiente, com redução de consumo energético e de recursos hídricos, somadas às exigências legais de melhores condições de trabalho, resultaram em uma quebra de paradigma nos processos produtivos até então concebidos. Como solução a este novo cenário produtivo pode-se citar o extenso uso da automação industrial, fato que resultou em sistemas cada vez mais complexos, tanto do ponto de vista estrutural, em função do elevado número de componentes, quanto da complexidade dos sistemas de controle. A previsibilidade de todos os estados possíveis do sistema torna-se praticamente impossível. Dentre os estados possíveis pode-se citar os estados de falha que, dependendo da severidade do efeito associado à sua ocorrência, podem resultar em sérios danos para o homem, o meio ambiente e às próprias instalações, caso não sejam corretamente diagnosticados e tratados. Fatos recentes de catástrofes relacionadas à sistemas produtivos revelam a necessidade de se implementar medidas para prevenir e para mitigar os efeitos da ocorrência de falhas, com o objetivo de se evitar a ocorrência de catástrofes. De acordo com especialistas, os Sistemas Instrumentados de Segurança SIS, referenciados em normas como a IEC 61508 e IEC 61511, são uma solução para este tipo de problema. Trabalhos publicados tratam de métodos para a implementação de camadas SIS de prevenção, porém com escassez de trabalhos para camadas SIS de mitigação. Em função do desconhecimento da dinâmica do sistema em estado de falha, técnicas tradicionais de modelagem tornam-se inviáveis. Neste caso, o uso de inteligência artificial, como por exemplo a lógica fuzzy, pode se tornar uma solução para o desenvolvimento do algoritmo de controle, associadas a ferramentas de edição, modelagem e geração dos códigos de controle. A proposta deste trabalho é apresentar uma sistemática para a implementação de um sistema de controle para a mitigação de falhas críticas em sistemas produtivos, com referência às normas IEC 61508/61511, com ação antecipativa à ocorrência de catástrofes. / The competitive and globalized scenario in which the companies operate, especially from the twenty-first century, associated with shrinking life cycles of products, stringent quality requirements, and environmental preservation policies, reducing energy consumption and water resources, in addition of legal requirements for better working conditions, resulted in a paradigm shift in production processes previously designed. As a solution to this new production scenario may be mentioned the extensive use of industrial automation, which has resulted in ever more complex systems, both from a structural point of view, due to the high number of components, the complexity of control systems. The predictability of all possible states of the system becomes practically impossible. Among the possible states can mention the states of fault, depending on the severity of the effect associated with its occurrence, can result in serious damage to man, the environment and own facilities, if not properly diagnosed and treated. Recent events for disasters related to production systems show the need to implement measures to prevent and mitigate the effects of the occurrence of faults in order to prevent the occurrence of disasters. According to experts, the Safety Instrumented Systems - SIS, referenced in standards such as IEC 61508 and IEC 61511, are a solution to this problem. Published papers deal with methods for the implementation of SIS layers of prevention, but with shortage of jobs for mitigation SIS layers. Depending on the system dynamics of ignorance in a fault state, traditional modeling techniques become unviable. In this case, the use of artificial intelligence, such as fuzzy logic can become a solution to the development of the control algorithm, associated with editing tools, modeling and generation of control codes. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic for implementing a control system for the mitigation of critical failures in production systems, with reference to IEC 61508/61511 standards, with preemptive action to the occurrence of disasters.

Legal means of protecting minority members of a limited liability company in case of increase of share capital by making additional contributions Abstract This Master Thesis deals with legal means of protecting minority members of a limited liability company in case of increase of share capital by making additional contributions. The main objective is to explore and analyze legal remedies that are embodied in the Business Corporations Act. Primarily whether these remedies, in accordance with their protective purpose, ensure protection of minority shareholders against deterioration, and also functioning and possibilities of achieving the purpose for which the company was established is taken into account. The main methods in the elaboration of this diploma thesis were bibliography research and research on case law, especially of the Czech courts, and the subsequent analytical method. With the help of abstraction and subsequent synthesis of the obtained information, the individual partial and main conclusions are generalized. Among the most used methods of interpretation are linguistic, systematic, logical, and teleological method. This thesis is divided into four main chapters. Each chapter is internally divided into subchapters, which are then in some cases structured into individual points. The first two...

In this thesis we consider three challenging vehicle routing problems representing specific aspects of complex real-world problems: (i) the vehicle routing problem with unit demands, (ii) the preemptive stacker crane problem and (iii) a multi-period vehicle and technician routing problem. For the vehicle routing problem with units demands we continue research on the exponential multi-insertion neighborhood, investigate its properties and propose heuristic solution methods utilizing the neighborhood. For the preemptive stacker crane problem we study structural properties and provide bounds on the benefits of preemption and the benefits of so-called explicit drop nodes that are used exclusively to facilitate preemption. We propose construction heuristics that improve on the state-of-the-art in computational time and solution quality. The multi-period vehicle and technician routing problem is the subject of the VeRoLog Solver Challenge 2019. We develop a solution method that adapts to the limited computational budget and the given instance parameters. In summary, this thesis contributes to the structural analysis of the considered problems and proposes efficient heuristic solution methods that are effective even on large-scale instances and under tight restrictions of the computational budget. The methods combine global and local search approaches and take the available computational budget into account to realize an adaptive best-effort allocation of the resources.

During the past decades of research in Real-Time systems, non-preemptive scheduling and fully preemptive scheduling have been extensively investigated, as well as compared with each other. However, it has been shown that none of the two scheduling paradigms dominates over the other in terms of schedulability. In this context, Limited Preemptive Scheduling (LPS) has emerged as an attractive alternative with respect to, e.g., increasing the overall system schedu- lability, efficiently reducing the blocking by lower priority tasks (compared to non-preemptive scheduling) as well as efficiently controlling the number of preemptions, thus controlling the overall preemption-related delay (compared to fully-preemptive scheduling). Several approaches within LPS enable the above mentioned advantages. In our work, we consider the Fixed Preemption Point Scheduling (LP-FPP) as it has been proved to effectively reduce the preemption-related delay compared to other LPS approaches. In particular, LP-FPP facilitates more precise estimation of the preemption-related delays, since the preemption points of a task in LP-FPP are explicitly selected during the design phase, unlike the other LPS approaches where the preemption points are determined at runtime. The main goal of the proposed work is to improve the schedulability of real-time systems under the LP-FPP approach. We investigate its use in different domains, such as: single core hard real-time systems, partitioned multi-core systems and real-time systems which can occasionally tolerate deadline misses. We enrich the state of the art for the single core hard real-time systems by proposing a novel cache-related preemption delay analysis, towards reducing the pessimism of the previously proposed methods. In the context of partitioned multi-core scheduling we propose a novel partitioning criterion for the Worst-Fit Decreasing based partitioning, and we also contribute with the comparison of existing partitioning strategies for LP-FPP scheduling. Finally, in the context of real-time systems which can occasionally tolerate deadline misses, we contribute with a probabilistic response time analysis for LP-FPP scheduling and a preemption point selection method for reducing the deadline-misses of the tasks.

Essai cinique randomisé / Objectifs : Démontrer la supériorité de l’analgésie périopératoire optimale par rapport aux traitements analgésiques usuels ou conventionnels pour diminuer l'intensité de la douleur aiguë postopératoire (DAPO), la fréquence d'apparition de la douleur chronique post chirurgicale (DCPC) et améliorer la qualité de vie des patients. Méthodes : Un essai clinique randomisé à double insu, sur 57 patients ayant subi une trapéziectomie à l'hôpital Notre-Dame du CHUM. Après avoir reçu une analgésie locorégionale via un cathéter du plexus brachial, le groupe expérimental a reçu une perfusion de bupivacaïne 0,5%, débutée dans la salle de réveil et poursuivie pendant 72 h en ambulatoire, grâce à une pompe à perfusion. Le groupe de contrôle a reçu une solution saline. Les deux groupes ont reçu du célécoxib durant cette même période. L'évolution du profil de la douleur, du fonctionnement de la main et de la qualité de vie des patients ont été saisis à l'aide de questionnaires et de tests fonctionnels en préopératoire et pendant six mois de suivi. Les résultats ont été analysés à l'aide du modèle linéaire général. Une différence de 2 au niveau de l'intensité de la douleur, mesurée par l'échelle visuelle analogique (EVA : 0-10), a été considérée statistiquement significative. Résultats : Notre méthode a abouti à une diminution significative de l'intensité de la DAPO et de la douleur chronique (DC) par rapport à la méthode conventionnelle. Les activités générales, la qualité du sommeil et la concentration des patients étaient significativement meilleures chez le groupe qui a reçu la nouvelle méthode. De plus, dans ce groupe il y avait deux fois moins des patients qui ont continué à souffrir de DC que le groupe de contrôle. Conclusion : Dans la chirurgie de la main, une couverture analgésique périopératoire est essentielle pour réduire l’intensité de la DAPO, la fréquence de la DCPC et pour améliorer la qualité de vie des patients. Mots-clés : essai clinique, douleur chronique, chirurgie, main, analgésie préventive, plexus brachial. / Objectives: Demonstrate the superiority of Optimal Perioperative Analgesia compared to Usual Analgesic Treatment to reduce the intensity of Acute Postoperative Pain (APOP), the frequency of occurrence of Chronic Post Surgical Pain (CPSP) and improve patients’ quality of life. Methods: A double-blinded randomized clinical trial conducted in Notre-Dame Hospital on 57 patients who underwent a trapeziectomy. After locoregional analgesia via a catheter in the brachial plexus, the experimental group received an infusion of bupivacaine 0.5%, which started in the recovery room and continued for 72 h as an outpatient through an infusion pump. Meanwhile, the control group received a saline solution. Both groups took celecoxib during the same period. The evolution of pain profile, hand function and patients’ quality of life have been obtained using questionnaires and functional tests in the preoperative period and through months of follow-up. Results were analyzed using General Linear Model. A difference of 2 in the intensity of pain, measured by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS: 0-10), was considered statistically significant. Results: This method resulted in a significant decrease in the intensity of APOP and Chronic Pain (CP) compared to usual treatment. General activities, quality of sleep and patients’ concentration were better in the experimental group. Moreover, two times less patients continued to suffer from the CP than in the placebo group. Conclusion: In hand surgery, a perioperative analgesic coverage is necessary to reduce the APOP intensity, the CPSP frequency and to improve patients’ quality of life. Keywords: clinical trial, chronic pain, surgery, hand, preemptive analgesia, brachial plexus.

Faute de droits d'auteurs pour les captures d'écrans, mon document ne contient pas d'images. Si vous voudriez consulter ma thèse avec les images, veuillez me contacter. / Cette thèse de doctorat propose une analyse des temporalités narratives dans les séries télévisées récentes Life on Mars (BBC, 2006-2007), Flashforward (ABC, 2009-2010) et Damages (FX/Audience Network, 2007-2012). L’argument général part de la supposition que les nouvelles technologies télévisuelles ont rendu possible de nouveaux standards esthétiques ainsi que des expériences temporelles originales. Il sera montré par la suite que ces nouvelles qualités esthétiques et expérientielles de la fiction télévisuelle relèvent d’une nouvelle pertinence politique et éthique du temps. Cet argument sera déployé en quatre étapes. La thèse se penche d’abord sur ce que j’appelle les technics de la télévision, c’est-à-dire le complexe de technologies et de techniques, afin d’élaborer comment cet ensemble a pu activer de nouveaux modes d’expérimenter la télévision. Suivant la philosophie de Gilles Deleuze et de Félix Guattari ainsi que les théories des médias de Matthew Fuller, Thomas Lamarre et Jussi Parikka, ce complexe sera conçu comme une machine abstraite que j’appelle la machine sérielle. Ensuite, l’argument puise dans des théories de la perception et des approches non figuratives de l’art afin de mieux cerner les nouvelles qualités d’expérience esthétique dans la fiction sérielle télévisée. Pour ce faire, je développe le concept de figure de temps définie comme la forme abstraite, immédiatement ressentie, du mouvement temporel effectué par un récit. Il sera montré, en troisième lieu, que ces mouvements figuraux mettent en jeu l’orientation vers l’avenir et la préemption. Tous les récits du corpus anticipent leur propre fin et prennent forme en fonction de cette fin prédite, ce pourquoi ils seront appelés récits préemptifs où l’avenir pose un problème affectif plutôt qu’épistémologique. Je montre que, dans ces séries, la boucle passant par l’avenir est immédiatement ontogénétique dans la mesure où elle crée la réalité dans le présent en suscitant l’incertitude et la peur. Enfin, la thèse soutien qu’une telle politique affective fait partie de ce que Gilles Deleuze appelle les « sociétés de contrôle » qui opèrent une modulation continue des conditions de vie de l’individu. En suivant les écrits de Deleuze sur les sociétés de contrôle et sur l’Éthique de Spinoza, je suggère que les exigences d’un tel environnement modulant sont éthiques (plutôt que morales). Seront ensuite décortiquées les complexes de techniques, appelés procédures suivant les artistes-philosophes Madeline Gins et Arakawa, qui soutiennent une éthique pour survivre la société de contrôle dans la série Damages. / This thesis examines complex narrative temporalities in the recent television series Life on Mars (BBC, 2006-2007), Flashforward (ABC, 2009-2010), and Damages (FX/Audience Network, 2007-2012). The general argument proposes that the renewed technics of television have enabled innovative aesthetic standards and temporal experiences in serial TV fiction. It is subsequently shown that these new aesthetic and experiential qualities of TV fiction are correlative to an increased political and ethical relevance of time. This overall argument is laid out in four major steps. The project first addresses the technics of recent television to show how new technologies have enabled new techniques of experiencing television. Drawing on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari as well as the media theories of Matthew Fuller, Thomas Lamarre, and Jussi Parikka, the complex and productive linkages between technology and techniques will be theorized as an abstract machine which I call the serial machine. The argument then draws on theories of perception and nonrepresentational approaches to art in order to analyze the new qualities of aesthetic experience in serial TV fiction. For this purpose, I develop the central concept of the figure of time understood as the directly felt abstract shape effectuated by a narrative’s movement through time. It will be seen, in a third step, that the figural movements discussed in this thesis concern questions of future-orientation and preemption. All of the narratives in this project anticipate their own ending and take form with respect to this foretold future. They are therefore conceptualized as “preemptive narratives,” in which the future poses an affective rather than epistemological problem. I will show that, in the serial narratives under discussion, the preemptive loop through the future is immediately ontogenetic in that it creates a reality in the present by inducing uncertainty and fear of the future. Finally, the thesis proposes that such affective politics are an element of what Gilles Deleuze calls control societies, in which conditions of life are constantly modulated. Following his writings on control societies and Spinoza’s Ethics, it is argued that the requirements of such a modulatory environment are ethical in nature (rather than moral). Drawing on the work by artists-philosophers Madeline Gins and Arakawa, I elaborate the techniques of attention which sustain an ethics for surviving the control society in the TV series Damages.

One year after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush introduced a revolutionary foreign policy strategy--the Bush Doctrine. Proponents of this strategy advocated the use of American 'hard power' as a tool to promote freedom and democracy, beginning with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Opponents of the doctrine saw it as dangerously nationalistic, with the potential to entangle the United States in a myriad of protracted international conflicts. This thesis will identify aspects of nationalism within post-9/11 American foreign policy and illuminate the incompatibility of nationalism and the fundamental tenets of conflict resolution. This study theorizes that nationalism played a significant role in the development of the Bush Doctrine. Although its advocates promote specific policies historically associated with nationalism, as a rule they have not acknowledged its influence. Conversely, opponents of the doctrine acknowledge this influence and warn of its destructive characteristics. The study presented herein identifies nationalism as a powerful force in American culture and politics--one that has a profound influence on American foreign policy and on the longevity of our foreign wars.

This dissertation investigates the relationship of competition and firms' price responses, by analyzing: i) whether new entry reduces price discrimination, ii) when incumbents reduce price discrimination preemptively in response to the threat of entry, and iii) how competition increases prices. The dissertation consists of three independent essays addressing each of the above questions. The first two essays present an empirical analysis of the airline industry and the third essay presents a theoretical analysis of the credit card industry. In the empirical study of the relationship between competition and firms' pricing in the airline industry, I emphasize the importance of distinguishing the equilibrium behaviors with respect to different market characteristics. Major airlines can price discriminate differently in a market where they compete with low-cost carriers comparing to in another market where they don't, and also they can respond dfferently to the threat of entry depending on whether they are certain about the rival's future entry. The study reveals that competition has a positive effect on price discrimination in the routes where major airlines compete against one anther. In these routes, competition reduces lower-end prices to a greater extent than upper-end prices. In contrast, an entry by low-cost carriers results in a significant negative relationship between competition and price discrimination. Thus, the opposite results in the literature are both evident in the airline industry, and it is very important to identify the different forces of competition on price discrimination. Firms can respond to potential competition as well as actual competition. So, I extend the study to the relationship of potential competition and price discrimination, specially in cases where major airlines compete against one another while facing Southwest's threat of entry. I also attempt to suggest major airlines' motives of reducing price discrimination preemptively. The results of the study suggest that incumbents reduce price dispersion when it is possible to deter the rival's entry and that the potential rival discourages incumbents from deterring entry by announcing before its beginning service. Finally, I examine when competition can increase prices in a market, by analyzing the issuing side of the credit card industry. This industry is characterized by a two-sided market with a platform. Under the no-surcharge rule that restricts merchants to set the same price for cash and card purchases, the equilibrium interchange fee increases with competition. This occurs because issuers can compensate losses from competing on the issuing side by collectively increasing the interchange fee. As a result, limiting competition may improve social welfare when the interchange fee is higher than the social optimal level. In contrast, in the absence of the no-surcharge rule, the analysis shows that competition always improves social welfare by lowering the price of the market.