Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,0 (B), Stellenbosch Universitiy (Business School), language: English, abstract: The dependency on Information Systems and Technology is a given fact of today's world either in public or in business. But this dependency also creates vulnerabilities in form of new targets for particular groups instead of the supposed improvements of overall life quality. Cyber attacks therefore pose complex problems to national security and public policy as well as to the economy. Cyber terrorism occurs in the virtual world of bits and is being seen as a convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It can take place in simple structured styles up to complex coordinated ways of attacking and should be differentiated in conventional or unique manners of execution. To provide a deeper understanding of the field of cyber terrorism it is investigated with the method of semiotics . This is be done through the Morphological, Empirical, Syntactical, Semantic and Pragmatic layer to be able to classify and categorize cyber terrorism on risk and the rate of impact. The concluding part deals with the economic costs of cyber terrorism on the hand and provides a prevention model for terrorism on the other. Economic costs do not only cover the direct costs involved for security there are as well opportunity cost involved which have to be taken into account. The loss of intellectual property, the lower productivity caused by cyber attacks and the hurt of third party liability are non monetary measures for the ladder. The prevention model is based on the cybernetic approach to build up a system where the complex structure of cause and affect of the anti terrorism variables is incorporated. The sensitivity of this tough system is shown on some particular elements. The model provides a network for the development of sustainable solutions to limit the overall economical costs of the fight against terrorism.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,7 (A-), Stellenbosch Universitiy, language: English, abstract: The objective of an Integrated Risk Management System is to maximise shareholder value. Shareholder Value is mainly determined by t he Market Value (MV) which is the most aggregated measure for the value of a company. MV is influenced by future cash flows which are exposed by the risk of Exchange Rate changes. This risk can be hedged by using financial instruments such as derivatives or it can be minimized by applying operational hedging which involves strategic considerations like plant locations and sources of input. The business of the company assumed in this case consists of Export & Import trades to a variety of countries as well as of Equity Investments in Africa and Asia. An assessment of the countries and areas shows actual economical and political developments to evaluate the most efficient Risk Management decisions. By looking at the Direct Economical Exposure the extent by which the company is threatened by Exchange Rate changes is examined. Furthermore the Value at Risk approach and the Scenario method is explained and applied to draw a picture of the size and likelihood by what extent the enterprise is exposed to Financial Risks. It is suggested to use the Dynamic Hedging technique to overcome fluctuating cash flows. Another proposal is to apply Multi-Currency Accounting which supports the company to comply with regulatory standards and provide management information to efficiently control foreign business.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Economics - International Economic Relations, grade: 2,0 (B), Stellenbosch Universitiy (Business School), language: English, abstract: The meeting of WTO Ministers in Cancun/Mexico ended without reaching a consensus in September 2003. But this is not the end of the WTO. The general advisory board of the World Trade Organization is called up for December 2003 to work with the negotiated text of the conference as a discussion basis. Key Issues for the 5 th WTO Round were Agriculture, especially market access and subsidies issues, and Development Issues - over three-quarters of WTO members are developing countries. While the aims of the Doha negotiating round had not changed, the political and economic conditio ns in which the negotiations were taking place had changed enormously in the last year. This included a slowdown in the world economy, currency instability, g eopolitical differences, outstanding trade disputes, and the proliferation of bilateral and regional trade agreements. An agreement on agriculture would have been a precond ition for success for the round of WTO negotiations. Issues were the dismantling of export subsidies, the reduction or removal of market access restrictions that block imports or exports of agrifood products, harmonization of regulations and the reduction of regulatory barriers with respect to phytosanitary standards and genetically- modified organisms, and a re-definition of antidumping to reflect real costs of production (before and after subsidies) in all countries. Another key point of Cancun was the General Agreement on Trade in Services - GATS. Before the round the developing countries called for the implementation of measures agreed under the last Uruguay round of negotiations: m arket access for agricultural and nonagricultural goods, as well as services, rules for governing special and differential treatment, procurement, and interdependence - the linkage of progress on trade negotiations with the resolution of other issues like agriculture and access to pharmaceuticals under TRIPS.

Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Engineering - Industrial Engineering and Management, grade: 2,0, Stellenbosch Universitiy, course: Operations Management, language: English, abstract: The research report takes an in-depth look at the automotive industry and their major participants in the upstream value chain. The different parties involved are the automotive manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers. The overall goal of the following report is to identify suitable business models for small to medium sized (SME) automotive suppliers. As the automotive value chain currently undergoes an evolutionary change towards a diminishing vertical integration of the OEMs, it becomes a challenging issue to reconfigure the responsibilities of the suppliers. Thereby OEMs and their suppliers have to cope with a shift from a functional to a process orientated value chain. During this reorganization of the OEM-supplier interface, enterprises realign their strategic intent towards their core competencies as well. Besides the shifting value chain, both suppliers and OEMs have to cope with a consolidation in their industries. This consolidation is impacted by stagnating traditional markets, an ongoing globalization of the value chain, and an increasing productivity pressure in the automotive industry. Looking at the automotive supplier, it becomes obvious that the suppliers are on the one hand challenged by productivity pressures and on the other hand have the opportunity to take over more business of the automotive value chain. The growth potential requires changes in the area of supply chain management and new types of collaboration in the supply network. This prospective development is mainly influenced by a trend towards the outsourcing of entire processes by the OEMs and the increasing need for future innovations in the automotive industry. After discussing the above mentioned issues, the report analyses the role of suppliers with respect to their main customers, the automotive OEMs. Based on the findings business models for suppliers are assessed and key success factors for small to medium sized suppliers are proposed and evaluated. The findings of the evaluation are translated into suggestions for most suitable business models of SMEs. The report concludes with recommendations for the strategy building process indicates problems concerning the shifting value chain, and points out the importance of further research in the field of the small to medium sized automotive supplier industry. [...]

Diploma Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Computer Science - Applied, grade: 1.0, University of Weimar (Faculty of Media), language: English, abstract: Reconstruction of real-world scenes from a set of multiple images is a topic in Computer Vision and 3D Computer Graphics with many interesting applications. There exists a powerful algorithm for shape reconstruction from arbitrary viewpoints, called Space Carving. However, it is computationally expensive and hence can not be used with applications in the field of 3D video or CSCW as well as interactive 3D model creation. Attempts have been made to achieve real-time framerates using PC cluster systems. While these provide enough performance they are also expensive and less flexible. Approaches that use GPU hardware acceleration on single workstations achieve interactive framerates for novel-view synthesis, but do not provide an explicit volumetric representation of the whole scene. The proposed approach shows the efforts in developing a GPU hardware-accelerated framework for obtaining the volumetric photo hull of a dynamic 3D scene as seen from multiple calibrated cameras. High performance is achieved by employing a shape from silhouette technique in advance to obtain a tight initial volume for Space Carving. Also several speed-up techniques are presented to increase efficiency. Since the entire processing is done on a single PC the framework can be applied to mobile setups, enabling a wide range of further applications. The approach is explained using programmable vertex and fragment processors with current hardware and compared to highly optimized CPU implementations. It is shown that the new approach can outperform the latter by more than one magnitude.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,0 (B), Stellenbosch Universitiy (Business School), language: English, abstract: The dependency on Information Systems and Technology is a given fact of today's world either in public or in business. But this dependency also creates vulnerabilities in form of new targets for particular groups instead of the supposed improvements of overall life quality. Cyber attacks therefore pose complex problems to national security and public policy as well as to the economy. Cyber terrorism occurs in the virtual world of bits and is being seen as a convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It can take place in simple structured styles up to complex coordinated ways of attacking and should be differentiated in conventional or unique manners of execution. To provide a deeper understanding of the field of cyber terrorism it is investigated with the method of semiotics . This is be done through the Morphological, Empirical, Syntactical, Semantic and Pragmatic layer to be able to classify and categorize cyber terrorism on risk and the rate of impact. The concluding part deals with the economic costs of cyber terrorism on the hand and provides a prevention model for terrorism on the other. Economic costs do not only cover the direct costs involved for security there are as well opportunity cost involved which have to be taken into account. The loss of intellectual property, the lower productivity caused by cyber attacks and the hurt of third party liability are non monetary measures for the ladder. The prevention model is based on the cybernetic approach to build up a system where the complex structure of cause and affect of the anti terrorism variables is incorporated. The sensitivity of this tough system is shown on some particular elements. The model provides a network for the development of sustainable solutions to limit the overall economical costs of the fight against terrorism.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,7 (A-), Stellenbosch Universitiy, language: English, abstract: The objective of an Integrated Risk Management System is to maximise shareholder value. Shareholder Value is mainly determined by t he Market Value (MV) which is the most aggregated measure for the value of a company. MV is influenced by future cash flows which are exposed by the risk of Exchange Rate changes. This risk can be hedged by using financial instruments such as derivatives or it can be minimized by applying operational hedging which involves strategic considerations like plant locations and sources of input. The business of the company assumed in this case consists of Export & Import trades to a variety of countries as well as of Equity Investments in Africa and Asia. An assessment of the countries and areas shows actual economical and political developments to evaluate the most efficient Risk Management decisions. By looking at the Direct Economical Exposure the extent by which the company is threatened by Exchange Rate changes is examined. Furthermore the Value at Risk approach and the Scenario method is explained and applied to draw a picture of the size and likelihood by what extent the enterprise is exposed to Financial Risks. It is suggested to use the Dynamic Hedging technique to overcome fluctuating cash flows. Another proposal is to apply Multi-Currency Accounting which supports the company to comply with regulatory standards and provide management information to efficiently control foreign business.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Economics - International Economic Relations, grade: 2,0 (B), Stellenbosch Universitiy (Business School), language: English, abstract: The meeting of WTO Ministers in Cancun/Mexico ended without reaching a consensus in September 2003. But this is not the end of the WTO. The general advisory board of the World Trade Organization is called up for December 2003 to work with the negotiated text of the conference as a discussion basis. Key Issues for the 5 th WTO Round were Agriculture, especially market access and subsidies issues, and Development Issues - over three-quarters of WTO members are developing countries. While the aims of the Doha negotiating round had not changed, the political and economic conditio ns in which the negotiations were taking place had changed enormously in the last year. This included a slowdown in the world economy, currency instability, g eopolitical differences, outstanding trade disputes, and the proliferation of bilateral and regional trade agreements. An agreement on agriculture would have been a precond ition for success for the round of WTO negotiations. Issues were the dismantling of export subsidies, the reduction or removal of market access restrictions that block imports or exports of agrifood products, harmonization of regulations and the reduction of regulatory barriers with respect to phytosanitary standards and genetically- modified organisms, and a re-definition of antidumping to reflect real costs of production (before and after subsidies) in all countries. Another key point of Cancun was the General Agreement on Trade in Services - GATS. Before the round the developing countries called for the implementation of measures agreed under the last Uruguay round of negotiations: m arket access for agricultural and nonagricultural goods, as well as services, rules for governing special and differential treatment, procurement, and interdependence - the linkage of progress on trade negotiations with the resolution of other issues like agriculture and access to pharmaceuticals under TRIPS.

Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Engineering - Industrial Engineering and Management, grade: 2,0, Stellenbosch Universitiy, course: Operations Management, language: English, abstract: The research report takes an in-depth look at the automotive industry and their major participants in the upstream value chain. The different parties involved are the automotive manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers. The overall goal of the following report is to identify suitable business models for small to medium sized (SME) automotive suppliers. As the automotive value chain currently undergoes an evolutionary change towards a diminishing vertical integration of the OEMs, it becomes a challenging issue to reconfigure the responsibilities of the suppliers. Thereby OEMs and their suppliers have to cope with a shift from a functional to a process orientated value chain. During this reorganization of the OEM-supplier interface, enterprises realign their strategic intent towards their core competencies as well. Besides the shifting value chain, both suppliers and OEMs have to cope with a consolidation in their industries. This consolidation is impacted by stagnating traditional markets, an ongoing globalization of the value chain, and an increasing productivity pressure in the automotive industry. Looking at the automotive supplier, it becomes obvious that the suppliers are on the one hand challenged by productivity pressures and on the other hand have the opportunity to take over more business of the automotive value chain. The growth potential requires changes in the area of supply chain management and new types of collaboration in the supply network. This prospective development is mainly influenced by a trend towards the outsourcing of entire processes by the OEMs and the increasing need for future innovations in the automotive industry. After discussing the above mentioned issues, the report analyses the role of suppliers with respect to their main customers, the automotive OEMs. Based on the findings business models for suppliers are assessed and key success factors for small to medium sized suppliers are proposed and evaluated. The findings of the evaluation are translated into suggestions for most suitable business models of SMEs. The report concludes with recommendations for the strategy building process indicates problems concerning the shifting value chain, and points out the importance of further research in the field of the small to medium sized automotive supplier industry. [...]

Diploma Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Computer Science - Applied, grade: 1.0, University of Weimar (Faculty of Media), language: English, abstract: Reconstruction of real-world scenes from a set of multiple images is a topic in Computer Vision and 3D Computer Graphics with many interesting applications. There exists a powerful algorithm for shape reconstruction from arbitrary viewpoints, called Space Carving. However, it is computationally expensive and hence can not be used with applications in the field of 3D video or CSCW as well as interactive 3D model creation. Attempts have been made to achieve real-time framerates using PC cluster systems. While these provide enough performance they are also expensive and less flexible. Approaches that use GPU hardware acceleration on single workstations achieve interactive framerates for novel-view synthesis, but do not provide an explicit volumetric representation of the whole scene. The proposed approach shows the efforts in developing a GPU hardware-accelerated framework for obtaining the volumetric photo hull of a dynamic 3D scene as seen from multiple calibrated cameras. High performance is achieved by employing a shape from silhouette technique in advance to obtain a tight initial volume for Space Carving. Also several speed-up techniques are presented to increase efficiency. Since the entire processing is done on a single PC the framework can be applied to mobile setups, enabling a wide range of further applications. The approach is explained using programmable vertex and fragment processors with current hardware and compared to highly optimized CPU implementations. It is shown that the new approach can outperform the latter by more than one magnitude.