We introduce the topic of this Special Issue on the "Role of Financial and Legal Institutions in International Governance", with a particular emphasis on a notion of "international mobility of corporate governance". Our discussion places the Special Issue at the intersection of law, finance, and international business, with a focus on the contexts of foreign investors and directors. Country-level legal and regulatory institutions facilitate foreign ownership, foreign directors, raising external financial capital, and international M&A activity. The interplay between the impact of foreign ownership and foreign directors on firm governance and performance depends on international differences in formal/regulatory institutions. In addition to legal conditions, informal institutions such as political connections also shape the economic value of foreign ownership and foreign directors. We highlight key papers in the literature, provide an overview of the new papers in this Special Issue, and offer suggestions for future research.

Capitalising on the power of nostalgic branding, requires understanding a consumer’s past experience with a brand. Nostalgia is a powerful influential factor that marketers should look at utilising correctly in order for them to successfully leverage off nostalgia and existing relationships between the consumer and the brand. This research has been conducted in order to gain a richer understanding of the nostalgic connections that consumers form with brands. Eight credible female respondents between the ages of 45 - 60, born and raised in Soweto, and who have attained tertiary qualification, were selected for the study. A selective criterion was designed to derive quality and depth in the research findings. The semi-structured interview technique was used for the qualitative research study. The findings revealed that brand nostalgia is rooted at different stages within the consumer’s decision process, depending on the brand and product category. The relationship between nostalgia and the derived benefits from the brands are not always as clear-cut as most marketers think. These benefits can be attained during the use of the brand or at the end of the consumption process. If the benefit does not fit the consumer’s current lifestyle, then the relationship will remain as a memory and the brand will not be purchased no matter how strong the nostalgic connection is between the consumer and brand.The research study was carried out to give marketers a guideline on optimising and capitalising on brand nostalgia. Further recommendations were made to assist future research on this topic, and to help marketers find ways of effectively leveraging off nostalgic connections that consumers form with brands. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The structural performance of Rounded Dovetail Connections (RDC) has been studied experimentally and numerically to provide information needed for connection structural design. RDC are mainly used to transfer vertical shear forces, but test results show that they can carry considerable load in tension and bending. Geometric parameters, such as dovetail flange angle and dovetail height are shown to significantly effect affect the structural performance of RDC. Results show that it is impractical to determine a set of empirical equations to describe the structural performance of RDC based on basic wood material properties. RDC manufactured and tested with low and constant moisture content outperformed those evaluated under other climatic conditions, and test results demonstrate that RDC should be produced at low machine speed and with minimal a gap between the connecting members. RDC in laminated strand lumber have higher capacity and fail under larger deformations compared to RDC in western hemlock. A three-dimensional finite element method model is presented and validated with experimental tests. Good agreement is achieved between the load deformation response predicted by the model and the experimentally observed load deformation response. Therefore the model is deemed suitable for estimating the stresses needed to develop failure criteria. A failure criterion for the analysis of RDC is presented taking into account size effect in the strength of wood. Based on the experimental and numerical studies, a design equation for RDC is presented that provides the engineering community with a new design tool. Finally, self tapping screws as reinforcement have been studied and are shown to significantly improve the structural performance of RDC under vertical shear loading. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is an emerging engineered wood product in North America. Past research effort to establish the behaviour of CLT under extreme loading conditions has focussed CLT slabs with idealized simply-supported boundary conditions. Connections between the wall and the floor systems above and below are critical to fully describing the overall behaviour of CLT structures when subjected to blast loads. The current study investigates the effects of “realistic” boundary conditions on the behaviour of cross-laminated timber walls when subjected to simulated out-of-plane blast loads. The methodology followed in the current research consists of experimental and analytical components. The experimental component was conducted in the Blast Research Laboratory at the University of Ottawa, where shock waves were applied to the specimens. Configurations with seismic detailing were considered, in order to evaluate whether existing structures that have adequate capacities to resist high seismic loads would also be capable of resisting a blast load with reasonable damage. In addition, typical connections used in construction to resist gravity and lateral loads, as well as connections designed specifically to resist a given blast load were investigated. The results indicate that the detailing of the connections appears to significantly affect the behaviour of the CLT slab. Typical detailing for platform construction where long screws connect the floor slab to the wall in end grain performed poorly and experienced brittle failure through splitting in the perpendicular to grain direction in the CLT. Bearing type connections generally behaved well and yielding in the fasteners and/or angles brackets meant that a significant portion of the energy was dissipated there reducing the energy imparted on the CLT slab significantly. Hence less displacement and thereby damage was observed in the slab. The study also concluded that using simplified tools such as single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) models together with current available material models for CLT is not sufficient to adequately describe the behaviour and estimate the damage. More testing and development of models with higher fidelity are required in order to develop robust tools for the design of CLT element subjected to blast loading.

On construit de nouvelles connexions quantiques intégrables dans fibrés vectoriels au-dessus d'espaces de modules de surfaces de Riemann et de leurs généralisations sauvages, en utilisant deux approches différentes. Premièrement, on utilise la quantification par déformation pour construire de nouvelles connexions intégrables à partir d'Hamiltoniennes d'isomonodromie irrégulières, dans l'esprit de Reshetikhin de la dérivation de la connexion de Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov à partir des Hamiltoniennes de Schlesinger. Deuxièmement, on construit une version complexe de la connexion de Hitchin pour la quantification géométrique de l'espace de modules de Hitchin sur une surface de genre un, par rapport au groupe SL(2,C) et à des polarisations Kähleriennes, en complémentant l'approche par polarisations réelles de Witten. Finalement, on utilise la transformée de Bargmann pour dériver une formule pour la connexion de Hitchin-Witten dans le fibré vectoriel des sections holomorphes, et pour transformer l'action de Hitchin en une transformée sur l'espace de Segal--Bargmann, basée sur les états cohérents. / We construct new flat quantum connections on vector bundles over moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces and their wild generalisations, using two different approaches. Firstly, we use deformation quantisation to construct new flat connections from irregular isomonodromy Hamiltonians, in the spirit of Reshetikhin's derivation of the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov connection from the Schlesinger Hamiltonians. Secondly, we construct a complex version of the Hitchin connection for the geometric quantisation of the Hitchin moduli space over a surface of genus one, with respect to the group SL(2,C) and to Kähler polarisations, complementing Witten's real polarisation approach. Finally, we use the Bargmann transform to derive a formula for the connection of Hitchin-Witten on the vector bundle of holomorphic sections, and to turn Hitchin's action into a transform on the Segal--Bargmann space, which relies on coherent states.

We dispose of things when they fall out of style, when taste changes, when they break or when we can no longer find a use for them. Sometimes, we sell things when we see value in them. Sometimes we recycle. Sometimes we feed the landfill — the meeting point for materials that have lost their utility. Many of them have the potential to serve their use much longer than having just one life as one object. My degree project investigates what role disassembly plays in the lifespan of a material. Can it support the recovery and subsequent use of matter? Whose responsibility is to take care of an object’s afterlife? By researching the possibilities of exchanging fixed pieces of joinery for detachable ones, my project reinvents the way we attach materials based on forces such as tension, pressure and gravity. Can joinery invite us to disassemble?

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<p> This is a study of the relationships between the systems of consanguineal and affinal classification, the types of genealogical and affinal connections to which the terms refer, and the modes of conduct that are normatively grounded in relations of genealogical connection as they are conceived by the people of Longana district, Aoba. The Longana have a Crow system of kin classification in conjunction with exogamous matrimoieties. </p> <p> Important to the analysis of Longana kinship is their theory of procreation, which consists essentially of three parts. First, the Longana believe that parents contribute equally to the substance of their offspring. The Longana themselves posit relations of genealogical connection. Second, the theory of gestation states that a woman's children congenitally acquire her kin class status with respect to her cross-sex sibling. Third, the Longana have a story that accounts for the origins of men and women, sexual knowledge and procreation.</p> <p> The mode of consanguineal classification cannot be discovered by analyzing the terms together with the kin types to which they refer separately from the system of spouse 2nd affinal classification, and separately from the modes of conduct that are normatively ascribed to relations of consanguinity and affinity. The principal reason for this is that certain consanguineal relationships, namely the children of grandchildren and the off spring of cross-sex siblings, refer to more than consanguinity, or substance, alone.</p> <p> These consanguineal relationships refer also to relations of affinity; to ideas concerning gestation and its significance in the context of the cross-sex sibling bond; to ideas concerning the creation of men and women, and hence to the origin and nature of procreation itself. These conceptions are expressed in the story of human reproduction in which the first woman was a sibling with a male sexual identity with respect to her husband and his brothers. The story is a sequence of events between the first siblings, their spouses and affines, wherein the principles for classifying consanguineals and affines are contained. Also, the story is the means by which particular modes of conduct come to be connoted by the connections between ego and his or her cross-sex sibling, cross-sex sibling's spouse, and cross-sex sibling's offspring -- what is called the cross-sex sibling complex. The cross-sex sibling complex, together with the terminology and modes of conduct appropriate to it, are manifestations, symbols, of the theory of procreation. </p> <p> An understanding of the significance of the cross-sex sibling complex is essential for discovering the principles of the Crow terminology, and has relevance for understanding Longana descent, politics, economics, and ritual. In particular, the theory of procreation informs the cross-sex sibling complex in such a way that certain offspring of cross-sex siblings have, congenitally, two sexual identities with respect to their parents' cross-sex siblings, and the resulting multiple kin class statuses held by these kin types refer to the relationships between the first woman and her brothers and her children expressed in the story of human reproduction.</p> <p> Thus, the Longana concept of genealogical connection contradicts the prevalent, if implicit, assumption that kin types have associated with them either a male or a female sexual identity, and contradicts the assumption that a genealogical grid constitutes a conveniently simple, semantically neutral, framework for analyzing kinship systems. Finally, the dissertation suggests that a pro-genealogy approach to kinship, and a cultural or symbolic approach to kinship, are not necessarily opposed strategies for investigating the relationships between systems of kin classification and the modes of conduct that may be associated with such systems. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

We are two students at Malmö Högskola, writing our final essay for obtain our teacher diplomas. On our partner schools, we have been facing but little information about how to invite the parents to collaborate with the school. Our thought is that the schoolwork is favorable to the pupils if both school and home are working together side by side. Therefore, we decided to dig deeper into this matter of how one particular school is working with parental collaboration, to be able to see if their method is useful.This particular school is offering studies in a course form so called family class. Here the pupils can get extra help from remedial teachers and their parents are also invited. At these lessons the parents are helping their child side by side with the teachers. We want to look further how this school actually works, whether this way of working is favorable or has a restraining influence on the pupil's education- with focus on a teacher´s perspective. The title “Parental collaboration- how to invite” is a result of our investigation of one school´s family classes. We have been interviewing teachers that are mentors for pupils in the family class, the pupils taking the course and also the responsible remedial teachers giving the course. The purpose of this research is to make a survey of theirs ideas about the school´s method and how the school operates in the relation between home and school. Our aim of making this survey is to point out the prosperity of terms in joint action, which are favorable to pupil´s education. We have been interviewing the mentors and the remedial teachers, but also handed out questionnaires to the students and their parents taking the family class course. The results from our survey has then been compared to a study done by Eriksson (2009), in order to see how the participants are perceiving this experience and what they think about this method. All the results that we have evaluated has then been presented and analyzed, for showing what terms that stand for prosperity in joint action. Finally, in our close-up we have developed our analyses further in an over-all discussion whether this method contributes something like gained collaboration between home and school - or not