This study revolves around operators defined by conditional expectations and operators generated by random measures. Studies of operators in function spaces defined by conditional expectations first appeared in the mid 1950's by S-T.C. Moy [22] and S. Sidak [26]. N. Kalton studied them in the setting of Lp-spaces 0 < p < 1 in [15, 131 and in L1-spaces, [14], while W. Arveson [5] studied them in L2-spaces. Their averaging properties were studied by P.G. Dodds and C.B. Huijsmans and B. de Pagter in [7] and C.B. Huijsmans and B. de Pagter in [lo]. A. Lambert [17] studied their relationship with multiplication operators in C*-modules. It was shown by J.J. Grobler and B. de Pagter [8] that partial integral operators that were studied A.S. Kalitvin et a1 in [2, 4, 3, 11, 121 and the special cases of kernel operators that were, inter alia, studied by A.R. Schep in [25] were special cases of conditional expectation operators. On the other hand, operators generated by random measures or pseudo-integral operators were studied by A. Sourour [28, 271 and L.W. Weis [29,30], building on the studies of W. Arveson [5] and N. Kalton [14, 151, in the late 1970's and early 1980's. In this thesis we extend the work of J.J. Grobler and B. de Pagter [8] on Multiplication Conditional Expectation-representable (MCE-representable) operators. We also generalize the result of A. Sourour [27] and show that order continuous linear maps between ideals of almost everywhere finite measurable functions on u-finite measure spaces are MCE-representable. This fact enables us to easily deduce that sums and compositions of MCE-representable operators are again MCE-representable operators. We also show that operators generated by random measures are MCE-representable. The first chapter gathers the definitions and introduces notions and concepts that are used throughout. In particular, we introduce Riesz spaces and operators therein, Riesz and Boolean homomorphisms, conditional expectation operators, kernel and absolute T-kernel operators. In Chapter 2 we look at MCE-operators where we give a definition different from that given by J.J. Grobler and B. de Pagter in [8], but which we show to be equivalent. Chapter 3 involves random measures and operators generated by random measures. We solve the problem (positively) that was posed by A. Sourour in [28] about the relationship of the lattice properties of operators generated by random measures and the lattice properties of their generating random measures. We show that the total variation of a random signed measure representing an order bounded operator T, it being the difference of two random measures, is again a random measure and represents ITI. We also show that the set of all operators generated by a random measure is a band in the Riesz space of all order bounded operators. In Chapter 4 we investigate the relationship between operators generated by random measures and MCE-representable operators. It was shown by A. Sourour in [28, 271 that every order bounded order continuous linear operator acting between ideals of almost everywhere measurable functions is generated by a random measure, provided that the measure spaces involved are standard measure spaces. We prove an analogue of this theorem for the general case where the underlying measure spaces are a-finite. We also, in this general setting, prove that every order continuous linear operator is MCE-representable. This rather surprising result enables us to easily show that sums, products and compositions of MCE-representable operator are again MCE-representable. Key words: Riesz spaces, conditional expectations, multiplication conditional expectation-representable operators, random measures. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Mathematics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

In recent years, growing interest towards foods produced from alternative agricultural practices have been seen among consumers. This thesis is an investigation of consumer understanding and attitudes towards information regarding sustainable, organic and local foods and agricultural practices and how such information could affect consumer food product expectation and sensory acceptability. Using internet questionnaires constructed based on common definitions and popular beliefs, 172 primary grocery shoppers were surveyed regarding their perception concerning information related to these alternative agricultural practices and foods. Results obtained from statistical analyses revealed the existence of various dimensions concerning the understanding and attitudes towards these concepts. Segmentations based on their understanding and attitudes towards these concepts were also found within the sampled population. Furthermore, by utilizing the theory of assimilation and contrast, a three-part sensory study was conducted, with 49 consumers from the Niagara Peninsula, to examine the impact of information regarding production methods (organic vs. conventional) and product origins (local vs. imported) on consumer expectation and acceptability of yellow peaches. Despite of some peach samples being under-ripe, a significant positive labeling effect has been observed in hedonic rating and perceived intensity of sensory characteristics when the joint organic and local label was presented. A similar labeling effect, however, was not observed in monetary valuation of willingness to pay. / New Directions Research Program / Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs

This thesis investigates the two major conflicting modes of interpretation applied to Mo Yan’s literary texts diachronically and synchronically in order to reveal both the aesthetic imperative and the liberating force of the British and North American literary centers in receiving literature from the periphery. After an introduction to the centers’ disparate responses to the paradigmatic shift of the local Chinese literary trend in the 1980s, the thesis continues with a theoretical discussion on reader-response theory and the uneven power relations between the literary center and the periphery. Jauss’s concept of horizon of expectation and Fish’s interpretive community are adopted to stress openness in interpretation while Casanova’s conceptualization of the world republic of letters provides the framework to study the competition among interpretive communities for the legitimacy of their respective interpretation. The study of the press reception of Mo Yan focuses on the ongoing shift of horizon of expectation from the dominating political and representational mode of interpretation to one that stresses the literary and fictional nature of literature. The study shows that the imperative in the reception of Mo Yan is the extension of the Western cultural hegemony sustained by an Orientalist dichotomy. The academic promotion in the public sphere, however, shows critics’ effort to subvert such domination by suggesting an alternative mode that brings the Chinese literary context to bear on the interpretation. In addition to this, Mo Yan’s strategic negotiation with the dominating mode of reception is analysed in my close reading of POW!. At the end of the thesis, I call for general readers to raise the awareness of the hegemonic tendency of any prevailing mode of interpretation. By asserting a certain distance, readers enable the openness in interpretation and hence possible communication among different communities.

This research looks at some issues confronting community forestry in Nepal. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to analyze the issues confronting community forestry in mid hills region of Nepal. Results indicate that experts as well as local community users think positive aspects of community forestry to be more important than its negative aspects. In addition, through the comparison of three forest types, Alnus nepalensis found to be the most important forest type for conservation and Schima-Castanopsis to be the most important forest type for local benefits. Similarly, results also indicate that increase in carbon prices lengthen an optimal rotation age. Also, Land Expectation Value (LEV) increases substantially with the increase in carbon prices.

Bakgrund: Anknytningen underlättas mellan barn och föräldrar om de kan vara tillsammans redan från förlossningen. Teamarbete förbättrar kvalitén och bidrar till helhetsperspektiv i vården. En god arbetsmiljö och ett gott samarbete mellan personal är viktigt för effektiviteten av samvård. Att undersöka personalens förväntningar inför ett nytt arbetssätt är betydelsefullt eftersom det kan avspegla sig i den vård som senare ges.Syftet med studien var att belysa personalens förväntningar inför sammanslagning av olika vårdavdelningar och att samtidigt införa samvård.Metoden var en kvalitativ metod med totalt 14 deltagare i tre fokusgruppsintervjuer. Datainsamlingen analyserades med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys.Resultatet sammanfattades med temat ”Tryggt och välkänt eller nytt och osäkert – förändringsarbetets balansgång” som beskrev personalens känslor inför sammanslagningen. Kategorierna ”Att få en bra miljö för föräldrar och personal”, ”Att samarbeta med familjen i fokus”, ”Att förena två kliniker och kulturer” och ”Att genomgå en arbetsplatsförändring” beskrev de förväntningar och farhågor personalen uttryckte.Slutsatser: Resultatet visade på förväntningar av att vård- och arbetsmiljö skulle förbättras samt att samarbetet mellan klinikerna skulle bli mer effektivt. Det framkom att det var av betydelse att ha fungerande informationsflöden, uppleva delaktighet samt ha en tydlig ledning i en genomgripande organisationsförändring. / Background: The bonding between child and parent is aided when child and parent can be together as soon as possible from delivery. Teamwork improves quality and contributes to a holistic-perspective on nursing. A good work environment and good cooperation between staff is important for the efficiency of family-centered care. It is significant to investigate the expectations of the staff before introducing a new way of working, since it may reflect in the quality of care later given.The aim of this study was to illustrate the staffs’ expectations on the fusion of care units and whilst introducing family-centered care.The method was a qualitative method, with three focusgroup interviews of a total of 14 participants. Data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis.The result was summarized with the theme “safe and common or new and uncertain – the balance of change” that described the feelings of the staff before the fusion. The categories “achieving a good environment for parents and staff”, “to cooperate focusing on the family”, “uniting two clinics and cultures” and “to experience a change in establishment” described the expectations and fears of the staff.Conclusions: Results showed expectations of improved care- and work environment, and that the cooperation between clinics would become more efficient. It was important having a clear flow of information, to feel participant and to have a straight-forward management in order to create a functioning way of work in family-centered care.

Background: As a tactic of combating money laundering, auditors have been introduced asguardians and enforcers of the laws, due to their insight into company affairs. However, as shownby the Finance Police, it is rare that auditors report suspicions on money-laundering activities.That is, despite the obligations imposed on the profession, their share of total number or reportfiles each year a very small fraction. Aim: When investigating the infrequent reporting by auditors, it all boils down to a seemingexpectation gap. As such, the aim of this study has been to test that hypothesis, by conducting anattitude survey among Swedish auditors, as we believe the attitude towards the obligations tohave an impact on the tendency to report. Method: The perception of auditors on their role in combating money laundering and thehypothesized expectation gap between the audit profession and the state in its legislative capacitywas explore through the use of a questionnaire sent to 68 authorized or approved auditors withinthree different categories of firms; big-four firms, second tier firms and small local firms inStockholm and Uppsala. Conclusion: We cannot with certainty draw conclusion on whether the auditors’ perceivethemselves as having an obvious preventive role in the fight money laundering due to ambiguousanswers, but there seem to exist a somewhat opposed attitude toward the suggested duty to detectmoney laundering during audits. Nevertheless, traces of an expectation gap were found in thisstudy. However, with a sample size of 20 respondents, we cannot make generalizations withoutcareful consideration. As such, the findings of this study should be regarded as indicative ratherthan definitive.

The expectations’ on companies to take responsibility for their business practices aregrowing. Still, limited research have been conducted on consumer expectation on corporatesocial responsibility (CSR) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Thereforethe purpose of this study was to investigate how consumers’ expectations of CSR practices inSME’s differ concerning the five areas of CSR; environmental, social, ethical, human rightand labour rights, to provide suggestions on how SME’s could allocate their resources onCSR. This was investigated by a mixed method consisting of a survey and a focus group witha sample of students at Uppsala University. The findings of the study demonstrate that theconsumers have the highest expectations on labour rights responsibility, second highest onethical responsibility, followed by human rights responsibility, environmental responsibilityand finally the lowest expectations on social responsibility. The main theoretical implicationof the study is that the expectations on the social area of CSR differ much from previousresearch and the main managerial implication indicates that SME’s should allocate a majorityof their resources to ensuring labour rights.

Risk is an increasingly important factor of our modern society, but that does not mean that risks have become higher today versus any other epoch of human history. Especially in the developed world, risks have been progressively lowered over time. In opposition to the declining risk in everyday life of our modern society, there seems to be an apparent increasing prevalence of risk-taking in our leisure pursuits. More people are willing to take unenforced risks and the fast growing development of adventure tourism is a good example of this. The main purpose of this thesis is to create an understanding how service providers of dangerous activities manage the balance risk and safety in interaction with their customer. Our research objective is to obtain an understanding of risk management practice in a context with the potential physical risks inherent in adventure tourism. The organizational structure for a service provider in extreme environments can be similar to a temporary organizational structure and can therefore be seen from a project management perspective. This research is conducted through a qualitative case-study, which was carried out in the context of a mountaineering expedition in the attempt to summit Mount Everest. Our empirical data are gathered from a database created by the research project Extreme Environments – Everyday Decisions (Triple ED). This database contains numerous transcribed interviews, tracking records, and field notes that was used in order to interpret and analyze the expedition and encounters happening during the process of this mountaineering expedition. Our empirical findings suggest that management of a balance between risk and safety is highly dependent on honest communication. Educated personnel that have the experience and knowledge necessary to manage an expedition or group in a similar setting are another key feature. Furthermore, managing a balance between physical risk and safety is an on-going process in the context of adventure tourism with a large amount interaction between the service provider’s representatives and their customers. For these reasons, the building of a well-functioning relationship between the incorporated strong stakeholders is of importance when balancing risk and safety in a dangerous activity with inherent risks for physical harm.

Saudi Arabia is the largest petroleum producer and exporter in the world. Saudi Arabian economy hugely depends on production and export of oil. This motivates us to do research on oil production of Saudi Arabia. In our research the prime objective is to find the most appropriate models for analyzing Saudi Arabia oil production data. Initially we think of considering integrated autoregressive moving average (ARIMA) models to fit the data. But most of the variables under study show some kind of volatility and for this reason we finally decide to consider autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (ARCH) models for them. If there is no ARCH effect, it will automatically become an ARIMA model. But the existence of missing values for almost each of the variable makes the analysis part complicated since the estimation of parameters in an ARCH model does not converge when observations are missing. As a remedy to this problem we estimate missing observations first. We employ the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm for estimating the missing values. But since our data are time series data, any simple EM algorithm is not appropriate for them. There is also evidence of the presence of outliers in the data. Therefore we finally employ robust regression least trimmed squares (LTS) based EM algorithm to estimate the missing values. After the estimation of missing values we employ the White test to select the most appropriate ARCH models for all sixteen variables under study. Normality test on resulting residuals is performed for each of the variable to check the validity of the fitted model. / ARCH/GARCH models, outliers and robustness : tests for normality and estimation of missing values in time series -- Outlier analysis and estimation of missing values by robust EM algorithm for Saudi Arabia oil production data -- Selection of ARCH models for Saudi Arabia oil production data. / Department of Mathematical Sciences

Förväntningsgapet är sedan länge ett definierat fenomen som kvarstår trots upprepade försök att minska det. En anledning till att gapet kvarstår påstås vara att revisorer själv har introducerat det. Detta i kombination med att förväntningsgapet troligtvis kommer att fortsätta att existera, medför att det finns anledning att undersöka om revisorer kan dra nytta av det i sitt dagliga arbete. Syftet med den här studien är att utifrån revisorers perspektiv undersöka förväntningsgapet och revisorers möjlighet att med hjälp av gapet utöva inflytande över klienter. Undersökningen är baserad på intervjuer med revisorer från olika byråer. Studiens teoretiska referensram är baserad på antaganden från professionsteori för att beskriva revisorers kunskap, vilket är väsentligt för att undersöka om revisorer har ett kunskapsövertag de kan nyttja för att utöva inflytande. I detta avseende presenteras även antaganden från agent-teorin för att beskriva den informationsasymmetri som kan förekomma. Utöver kunskapsövertagpresenteras image och retorik som ytterligare verktyg revisorer kan tänkas dra nytta av för att influera sina klienter. Studien visar att det finns möjligheter för revisorer att med hjälp av förväntningsgapet utöva inflytande i sina klientrelationer. Möjligheten att utöva inflytande ser annorlunda ut beroende på i vilket stadie relationen mellan revisorn och klienten befinner sig i. De olika tillvägagångssättenrevisorer kan nyttja för att influera sina klienter presenteras i tabeller. Förslag till vidare forskning innefattar bland annat hur revisorer lär sig att hantera de verktyg som finns tillgängliga för att utöva inflytande. Eftersom tidigare forskning verkar sakna studier om revisorer har fördelar i att förväntningsgapet existerar, bidrar denna studie med en aspekt på hur revisorer kan nyttja gapets existens till sin fördel. Resultatet kan även vara användbart för de klienter som inte är insatta i revision och därmed inte vet vilket inflytande revisorn kan tänkas utöva. / The expectation gap in auditing continues to exist despite many attempts to reduce it. One reason to its continued existence is presumed to be that auditors themselves have introduced the phenomenon. This combined with the fact that the expectation gap is assumed to keep existing, provide reasons to examine whether or not the auditors can take advantage of it. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the expectation gap from the auditors’ perspective and their possibility to take advantage of the gap to influence their clients. The study is based on interviews with auditors from different firms. The theoretical framework is based on assumptions form theory of professions to describe the auditors’ knowledge. This is necessary to determine whether or not the auditors have a knowledge upper hand towards their clients that can be used to practice influence. Assumptions from the agency theory are also included to explain the information asymmetry that may occurbetween the auditor and the client. In addition to the knowledge upper hand, image and rhetoric are also presented as instruments the auditors can use to influence their clients. The findings indicate that auditors have the possibility to use the expectation gap to influence their clients. The possibility to practice influence varies throughout the different stages of the relationship between the auditor and the client. The findings are presented in different tables. Suggestions for further research include examining how auditors learn to manage the different instruments that are available to practice influence. Since prior research seem to lack studies whether auditors can take advantage of the expectation gap, this thesis contributes with a perspective of how auditors can use the expectation gap to their advantage. The findings may also be useful for the clients who are not familiar with the purpose of auditing and therefore are unaware of which possibilities the auditors have to practice influence.