¡@¡@The motivation of this research is to construct a Composite Index of funds which can help investors to choose funds with better ¡§future¡¨ performance. ¡@¡@The Composite Index in this thesis includes 14 kinds of indexes, such as Sharpe, Treynor, Sortino, and etc. Each kind of index is calculated by 4 different time lengths, they are 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year. Therefore, there are 56 indexes in the Composite Index (CI). ¡@¡@Factor analysis method was used to analyze fund performance from 1998/01 to 2000/12, and the perfect weight combination to make 56 indexes become one CI was found out. In order to prove the performance of the CI in selecting funds, funds were distributed into 5 groups by their Composite Index scores every month. Therefore, we had group A to E from high CI score to low CI score. We calculated these funds¡¦ returns in the next month, and cumulated them by group from 2001/01 to 2005/12. After calculating, the cumulative returns of group A are 74.47% higher than group E, annual returns are 11.99%, and Sharpe index is 1.41. It shows that Composite Index can really distinguish the future, at least in one month, performance of stock funds. Investors are recommended to change their fund portfolios by latest CI scores once a month. Therefore, the Composite Index is more suitable for fund-of-fund manager, because their transaction costs are lower. ¡@¡@This thesis was awarded by ¡§Industry-University Cooperative Research Project¡¨ of National Science Council, and is going to be developed in PRISS system, a financial analysis software of Folion Financial Technology Co., Ltd. Therefore, a more systemized, programmed, and efficient environment for this kind of research is expectable.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-03, Section: B, page: 1621. Adviser: Deanna M. Hoelscher. Includes bibliographical references.

In an energy system, diversity of supply—that is, reliance on a variety of mutually disparate energy suppliers and their energy supplies—is seen by many researchers and policymakers as an important component of energy security. This thesis describes a novel and generic method for examining the relationship between energy security (as represented by an energy-security index derived from a set of energy security indicators) and diversity (as defined by the Shannon-Wiener diversity index) of an energy system, its entities, and flows. While diversity is often presented by policy makers as being essential to maintaining or improving the energy security of an energy system, the thesis employs the equations associated with the two indices to show that a diverse supply need not be secure and a secure supply need not be diverse. Several examples of the relationship and the events that can affect it are also provided. / N/A

Kost är ett brett ämne i dagens samhälle. Idag läggs ett stort fokus på barn och ungdomars prestation i skolan. Är det bara duktiga lärare som hjälper eleverna framåt eller finns det andra faktorer? Vi som blivande idrottslärare vill se hur mycket frukostens betydelse har på elevernas fysiska prestation. Eftersom kropp och själ hänger ihop har eleverna även fått skatta den upplevda fysiska ansträngningen. Därför kallar vi det för psykofysiologisk ansträngning. Som teoretisk utgångspunkt har vi använt oss av Maslows behovstrappa och kroppens energiprocesser. Detta är något som vi vill kunna ta med oss i framtiden. Vi vill inte bara se eleverna som kärl som vi sedan fyller på med kunskap, utan vi vill även testa detta praktiskt i hopp om att detta ska ge eleverna och oss en ny erfarenhet. Vårt syfte med undersökningen var att se frukostens inverkan på den psykofysiologiska prestationen. Presterar man lika bra i kropp och knopp med frukost respektive utan? Vi utförde ett praktiskt experiment på 29 elever. De fick utföra en standardiserad lektion som bestod av ett steptest och Yo-Yo-test, som är ett mätbart fysiskt test, med frukost respektive utan frukost. Eleverna fick sedan uppskatta sin fysiska ansträngning på Borgskalan som fanns med i en enkät. Resultatet visade att ansträngningen blev högre utan frukost både hos tränade och otränade. Observationen visade även att huvudvärk och mer upplevd trötthet uppstod vid tillfället utan frukost.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1974.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1974.

With the progression globalization, the connection of single national economies is widening. Especially, thanks to liberalization, free movement of goods and services and the openness of our economy an effort to the involvement of international relations is a crucial importance. International trade allows more efficient allocation of resources at the international level for some groups of products and obtaining comparative advantages in the international trade. The data analysed in this thesis come from the website of the Statistical Office of the Czech Republic and Eurostat. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the dynamics of comparative advantages of the Czech economy in terms of export some groups of products according to the classification SITC1 compared to the countries of the European Union (EU27) using Balassa and Dalum index of specialization and regression analysis.

Bakgrund och problemformulering: Trots att humankapital ofta ses som en tillgång, får den inte tas upp i balansräkningen. Istället får företag frivilligt presentera information rörande personal i övriga delar i sina årsredovisningar. Vad för typ av information, och hur den ska redovisas, bestämmer företagen själva. Forskning senaste år har dock visat att företagen har slutat presentera information om humankapitalet, samt att det endast var en trend som nu bytts ut mot andra trender. Dessutom visar forskningen att rapporteringen varit ologiskt, och att företagens rapportering skiljer sig från år till år. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att bidra med en ökad förståelse om redovisningen av humankapitalet skiljer sig åt mellan företag ur olika sektorer. Vi vill med detta ge en bild av om och i så fall hur olika typer av företag redovisar humankapitalet. Detta för att skapa en bättre förståelse om humankapitalet är ett viktigt inslag i företagens redovisning, men även om det prioriteras olika beroende på vilken sektor de tillhör. Metod: En totalundersökning av företagen inom small cap från de tre sektorerna industri, teknologi och hälsovård på Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Mätinstrumentet disclosure index användes vid analys och insamling av data från företagens årsredovisningar. Indexen delades in i 6 olika kategorier, och byggdes på ett tidigare index gjort av Bukh m.fl. (2005), samt en egen förstudie. Referensram: Här ges en djupare inblick inom begreppet humankapital och intellektuella kapitalet. Vidare ges en historisk återblick från 1960 talet till idag angående forskning och redovisningen av humankapitalet. Olika motiv och faktorer tas upp till varför företagen väljer att presentera humankapitalet. Empiri och slutsats: Undersökningens utfall visade på att det inte förkom direkta skillnader mellan sektorerna. Det var mer likheter än skillnader mellan sektorerna med hur de redovisar information om humankapitalet. Inga skillnader hittades angående mängden redovisat humankapital och endast små skillnader hittades angående innehållet. Detta resultat var oväntat, då det inte var tydliga skillnader mellan sektorerna. Vidare förekom det stora variationer avseende mängden mellan företagen inom respektive sektor. Den sektor som hade största genomsnittsmängden var teknologisektorn. Hälsovårdssektorn kom efter, och industrisektorn redovisade minst. Avseende vilken typ av information de presenterade så redovisade teknologisektorn främst information angående olika fördelningar på anställda. Industri- och hälsovårdssektorn presenterade däremot främst information angående personalens utveckling och motivation. / Background and research issue: Although human capital is often regarded as an asset, it cannot be included in the balance sheet. Instead, companies may voluntarily present information about their personal in other parts of their annual reports. What type of information, and how it should be reported, is up to the companies to determine themselves. However, research in recent years has shown that companies have ceased to present information about human capital, and that it was only a trend that has now been replaced with other trends. In addition, research shows that reporting has been illogical, and the reporting by the companies differs year to year. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding if the reporting of human capital differs between companies from different sectors. We want to give a picture if and how different types of companies report human capital. This is for a better understanding if human capital appears to be an important element in the companies accounting, also whether it is prioritized differently depending on which sector they belong to. Method: A total survey of small cap companies from the three sectors industry, technology and healthcare at Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. The measuring instrument disclosure index was used in analyzing and collecting data from the companies’ annual reports. The index was divided into 6 different categories, and was based on a previous index made by Bukh et al (2005), as well as a separate preliminary study. Empiricism: Here gives a deeper insight into the concept of human capital and intellectual capital. In addition, a historical recital from the 1960s to today is presented regarding research and the accounting of human capital. Furthermore, different motives are presented to show why companies choose to present human capital. Conclusion: The outcome of the study showed that there were no direct differences between the sectors. There were more similarities than differences between the sectors regarding how they report human capital. No differences were found regarding the amount of disclosure, and only a few differences was found regarding the type of information disclosed. This result was unexpected, as there were no clear differences in the reporting between each sector. Furthermore, there were large variations in the amount of disclosure between the companies in each sector. The sector with the largest average amount disclosure was the Technology sector. The Healthcare sector came after, and the Industry sector reported least. Regarding what type of information they presented, the Technology sector mainly reported information about different employee distributions. The Industry and Healthcare sector mainly presented information about staff development and motivation.

The thesis investigates the impact of the fundamental news announcements on the movements of the VIX volatility index and the VIX Futures prices. The theoretical part of the thesis explains the construction of the VIX Index and the VIX Futures, describes the most important fundamental news for the US economy and presents a methodology for the modelling of the relationship between the news announcements and the VIX index movements with a simple linear regression model. In the empirical part of the thesis, we analyze the impact of 105 US fundamental news, from the Reuters Eikon database, on the VIX Index movements on theday of the news announcements as well as on the subsequent day. We find a strong relationship between the surprise component of the news and the VIX Index movements on the day of the news announcement, with the statistically significant news explaining 5-10% of the total return variance (for news with small number of observations up to 30-50%) on the announcement day. In the second part of the empirical study, simple trading system is proposed in order to utilize the possible impact of the economic news on the next-day (after announcement) returns of VIX futures in order to achieve speculative profits. Although the models seem to possess some limited out-sample profitability for some of the news, the results are for most of the cases statistically insignificant and the potential profits from the news trading seem to be relatively low.

This thesis describes fundamental analysis method based on a price to earnings ratio and an effort is put on the following areas: (i) empirical verification of factors determining the price to earnings ratio, (ii) empirical verification of an investment strategy based on historical price to earnings ratios and (iii) behavior of P/Es in bear market periods. The empirical verification of the main factors determining the price to earnings ratio is conducted on empirical data for a sample of eleven stocks listed on Prague Stock Exchange in period 2006-2011. The empirical verification of macroeconomic factors determining the price to earnings ratio as well as the empirical verification of an investment strategy based on historical price to earnings ratios are researched based on empirical data of an equity index S&P 500 in period 1954-2011 and an equity index PX in period 2001-2011. Behavior of P/Es in bear markets is researched on empirical data of index S&P 500 in period 1954-2011 and index PX in period 2001-2011.