No / Two novel reduced-size, printed spiral antennas are proposed for use in personal communications mobile terminals exploiting the “big low earth orbit” (Big-LEO) satellite system (uplink 1.61–1.63 GHz; downlink 2.48–2.5 GHz). The two proposed antenna give 3.12―6.25% bandwidth at lower resonant mode of 1600MHz, while at the higher resonant mode of 2450MHz a bandwidth of around 6% is obtained. The experimental and simulated return losses of the proposed antennas show good agreement. The computed and measured gains, and axial ratios are presented, showing that the performance of the proposed two antennas meets typical specifications for the intended applications.

Effectiveness of a capture and return system for the partial retention of fermentation volatiles, as a means of improving white wine quality, was evaluated. Twenty-three aroma-active volatiles including ethyl esters, acetate esters, fusel alcohols, and fatty acids, were quantified using head-space solid phase microextraction with GC/MS. Volatile analysis of fermentations maintained at 15ºC demonstrated a trend of increased concentrations of ethanol, esters and ethyl esters of fatty acids and decreased concentrations of fusel alcohol acetates, fatty acids and higher alcohols in treatment wines. When fermentation temperature was maintained at 15ºC there was increased concentration and retention of fusel alcohols, fatty acids and higher alcohols compared to 15ºC. Sensory analysis of wines fermented at 15°C, using triangle difference testing, indicated variable differences in aroma among treatments. / Master of Science

This dissertation provides evidence of the return to education in Iran as well as measurement of inequality of opportunity and the Human Opportunity Index using cross-section data of Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies and Harmonized Household Income and Expenditure Surveys of several Middle Eastern Countries. The first chapter studies the return to education and the effect of school availability on education attainment in Iran. The Census 2006 allows us to get closer to the district of schooling by focusing on non-migrants. We estimate the return to education and the effect of school availability both for migrant and non-migrant sub-samples. We employ school availability as an instrument to correct the ability bias. We find availability of school increases women's education attainment more than men's and it is higher among the non-migrant sample. Using instrumental variable, the return to education is 6.50% in 2012 suggesting an upward bias in OLS. The second chapter provides estimates of Human Opportunity Index (HOI) in the Middle East and North Africa. Our estimates show the HOI improve over time in MENA region and compare favorably with similar measures computed for other regions, notably Latin America. Using Shapley decomposition, we find that parental background and place of living are the most important circumstances explaining inequality of opportunity to access in basic opportunities. Understanding the change in HOI and factors that influence it most complement existing analyses of inequality of opportunity in education, earning, and consumption for MENA countries because they focus on aspects of inequality of opportunity that are largely provided by the state. The third chapter provides estimates of inequality of educational opportunity using TIMSS dataset. We estimate the index of IOP using the ex-ante approach both for the fourth and eighth grade. The computed index of IOP shows that there is an improvement in IOP both for mathematics and science from grade four to eight. The investigations about relevant inputs suggest that there is a negative relationship between educational expenditure and the level of IOP. The relationship between the index of IOP and average economic growth as well as GDP per capita is positive. / Ph. D.

No / We examine short- and the long-term price effect associated with the FTSE 100 index revisions. We control for both heteroskedastic nature of the residual and the change, between the estimation and the test period, in the beta coefficient of the standard market model. Our findings reveal no relationship between the long-term price reversals and the change in the discount rate, as approximated by the beta coefficient of the market model. Overall, we provide strong evidence in favour of the price pressure hypothesis, where the price increase (decrease) gradually starting before the announcement an inclusion (exclusion) and reverses completely in less than two weeks after the index revision date.

Yes / This paper investigates the impact of investor sentiment on the mean-variance relationship in 14 European stock markets. Applying three approaches to define investors’ neutrality and determine high and low sentiment periods, we find that individual investors’ increased presence and trading over high-sentiment periods would undermine the risk-return tradeoff. More importantly, we report that investors’ optimism (pessimism) is more determined by their normal sentiment state, represented by the all-period average sentiment level, rather than the neutrality value set in sentiment surveys.

Yes / This paper investigates the role of institutional investor sentiment in the mean–variance relation. We find market returns are negatively (positively) related to market’s conditional volatility over bullish (bearish) periods. The evidence indicates institutional investors to be sentiment traders as well.

Yes / Social media facilitates and enhances communication between businesses and customers. Nowadays, although it is commonly recognised that companies implement social media into their marketing activities, it is also acknowledged that companies struggle to calculate the return on investment (ROI) from social media marketing efforts as most of them focus only on certain tangible outcomes such as the impact on sales and purchases. Attempts have been made by researchers to identify how to measure key impacts of social media in relation to marketing; however, there remains a lack of empirical data and no comprehensive overview of what “ROI” can mean for an organisation seeking returns on their social media adoption. By knowing how to measure ROI from social media, companies can produce valuable insights which can help enhance marketing strategies in promoting their products/services. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to provide a review of ROI in social media marketing with a particular focus on intangible outcomes such as brand awareness, customer engagement/relationship and eWOM.

Yes / Return on investment (ROI) from social media marketing activities has attracted significant attention from academics and practitioners resulting in an increasing number of studies on this important topic. The current study conducted a bibliometric analysis to provide a consolidated view on the topic of ROI in social media marketing. By using 115 outputs from the Web of Science database and employing software CiteSpace the study presents and discusses the analysis of temporal distribution, cited countries, cited journals, cited authors, and research hotspots from 2009 till 2020. A holistic picture of this topic will help researchers to get an overview of this field and develop directions for future studies.

Yes / This study uses the quality of coverage decisions as a new metric to evaluate the performance of star and non-star analysts. We find that the coverage decisions of star analysts are better predictors of returns than those of non-star analysts. The return predictability of star analysts’ coverage decisions is stronger for informationally opaque stocks. We further exploit the staggered short selling deregulations, Google’s withdrawal, and the anti-corruption campaign as three quasi-natural experiments that create plausibly exogenous variations in the quality of information environment. These experiments show that the predictive power of star analysts’ coverage decisions strengthens (weakens) following a sharp deterioration (improvement) in firms’ information environment, consistent with the notion that star analysts possess superior ability to identify mispriced stocks. Overall, star analysts make better coverage decisions and play a superior role as information intermediaries, especially in poor information environment.

In 1979 Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky created the prospect theory. It became an accepted and appropriate theory in explaining decision making under risk. The prospect theory has been one of the most cited articles in economics and Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences as a result of the creation and development of the theory. Therefore the prospect theory is considered to be more suitable compared to the previously accepted theory, the expected utility theory. Following the prospect theory, researchers have utilized it to describe individual but also corporate management decision making when faced with risk. In this thesis the authors will focus on the latter. Despite the prospect theory being a well-accepted theory, there have been several critics due to its limitations and Audia and Greve (2006) are one of these critics. Their study suggested that corporations under threat, i.e. small firms with low returns, act risk averse. The findings of Audia and Greve (2006) violate the prospect theory when considering small firms that have below target returns. They tested the theory on an industry that has the characteristics of having relatively high proportions of tangible assets. Audia and Greve (2006) also proposed that a similar conclusion could be drawn if tested on an industry characterized by having a high level of intangible assets. This thesis examines the applicability of the prospect theory in the Swedish automotive industry and staffing and recruitment industry. The characteristics of the two industries are that the automotive industry has a high proportion of tangible assets and the staffing and recruitment industry has a high level of intangibles. The authors test if the prospect theory can be used to describe the decision making of both industries but also test the theory on small and large firms. Following the results of this paper we show that the prospect theory can be applied to the Swedish automotive industry and staffing and recruitment industry, characterized by having high levels of tangible assets and intangible assets respectively. The theory can also be used to explain decision making under risk for small firms within both industries and large firms within the automotive industry. Even though the prospect theory was originally tested on individuals, the conclusion can be drawn that the prospect theory once again prevails as an explanation of the decision making in the management of corporations. It can describe the decision making of firms in the two industries having characteristics of different asset tangibility and for firms of different size.