The storm surge from Hurricane Ike inundated Bolivar Peninsula as well as pooled up (~4 meters above sea level) in the Galveston Bay System behind Bolivar. After the hurricane passed, this water flowed back over the peninsula for about 19 hours, causing a great deal of coastal destruction. Analysis of post-Hurricane Ike aerial photography and Lidar data revealed the development of dramatically different scour and backflow features in the beach and dune environments along Bolivar Peninsula, Texas. Using Ward's cluster analysis, the 454 identified features were grouped according to shape and size characteristics generated by an object-oriented shape analysis program. Five distinct groups of features emerged from the cluster analysis. Group 1 features were small and compact, distributed mostly in the west; Group 2 features were large and dendritic in nature, distributed where the peninsula was narrow. Group 3 features had a longshore orientation with many of them resembling piano keys, distributed in the east. Group 4 features were oriented longshore and ornate in shape. Many of them were similar in shape to Group 2 or 3 features though statistically different enough to be grouped alone; they were distributed mostly in the eastern half of the study area. Group 5 features tended to be elongated, oriented cross-shore, nonbranching, and distributed mostly in the east. At least four flow environments caused characteristic forms. The first flow environment is typified by seaward flowing water encountering a road parallel with the coastline. The water flowing over the road scours deeply on the leeward side (seaward side), denuding beach sediments down to the resistant mud layer (Groups 3 and 4). The second flow environment was caused by a geotube, which breached during the storm and channelized flow through the breaches (Groups 2 and 5). The third flow environment had a comparatively high elevation, high development, and shore-perpendicular roads (Group 2). The fourth flow environment was typified by wide beaches backed by dunes (lost in the storm) as well as flat vegetated areas. Water flowing seaward over the vegetation scoured deeply into troughs after it came off the vegetation (Groups 1, 3, and 4).

Hong Kong¡¦s return of sovereignty to China was the focus of world attention, especially how to combine the two different systems in political, economical and social fields, etc. Although Deng Xiao-ping excogitated ¡§One Country, Two systems¡¨, it didn¡¦t figure out all problems. After many years¡¦ separation, Hong Kong was still impressed by the historical miserable memories and the fears of the unknown future. ¡§One Country, Two systems¡¨ perhaps offered an initiative compromise. But the people in Hong Kong were still forcing to face the immediate clash of their identities. The aim of this thesis is to discuss the people in Hong Kong how to deal with the relations of Hong Kong and China, including the feelings of ¡§self/the other¡¨ and ¡§superior/inferior¡¨. Not only the Hong Kong's developments of political freedom, economy and the standards of living are more advanced than China, but also the emergence of a commonality shared by the population as a whole in Hong Kong. How to fill the gap between both of them is an important issue of the people in Hong Kong. It seems a mess when we talk about the identities in Hong Kong, since ¡§the Chinese Citizen¡¨ and ¡§the Hong Kong Citizen¡¨ are thought conflicting. The global age also brings the new choice to people in Hong Kong, and especially the value behind the globalization is brand-new idea of identities may reduce their patriotism. As the world¡¦s economy shifts so immediately, whether Hong Kong bends the knee to China for the aids is also the topic we want reach in this thesis. In the article, we try to explain the relations between Hong Kong and China under the age of the globalization by the approach of postmodernal identity. At the same tome, we regard ¡§the Chinese Citizen¡¨ and ¡§the Hong Kong Citizen¡¨ as the ¡§national¡¨ and ¡§urban¡¨ identity in different layers. And we also suppose the people in Hong Kong deal their own choices of identities by the ¡¨consumer culture¡¨ which comes along with the global society. As the respect of postmodernal identity reveals: the identification is always in the status of¡§becoming¡¨along with different environmental settings.

This Thesis attempts to construct a Taiwan equity multi-factor model using fundamental cross-sectional approach step by step. It is found that the model involves 28 explanatory factors (including 20 industry factors) and its explanatory power is 58.6% on average. The results of the estimations can be considered very satisfactory. Moreover, based on MFM, this study simulates applications of equity market neutral strategies through quantitative techniques over the period Jan.2003 ¡V Dec.2003. The results verified that the three major characteristics of equity market neutral portfolio performance are: 1) providing absolute return; 2) lack of correlation to the equity benchmark; and 3) low volatility due to hedged portfolio structures.

This study is to examine the phenomenon of stock prices drop around the ex-dividend day in Taiwan. Investors purchasing the security before the ex-dividend date will receive the current dividend, whereas investors purchasing the security on or after this date will not receive the dividend. Consequently, the stock price should fall on the ex-dividend date. In a perfect market, the stock price is expected to fall by the amount of the dividend. I show that share prices do not fall by the full amount of dividend, on average. I focus on falling ratio of stock prices, along with stock return. I also study the factors which may influence stock price behavior and find that the drop of stock price is smaller than the amount of the dividend. That is, the stock price tends to rise on the ex-dividend day. The price drop ratio on the ex-dividend day is higher for firms with greater financial leverage, higher dividend pay out ratio and higher dividend yield. Finally, I also observe that stock return and trading volume increase around the ex-dividend day.

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Abstract Engineering, service and finance are three main tasks of Taiwan Water Corporation. Water rate is not only the main factor which determines the financial income, but also the significant managerial means which influence the efficiency of water resources allocation. Current water rate of Taiwan Water Corporation hasn¡¦t been adjusted for at least twelve years. During these years, price index raises and people are getting more and more demanding for water quality and stability of water supply. On the other hand, it costs increasingly to develop new water resources and increase the popularity rate, not to mention about replacing pipes and improving water quality. These entire efforts make operation cost rise enormously year by year. Because the water rate can¡¦t reflect its cost for so many years, Taiwan Water Corporation has been long term in debt. This affects not only the general operation. Meanwhile, Taiwan Water Corporation also has no finance to develop water resources and improve water supply system. So it is really critical that water rate should be adjusted right away to reflect the cost of water supply reasonably. It will help a lot to improve the operation of Taiwan Water Corporation and then it can continuously provide high quality of service. This study investigates (1) current operations of Taiwan Water Corporation (2) reasonable water rate structure and calculation (3) mechanism of water rate adjustment (4) proposal of exercising the income of the increase of water rates (5) complete sets of water rate adjustment. This study suggests that water rate should be reviewed once a year. Through this procedure, Taiwan Water Corporation would build up a reasonable water rate adjustment mechanism. Then we expect that it will improve the finance of Taiwan Water Corporation. Also by raising the water rate, people would start to realize that water is valuable and limited resources and promote to achieve the goal to utilize water resources efficiently. Key words¡GAverage ¡V Cost Pricing¡AMarginal ¡V Cost Pricing¡Aand Investment Return Rate

From the Asian Finance Crisis in 1997, to many scandals in U.S.A. in 2001, and lots of fraudulent practices for many years in Taiwan, these cases severely injured the investors and the whole society. In fact, before these fraud cases happening, a lot of scholars have proposed that manager can manipulate reports with accounting tactics to manage earnings and window dress the performance of the company. After these scandals bursting, the researches which discuss how to regulate CEO¡¦s behavior by using corporate governance mechanism get more attentions. A lot of researches point out that CEO¡¦s option-based compensation might be one of the reasons which result in the self-interested behavior, and provide their views about the monitoring effects of the corporate governance mechanism. However, the researches that discuss whether CEO¡¦s self-interested behavior will influence the monitoring effects of the corporate governance mechanism are few. This paper divides the pubic listed company that had issued warrants to CEO from 2001 to 2005 into two groups by the ratio of option-based compensation in CEO¡¦s total compensation. We want to know that whether the corporate governance mechanism has the same influence in earnings management and company¡¦s performance in different CEO¡¦s option-based compensation ratio. The corporate governance and compensation variables we used are institutional ownership in the firm, the number of institutional directors, board size, percent of independent outside directors on the board, percent of inside directors on the board, director and executive officer stock ownership, company size, and CEO¡¦s option-based compensation ratio. The conclusions as follows: 1. CEO¡¦s option-based compensation ratio forms the threshold effect to the monitoring effect of the corporate governance mechanism. When CEO¡¦s option-based compensation takes particular proportion of total CEO¡¦s compensation, the corporate governance mechanism will be more effective. 2. The corporate governance mechanism that has significant influence in earnings management and operating performance will be different when CEO¡¦s option-based compensation ratio is different. 3. Among these corporate governance mechanism, percent of independent outside directors on the board is the only one that can have similar and significant influence in earnings management no matter how high the CEO¡¦s option-based compensation ratio is. It may relate to the independence of independent outside directors.

Social science research has been slow to incorporate the international migration of skilled and educated women, and the impacts of their return migration. At the same time, Turkish female migrants have been negatively stereotyped in the literature. This exploratory and descriptive study aims to address these gaps by examining the impacts of emigration and return migration on the social and work lives of educated Turkish women who have returned to Turkey from Canada. Oral history interviews were conducted with six working-age, educated female returnees in Istanbul and Ankara between February and April 2007. Aside from some common features, the six women in this study differ greatly in terms of age, marital status, field of study and work, length of time in Canada and Turkey, and the opportunities and resources available to them throughout their migrations. From the interpretive examination of the women&amp / #8217 / s narratives, patterns in their subjective social and work life experiences emerged. The issue of gender was found to pervade all aspects of the women&amp / #8217 / s lives at all stages of their migrations as they negotiated their often contradictory social roles as mothers, wives, daughters, and professionals. This study also reveals that none of the women migrated as an individual actor. Rather, contextual and stratification factors such as marital status, family configuration, language skills, prior exposure to different cultures, socio-economic background, education and labour force participation were found to shape and influence their initial potential for migration, as well as the processes and outcomes of their migrations.

In this study, the effects of opening trading mechanism and information flow on return volatility are examined in the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The change in the morning opening mechanism from a continuous auction to a call auction on February 2, 2007 and the extension in afternoon trading hours on September 7, 2007 provide unique opportunities in this respect. First, it is found that the call auction trading mechanism has a decreasing effect on the morning open-to-open interday volatility and morning intraday volatility for low-volume stocks but it does not have an obvious effect on the same type of volatilities for high volume stocks. Second, the study provides evidence that the increased information flow towards the end of the trading day increases the afternoon close-to-close interday volatility for high volume stocks while it does not have such an effect on low-volume stocks. Third, the overnight return volatility is decreased slightly with the extension of trading hours.

This study examines the changing concept of nation and the identity problem for the workers that turned back to Turkey. Starting from 1960s, lots of workers migrated to European countries as a solution to the problem of unemployment in Turkey. The migrants brought their families with them and got accustomed to living abroad. However statistics prove that a group of migrants returned back to Turkey. Eventually, an identity problem emerged for the returned migrants and they experienced a confusion and ambiguity concerning their origin. Although, these migrants shared the same ethnic origin with people living in Turkey, they experienced difficulties in adapting to their national culture. Some of the migrants adapted themselves to other cultures, and their interest to their traditional cultures decreased. Consequently, the concept of nation carries a different meaning for the returned migrants. This thesis will examine, why and how the returned migrants became the other in their own countries.