The purpose of the present thesis, then, is to find answers to the following specific set of questions: According to Clark and Ayres, a) On what basis should the income of society be distributed? b) Are the conditions under which this goal may be achieved those which actually prevail at the present time? c) If not, what action must be taken to assure that they will prevail in the future?

The study examined the reliability of parents' reports of their child's verbal skills. Parents to 17 children participated and completed the toddler version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI). It was found that the correlation between the reports made by the mothers and fathers was very strong. All in all the parents had a very similar understanding of their child's verbal skills. / Denna studie undersökte hur väl föräldrars rapport av deras barns språkförmåga stämmer överens. Föräldrarna till 17 barn deltog och fyllde i toddler-versionen av the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI). Korrelationen mellan mammornas och pappornas rapportering var mycket stark. Överlag så hade föräldrarna en mycket liknande uppfattning av deras barns språkförmåga.

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed March 1, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

No description available.

[pt] Na tentativa de melhor capturar fatos estilizados do comportamento dos preços de opções financeiras, em especial para tratar a questão do sorriso da volatilidade, modelos de volatilidade estocástica têm sido objeto de estudo em diversos mercados. Neste contexto, o principal objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar os modelos de volatilidade estocástica de Heston (1993), Bates (1996) e Double Heston (2009) junto ao método de Lewis (2000) para precificar opções de ações no mercado brasileiro de derivativos, caracterizados por serem de curto prazo. Para isto foram precificadas opções de compra da Petrobrás e Vale. Os modelos foram comparados de acordo com a qualidade do ajuste aos dados in-sample e a capacidade preditiva com dados out-of-sample. Ademais, buscou-se verificar a volatilidade implícita gerada por cada um dos modelos. Ao fim, identificou-se que considerar a volatilidade como estocástica, mesmo quando é descrita por apenas um processo estocástico, é a decisão mais importante a ser tomada a fim de melhorar o apreçamento das opções. Além disso, adicionar saltos a um modelo de volatilidade estocástica parece ser mais relevante do que adicionar um segundo processo estocástico para modelar a volatilidade na precificação de opções de curto prazo. / [en] In an attempt to better capture stylized facts about financial option prices behavior, especially to address the issue of volatility smile, stochastic volatility models have been the object of study in several markets. In this context, the main purpose of this work is to assess the stochastic volatility models of Heston (1993), Bates (1996) and Double Heston (2009) along with the Lewis method (2000) for stock option pricing in Brazilian derivative market, featured by being short-term. Therefore, Petrobrás and Vale s call options were priced. The models were compared according to the in-sample fit skill and the out-of-sample forecasting power. Furthermore, it was verified the implied volatility begot by each model. In the end, it was figured out that consider the volatility as stochastic even when it is described by only one stochastic process is the preeminent matter to do in order to improve option pricing. Plus, adding jumps in a stochastic volatility model seems to be more important than adding a second stochastic process to model the volatility in short-term option pricing.

In this dissertation, we first develop new statistical methodologies for small area estimation problems with measurement errors. The prediction of small area means for the unit-level regression model with the functional measurement error in the area-specific covariate is considered. We obtain the James-Stein (JS) estimate of the true area-specific covariate. Consequently, we construct the pseudo Bayes (PB) and pseudo empirical Bayes (PEB) predictors of small area means and estimate the mean squared prediction error (MSPE) associated with each predictor. Secondly, we modify the point estimation of the true area-specific covariate obtained earlier such that the histogram of the predictors of the small area means gets closer to its true one. We propose the constrained Bayes (CB) estimate of the true area-specific covariate. We show the superiority of the CB over the maximum likelihood (ML) estimate in terms of the Bayes risk. We also show the PB predictor of the small area mean based on the CB estimate of the true area-specific covariate dominates its counterpart based on the ML estimate in terms of the Bayes risk. We compare the performance of different predictors of the small area means using measures such as sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and MSPE. We believe that using the PEB and pseudo hierarchical Bayes predictors of small area means based on the constrained empirical Bayes (CEB) and constrained hierarchical Bayes (CHB) offers higher precision in recognizing socio-economic groups which are in danger of the prehypertension. Clustering the small areas to understand the behavior of the random effects better and accordingly, to predict the small area means is the final problem we address. We consider the Fay-Herriot model for this problem. We design a statistical test to evaluate the assumption of the equality of the variance components in different clusters. In the case of rejection of the null hypothesis of the equality of the variance components, we implement a modified version of Tukey's method. We calculate the MSPE to evaluate the effect of the clustering on the precision of predictors of the small area means. We apply our methodologies to real data sets. / February 2017

Thesis advisor: James O'Toole / This thesis examines the extent of Jim Crow segregation in college football in the era immediately preceding World War II by focusing on three black stars: Wilmeth Sidat-Singh of Syracuse, Lou Montgomery of Boston College, and Leonard Bates of New York University. Sidat-Singh was passed off by Syracuse as a Hindu before his real ethnicity was revealed. Montgomery was benched by his Catholic university on six separate occasions, including two bowl games. Bates was the beneficiary of a massive student protest for his inclusion, but ultimately was benched by the supposedly liberal NYU. These benchings of northern players against southern teams shows the degrees the south went to in order to impose segregation on every level of society. Perhaps more importantly it shows how willing northern schools were to acquiesce to these southern demands in favor of expediency. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2005. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on November 1, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study was to empower educators to mobilise assets and resources within their community in order to enable the community to cope better with the daily difficulties associated with HIV/AIDS. The study was conducted to explore and describe the process of mobilising assets in a HIV/AIDS infected and affected rural community. The working assumption was that the mobilisation of community assets could support and enhance community-based coping with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A qualitative approach was followed. Purposeful sampling was applied to select an information-rich case for in-depth study (instrumental case study design). The case was a primary school in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. Ten educators participated in the study. The study was theoretically founded on an asset-based approach, with the focus on community-based coping. An interpretavist approach was used to describe and interpret the process of asset mobilisation in coping with HIV/AIDS. A number of data selection strategies were implemented: focus groups in combination with workshops, visual data, observation and a reflective field journal. The ten educators who participated in the study were empowered to identify and mobilise assets and resources within their community and to continue with the facilitation process on their own. The educators identified three priority areas and succeeded in establishing a vegetable garden on the school premises, a support group and an information centre at school, for HIV/AIDS infected and affected members of the community. These initiatives resulted in the wider community being better equipped and empowered to cope with the daily difficulties associated with HIV/AIDS that are being experienced on emotional, spiritual, materialistic, social and knowledge levels. It is concluded that the community, the school and individuals were empowered with regard to effective coping strategies, more specifically in dealing with the challenges associated with HIV/AIDS. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted