Due to the characteristics of convertible bond, the issuing volumes are smaller than stocks and the investors are mostly institutional investors. Therefore, the turnover and the market liquidity of convertible bond are lower than those of stock market. The past literature indicate that the reaction of corporate bond to the fundamental information falls behind the stock, therefore, the price change of corporate bond always lag behind that of stock market. Moreover, the extra right of convertible bond compare to corporate bond is the convertible option in exchange for stocks, that also causes the relation between the stocks and the convertible is much closer than the normal corporate bond. The motivation of this study is to take advantage of the co-movement relation between these two markets to discover the profit opportunities of investment strategy. As a result, the purpose of this study is to investigate the prediction of the convertible bond and the reaction of the market information. Firstly, I try to verify momentum effect or overreaction effect in convertible bond is significant. Second, I apply the VAR model and Granger model to analyze the return relationship between convertible bonds and stocks, and to formulate our strategies by predicting the return of convertible bond from the lagged return of stocks. At the end, I analyze the performance of strategy in order to discover the best timing of buying convertible bonds for investors. Our empirical study exhibits there has no momentum effect in Taiwan convertible bonds market. Conversely, we discover the presence of overreaction effect but it is insignificant. Moreover, it¡¦s effective to predict the return of convertible bond by using the stocks return, otherwise it¡¦s not. Finally, the strategy of using the stock return in predicting the return of convertible bond can earn abnormal return without considering the transaction cost. On the contrary, the performance of using the return of convertible bond in predicting the stock return is insignificant. Our results demonstrate that we can refer to the past literature about ¡§the reaction of corporate bond to the fundamental information of companies falls behind the stock¡¨ to invest in convertible bond profitably. In conclusion, investors can follow our empirical framework and result to forecast the price trend of the convertible bond by referring the stock price.

During storage of grain, there may have significant damage to its quality due to unfavorable physical and biological interactions and thus requires continuous monitoring. Therefore, an easy, cost-effective and environmentally friendly method is necessary for efficient monitoring of stored-grain. Arrays of sensors are being used for classifying liquors, perfumes, quality of food products mimicking mammalian olfactory systems. Monitoring of stored grain is a new application of sensor arrays. The main objective was to fabricate a carbon black polymer sensor array which can easily monitor incipient grain spoilage by detecting spoiling stored grain volatiles (benzene derivatives and aliphatic hydrocarbon derivatives) with minimum interference from relative humidity. Various aspects of a good sensor were analyzed using statistical analysis (RSD, LDA, PCA, t-test). The developed sensor array can identify red flour beetle-infected and uninfected wheat and fungal volatiles at ambient conditions as well as some stored grain conditions (MC 16%, RH 52%).

In the past few years a number of critical studies have been entirely or partly devoted to an analysis of the role played by the Mediterranean in British literature and culture during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. These studies include Robert Aldrich's The Seduction of the Mediterranean (1993), James Buzard's The Beaten Track (1993), and John Pemble's The Mediterranean Passion (1987). In Paul Fussell's Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars (1980), which may be considered a precursor to these, the author observes that "to sketch the history of the British imaginative intercourse with the Mediterranean in modern times is virtually to present a survey of modern British literature"; he goes on to stress that "the Mediterranean is the model for the concept south, and it is a rare Briton whose pulses do not race at the mention of that compass direction". It is the concept "south" in this statement, situated in the area of literary and cultural studies, which constitutes the focus of this thesis.

Since the first General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947, France has insisted that cultural products are different from other traded goods and should be exempted from ongoing liberalisation of international trade – a principle known as the ‘cultural exception’. This exclusion allows France to implement policies in favour of its cultural industries, particularly a highly complex system of quotas and subsidies for the film industry which it maintains is essential to counter US market dominance and maintain cultural diversity. Over the past decade, the launch of video-on-demand services has revolutionised how films are delivered and consumed. Policy-makers have attempted to keep pace with these developments, expanding the scope of French support schemes accordingly. Adopting a mixed methods approach, this thesis analyses cultural diversity in the French film industry in detail, incorporating for the first time both the cinema and video-on-demand sectors and combining qualitative and quantitative data to understand the impact of French policies on diversity. Quantitative analysis reveals strong evidence of diversity in both sectors but that, while digital channels offer greater variety of choice, cinema is more balanced between films of different geographic origins. Employing a consistent approach to policy development in both channels, policy-makers have failed to take into account these and other differences, or to target measures at the emerging threats to diversity in the digital environment – potentially undermining the French defence of the cultural exception on diversity grounds. There is a surprisingly superficial use of the term cultural diversity in trade circles, leading to the conclusion that a more sophisticated approach is needed. Refining French policy in line with empirical data and actively using that evidence to demonstrate policy success will be a necessary part of this more sophisticated approach if France is to successfully defend the cultural exception in future trade negotiations.

This thesis provides an overview of the cult of Mithras from the late third to early fifth centuries across the entire Roman world. It seeks to illustrate what developments occurred in the cult during this period and how it subsequently came to an end. In doing so, it elucidates alterations in the environment and architecture of mithraea, the patrons and adherents of the cult, and Mithraic ritual practices. It demonstrates that by the fourth century the cult of Mithras had become increasingly localised, with a significant degree of variation evident among different Mithraic communities. Furthermore, it will be shown that, contrary to the traditional narrative, the end of the Mithras cult was not the product of an Empire-wide persecution by Christian iconoclasts, but a more gradual process that occurred over a long period of time. Additionally, it explores whether adopting a sociological approach, as has been suggested by other scholars in the past, can be used to explain how the transformations evident in the cult may have contributed to a decline in the commitment of Mithraic adherents in the fourth century. This study contributes to the wider field of research on the late antique period in three ways. Firstly, it is to my knowledge the only analysis of a non-Christian cult in Late Antiquity to cover the entire Roman Empire and thus hopes to contribute to a greater understanding of the sacred landscape in this period. In particular, it sheds some light on areas which are generally understudied in this regard, such as the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Secondly, it seeks to place the end of a cult in this period in its sociocultural context, rather than focusing only on the evidence from cult sites alone as previous studies have often done, thus providing a more nuanced explanation for why this occurred. Finally, through comparing the Mithras cult to other cults in this period it also shows that there is little to support any notion of a uniform 'decline of paganism' in late antiquity, with various cults experiencing divergent rates of decline which began at different times.

In the past twenty years there has been a sustained theoretical challenge to issues of Roman identity in the western provinces. However, despite this body of work, the towns of Roman Britain are still primarily defined by the extent to which they embraced a set of supposedly Mediterranean urban features. This research uses the medium of water to thoroughly explore the reasons behind this approach and the disparity it has created in respect to studies of prehistory. While water is undoubtedly a thread of continuity in human settlement, scholars of the Roman period have been particularly concerned with outlining its urban utilisation as a sign of familiarity, or shared civilisation, between the Roman period and modernity. Subsequently, Roman era structures related to water (such as aqueducts, wells, bridges and bathhouses) have been portrayed as examples of a cultural advancement that was distinct from previous activity within the immediate landscape. This approach has therefore discounted the rich and powerful associations pertaining to water throughout the temperate European prehistory. Through analysis of twenty one of the most influential Roman towns of Britain, this thesis shows how local beliefs would have been an integral part of how one perceived and experienced urban water features. It will be emphasised that the entanglement between these associations and complex, but receptive, incoming cultural influences would have played a key role in creating hybrid waterscapes within these settlements. Fully acknowledging this complex cultural presence of water underlines how the experience of towns in Roman Britain was a product of a number of different perspectives; meaning these places cannot be fully understood without a careful consideration of local context.

This thesis offers three case studies of religious representations of the natural world in Strasbourg from 1510 to 1541 from the perspective of the interactive model of socioeconomic metabolism. This model proposes that long-term environmental instability will exert a negative effect on human/social biophysical structures and may provoke changes in the manner in which the natural world is represented within that culture. Although direct causation is impossible to prove due to the autonomous nature of the cultural sphere, this thesis suggests that the two case studies of early sixteenth-century religious reforms in Strasbourg indicate the presence of theological innovations that changed the conceptual relationship between faithful Christians and Creation, thereby offering an enhanced capacity for adherents to exploit the metabolic opportunities in their natural environment. Further, it suggests that these cultural developments were supported and strengthened in part by the stresses society experienced from the natural world. The thesis begins with a description of the natural environment in Alsace during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with particular attention given to the weather from 1473 to 1541. These decades spanned the coldest years of the Spörer Minimum, itself the second coldest trough of the Little Ice Age. Although weather was the most dynamic and influential element of the natural environment during this period, the model suggests that long term stress from the environment may provoke re-conceptualization of the entire natural sphere of causation. Three religious perspectives are taken as case studies in the thesis to test the model: Roman Catholic, Radical, and Evangelical Christianity. They were created temporally and geographically in proximity, but offer different theological representations of nature. Tentative conclusions arising from their juxtaposition with each other and the climatic conditions suggest that the model is helpful to better understand the complex social and cultural changes during the Reformation. The first case study focuses on Die Emeis, forty-one sermons delivered by Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg in the Liebfrauenmünster zu Strasbourg for Lent 1509. By reading against the grain of these sermons delivered by a well-known and highly respected Doctor of Theology, an orthodox Catholic representation of the natural world and the appropriate human relationship with it is revealed. This chapter also includes information about pre-Reform society in Strasbourg and Alsace, in order to provide a basis of comparison for later developments. The second case study explores three sources known to be popular with Alsatian peasants from 1515 to 1525: astrologist Leonhard Reynmann's Wetter Büchlin, Ein Fast schon büchlin by Clemens Zyegler, a lay theologian from Strasbourg, and Article IV of the Twelve Articles which formed the foundation of peasant demands during the German Peasants' War. The third case study focuses on Hexemeron Dei opus, written by Strasbourg Reformer Wolfgang Capito. An exegesis of Genesis 1-11, Capito writes explicitly of God's creation of the world for human salvation. The aftermath of the Peasants' War in Strasbourg and Alsace are described here, as well as social initiatives in Strasbourg favoured by Reformers such as welfare reform and education. The model of socioeconomic metabolism suggests that following an extended period of material insecurity and social instability caused by environmental uncertainty, cultural agents will modify the representation of nature in order to render human colonization of the natural world more effective. While it is impossible to firmly attribute causality for developments in the religious view of nature to environmental stress, it can be shown that the weather during the decades at the eve of the Protestant Reformation repeatedly limited or removed adequate metabolic intake from those disadvantaged by an increasingly unequal society, contributing to social instability which culminated in the 1525 German Peasants' War. Representations of nature in the examples studied from the new religious movements removed layers of spiritual mediation between humanity and nature which had been and continued to be accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, specifically articulating views which encouraged greater exploitation of the natural environment. Those who rebelled are known to have strongly favoured the new theologies, indicating the possibility that part of the widespread support in Alsace for reformed and radical theology may have been due to the enhanced conceptual opportunities they provided for exploiting the natural environment.

Several previously overlooked questions related to ancient Greek dedicatory practices are investigated in this thesis. The main questions addressed are: how do the contexts of Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic votive miniature vessels inform us about the Greek cults in which they are used, and the transmission of such cults? What role did miniaturisation play in the sanctuaries and the rituals in ancient Greek society, and why miniaturisation? A number of supplementary questions accompany the main questions, for example, what did miniaturisation mean in the context of votive dedications in sanctuaries? This thesis aims to demonstrate that earlier explanations arguing that miniatures are simply and profoundly cheap substitutes for more expensive objects do not work well, since many of these small objects are carefully made and some are elaborately decorated, and would thus not have been cheaper, or less time consuming to produce compared to full sized objects. The chronological time frame of the thesis is limited to the Archaic to the Hellenistic period, and its core is three case studies with different themes and different geographical locations in focus (Kalydon, Olympia, Kombothekra, various sites in South Italy, and other sites for comparison). The thesis addresses also issues relating to, for instance, miniaturisation, imitation and models, the functionality, and non- functionality of small votive objects, agency, trade, and colonization. The study of ancient Greek dedicatory practices within the scholarship of Classical Studies tends to concentrate on votive statues, religious architecture, inscribed metal dedications, and stelai. Little attention has been paid to less extravagant dedications even though these groups of material have been found in abundant amounts in sanctuaries throughout Greece. Moreover, in those cases where this material has been published interpretation and thoroughly analyses are often lacking. As a result, this study makes important contributions to two large questions within Classical studies: how did the Greeks view their gods and how did the Greeks interact with the gods. Miniature pottery contributes to our understanding of ancient Greek ritual practice as well of specific rituals. The work presented in this thesis accentuates that miniature pottery’s material meaning and symbolic importance can no longer be dismissed.

This thesis investigates evidence for the cultural lives of domestic objects in Late Antiquity. As such, it focuses on objects as meaningful possessions, rather than their practical, utilitarian functions. In particular, this research seeks to reveal the personal meaning for domestic possessions and their sentimental, as opposed to economic, value. This is something that has either been ignored or mentioned only in passing and without further qualification in existing studies of late antique material culture. This research is underpinned by specific theoretical approaches from the disciplines of archaeology, art history and anthropology. Object biography, or the understanding that events in the lives of objects can affect their meaning and value, is key to this investigation and provides the opportunity to approach the material evidence in a novel way. It allows the direct comparison of previously disparate textual and archaeological sources to better understand the relationships between people and their possessions across a broad social spectrum. It also governs the structure of the thesis, which has chapters on heirlooms, gifts, and souvenirs – all of which are defined by an element of their biography, namely the context of their acquisition. The case study chapter also examines a generally ignored artefact type – the basket – bringing this undervalued example of domestic material culture to the fore. This thesis reveals that personal domestic possessions had the capacity to function as material vehicles for intangible thoughts, memories, and relationships. This function was known and exploited by the people of Late Antiquity in order to create and possess meaningful domestic objects of various types. It provides a new interpretation of domestic material culture that is different to more traditional studies of economic and social status. As such, it allows an understanding of how material culture transformed dwellings into homes during this period.

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