University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration

In order to improve people’s living situation and decrease the use of fossil energy in the world, researchers’ attention has been focused on the energy side of the building sector. Especially single family houses in the Nordic countries Norway, Sweden and Finland have been given attention in the Increasing Energy Efficiency in Buildings (IEEB) project, with the purpose of increasing energy efficiency in buildings. In the project presented in this report, this has been studied by simulating a low energy single family house at different locations in Scandinavia, and applying the various national building codes to the house to see how it would match the energy requirements. The simulated locations included the different climates in Helsinki, Oulu (Finland), Oslo, Narvik (Norway), Piteå, Umeå, Karlstad, Borlänge, Stockholm and Kalmar (Sweden). The house fulfilled almost all the national energy requirements with more or less margin because of its low energy use. A comparison with actual measurements of the house did not match as good, because of uncertainty in measurement methods and climate aspects. The national building codes and climate in the Nordic countries turned out to be similar enough for a coordination of the building codes to be possible in the future.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-181.

Thesis ()--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Mark Miller, Dept. of Foreign Languages & Literatures. Includes bibliographical references.

WHO and UNICEF recommend the use of “ready-to-use therapeutic food” (RUTF) in the treatment of severely acute malnourished (SAM) children with no complicated medical background. This research paper aims to review the evidence on the use of RUTF in the treatment of SAM children, explore the potential issues with the use of RUTF, and provide suggestions for future research. A total of 7 studies were included for the review on the effectiveness of RUTF treatment. Evidences showed a general improvement in the health outcomes of SAM children, yet failed to yield high-quality evidences to prove its benefits. Potential problems with the reliance on RUTF were identified, further research on the use of RUTF are required. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

Tourism is today the world’s largest industry and an important economic development tool in many developing countries. However tourism sometimes causes social complications, often due to social- and economic gaps that lead to tensions between tourists and local residents. At small island destinations spatial confinement and isolation contribute to the risk of these tensions to occur, which may then ruin the destination’s image. This study examines the relationship between tourists and local residents at the small island Koh Tao, which is a popular tourist destination in Thailand. The aim is to identify possible tensions and to examine why these tensions may occur. The research material is collected through an ethnographic study, including participant observations and informal interviews. The result of the study shows an overall positive relationship between the tourists and local residents, where the tourism industry’s economic contribution to the host community is an important factor fortheir positive attitude towards tourism. A few social- and economic gaps are identified, however these do not seem to be the cause of any notable tensions. Yet, sometimes tensions do occur and are then most often related to cultural- and linguistic misunderstandings. The essay discusses how these misunderstandings could be prevented through increased knowledge and also proposes an illustrating model. Finally, suggestions for future research regarding the usage of tourism as a development tool are proposed. / Minor Field Studies

Child labor can affect human capital investment of children, as the daily available time is limited and an increase in time devoted to child labor reduces the available time for investment in human capital. The tradeoff between child labor and human capital investment is important, as the accumulation of human capital is a crucial factor in curtailing poverty and accelerating development plans undertaken by developing countries. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes the importance of education and urges nations not to engage children in work that may interfere with their education. This research is comprised of four chapters that study the relationship between human capital investment and child labor. In the first chapter, I examine the available theoretical and empirical literature to determine the main factors that affect the tradeoff between child labor and human capital investment. The literature identifies income, access to credit, returns to education, and parental preferences as the main factors. In chapter 2, I investigate and analyze the Egyptian’s SYPE dataset that I use in chapter 3 and chapter 4. The SYPE is the most recent household survey dataset that provides data on education and child labor of Egyptian young people. In chapter 3 and chapter 4, I use the SYPE data for children aged 10 to 17 to study the relationship between child labor measured by household work and human capital investment measured by hours spent in schooling-related activities and by school attendance. Chapter 3 focuses on the gender difference in household work and human capital investment and introduces an identity framework (Akerlof and Kranton, 2010) to explain these differences. The chapter first establishes the puzzle that although females spend about twice more time in household work relative to males, there is no difference across gender in human capital investment. This is a puzzle because one would expect that the extra burden on females should impair their ability to invest in human capital and prevent them from ‘catching up’ ending up with the same amount of human capital investment as males. To resolve the puzzle, I introduce a model of identity where there are two social groups, males and females, and social norms determine time allocation for each social group. The model of identity should be understood as an additional framework, that supplements standard time allocation and human capital investment models (Becker, 1962). It captures differences across genders that are difficult to understand otherwise. I infer the norms from sociological research as well as from answers to questions in SYPE that shed light on gender expectations. The evidence on norms is surprisingly consistent with the time allocation patterns. Thus, a simple model of identity suggests that norms play a large role in explaining gender differences in time allocation and females’ ability to ‘catch-up’ in human capital investment despite a heavier household work burden. In the fourth chapter, I study the impact of household work on girls’ human capital investment using an instrumental variable approach and two-stage least squares (2SLS). Human capital investment is measured by school attendance and hours spent in school-related activities. Access to public services, and sisters-to-siblings ratio are used as instruments for household work. I do not find a significant effect of household work on girls’ school attendance. Measuring human capital investment by hours spent in school-related activities, I find that household work has a significant and sizable effect on human capital investment for girls. Increasing household work by one hour reduces hours spent investing in human capital by 2.096 hours. The effect of household work on hours of human capital investment occurs through the effect of household work on homework and private tutoring time, as the effect of household work on time in school is insignificant. The effect of household work on homework time is higher than its effect on private tutoring time (0.612 and 0.572 respectively). / Graduate

This period of the history of the Jews in the Yemen was selected for study on account· of the richness of the material which is available. The sources used in this research for the study of the political, economic and social situation of the Jews in the Yemen may be divided into the following groups: 1. The MSS. A - Hebrew MSS. B Arabic MSS. The printed sources A - Hebrew printed B - Arabic printed sources c - European printed sources Trave1lers A - Contemporary travellers B - Modern travellers In addition to the Hebrew and Arabic sources we have a series of eye-witness reports from travellers who visited the Yemen during the last three centuries, and whose observations have had remarkable and enduring results. The information obtained from these sources is plentiful and of great interest and importance for the history of the Yemen in general and supplies us with personal observations on the people, both Arabs and Jews. Such journevs increased the volume of knowledge and broadened its horizons owing to the opportunities taken for study and investigation. Although these sources have been mentioned in both the footnotes and the bibliography, it would be worth mentioning them here to estimate their relative informative value. One of the most essential Hebrew sources on which we have relied most in this dissertation is Korot Ha-Zman, written by Habshush. All we can learn about Habshush must be gleaned from his own writings. He was primarily a coppersmith by profession and it was only in his later years that he took up writing. In the Spring of 1893, Habshush was occupied in writing his Hebrew account of the history of the Jews'in the Yemen. The Autumn of the same year he spent writing his account about his journey with Halevy.1 His decision to write his own works was perhaps partly due to the influence of the European travellers who spread culture among the Jews in the Yemen in the nineteenth century. But his method of writing and his bitter complaints against the treatment of Ha1evy.

The primary purpose of the dissertation is to establish a conceptual study that will assist in financial policy formulation, and further applied research on banking institutions in LDCs and in Nigeria in particular. In order to achieve this, we examined existing models of banks' portfolio behaviour with a view to isolating major issues that should be the concern of policy; the pecularities of banking operations in LDCs were also examined and analysed. Having done these we then settled for two adaptable models capable of providing insights into the problem of commercial banks' portfolio behaviour in Nigeria. The choice of models was made in the light of the data constraint faced in the study. The two complementary models, the first a static model and the other a dynamic model have their basis in utility maximization. They both gave rise to multivariate analysis in empirical implementation. The summary of results with policy implications concern: (i) the relative insignificance of the interest rate variables and their relative inelasticities, particularly with respect to bank loans and other medium term bank portfolios; (ii) availability of funds were more significant on banks portfolio allocation of funds than other variables, particularly those measuring the cost of funds; (iii) on other policy variables, reserve policies of the financial authority were important in bank portfolio, whereas public sector borrowing from the banks were less important; (iv) the term transformation implied by the portfolio of the banks was shown to be less positive than the underlying structure of funds would imply; (v) the introduction of money market instruments were shown to have affected the adjustment behaviour of the banks; and (vi) the results also held implication for the control of money supply. However, we believe the major contribution of this study to knowledge lies in indicating the responses and lags of banks' behaviour to changes in policy instruments in a developing country like Nigeria. This information would no doubt form the basis for further research.

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences