This study aims to investigate how legal origin and cultural values can affect the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the cost of equity. Specifically, common law and civil law countries (legal origin) and countries with high long-term orientation are compared. The research is conducted by using panel data of 5,533 firm-year observations from 1,492 unique firms during a sample period of 2005 through 2013. The findings suggest that firms with better CSR performance will enjoy lower cost of equity. Furthermore, there is strong evidence in support of the corporate governance practices of CSR performance, which leads to cheaper equity financing. In addition, the findings support previous literature that the negative relationship between CSR and the cost of equity is stronger for civil law countries.

Can momentum trading strategies beat Dutch or German stock market indices? If so, dothose strategies show significant positive net returns? For the period from March 2009 to March 2016this appears to be the case for only one out of the nine momentum trading strategies investigated withrespect to the Dutch stock market and for none of those same momentum trading strategiesinvestigated with respect to the German stock market. Furthermore, this research finds that the netmomentum returns seem to be winner- instead of loser-portfolio driven and that the longer the holdingperiod, the higher the net momentum returns realized.

The application of atmospheric circulation classifications in the interpretation of climate model outputs Mgr. Jan Stryhal Automated (computer-assisted) classifications of atmospheric circulation patterns (circulation classifications, for short) constitute a tool widely used in synoptic and dynamic climatology to study atmospheric circulation and its link to various atmospheric, environmental, and societal phenomena. The application of circulation classifications to output of dynamical models of the atmosphere has developed considerably since the pioneering studies about three decades ago, reflecting rapid development in statistics, computing technology, and-naturally-climatological research, increasingly more and more dependent on simulations of the atmosphere, facing the paradigm of anthropogenic climate change. An uncoordinated use of various statistical approaches to analyzing output of global climate models (GCM) or their various ensembles, and an arbitrary selection of circulation variables, spatial and temporal domains, and reference datasets, have contributed to a need for a comparative study, which would shed some light on the sensitivity of studies dealing with an intercomparison of circulation classifications in two datasets to subjective choices. The present thesis responds to this need...

The first part of this project focused on evaluating aspects of the environmental management practices of Texas chemical industries, particularly waste generation and management of the data related to these processes. The waste generation data included Texas notifications required to track wastes. The next phase consisted of characterizing industrial waste disposal methods, waste container management, and transportation including an overview of required documentation for each activity. This led to identification of issues encountered from inefficient recordkeeping, ineffective internal communication, or inadequate environmental management systems. The result of an ineffective hazardous waste data management program can be fines, damage to the environment, and even adverse impacts on worker health and safety. For example, for the situations outlined in this document, violations could have resulted in penalties totaling $550,000 per day. This led to an effort to evaluate and develop solutions needed to develop a robust management system. The goal was to provide an operating and hazardous waste management program which optimally resulted in “zero findings” by the state regulatory agency. This would be achieved through personal experiences of this environmental engineer while working at a chemical plant augmented by information obtained through observations of others at the facility and a review of published documentation. This document focuses on the redesign and automation of an ineffective, manual environmental management system by making modifications and enhancements with a focus on effective management of various waste media. The criteria used for determining system optimization includes regulatory compliance and noncompliance penalties, internal communication time, onsite storage accumulation time exceedances, recordkeeping efficiency, number of lost waste containers, and time needed to make waste classifications. Optimization is verified against other alternatives by comparing instances and severity of noncompliance with state and federal regulations. The result was a total environmental management system optimized in a way that ensured compliance and achieved the goal of eliminating violations. It also reduced cost, allowed automated data entry, supported rapid asset location and helped track performance.

Аналитики и маркетологи в последние два десятилетия отмечают бурный рост рынка предметов роскоши. Несмотря на большой интерес со стороны ученых, практиков и даже обывателей к товарам категории роскоши, до сих пор в научной литературе нет единой теории маркетинга и менеджмента этих товаров. / Analysts and marketers in the last two decades have noted the rapid growth of the luxury goods market. Despite the great interest on the part of scientists, practitioners and even philistines to luxury goods, there is still no unified theory of marketing and management of these goods in the scientific literature.

No description available.

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and solar flares are energetic events taking place at the Sun that can affect the space weather or the near-Earth environment by the release of vast quantities of electromagnetic radiation and charged particles. Solar active regions are the areas where most flares and CMEs originate. Studying the associations among sunspot groups, flares, filaments, and CMEs is helpful in understanding the possible cause and effect relationships between these events and features. Forecasting space weather in a timely manner is important for protecting technological systems and human life on earth and in space. The research presented in this thesis introduces novel, fully computerised, machine learning-based decision rules and models that can be used within a system design for automated space weather forecasting. The system design in this work consists of three stages: (1) designing computer tools to find the associations among sunspot groups, flares, filaments, and CMEs (2) applying machine learning algorithms to the associations' datasets and (3) studying the evolution patterns of sunspot groups using time-series methods. Machine learning algorithms are used to provide computerised learning rules and models that enable the system to provide automated prediction of CMEs, flares, and evolution patterns of sunspot groups. These numerical rules are extracted from the characteristics, associations, and time-series analysis of the available historical solar data. The training of machine learning algorithms is based on data sets created by investigating the associations among sunspots, filaments, flares, and CMEs. Evolution patterns of sunspot areas and McIntosh classifications are analysed using a statistical machine learning method, namely the Hidden Markov Model (HMM).

Cette thèse a pour objet d'interroger sur la relation entre les troubles du langage et leur dénomination en orthophonie, comme par exemple en français " dysphasie, troubles spécifiques du langage écrit, aphasie, difficultés du langage écrit, retard de langage "... La terminologie employée par les orthophonistes pour décrire les pathologies rencontrées chez leurs patients a intégré celle des courants théoriques en évolution, et ce pour apporter des nuances nécessaires à la précision du diagnostic orthophonique. Pour décrire l'inconstance de ce lien entre le terme diagnostique et la réalité de la pathologie étiquetée, l'auteure s'est appuyée sur des considérations épistémologiques, lexicologiques et terminologiques. Le bilan orthophonique permettant l'établissement de ce diagnostic est suivi par convention d'un compte-rendu de bilan orthophonique (CRBO), reflet de la langue de spécialité et révélateur de la représentation de ces troubles. 435 comptes-rendus authentiques ont été explorés au moyen d'une analyse descriptive lexicologique et terminologique semi-automatique grâce à un codage XML, produisant ainsi une " photographie " de l'utilisation des termes concernant l'ensemble des pathologies dont s'occupe l'orthophoniste. L'analyse a permis de distinguer deux niveaux terminologiques (un traitant de la nature du trouble, et un de sa forme), illustrant les nuances nécessaires aux orthophonistes dans des syntagmes que l'on peut qualifier de collocationnels. La dernière phase d'analyse de ces données a permis de tisser la trame d'une proposition de classification orthophonique, la COFOP (Classification Orthophonique FOndée sur la Pratique clinique).

Grâce aux innovations technologiques récentes, l’exploration cutanée est devenue de plus en plus facile et précise. Le relevé topographique de la surface de peau par projection de franges ainsi que l’exploration des structures intradermiques par microscopie confocale in-vivo en sont des exemples parfaits. La mise en place de ces techniques et les développements sont présentés dans cette thèse. L’apport de l’imagerie est évident tant pour le traitement des acquisitions de ces appareils que pour l’évaluation de paramètres cutanés à partir de photographie par exemple. L’extension du modèle LIP niveaux de gris à la couleur a été réalisée pour apporter une évaluation proche de celle d’un expert grâce aux fondements logarithmiques du modèle, proches de la vision humaine. Enfin, la classification de données dans une image, sujet omniprésent dans le traitement d’images, a été abordée par les classifications hiérarchiques ascendantes, utilisant un cadre mathématique rigoureux grâce aux métriques ultramétriques / Thanks to recent developments, skin evaluation has become easier and more accurate. Topographical evaluation of skin surface by fringes projection as intra-dermal structures and exploration by in-vivo laser confocal microscopy are some examples. The use and development of these tools are developed in this thesis. Image processing contribution is obvious, as much for the treatment of these tools acquisitions, as for cutaneous parameters evaluation, based on digital camera acquisitions for example. Grey level LIP model extension to color has been realized in order to bring way of analysis near to the expert one, thanks to logarithmic bases of this model, very close to the human vision. At least, data clustering in images, a redundant topic in image analysis, has been approached by ascending hierarchical clustering, using rigorous mathematical properties thanks to the ultrametric distances

Cette recherche a pour objet l'étude de la problématique de la mise en œuvre d'une démarche d'évaluer la performance dans le contexte des établissements d'enseignement supérieur au Vietnam. La performance est le fer de lance de la stratégie de développement de l'éducation nationale contribuant au développement économique et social du pays d'une part, à la compétitivité de l'enseignement supérieur vietnamien plus spécifiquement d'autre part. En fait, la performance des universités est un sujet complexe et d’actualité. Elle se situe au centre des débats de l’heure au Vietnam, mais aussi ailleurs. Cette complexité résulte, d’une part, de la nature systémique des établissements universitaires et, d’autre part, de l’absence d’un consensus sur une définition précise de leur performance : l’évaluation de la performance de ces institutions s’avère ainsi difficile à réaliser. Il est important d’identifier comment examiner l’évaluation des performances des universités et les moyens d’améliorer. Le problème le plus difficile dans l’élaboration d’un modèle d’évaluation de la performance généralisable qui reflètent une évaluation pondérée de toutes les différentes dimensions. Le modèle d’évaluation que nous formulons permettre de clarifier des dimensions de la performance globale d’une université et la prise en compte des attentes des parties prenantes. Nous avons fourni aussi des dispositifs pour l’évaluation de la performance des universités vietnamiennes pour que les établissements d’enseignement supérieur puissent contrôler et gérer facilement un processus d’évaluation de la performance la plus complexe et d’évaluer des établissements d’enseignement supérieur / The aim of this research is to study the issue of the implementation of a performance evaluation approach in the context of higher education institutions in Vietnam. Performance is the spearhead of the development strategy of national education contributing to the economic and social development of the country on the one hand and the competitiveness of Vietnamese higher education more specifically on the other hand. In fact, the performance of universities is a challenging and timely theme. It is at the center of the debates of the hour in Vietnam, but also elsewhere. This complexity results, on the one hand, from the systemic nature of the academic institutions and, on the other, from the lack of consensus on a precise definition of their performance: It is difficult to assess the performance of these institutions. It is important to identify how to review the performance evaluation of universities and how to improve. The most difficult problem in developing a generalizable performance assessment model that reflects a weighted assessment of all the different dimensions. The evaluation model that we formulate can clarify the dimensions of a university's overall performance and take into account the expectations of stakeholders on each of the decoupled dimensions. We have also provided mechanisms for evaluating the performance of Vietnamese universities so that higher education institutions can easily monitor and manage a more complex performance appraisal process and evaluate institutions of higher learning in all aspects