In financial markets, spread option is a derivative security with two underlying assets and the payoff of the spread option depends on the difference of these assets. We consider American style spread option which allows the owners to exercise it at any time before the maturity. The complexity of pricing American spread option is that the boundary of the corresponding partial differential equation which determines the option price is unknown and the model for the underlying assets is two-dimensional.In this dissertation, we incorporate the stochasticity to the interest rate and assume that it satisfies the Vasicek model or the CIR model. We derive the partial differential equations with terminal and boundary conditions which determine the American spread option with stochastic interest rate and formulate the associated free boundary problem. We convert the free boundary problem to the linear complimentarity conditions for the American spread option, so that we can go around the free boundary and compute the option price numerically. Alternatively, we approximate the option price using methods based on the Monte Carlo simulation, including the regression-based method, the Lonstaff and Schwartz method and the dual method. We make the comparisons among the option prices derived by the partial differential equation method and Monte Carlo methods to show the accuracy of the result.

<p>When light exhibits particle properties, and when matter exhibits wave properties quantum mechanics is needed to describe physical phenomena. </p><p>A two-photon source produces nonmaximally entangled photon pairs when the source is small enough to diffract light. It is shown that diffraction degrades the entanglement. Quantum states produced in this way are used to probe the complementarity between path information and interference in Young's double slit experiment.</p><p>When two photons have a nonmaximally entangled polarization it is shown that the Pancharatnam phase is dependent on the entanglement in a nontrivial way. This could be used for implementing simple quantum logical circuits. </p><p>Magnetic traps are capable of holding cold neutral atoms. It is shown that magnetic traps and guides can be generated by thin wires etched on a surface using standard nanofabrication technology. These <i>atom chips</i> can hold and manipulate atoms located a few microns above the surface with very high accuracy. The potentials are very versatile and allows for highly complex designs, one such design implemented here is a beam splitter for neutral atoms. Interferometry with these confined de Broglie is also considered. These atom chips could be used for implementing quantum logical circuits.</p>

Market evidences of the last three years show that the application of the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) may endanger the European electricity intensive industries both directly and indirectly. The direct ETS burdens come from the costs of both abating emissions from old technologies and buying emission allowances on the market. The pass through of carbon cost in electricity price implies an indirect ETS charge. The combined action of these two carbon burdens may negatively affect European industries' competitiveness at international level. Some of these industries are threatening to relocate their production activities outside of Europe. This would lead to the so-called "carbon leakage" phenomenon. Taking stock of a French industrial proposal, I consider some special contractual policies whereby electricity intensive industries can buy electricity at average cost. The rest of the market is instead priced at marginal cost. Thanks to these contracts, generators reserve part of their power plants for these industries and apply to them a price depending on the average capacity, fuel and emission costs of these dedicated units. In addition, these contracts account for the average transmission charges. Industries can choose to be supplied either at a single regional average cost price or at zonal (assimilated to nodal) average cost prices (in which case transmission costs are equal to zero). The final objective consists in analyzing the effects provoked by the application of the single and the nodal average cost prices in the cases where generators dispose of fixed capacity or can invest in new technologies. The market for transmission services is of the "flow based market coupling" type and the allowance price is endogenous. The results show that power contracts indeed partially relieve the direct and the indirect carbon costs and mitigate the incentive of European electricity intensive industries to relocate their activities, but with quite diverse regional impacts in correspondence with different national power policies. Finally, the EU-ETS drives generators' investment choices towards clean and nuclear based technologies. Models are formulated as non-monotone complementarity problems with endogenous electricity, transmission and allowance prices. These are implemented in GAMS and solved by PATH. They are applied to a prototype power system calibrated on four countries of the Central Western Europe represented by France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.

When light exhibits particle properties, and when matter exhibits wave properties quantum mechanics is needed to describe physical phenomena. A two-photon source produces nonmaximally entangled photon pairs when the source is small enough to diffract light. It is shown that diffraction degrades the entanglement. Quantum states produced in this way are used to probe the complementarity between path information and interference in Young's double slit experiment. When two photons have a nonmaximally entangled polarization it is shown that the Pancharatnam phase is dependent on the entanglement in a nontrivial way. This could be used for implementing simple quantum logical circuits. Magnetic traps are capable of holding cold neutral atoms. It is shown that magnetic traps and guides can be generated by thin wires etched on a surface using standard nanofabrication technology. These atom chips can hold and manipulate atoms located a few microns above the surface with very high accuracy. The potentials are very versatile and allows for highly complex designs, one such design implemented here is a beam splitter for neutral atoms. Interferometry with these confined de Broglie is also considered. These atom chips could be used for implementing quantum logical circuits.

Semi-infinite programming problems is a class of optimization problems in finite dimensional variables which are subject to infinitely many inequality constraints. If the infinite index of inequality constraints depends on the decision variable, then the problem is called generalized semi-infinite programming problem (GSIP). If the infinite index set is fixed, then the problem is called standard semi-infinite programming problem (SIP). In this thesis, convergence of a semismooth Newton method for generalized semi-infinite programming problems with convex lower level problems is investigated. In this method, using nonlinear complementarity problem functions the upper and lower level Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions of the optimization problem are reformulated as a semismooth system of equations. A possible violation of strict complementary slackness causes nonsmoothness. In this study, we show that the standard regularity condition for convergence of the semismooth Newton method is satisfied under natural assumptions for semi-infinite programs. In fact, under the Reduction Ansatz in the lower level problem and strong stability in the reduced upper level problem this regularity condition is satisfied. In particular, we do not have to assume strict complementary slackness in the upper level. Furthermore, in this thesis we neither assume strict complementary slackness in the upper nor in the lower level. In the case of violation of strict complementary slackness in the lower level, the auxiliary functions of the locally reduced problem are not necessarily twice continuously differentiable. But still, we can show that a standard regularity condition for quadratic convergence of the semismooth Newton method holds under a natural assumption for semi-infinite programs. Numerical examples from, among others, design centering and robust optimization illustrate the performance of the method.

My dissertation addresses and responds to research and practical interventions on gender in the Andean area. In it, I argue for the native Andean gender system's pertinence as an explanatory variable of past and present gender relations. This gender arrangement's name is 'Complementarity and Parallel Lines of Descent' (CPLD) (Silverblatt, 1985; Harris, 1987; Hardman, 2005; Vieira, 2005); it holds equivalent and complementary functions for women and men inside and outside the home. CPLD prevents women's subordination and the over-valuing of men's actions and characteristics on the basis of women's independent access to vital resources and the non-separation and non-primacy of the productive/public over the reproductive/private sphere (Roel Pineda, V., 1981-83; Lajo, J. 1985-6). Three independent studies show the empirical and theoretical importance of CPLD: 1) social identity observations during socio-anthropological field work on rural-to-urban migration in Lima, Peru (Lloyd, 1981; Herencia, 1985); 2) an historical monograph on CPLD's manifestations in the Tupac Amaru II Rebellion of the 1780's (Herencia, 1999); and 3) a political sociology essay on contemporary social movements in the Andes, seen through the prism of ethnicity and gender (Herencia, 2006). The transformation of gender relations through social identity moments (Study 1) serves to propose the theoretical coexistence and evolution, in a dominant/dominated condition, of engendered Native Andean and Western capitalist socio-cultural systems. For this reason, observations of gender at any point in time should consider the relation between the two. Also hypothetically, the Andean socio-cultural system's distinctive quality may result from Andean women's unrestricted social involvement, in contrast to that in the Western patriarchal capitalist system (and others). From a native people's perspective, conserving worldview and culture in past and present times implies preserving native gender relations. CPLD manifestations are ubiquitous in the Andean socio-cultural system’s traditions, beliefs and practices. Indigenous social movements need to fend off ideological barriers that obscure this gender system's existence, consciously ratifying and honoring the gender relations that continue to sustain the social reproduction of communities in not less than half the population of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and surrounding areas. CPLD's intrinsic merits are indispensable for a genuine response to capitalist patriarchy. / text

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Our earth is currently undergoing unprecedented human induced climate change, which is expected to drive widespread changes in species distributions and abundances that will affect natural pest suppression. Recent studies have suggested that climate change may cause changes to predator and herbivore assemblages in ways that alter multi-trophic food webs and affect the stability of ecosystems. Moreover, higher temperatures and increased climatic variability are expected to induce differential responses from predators and their prey that will undoubtedly disrupt species interactions. This thesis aims to test how climate change will impact the ability of natural enemies to continue to control pests in agroecosystems, and how they will continue to survive and function. In a field experiment using 13 farm sites across a natural temperature gradient, I found that temperature had direct positive effects on the abundances of the dominant parasitoid (an aphid specialist) and hyperparasitoid species, highlighting the importance of specific species responses in shaping larger communities. I also found that overall community composition was affected by temperature, with composition in warmer sites changing more throughout the season than cooler sites. In a future of inevitable climatic changes this result tells us we can expect arthropod community structure to change, which will have questionable impacts on overall population dynamics. To build on the field experiments, I used laboratory experiments to test differential responses of species to both drought and temperature and found that natural enemies responded to drought and temperature in a non-additive way, suggesting that the interaction between various climate change drivers is more important than their singular effect. Also, different species of natural enemies responded differently to abiotic factors, highlighting the importance of conserving natural enemies that can maintain important functional attributes in the face of climate change. Although biodiversity can be important for ensuring ecosystem functioning, response diversity, rather than species richness, may better promote ecosystem resilience, especially in the face of changing climate. The mechanisms underlying biodiversity effects are often difficult to disentangle, however, by manipulating the diversity of climate responses exhibited by ecosystem service providers, I tested how the rates and stability of prey suppression by predators are affected by climate warming and drought. I found that predator combinations with different individual responses to climate change maintained greater and less variable (i.e. more stable) prey suppression, compared with single predator species or combinations of predators with similar climate responses. This response complementarity became strongest through time and under drought or high temperature treatments. I suggest that response complementarity provides ‘insurance’ effects, which may be more important than previously envisaged for maintaining ecosystem functions such as biological control under global environmental change. Overall, the non-additive effects of different climate drivers, combined with differing responses across trophic levels, suggests that predicting future pest outbreaks will be more challenging than previously imagined.

This dissertation contains three essays on firm-sponsored training. Paper 1 develops a general theoretical framework in a frictional labour market to investigate how firms decide to sponsor how much general as well as specific training to workers assuming complementarity between the two types of training as well as education. It shows that firms’ profit maximizing decisions provide firms with an incentive to provide more training, general as well specific, to the more educated workers, more training for more educated workers may lead to low turnover rate, and the resulting life-time profile of firm-sponsored training is U-shaped or decreasing. The policy implications are that governments can subsidize both education and training to improve efficiency. Paper 2 and paper 3 try to provide empirical evidence from different perspectives, respectively determinants and effects of three types of firm-sponsored training, i.e., class-room training, on-the-job-training, and career-related but not job directly related training based on Statistics Canada’s Worker Place and Employee Survey (WES) of 2003/2004. The major empirical findings arising from our estimation results are: (1) Education is positively and significantly associated with the incidence of all three types of training, and significantly positively correlated with the intensity of on-the-job training. (2) Workers in larger firms are more likely to obtain classroom training and on-the-job training than workers in smaller firms. (3) Job tenure is significant and negative for the intensity of classroom training or on-the-job training. (4) Classroom-training and on-the-job training increases the average earnings of workers but less than average resultant firm-level productivity growth. Firm sponsored career related training has no significant impact on a worker’s earnings but increases the firm’s productivity significantly. All these findings by and large are consistent with the theory developed in first paper.

This dissertation contains three essays on firm-sponsored training. Paper 1 develops a general theoretical framework in a frictional labour market to investigate how firms decide to sponsor how much general as well as specific training to workers assuming complementarity between the two types of training as well as education. It shows that firms’ profit maximizing decisions provide firms with an incentive to provide more training, general as well specific, to the more educated workers, more training for more educated workers may lead to low turnover rate, and the resulting life-time profile of firm-sponsored training is U-shaped or decreasing. The policy implications are that governments can subsidize both education and training to improve efficiency. Paper 2 and paper 3 try to provide empirical evidence from different perspectives, respectively determinants and effects of three types of firm-sponsored training, i.e., class-room training, on-the-job-training, and career-related but not job directly related training based on Statistics Canada’s Worker Place and Employee Survey (WES) of 2003/2004. The major empirical findings arising from our estimation results are: (1) Education is positively and significantly associated with the incidence of all three types of training, and significantly positively correlated with the intensity of on-the-job training. (2) Workers in larger firms are more likely to obtain classroom training and on-the-job training than workers in smaller firms. (3) Job tenure is significant and negative for the intensity of classroom training or on-the-job training. (4) Classroom-training and on-the-job training increases the average earnings of workers but less than average resultant firm-level productivity growth. Firm sponsored career related training has no significant impact on a worker’s earnings but increases the firm’s productivity significantly. All these findings by and large are consistent with the theory developed in first paper.