Determination of contingency for international projects plays an important role for inclusion of risks taken by the contractor on the bid amount. Although determination of contingency is an important stage of bid preparation for international projects, the methods that are being used by Turkish contractors for quantification of contingency are very limited. In this thesis the factors affecting the contingency decisions of Turkish contractors for international projects will be investigated. The significance of these factors will be determined and a model determining the contingency will be developed.

Using a recently developed measure of extrinsic contingency focus (ECF; Williams, Schimel, Hayes & Martens, 2009), four studies were conducted to examine the relationship between extrinsic contingency focus and the extent to which individuals strive to meet the social ideals shown in advertising media. In Study 1 it was found that ECF predicted participants’ desire for the image oriented aspects of consumer products. Study 2 demonstrated the moderating effects of ECF on women’s food consumption and preference for healthy foods following exposure to thin models. Study 3 showed that ECF also moderated reactions to idealized body images among males who were exposed to idealized images. Study 4 extended the results of the previous studies, by demonstrating that reactance to idealized images among low ECF women can be limited by affirming the intrinsic self. The implications of these findings relative to a multifaceted conceptualization of self-esteem and the use of idealized images in media are discussed.

Agency theory proposes that the role of the board of directors is to control management (Fama & Jensen 1983). A structurally independent board, one with a high percentage of non-executive directors and a chairperson who is not the CEO, has been used as a proxy for the control role. Therefore, agency theory predicts a positive relationship between independent board structure and firm performance. These predictions have not been confirmed by meta-analytic reviews (Dalton, Daily, Ellstrand, & Johnson 1998; Rhoades, Rechner, & Sundaramurthy 2000). This thesis applies structural contingency theory to provide an alternative explanation for the relationship between board structure and firm performance. Structural contingency theory (Donaldson 2001) proposes that the relationship between an organization???s structure and its performance is moderated by contingencies. In this study the contingency is the salience of the board???s control role. I argue that structural independence of the board has a beneficial effect on performance only if it is in fit with control salience. For example, a firm with an independently structured board that gives high prominence to the control role will perform well. On the other hand, another firm with a less independently structured board that does not see its main role as controlling management will also prosper. Survey data were analyzed to measure the control salience for 98 Australian listed companies. Archival data provided measures of board structure and firm performance. Consistent with the meta-analytic reviews, there was no association between independent board structure and firm performance. There was some evidence that high control salience resulted in high performance, but this effect was evident chiefly when performance was measured by total shareholder returns. This may indicate that the share market was responding to the symbolism of high control salience. In contrast to the symbolic main effect of control salience, the fit between the control salience and the independent structure of the board caused increased return on equity. This reflects the board???s objective effect on profit when its structure is in fit with control salience.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Paul Stockton. Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-72). Also available online.

This study provides an alternative explanation for the nature of politics in the Niger Delta by focussing on the forms and contents of relationships within youth networks. While not repudiating previous narratives around historical and contemporary grievances, the study argues that a lot can be learnt from interrogating how social codes like respectability and self organizational tactics like provisionality, shape, not just the nature of youth politics, but also the ways in which youth imagine themselves and their place in fluid and extractive contexts like the Niger Delta. The implication of focussing on issues such as these, the study argues, is that it becomes possible to tease out the critical, yet often ignored, micro-politics of social categories which ultimately frame the way actors articulate their macro level grievances and aspirations. This study is driven by three main research questions. First, what pathways facilitate youth engagement with politics in the Niger Delta? Second, how do Niger Delta youth imagine and organize themselves as actors navigating its dynamic oil political economy? And finally, how has the Amnesty which was declared in 2009 for youth insurgents changed the nature of relationships within youth networks and how has it impacted on their roles as actors in the Niger Delta? As a way of engaging with these questions, the study used the 2009 Amnesty as a historical marker to periodize state interventions in the region and also to illustrate the impact and limits that formal interventions have when seeking to shape the politics of social shifters like youth. The study's main contributions include a rethinking of the notion of youth which asks for a conscious analytical disaggregation of politically active youth from the general pool of the young. This implies that the idea of youth is dependent on acts of doing rather than of being. The study also challenged the idea that youth is marginal and argues that even the fact of marginality can be a useful resource for navigating uncertain social contexts like the Niger Delta. Through its engagement with the changing notion of respectability as well as the innovative deployment of provisionality as an organizing strategy by youth, the study provides new ways of analyzing the Niger Delta that can move it away from a fixation on rational choice narratives of scarcity, greed or grievance. Finally, the study provides the first comprehensive mapping of youth networks in the Niger Delta and does so across three pathways, showing how these complex relationships shape and are also shaped by the broader political economy of oil. The study concludes by arguing for new questions to be asked about how the shifting forms and geographies of the Niger Delta's youth networks flow out to other areas of national and transnational life in ways that recognize the regions fluidity, uncertainty and permanence.

[pt] O fluxo de potência probabilístico é considerado uma técnica eficiente na obtenção de índices de adequação, tais como: probabilidade do fluxo em uma linha ou em um transformador ser maior do que sua capacidade nominal, probabilidade da magnitude da tensão em um barramento estar fora dos limites usuais de operacio, etc., os quais são medidas extremamente úteis tanto no planejamento como na operação de sistemas de potência. Estes índices são obtidos dada a capacidade de tal algoritmo considerar a natureza probabilística das cargas, geração e da configuração da rede em uma única solução. Vários trabalhos tem sido propostos para resolver probabilisticamente o problema do fluxo de potência. A grande maioria tem considerado somente as incertezas nos dados de carga e geração, modelando a rede elétrica por uma configuração fixa, relativa ao caso base. A influência das incertezas na configuração de uma rede de potência devido à natureza probabilística das contingências de seus elementos foi, até então, muito pouco analisada. Esta tese apresenta um novo método de obtenção para a solução do fluxo de potência probabilístico quando a rede é modelada como uma variável aleatória. O algoritmo proposto é aplicado a um sistema típico e os resultados discutidos / [en] Probabilistic load flow can be considered na efficient tecnnique in order to assess adequacy indices, such as: the probability of a transmission line or transformer flow being greater than its thermal rating, probability of a busbar voltage being outside its operational constraints, etc., which are extremely useful measurements in planning and operation of power systems. These indices are achieved due to the ability of such algorithm in recognising the probabilistic nature of load, generation and network configuration within one solution. Many tecniques have been proposed in order to solve the load flow problem probabilisticaly. The great majorit have aonly accounted for load and generation data uncertainties and therefore the network configuration has been considered fixed. So far, the effects of the configuration uncertainties due to the probabilistic nature of network contingencies have not been deeply analysed. This thesis presents a new method for obtaining a probabilistic load flow solution whe network outages are modelled as a random variable. The proposed technique is applied to a typical power system and the results discussed.

Meu ponto de vista: O cotidiano e os lugares da imagem, trata de uma pesquisa no campo das Poéticas Visuais na qual a prática artística e uma investigação teórica se entrecruzam. Meu ponto de vista - Série Max; Série Indutor de percepção cotidiana - Díptico; Indutor de percepção cotidiana - livro; Banheiro rosa - backlight; levantam e desenvolvem questões como os aspectos, as formas de espacialização e de recepção das imagens. Os temas e assuntos constituem um arquivo de imagens. Seria este processo todo, uma forma de auto-retrato? Ao retratar os outros e o meu cotidiano seria possível construir uma crônica pessoal, composta apenas de imagens? Qual imagem cabe na parede da galeria e qual se ajusta à pagina do livro? O que interessa para a artista além da regra? Para respondê-las a dissertação foi dividida em dois capítulos, sendo que o primeiro bloco apresenta o programa que utilizo para fotografar, bem como as questões da fotografia - a captação da imagem, o corte e o enquadramento – relacionados com minha produção anterior e expandidas neste estudo. No segundo capítulo serão abordadas questões referentes aos lugares da imagem, suas formas de apresentação e de exposição – a fotografia na forma de quadro, de dípticos e no espaço da publicação (livro de artista) relacionando-as com artistas e autores, cuja produção me esclarecia. / My point of view: The daily life and the places of the image, it is a research about Visual Poetics in which artistic practice and theoretical investigation intersect. My point of view - Max Series; Daily life perception persuader Series - Diptych; Daily life perception persuader Series - Book; Pink bathroom - backlight; this group of works point out and develop themes like the aspects, the spacemen shapes and the reception of the image. Those themes and issues establish a file of images. Would this whole process be a kind of self portrait construction? Would it be possible to figure out a self personal chronicle, made just by images, by photographing my daily life and other people? Which photograph could be appropriate to the wall of the gallery or which ones fit better to the page of the book? What does interest the artists besides the rules? As to answer those questions, the paper was divided in two chapters. The first one is related to the program that I use to photograph and the issue related to photography itself – like the caption of the image, the cut and the framing – which have to do with my previous work and are further developed in this paper. The second chapter approaches issues about the places of the photograph, its way of presentation and exposition – the photograph as a portrait, in the shape of diptyches and as to fit in the publishing space (artist book) – in relation with artists and authors, whose works cleared my mind.

p. 1-266 / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2013-04-24T18:37:42Z No. of bitstreams: 1 999999999ee.pdf: 3002143 bytes, checksum: caa3eda4745014d940a6e03bdfa16461 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Creuza Silva(mariakreuza@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-05-04T16:57:08Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 999999999ee.pdf: 3002143 bytes, checksum: caa3eda4745014d940a6e03bdfa16461 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-04T16:57:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 999999999ee.pdf: 3002143 bytes, checksum: caa3eda4745014d940a6e03bdfa16461 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / O presente estudo visa compreender os sentidos e significados das práticas culturais produzidas por jovens em um determinado contexto e conhecer as contingências vividas e percebidas nas suas trajetórias biográficas, porque parte do pressuposto de que as práticas surgem dessas experiências de vida, bem como dos recursos e instrumentos apropriados e re-apropriados por eles nesse contexto. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida em dois momentos: a) uma etnografia do bairro de Cosme de Farias a fim de descrever o contexto onde os jovens construíram suas trajetórias biográficas e desenvolvem suas práticas; e b) a análise das narrativas dos jovens sobre as contingências experimentadas por eles nas suas trajetórias de vida, bem como sobre os significados e sentidos das práticas que desenvolvem através das comunidades às quais pertencem. Este estudo etnográfico foi orientado pela perspectiva fenomenológica hermenêutica e lançou mão de diferentes estratégias de investigação para seu desenvolvimento, entre elas: um survey; aplicação de questionários; coleta de coordenadas geográficas; entrevistas aprofundadas com jovens e observação das práticas. A análise dos dados se processou através de diferentes recursos e estratégias, tais como: o emprego dos softwares Arc View para espacialização dos dados georreferenciados; QSR-Nvivo 2.0 para análise do material textual; e análise de narrativa a partir das entrevistas em profundidade com os jovens. A partir disso, foram identificadas algumas categorias que nortearam a condução da análise. Do ponto de vista dos jovens, o bairro apresenta problemas, particularmente, a violência, associada diretamente ao tráfico e uso de drogas, e a exploração sexual particularmente feminina, que não são problemas dos jovens e sim problemas que afetam a todos que vivem no bairro e estão diretamente relacionados à falta de ocupação − trabalho, lazer e formação para os jovens. Na leitura exaustiva das narrativas dos jovens sobre suas trajetórias biográficas, a noção de contingência foi o dispositivo para identificar vicissitudes e possibilidades, como aspectos que lhes são constitutivos. Desse modo, as agressões e dificuldades de sobrevivência material e simbólica foram fundantes para a ocorrência de rupturas nessas trajetórias, desvios não explicitados pelos jovens e ausências, particularmente da família. A partir dessas vicissitudes, possibilidades se pronunciaram como as formas possíveis de presença da família, de ganhos, que os jovens definem como “correria” e o aparecimento de pessoas-chave. Entre as possibilidades que se abrem, os jovens experimentam formas coletivas de enfrentamento das vicissitudes, denominadas, no estudo, práticas culturais. Essas práticas se apresentam como “táticas de resistência” às situações de desconforto e como geratrizes de mudança na vida dos jovens. Nesse sentido, é importante reconhecer que há um saber e práticas locais que possuem sentidos e significados para aqueles que vivem nesses espaços, e que o campo da saúde precisa estar aberto para reconhecer essas possibilidades nem sempre conhecidas e estabelecidas pelo seu próprio campo de atuação. / Salvador