This thesis explores the different scales of sociality (or social interaction) found within the LBK through the lens of a broadly meshwork-based perspective. It evaluates the hypotheses that people in the LBK lived in and recognised multiple levels of 'community', that these different communities overlapped, resulting in negotiation and possibly conflict; and that membership of these communities was potentially open and fluid, varying according to season, task or personal preference. With the help of meshwork-thinking, I explore the social relationships that helped to define the LBK. In doing so, I demonstrate that this dynamic, multi-dimensional approach can offer a new perspective on understanding the degree of homogeneity and variation within the LBK tradition. The core of the thesis is divided into three case studies, each concentrating on a specific scale of analysis. The first case study focuses on social interaction at the household scale and considers the emergence of individual households, household complexes and co-operative groups of households within the Merzbach and Schlangengraben valleys. The second case study explores the inter-play between competing family and clan/lineage identities at the scale of the settlement cluster or micro-region. The third case study zooms out to the regional scale of the Lower Rhine basin, tracing more geographically spread patterns in the material culture as well as interaction with non-LBK groups beyond the loess regions. Calling on these cases studies, I also consider how scale was experienced in the LBK.

Motivated by the recent 2007/2008 Financial Crisis, this dissertation identifies endogenous risk in the German insurance sector during the Interwar sector. In the context of principal agent theory, endogenous risk is the result of a company reacting to shocks that are generated and amplified within the financial system by shifting risk from shareholders to policyholders. This dissertation provides analytical support for this interdependence on the basis of established financial as well as actuarial models and assumptions. The empirical analysis considers the German insurance sector during the Interwar period due to the presence of a pronounced business cycle, the absence of exogenous low-probability high-cost events, a consistent regulatory framework as well as available quantitative data. The econometric analysis is based on four newly compiled datasets that collect the 1924 gold account opening balances, company- as well as line-specific financial information, and stock price quotations for all publicly traded German insurance companies during the Interwar period. The dissertation finds that during the Interwar period in the German insurance sector (Ch.2), the risk of getting discontinued prior to default (3) led companies to cater dividend payout (Ch.4) and reinsurance operations (Ch.5) to an optimistic investor clientele (Ch.6), yet in contrast to the underwriting cycle (Ch.7).

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No description available.

There has been an overwhelming interest in public Wi-Fi due to the increasing number of mobile users and a growing perception that Wi-Fi provides better connection experience at lower costs. Moreover, end users increasingly expect Wi-Fi to be free, thereby motivating a strong transition in leading markets to provide free-to-the-end-user Wi-Fi. Providing free internet to the users is a challenge as potential solutions must be self-sustainable and provide sufficient financial returns. Framework for Advertisement-based Community Wi-Fi access, called FRAC is a self-sustainable advertisement-based community network sharing framework which has the competence to provide significant financial returns. FRAC provides free internet access to its users by motivating Wi-Fi access point (AP) owners to share their internet service for benefits. FRAC builds on privately or commercially-owned, existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. The users accessing the internet using this framework provide a strong customer base for online marketing and advertising which provides the revenue to sustain this framework. This thesis describes the design and implementation of a prototype of the FRAC system. The design of key features of the framework such as user authentication, advertisement delivery, quality of service, messaging and security, are described, based on which an overall design of the framework is provided. The prototype developed includes a browser extension to support browser-based devices like laptops, netbooks and embeddable software that can be installed on wireless routers with Linux-based dd-wrt firmware. / Master of Science

L’évolution rapide des services et applications multimédias (Internet haut débit, 3G, LTE) a entrainé un besoin chez les clients qui contraint les opérateurs à augmenter le débit de tous les segments du réseau, y compris le réseau d’accès. Les solutions utilisant la fibre optique tendent à remplacer progressivement les liaisons câblées (cuivre ou coaxial) afin de garantir des capacités de transfert plus importantes. La fibre optique est un medium très attractif car son atténuation linéique est très faible et sa bande passante importante. Cependant la dispersion chromatique de la fibre associée au chirp des sources optiques limite la montée en débit dans les futurs réseaux d’accès optiques (débits au-delà de 10 Gb/s) NG-PON (Next Generation Passive Optical Network). Dans ce contexte, des formats de modulation à efficacité spectrale meilleure que le NRZ pourraient être retenus. L’OFDM est une solution pour accroître l’efficacité spectrale, tout en garantissant une meilleure performance et une grande robustesse face aux canaux sélectifs en fréquence comme la fibre optique. Dans ce travail de thèse, nous avons proposé de nouvelles techniques d’implémentation de l’OFDM pour le NG-PON et évalué leurs performances dans un canal IM/DD. Nous avons montré par des simulations système dans un canal optique réaliste, que les techniques New DCO, New INC-ACO et DC-ACO sont capables d’augmenter les limitations de distances de transmission imposées par la modulation NRZ-OOK (Non-Return to Zero On-Off Keying) avec l’utilisation de composants bas coût. Ainsi, nous avons montré qu’avec les méthodes «MET (Minimization E-Tight)» et Levin-Campello, les techniques New DCO et DC-ACO permettent de réaliser des débits de 10 Gb/s sur une distance de 70 km en New DCO et 55 km en DC-ACO avec un taux de partage de 1×64. Cela permet d’affirmer que l’approche New AMOFDM serait un bon candidat pour le déploiement de réseaux d’accès optiques dans les métropoles de pays en développement. / The rapid development of multimedia services and applications such as broadband Internet, 3G, LTE, has led customers to force operators to increase throughput of all network segments, including the access network. Solutions using optical fiber tend to gradually replace cable based-copper or coaxial communications to ensure larger transfer capacity. The optical fiber is a very attractive medium because its linear attenuation is very low and its bandwidth very high. However, the chromatic dispersion of the fiber associated with the chirp of the optical sources limit the rise in flowrate in future optical access networks (beyond rates of 10 Gb/s) NG-PON (Next Generation Passive Optical Network). In this context, modulation formats with higher spectral efficiency than NRZ-OOK could be selected. OFDM is a solution to increase the spectral efficiency, while ensuring a better performance and high robustness against frequency selective channel such as fiber optics. In this thesis, we proposed a new OFDM techniques implementation for NG-PON and evaluated their performance in an IM/DD channel. We showed by simulations system of a realistic optical channel, that New DCO, New INC-ACO and DC-ACO OFDM techniques are able to increase the limited transmission distances imposed by the NRZ-OOK modulation with the use of low-cost components. Thus, we showed that using the “Minimization and E-Tight (MET)”or the Levin-Campello algorithm, the New DCO and DC-ACO techniques permit to achieve data rates of 10 Gb/s with a split ratio of 1 × 64 over a distance of 70 km with New DCO and 55 km for DC-ACO. Then we conclude that the New AMOFDM approach is a good choice for the deployment of optical access networks in metropolitan cities of developing countries.

Inom kontexten medelstora svenska icke-finansiella företag är syftet med denna uppsats att undersöka hur sambandet mellan företagens skuldsättningsgrad och företagens sannolikheter för konkurs ser ut genom att tillämpa Byströms Distance to Default (DD). Uppsatsen ämnar besvara följande frågeställningar: (1) Hur ser företagens skuldsättningsgrad och sannolikhet för konkurs ut kvantifierade med Byströms DD? (2) Kan företagen öka andelen främmande kapital utan att nämnvärt öka sannolikheten för konkurs kvantifierat med Byströms DD? En empirisk metod utvecklas för att beräkna företagens skuldsättningsgrad, företagens sannolikhet för konkurs och för att öka andelen främmande kapital utan att nämnvärt öka sannolikheten för konkurs. Indelning av företagen sker på sektornivå. Om uppsatsens frågeställningar kan följande slutsatser dras: (1) företagens skuldsättningsgrad är olika beroende på sektortillhörighet och förändringar i marknadsvärdet av företagens tillgångar och förändringar i volatiliteten av marknadsvärdet av företagens tillgångar har en tydlig påverkan på företagens sannolikhet för konkurs (2) två av sektorerna (i.e. Informationsteknik och Sjukvård) kan öka andelen främmande kapital utan att nämnvärt förändra sannolikheten för konkurs. Tre av sektorerna (i.e. Industrivaror och tjänster, Material och Sällanköpsvaror och tjänster) uppvisar högre skuldsättningsgrader och en tänkbar förklaring är att företagen kortsiktigt avviker från företagens långsiktiga skuldsättningsgrad. När företagens skuldsättningsgrad och sannolikhet för konkurs kvantifieras med Byströms DD uppvisar företag med hög skuldsättningsgrad en högre sannolikhet för konkurs – i enlighet med Trade-Off Theory.

Den här undersökningen jämför prestanda hos tre olika firmwares som är baserade på öppen källkod. DD-WRT, Open-WRT samt Tomato Firmware för MIPS-arkitektur. Testerna följer två RFC som beskriver hur en prestandaanalys av ett nätverk ska genomföras. De sammanfattade resultaten pekar på en vinnare som presterat generellt bättre genom alla tester och det var Tomato firmware. Dessa resultat är hämtade från tre olika tester: genomströmningstest, svarstidstest och test med samtidiga sessioner. Undersökningen visar också att prestandan rent generellt är väldigt jämlik över alla firmwares i de olika testerna. En viktig aspekt är att det finns ingen överlägsen vinnare, vilket beror på, till exempel, hur konsekventa resultaten varit. Detta hänger även ihop med en möjlig slutsats där firmwaresen presterar olika bra beroende på vilken typ av uppgift det gäller. Som fortsatt arbete rekommenderas prestanda och funktionsanalys av liknande verktyg som varje firmware innehåller. Även en undersökning gällande gränssnittet för varje firmware skulle vara intressant. / This investigation compares the performance of three different open-source firmwares. DD-WRT, Open-WRT and Tomato Firmware with MIPS architecture. The test follows two RFC that describes the process of how to perform a performance analysis of network interconnected devices. The summarized results show a winner which has generally performed better throughout all the tests and this was Tomato firmware. These results are gathered from three different tests, which is throughput, latency and concurrent sessions test. The survey also shows that the performance in general is very equal across all firmwares in the various tests. An important aspect is that there are no outstanding winner, which depends on for example how consistent the results have been. This also concerns a possible conclusion where the firmwares perform various well depending on the type of task involved. As further work on this investigation we recommend a performance and function analysis of the tools that the firmware contains. Although a survey of the interface for each firmware would be interesting.

This thesis is an examination of the relationship between the Ukrainian nationalists, led by Petliura (The Ukrainian People’s Republic) and both Germany and Poland in the period 1918-1922. Although the thesis addresses primarily the situation after World War I and the military collapse of Germany in Eastern Europe, I also examine the historical relationship between Germany and Ukraine, which came to the fore in the period of World War I, and especially following the treaties of Brest Litovsk. This period involved the German recognition of Ukrainian independence, and the German intervention in Ukrainian internal political and economic affairs.

This thesis examines the most prolific emigration of any European peoples to the United States in the nineteenth century. From the close of the Napoleonic Wars to the turn of the twentieth century, some 5 million people left the area outlined by Bismarck’s Reich, headed for America.1 As a consequence of this migration, Germans represent the largest ethnic heritage group in the modern day United States. As of 2008, official German heritage in the U.S. (the lineage of at least one parent) was 50,271,790, against a total population of 304,059,728, a 16.5% share.2 By comparison, those of Irish heritage numbered 36,278,332, and those of Mexican heritage 30,272,000.3 During the nineteenth century, the mass movement of Germans across the Atlantic occurred in distinct phases. The period between 1830 and the mid-­‐1840s was a period of growth; the annual figure of 10,000 departures was reached by 1832, and by the time of the 1848 revolutions, nearly half a million had left for the USA. Then, between the late 1840s and the early 1880s, a prolonged and heavy mass movement took place, during which the number of departures achieved close to, or exceeded, three quarters of a million per decade. Then, from the mid-­‐1880s to the outbreak of the First World War, the emigration entered terminal decline. The last significant years of emigration were recorded in 1891-­‐2; by the turn of the twentieth century, it was all but over.