Output gap belongs to standard indicators of inflationary pressures used in central banks. The aim of this paper is to find the answer to the question, whether we can consider output gap as a suitable indicator of inflation for the Czech economy. First hypothesis, which we analysed is that we can estimate output gap only with uncertainty. For confirmation or refutation of this hypothesis we used ten models of estimation of output gap. The second hypothesis is that output gap can be used as suitable indicator of inflation. For testing of this hypothesis we chose gap model from Coe, McDetmott (1997) -- with the level of output gap and the change (difference) of output gap. All tests confirmed, that central bank can use inflation as a useful indicator of inflation.

Halbleiter Quantenpunkte (QDs) erregen immenses Interesse sowohl in der Grundlagen- als auch der anwendungsorientierten Forschung, was sich maßgeblich aus ihrer möglichen Nutzung als Fundamentalbausteine in neuartigen, physikalisch nicht-klassischen Bauelementen ergibt, darunter die Nutzung von QDs als gezielt ansteuerbare Lichtquellen zur Erzeugung einzelner Paare polarisationsverschränkter Photonen, was einen Kernbaustein in den intensiv erforschten optischen Quantenkryptographiekonzepten darstellt. Ein goßes Hindernis stellen hierbei die in allen aktuell verfügbaren QDs intrinsisch vorhandenen, ausgeprägten Asymmetrien dar. Diese sind eine Begleiterscheinung der selbstorganisierten Wachstumsmethoden der QDs und sie treten in verschiedenen Gestalten, wie Formasymmetrie oder inhomogenen Verspannungsverhältnissen innerhalb der QDs, auf. Im Gegenzug verursachen jene Asymmetrien deutliche Anisotropien in den optischen Eigenschaften der QDs, wodurch das optische Ansprechverhalten klassisch beschreibbar wird. Aus Sicht der anwendungsorientierten Forschung stehen Asymmetrien daher im Ruf ungewollte Nebeneffekte zu sein und es wird mit großem Aufwand daran geforscht, diese unter Kontrolle zu bringen. Für die Grundlagenforschung sind anisotrope QDs jedoch ein interessantes Modellsystem, da an ihnen fundamentale Quantenphysik beobachtbar ist, wobei anders als in Atomen die einschnürenden Potentiale nicht zwangsläufig zentralsymmetrisch sein müssen. Auf der Basis winkel- und polarisationsaufgelöster Photolumineszenzuntersuchungen (PL) wird die Anisotropie des linearen Polarisationsgrades in der Lumineszenzstrahlung (kurz: optische Anisotropie) der an CdSe/ZnSe-QDs gebundenen Exzitonen untersucht. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Elektron-Loch Austauschwechselwirkung in asymmetrischen QDs zu einer effektiven Umwandlung linearer in zirkulare Polarisationsanteile und umgekehrt führt. Die experimentellen Befunde lassen sich erfolgreich im Rahmen eines Exziton-Pseudospinformalismus, der auf der durch die Austauschwechselwirkung induzierten Feinstruktur der hellen Exzitonzustände basiert, beschreiben. Dies legt nahe, dass QDs funktionelle Bauelemente in hochintegrierten rein optischen Architekturen jenseits der viel diskutierten nichtklassischen Konzepte darstellen können, insbesondere als optische Polarisationskonverter und/oder -modulatoren. Weiterhin wird der Exziton-Pseudospinformalismus in Untersuchungen zur optischen Ausrichtung in QDs genutzt und gezeigt, wie so die anders nicht direkt messbare Symmetrieverteilung eines Ensembles von QDs detektiert werden kann. Diese Messungen stellen ein wertvolles Bindeglied zwischen optischen und strukturellen Untersuchungen dar, da sie einen direkten experimentellen Zugang zum mit topologischen Methoden nicht einsehbaren Anordnungsverhalten eingekapselter QDs liefern. Abschließend wird die optische Anisotropie unter Anlegung eines Magnetfeldes in der QD-Ebene untersucht. Dabei wird beobachtet, dass die Achse der linearen Polarisation der Lumineszenzstrahlung entweder entgegengesetzt zur Magnetfeldrichtung in der Probenebene rotiert oder fest entlang einer gegebenen kristallographischen Achse orientiert ist. Eine qualitative Auswertung der Ergebnisse auf der Basis des exzitonischen Pseudospin-Hamiltonian belegt, dass diese Polarisationsanteile durch isotrope und anisotrope Beiträge des Schwerloch Zeeman Terms begründet werden, wobei die anisotropen Anteile für ein kritisches Magnetfeld von B=0, 4 T gerade die forminduzierten uni-axialen Polarisationsanteile kompensieren, so dass ein optisches Verhalten resultiert, das man für hochsymmetrische QDs erwarten würde. Zur quantitativen Beschreibung wurde der vollständige k.p-Hamiltonianin der Basis der Schwerlochexzitonzustände numerisch ausgewertet und damit die optische Polarisation als Funktion der Magnetfeldstärke und -orientierung berechnet. Die Modellrechnungen stimmen mit die gemessenen Daten im Rahmen der experimentellen Unsicherheit mit einem jeweils probenspezifischen Parametersatz quantitativ überein. Dabei wird gezeigt, dass ein Ensemble von QDs ein optisches Signal, das man für hochsymmetrisches QDs erwarten würde, erzeugen kann ohne dass eine Symmetrisierung der hellen Exzitonzustände stattfindet, wie sie für nicht-klassische Anwednungen notwendig ist. Daraus ergibt sich, dass Konzepte, die Magnetfelder in der Probenebene zur Symmetrisierung des optischen Signals nutzen, mindestens die vier stark durchmischten Schwerlochexzitonzusände berücksichtigen müssen und eine Beschreibung, die nur die beiden hellen Exzitonzustände in Abwesenheit magnetischer Felder beinhaltet, zu kurz greift. Für die kontrovers geführte Diskussion bezüglich aktueller experimenteller Studien zur Erzeugung polarisationsverschränkter Photonen in asymmetrischen QDs ist daher zu verstehen, dass von solch einer vereinfachten Beschreibung nicht a priori erwartet werden kann, verlässliche Ergebnisse in Bezug auf exzitonische Bellzustände zu erzeugen. / Semiconductor Quantum Dots (QDs) have been attracting immense interest over the last decade from both basic and application-orientated research because of their envisioned use as fundamental building blocks in non-classical device architectures. Their presumable ease of integration into existing semiconductor technology has bought them the reputation of being cost-efficiently scalable and renders them a place among the top candidates in a wide range of proposed quantum logic and quantum information processing schemes. These include the highly acclaimed use of QD as triggered sources of single pairs of entangled photons, which is a key ingredient of most of the intensivly investigated optical quantum cryptography operations. A big obstacle towards these goals are the pronounced asymmetries that are intrinsically present in all currently availabe semiconductor QD systems. They are a natural by-product that stems from the employed self-assembled growth methods and manifest in various forms such as shape-asymmetry, inhomogeneous strain distribution within the QD and concomittant piezo-elecric fields. These asymmetries in return give rise to distinct anisotropies in the optical properties of QDs, which in fact render their optical response classic. For device oriented research these anisotropies are therefore typically considered unwanted and actively researched to be controlled. They are, however, interesting from a fundamental point of view, as anisotropic QDs basically provide a testbed system for fundamental atom-like quantum physics with non-centrosymmetric potentials. As shall be shown in the current work, this gives rise to novel and interesting physics in its own right. Employing photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) we investigate the optical anisotropy of the radiative recombination of excitons confined to CdSe/ZnSe QDs. This is done by angle-dependent polarization-resolved PL. We demonstrate experimentally that the electron-hole exchange interaction in asymmetric QDs gives rise to an effective conversion of the optical polarization from linear to circular and vice versa. The experiment is succesfully modeled in the frame of an exciton pseudospin-formalism that is based on the exchange induced finestructure splitting of the radiative excitonic states and unambiguously proves that the observed polarization conversion is the continuous-wave equivalent to quantum beats between the exchange split states in the time domain. These results indicate that QDs may offer extended functionality beyond non-classical light sources in highly integrated all-optical device schemes, such as polarization converters or modulators. In a further extension we apply the exciton pseudospin-formalism to optical alignment studies and demonstrate how these can be used to directly measure the otherwise hidden symmetry distribution over an ensemble of QDs. This kind of measurement may be used on future optical studies in order to link optical data more directly to structural investigations, as it yields valuable information on capped QDs that cannot be looked at directly by topological methods. In the last part of this work we study the influence of an in-plane magnetic field on the optical anisotropy. We find that the optical axis of the linear polarization component of the photoluminescence signal either rotates in the opposite direction to that of the magnetic field or remains fixed to a given crystalline direction. A qualitative theoretical analysis based on the exciton pseudospin Hamiltonian unambiguously demonstrates that these effects are induced by isotropic and anisotropic contributions to the heavy-hole Zeeman term, respectively. The latter is shown to be compensated by a built-in uniaxial anisotropy in a magnetic field B=0.4 T, resulting in an optical response that would be expected for highly symmetric QDs. For a comprehensive quantitative analysis the full heavy-hole exciton k.p-Hamiltonian is numerically calculated and the resulting optical polarization is modeled. The model is able to quantitatively describe all experimental results using a single set of parameters. From this model it is explicitly seen that a optical response characteristic for high symmetry QDs may be obtained from an ensemble of asymmetric QDs without a crossing of the zero-field bright exciton states, which was required for application of QDs in non-classical light sources. It is clearly demonstrated that any scheme using in-plane magnetic fields to symmetrize the optical response has to take into account at least four optically active states instead of the two observed in the absence of magnetic fields. These findings may explain some of the major disagreement on recent entanglement studies in asymmetric QDs, as models that do not take the above result into account cannot be a priori expected to provide reliable results on excitonic Bell states.

Vi lever idag i en allt mer globaliserad värld där människor reser mer än någonsin. Svenska flygresenärer släpper ut fem gånger mer koldioxid jämfört med andra världsmedborgare. Trots en bra kännedom om miljöproblem bland individer och ett ökat intresse för grönare produkter reflekteras det inte från konsumenternas livsstil. Syftet med denna undersökning är att ta reda på orsakerna till gapet mellan människors attityder och beteenden. För att undersöka ämnet genomfördes sex stycken små fokusgruppsintervjuer för att samla information om orsakerna till gapet på ett djupgående sätt. Studien påvisade att individer väljer att bortse från ett miljövänligt beteende på grund olika faktorer som bland annat pris, tid, lathet, brist på personligt ansvarstagande och rättfärdigande av resor. Tiden var en avgörande faktor för de flesta deltagarna som meddelade att de ville snabbt komma fram till sina destinationer. De rättfärdigade sina flygresor genom att de förövrigt i deras vardag tycke att de beter sig på ett miljövänligt sätt eller att Sverige som land redan gör mycket för miljön och att de på så sätt kan rättfärdiga sitt flygande. Det framgick även av fokusgrupperna att trots deltagarnas miljötänkt var det inget som prioriterades i vardagen. För att människor ska engagera sig i miljöfrämjande åtgärder är det viktigt att gröna produkter uppfyller samma egenskaper som vanliga produkter i form av exempelvis pris och kvalitet. Detta eftersom människor inte är villiga att ändra sin livsstil på grund av bekvämlighet och eftersom beteenden är svåra att forma om det inte finns rätt förutsättningar för det.

Thesis advisor: Vincent Cho / Rorrer, Skrla, and Scheurich (2008) proposed a theory that district leaders enact several essential roles when engaging in systemic reform that both improves achievement and equity. Their theory identified reshaping district culture as one of these essential functions in systemic reform.  This case study explored how leaders in one Massachusetts public school district, which has demonstrated signs of improving achievement and equity, attempted to reshape district culture.   Drawing primarily upon semi-structured interviews, this study found that while these leaders reported using a variety of methods to assess the culture, the district has limited systems-level thinking about their culture.  Similarly, these leaders each made their own choices amongst shaping strategies ranging from focusing on subgroup dynamics to empowering early followers. Recommendations include the development of additional training for leaders in the small group facilitation necessary to uncover shared underlying assumptions and the creation of a district-level common language concerning culture. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

India is becoming an important country in economic scene worldwide and will be the most populated country by 2050. With its fast-economic development, women’s place in society does not evolve at the same speed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the presence of gender inequalities in the accession to managerial occupation in the Indian labor market. A lot of studies have been conducted in European and North American countries, but there is not much about Asian countries. For this study, we used data from 2011 and find evidence of gender discrimination against women in their accession to managerial occupations and in terms of remuneration. This paper adds more literature about the gender gap in the Indian labor market and offers some tracks to solve India inequality issues on the labor market. Also, limitations regarding our work will be discussed.

Equality is part of the European policy and legislation. However there are still evident signs of women being treated unequally in the labour market. The aim of the thesis is to answer the question if women are more vulnerable to economic shocks in terms of wage distribution. The focus will be on women in Spain in the context of the financial crisis of 2008. The thesis examines the evolution of the salary structure in the period 2002-2014 using the microdata of the Structural Earning Survey. The taste-based and the statistical discrimination theory are going to be described in order to explain the causes of gender wage discrimination. The methods applied in this paper are the Mincer method, which explains the human capital theory and the Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions, which separates the gender wage gap into explained and unexplained parts. The results from the study suggest that there is a decrease in the gender wage gap in Spain following the situation before and after the crisis. / <p>Correction: Spring semester 2019</p>

A Aproximação de Massa Efetiva para a função evnvelope multi-componente, na presença de uma interface, desenvolvida por Marques e Sham, será utilizada aqui, para materiais de gap estreito do grupo II-VI, da seguinte maneira: A) A forte interação entre bandas de condução e valência, nestes materiais, é justificada em um Hamiltoniano de Kane (6x6) modificado, contendo todas as ondas de Bloch propagantes e evanescentes. Na presença de uma interface, a função de onda eletrônica, &#936, é composta de uma onda de Bloch incidente, uma refletida e duas evanescentes, com a mesma energia E e momento paralelo k. Já que a estrutura da maioria dos isolantes utilizados são desconhecidos, a interface semicondutor-isolante por ser considerada como uma barreira infinita, de modo que, &#936, se anule na interface. Existe uma fina região de espessura &#945 na interface, onde o decaimento das ondas evanescentes é indispensável. Distante desta região, as ondas evanescentes possuem um papel insignificante e eventualmente anulam-se. O limite de &#945 &#8594 0 determina as condições de contorno para cada componente da função de onda envelope na interface. B) As condições de contorno são usadas para computar a estrutura de subbandas e o potencial auto-consistente para o Hg1-xCdxTe. A mais interessante característica é o afastamento dos estados de spin duplamente degenerados. Estes resultados serão utilizados para encontrarmos a dependência da energia das subbandas com um campo magnético perpendicular à interface. C) A magneto-condutividade longitudinal é calculada como função do campo magnético B &#8869. Efeitos das interações elétron-elétron e elétrons-impureza são levadas em conta nas aproximações de Hartee-Foch e auto-consistente de Born, respectivamente. Para uma interação elétron-impureza finita, encontram-se fatores de preenchimentos críticos dos níveis de Landau, onde transições de fase são observadas. Estes resultados explicam as descontinuidades presentes, em medidas experimentais, na magneto-resistividade longitudinal e transversal (Hall), em MISFET de Hg (Cd)Te. / The Effective Mass Approximation for multi-component envelope wave function in the presence of an interface in the MOSFET system, developed by Marques and Sham, will be used here, for II-VI narrow-gap semiconductors, in the following way: A) The strong interaction between conduction and valence bands, in these materials, is justified. The (6x6) Kane type modified Hamiltonian is used and the total wave function contains every propagating and evanescent waves. For an interface, the total function, &#936, is composed of one incident and one reflected and two evanescent Bloch waves, with energy E and parallel wave-vector k. Since the band structure of the most used insulators is usually not well known, the insulator-semiconductor interface can be assumed as an infinite barrier; therefore, the total wave-function there can set to zero. The semiconductor evanescent Bloch waves are indispensable in a thin layer, of thickness &#945, close to this region. Far away from the interface their role are insignificant and can be neglected. In the limit &#945 &#8594 0, the boundary condition for each the limit the total Bloch wave function, are derived. B) These boundary conditions are used to calculate the self-consistent electric subband and potential for MISFET of Hg1-xCdxTe. The subbands present a very important spin splitting, due to the internal electric field. C) The effect of a perpendicular magnetic field is also studied and the longitudinal magneto-conductivity are calculated. The effect of electron-electron and electron-impurity interactions are respectively accounted for in the Hartee-Fock and self-consistent Born approximations. For critical electron-impurity interaction, the Landau level filling shows a phase transition at a given fractional occupation (or magnetic field). These results are experimentally observed in both longitudinal and transverse (Hall) magneto-resistance for Hg(Cd)Te.

Thesis advisor: Robert Murphy / This study proposes several causes that may explain why NCAA Division I athletes graduate at a lower rate than regular students. The main tradeoff that I examine in this paper is how the academic quality of a school affects student-athletes’ chances of succeeding relative to the rest of the student body. We pinpoint the underlying causes of this graduation gap between regular students and student-athletes, leading us to suggest policies to improve the future academic success of NCAA athletes. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Lowenhaupt / Leading discussions in education today center on closing academic achievement gaps and it is widely believed that school districts are responsible for creating the conditions for all students to be successful in school. Recent state and federal policies place demands on central office administrators to help schools improve, which has resulted in a shift in the work of central office administrators. As central office administrators shift work practices to help schools develop their capacity for improving teaching and learning, they need to collaborate to build new and collective knowledge. This qualitative case study describes the collaboration of one central office administrator team when working to support historically marginalized populations. It is one section of a larger research project on how central office administrators organize their work in support of historically marginalized populations. Two research questions guided this study: (1) How do communities of practice emerge within the central office when working to improve outcomes for historically marginalized students? (2) What conditions foster or hinder administrator collaboration? Interviews, a document review, and an observation were used to answer the research questions. Findings suggest that structures in the district existed that both support and hinder collaboration of central office administrators. Time to collaborate and tools used provided structural support for collaboration. The organizational structure of the central office and limited authority to make decisions hindered efforts at collaboration. To better understand how communities of practice emerge, I focused on two specific elements, joint enterprise and learning in practice. The joint enterprise of central office administrators related broadly to improving outcomes for all students, however there were limitations to the extent that joint enterprise existed in the district. Further, there were instances in which learning in practice seemed to occur in the district, however an implementation orientation and overreliance on prior knowledge limited adult learning, at least at the central office level. Collaboration is held up as an improvement strategy for schools and districts, yet there is limited research on central office administrator collaboration. This study contributes to the body of research on central office administrator collaboration, specifically those working in support of historically marginalized populations. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

In Drosophila melanogaster, the GFS is synaptically coupled to the Tergotrochanteral motoneurons; these neurons form a signaling pathway from the brain to the jump muscles (Thomas and Wyman, 1983). Part of this signaling is done through gap junctions, and placement of these gap junctions was partially shown to be regulated by the binding of Netrin, a class of guidance molecule (Orr et al., 2014). In the present study we investigate the role of Netrin's receptor Frazzled in the placement of gap junctions in Drosophila at: 1) Presynaptic neurons (Giant Fibers [GF]), 2) Postsynaptic neurons (Tergotrochanteral motoneurons [TTMn]), and 3) Presynaptic + Postsynaptic neurons simultaneously. Effects of Frazzled were tested using Frazzled RNAi and a combination of electrophysiological recordings and imaging of the GF-TTMn synapse. The results from this study show that presynaptic and postsynaptic knockdown of Frazzled delayed muscular responses and altered the anatomy of both the GF's and TTMn's. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection