Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / Understanding determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Agricultural Foreign Direct Investment (AGFDI) is vital to policy makers in developing countries. FDI is a source of capital for the host country that does not affect its debt balance. Even so, technological spillover, better infrastructure as well as an increase in value added and market access have been the source of motivation to increase efforts to attract FDI. As for AGFDI, ongoing uncertainty with the financial markets created a shift in private investment towards tangible assets, which favors AGFDI to developing countries. Nevertheless, investment in agriculture suffers from low commodity prices and increasing productivity loss that discourage FDI and AGFDI. Therefore, it is crucial for policy makers to understand the determinants of AGFDI to create an attractive environment for potential investors. We use country level panel data to estimate the impacts of country-level economic and social variables on FDI and AGFDI. The data consist of 22 developing countries. A subsample of 13 Latin American countries is also studied. Country and year fixed effects are used to isolate the impacts of the explanatory variables on FDI and AGFDI. The explanatory variables wer constructed to avoid contemporaneous endogeneity. FDI determinants are consistent with previous studies and confirm traditional variables such as economy size, infrastructure and trade openness encourage FDI. A new variable that measures energy imports as a share of total energy use was negative for both main samples of FDI. The results of the Latin American panel for AGFDI, were mostly consistent with FDI determinants. Infrastructure, energy imports and economy size, as well as forestland share and agricultural value-add were statistically significant for the amount of investment inflow and total flow respectively. Further analysis with larger samples is necessary to confirm findings. Also, social and environmental impacts of AGFDI should be included in future studies.

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The three essays of this thesis consider a firm’s choice of advertising campaign when advertising may be conditioned on the preferences of individual consumers. In essay one, I show that a monopolist will use such advertising to turn sub-marginal consumers, who are not quite willing to pay for the good, into marginal consumers who are indifferent to paying for the good or going without it. The second essay considers the use of targeted advertising in duopoly, when one of the firms does not have access to advertising. I find that advertising will target those consumers most likely to switch to the non-advertising firm. Each firm sets a price just high enough to capture the consumers on either side of the advertising 'barrier’. The third essay looks at targeted advertising in the context of Canadian public health. When the goals of government and industry are aligned, advertising by the firm may be an alternative superior to government advertising in the form of a public health education campaign. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

The increase in number of banks entering the South African banking sector has caused the big four banks to lose their market share to the new entrants. As a result, the new entrants in this sector have also had negative effects on the existing banks’ sales growth and net profits. Business banking, in particular, has been one of the departments which has become competitive as it is considered to generate the most revenue from all the different bank departments. Business clients have been targeted as their fees are high compared to normal individual clients and also, their investment sizes are big compared to individuals, hence the increased interest in this section. This then prompts the question, what are the factors influencing sales growth in business banking? This question then brings one to the following sub-problems: Is the pricing offered by the various banks to their business bank customers competitive enough to retain them?; How competent and knowledgeable is the staff dealing with business bank customers in ensuring good relationships with business banking clients?; is the technology used by the banks advanced enough to address the banking requirements of business banking customers? Are business banking customers loyal to their respective banks to ensure repetitive sales? In dealing with the above, the author undertook a research study to determine whether factors such as competitive pricing, competent staff, advanced technology and customer loyalty influence sales growth in business banking in Buffalo City Municipality “BCM”. The sample of 90 business banking customers who were given questionnaires to test the above were from a population of business banking customers in BCM. The author underwent a theoretical and an empirical investigation using the survey method through questionnaires. These questionnaires were distributed to the various financing institutions dealing with business banking clients. The findings of the empirical study suggest that through the use of the hypothesis test, it was concluded that of the four factors, advanced technology and customer loyalty influence sales growth in business banking in BCM. While pricing and competent staff do not influence sales revenue growth.

The regioselectivity in Pd(0)-catalyzed direct arylation of pyrrole, thiophene, and indole can be improved by blocking some of the reactive sites with a chloride group, leading to increased yields of the desired regioisomers. Competition experiments and computational studies show that the blocking group also activates the substrates toward arylation. Due to the activated nature of chlorinated heteroaromatics, rare and sought after regioisomers, such as 3-arylthiophenes, can be obtained under mild conditions in good yields. Chlorine-bearing thiophenes arylated at C3 and C4 have the potential to undergo controlled regioregular polymerization under conditions developed in the field of polythiophene chemistry. Mechanistic studies support the hypothesis that the arylation of the substrates under investigation likely proceeds via the CMD transition state.

Higher temperature (~ 200°C) operation for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells would have several advantages including enhanced electrochemical kinetics, useful heat recovery, and improved catalyst tolerance for contaminants. Conventional perfluorosulfonic acid membranes (PFSA), such as Nafion show a dramatic decrease in proton conductivity at temperatures above 80°C. For this reason, there has been an increasing effort toward the development of stable, higher temperature membranes with acceptable proton conductivity. This work is directed toward the development of Nafion free membranes for direct hydrocarbon PEM fuel cells containing zirconium phosphate as the proton conductor component. Hence, composite membranes composed of zirconium-phosphate (ZrP), a solid proton conductor, which was precipitated within the voids of a porous polytetraflouroethylene (PTFE) support were synthesized. Amorphous-like zirconium phosphate (ZrP) powder was synthesized in this work. ZrP was prepared by precipitation at room temperature via reaction of ZrOCl2 with H3PO4 aqueous solutions. The proton conduction properties of ZrP powder were studied under the processing conditions found in direct hydrocarbon fuel cell. Our experimental results showed that the ZrP powder processed at 200°C possess a proton conductivity that is greater by one order of magnitude than the oven-dried samples at 70°C. Thereby, it was possible to avoid the normal decrease in conductivity with increasing temperature by having sufficient water in the vapor phase. This thesis reports the first synthesis of composite ZrP/PTFE/Glycerol (GLY) membranes. Glycerol (GLY) was introduced into the pores of PTFE with the ZrP proton conductive material using the successive wetting/drying technique. These membranes had reasonable values of proton conductivities (0.045 S cm-1), approaching that of Nafion (0.1 S cm-1) at room temperature. Samples of these composite membranes were processed at the inlet conditions of a propane fuel cell, at 200°C. Experimental results showed that the proton conductivity remained almost unchanged. This thesis also describes and reports the first synthesis of sulphur “S” or silicon, Si–modified zirconium phosphate (ZrP), porous polytetrafluoethylene (PTFE) and, glycerol (GLY) composite membranes. It was aimed at the substitution of a minor amount of phosphorus “P” in the ZrP by (S or Si) in the ZrP to modify the proton conduction properties. The modification was performed by adding a certain amount of silicic acid or sulphuric acid into phosphoric acid then proceeding with the precipitation in situ. A high proton conductivity, of 0.073 S cm-1,i.e. 73% of that of Nafion, was observed for the Si–ZrP/PTFE/GLY composite membrane.

Direct capture of CO2 from ambient air is a developing technology, which is capable of removing CO2 directly from the atmosphere. Moreover, this technology is independent from sources of CO2 emissions. Hence, it can be set up at locations where pure stream of CO2 is needed such as in enhanced oil recovery. In this research, the performance of pelletized and natural limestone for CO2 capture from air in a fixed bed is studied. To compare the performance of sorbents for air capture, the effects of particle type (natural limestone and pelletized limestone), particle size (250-425 µm and 425-600 µm), gas flowrate (0.5 L/min and 1 L/min), and relative humidity, on the breakthrough time, breakthrough shape, and the global reaction rate are examined. Moreover, carbonation decay of sorbents over series of capture and regeneration cycles is studied. If the inlet stream (air) is humidified at 50% relative humidity, but the lime sorbents are not pre-hydrated, an axially non-uniform carbonated bed results. This phenomenon is due to the partial carbonation of sorbents at the first layers of the bed. While there is a competition between CO2 and water to react with CaO, partial carbonation reaction on the surface of the sorbents not only prevents further hydration, but also decreases the reaction rate at the surface. However, in comparison with a dry system where relative humidity was negligible and sorbents were not pre-hydrated, the observed carbonation conversion was higher. The best results were seen from experiments with pre-hydrated sorbents and humidified inlet stream. The smaller sorbent particles had a better performance (sharper breakthrough curve and longer breakthrough time) due to their greater surface area. A gas-solid reaction model was fitted to the breakthrough curves. Since at the beginning of carbonation there is no resistance of the product layer, it can be assumed that the process is reaction controlled. While after formation of the product layer (CaCO3), it becomes diffusion controlled. Results from fitted data also confirmed these conclusions. Moreover, each of sorbent went through 9 cycles and after each cycle the carbonation conversion of the sorbents was measured by TGA and the surface area by BET.

The main topic of my dissertation is a referendum as an instrument of direct democracy. Czech Republic is one of the latest country to have joined the European Union, whose constitutional system does not have modification of a nationwide referendum. The aim of this work was to evaluate the approach and the content of government's draft of the constitutional law for the nationwide referendum presented as a Parliamentary Document No. 559, in comparison with its regulation in selected European countries. The author establishes several basic criteria which are mainly concluded through analysis and comparison. The results indicate we cannot expect any significant step forward in terms of civil participation and qualitative democratic progress in proposals describe above.

Incidence and prevalence of obesity is increasing worldwide. According to current trends, there is a high risk of pandemy of obesity in 21. century. WHO announced 1 bilion of obese people worldwide. In the majority of countries in Europe the prevalence of obesity is about 10-25%. Obesity has very negative impact on the public health, quality of life but also very high economic burden. The economic cost on obesity achieve 5% of teh whole healthcare cost in EU and 12% in the USA. Assumption of the direct and indirect cost was 32,8 bilion Euros in EU. It comes up to 0,3% of HDP. The aim of my analysis is to estimate direct cost on the healthcare in the direct connection with obesity in Czech Republic.

Diplomová práce je postavena na třech hlavních kapitolách, z nich první dvě se staly východiskem pro vytvoření třetí kapitoly a to projektu. První část práce je zaměřena na teoretické poznatky, které jsou spojené s tématem diplomové práce. Druhá část práce je věnována analýze jednotlivých faktorů, jež ovlivňují rozhodování zahraničních investorů při vstupu do České republiky. Analýza je zaměřena na faktor lidských zdrojů, infrastruktury, surovin a připravenosti území, státní regulace, finančních a výrobních trhů. Východiskem této analýzy je SWOT analýza, stanovení silných a slabých stránek a také příležitostí a hrozeb, týkajících se České republiky. V této části práce je zhodnocena i práce agentury CzechInvest a systém investičních pobídek. Analytická část se stala východiskem pro třetí část práce, kde je navržena soustava opatření vedoucí ke zvýšení atraktivity České republiky pro vstup zahraničních investorů. Projektová část práce vychází jak z teoretických tak i z analytických poznatků, které vedly ke stanovení navržených opatření.