Abstract Authors:Stefan Harrå and Magnus Björk Advisor: Markku Penttinen Title: Accounting Consequences of the change in pension accounting Background to problem: When the revised IAS 19 comes into force January 1, 2013, it means that two of the three accounting principles for defined benefit pension plans are disappearing, including the corridor method. The corridor method has made it possible for companies to defer its actuarial gains and losses. Now that the corridor approach abolished then the unrecognized actuarial gains and losses immediately be covered by equity, which involves very large amounts of some companies. Why the amounts have grown so big is much because of the discount rate. The discount rate is a controversial parameter, and there is disagreement on how it should be fixed. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the accounting implications this will have for the company applied the corridor method, and if there is some parameters in the actuarial assumption that is more important than others. Methodology: The thesis has mainly been based on a qualitative research through qualitative interviews with a small sample that is affected by this change. There are quantitative elements to a greater depth by examining the annual reports, discount and deferred pension liabilities of the various companies. The approach is exploratory as it is a qualitative study and there was little knowledge of the subject before the work of it started. Therefore, a study of literature, regulations and previous research before the empirical study. This made it possible to gain a broader understanding of the subject and to shape relevant and essential interview questions. Conclusions: The conclusion shows that the largest accounting consequences for the companies in the study in conjunction with the change is that the unrecognized actuarial gains and losses will now be covered by equity and that the expected return on plan assets is based on the discount rate. The study also shows that it is the discount rate which is considered the most important parameter that the companies are looking at in the actuarial assumption. The conclusion also provides a shared sense of the true and fair picture of the companies after the revised IAS 19. Suggestions for further research: That after 2013 to study how the actual result of this rule change did this compare to the expected. Look at the problem of determining the discount rate. How will the IASB look at it if more and more begin to deviate from the standard? Keywords: "IAS 19", "IAS 19 revised", "corridor method", "pension accounting", "pension liabilities", "defined contribution plans", "actuarial assumptions", "actuarial gains and losses" and "discount rate".

Software radios (SWR) have been proposed for wireless communication systems to enable them to operate according to incompatible wireless communication standards by implementing most analog functions in the digital section on software-reprogrammable hardware. However, this significantly increases the required computations for SWR functionality, mainly because of the digital front-end computationally intensive filtering functions, such as sample rate conversion (SRC), channelization, and equalization. For increasing the computational efficiency of SWR systems, two new SRC methods with better performance than conventional SRC methods are presented. In the first SRC method, we modify the conventional CIC filters to enable them to perform SRC on slightly oversampled signals efficiently. We also describe a SRC method with high efficiency for SRC by factors greater than unity at which SRC in SWR systems may be computationally demanding. This SRC method efficiently increases the sample rate of wideband signals, especially in SWR base station transmitters, by applying Lagrange interpolation for evaluating output samples hierarchically using a low-rate signal that is computed with low cost from the input signal. A new channelizer/synthesizer is also developed for extracting/combining frequency multiplexed channels in SWR transceivers. The efficiency of this channelizer/synthesizer, which uses modulated perfect reconstruction (PR) filter banks, is higher than polyphase filter banks (when applicable) for processing few channels, and significantly higher than discrete filter banks for processing any number of variable-bandwidth channels where polyphase filter banks are inapplicable. Because the available methods for designing modulated PR filter banks are inapplicable due to the required number of subchannels and stopband attenuation of the prototype filters, a new design method for these filter banks is introduced. This method is reliable and significantly faster than the existing methods. Modulated PR filter banks are also considered for implementing a frequency-domain block blind equalizer capable of equalizing SWR signals transmitted though channels with long impulse responses and severe intersymbol interference (ISI). This blind equalizer adapts by using separate sets of weights to correct for the magnitude and phase distortion of the channel. The adaptation of this blind equalizer is significantly more reliable and its computational requirements increase at a lower rate compared to conventional time-domain equalizers making it efficient for equalizing long channels that exhibit severe ISI.

In our age in which the use of electronic devices is expanding all over the world, their reliability and miniaturization have become very crucial. The thesis is based on the study of one of the most frequent failure mechanisms in semiconductor packages, the delamination of interface or the separation of two bonded materials, in order to improve their adhesion and a fortiori the reliability of microelectronic devices. It focuses on the metal (-oxide) / polymer interfaces because they cover 95% of all existing interfaces. Since several years, research activities at mesoscopic scale (1-10µm) have proved that the more roughened the surface of the interface, i.e., presenting sharp asperities, the better the adhesion between these two materials. Because roughness exhibits extremely complex shapes, it is difficult to find a description that can be used for reliability analysis of interfaces. In order to investigate quantitatively the effect of roughness variation on adhesion properties, studies have been carried out involving analytical fracture mechanics; then numerical studies were conducted with Finite Element Analysis. Both were done in a deterministic way by assuming an ideal profile which is repeated periodically. With the development of statistical and stochastic roughness representation on the one hand, and with the emergence of probabilistic fracture mechanics on the other, the present work adds a stochastic framework to the previous studies. In fact, one of the Stochastic Finite Element Methods, the Perturbation method is chosen for implementation, because it can investigate the effect of the geometric variations on the mechanical response such as displacement field. In addition, it can carry out at once what traditional Finite Element Analysis does with numerous simulations which require changing geometric parameters each time. This method is developed analytically, then numerically by implementing a module in a Finite Element package MSc. Marc/Mentat. In order to get acquainted and to validate the implementation, the Perturbation method is applied analytically and numerically to the 3 point bending test on a beam problem, because the input of the Perturbation method in terms of roughness parameters is still being studied. The capabilities and limitations of the implementation are outlined. Finally, recommendations for using the implementation and for furture work on roughness representation are discussed.

Pfropfcopolymere definierter Architektur wurden auf Basis von drei neu synthetisierten multifunktionellen Kopplungsreagenzien mit N-Acyllactam- und Benzoxazinongruppen über zweistufige selektive Schmelzereaktionen erfolgreich synthetisiert. Dabei wurde die Selektivität der Schmelzereaktionen durch die Reihenfolge der Zugabe der funktionellen Ausgangsoligomere und die Temperatur kontrolliert. Die erhaltenen Pfropfcopolymere stellen thermoplastische Elastomere mit hoher Zugfestigkeit und zugleich hoher Dehnung dar.

This dissertation presents novel Harmonic Rejection (HR) Mixer architectures to obtain a high level of harmonic rejection. This is achieved by reducing the sensitivity to mismatches in devices operating at high frequencies. Consequently, the HR performance for this mixer architecture is primarily determined by resistor and capacitor matching at low intermediate frequencies (IF). Since large resistor areas can be used at relatively less power penalty in the low frequency IF section, superior HR performance is realized. A design fabricated in 110 nm CMOS process, rejects up to the fi rst 14 local oscillator (LO) harmonics and achieves 3rd, 5th and 7th HR ratios in excess of 52, 54 and 55 dB respectively, without any calibration or trimming. This mixer architecture also rejects flicker noise, has improved image rejection (IR) and second-order input-intercept-point (IIP2) performance. By using a clock N times the desired LO frequency, this scheme rejects the (N-1)th LO harmonic only by an amount of 20log(N-1) dB. A new technique is presented that enables better HR for the (N-1)th harmonic while preserving the level of rejection for other harmonics. This mixer fabricated in 55 nm standard CMOS process has a programmable number of 8, 10, 12 or 14 mixer phases and achieves an improvement of 29 dB for the (N-1)th harmonic while achieving 52 dB of rejection for the 3rd harmonic. It also rejects flicker noise and has an IIP2 performance of 68 dBm. The mixers presented in this dissertation set the state-of-the-art in HR performance for single-stage mixers with configurable number of phases without using any calibration or trimming. / text

The functionality provided by mobile devices such as cellular phones and tablets continues to increase over the years, with integration of an ever larger number of wireless standards within a given device. In several of these designs, each standard supported by a device requires its own IC receiver to be mounted on the device’s PCB. In multistandard and multimode radios, it is desirable to integrate all receivers onto the same IC as the digital processors for the standards, in order to reduce device cost and size. Ideally all the receivers should also share a single signal chain. Since each standard has its own requirements for linearity and noise figure, and each standard operates at a different RF carrier frequency, implementing such a receiver is very challenging. Such a receiver could be theoretically implemented using a broadband mixing receiver or by direct sampling by a high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC). Broadband mixing requires the use of a harmonic rejection mixer (HRM) or tunable band pass filter to remove harmonic mixing effects, which in the past have suffered from a large primary clock tuning range and high power consumption. However, direct sampling of the RF input requires a high-speed ADC with large dynamic range which is typically limited by clock timing skew, clock jitter, or harmonic folding. In this dissertation, techniques for programmable broadband radio receivers are proposed. A local oscillator (LO) synthesis method within HRMs is proposed which reduces the required primary clock tuning range in broadband receivers. The LO synthesis method is implemented in 130-nm CMOS. A clocking technique is introduced within the two-stage HRM, which helps in achieving state-of-the-art harmonic rejection performance without calibration or harmonic filtering. An analog frequency synthesis based broadband channelizer is proposed using the LO synthesis method which is capable of channelizing a broadband input using a single mixing stage and primary clock frequency. A frequency-folded ADC architecture is proposed which enables high-speed sampling with high dynamic range. A receiver based on the frequency-folded ADC architecture is implemented in 65-nm CMOS and achieves a sample rate of 2-GS/s, a mean 49-dB SNDR, and 8.5-dB NF. / text

We present the design, development, and test of three novel, distinct automatic target recognition (ATR) systems for the recognition of airplanes and, more specifically, non-cooperative airplanes, i.e. airplanes that do not provide information when interrogated, in the framework of passive bistatic radar systems. Passive bistatic radar systems use one or more illuminators of opportunity (already present in the field), with frequencies up to 1 GHz for the transmitter part of the systems considered here, and one or more receivers, deployed by the persons managing the system, and not co-located with the transmitters. The sole source of information are the signal scattered on the airplane and the direct-path signal that are collected by the receiver, some basic knowledge about the transmitter, and the geometrical bistatic radar configuration. The three distinct ATR systems that we built respectively use the radar images, the bistatic complex radar cross-section (BS-RCS), and the bistatic radar cross-section (BS-RCS) of the targets. We use data acquired either on scale models of airplanes placed in an anechoic, electromagnetic chamber or on real-size airplanes using a bistatic testbed consisting of a VOR transmitter and a software-defined radio (SDR) receiver, located near Orly airport, France. We describe the radar phenomenology pertinent for the problem at hand, as well as the mathematical underpinnings of the derivation of the bistatic RCS values and of the construction of the radar images.For the classification of the observed targets into pre-defined classes, we use either extremely randomized trees or subspace methods. A key feature of our approach is that we break the recognition problem into a set of sub-problems by decomposing the parameter space, which consists of the frequency, the polarization, the aspect angle, and the bistatic angle, into regions. We build one recognizer for each region. We first validate the extra-trees method on the radar images of the MSTAR dataset, featuring ground vehicles. We then test the method on the images of the airplanes constructed from data acquired in the anechoic chamber, achieving a probability of correct recognition up to 0.99.We test the subspace methods on the BS-CRCS and on the BS-RCS of the airplanes extracted from the data acquired in the anechoic chamber, achieving a probability of correct recognition up to 0.98, with variations according to the frequency band, the polarization, the sector of aspect angle, the sector of bistatic angle, and the number of (Tx,Rx) pairs used. The ATR system deployed in the field gives a probability of correct recognition of $0.82$, with variations according to the sector of aspect angle and the sector of bistatic angle.

Tyrimo tikslas – įvertinti neformaliojo ugdymo pedagogų profesinių kompetencijų raišką procese. Darbe iškeltas tikslas konkretizuojamas su šiais uždaviniais: atskleistos ir apibūdintos neformaliojo ugdymo institucijų pedagogų kompetencijų raiškos teorinės prielaidos, įvardintos ir išanalizuotos devynios neformaliojo ugdymo pedagogų kompetencijos:pedagoginis išprusimas, veiklos prognozavimas ir planavimas, ugdymo proceso organizavimas, pedagoginis bendravimas ir bendradarbiavimas, kūrybinė, asmeninė, edukacinė, socialinė ir profesinė. Remiantis Vyriausybės nutarimais, aptartos visos svarbiausios su nagrinėjama tema susijusios sąvokos, vadovaujantis švietimo sistemos lygių galimybių, kontekstualumo, veiksmingumo, tęstinumo principais, švietimo tikslais ir uždaviniais. Pagal iš anksto susidarytą tyrimų programą buvo atliktas diagnostinis tyrimas, įgyvendinti iškelti tyrimo programoje tikslas ir uždaviniai, sudaryti klausimynas, aprašai. Apklausti šimtas dvylika Vilniaus vaikų ir jaunimo klubų ir moksleivių namų pedagogų ir dvylika vadovų. Diagnostinio tyrimo duomenys atskleidė, kad daugelis neformaliojo ugdymo įstaigų pedagogų didelį dėmesį skiria kompetencijų plėtotei ir tobulinimui. Tyrimo rezultatai rodo, kad siekiant švietimo kokybės geresnių rezultatų, tobulinant veiklos planavimo, ugdymo proceso organizavimo, pedagoginio bendravimo ir bendradarbiavimo kompetencijas, pedagogams derėtų dažniau derinti savo veiklą su tėvais, kolegomis, ugdymo institucija, mokėti ir gebėti... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In the Thesis, the set object is concretized through the following tasks: the theoretical preconditions for the expression of competences of pedagogues of informal education institutions are disclosed and defined, nine competences of informal education pedagogues, such as pedagogical sophistication, prognostication and planning of the activities, organizing of the educational process, pedagogical communication and cooperation, creative, educational, social and professional competence, were identified and analyzed. On the base of decisions of the Government, all key concepts related to the subject under discussion were discussed upon, following the principles of equal opportunities, contextualises, efficiency and succession of the system of education as well as the objects and tasks of education. According to the previously developed programme of the investigation, the diagnostic investigation was carried out, the object and the tasks set in the programme were implemented, a questionnaire and descriptions were developed. One hundred and twelve pedagogues and twelve heads of Vilnius children and youth clubs and schoolchildren centers were interviewed. The data of the diagnostic investigation disclosed that a majority of pedagogues of informal education institutions pays a great attention to extension and improvement of their competences. The results of the investigation show that pedagogues should more frequently coordinate their activities with parents of the children as well... [to full text]

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This thesis comprises three studies on CEO compensation in the UK. It specifically examines the role of CEO defined-benefit pensions, compensation consultants and CEO stock options. Firstly, research on the role of executive pensions is still at a stage of infancy due to data difficulties (Sundaram and Yermack, 2007). By taking advantage of better disclosure requirements with the introduction of Directors’ Remuneration Report Regulations (DRRR) in 2002, this thesis examines the determinants and effects of CEO defined-benefit pensions. Consistent with rent extraction hypothesis (Bebchuk and Fried, 2005; Kalyta and Magnan, 2008), it finds that pensions are largely determined by CEO power over boards of directors. There is no evidence that pensions reduce the agency cost of debt as suggested by Edmans (2008) and Sundaram and Yermack (2007). Instead they increase the agency cost of equity by discouraging CEO risk-taking and reducing pay-performance relationship. Consistent with the argument in Gustman et al. (1994), Ippolito (1991) and Lazear (1990), this thesis also finds that pensions do bond a CEO to the firm she manages. Secondly, because of the lack of disclosure regarding compensation consultants used by companies, the empirical evidence is so far limited on how the practice of employing compensation consultants influences CEO pay. By taking advantage of better disclosure requirements since the publication of the DRRR (2002), this thesis examines the effect of using compensation consultants on CEO pay. Unlike Murphy and Sandino (2008), this thesis finds no evidence that firms use multiple pay consultants to justify or legitimize higher CEO pay. In light of the managerial power theory, this thesis instead finds that pay consultants are more concerned with the risk of losing business with their client firms. This latter finding explains why the use of pay consultants is associated with greater executive pay (see Armstrong, Ittner and Larcker, 2008; Cadman, Carter and Hillegeist, in press; Conyon, Peck and Sadler, 2009; Murphy and Sandino, 2008; Voulgaris, Stathopoulos and Walker, 2009). Thirdly, despite the importance of the issue, the existence of a link between the CEO stock options and earnings management is currently understudied in the UK. The UK context is appealing because of two distinctive corporate governance features that limit opportunistic earnings management. These are the absence of CEO duality in general (Cornett, Marcus, and Tehranian, 2008) and the increased outside director’s membership on boards since the publication of the Cadbury Report (1992) (Peasnell, Pope, and Young, 2000). By examining earnings management prior to stock option grant and exercise periods, this thesis adds to the study of Kuang (2008) that examines earnings management during stock option vesting periods. Overall, some evidence has been found that earnings are managed downwards prior to stock option grant periods. Consistent with the US-based studies, this thesis finds strong evidence of upward earnings management prior to a stock option exercise period. It shows that the UK’s distinctive governance features have not restrained opportunistic earnings management prior to stock option grants and exercises. In brief, this thesis provides some empirical evidence that the use of two pay components in the CEO pay package, namely, the defined-benefit pensions and stock options, do not necessarily promote CEO-shareholder interest alignment. The use of pay consultants in CEO pay-setting is also fraught with managerial influence. In support of the managerial power theory, I therefore suggest that these three factors can be abused by CEOs to extract excess compensation at the expense of shareholders. In this context, these three factors can themselves be considered as the sources of the agency cost. Future research might examine the mechanisms that can be deployed to govern the use of defined-benefit pensions, stock options and pay consultants in CEO pay design.