The main objective of this investigation was to study the influence of sex on extreme response style as measured by a semantic differential. The previous studies led to a general hypothesis formulated as follows. Normal males and females differ from each other with regard to their mean extreme response style scores with females having the greater extreme response scores on the semantic differential.

The problem of this study was to factor-analyze Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale and examine the factor structures of the scale for differences in the solutions obtained for the male and female groups. It was hypothesized that the Dogmatism Scale consists of several discriminable dimensions of the construct dogmatism and that these dimensions differ significantly for males and females. The dogmatism scale was administered to 186 male and 115 female college students. The male and female solutions yielded thirteen and sixteen orthogonal factors, respectively. Six male factors and eleven female factors were unique to their respective sex groups, indicating that the Dogmatism Scale is multidimensional and that significant sex differences are found when these dimensions are examined.

This thesis analyzes the trade liberalization implemented in the form of FTA between Peru and USA in 2009 and its effect on the welfare of different clusters of individuals. In the ambient of economy with high income inequities it evaluates the liberalization separately for different income-level samples. The research is based on the comparison of groups of individuals occupied in sectors that were already liberalized by other market opening tools before 2009 and groups recently affected by the FTA. The analysis is than accomplished on the household survey panel data covering the period between 2007 and 2010. The findings suggest the trade liberalization positively affected not only the wealthier population but also the poor, both from the category of individuals working in sectors producing for domestic consumption. The positive effect on export-oriented producers hasn't been approved.

Abstract Background: In the context of increasing globalization, more and more software engineers/managers work in foreign companies, and they are exposed to the culture of different countries. According to Hofstede's five cultural dimensions, culture can be divided into Individualism and Collectivism, Power Distance, Masculinity, Uncertainty avoidance, and Long-term orientation and short-term orientation. From extensive empirical research performed by Hofstede and his colleagues, we found that the cultural dimension scores of different countries are different, which shows that different countries have different cultures. Through study related papers, we find that cultural differences can affect the behavior of software engineers/managers, causing differences in the behavior of software engineers/managers, and some behavioral differences can make influences/misunderstandings between software engineers/managers. These influences/misunderstandings may have an impact on project progress and personal work during software development. Objectives: In this thesis, we want to understand the concrete behavioral differences in how software engineers/managers work caused by cultural differences. After getting these behavioral differences, we want to understand which influence or misunderstandings arise from the software engineers/managers' behavioral differences. Finally, we want to get some suggestions from software engineers/managers on how to prevent/solve these misunderstandings or influences, we summarized these suggestions to help them face people from Chinese or Scandinavian culture.   Methods: In this research, we used qualitative research. We chose a systematic literature review (SLR) to helped us answer which behavioral differences will be caused by cultural differences. Then we used questionnaire and interview the two survey methods to collect which influence or misunderstandings arise from the software engineers/managers' behavioral differences and some suggestions to help software engineers/managers to solve/prevent negative influence or misunderstandings. Results: Through systematic literature review, we have collected 26 papers, and classified the results from these 26 papers according to five cultural dimensions, summarizing and analyzing the behavioral differences between Chinese and Scandinavian software engineers/managers. Through questionnaires and interviews, we got 37 responses. For these responses, we use coding to classify the data, finally, we analyzed and list the influences/misunderstandings and suggestions. Finally we have collected 64 behavioral differences, 7 influences or misunderstandings, 15 preventive measures and 8 solutions to prevent or resolve these influence/misunderstanding. Conclusions: Our research has achieved research goals and answered research questions. Comparing the behavioral differences collected by SLR and survey, we found that survey responses can confirm that most of the behavioral differences in SLR studies experienced by Chinese and Scandinavian software engineers/managers. But there are some behavioral differences that don't appear in both the Survey and SLR data, this should be caused by the sample of our research is not large enough. For these behavioral differences, we found that respondents knew that there were cultural differences between Chinese and Scandinavian software engineers/managers. But not all respondents have been exposed to these behavioral differences. There are also individual differences in the impact of behavioral differences on software engineers/managers. We also found that the best way to solve/prevent these effects is to communicate more.

O regime de metas de inflação é uma estratégia de política monetária utilizada por inúmeros países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento que tem por objetivo ancorar as expectativas dos agentes econômicos quanto ao comportamento futuro da taxa de inflação. De acordo com a literatura sobre o tema, o regime de metas inflacionárias além de provocar efeitos positivos sobre a taxa de inflação das economias que o adotam, tende também a provocar melhoras sobre o comportamento do produto. O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar empiricamente os impactos da adoção do sistema de metas de inflação para a taxa de inflação e crescimento real do produto dos países, diferenciando os impactos entre os países desenvolvidos e os em desenvolvimento. Utilizando o grupo de países que adotam metas de inflação como o grupo de tratamento e os países que não adotam como grupo de controle, dois procedimentos metodológicos foram realizados: estimação por diferenças em diferenças e análise em painel. Os resultados da estimação por diferenças em diferenças não se mostraram robustos e assim a análise em painel foi realizada. Os resultados demonstram que a adoção do sistema de metas inflacionárias produz impactos significativos para a inflação e crescimento do produto dos países que o adotam. Para o caso dos países desenvolvidos a adoção do sistema de metas tende a elevar a taxa média de inflação assim como o crescimento do produto. Para os países em desenvolvimento, aqueles que adotam o regime tendem a apresentar médias de inflação e do crescimento do produto significativamente menores que os países que não adotam. Concluí-se que para os países em desenvolvimento existe um custo de manutenção do sistema de metas de inflação em termos de queda do crescimento do produto. Esse custo estaria relacionado à maior dificuldade enfrentada por tais países na construção de credibilidade, fazendo com que os mesmos sigam políticas monetárias restritivas e definam um desenho rígido para o regime de metas de inflação. / Inflation targeting is a monetary policy strategy used by several developed and developing countries which aims to link together the economic actors? expectation related to the future behaviour of the inflation rate. According to specialized literature, inflation targeting tends to bring an improvement over product behaviour, besides bringing positive effects over inflation rates of those countries that make use of it. The focal point of this dissertation is to empirically analyse the impacts caused by the adoption of inflation targeting system on countries? inflation rate and real GDP growth, distinguishing effects on developed countries from those on developing ones. Defining the group made of countries that do use inflation targeting as treatment group and the group made of countries that do no use it as control group, two methodological procedures were accomplished: differences-in-differences estimation and panel data analysis. As the results of differences-in-differences estimator did not seem robust, panel analysis was also consummated. These results showed that inflation targeting adoption causes significative impacts on inflation rate and GDP growth in countries that adopt it. In developed countries, the adoption of such monetary policy strategy tends to increase the mean inflation rate, which also occurs with the GDP growth. In the other hand, developing countries that adopted inflation targeting tend to present mean inflation rate and GDP growth substantially lower than developing countries that do not make use of it. Though, it is possible to conclude that exists a maintenance cost of inflation targeting system for developing countries regarding the loss in GDP growth. This cost could be related to the greater difficulty that these countries face when forming credibility, which forces them to follow restrictive monetary policies and also to define an strict outline for inflation targeting.

Diagnosing the sex of subadult skeletal material is a difficult task for bioarchaeologists and forensic anthropologists. Metric and nonmetric techniques have been tested utilizing both fetal (Boucher 1957, Weaver 1980) and juvenile (Loth and Henneberg 2001, Weaver 1980) skeletal remains. Some metric techniques show promise in estimating the sex of juvenile skeletons, but most are found to be lacking in adequate accuracies (Holcomb and Konigsberg 1995, Weaver 1980). Nonmetric techniques have been found to be more accurate, performing better than chance (Loth and Henneberg 2001, Mittler and Sheridan 1992, Weaver 1980). This study adds to this conversation, utilizing the Hamann-Todd Osteological Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, testing the accuracy of eight nonmetric traits of the subadult mandible and ilium for use in forensic investigations and bioarchaeological research. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Este trabalho visa contribuir para a compreensão dos incentivos que permeiam os agentes envolvidos no financiamento de campanhas eleitorais. Por meio de evidências empíricas reunidas a partir do contexto do financiamento de campanhas brasileiras, a compra de ações de empresas de capital aberto por parte do governo é analisada como possível mecanismo de compensação do financiamento de campanhas eleitorais. A análise é feita comparando a participação do governo no capital de sociedades anônimas doadoras e não doadoras de recursos para financiamento de campanhas usando o método de Diferenças em Diferenças. Por meio dessa metodologia, identificou-se, particularmente na eleição de 2010, um efeito positivo do financiamento eleitoral sobre o investimento do governo em ações de empresas financiadoras. / This study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the incentives that pervade agents involved in electoral campaign funding. By means of empirical evidence gathered from the Brazilian electoral financing context, government investment in stocks is analyzed as a possible compensation mechanism for electoral campaign financing. The study investigates government investments in stocks comparing corporations that have supported electoral campaigns and those that have not, by applying the Differences-in-Differences method. By this method, a positive effect of electoral financing on government investment in companies stocks was identified in the 2010 electoral cycle. However, the empirical tests suggest no effect in 2002 and 2006 elections.

Law, Helen. / "August 2010." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-84). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.i / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.v / LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES --- p.viii / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background of Study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research Problems and Objectives --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Layout of Thesis --- p.5 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1 --- Explaining the Gender Gap in Math Achievement: A Brief Overview of Previous Studies --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Gender Stratification Hypothesis --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- Role of Parents --- p.11 / Chapter 2.4 --- Role of Single-Sex Schooling --- p.12 / Chapter 2.5 --- Focus of this Study --- p.16 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- ROLE OF FAMILY BACKGROUND AND SINGLE-SEX SCHOOLING IN THE GENDER GAP IN MATH TEST SCORES IN SIXTEEN COUNTRIES --- p.18 / Chapter 3.1 --- Hypotheses --- p.18 / Chapter 3.2 --- Data and Method --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3 --- Results --- p.23 / Chapter 3.4 --- Discussion --- p.40 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- THE GENDER GAP IN MATH TEST SCORES IN ALL COUNTRIES PARTICIPATING IN PISA 2006 --- p.50 / Chapter 4.1 --- Data and Method --- p.51 / Chapter 4.2 --- Results --- p.57 / Chapter 4.3 --- Discussion --- p.63 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- CONCLUSION --- p.67 / Chapter 5.1 --- Summary of Findings --- p.67 / Chapter 5.2 --- Theoretical Implications --- p.69 / Chapter 5.3 --- Empirical Implications --- p.70 / Chapter 5.4 --- Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research --- p.71 / APPENDIX A: Description of dependent variables and student-level independent variables --- p.75 / APPENDIX B: Description of school-level independent variables --- p.76 / REFERENCES --- p.78

This research investigates the moderating effect of cultural differences between countries on the relationship between tenure and analyst accuracy. To investigate this research looks at the expected earnings per shares and the realised earnings per share from the shares included into the AEX, CAC, DAX and FTSE. The dataset consists of 466 analysts and 3.040 observations. The time period observed is 2015, 2016 and 2017. This research shows that there is no significant relationship between tenure and analyst accuracy. The results show that masculinity, individualism and long term orientation have a moderating effect on analyst accuracy. A practical implication is that managers could employ methods to change the work culture to increase analyst accuracy. An academic implication of this research is that culture should be included as a moderating factor in future analyst accuracy research.

This mixed-method study investigated the correlation of sound symbolic associations with age and gender by analyzing data from a national survey of 292 American English speakers. Subjects used 10 semantic differential scales to rate six artificial brand names that targeted five phonemes. Subjects also described the potential products they imagined these artificial brand names to represent. Quantitative analysis alone provided insufficient evidence to conclude that age or gender affect sound symbolism in American English. While 26 out of 60 scales showed a monotonic shift among the means of the three age groups, only three were statistically significant. The evidence of differences between genders was similarly weak; only five scales out of 60 showed a statistically significant difference when comparing genders. Analysis of the qualitative data, however, suggested both monotonic generational shifts as well as generational blips in sound-symbolic associations. Of particular interest is the possible influence of pop culture, fashions, and fads, and society's shifting focus from broadcast to narrowcast media. The implications of this research are relevant for both theory (empirical evidence for iconicity in language) and application (e.g., devising brand names that communicate particular attributes to specific demographics).