<p>The long-term external financing of a corporation is satisfied through the bond market where issues of index-linked bonds, which are discussed in this thesis, is one alternative. (Finnerty&Emery 2001) An index- linked bond is a debt instrument where the investor is guaranteed the principal and premium amount in real terms. As the bonds cash flows are indexed to the inflation this implies that the issuer of an index-linked bond assumes an inflation risk. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and examine corporate motives for choosing index-linked bonds as way of financing their business. Realization: Primary data was collected through interviews with corporate issuers of non-swapped index-linked bonds. Results: From our research it has been acknowledged that both internal and external factors determine the decision to issue index-linked bonds. The most important internal reason for the issuance was that this type of financing implies matching advantages, which helps lowering the companies’ risks. This is achieved by balancing the size and time of the cash inflows with the cash out- flows. Of the external factors we found that it is primary the financing cost that is of interest. The cost savings are primarily achieved because of the lower liquidity premium demanded when using index-linked bonds as a way of financing the business. We believe that this depends partly on the character of the investors and on market imperfections.</p>

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Mathematics / Yan S. Soibelman / The motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory of 2-dimensional Calabi-Yau categories can be induced from the theory of 3-dimensional Calabi-Yau categories via dimensional reduction. The cohomological Hall algebra is one approach to the motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants. Given an arbitrary quiver one can construct a double quiver, which induces the preprojective algebra. This corresponds to a 2-dimensional Calabi-Yau category. One can further construct a triple quiver with potential, which gives rise to a 3-dimensional Calabi-Yau category. The critical cohomological Hall algebra (critical COHA for short) is defined for a quiver with potential. Via the dimensional reduction we obtain the cohomological Hall algebra (COHA for short) of the preprojective algebra. We prove that a subalgebra of this COHA consists of a semicanonical basis, thus is related to the generalized quantum groups. Another approach is motivic Hall algebra, from which an integration map to the quantum torus is constructed. Furthermore, a conjecture concerning some invariants of 2-dimensional Calabi-Yau categories is made. We investigate the correspondence between the A∞-equivalent classes of ind-constructible 2-dimensional Calabi-Yau categories with a collection of generators and a certain type of quivers. This implies that such an ind-constructible category can be canonically reconstructed from its full subcategory consisting of the collection of generators.

<p> This dissertation examines explicit and implicit conceptualizations of time and history in four contemporary Canadian novels: Allan Donaldson's Maclean, Joy Kogawa's Obasan, Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, and Lee Maracle's Daughters are Forever. Performing close textual analysis from a posture of 'deliberate empathy,' the author identifies several key textual devices and concepts that signal the texts' alternate ideas about time and history. These include temporal simultaneity, historical multiplicity, and the presence of the past. Drawing on critical work from fields including literary theory, globalization and cultural studies, indigenous studies and anthropology, the author investigates the political significance of the texts' different historical and temporal models. She argues that the way individuals and cultures understand time and history bears significant influence on the ways in which they understand their ethical relationships with and responsibility toward the world around them. The dissertation closes with a call for further engagement with questions of temporality and for continued efforts to link pedagogical activity to struggles for human rights. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Toric varieties are a class of geometric objects with a combinatorial structure encoded in polytopes. P1 x P2 is a well known variety and its polytope is the triangular prism. Studying the symmetries of the triangular prism and its truncations can lead to symmetries of the variety. Many of these symmetries permute the elements of the cohomology ring nontrivially and induce nontrivial relations. We discuss some toric symmetries of P1 x P2, and describe the geometry of the polytope of the corresponding blowups, and analyze the induced action on the cohomology ring. We exhaustively compute the toric symmetries of P1 x P2.

We study the equivariant cohomology of moduli spaces of objects in the derived category of elliptic surfaces in order to find new examples of infinite dimensional quantum integrable systems and their geometric representation theoretic interpretation in enumerative geometry. This problem is related to a program to understand the cohomological and K-theoretic Hall algebras of holomorphic symplectic surfaces and to understand how it related to the Donaldson-Thomas theory of threefolds fibered in those surfaces. We use the theory of noncommutative deformations of Poisson surfaces and especially van den Berg’s noncommutative P1 bundles as well as Rains’s analysis of moduli theory for quasi-ruled noncommutative surfaces as well as the theory of Bridgeland stability conditions and their relative versions to understand equivariant deformations and birational transformations of Hilbert schemes of points on equivariant elliptic surfaces. The moduli spaces are closely related to elliptic versions of classical integrable systems. We also use these moduli spaces to construct vertex algebra representations of extensions of toroidal extended affine algebras on their equivariant cohomology, building on work of Eswara-Rao–Moody–Yokonuma, of Billig, and of Chen–Li–Tan on vertex representations of toroidal algebras, full toroidal algebras, and toroidal extended affine algebras. Using Fourier-Mukai transforms and their relative action on families of dg-categories we study the relationship between automorphisms of toroidal extended affine algebras and families of derived equivalences on dg categories, in particular finding a relativistic (difference) generalization of the Laumon-Rothstein deformation of the Fourier-Mukai duality. Finally, using the above analysis we extend the construction of Maulik–Okounkov’s stable envelopes to moduli of framed torsionfree sheaves on noncommutative surfaces in some cases and use this to study coproducts on associated algebras assigned to elliptic surfaces with applications to understanding new representation theoretic structures in the Donaldson-Thomas theory of local curves.

We use toric symmetry and blowups to study relationships in the Gromov-Witten theories of $\mathbb{P}^3$ and $\mathbb{P}^1\!\times\!\mathbb{P}^1\!\times\!\mathbb{P}^1$. These two spaces are birationally equivalent via the common blowup space, the permutohedral variety. We prove an equivalence of certain invariants on blowups at only points of $\mathbb{P}^3$ and $\mathbb{P}^1\!\times\!\mathbb{P}^1\!\times\!\mathbb{P}^1$ by showing that these invariants descend from the blowup. Further, the permutohedral variety has nontrivial automorphisms of its cohomology coming from toric symmetry. These symmetries can be forced to descend to the blowups at just points of $\mathbb{P}^3$ and $\mathbb{P}^1\!\times\!\mathbb{P}^1\!\times\!\mathbb{P}^1$. Enumerative consequences are discussed.

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Dans cette thèse nous étudions des questions de stabilité géométrique pour des variétés kähleriennes à courbure scalaire constante (cscK) avec classe de cohomologie transcendante. En tant que point de départ, nous introduisons des notions généralisées de K-stabilité, étendant une image classique introduite par G. Tian et S. Donaldson dans le cadre des variétés polarisées. Contrairement à la théorie classique, ce formalisme nous permet de traiter des questions de stabilité pour des variétés kähleriennes compactes non projectives ainsi que des variétés projectives munis de polarisations non rationnelles. Dans une première partie, nous étudions les rayons sous-géodésiques associés aux configurations tests dites cohomologiques, objets introduitent dans cette thèse. Nous établissons ainsi des formules fondamentales pour la pente asymptotique d'une famille de fonctionnelles d'énergie, le long de ces rayons géodésiques. Ceci est lié au couplage de Deligne en géométrie algébrique, et ce formalise permet en particulier de comprendre le comportement asymptotique d'un grand nombre de fonctionnelles d'énergie classiques en géométrie kählerienne, y compris la fonctionnelle d'Aubin-Mabuchi et la K-énergie. En particulier, ceci fournit une approche pluripotentielle naturelle pour étudier le comportement asymptotique des fonctionnelles d'énergie dans la théorie de K-stabilité. En s'appuyant sur cette première partie, nous démontrons ensuite un certain nombre de résultats de stabilité pour les variétés cscK. Tout d'abord, nous prouvons que les variétés cscK sont K-semistables dans notre sens généralisé, prolongeant ainsi un résultat dû à Donaldson dans le cadre projectif. En supposant que le groupe d'automorphisme est discret, nous montrons en outre que la K-stabilité est une condition nécessaire pour l'existence des métriques cscK sur des variétés kähleriennes compactes. Plus précisément, nous prouvons que la coercivité de la K-énergie implique la K-stabilité uniforme, ainsi généralisant des résultats de Mabuchi, Stoppa, Berman, Dervan et Boucksom-Hisamoto-Jonsson pour des variétés polarisées. Cela donne une preuve nouvelle et plus générale d'une direction de la conjecture Yau-Tian-Donaldson dans ce contexte. L'autre direction (suffisance de K-stabilité) est considérée comme l'un des problèmes ouverts les plus importants en géométrie kählerienne. Nous donnons enfin des résultats partiels dans le cas des variétés kähleriennes compactes qui admettent des champs de vecteurs holomorphes non triviaux. Nous discutons également autour des perspectives et applications de notre théorie de K-stabilité pour les variétés kähleriennes avec classe transcendante, notamment à l'étude des lieux de stabilité dans le cône de Kähler. / In this thesis we are interested in questions of geometric stability for constant scalar curvature Kähler (cscK) manifolds with transcendental cohomology class. As a starting point we develop generalized notions of K-stability, extending a classical picture for polarized manifolds due to G. Tian, S. Donaldson, and others, to the setting of arbitrary compact Kähler manifolds. We refer to these notions as cohomological K-stability. By contrast to the classical theory, this formalism allows us to treat stability questions for non-projective compact Kähler manifolds as well as projective manifolds endowed with non-rational polarizations. As a first main result and a fundamental tool in this thesis, we study subgeodesic rays associated to test configurations in our generalized sense, and establish formulas for the asymptotic slope of a certain family of energy functionals along these rays. This is related to the Deligne pairing construction in algebraic geometry, and covers many of the classical energy functionals in Kähler geometry (including Aubin's J-functional and the Mabuchi K-energy functional). In particular, this yields a natural potential-theoretic aproach to energy functional asymptotics in the theory of K-stability. Building on this foundation we establish a number of stability results for cscK manifolds: First, we show that cscK manifolds are K-semistable in our generalized sense, extending a result due to S. Donaldson in the projective setting. Assuming that the automorphism group is discrete we further show that K-stability is a necessary condition for existence of constant scalar curvature Kähler metrics on compact Kähler manifolds. More precisely, we prove that coercivity of the Mabuchi functional implies uniform K-stability, generalizing results of T. Mabuchi, J. Stoppa, R. Berman, R. Dervan as well as S. Boucksom, T. Hisamoto and M. Jonsson for polarized manifolds. This gives a new and more general proof of one direction of the Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture in this setting. The other direction (sufficiency of K-stability) is considered to be one of the most important open problems in Kähler geometry. We finally give some partial results in the case of compact Kähler manifolds admitting non-trivial holomorphic vector fields, discuss some further perspectives and applications of the theory of K-stability for compact Kähler manifolds with transcendental cohomology class, and ask some questions related to stability loci in the Kähler cone.