Innovation has been considered the critical driver behind economic growth and value creation for a long time. However, in order to achieve an innovative status, the commercializing of an invention is required by injecting capital and strategy. While capital comes in many forms, this thesis focuses on the field of venture capital and how this type of financial backing can be analyzed and managed. Herein, the company characteristics continuum is presented, where business model innovation and technological innovation represent the two extremities. The purpose was then to investigate if there are significant differences in the venture capitalists' investment models as one moves along the aforementioned continuum. Semi-structured interviews were used and interpreted independently by the authors, with respect to coding units, in order to enhance objectivity. The thesis mainly targeted the information technology industry, where analysis was conducted on four of the largest actors on the Nordic venture capital market. The Nordic focus, combined with the rapidly moving industry, resulted in that significant differences, in the venture capitalists' investment models, were identified; giving implications both for theory and practice. These differences were identified as stemming from the initially adopted risk profiles, which then affected all other areas of the investment models. / Innovation har länge ansetts vara den kritiska drivkraften bakom ekonomisk tillväxt och värdeskapande. Emellertid, för att uppnå en innovativ status, krävs kommersialisering av en uppfinning genom att tillföra kapital och strategi. Kapital existerar i flera olika former, dock fokuserar denna uppsats på området riskkapital, och hur denna typ av finansiell backning kan analyseras och hanteras. Häri presenteras kontinuumet för företagskaraktäristik, där innovation inom affärsmodeller och teknik representerar de två ändpunkterna. Syftet var att undersöka om det fanns signifikanta skillnader mellan riskkapitalisters investeringsmodeller, när ett företag rör sig längs det ovan nämnda kontinuumet. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer användes och tolkades oberoende av författarna, genom att använda kodord, för att förbättra objektiviteten. Uppsatsen berör främst företag inom industrin för informationsteknologi, där analys har gjorts på fyra av de största aktörerna inom marknaden för riskkapital i Norden. Ett Nordiskt fokus, kombinerat med en hastigt utvecklande industri, resulterade i att signifikanta skillnader, i riskkapitalisters investeringsmodeller, identifierades; vilket gav implikationer för både teori och praktik. Dessa skillnader identifierades att härstamma från de initialt anammade riskprofilerna, som sedan påverkade alla andra områden inom investeringsmodellen.

In this study I examine voter response at an interview level using a dataset of 7562 voter contacts (including responses and nonresponses) in the 2004 Utah Colleges Exit Poll. In 2004, 4908 of the 7562 voters approached responded to the exit poll for an overall response rate of 65 percent. Logistic regression is used to estimate factors that contribute to a success or failure of each interview attempt. This logistic regression model uses interviewer characteristics, voter characteristics (both respondents and nonrespondents), and exogenous factors as independent variables. Voter characteristics such as race, gender, and age are strongly associated with response. An interviewer's prior retail sales experience is associated with whether a voter will decide to respond to a questionnaire or not. The only exogenous factor that is associated with voter response is whether the interview occurred in the morning or afternoon.

This dissertation develops an exit strategy for missions, drawing upon the experience of the Wesleyan Church in Africa. This is approached in four sections: a literature review, a summary of Wesleyan mission work in Africa, a model for mission work that has been developed within the Wesleyan Church, and applications of the model. The model proposes five stages through which the work of missions progresses: the development of converts, disciples, pastors, leaders and partners. The fourth chapter includes a discussion of related models: the Three Eras of Missions and the Two Types of Missions. At the completion of the 5 Stages of Missions the establishment of a mature national church, fully engaged in international missions and international church leadership, has been achieved. This dissertation concludes that final departure may not be necessary for all missionaries. However, complete handover of leadership is essential. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th.

Ce mémoire s’intéresse aux expériences de femmes en processus de sortie de la prostitution. Il vise à comprendre les obstacles auxquels ces femmes sont confrontées pour pouvoir bénéficier d’interventions sociales accessibles et facilitant leur sortie de la prostitution. Cette recherche qualitative prend appui sur 11 entretiens individuels réalisés auprès de femmes âgées de 26 à 55 ans et habitant Montréal, les Laurentides et l’Abitibi. Bien que nombre de femmes aux prises avec la prostitution souhaitent en sortir, on compte peu d’interventions sociales pour les aider en ce sens. Les services publics sont largement insuffisants à la fois du point de vue de leur accessibilité et de leur réponse aux besoins de ces femmes. Peu d’études s’intéressent aux services d’aide à la sortie de la prostitution, notamment au Québec. Ce mémoire privilégie une perspective féministe abolitionniste et un cadre épistémologique de la théorie standpoint. Les résultats mettent en lumière les obstacles à l’accessibilité des interventions sociales, dont le cloisonnement des services et le refus manifeste d’offrir de l’aide aux femmes. Cette recherche rend compte également de l’expérience de pratiques d’intervention entravant le processus de sortie : 1) les pratiques punitives, 2) celles proposant une aide limitée aux femmes ou 3) leur adaptation à la prostitution. La conclusion de ce mémoire propose la mise en œuvre de pratiques sociales novatrices qui prennent en compte les contraintes sociales qui mènent les femmes à l’industrie du sexe et les y maintiennent ainsi que les conséquences de l’expérience même de la prostitution sur elles. / This thesis focuses on the experiences of women in the process of leaving prostitution. It aims to understand the barriers these women face in order to receive social interventions that are accessible and that facilitate their exit from prostitution. This qualitative research builds on 11 individual interviews with women aged between 26 and 55 years and living in Montreal, the Laurentians and Abitibi. Although many women in prostitution want to exit, there are few social interventions to help them in this regard. Public services are largely inadequate both regarding their accessibility and their response to the needs of these women. Few studies have focused on support services to facilitate exiting prostitution, especially in Quebec. This thesis is anchored in a feminist abolitionist perspective with standpoint theory as the epistemological framework. The results highlight the barriers to accessibility of services including compartmentalisation of services and a manifest refusal to provide social support interventions for women. This study also gives an account of the experience of interventions that hinder the exiting process: 1) punitive practices, 2) those providing limited assistance to women or 3) their adaptation to prostitution. The conclusion proposes the implementation of innovative social practices that take into account the social constraints that lead women into the sex industry and keep them there as well as the consequences of the very experience of prostitution on them.

Qual o nível de conflito que torna uma crise intratável e resulta na cassação do mandato eletivo do prefeito pela Câmara Municipal? A literatura que se dedica a explicar esse fenômeno se divide em duas perspectivas: 1) variáveis sociais forçam os parlamentares a agir contra o incumbente e as variáveis políticas agem de forma complementar e, 2) fatores políticos levam os legisladores a forçar a saída do cargo do incumbente, com fatores sociais agindo de forma complementar. Em comum a essas duas perspectivas há o papel desempenhado pelo Legislativo como fator chave para a interrupção do mandato do chefe do Executivo. Esta pesquisa investiga sobre as causas determinantes da remoção dos prefeitos pelo parlamento municipal. Portanto, busca-se revelar são as variáveis institucionais e não institucionais que influenciam na motivação dos parlamentares que, diante de uma crise não assimilável, optam por cassar o mandato eletivo do prefeito a mantê-lo no cargo. A pesquisa utiliza dados coletados de 335 câmaras municipais paulistas sobre processos de cassação no período de 1992 a 2012 para trazer informações sobre a dinâmica do fenômeno no interior do Legislativo. Foram utilizados também dados do TSE e Seade das eleições municipais referentes a esse período. Essa base de dados original permite que testemos as principais explicações fornecidas pela literatura. O tema se insere dentro da literatura sobre remoção de presidentes, como um subgrupo desse fenômeno. Resultados das análises estatísticas descritivas apontam que o quadro de variáveis extraído dessa literatura apresenta um comportamento semelhante, em decorrência do desenho institucional do município que é simétrico ao ente federal, por força constitucional. Em conclusão, este estudo contribui com o debate que elucida os fatores que levam à ocorrência do fenômeno em questão, que pode ser entendido como um subgrupo da literatura que trata da remoção de membros do Executivo em diferentes instâncias. / What level of conflict makes a crisis intractable and results in the ousting of the mayor\'s elective term by the City Council? The literature that deals with understanding this phenomenon is divided into two opposing perspectives: 1) social variables force parliamentarians to act against the incumbent and the political variables act in a complementary way, and 2) political factors lead the legislators to force the incumbent out of office, with social factors acting in a complementary way. Both perspectives, however, share the understanding that the role played by the Legislative is a key factor for the interruption of the head of the Executive\'s mandate. This study investigates the determining causes of the removal of mayors by the local parliament. Thus, it aims at identifying the institutional and non-institutional variables that influence the motivation of parliamentarians who, faced with a crisis that is not assimilable, choose to remove the elective mandate of the mayor to keep him in office. The research uses data collected from 335 São Paulo municipal councils on ousting proceedings from 1992 to 2012 to provide information on the dynamics of the phenomenon within the Legislative. Data from the TSE and Seade of the municipal elections for this period were also used. This original database allows us to test the main explanations provided by the literature. The theme falls within the literature on the removal of presidents, as a subgroup of this phenomenon. Results of the descriptive statistical analyzes indicate that the variables extracted from this literature presents a similar behavior, due to the institutional design of the municipality that is symmetrical to the federal entity, by constitutional force. In conclusion, this study contributes to the debate that elucidates the factors that lead to the occurrence of the phenomenon in question, which can be understood as a subgroup of the literature that deals with the removal of members of the Executive in different instances.

Submitted by Carmen Torres (carmensct@globo.com) on 2018-02-09T18:11:30Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Tese_MapeamentoBitsAdaptacao.pdf: 986310 bytes, checksum: 6e1b30f6ca34fc67df43f3141680c73a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Edisangela Bastos (edisangela@ufpa.br) on 2018-02-16T16:12:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Tese_MapeamentoBitsAdaptacao.pdf: 986310 bytes, checksum: 6e1b30f6ca34fc67df43f3141680c73a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-02-16T16:12:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Tese_MapeamentoBitsAdaptacao.pdf: 986310 bytes, checksum: 6e1b30f6ca34fc67df43f3141680c73a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-29 / CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Os codigos com matriz de vericação de paridade de baixa densidade (LDPC) tem sido adotados como estrategia de correção de erros em diversos padrões de sistemas de comunicação, como nos sistemas G.hn (padrão que unifica as redes domesticas) e IEEE 802.11n (padrão para redes sem o locais). Nestes sistemas com modulação de amplitude em quadratura (QAM) codicados com LDPC, mapear propriamente os bits codificados para os diferentes sub-canais, considerando o fato de os sub-canais terem diferentes qualidades, garante uma melhora no desempenho geral do sistema. Nesse sentido, esta Tese apresenta uma nova técnica de mapeamento de bits, baseada na suposição de que bits transmitidos em sub-canais \bons" ajudam bits transmitidos em sub-canais \ruins". Isto e possível através de algumas restrições impostas ao grafo de Tanner associado, semelhantes aos códigos Root-LDPC. A otimização deste mapeamento de bits utilizando curvas de transferência de informação extrínseca (EXIT charts) também e apresentada. Observa-se que esse mapeamento tem a vantagem de um espaço de busca de otimização reduzido quando aplicado ao sistema com modo de transmissão de portadora única. Além disso, em situações nas quais o espaço de busca não e tão reduzido, como em aplicações baseadas em multiplexação por divisão de frequência ortogonal (OFDM), chegou-se a uma simples regra pratica associada as restrições do mapeamento de bits que praticamente elimina a necessidade de uma otimização. Por fim, um estudo do impacto do nível de desequilíbrio de contabilidade através dos sub-canais sobre o desempenho do mapeamento de bits e apresentado. Os resultados das simulações mostram que a estratégia de mapeamento de bits melhora o desempenho do sistema, e que, na presença de variações do canal, o sistema pode, adaptativamente, aplicar um novo mapeamento de bits sem a necessidade de recorrer a uma otimização complexa, podendo ser muito útil em sistemas práticos. / Low-Density parity-check (LDPC) codes are being adopted as the error correction strategy in di erent system standards, such as the G.hn (home networking standard) and the IEEE 802.11n (wireless local standard). In these LDPC-coded quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) systems, mapping the LDPC coded bits properly to the di erent sub-channels considering the fact that sub-channels have di erent qualities ensures an improved overall system performance. Accordingly, this thesis presents a new bit mapping technique based on the assumption that bits transmitted in \good" sub-channels, help bits transmitted in \bad" sub-channels. This can be made possible through some restrictions to be imposed on the associated Tanner graph, akin to Root-LDPC codes. An optimization of the root-like bit mapping through extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) charts analysis is also presented. We show that this mapping has the advantage of a reduced optimization search space when applied to single-carrier based systems. Moreover, in situations where the search space is not só reduced, such as in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based applications, we arrive at a rule of thumb associated with the bit mapping constraints that practically eliminates the need for an optimization. Finally, a study of the impact of the level of reliability imbalance across the sub-channels on the performance of the root-like bit mapping is presented. Simulation results show that the new bit mapping strategy improves performance, and that in the presence of channel variations, the system can, adaptively, apply a new bit mapping without the need of a complex optimization, which can be very useful in practical systems.

Two optimisation problems were considered, in which market exposure is indirectly controlled. The first one models the capital of a company and an independent portfolio of new businesses, each one represented by a Cram\'r-Lundberg process. The company can choose the proportion of new business it wants to take on and can alter this proportion over time. Here the objective is to find a strategy that maximises the survival probability. We use a point processes framework to deal with the impact of an adapted strategy in the intensity of the new business. We prove that when Cram\'{e}r-Lundberg processes with exponentially distributed claims, it is optimal to choose a threshold type strategy, where the company switches between owning all new businesses or none depending on the capital level. For this type of processes that change both drift and jump measure when crossing the constant threshold, we solve the one and two-sided exit problems. This optimisation problem is also solved when the capital of the company and the new business are modelled by spectrally positive L\'vy processes of bounded variation. Here the one-sided exit problem is solved and we prove optimality of the same type of threshold strategy for any jump distribution. The second problem is a stochastic variation of the work done by Taylor about underwriting in a competitive market. Taylor maximised discounted future cash flows over a finite time horizon in a discrete time setting when the change of exposure from one period to the next has a multiplicative form involving the company's premium and the market average premium. The control is the company's premium strategy over a the mentioned finite time horizon. Taylor's work opened a rich line of research, and we discuss some of it. In contrast with Taylor's model, we consider the market average premium to be a Markov chain instead of a deterministic vector. This allows to model uncertainty in future conditions of the market. We also consider an infinite time horizon instead of finite. This solves the time dependency in Taylor's optimal strategies that were giving unrealistic results. Our main result is a formula to calculate explicitly the value function of a specific class of pricing strategies. Further we explore concrete examples numerically. We find a mix of optimal strategies where in some examples the company should follow the market while in other cases should go against it.

This qualitative case study provided a narrative portrait of 12 students in the 11th grade in one north Texas district who failed the initial administration of the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) exit-level test. It also presented an account of their perceptions of the test and their efforts to overcome this educational hurdle. The following conclusions were drawn from the study. Limited English proficiency (LEP) students had difficulty mastering the language arts section of the test. A majority of the students reported that TEAMS failure had no social impact. Most of the students declined district-offered remediation. Students tended to perceive the test as a personal challenge. Those students who attended remedial tutoring sessions performed better on the following retest than those who declined remediation. Hispanic and Asian students expressed additional study as being the key to passing the test. Black students felt that the key to passing was to spend sufficient time while taking the test. Those students who were more verbal during their interviews tended to be more successul in passing the language arts section of the TEAMS. The following recommendations were made from the study: (a) students who fail the TEAMS by minimal margins should be encouraged to take remediation; (b) an intensive remedial English course for LEP students should be offered; (c) "high interest" TEAMS mini-lessons should be presented daily for several weeks as a lead-up to the TEAMS; (d) a TEAMS ex it-level orientation program which stresses the importance of the test for the student's future should be implemented; and (e) additional research should be conducted on older students' verbal responses to see if a rich language approach in English classes including listening, reading, writing, and speaking will develop higher level language skills.

High self-monitors choose as friends skilled activity partners, whereas low self-monitors select friends who are similar in attitude and values. We hypothesized that (a) as self-monitoring increased, individuals would identify the loss of shared interest as the cause for dissolving a former friendship and (b) as self-monitoring decreased, individuals would identify the loss of shared attitudes and values as the cause for dissolving a former friendship. One-hundred sixty one (82 males, 79 females) participants were recruited from MTurk. Participants were prompted with a forced choice measure to identify one of two reasons why a past close friendship dissolved. For one response participants could identify a loss of shared activities, for the other a loss of shared values. Participants then completed the 25-item Self-Monitoring Scale. For exploratory purposes, participants then completed a measure of the strategies they used to terminate that relationship of a best friend. Our results were consistent with our predictions, as self-monitoring appeared to influence the cause of dissolution in former close friendships. Additionally, as self-monitoring tendencies increased, participants were more likely to report using cost escalation, manipulation, distant/mediated communication, and de-escalation as strategies for ending a friendship. Explanations for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This thesis consists of five individual essays and an introductory chapter. The essays are all in the field of industrial dynamics and more specifically focus on firm entry and exit in Swedish industrial sectors. The essays mainly contribute to the empirical literature on entry and exit. In four of the five essays, panel data methods are used in the empirical investigation. The first essay presents the patterns of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden and studies the importance of different determinants of entry and exit rates in industries. The second essay focuses on the relationship between entry and exit. The third essay has a regional perspective, focusing on regional determinants of entry and exit. It also investigates the importance of the differences in industry structure for differences in entry and exit rates across regions. The fourth chapter uses the theory of product life cycle to investigate how knowledge intensity differs in entering and exiting firms in different stages of the product life cycle. The fifth and last essay focuses on the importance of firm demography, in terms of firm size and age, for the decision to perform process R&D, product R&D or combine process with product R&D.