Prevailing theories of emotion regulation (ER) focus on the role of various aspects of cognition for successful regulation of one’s emotions. In particular, research suggests that executive functions (EF) may play an important role in contributing to successful ER. Emerging adulthood can be a time of high levels of perceived stress associated with changing developmental roles, which can be a risk factor for psychopathology (e.g., depression, anxiety). Emerging adulthood is also a time during which EF comes to maturation both behaviorally and biologically. This prolonged period of development associated with EF and ER maturity may represent an increased period of vulnerability in young adults, and deficits in EF may pose a significant risk for emotion dysregulation and future psychopathology. This study aimed to investigate whether EFs played a role in ER for emerging adults. More specifically, this study examined whether EFs (including, working memory, attentional control, and inhibitory control) moderated the indirect effect of ER in the relationship between stress and psychopathology in the context of emerging adulthood. A sample of 75 undergraduate students at the University of Victoria was recruited. Participants self reported perceived levels of stress and psychopathology symptoms. Participants also completed a computerized ER task where they viewed aversive pictures and sentences on a computer screen and explicitly applied an ER strategy to reduce their negative emotions when viewing the stimuli. Tests of EF including the Go/No-Go, Number-Letter and N-Back task were also completed. Results revealed that moderated mediation did not hold for this sample. However, working memory, attentional control, and inhibitory control moderated the relationship between ER and psychopathology. Specifically, low working memory and attentional control, and high inhibitory control moderated the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and psychopathology. For this same relationship of cognitive reappraisal to psychopathology, faster engagement in response inhibition (i.e., faster reaction times) was trending toward significant levels of psychopathology symptoms. For expressive suppression, the relationship to psychopathology was moderated by inhibitory control. ER did not mediate the relationship between stress and psychopathology symptoms across the entire sample. The results illuminate the ways in which EFs contribute to ER in the context of emerging adulthood. Implications for promoting successful ER and informing therapeutic techniques used with this critical population are discussed. / Graduate / 0622 / 0347 / 0317 / mcochran@uvic.ca

This research is empirical and exploratory in nature. It examines the emergence of a market of underserviced consumers within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry. The aim of this research is to introduce generalizable sociological theory that explains the formation of an underserviced consumer market. This new social theory called Underserviced Consumer Market Formation Theory (UCMFT) is then applied to the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry in order to address the research question of, Why has an emerging market of underserviced consumers formed within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry? In addition to introducing UCMFT to academia, other contributions to knowledge have materialized as a means of explaining this phenomenon and answering the research question of this study. These additional contributions to knowledge are: introducing the term underserviced consumer within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry and introducing a theoretically based explanatory model specific to this subject matter of this research termed the model of underserviced consumer market formation within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry. Positioning UCMFT for future research and generalizability includes clearly defining the industry being studied, clearly defining the term underserviced consumers in the context of the industry being studied, and empirically identifying and linking the unique psychosocial characteristics to the predominant consumers (buyers) within the industry being studied or encompassed by the research. Potential industries that could be included for future research grounding in UCMFT are healthcare, technology, telecommunications, education, as well as other subsectors within the financial services industry. Overall, the empirical findings support the creation of the theory and its applicability to the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry as scoped for this research.

This research ranked the adsorbability of 115 emerging contaminants by granular activated carbon (GAC) from drinking water, mainly the organic chemicals identified on the Contaminant Candidate List 3 (CCL3), using classical and quantum quantitative structure activity relationships (QSAR). 80% of the investigated contaminants were classified as cost effectively treatable by GAC based on the models. A rapid small-scale column test (RSSCT) conducted with Lake Ontario water spiked with 8 selected emerging contaminants showed the modeling results were accurate. This research also tested the hypothesis that GAC exhaustion for geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol would be due entirely to natural organic matter, and would occur independently of the presence of these two compounds. RSSCT results confirmed this hypothesis. Mathematical modeling supported this observation by demonstrating that the ratio of the effluent concentration to the influent concentration of a trace organic contaminant is only dependent on the NOM loading state at any bed depth.

This research ranked the adsorbability of 115 emerging contaminants by granular activated carbon (GAC) from drinking water, mainly the organic chemicals identified on the Contaminant Candidate List 3 (CCL3), using classical and quantum quantitative structure activity relationships (QSAR). 80% of the investigated contaminants were classified as cost effectively treatable by GAC based on the models. A rapid small-scale column test (RSSCT) conducted with Lake Ontario water spiked with 8 selected emerging contaminants showed the modeling results were accurate. This research also tested the hypothesis that GAC exhaustion for geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol would be due entirely to natural organic matter, and would occur independently of the presence of these two compounds. RSSCT results confirmed this hypothesis. Mathematical modeling supported this observation by demonstrating that the ratio of the effluent concentration to the influent concentration of a trace organic contaminant is only dependent on the NOM loading state at any bed depth.

This paper uses a new measure of volatility based on extreme day return occurrences and examines the relative prevailing volatility among worldwide stock markets during 1997-2009. Using several global stock market indexes of countries categorized as an emerging and developed capital markets are utilized. Additionally this study investigates well known anomalies namely Monday effect and January effect. Further using correlation analysis of co movement and extent of integration highlights the opportunities for international diversification among those markets. Evidences during this time period suggest volatility is not the only phenomena of emerging capital markets. Emerging markets offer opportunities of higher returns during volatility. Cross correlation analysis depicts markets have become more integrated during this time frame; still opportunities for higher returns prevail through global portfolio diversification.

Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD), or Data Mining is used to discover interesting or useful patterns and relationships in data, with an emphasis on large volume of observational databases. Among many other types of information (knowledge) that can be discovered in data, patterns that are expressed in terms of features are popular because they can be understood and used directly by people. The recently proposed Emerging Pattern (EP) is one type of such knowledge patterns. Emerging Patterns are sets of items (conjunctions of attribute values) whose frequency change significantly from one dataset to another. They are useful as a means of discovering distinctions inherently present amongst a collection of datasets and have been shown to be a powerful method for constructing accurate classifiers. (For complete abstract open document)

In this thesis I study the investment climate in the four rapidly growing emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). The first study, Chapter 2, uses a bivariate EGARCH methodology with time varying conditional correlation to study the global and regional integration of the BRICs and to identify the existence of diversification opportunities for international investors. The second study, Chapter 3, employs a restricted version of the model to explore the relationship between equity market returns and volatility of equity returns in the BRIC countries and global oil prices. Chapter 4 is an extension of Chapter 3, and focuses on the sustainability of Russia???s economic growth in view of its large dependence on oil income. A qualitative analysis of the oil industry in Russia, including an overview of the operations of the largest oil producing companies, government regulations, oil production and proven oil reserves, is conducted for the purpose of this study. The last study, Chapter 5, uses a panel data methodology to explore the determinants of changes in sovereign bond spreads for the BRICs as an asset class and for each of the BRIC countries individually. I conclude that the regional and global level of integration of the BRICs is relatively low, and portfolio investors can enjoy sound diversification benefits particularly by taking investment positions in the Indian and Chinese equity markets. Despite the aggressive economic growth of the BRICs and their increased oil consumption, the volatility of stock returns from the BRICs does not have a significant impact on global oil prices; however, oil prices do impact the volatility of equity returns in India and China, and particularly the level of returns and volatility of equity returns in Russia. Based on this and the qualitative analysis in Chapter 4, it is concluded that in the short to medium term Russia???s continued economic growth will depend on increased reinvestment in the oil industry and in the longer term the government should diversify its revenue sources and focus on development of other sectors within the economy. Lastly, it is concluded that sovereign risk in the BRICs is driven by different global and country-specific factors, hence risk should be observed on an individual country basis and not for the BRICs as an asset class.

Zugl.: Oldenburg, Univ., Diss., 2005

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Mich., 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-156).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Mich., 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-156).