International Japanese Students: Their Expectations and Learning Needs at Australian Universities International full fee paying students make a sizable economic contribution to the Australian economy and the universities at which they enroll. Considerable competition for these students from the UK and USA indicates the necessity of meeting their needs if the Australian higher education market is to be preserved. Recent research has challenged the effectiveness of the currently operating Australian marketisation model that focuses upon attracting students and maximizing profits. International students, and specifically Japanese students who were the focus of this research, are attracted to Australian university studies for a number of reasons which are analyzed. The numbers of Japanese students studying at Australian universities have fallen since 2006, despite Japan being potentially one of the largest international markets. The learning needs and expectations of 51 Japanese undergraduate and postgraduate students at two Sydney universities were analyzed using a questionnaire and semi-structured interview during their first semester of enrollment. The expectations and needs of these students had been shaped by growing up and being educated in Japan, a culture that values university education in different ways to Australia, and has different views on learning and study. Analyses of Australian academic culture, that emphasizes individuality and critical thinking, together with analyses of Japanese values and cultural mores, provided the foundations to guide the study and help formulate the questions used to gather data. Results revealed a considerable proportion of respondents were postgraduates contrary to the expectation that the market is chiefly an undergraduate one. It was found that only approximately thirty per cent of students had come to Australia for primarily educational reasons. The other seventy per cent had been attracted to Australia the country and its culture, and had been motivated for personal development reasons and to satisfy challenges pertaining, in some cases, to English language acquisition. These findings reflect earlier research based on ESL classes. The majority appear to have been motivated by liberal education reasons, with explanation of the process engaged in, with so little serious preparation, perhaps best accounted for in terms of Hart’s (1999) work on the hero’s personal journey with its substantial challenges. Results indicated that a considerable number of students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels experienced difficulties with a number of basic academic skills expected at Australian universities. These included listening to and understanding lectures, note taking in lectures, reading for assignments, writing assignments, discussing studies with Australian students, and group work activities generally that required public presentation and argument. The majority had done little reading or other preparation for their educational adventure in a foreign Australian culture, although many were aware of the fact that their undertaking would be hard, having spoken to other Japanese students. Relatively few appeared to have been influenced by family members who had undertaken international study. All had been admitted on the basis of IELTS or TOEFL standards set by the universities, but had studied English in preparation for their international studies for relatively short periods of time, with this apparently contributing to their problems with Australian academic skills. Findings indicate that most of these students continued to frame their intercultural experience in terms of the Japanese cultural scenario, leading in many cases to academic and socio-cultural expectations at odds with Australian university expectations of the roles these students should play. Specific recommendations are made regarding the need for university policies to ensure that Japanese students are made aware of academic and socio-cultural differences and challenges before enrollment, and are offered programs that will develop specific academic skills. The analyses of the culturally-based academic learning difficulties encountered by students in this research should provide a substantial guide for specific skill development programs. Some of the expectations, that would be appropriate in the Japanese cultural setting, cannot be accommodated in the Australian one, and need to be managed prior to enrollment. On the wider policy level, there is also a serious need to reconsider the standards of English required for admission. Recommendations are made for a larger scale, longitudinal study to be undertaken to address issues that could not be considered in what was essentially an exploratory study. The analyses of Japanese cultural values and social expectations, presented as part of this research, would appear to offer a substantial basis to assist institutions and staff to better understand Japanese students and their learning needs in the Australian academic cultural context, and to guide both research and teaching. In policy terms, results indicate that there is a clear need to reconsider the marketisation model and spend more on support services for the students who have paid full fees. Results also indicate that the policies advanced by government policy makers linking tourism and university study are relatively naïve, and cannot succeed without better understanding of the needs and expectations of international students from different cultural backgrounds, and better support services carefully tailored to their needs.

International Japanese Students: Their Expectations and Learning Needs at Australian Universities International full fee paying students make a sizable economic contribution to the Australian economy and the universities at which they enroll. Considerable competition for these students from the UK and USA indicates the necessity of meeting their needs if the Australian higher education market is to be preserved. Recent research has challenged the effectiveness of the currently operating Australian marketisation model that focuses upon attracting students and maximizing profits. International students, and specifically Japanese students who were the focus of this research, are attracted to Australian university studies for a number of reasons which are analyzed. The numbers of Japanese students studying at Australian universities have fallen since 2006, despite Japan being potentially one of the largest international markets. The learning needs and expectations of 51 Japanese undergraduate and postgraduate students at two Sydney universities were analyzed using a questionnaire and semi-structured interview during their first semester of enrollment. The expectations and needs of these students had been shaped by growing up and being educated in Japan, a culture that values university education in different ways to Australia, and has different views on learning and study. Analyses of Australian academic culture, that emphasizes individuality and critical thinking, together with analyses of Japanese values and cultural mores, provided the foundations to guide the study and help formulate the questions used to gather data. Results revealed a considerable proportion of respondents were postgraduates contrary to the expectation that the market is chiefly an undergraduate one. It was found that only approximately thirty per cent of students had come to Australia for primarily educational reasons. The other seventy per cent had been attracted to Australia the country and its culture, and had been motivated for personal development reasons and to satisfy challenges pertaining, in some cases, to English language acquisition. These findings reflect earlier research based on ESL classes. The majority appear to have been motivated by liberal education reasons, with explanation of the process engaged in, with so little serious preparation, perhaps best accounted for in terms of Hart’s (1999) work on the hero’s personal journey with its substantial challenges. Results indicated that a considerable number of students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels experienced difficulties with a number of basic academic skills expected at Australian universities. These included listening to and understanding lectures, note taking in lectures, reading for assignments, writing assignments, discussing studies with Australian students, and group work activities generally that required public presentation and argument. The majority had done little reading or other preparation for their educational adventure in a foreign Australian culture, although many were aware of the fact that their undertaking would be hard, having spoken to other Japanese students. Relatively few appeared to have been influenced by family members who had undertaken international study. All had been admitted on the basis of IELTS or TOEFL standards set by the universities, but had studied English in preparation for their international studies for relatively short periods of time, with this apparently contributing to their problems with Australian academic skills. Findings indicate that most of these students continued to frame their intercultural experience in terms of the Japanese cultural scenario, leading in many cases to academic and socio-cultural expectations at odds with Australian university expectations of the roles these students should play. Specific recommendations are made regarding the need for university policies to ensure that Japanese students are made aware of academic and socio-cultural differences and challenges before enrollment, and are offered programs that will develop specific academic skills. The analyses of the culturally-based academic learning difficulties encountered by students in this research should provide a substantial guide for specific skill development programs. Some of the expectations, that would be appropriate in the Japanese cultural setting, cannot be accommodated in the Australian one, and need to be managed prior to enrollment. On the wider policy level, there is also a serious need to reconsider the standards of English required for admission. Recommendations are made for a larger scale, longitudinal study to be undertaken to address issues that could not be considered in what was essentially an exploratory study. The analyses of Japanese cultural values and social expectations, presented as part of this research, would appear to offer a substantial basis to assist institutions and staff to better understand Japanese students and their learning needs in the Australian academic cultural context, and to guide both research and teaching. In policy terms, results indicate that there is a clear need to reconsider the marketisation model and spend more on support services for the students who have paid full fees. Results also indicate that the policies advanced by government policy makers linking tourism and university study are relatively naïve, and cannot succeed without better understanding of the needs and expectations of international students from different cultural backgrounds, and better support services carefully tailored to their needs.

According to the empirical study, it is confirmed that physician satisfaction has great influence on patient satisfaction, and the physician¡Vpatient relationship could also affect health quality. The agreeableness and satisfaction of the healthcare providers (especially the physicians) to reimbursement system therefore should be emphasized especially with the intervention of health insurance. The objective of the study is to investigate the agreeableness and satisfaction of dentists to global budgets and their contributing factors. We survey dentists practiced within the Southern Branch and the Kao-Ping Branch regions of the National health insurance bureau with questionnaire. The primary result is as following: 1. The satisfaction of dentists to global budget after implementation: Male dentists are more satisfied than female detests. Dentists over 40 years old or with more than 15 years of practice experience are more satisfied. Solo practitioners are more satisfied than those who are employed or in partnership. Dentists practiced at Kaohsiung city have better stultification within the Kao-Ping Branch region; while the dentists, work in Jia-yi county are more satisfied than those at Tainan city within the Southern Branch region. Dentists with greater patient volume per day or longer business hours per week are less satisfied. Lastly, dentists whose service points claimed per month didn¡¦t decrease after the implementation of global budget are more satisfied with the system. 2. The agreeableness of dentists to global budget after implementation: Male, older dentists agree more with the reimbursement system. Dentists with more or equal service points claimed per month after implementation agree more with the global budget system. But those increase service hours per week are less agreeable to the system. Within the Kao-Ping Branch region, the dentists practice in Pun-hu county, are more agreeable than those at Kaohsiung city; those work in Jia-yi are more in agreement than those at Tainan within the Southern Branch region. Opened questionnaire indicated that surveyed dentists showed negative feedback on t the appropriateness, equity, and standardization of peer review. They further suggested the operation of dental association should be transparent, and the names of the dental clinics should be made known to the public if there¡¦s fraud. Besides, they also made some constructive suggestions such as the establishment of the public record of the oral cavity examination, periodic oral examination, and improvement of professional medical technology. Theses suggestions should be useful to the dental association for professional and quality improvement, standard protocol development and to the Bureau of the National Health Insurance for policy evaluation.

State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) today are seeking financing alternatives so that transportation infrastructure investments can become less dependent on the amount of fuel U.S. drivers consume. Because the fuel tax is no longer viewed as a sustainable and stable option, other financing alternatives are being considered. One such alternative includes the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee. Examples of such VMT fee alternatives include: 1) collection using an onboard diagnostic system (OBD), 2) collection at the fuel pump using an OBD in conjunction with GPS technology, and 3) collection at a vehicle inspection station using the OBD. This proposed research has two primary objectives: 1) to conduct a comparative review of VMT fee alternatives and their data collection methods, payment collection processes, expected costs and revenues, and anticipated challenges; and 2) to examine the suitability of these VMT fee alternative for consideration in Massachusetts. The major results and conclusions are the fuel tax, if increased and reviewed annually, is a viable short term solution and that a VMT fee should be considered further as part of a long term strategy. It is expected that the results of this research will be of interest to Federal and State DOT personnel and policy makers.

The increasing use of litigation as a tool to influence land management decisions has been documented within the Forest Service. The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), which allows successful litigants to recover attorney fees and other legal expenses from the federal government, has come under much scrutiny in discussions surrounding Forest Service litigation. In spite of increasing interest surrounding the relationship between litigation directed at land management agencies and the EAJA, no empirical research had ever attempted to examine this issue. This two part exploratory study used records obtained from land management agencies through the Freedom of Information Act and publicly available tax return records to examine several aspects of the Equal Access to Justice Act's role in land management litigation. According to agency records, the Forest Service paid out over $6 million in EAJA awards from 1999 through 2005. Agency records also showed that the Bureau of Land Management paid over $2.5 million dollars in EAJA awards from 1991 through 2005. The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were unable to provide usable records regarding the amount of fees paid by each respective agency. The study also found that the entities receiving the largest number of EAJA awards were all tax-exempt environmental organizations. Interestingly, ten of the fourteen organizations that were examined for having received multiple EAJA awards also appear on Gambino et al.'s (under review) list of frequent Forest Service litigators. While this finding suggests that the EAJA may be providing a monetary incentive for these organizations to institute litigation against land management agencies, further research is needed to understand the degree to which this is happening. / Master of Science

Especially in the last decades human society became aware of the negative impacts of their activities on environment quality. Charges or fees are one of the regulatory instruments of environmental politics. The major function of fees or charges is the incentive to change behaviour of human society. The small stationary sources reduce significantly local air quality. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate these sources. The objective of this thesis is to prove, that collecting of existing charges or fees for small stationary sources is economically uneffective. There will be applied Cost Benefit Analysis for comparison of the administrative costs to the fiscal incomes.

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to give the investors a better understanding on how to interpret the costs of funds with performance fee with high-water mark and give some guidelines when comparing funds with different fee structures, i.e. mutual funds and hedge funds. Mathematical approaches – Two mathematical approaches are used in the study. The first approach is to describe the high-water mark contract as a partial differential equation, which has the characteristics of Black-Scholes equation. The second approach is to numerically simulate the evolution of a fund’s value. During the development of the fund’s value the cost of the fees are calculated and discounted. Findings – It is found that the expected cost of the performance fee with high-water mark, vary a lot. An example is when the volatility increases the expected cost of performance fee drastically raises while the management fee is unchanged. Another interesting finding is that the order of when the fees’ are charged affects the expected cost of the performance fee. Conclusion – The guidelines for the investor is to invest in a fund with a performance fee in low volatile markets and a fund with just the management fee in high volatile markets. Another impact is the time step which the high-water mark level is controlled. The investor wants these controls as infrequently as possible. If the controls are done at a daily basis the expected cost of the performance fee is higher than in a monthly control. It is also concluded that the Normanbelopp of a fund with a performance fee should not be trusted. Key-words:

Enligt Bostadsrätterna (2018) utgörs avkastningen av en bostadsrättsinvestering av godaboendeförhållanden till en låg boendekostnad samt en möjlig värdestigning på bostadsrätten.Tidigare studier har undersökt vilken inverkan olika boendeförhållanden och bostadsrättsmässigaegenskaper har på prisbildningen av bostadsrätter. När det gäller boendekostnadens inverkan hardäremot bara den rådande avgiftsnivån tidigare beaktats men det saknas forskning kring huruvidaäven den framtida avgiftsnivån och risken för avgiftshöjning påverkar prisbildningen.Då man tidigare har visat att konsumenter har svårt för att ta del av informationen i enbostadsrättsförenings årsredovisning (Bohman, 2014), kan det vara möjligt att information somindikerar en framtida avgiftshöjning inte kapitaliseras vid köp av en bostadsrätt. I denna uppsats hardärför risken för en framtida avgiftshöjning och dess påverkan på prisbildningen undersökts.Efter en genomgående litteraturstudie drogs slutsats om att de viktigaste faktorerna för att analyseraoch bedöma den framtida avgiftsnivån var rådande avgift, kassaflöde, skuldsättning och föreningenssparande. För att undersöka om det fanns tendenser till att dessa faktorer har haft inverkan påprisbildningen gjordes tre jämförelser av likartade bostadsrättsobjekt. I två av tre jämförelser kundedet konstateras att det fanns en stor möjlighet till att dessa faktorer inte kapitaliserades vidprisbildningen.För att undersöka konsumenternas kunskaper och huruvida det är möjligt att risken för en framtidaavgiftshöjning inte kapitaliseras, gjordes en enkätstudie. Resultatet visade på att endast den rådandeavgiftsnivån kapitaliseras och att risken för en avgiftshöjning inte vägs in i priset. Enkätstudien visadepå att konsumenter besitter för dålig kunskap både om varför och hur risken för en framtidaavgiftshöjning borde analyseras och vägas in i prisbilden.Utifrån resultatet i enkätstudien har slutsats dragits om att det är möjligt att risken för en framtidaavgiftshöjning inte kapitaliseras vid köp av en bostadsrätt. För vidare studier hade det därför varitintressant att undersöka hur man kan förenkla för konsumenter så att faktorer som indikerar riskenför en framtida avgiftshöjning lättare kan vägas in i prisbilden. / According to Bostadsrätterna (2018) the return on a condominium investment is good housingconditions, a low housing cost and a possible increase in value. Several previous studies haveinvestigated how different housing conditions and characteristics of the apartment, impact on theprice of a condominium. When it comes to the housing cost only the current fee level and its impacton price has been researched, without taking into account the risk of a fee increase.Since it has previously been shown that consumers have difficulties in obtaining information in ahousing association´s annual report (Bohman, 2014), it may be possible that information indicating aupcoming fee increase will not be capitalized upon the purchase of a condominium. Therefore in thisessay the risk of a fee increased and it’s impact on the price of a condominium, has been examined.After a literature study it was concluded that the most important factors for analysing the future feelevel were current fee level, cash flow, indebtedness and the saving of the association. In order toinvestigate whether there were trends that these factors had an effect on the price, threecomparisons of similar condominiums were made. In two out of three comparisons, it was noted thatthere was a possibility that these factors were not capitalized.To further examine the knowledge of consumers and if it is possible that the risk of a fee increasemay not be capitalized, a survey study was conducted. The result showed that the current fee level iscapitalized but that the future fee level is not. The survey showed that consumers have poorknowledge both about why and how the risk of a future fee increase should be analysed andweighted into the price.Based on the result of the survey, it has been concluded that it is possible that the risk of a future taxincrease will not be capitalized upon the purchase of a condominium. For further studies, it wouldtherefore be interesting to investigate how to simplify for consumers so that factors that indicate therisk of a future fee increase can be more easily weighted into the price.

No description available.

This study analyzes 66 Swedish actively managed mutual funds investing in the Swedish stock market during the period 2005-2014. The purpose is through pooled data regressions analyze the relationship between both the mutual fund’s annual fee and risk-adjusted return to the fund’s characteristics. The characteristics of the study are the size of the fund's assets, age, if the fund is bank managed or not, Tracking Error, and standard deviation of return.By using the performance measures of CAPM, Fama and French 3-factor model, and Carhart’s 4-factor model monthly risk-adjusted returns are created for all funds over the period. Two pooled data regressions are performed with the Fixed Effect Model in which the annual fee and risk-adjusted return is set up as explanatory variables against the various characteristics.The results of the study show a clear correlation between annual fee and tracking error against the risk-adjusted return. A higher fee adds value to the investor through a higher risk-adjusted return, but will not fully compensate for the increased fee. The relationship between Tracking Error and risk-adjusted return is negative, which means that mutual funds that are distant from its benchmark perform worse than the mutual funds close to its benchmark. To explain annual fee this study finds low economic significance for the characteristics included. Although several variables show statistical significance, it is difficult to say anything about the characteristics that affect a mutual fund's annual fee due to the weak economic significance.