This thesis is a response to the growing recognition that the workings of the financial sphere significantly affect the value of social production, its distribution, and the magnitude of income poverty. The thesis extends a general equilibrium single-country model targeted to a developing economy (the IFPRI Standard Model) to account for the workings of the financial sphere and 'money in the production function', in the tradition begun by Milton Friedman (1969). The models are calibrated and their workings are analysed. It is found that the inclusion of 'money in the production function' by itself only causes financial outcomes to significantly affect the overall level of production and the unemployment rate in the presence of strong wage rigidities. This is explained in terms of the model parameters. The extended model is employed in a stylised static way to identify the short-run stresses generated by current and capital account liberalisation in Argentina during its Currency Board Regime, adopted over 1991-2001, with the finding that in the short-run the volatility of capital flows was transmitted to employment and activity levels. The model is then linked in a sequential way to a behavioural microsimulations model, separating out the different transmission channels involved. It is found that the significant capital outflows witnessed by the country surrounding the end of its Currency Board Regime worsened poverty and inequality indicators in the country, and that the main transmission channel through which the capital outflow had the most distributional impact was the selectivity of labour market rationing.

Not only is there an increase in the use of contract workers in some of today's workplaces, but a qualitative shift has also taken place in the nature of labour contracting, as the operation of labour intermediaries has expanded from peripheral services to the main production activities of companies. This new phenomenon implies the greater integration of labour contracting into the production process, together with changes in employment practices and the rights of workers. This thesis aims to better understand how the changing nature of labour contracting affects employment relationships by undertaking an empirical investigation of in-house contracting arrangements in the South Korean automobile industry. In so doing, it examines roles and relationships between workplace actors involved in labour contracting; namely, user firm management, contractors, labour organisations, user firm employees, contract workers and the state. This analysis sheds light on the process of change in labour contracting and the consequences of increased labour contracting in the workplace. The thesis argues that the coordination of workplace changes brought about by increased flexibility attained through the use of contract workers is fraught with tension, which influences the ways in which employment relationships are shaped in the context of any particular firm. The essence of such tension lies in the pursuit of organisational flexibility and quality control in the production process, both of which are considered to be necessary to ensuring the performance of firms. Contradictions arise from the attempts of user firms to avoid employment-related responsibility for the labour force, while at the same time exerting managerial control over contract workers. Such tensions and paradoxes are associated with conflicts of interest, and compromise between and within workplace actors. A case study of the Korean automobile industry is provided that explores the contradictory nature of the labour contracting system, as contract workers with fewer employment entitlements are brought into core production processes; and investigates the manner in which inherent tensions play out in shaping employment relationships and the orientation of labour contracting practices. The findings of this thesis could help in the further understanding of the implications of change in labour contracting practices, and contribute to overcoming the current limits of thinking with regard to labour flexibility and employment relationships in the context of in-house contracting.

The urban renaissance seems to present a win-win scenario for social policy, promising greater social inclusion along with lower levels of car ownership and use. This thesis aims to evaluate the extent to which an urban renaissance might reduce levels of car ownership without inhibiting social inclusion and assess the potential for de-coupling rising family incomes from increasing levels of car ownership and use. A sequential mixed-methods research design is used to investigate the relationships between social inclusion and mobility within an urban context from two perspectives: the first phase of the research uses bivariate analysis and multiple logistic regression to test the relative importance of social inclusion, demographic determinants and spatial factors as a means of understanding household car ownership; the results of these analyses inform the second phase of the research, which adopts a case study approach in order to understand the role of social inclusion and urban form in modulating driver behaviour. A hybrid narrative/semi-structured interview technique allows longitudinal insights into the perspectives of residents from four urban areas, varying by density and centrality. Quantitative analysis, sampling the general population of Great Britain, indicates that inclusion on the dimensions of civic and social interaction is independent of level of car ownership. Furthermore it is shown that the impact of household income on levels of car ownership is mediated by urbanisation on three spatial tiers: settlement, neighbourhood and property levels. The qualitative phase confirms different patterns of car use as well as of car ownership across different urban areas, demonstrating that radical (and unplanned) changes in modal choice can follow relocation to more dense and central urban environments. The size and perceived quality of residential properties, along with the presence of greenspace and local shops, can build place attachment to relatively dense urban environments; increased levels of walking and consequent familiarity with other local residents were found to be core components of this process.

For most rural populations in developing countries, travel to access basic needs is considered a burden, in terms of wastage of their daily time and efforts. Lack of adequate access to health, education and market centres is found to be responsible for problems like high mortality rate and low literacy rate and high sense of isolation. Recent research has recommended that time constraints should be incorporated in attempting to model rural travel behaviour. The research reported in this thesis integrates household accessibility analysis within an activity-based framework to model travel demand. The conceptual development recognised the derived nature of travel. The household access needs are transformed into individual activities through household role allocation. The spatial and temporal constraints on the activities along with monetary, cultural and social constraints on individuals determine accessibility of the activities to the individuals. Probabilistic behavioural models have been developed to model individual activity choice and the resulting travel. Household data collected from representative rural areas of Pakistan were used to analyse rural activity-travel behaviour. Household activities analysed were Work, Education, Market, Health and Leisure. The results indicated the varying nature of these activities and that of individuals responsible for carrying out the activities. It was found that Household Heads are responsible for carrying out most out-of-home activities required to fulfil household needs. Models developed were applied to various situations. The models in general were found to validate the concepts developed in the research. Prediction results for activities Work and Education were in agreement to the observed data. Results for activities Market, Health and Leisure showed that a time horizon must be considered to recognise the nondaily nature of these activities. Models addressing time horizon decision showed better agreement between predicted and observed travel demand.

L'analyse des conditions physico-chimiques régnant dans le milieu interstellaire(ISM) nécessité de connaître les constantes de vitesse de collision inélastique qui ont lieu plus fréquemment dans l'ISM. Nous avons à cettefin calculées les surfaces d'énergie potentielles ainsi que les états liés descomplexes CS-H2, HCN-H2, HCN-He et C3-He. Nous avons déterminé pour la collision CS-H2 les sections efficaces et les taux d'excitation collisionnels pour les premiers niveaux rotationnels. Des observations récentes suggérentque l'excitation des modes de pliage des molécules triatomiques doit êtreprise en compte dans les modèles astrochimiques. Nous présentons doncdeux nouvelles approches théoriques permettant d'effectuer un traitementClose Coupling des collisions inélastiques d'un atome avec une molécule triatomique. Le couplage entre les mouvements de rotation et de pliage de la molécule est traité soit exactement dans le cadre de l'approximation du rigid bender (RBCC) ou de façon approximée en moyennant le potentiel d'interaction atome-molècule sur le mode de pliage de la molécule (RBAA). La méthode RBCC est appliquée à l'étude des collisions HCN-He et C3-He pour lesquelles les sections efficaces de transition entre niveaux rotationnels appartenant à des modes de pliage différents sont obtenues. Les résultats sont comparés avec ceux fournis par l'opproximation du rotateur rigide linéaire. Dans le cas de la collision HCN-He ils sont aussi comparés avec ceux obtenus en utilisant l'approche RBAA. Nous montrons que les sections efficaces de transitions entre des niveaux rotationels appartenant à des niveaux de bending différents doivent être calculées au niveau RBCC. / Tha analysis of the physico-chemical conditons taking place in the interstellar medium (ISM) requires to know the inclastic rate coefficents of the detected interstellar molecules in collisions with the moste common colliders int the ISM. We have comuted the four dimensional potential energy surfaces, and the bound levels for the CS-H2, HCN-H2, HCN-He and C3 -He complexes. For the collisions of Cs with H2, we also determined the rst inelastic cross section and rate coefficeients<; Several recent observations suggest that the vibrational excitation of triatomic molecules in the ISM at least in the bending motion needs to be considered in the collision mechanismes. We present a nex theorical method to treat atom-rigid bender ineslastic collisions at close the coupling level (RBCC). The coupling between rotation and bending is treated exactly within the rigid bender approximation and we obtain the cross section for the rotational transition between levels belonging to dierent bending levels. This approach is applied to the study of HCN-He and C3-He. The results are compared with those obtained whenconsidering the molecules to be linear rigid rotors. In the case of HCN-He,they are also compared with the cross sections determined using the interactionpotential averaged over the bending wavefunction. We demonstratethat the cross sections involving vibrational transitions should be computedusing the RBCC method. For HCN-He, the linear rigid approach is foundto offer a good description of pure rotational transitions while for C3-Hethis method is shown to overestimate the cross section for collision energieshigher than the first excited bending threshold.

In support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service&rsquo / s (NWS) flash flood warning and heavy precipitation forecast efforts, the NOAA National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) has been providing satellite based precipitation estimates operationally since 1978. Two of the satellite based rainfall algorithms are the Hydro-Estimator (HE) and the Self-Calibrating Multivariate Precipitation Retrieval (SCaMPR). Satellite based rainfall algorithms need to be adjusted for the orographic events and atmospheric variables for the continued improvement of the estimates. However, unlike the HE algorithm, the SCaMPR does not currently make any adjustments for the effects of complex topography on rainfall estimate. Bias structure of the SCaMPR algorithm suggests that the rainfall algorithm underestimates precipitation in case of upward atmospheric movements and high temperature levels. Also SCaMPR algorithm overestimates rainfall in case of downward atmospheric movements and low temperature levels. A regionally dependent empirical elevation-based bias correction technique and also a temperature based bias correction technique may help to improve the quality of satellite-derived precipitation products. In this study, an orographic correction method and a temperature correction method that will enhance precipitation distribution, improve accuracy and remove topography and temperature dependent bias is developed for the Self-Calibrating Multivariate Precipitation Retrieval (SCaMPR) rainfall algorithm to be used in operational forecasting for meteorological and hydrological applications.

He-Ne Laser induced polymerization in diacrylate mesogens RM257 had been verified in previous studies. Holography patterns can also be recorded in RM257 using He-Ne Laser. Higher diffraction efficiency was obtained by controlling temperature of the mesogen. In the present study, we consider the diacrylate compound RM82 that is main chain polymeric liquid crystal with different length of chain. We focus on two objectives in this study: (i) to investigate polymerization and absorbance of RM82 thin film that was exposed to He-Ne laser with the temperature of sample control, the initial power intensity of laser beam and the exposed time. (ii)Using the result of part (i), the possibility of the use of RM82 thin film for recording holographic patterns produced using a laser beam emitted from a 12mW He-Ne laser operated at 633 nm wavelength is studied. The periodic structures and orientated diacrylate polymer networks are produced in the polymer film by holographic field produced using He-Ne laser. The region of light stripes was aligned perpendicular to the gratings, whereas the region of dark stripes was disorder.

The purpose of this study was to understand residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment of metropolitan communities, and to investigate the relationship between residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment in He-ti Community, Kaohsiung City. Hopefully, this study might offer related suggestions to boost community empowerment of metropolitan communities. The methodology of this study was using questionnaire survey to collect data on the He-ti Community for analysis. The subjects of this study were community residents of 20 year-old and above. ¡§Questionnaire about residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment¡¨, which was developed and based on related literatures, was adopted as tool for this survey. 600 questionnaires were issued while 505 valid questionnaires were received, with valid sample rate 84.17¢H. The main conclusions of this study are as follows: 1. Residents of the community have the above average degree on sense of community, especially on the ¡§community identification¡¨ domain, but the domain of ¡§community familiarity¡¨ in need of improvement. 2. The cognition of community empowerment among the residents¡¦ are below the middle with the highest on the domain of ¡§actual boost¡¨ and the lowest on the domain of ¡§policy content¡¨. 3. The residents of male, the age above 50, the education below junior high school, married, having children with the age below 18, with house self-having and filling the autonomy post, have higher degree of sense of community. 4. The residents of male, the age between 50 and 59, having no children with age below 18, living in community 5~9 years and filling the autonomy post, have higher degree on cognition of community empowerment. 5. There is a positive correlation between residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment. 6. Residents¡¦ sense of community has a significant prediction on their cognition of community empowerment. The prediction capacity of factor ¡§community concern¡¨ is the highest with the factor ¡§community familiarity¡¨ the second highest. Based upon the above conclusions, this study offers several related suggestions to the governments, community autonomies and future researchers for their reference to boost ulterior community empowerment and researches.

The focus of this study is to be able to control the air-to-surface missile throughout the entire flight, with emphasis on the propulsion phase to increase the impact range of the missile. A major difficulty in controlling the missile during the propulsion phase is the important change in mass of the missile. This results in sliding the center of gravity (cg) point and changing inertias. Moreover, aerodynamic coefficients and stability derivatives are not assumed to be constant at predetermined ranges / conversely, they depend on Mach number, angle of attack, and side slip angle. Consequently, as the change of missile mass, cg point, inertia terms, and stability and aerodynamic coefficients come together apart from flight operation stages, a great number of points need to be taken into account when designing the controller. This makes controlling the missile all the more complicated. In this thesis, first the equations of motion are derived, in which, mass of the missile is not assumed constant. Thus, not only the variation of mass but also the variation of inertias is incorporated in the equations of motion. From the derived v equations of motion, a nonlinear inverse dynamics controller that can achieve desired guidance for a conceptually developed air-to-surface missile has been designed, tested and verified for a modeled missile with six degrees of freedom. For brevity of the study, conceptual design and aerodynamic calculations are not given in detail. Nevertheless, improvements for conceptual design are suggested. As a result, it is shown that the controller works efficiently: the missile is able to hit the target with less than 12 m circular error of probability (CEP). Finally, studies and improvements are proposed.

This thesis aims to analyze the growth dynamics of the Turkish commercial shipbuilding industry between 1992 and 2008. It tests the hypotheses whether each of the 14 variables identified in the literature are valid in explaining the growth of Turkish commercial shipbuilding industry between 1992 and 2008 and if there is a dierence in the importance of these variables through utilizing secondary data as well as the results of the semi structured interviews made with 16 experts and managers representing all stakeholders in public institutions, NGOs, academicians and shipyards. It argues that clustering in Tuzla, growth of world GDP and trade and specialization in chemical tankers and container ships, and three-pillar outsourcing were the major reasons for the growth of Turkish commercial shipbuilding industry for the period between 1992 and 2008 and change in dollar exchange rate is a minor reason.