Thesis (MPA) --University of Limpopo, 2018 / South African Universities are faced with the pandemic issues of student‟s through-put. The postgraduate intake at higher education doesn‟t correspond with the completion rate. South Africa is relatively the lowest in higher education success rate compared to other countries. This study aimed at investigating factors contributing to postgraduate students through-put at Turfloop Graduate School of Leadership (TGSL), in the University of Limpopo. This study adopted a quantitative descriptive research design. Questionnaire were utilised to collect data from master‟s students and academic staff at TGSL. Data was gathered through structured questionnaire from 42 master‟s students. Semi-structured questionnaire were used to gather data from five experienced academic staff members. The study utilised simple random sampling and judgemental or purposive sampling. Descriptive analysis was used and data was analysed using Statistical package for social science (SPSS). The findings reveal that the number of students graduating from the three programmes within TGSL is increasing from time to time suggesting a decline in supervision backlog. The study indicated that most master‟s students take more than maximum duration of three years to complete their study as these students have completed their modules (course work) and remain with research project. Despite these and other academic support provided by the university, masters students encounter certain challenges that influence their academic performance. The major factors influencing through-put include: Lack of commitment; personal issues such as workload; lack of support from spouse and family members and poor time management; lack of personal interest and hard work on the part of students; lack of focus; poor time management; inadequate writing skills; lack of time. Most students are working and may not have adequate time to consult their supervisors. This study has made recommendations to further improve master‟s students‟ through-put. Based on the findings and conclusions of the study it is recommended that students should be self-disciplined; committed to their studies. Students should put more effort on their mini-dissertation and attend the writing retreats organised by the university to improve their writing skills.

Thesis advisor: Jia Niu / Nucleic acid aptamers are promising alternatives to antibodies for a wide array of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. However, state-of-the-art aptamers suffer from poor pharmacokinetics and diversity, limiting their affinity and specificity for many therapeutically relevant targets. The emerging field of glycoscience provides opportunities to improve the utility of aptamers over antibodies. Combining synthetic chemistry with modern molecular biology and polymer science, the synthesis of Xeno Nucleic Acid monomers and chemoenzymatic polymerization via engineered polymerase enzymes allows the production of nucleic acid drugs with superior resistance to endogenous nucleases. The modular structure of nucleic acids provides for the design of sequence defined polymers capable of post-synthetically appending complex synthetic glycans, extending the catalytic geometry of aptamers. Our SELEX inspired FACS based particle display approach allows for high-throughput screening. Additionally, we expect this method has the capability of screening aptamers in human serum. Our synthetic approach utilizes a Sonogashira cross-coupling reaction to install a flexible alkyne to the major groove of 2′-deoxy-2′-fluoro-arabinose uracil base. By incorporated recent advances in nucleic acid synthesis, one-pot nucleobase activation and sugar glycosylation is achieved and bis-oxybenzyl phosphoamidite synthesis can afford gram scale HPLC-free purification of the triphosphates. The FANA C8-alkyl-uridine triphosphate will be incorporated by an engineered Tgo DNA polymerase to allow systematic introduction of alkynyl conjugation handles into a DNA-templated FANA polymer. Subsequent conjugation with azido-modified glycans via the Huisgen coppercatalyzed alkyne-azide cycloaddition (CuAAC) click reaction will generate sequence controlled nucleic acid-carbohydrate hybrid molecules amendable for directed evolution. / Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

Le premier volet de cette thèse traite du marché du risque de crédit. Après un bref chapitre introductif à ce marché et à sa modélisation, nous introduisons un modèle à intensité de défaut baptisé SSRD pour Shifted Square-Root Diffusion. Ce modèle a pour qualité principale de pouvoir être automatiquement calibré aux prix des Credit Default Swaps observés sur le marché. En outre, il permet d'avoir une intensité de défaut et un taux d'intérêt dépendants entre eux. Ensuite, nous présentons une nouvelle classe de fonctions copules appelées "copules périodiques" car leur construction est basée sur des fonctions périodiques. Les copules interviennent en risque de crédit dans la modélisation jointe de plusieurs instants de défaut. Les copules périodiques permettent de balayer un large spectre de dépendances, de C- à C+ en passant par C

Optioner är ett instrument som investerare kan använda för att spekulera i framtida upp-eller nedgångar på olika tillgångar. Om dessa optioner är felprissatta finns det möjlighet att göra riskfria vinster med hjälp av Stolls köp-säljparitet. Tidigare studier visar att marknaden inte alltid är effektiv i sin prissättning av aktieindexoptioner och att det därigenom finns möjlighet till arbitrage. Denna studie undersöker huruvida marknaden är effektiv i sin prissättning av VINX30 aktieindexoptioner, d.v.s. finns det möjlighet till arbitrag på VINX30 aktieindexoptioner? / Options are an instrument which investors can use to speculate in future pricemovements on different assets. If these options are misspriced there are an opportunity to get riskfree profit by using Stolls put-call parity. Earlier research shows that the market sometimes is inefficient when pricing stock index options allowing arbitrage. This study investigate whether the market is efficient in the pricing of VINX30 stock index options, i.e. are there arbitrage opportunities on VINX30 stock index options?

Lookback option is a well-known path-dependent option where its payoff depends on the historical extremum prices. The thesis focuses on the binomial pricing of the American floating strike lookback put options with payoff at time $t$ (if exercise) characterized by \[ \max_{k=0, \ldots, t} S_k - S_t, \] where $S_t$ denotes the price of the underlying stock at time $t$. Build upon the idea of \hyperlink{RBCV}{Reiner Babbs Cheuk and Vorst} (RBCV, 1992) who proposed a transformed binomial lattice model for efficient pricing of this class of option, this thesis extends and enhances their binomial recursive algorithm by exploiting the additional combinatorial properties of the lattice structure. The proposed algorithm is not only computational efficient but it also significantly reduces the memory constraint. As a result, the proposed algorithm is more than 1000 times faster than the original RBCV algorithm and it can compute a binomial lattice with one million time steps in less than two seconds. This algorithm enables us to extrapolate the limiting (American) option value up to 4 or 5 decimal accuracy in real time.

Texas is the leading U.S. producer of cotton, and the U.S. is the largest international market supplier of cotton. Risks and uncertainties plague Texas cotton producers with unpredictable weather, insects, diseases, and price variability. Risk management studies have examined the risk reducing capabilities of alternative management strategies, but few have looked at the interaction of using several strategies in different combinations. The research in this study focuses on managing risk faced by cotton farmers in Texas using irrigation, put options, and yield insurance. The primary objective was to analyze the interactions of irrigation, put options, and yield insurance as risk management strategies on the economic viability of a 1,000 acre cotton farm in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) of Texas. The secondary objective was to determine the best combination of these strategies for decision makers with alternative preferences for risk aversion. Stochastic values for yields and prices were used in simulating a whole-farm financial statement for a 1000 acre furrow irrigated cotton farm in the LRGV with three types of risk management strategies. Net returns were simulated using a multivariate empirical distribution for 16 risk management scenarios. The scenarios were ranked across a range of risk aversion levels using stochastic efficiency with respect to a function. Analyses for risk averse decision makers showed that multiple irrigations are preferred, and that yield insurance is strongly preferred at lower irrigation levels. The benefits to purchasing put options increase with yields, so they are more beneficial when higher yields are expected from applying more irrigation applications.

The author used Put-Call-Futures Parity, Arbitrage-Free, Ex-ante Tests and Ex-post Tests to examine the arbitrage opportunity and market efficiency of the TAIEX index futures (TX) and the TAIEX index options (TXO) in this paper, during the period of December 24th, 2001 to December 31st, 2002. The author first, used daily closing prices to test for the existence of possible arbitrage opportunities. Second, she used ex-ante tests and arbitrage strategy to examine the arbitrage opportunity whether it exists or not with a time lag. Furthermore, The author classified the samples which exist ex-post arbitrage profit into five sub-samples according to call options positions belonging to near-the-money and far-from-the-money, futures positions belonging to positive basis and negative basis, markets belonging to bull markets and bear markets, and different margin requirement. She used ex-post and ex-ante tests to compare the results of over-all markets samples with the sub-samples, then, she also examined the results of included transaction cost or not. The major findings are as follows: 1. Whether taking into transaction cost or not, the TAIEX index futures and the TAIEX index options markets have arbitrage opportunity¡Aand so the markets unefficient. 2. The results of ex-ante tests and the average of arbitrage profit are positive for time to increase. 3. The long arbitrage strategy generates a higher arbitrage profit than the short arbitrage strategy. 4. The investors could proceed arbitrage profit during markets belonging to positive basis and bear market and low margin requirement.

Lookback option is a well-known path-dependent option where its payoff depends on the historical extremum prices. The thesis focuses on the binomial pricing of the American floating strike lookback put options with payoff at time $t$ (if exercise) characterized by \[ \max_{k=0, \ldots, t} S_k - S_t, \] where $S_t$ denotes the price of the underlying stock at time $t$. Build upon the idea of \hyperlink{RBCV}{Reiner Babbs Cheuk and Vorst} (RBCV, 1992) who proposed a transformed binomial lattice model for efficient pricing of this class of option, this thesis extends and enhances their binomial recursive algorithm by exploiting the additional combinatorial properties of the lattice structure. The proposed algorithm is not only computational efficient but it also significantly reduces the memory constraint. As a result, the proposed algorithm is more than 1000 times faster than the original RBCV algorithm and it can compute a binomial lattice with one million time steps in less than two seconds. This algorithm enables us to extrapolate the limiting (American) option value up to 4 or 5 decimal accuracy in real time.

美式賣權已經存在很長的時間，由於沒有公式解，目前只能利用數值分析方法(numerical analysis approach)和解析近似法(analytic approximations) 來評價它。這類的評價方法在文獻中相當多，但對這些方法的完整的比較卻相當貧乏。本文整理了27種評價方法和186種在文獻中常被引用的美式賣權契約，這些契約包含了各種不同狀態(有股利、沒有股利、價內、價平、價外、短到期日、長到期日)，後續的研究者可以用這些美式賣權契約來驗證他們的方法。本文實作其中14種方法並應用於上述的186種美式賣權契約上。這14種方法包含了樹狀法、有限差分法、蒙地卡羅法與解析近似法。從這些數值的結果中，本文根據精確度與計算效率整理出各種方法的優缺點與適用的時機。 　由本文之數值分析，我們得到下列幾點結論：1.Binomial Black and Scholes with Richardson extrapolation of Broadie and Detemple (1996)與Extrapolated Flexible Binomial Model of Tian (1999)這二種方法在這14種方法中，在速度與精確度的考量下是最好的方法；2.在精確度要求在root mean squared relative error大約1%的情形下，解析近似法是最快的方法；3.Least-Squares Simulation method of Longstaff and Schwartz (2001)在評價美式賣權方面並不是一個有效的方法。 / American put option has existed for a long time. They cannot be valued by closed-form formula and require the use of numerical analysis methods and analytic approximations. There exists a great deal of methods for pricing American put option in related literatures. But a complete comparison of these methods is lacking. From literatures, we survey 27 methods and 186 commonly cited option contracts, including options on stock with dividend, non-dividend, in-the-money, at-money and out-of-money, short maturity and long maturity. In addition, we implement 14 methods, including lattice approaches, finite difference methods, Monte Carlo simulations and analytic approximations, and apply these methods to value the 186 option contracts above. From the numerical results, we summarize the advantages and disadvantages of each method in terms of speed and accuracy: 1.The binomial Black and Scholes with Richardson extrapolation of Broadie and Detemple (1996) and the extrapolated Flexible Binomial Model of Tian (1999) are both efficient improvements over the binomial method. 2.With root mean squared relative error about 1%, the analytic approximations are faster than the numerical analysis methods. 3.The Least-Squares Simulation method of Longstaff and Schwartz (2001) is not an effective method for pricing American put options.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2006.