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Breeding objectives were developed for Targhee sheep at different levels of prolificacy and triplet survival. Economic weights (EW) were derived for estimated breeding values (BV) from National Sheep Improvement Program genetic evaluations for 120 d weaning weight (WW), maternal milk (MM), yearling weight (YW), fleece weight (FW), fiber diameter (FD), staple length (SL), and prolificacy (PLC; lambs born/100 ewes lambing). A commercial flock was simulated, accounting for nonlinear relationships between performance and profit. Ewes were assumed mated to sires of specified BV and profit was derived from lifetime performance of lambs and replacement females from that lamb crop. Economic weights were determined as change in profit from use of sires with BV that were one additive standard deviation above the mean for each trait [1.98 kg for WW, 1.62 kg for MM, 2.90 kg for YW, 0..36 kg for FW, 0.99 microns for FD, 0.74 cm for SL, and 17.58 lambs/100 ewes for LC], while holding all other BV at breed average. Separate breeding objectives were derived for different ways of meeting increased nutrient needs (P = purchase hay, R = rent pasture, and L= limited flock size) and for different market lamb values (D = discounting lamb value for heavy weights, ND = no discount for heavy lambs). Based on replicated simulations, relative EW did not vary with prolificacy or triplet survival (P > 0.15) but were affected by feed costs and lamb market values (P < 0.01). Selection indexes were derived within and across simulated scenarios, and correlation (r) among indexes of > 0.90 indicated that an index could be used across multiple scenarios with little loss of selection efficiency. Indexes derived within feed cost scenarios (P, R, and L) and lamb value scenarios (D, ND) were strongly intercorrelated (r > 0.97). Correlations among average indexes for feed cost scenarios (0.97 for R and P, 0.70 for R and L; 0.85 for P and L) indicated that two feed cost scenarios could be used depending on whether winter forage was limited (L) or not (NL). The correlation between average indexes for these two scenarios was 0.78. Indexes were presented for combinations of feed cost and lamb value scenarios. Two indexes were suggested, representing the scenarios that apply to a large portion of Targhee producers. These indexes were for discounting heavy lambs with limited winter forage (D-L: 1.0 WW + 0.14 MM __ 0.76 YW + 1.22 FW __ 0.36 FD - 0.09 SL + 0.25 LC) and discounting heavy lambs with additional available forage (D-NL: 1.0 WW + 0.24 MM __ 0.34 YW + 1.65 FW __ 0.41 FD - 0.14 SL + 0.33 LC). For a standardized selection differential of one for the index, the expected changes in mean index value were $2.17 and $1.92 per ewe per generation for D-L and D-NL, respectively. / Master of Science

No

Fung Wing Tsan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-133). / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgment --- p.iii / Chapter Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- THE PRICING OF STOCK INDEX FUTURES --- p.9 / Chapter I. --- The Theoretical Framework --- p.9 / Chapter II. --- Evidence from the US Markets --- p.17 / Chapter III. --- Evidence from Other Markets --- p.21 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- THE PRICE DISCOVERY ROLE OF FUTURES MARKET --- p.24 / Chapter I. --- The Potential of Lead/Lag Relationship between the Stock Index Futures Price and the Stock Index --- p.24 / Chapter II. --- Empirical Evidence for the Lead/Lag Relationship --- p.27 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- THE HEDGING FUNCTION OF STOCK INDEX FUTURES MARKET --- p.30 / Chapter I. --- The Traditional Approach --- p.31 / Chapter II. --- Working's Speculative Hedge Approach --- p.32 / Chapter III. --- The Risk-Minimizing Approach --- p.33 / Chapter IV. --- The Portfolio Allocation Approach --- p.40 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HANG SENG INDEX FUTURES MARKET --- p.44 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- PRICING EFFICIENCY OF THE HANG SENG INDEX FUTURES MARKET --- p.51 / Chapter I. --- Pricing Efficiency of the Hang Seng Index Futures Market with no Transaction Costs --- p.51 / Chapter II. --- Pricing Efficiency of the Hang Seng Index Futures Market with Transaction Costs --- p.59 / Chapter III. --- The Pattern of the Mispricing Series --- p.66 / Chapter IV. --- Test of Pricing Efficiency using Intraday Prices --- p.70 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- PRICE DISCOVERY ROLE OF THE HANG SENG INDEX FUTURES MARKET --- p.85 / Chapter I. --- The Granger-Causality Test --- p.86 / Chapter II. --- Error-Correction Model and Long-Run Relationship between the Stock Price and the Hang Seng Index Futures Price --- p.93 / Chapter III. --- The Simultaneous-Equation Error-Correction Model --- p.96 / Chapter Chapter 8 --- HEDGING EFFECTIVENESS OF THE HANG SENG INDEX FUTURES MARKET --- p.104 / Chapter I. --- The Effectiveness of Hang Seng Index Futures in Reducing Risks Of Stock Portfolios --- p.104 / Chapter II. --- The Hedged Portfolio as an Alternative to Fixed-Income Asset --- p.115 / Chapter III. --- The Effectiveness of Hang Seng Index Futures in Improving Risk´ؤReturn 'Trade-Off --- p.119 / Chapter Chapter 9 --- conclusion --- p.126 / References --- p.130

Prediction of financial time series is described as one of the most challenging tasks of time series prediction, due to its characteristics and dynamic nature. In any investment activity, having an accurate prediction system will significantly benefit investors by guiding decision making, especially in trading, asset management and risk management. Thus, the attempts to build such systems have attracted the attention of practitioners in the market and also researchers for many decades. Furthermore, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate and develop a new approach to predicting financial time series with consideration given to their dynamic nature. In this thesis, the prediction procedures will be carried out in three phases. The first phase proposes a new hybrid dynamic model based on Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD), Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), Support Vector Regression (SVR) and EEMD-Genetic Algorithm (GA)-Weighted Average (WA) to predict stock index closing price. EEMD in this phase is introduced as a preprocessing step to historical observation for the first time in the literature. The experimental results show that the EEMDD-GA-WA model performance is a notch above the other methods utilised in this phase. The second phase proposes a new hybrid static model based on Wavelet Transform (WT), RNN, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Nave Bayes and WT-GA-WA to predict the exact change of the stock index closing price. In this phase, the experimental results showed that the proposed WT-GA-WA model outperformed the rest of the models utilised in this phase. Moreover, the input data that are fed into the hybrid model in this phase are technical indicators. The third phase in this research introduces a new Hybrid Heuristic-Rules-based System (HHRS) for stock price prediction. This phase intends to combine the output of the hybrid models in phase one and two in order to enhance the final prediction results. Thus,to the best of our knowledge, this study is the only one to have carried out and tested this approach with a real data set. The results show that the HHRS outperformed all suggested models over all the data sets. Thus, this indicates that combining di↵erent techniques with diverse types of information could enhance prediction accuracy.

In recent years, the financial service industry demonstrated substantial growth of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Apart from offering access to new and more specific investment opportunities, many ETFs enter direct competition with conventional, already existing Mutual Index Funds. With 22,1% growth of assets over the past 5 years, the European market by now accounts for 19% of the global ETF market, while at the same time we observe a decline of cash flows to Mutual Index Funds. Given the recent development, index investors are likely to face a choice between ETFs and Mutual Index Funds offering the same service. The purpose of this study is to analyze those two similar investment instruments towards the quality of achieving their objective, which is to deliver a performance as close as possible to the respective benchmarks'. The analysis will be performed for the European market, i.e. we include only Index Funds that track European indices. This study is guided by objectivism and positivism as ontological and epistemological positions. We conduct a deductive research by reviewing and testing previous findings through the formulation of hypotheses that serve our purpose. For our analysis we gather quantitative data in the form of daily prices for 21 ETFs and 22 Mutual Index Funds, tracking 9 European indices. We further use a time frame of 7 years (2006-2012), which we analyze as a whole as well as divided into sub-periods as determined by different states of the European market. As a basis for the analysis we calculate return differences and different measures of tracking risk. Our results show that on average ETFs as well as Mutual Index Funds sufficiently replicate index performance with approximately the same level of tracking risk for both instruments. Furthermore, we see no significant impact of expected returns or index volatility on return difference. However, through examination of fees and tracking errors during recent economic turmoils, we show that ETFs first bear lower directly attributed costs and second are less affected by down markets than Mutual Funds.

This research uses Transmissivity Index (TI) and other transmission indices to analyze the transmission performance by applying those indices to coupler-driven mechanisms with sliders. Other estimative transmission indices include Total Transmission Index (TTI) and Transmissible Mechanical Advantage (TMA). The point with best transmission performance is ¡§Effective Point,¡¨ and the combination of the effective points becomes ¡§Locus of Effective Points¡¨. In addition, this research puts the influence of mechanisms with sliders including slider-friction into consideration, and also analyzes two inverses of mechanisms with sliders. Then we can extend to study the transmission performance of six-bar mechanisms. Finally, we apply the research result into some examples, such as ping pong table mechanism, four-bar and six-bar windows operator mechanisms, rowing exercise mechanism, so that we can find the better transmission performance of those mechanisms.

In this study, it is aimed to develop a database on Seyhan River Basin / and an environmental pollution index for the middle section of Seyhan Basin by combining different pollution indices such as water, and air. Water and air pollution indices are developed for the selected quality monitoring stations and the selected years. Water pollution index is calculated by using the method suggested by National Sanitation Foundation of United States, and air pollution index is developed according to the modified Environmental Protection Agency&rsquo / s air pollution index. As aggregation method, weighted arithmetic mean function is used for development of indices. After development of separate water and air pollution indices, environmental pollution index is developed for the year 2008 by two aggregation methods, one based on linguistic interpretation and the other again on weighted arithmetic mean function. The water pollution index for the middle section of the basin is determined as &ldquo / good&rdquo / , and air pollution index as &ldquo / low pollution&rdquo / . According to calculated water and air pollution indices, environmental pollution index is calculated with two methods and obtained the index equal to 4, which is classified as &ldquo / good&rdquo / . Although, both of the methods give same result in development of environmental pollution index, the second method based on weighted arithmetic mean function concluded to be more user friendly.

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Submitted by Ana Paula Almeida Ferraz (ana.almeida.ferraz@gmail.com) on 2018-04-16T15:45:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Paula Almeida Ferraz.pdf: 1528848 bytes, checksum: efac2d5c50a3b2eb9d3d5b0b7e2e6a11 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamella Benevides Gonçalves null (pamella@feg.unesp.br) on 2018-04-16T19:14:08Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ferraz_apa_me_guara.pdf: 1528848 bytes, checksum: efac2d5c50a3b2eb9d3d5b0b7e2e6a11 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-16T19:14:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ferraz_apa_me_guara.pdf: 1528848 bytes, checksum: efac2d5c50a3b2eb9d3d5b0b7e2e6a11 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O presente estudo tem por objetivo elucidar sobre a correlação entre a viscosidade e as propriedades mecânicas da polpa. O material utilizado foi uma amostra de Eucalyptus grandis x Eucalyptus urophylla. Os cavacos foram submetidos a cozimentos com tempos de polpação de 90 e 120 minutos. Para as polpas produzidas com tempo de 90 minutos, realizou-se a deslignificação com oxigênio com temperatura de 95°C e para as polpas produzidas com o tempo de 120 minutos, a temperatura do estágio de deslignificação com oxigênio foi de 115°C, objetivando uma maior diferença de viscosidade entre as amostras. Ambas as polpas foram branqueadas a partir das sequências ECF OD(E+P)DD, OAHTD(E+P)DP e OD(E+P)(PO). Posteriormente as polpas foram refinadas em moinho PFI e avaliadas quanto ao índice de rasgo, tração e arrebentamento, segundo as normas da TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry). Os resultados indicam que o aumento do tempo de cozimento em 30 minutos e aumento da temperatura da deslignificação com oxigênio de 95°C para 115°C afetam significativamente a viscosidade da polpa. O refino foi afetado pela diminuição da viscosidade das sequências produzidas com deslignificação com oxigênio à temperatura de 115°C. O índice de rasgo apresentou decréscimo quanto menor a viscosidade da polpa em todas as sequências de branqueamento deste estudo. Os índices de tração e arrebentamento apresentaram decréscimo de acordo com a diminuição da viscosidade em uma mesma sequência, entretanto, quando a comparação foi feita entre diferentes sequências de branqueamento, não houve relação entre os índices de tração e de arrebentamento com a viscosidade da polpa. / This study aims to elucidate the correlation between the viscosity and the mechanical properties of the pulp. The material used was a sample of Eucalyptus grandisx Eucalyptus urophylla. The chips were cooked with cooking times of 90 and 120 minutes. For the pulps produced in 90 minutes, the delignification with oxygen at temperature of 95ºC was performed and for the pulps produced in 120 minutes, the temperature of the oxygen delignification stage was 115ºC, aiming a greater difference of viscosity between the samples. Both pulps were bleached from the sequences ECF OD(E+P)DD, OD(E+P)(PO) and OAHTD(E+P)DP. Later, the pulps were refined in PFI mill and assessed for the tear, tensile and burst indexes, according to the TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) standards. The results indicate that the increase of cooking time in 30 minutes and the increase of temperature in oxygen delignification from 95°C to 115°C affect significantly the pulp viscosity. The refining was affected by the viscosity reduction of the sequences produced with delignification with oxygen at temperature of 115ºC. Tear index decreased as the pulp viscosity was lower, in all the bleaching sequences. Tensile and burst indexes presented decrease with the decrease of the viscosity in the same sequence, however, when comparing different bleaching sequences, there was no relation between the tensile and burst indexes with the pulp viscosity.