Based on Leland (1994), the paper tries to examine the changes in probability of bankruptcy when direct and indirect costs of bankruptcy are considered. Besides, the paper tries to study the changes in probability of bankruptcy when agents have different goals, and explore the changes in bankruptcy costs and agency costs. The paper finds that, by taking into account of indirect cost of bankruptcy, the probability of bankruptcy tends to increase when agents try to maximize the value of shareholders, but tends to decrease when agents try to maximize the value of the firm. The probability of bankruptcy also varies by the changes of the parameters in different goals of agency models. Three major findings in the paper are: (1) when agents try to maximize the value of firm, the optimal probability of bankruptcy is close to zero; (2) marginal risk premium incurred by additional debts have to be considered in maximizing the value of firm; (3) the financing decision made by agents are affected by indirect costs of bankruptcy as they will increase the optimal probability of bankruptcy and marginal risk premium of debt in comparison with the case of direct costs being considered only.

Obesity has been described as a global health crisis due to the rapid increases seen worldwide (Whitlock et al., 2005; Harris et al., 2009; Yetter, 2009). The consequences of obesity are far-reaching and include the physiological and psychological implications for obese individuals, as well as the financial impact it has on both the individual and national health care. Children, especially those of minority ethnic background and lower socioeconomic status, are at increased risk for developing obesity (Yetter, 2009; Veldhuis et al., 2009). Intervention programs targeting underlying causes of childhood obesity have been developed, but little consistent success has been achieved (Summerbell et al., 2005; Sherry, 2005). One factor that could be influencing the lack of success is the stigmatization that can be felt by children taking part in intervention programs. Furthermore, many programs have targeted behavior change without determining underlying attitudes about behaviors. It is critical that effective obesity intervention programs be developed for children at high risk of developing obesity. This study used indirect messaging to address health issues related to overweight and obesity in children. An education program about animal health was presented to two groups of eight and nine year old children. The program included a combination of classroom instruction and practical application both in the classroom and at the Palm Beach Zoo with real animals. The children's attitude, knowledge, and practice of healthy behavior was measured before and after exposure to the program to evaluate its effect. It was hypothesized that learning about what being healthy entails for animals will have positive implications for the children's own health. It was found that children who participated in this study were already knowledgeable about healthy behaviors and also had overall positive attitudes towards health. However, they did not have high levels of health behavior practices. Participation in the program did not significantly improve the knowledge, attitudes, or practice of health behavior in the children. Zoos should consider designing program that specifically target increasing the practice of health behaviors in children.

L'aérosol anthropique peut affecter le cycle de vie des nuages de couche limite, en modifiant l'albédo du nuage et en inhibant la formation des précipitations. Cependant, il est difficile de quantifier ces impacts à partir d'observations. Les interactions aérosol-nuages de couche limite sont donc étudiées à l'aide des modèles numériques à résolution fine (LES), qui disposent de paramétrisations détaillées de la turbulence, du transfert radiatif et de la microphysique nuageuse. Dans cette étude, nous examinons plus spécifiquement les impacts de l'aérosol sur le cycle diurne de stratocumulus marins. Des simulations LES d'un cycle de 36 heures sont réalisées pour des concentrations d'aérosol typiques de masses d'air pures et polluées. Partant d'un même état initial, les simulations divergent rapidement. L'augmentation de la concentration des noyaux de condensation nuageux conduit à une augmentation de la concentration des gouttelettes, à une diminution de leur diamètre, et ainsi à l'inhibition de leur sédimentation et de la précipitation de bruine. Le contenu en eau liquide au sommet nuage augmente et l'entraînement sommital est renforcé. De plus, l'absorption du rayonnement solaire à la base du nuage n'est plus compensée par l'évaporation de la bruine et le découplage de la couche nuageuse est renforcé. Dans l'ensemble, la couche limite polluée est mieux couplée la nuit et plus découplée le jour que la couche limite marine pure. Ces simulations permettent d'identifier des signatures mesurables de l'impact des aérosols sur la dynamique de la couche limite, et ainsi de mieux concevoir les expériences de terrain qui visent à quantifier ces impacts.

<p>Organisations must change in order to be able to follow the expansion in the world and be competitive along with other organisations at the global market. To successfully efficient the organisations reduce their purchasing costs for material and products. One way to reduce the purchasing costs is to centralise all purchases in an organisation. When a big organisation does that, they use, among other things, the economies of scale. (Personal communication,Department Manager, 2005-06-17 and Senior adviser, IMS ITP, 2005-08-15)</p><p>While studying Information Logistics, 140 p, at the Centrum för Informationslogistik in Ljungby, has IKEA IT been our co-operating company. When we talked with our Department Manager during our internship, she describes co-operation problems between the units when they purchase IT-related indirect material. Indirect material is products that support the daily work within the organisation.</p><p>Since IKEA recently started a central purchasing function for indirect material our assignment was to see how IKEA could be more efficient when purchasing IT-related indirect material. Different units at IKEA are involved during central purchases of IT-related indirect material. The fact that many conflicts arise when different units are to co-operate is well known (Gadde & Håkansson, 1998). We found this very interesting and therefore our chose of subject.</p><p>The co-operation conflicts that have arose during our investigation shows clear signals in the theory about why they arise. According to Danermark (2000) it is more a rule than an exception that it anticipates a competition. Different occupational groups have different prestige and power, the bigger the difference is the bigger is the probability that a problem regarding co-operation arise.</p><p>One difficulty with centralized purchases is to get the different units at the organisation to co-operate. Co-operation problems could be caused by many factors for example did the different units use different terminologies and could therefore be misunderstood.(Gadde & Håkansson, 1998)</p><p>Unique for IKEA’s organisation is that all different units work against the same business concept, goal and vision (Personal communication, Senior adviser, 2005-08-15). As long as the involved units are independent and do not have identical purposes will there always be conflicts (Gadde & Håkansson, 1998). Heide, Johansson and Simonsson (2005) considers that the visions are build up on different goals. These goals are in its parts build up on a number of strategies.</p><p>All IKEA-units struggle towards the same vision and goal, but the different units use different strategies to reach the goals. This different strategy creates conflicts when the different IKEA-units should co-operate.</p><p>To make the most optimized purchase for IKEA should the purchasing department handle the contacts with the suppliers (Personal communication, Purchase Process Manager, 2005-08-27). That generates a conflict when the other involved units also want to make the first contact (Personal communication, Process Owner, 2005-09-07 and Project Manager 2005-09-23). One problem is that the purchasing department today have a lack of resources and do not have time to handle all purchases and delegate some purchases to the other involved units. This gives a double message about how IKEA want the purchasing process to work.</p> / <p>Organisationer har blivit tvingade att effektivisera sina verksamheter, för att vara konkurrenskraftiga på marknaden. För att lyckas med detta behöver organisationen sänka kostnaderna, på material och produkter som organisationen köper in. Ett sätt att effektivisera och sänka inköpskostnaden är att centralisera inköpen. När en stor organisation gör detta utnyttjar de bland annat skalfördelarna. (Personlig kommunikation, Department Manager, 2005-06-17 och Senior adviser, IMS ITP, 2005-08-15)</p><p>Vi har under våran utbildning, Informationslogistik 140p, haft IKEA IT som fadderföretag. Efter att vi genomfört en 20 veckors praktik på IKEA IT beslutade vi tillsammans med våran dåvarande chef att vi skulle skriva våran C-uppsats om hur IKEA kan genom bättre samverkan och kommunikation effektivisera sina inköp av indirekt material. IKEA: s centraliserade inköpsavdelning är nyuppstartad och det finns ännu ingen inarbetad arbetsrutin hur ett inköp skall gå till.</p><p>Då IKEA nyligen startat upp sin centrala inköpsenhet för indirekt material, blev vår uppgift att se till hur IKEA kan bli mer ffektiva när de skall köpa in IT-relaterat indirekt material. Olika enheter inom IKEA är involverade under inköpsprocessen. Att det uppstår konflikter när olika enheter skall samarbeta är väl känt sedan innan (Gadde & Håkansson, 1998). Vi fann detta intressant och därav vårt val av ämne.</p><p>Enligt Danermark (2000) är det snarare en regel än ett undan tag att det förekommer konkurrens inom en organisation. Olika yrkesgrupper har olika prestige och makt, ju större dessa skillnader är desto större är sannolikheten att problem med samverkan uppstår. Innan inköpsavdelningen för indirekt material startades hanterade de olika enheterna själva sina inköp. Detta medförde att det förekom flera leverantörsrelationer från flera olika enheter.</p><p>En av svårigheterna med centraliserade inköp, är att få organisationens olika enheter att samverka. Samverkningsproblem kan bero på många faktorer, exempelvis att de enheterna använder sig av olika terminologier och därför missuppfattar varandra. (Gadde & Håkansson,1998)</p><p>Unikt för IKEA organisationen är att alla dess enheter arbetar mot ett och samma mål (Personlig kommunikation, Senior adviser, 2005-08-15). Så länge de involverade parterna är självständiga och inte har identiska målsättningar, kommer det alltid att finnas konflikter (Gadde & Håkansson, 1998). Heide, Johansson och Simonsson (2005) anser att visionen byggs upp av olika mål. Dessa mål bygger i sin tur på ett antal strategier. Alla enheter inom IKEA strävar efter samma vision och mål, men de olika enheterna använder olika strategier för att uppnå dessa mål. Detta leder också till konflikter då de olika enheterna inte är ense om vilka inköp som skall prioriteras.</p><p>IKEA vill att den första leverantörskontakten skall tas av inköpsavdelningen, detta för att inköp och förhandlingsprocessen skall bli så optimal som möjligt för IKEA organisationen</p><p>(Personlig kommunikation, Purchase Process Manager, 2005-08-27). De andra involverade enheterna motsäger sig detta då de anser att de behöver kontakta leverantören av olika anledningar innan en inköpsförhandling påbörjas (Personlig kommunikation, Process Owner, 2005-09-07 och Project Manager 2005-09-23). Ett problem är att inköpsavdelningen idag har en resursbrist i form av tid, därav överlåter de vissa inköp till de andra enheterna. Detta leder till ett dubbelt budskap om hur inköpsprocessen skall gå till.</p>

An enhanced approach for the impact analysis is presented. Impact analyses play an important role in future research analysis as part of the scenario techniques in the strategic management field. Nowadays, they are also applied for the description of mutual relationships of tangible and intangible resources in organisations. The new method is based on currently existing methods using a cross impact matrix and overcomes some of their drawbacks. Indirect impacts are considered together with their impact strengths. A modification of the impact matrix is not necessary. Simple examples show that the new method leads to more reasonable and stable results than the existing methods. The new method shall help analysing the complexity of social systems in a more reliable way.

Vorliegende Dissertationsarbeit beinhaltet eine Abschätzung der durch adipositasattributable Erkrankungen verursachten direkten und indirekten Kosten für Deutschland im Jahr 2002. Nach Definition durch die WHO handelt es sich bei Adipositas um eine exzessive Vermehrung des Körperfettes mit signifikanten gesundheitlichen Konsequenzen (WHO 2008). Die Graduierung der Adipositas erfolgte nach der international anerkannten Einteilung der WHO mittels Body Mass Index. Diese Einteilung beinhaltet ein Mass welches das Körpergewicht in Relation zur Körpergrösse bewertet. Adipositasattributable Erkrankungen bezeichnen Krankheitsbilder welche in Ihrer Entstehung in eindeutigem kausalen Zusammenhang mit Adipositas gesehen werden können. Die in vorliegender Arbeit berücksichtigten adipositasattributablen Erkrankungen umfassen insgesamt 14 ICD-10-Diagnosen. Dazu zählen Diabetes mellitus, kardiovaskuläre Erkrankungen, Stoffwechselerkrankungen und verschiedene Karzinomerkrankungen. Anhand statistisch belegter Daten zur Prävalenz von Übergewicht und Adipositas, sowie relativer Risiken adipositasattributabler Erkrankungen wurden adipositasattributable Fraktionen ermittelt welche als Grundlage zur Berechnung der adipositasassoziierten Kosten dienten. Das relative Risiko gibt an, um welchen Betrag das Risiko an einer Krankheit zu erkranken bei einer exponierten Person gegenüber einer nicht exponierten Person erhöht ist. Die adipositasattributable Fraktion gibt denjenigen Anteil an den Fällen einer Erkrankung an welcher einem jeweiligen Risikofaktor zugeschrieben werden kann. Zur Berechnung der Kosten wurde der gesundheitsökonomisch anerkannte Top-Down-Ansatz verwendet. Bei dieser Methode der Berechnung der direkten und indirekten adipositasattributablen Kosten werden statistische Daten einer Gesamtpopulation zur Erhebung der globalen Kosten einer Erkrankung für einen bestimmten Zeitraum herangezogen. Die statistischen Daten werden dann auf einzelne Individuen durch Division durch die Gesamtpopulation herunter gerechnet. Die direkten Kosten beinhalten eine Bewertung der adipositasattributablen Morbidität mit Ressourcenverlusten durch unmittelbare finanzielle Aufwendungen. Dazu gehören beispielsweise Krankenhauskosten, Kosten für den Hausarzt und Medikamentenkosten. In vorliegender Studie umfassten die berechneten direkten Kosten Aufwendungen aufgrund von stationärer und ambulanter Versorgung, Rehabilitation und sonstige Kosten im Sinne von Verwaltungs, Forschungs und Ausbildungskosten. Zu den indirekten Kosten werden beispielsweise Kosten aufgrund verminderter Produktivität durch Morbidität und Produktivitätsausfall aufgrund von Mortalität gezählt. Unter indirekten Kosten wird der durch Krankheit, Invalidität oder vorzeitigen Tod entstehende Verlust an Wertschöpfungspotenzial verstanden. Dazu gehören beispielsweise Kosten aufgrund verminderter Produktivität durch Morbidität und Produktivitätsausfall aufgrund von Mortalität. Insgesamt bildeten die adipositasattributablen direkten und indirekten Kosten im Jahr 2002 ein Gesamtvolumen von 8.530.630.770 Euro. Dieser Betrag entsprach cirka 0,5% des Bruttoinlandproduktes desselben Jahres mit cirka 2107,3 Mrd. Euro sowie cirka 3.8 % der gesamten Krankheitskosten für Deutschland im Jahr 2002. Diese beliefen sich auf einen Gesamtbetrag von 223,6 Mrd. Euro (statistisches Bundesamt). Die direkten Kosten bildeten mit 4.548.510.697 Euro (53%) einen etwas grösseren Anteil im Gegensatz zu den indirekten Kosten welche sich auf insgesamt 4.079.515.331 Euro (47%) beliefen. Die direkten adipositasattributablen Kosten wurden bei beiden Geschlechtern zum größten Teil durch ambulante Behandlung verursacht. Insgesamt entstand dabei im Jahr 2002 ein Betrag von 2.676.233.336 Euro was einem Anteil von 61% an den gesamten direkten Kosten entsprach. Bei den indirekten Kosten entfiel der grösste Anteil adipositasattributabler Kosten bei bezahlter sowie unbezahlter Tätigkeit auf Mortalität. Bei bezahlter Arbeit belief sich der Betrag auf 801.277.741 Euro und bei unbezahlter Arbeit auf einen Betrag von 2.007.341.715 Euro. Bei einer Analyse der direkten und indirekten Kosten nach ICD-10-Diagnose zeigte sich, dass bei den direkten Kosten der grösste Anteil der finanziellen Aufwendungen auf Diabetes Mellitus (E11) mit 1.404.943.170 Euro (31%) und auf Hypertonie (I10-I15) mit 1.190.444.553 Euro (26%) entfiel. Weitere 15% der Kosten wurden mit 712.546.029 Euro durch Adipositas und sonstige Überernährung (E65-E68) verursacht, wobei Frauen mit 450.982.438 Euro (65%) gegenüber Männern mit 261.563.591 (35%) etwa doppelt so viele Kosten verursachten. 14% der Kosten entfielen auf die ICD-10-Diagnose Koronare Herzkrankheit (I20-I25) mit insgesamt 643.601.949 Euro. Die adipositasattributablen indirekten Kosten wurden zum größten Teil durch koronare Herzkrankheit (I20-I25) mit 1.539.009.232.198 Euro verursacht. Dieser Betrag entsprach einem Anteil von 37% an den gesamten indirekten Kosten. Gefolgt wurde die Diagnose koronare Herzkrankheit (I20-I25) von der ICD-10-Diagnose Hypertonie (I10-I15), welche mit 535.794.685 Euro (12%) lediglich ein Drittel der Kosten für koronare Herzkrankheit betrug. Den drittgrössten Posten innerhalb der indirekten Kosten bildete die ICD-10-Diagnose Diabetes Mellitus (E11) mit 441.400.365 Euro (9%). Insgesamt zeigte sich dass Herz-Kreislauferkrankungen und Diabetes Mellitus bei Männern und Frauen zu den Hauptverursachern der adipositasattributablen direkten und indirekten Kosten zählten. Speziell für diese Krankheitsgruppen weisen die Ergebnisse dieser Studie darauf hin, dass in Deutschland ein relevantes Potential für langfristige Kosteneinsparungen durch Präventionsmaßnahmen zur Vermeidung oder Verminderung von Übergewicht besteht. Daher sollte vorliegende Studie dazu anregen kosten-effektive Präventionsmaßnahmen weiter zu entwickeln, zu vertiefen und schnellstmöglich umzusetzen.

Thèse de doctorat : Etudes germaniques : Paris 4 : 2008. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre.

This dissertation explores the British colonial government’s attempt to reconstruct women’s reproductive behaviors in colonial Ghana through the sites of maternal and infant welfare services and western midwifery education. In the early 1920s, the fear that the high maternal and infant mortality rates in the Gold Coast would have repercussive effects on economic productivity caused the colonial government to increasingly subject women’s reproduction to medical scrutiny and institutional care. I argue that female reproduction was selected as a site of intervention because the British colonial government conceived of it as a path of least resistance to social reconstruction, economic security, and political dominance. The five chapters have been designed to analyze colonial reproductive intervention as a socio-economic and political exigency of colonial rule. This dissertation speaks to the fact that cross-culturally, the female body has been politicized through narratives of power, culture, tradition, modernity, race, disempowerment, and empowerment. / text

Back pain is the 6th most costly condition in the United States and is responsible for the most workdays lost. Approximately 33 million American adults suffered from back and neck problems in 2005. The societal cost of chronic back pain (CBP) has not been calculated from a US perspective. Longitudinal data files from Panels 12, 13, and 14 of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) were used to estimate excess direct (ambulatory visits, inpatient admissions, emergency room visits, and prescription medication) costs and indirect (lost productivity) costs for persons 18 years and older reporting CBP compared to those not reporting back pain. Persons were included in the CBP group if they reported back pain (ICD-9-CM codes 720, 721, 722, 723, 724, 737, 805, 806, 839, 846, 847) in at least 3 consecutive interview rounds. The complex sampling design of MEPS was taken into account to get accurate national estimates. All costs were adjusted to 2011 using Consumer Price Indices. All mean costs were computed using age-stratified regression models, after adjusting for demographic and clinical covariates. Utilization of provider-based complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among CBP patients was studied, and differences in costs between CAM users and non-users examined. Based on this analysis, the prevalence of CBP in the adult US population was estimated to be 3.76%. Total all-cause costs for CBP patients were estimated to be $187 billion over 2 years (direct costs = $176 billion, indirect cost = $11 billion). Overall estimates of excess costs of CBP over 2 years per person for direct medical costs were $37,129 ($25,273 vs. $48,984; p<0.001). This breaks down to $11,711 ($14,929 vs. $3,219; p<0.001) for ambulatory visits; $3,560 ($6,514 vs. $2,914; p<0.001) for inpatient admissions; $300 ($690 vs. $390; p<0.001) for emergency department visits; and $19,849 ($23,873 vs. $4,024; p<0.001) for prescription medications. Excess indirect costs for CBP patients were $1,668 ($2,329 vs. $661; p<0.001). Thirty-seven percent of CBP patients reported at least one CAM visit. There was no significant difference in overall costs between CAM users and non-users. The high cost of chronic back pain in the US population has potential implications for prioritizing policy, and in attempting to improve care and outcomes for these patients. / text

Performance of modern pipelined processor depends on steady flow of useful instructions for processing. Branch instruction disrupts sequential flow of instructions by presenting multiple paths through which a program can proceed. By predicting branch outcome early, branch predictors allow processor to continue fetching instructions from the predicted path. History-based dynamic branch predictors have shown to reach high prediction accuracy, yet certain branch types continue to mispredict. These are multitarget indirect branches and data-dependent direct and indirect branches. These are hard-to-predict branches since their outcome do not always exhibit repeatable patterns. This thesis describes branch prediction schemes for improving prediction accuracy of hard-to-predict branches using data value correlation. In these schemes, instead of relying on branch history information, compiler identifies program instructions whose output value strongly correlates with branch outcome. These correlated instructions are tracked at run-time, and their output is used for making branch predictions. Specifically, this thesis proposes following two branch prediction schemes: (i) Value-based BTB indexing (VBBI) is a low cost, compiler-guided scheme for predicting multi-target indirect branches. For every indirect branch, compiler identifies an instruction whose output strongly correlates with targets taken by the indirect branch. At run-time, multiple branch targets are stored and subsequently accessed from BTB using index formed by hashing indirect branch PC with output of the correlated instruction. (ii) Store-Load-Branch (SLB) predictor is a compiler-assisted branch prediction scheme for data-dependent branches. Typically, data-dependent branches are associated with program data structures such as arrays, linked list etc., and follow store-load-branch execution sequence. A set of memory locations is written at an earlier point in a program. Later, these locations are read, and used for evaluating branch condition. Branch outcome depends on values stored in data structure, which, normally do not have repeatable patterns. In SLB scheme, compiler identifies all program points where data structure associated with a data-dependent branch is modified. These marked store instructions are tracked at run-time, and stored values are used for computing branch flags ahead of time. Later, when branch instruction is fetched, pre-computed flags are read, and used for making predictions. This thesis introduces new branch prediction schemes, describes hardware structures and compiler analysis for implementing these schemes, evaluates their performance impact, and estimates their area, power and timing overhead. / text