Because the government changed laws and opened the market progressively in recent years, the financial market in Taiwan becomes more and more liberal and international; every investor has to face a more complicated investitive environment. They can choice many investitive objects and tools, but how to choice the best one is a big problem for them and the risk in the financial market becomes much higher. Mutual fund is a popular investment tools in recent year. One of the mutual fund¡¦s benefits is the diversity of investment and effectively disperses risk.. In August 2006, the government in Taiwan opens up the market of mutual fund; the investors can buy offshore mutual funds in many channels, so they can choice many kinds of mutual funds, about 1,400 in April 2008. Also, every investor that can beat the level of risk is so different, it maybe make them confused and really want to know which one is much better and do asset allocation very well. Therefore, how to design a good portfolio for different perceived risk levels of investors is a worthful topic in the academia and the really world. This research uses the genetic algorithm to construct mutual fund portfolios based on perceived risk levels, use fund return, standard deviation, Alpha, Beta, Sharpe, IR and Sortino indicators to select funds of a portfolio and calculate portfolio return and standard deviation, then do asset allocation. This research change funds in every portfolio every month using Sliding Windows method from Jan 1, 2001 to Dec 12, 2007, totally 84 times. The result of this research is every portfolio average return wins benchmark index average return. The standard deviation of every portfolio also wins benchmark index standard deviation. It shows this research can beat benchmark index effectively and also can decrease the risk of portfolio return, then we can get a good fund portfolio for different perceived risk levels of investors

When it comes to researching the physical activity levels of college students, there seem to be very few studies that truly depict and show the ranges of physical activity throughout a college student’s life. This statement has helped propelled me to collect and analyze data in order to see what the physical activity is like for an undergraduate college student at the University of Texas. Researchers have discovered that many college students have reported understanding the benefits of physical activity, but that they report that there are many barriers in their daily life that thrust physical activity into the backseat as a priority (Lopez, Gallegos, & Extremera, 2010). Knowing that some college students will ignore physical activity, regardless of the health-related benefits, urges us to further discover the attitude of college students towards physical activity and what factors seem to have the most affect, whether positively or negatively, when it comes to their decisions on physical activity. Many university students decrease their PA levels (Gyurcsik, Bray, & Brittain, 2004; Keating et al., 2005; McArthur & Raedeke, 2009). Knowing this, I seek to answer the question, “What happens to the levels of physical activity throughout an undergraduate student’s life and what are the contributing factors to their level of physical activity?” Researchers noted that a healthy college-aged student should be participating in at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity at least 5 days per week (Nelson, 2007). My thesis is an analysis of daily and weekly activity, as well as what kinds of physical activity college students like and do not, the way in which they participate, either independently or with friends, as well as where they partake in physical activity. My subjects answered questions based on their physical activity levels throughout their college years. The subjects ranged between first and fifth year undergraduate students, which allowed me to get some insight as to how their physical activity levels have changed throughout the duration of their college careers. / text

Kim criticizes non-reductive physicalism as a suitable metaphysics of mind among things because of its failure on the issue of mental causation. The failure is especially present in the thesis of supervenience physicalism. Kim concludes that the causal powers of mental states can be reduced to the causal powers carried by the physical states realizing them. Such causal reduction might involve identity between mental properties and physical properties. I think this is not a necessary conclusion. I try to clarify some premises behind Kim’s analysis, regarding issues of irreducibility, downward causation and the structure of the physical domain. I think the main reason why Kim doubts the plausibility of non-reductive physicalism is his view that downward causation and non-reductive metaphysics indicate the physical domain being hierarchically divided into levels. It seems like Kim would take the opposite position regarding the structure of the physical: an undivided continuum. Yet, the question is if that position follows from the ontological tenet of physicalism. Finally, I conclude that not necessarily, and I develop some further implications and suggestions.

Sound levels in the neonatal intensive care unit often exceed the recommended level of 45 dBA. Various sounds contribute to the extraneous noise that envelops this fragile environment. Increase in noise and high levels of sound can be detrimental to the health of premature infants, which can cause both short and long-term developmental delays and negative physiologic responses. Music therapy interventions in the NICU have addressed numerous needs of this population, with a positive effect on development, physiologic responses, and hospital stay. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of music therapy on decreasing the sound levels in the NICU. Two different pods in a 66-bed NICU were used to measure sound levels for four consecutive days, alternating between days of baseline and music therapy intervention. A dosimeter was used to collect data, which was later analyzed to determine Lmin, and Lmax, and Leq. Results indicated an overall decrease in the sound levels average when music therapy intervention was present. Future studies should use multiple settings and collect data for an extended amount of time to further examine the sound levels of the NICU environment and any additional effects music therapy can have.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Earth Sciences / Master / Master of Philosophy

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In the light of society’s course and changes, valuable human life and man’s participation in social activities are nowadays unthinkable without reading skills. Seeming to be elementary and natural the skill is not inborn. As a matter of fact, reading is a complex process having its own development and difficulties. An urgent problem is reading that students spend more and more time playing computer games, searching the Internet, communicating on mobile phones, so less time is allotted us learning reading and improving the reading skills. That’s why it was important for us to make clear how 1st grade students learn reading and what is the quality of the 2nd grade students’ reading skills. While pursuing this aim, I have made an analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature about the process of reading and did an investigation in town and village schools.

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