This work described in this thesis develops a computationally efficient approach to performing electromagnetic simulations in the presence of statistically defined uncertainties caused by either material inhomogeneities, or fabrication and placement tolerances. Comparisons are made with results from Monte Carlo simulations and a sequence of higher order approximation extensions is considered. There are two main techniques used to achieve the overall objective of this thesis namely: the Direct Solution Technique (DST) and the Unscented Transform (UT) method. The DST based on Taylor series approximations is intended to explicitly provide rapid approximate solutions that obviate the need for extremely slowly converging and time consuming Monte Carlo analysis of multiple simulations. The DST approach is useful in problems where sensitivity of system responses with respect to stochastic variables can be mathematically defined. The UT method is similar to the Monte Carlo method but makes use of a significantly smaller number of simulations. As the number of random variables considered increases, the UT procedure requires more simulations. The advantage of the UT method is that it is applicable to black-box models and can therefore be extended to different electromagnetic solvers. The case studies used in this thesis are developed using the Transmission Line Modelling (TLM) method. Both the DST and UT method were found to enhance the modelling of uncertainty in electromagnetic problems. The scopes of both methods are explored and observations made upon both the degree of problem complexity and the extent of stochastic variation permitted.

Il presente lavoro intende fornire un’edizione critica e commentata della versione armena del Libro V delle Leggi di Platone. Il dialogo ci è giunto tramite un unico testimone, relativamente recente, il manoscritto della Biblioteca dei PP. Mechitaristi di San Lazzaro nr.1123, insieme a Timeo, Minosse, Eutifrone, Apologia. Nonostante queste traduzioni abbiano suscitato interesse tra gli studiosi, non ne è mai stata approntata un’edizione critica: quelle dei Mechitaristi (1877 e 1890) non costituiscono una fonte affidabile. Si offre per la prima volta la descrizione codicologica e paleografica del codex unicus, proponendo indizi per una più precisa datazione. Si presenta inoltre un breve excerptum del Timeo, rinvenuto in un esemplare legato all’“Università di Glajor” (XIII-XIV sec.): è quindi il più antico testimone manoscritto delle traduzioni platoniche. La porzione di testo in questione è qui collazionata con V 1123. La traduzione del libro V è poi confrontata sistematicamente con il Parisinus graecus 1807 e il Vaticanus graecus 1, i due portatori di tradizione: si esclude la dipendenza diretta della traduzione da ciascuno di essi, sebbene condividano alcuni errori; si rilevano invece significativi accordi con il “libro del Patriarca” citato in margine al secondo. La lingua della traduzione è fortemente grecizzante ma non servile nei confronti del testo greco: i grecismi si alternano a costruzioni dell’armeno classico, e a volte sono indipendenti dal testo di partenza. Il traduttore dimostra una buona comprensione del testo platonico: ciò emerge particolarmente nella resa dei termini tecnici. Alcune rese peculiari forse si rifanno alla tradizione esegetica greca. Il testo critico, con greco a fronte, riproduce il codex unicus, correggendo solo le più evidenti corruttele. In apparato sono segnalate le divergenze tra manoscritto e editio princeps, le lezioni dei testimoni greci e le congetture sull’armeno proposte dagli studiosi; i singoli passi sono analizzati nel commento a piè di pagina. / The present work offers a critical, annotated edition of the Armenian version of Plato’s Laws, Book V. The dialogue is extant in a sole, late witness (Biblioteca dei PP. Mechitaristi di San Lazzaro, ms 1123) together with Timaeus, Minos, Euthyphron, Apology. Despite the interest they generated among scholars, a critical edition is not available yet: the Mekhitarist editions (1877 and 1890) are not a reliable source. A codicological and palaeographical description of the codex unicus is given here for the first time, offering clues for a more accurate dating. A short excerptum of Timaeus, found in a manuscript connected to the University of Glajor (XIII - XIV c.), thus representing the most ancient witness of Plato’s translation, is here edited and collated with V 1123. The version of Laws, Book V is studied in close comparison with Parisinus graecus 1807 and Vaticanus graecus 1, in order to define its relation with the two witnesses. In this respect, direct dependence is excluded in both cases, although they both share some errors with the version; we have found instead significant agreements with the "Book of the Patriarch" quoted in the margins of the second. The translation, although strongly Hellenizing, is not slavish: grecisms coexist alongside classical Armenian structures, and sometimes do not correspond to any equivalent expression in the source text. The translator shows a good understanding of Plato’s text: this is particularly clear in the rendering of technical terms. Some peculiar choices may be explained with reference to the Greek exegetical tradition. The critical text reproduces the codex unicus, rectifying only obvious errors of the Armenian textual transmission. The apparatus records divergences between the manuscript and the editio princeps, conjectures from previous scholars and different readings of the greek witnesses; comments on single passages are given in the footnotes.

The research pertains to the pre-Islamic Mazdean calendrical system in Arab sources, specifically on al-Bīrūnī's Canon Masudicus, concentrating on the Yazdegerd Era under a computational, linguistic and philological point of view.

Abstract Laxatives appear to be one of the most common group of drugs sold in retail pharmacy presently. Use of these drugs appears to be by all patients regardless of age, gender, race, education level and income group. Reasons for ingestion of laxatives also appear to vary among patients. This study investigated patients wishing to purchase laxatives from a suburban pharmacy in Johannesburg located near the inner-city. It clarified the patient’s own perception of what constipation is, why he or she ingested this formulation and for how long this product had been used. The study also reviews adverse effects that patients experienced using these products. Following the exclusion criteria, the sample size totaled 197. Data was collected over a period of ten weeks from February 2006 until April 2006, in which patients wishing to purchase laxatives were asked to complete a confidential questionnaire regarding their use of laxatives. Results obtained revealed that there is widespread misuse of laxative products amongst the patients questioned. A large percentage of patients (66%) were not in their own opinion constipated and were using laxatives for purposes other than for which these products are indicated. Many patients (71%) are ignorant as to normal frequency of bowel habits, and 81% of patients were using laxatives to treat conditions other than constipation. An encouraging aspect of this study showed that with appropriate education and drug control, many patients could be taught to treat their medical conditions more correctly than by using a laxative as a generalized detoxification product to cure all illnesses.

High-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission has higher efficiency and lower expenses for the long-distance bulk-power transmission. A HVDC tap is one type of the multi-terminal HVDC systems which transfers a small amount of power from the HVDC line to the nearby communities with no access to the electricity. Developed from the 1960s, HVDC taps can be summarised into series taps and parallel taps, between which series taps are considered to be more promising on the use of devices and the cost. The conventional series taps have some evident drawbacks, which a modular multilevel based series tap may overcome. Here a novel n-phase Multi-Modular Series HVDC Tap (MMST) is proposed to realise the utilisation of the modular multilevel structure into the series tap and improve the performance of typical series taps. In this PhD thesis the theoretical analysis and the parameter design of two-phase and three-phase MMSTs based on the South-West HVDC Link in Sweden have been carried out. The control strategy for the n-phase MMST, including the load current control, the mean capacitor voltage control and the DC link voltage control, has been designed. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed topology and the validity of the presented control strategy, simulations have been validated using a low power prototype. The simulation and experimental results indicate that the MMST offers better performance when compared to the conventional series taps.

This thesis is primarily an anthropological and historical study of transformations of labour regimes in Macedonia within the context of a changing political economy. This process can largely be situated in the “transition” from a socialist to a market-based economic model; a process which was never only about transforming the “economic” but touched upon every intimate aspect of people's lives. It is through these changes, and the reconceptualization of what work ought to be about, that we can explore larger questions of class identity, alienation, morality, personhood and the operations of power and social reproduction in contemporary Macedonian society. As such, this thesis is offered as a contribution to the traditional, yet, in the case of Macedonia, under-researched, themes of social and economic anthropology. My primary fieldsite and object of investigation, is the small township of Shtip, in eastern Macedonia, where I investigate the changing role and social status of industrial workers in the national economy, and the everyday working lives of garment labourers in one of Shtip's largest garment factories. The historical chapters of this thesis analyse the making of an industrial working class within socialist Yugoslavia, and the subsequent attempts at unmaking the values, social relations and forms of personhood, that grew up within the specifics of Yugoslav socialism. I approach “class” through the indeterminate interplay of social, cultural and economic factors, and highlight the enduring cultural importance of embedded, relational forms of personhood. As I move towards more current events, and particularly the ethnographic chapters, I focus more strongly on the responses of industrial workers to such changes. I deal not only with specific practices, but also with questions of the “imagination”, or how workers, experience, and reflect on these wider changes in ways that keep open the possibility of rearranging social relations at the work place, and beyond. In doing do, I propose that struggles over the definition of personhood, rather than class conflict, are at the forefront of debates about what work ought to be about. Also, I suggest that the outcome of these struggles has not been to challenge subordination and social inequality in itself, but to challenge the specific kinds of inequality and subject categories introduced by the transition to a neoliberal market economy (Dunn 2004).

The Japanese banking system provides a distinctive platform for the examination of the long-lasting effect of problem loans on bank performance. Japan is also known for an extended quantitative easing programme of unprecedented scale. Yet the links between risk-taking activities, quantitative easing, and bank competition are largely unexplored. This thesis employs a unique database, which allows us to distinguish between bankrupt and restructured loans. The aim of the thesis is to investigate the impact of these loans on Japanese bank efficiency and productivity growth, as well as their relationship with bank competition and quantitative easing policy. We measure technical efficiency by modifying a translog enhanced hyperbolic distance function with two undesirable outputs, identified as problem loans and problem other earning assets. Further analyses reveal that bankrupt loans affect efficiency in a manner related to the “moral hazard, skimping” hypothesis, with the causality originating from bankrupt loans. In contrast, the relationship between restructured loans and efficiency supports the “bad luck” hypothesis. We also follow the parametric approach to quantify the impact of bankrupt and restructured loans on productivity growth of the Japanese banking system. We further perform convergence cluster analysis to examine convergence in productivity growth between regions, where limited convergence is reported. Additionally, this thesis employs, for the first time, the bank-level Boone indicator to measure bank competition in Japan to examine the underlying linkages between quantitative easing, competition, and risk. Given the scale of problem loans, we measure bank risk-taking based on bankrupt and restructured loans. Our analyses show that enhancing quantitative easing and competition would reduce bankrupt and restructured loans, but it would negatively affect financial stability. In light of the ongoing negative interest rates and quantitative and qualitative easing policy to enhance economic growth in Japan, this thesis would provide insightful implications for policymakers and regulators.

The thesis analyses how the standard model of liberalised electricity markets that was developed to increase the efficiency of electricity supply can deal with new objectives. While the liberalisation literature argues that additional objectives can be incorporated in the market framework through price signals, a large body of literature based on evolutionary economics argues that innovation and systemic transformation require governance mechanisms that complement the price mechanism of the market to overcome the lock-in of the existing system and coordinate innovation processes. The thesis focuses on the integration of distributed generation (DG) into electricity networks. In the standard model the governance of networks is mainly based on incentive regulation by independent regulators. Thus, the main question is how DG can be integrated into this regime and whether and how it needs to evolve. The research question is broken down according to both different governance issues (connection, integration, innovation, transformation) and different governance levels on which they can be addressed. This is analysed from two angles: Firstly, there is a mainly theoretical discussion of network regulation. Various approaches to amending the standard model are discussed. Secondly, this is complemented by country case studies of the UK and Denmark. The conceptual analysis shows how incentive regulation can accommodate the efficient integration of DG as an additional objective. There is also scope for this model to incorporate governance mechanisms that are geared towards infrastructure transformation. The UK case study shows the practical implementation of this approach and corresponding difficulties. As for Denmark – a DG and network transformation pioneer – the standard model plays a marginal role and economic issues are mainly dealt with outside regulation. The same is true for mechanisms beyond economic incentives. The thesis shows the potential of the standard model to pursue new objectives as well as the need to broaden the scope beyond governance based on economic incentives.

The first of a series of studies of social agencies in Oregon. aimed at collecting and presenting data through the use of a sociological model, this project represents a beginning effort to assess the social welfare resources of the State. Christie School, a small nucleated institution, was examined in terms of its evolution from an orphanage to a treatment-oriented care facility . Particular attention was given to the impact of historical events and analysis of these in terms of the institution’s life cycle. Impetus was given to the study by the crisis of impending closure of the school and events leading to continuance were recounted. The model of institutional development created by Joyce O. Hertzler was selected after examination of a number of other models. Data were collected from a number of original sources and placed in the general categories of the model. The model was found to be generally static and lacking in specificity for the examination of a small nucleated institution. A number of conclusions were drawn from the collection and analysis of the historical data. Among these were the tendency for religion to remain institutionally constant while other institutional factors seemed to vary in light of historical developments. The ability of Christie School to function fairly autonomously within a generally hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church was noted. The force of individual personalities on the shaping of the institution was acknowledged and the communication process was examined in light of the school’s struggle for existence. The impact of secularization was noted as well as the influences of various social movements on the institution throughout its history. Much original material was collected, recorded and preserved by the project.

Thesis (M.A.)--Oregon State University, 1963. / Typescript. Mounted photographs. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-174). Also available on the World Wide Web.