An examination of Okun's Law in the U.S., which focuses on potential breaks in the law at the national level and a panel analysis of the states.

Examensarbetet har utförts i sammarbete med Weland Lagersystem AB i Gislaved som är ett företag där smarta lagersystem tillverkas. Weland Lagersystem AB säljer och monterar lagerhissar som lagrar artiklar i höjdled. De här hissarna är beklädda av paneler, monteringsskenor, dekorlister och hörnprofiler. Alla beklädnadsdelar förekommer i varierande storlek. Problemet med hissarna är att beklädnaden av dem är kostsam samt att delarna för beklädnaden är många att montera. Målet med arbetet är att undersöka om en beklädnad i plast kan bli mer kostnads- och monteringseffektiv än dagens lösning. Om resultat av undersökningen blir negativ ska ett bättre monterings- och kostnadskoncept i plåt utvecklas. Likaså ska konstruktions- och ritningsunderlag till det resulterande konceptet  tillhandahållas Weland Lagersystem AB. Teoretisk referensram är ett kapitel som beskriver de olika metoderna som kommer att användas under arbetets gång. I kapitlet Metod och genomförande beskrivs hur underlaget i Teoretisk referensram har andvänts för att nå ett resultat. Resultatet innefattar en konceptlösning i plåt bestående av färre beklädnadsdelar än dagens lösning. Det nya konceptet bygger på en hissbeklädnad med nyutformade paneler, monteringsskenor och hörnprofiler. Kostnadskalkylerna resulterar i att lösningen blir mer kostnadseffektiv. Rapporten avslutats med en diskussionsdel kring resultatet gällande kostnad, montering, design och ergonomi samt förslag till vidare arbete.

Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 2006

This thesis evaluates the effect of electricity co-operation regarding import and export on electricity prices for OECD countries and on CO2 emissions for the world. In addition, the study investigates which kinds of renewable energies provide the best economic future for Canada and the U.S. There are three main sections to the thesis. Firstly, panel data analysis determines the electricity price functions, using 29 OECD countries’ yearly data from 1980 to 2007. Membership of the European Union, used to investigate effect of high level co-operation on price, is seen to decrease household and industry prices, but is not significant for household price. The effect of electricity trading in OECD countries is not found to deliver cheaper electricity suggesting that these countries need to co-operate more closely to increase competition and improve efficiency in electricity markets. Secondly, panel data analysis determines parameters of the CO2 emissions function, using 131 countries’ yearly data from 1971 to 2007. The world results show that electricity co-operation is highly significant in decreasing CO2 emissions per unit of generation, thus supporting the hypothesis. At the continent level, Asia shows the highest CO2 decrease from electricity import, with the lowest decrease being for Africa. Electricity export for North America, Latin America and Europe is found to be highly significant in decreasing CO2 emissions. Finally, time series analysis of yearly data for Canada and the U.S. from 1978 to 2009 is used to determine the electricity price functions. For Canada, electricity import is found to be highly significant in decreasing household electricity price, but not so for the U.S. Renewable energies such as wind and hydro are seen to be the future of electricity generation for Canada, but the results for the U.S. indicate that no type of renewable energy can reduce electricity price.

No description available.

This paper investigates the price impact cost for MSCI constituents on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) from Jan. 2001 to Dec. 2004. While the behavior of price impact cost in U.S. security markets has been extensively analyzed, there are few studies about it in the pure limit-order markets. Unlike Breen, Hodrick, and Korajczyk (2002), a panel data model is applied to fit our cross-sectional and time series data. We find that the price impact cost is well predicted by predetermined firm characteristics and exhibits a Ushaped pattern over the trading day. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the reformations of trading regulations and the improvements of information disclosures would have a significant effect on the price impact cost for overall stocks.

Frankfurt (Main), University, Diss., 2006.

No description available.

No description available.

Magíster en Minería / Ingeniero Civil de Minas / Currently, mine plans are optimized by using many criteria, such as profit, life of mine, concentration of some pollutants, mining costs, confidence level or mineral resources, while attending constraints related to production rates, plant capacities and grades. Whilst this approach is successful in terms of producing high value production schedules, it uses a static sequence of production units (for open pit and underground mine) and therefore the optimization is performed within the level of freedom left by the original opening schedule and is far from the optimal value of the project according to the objective function. This approach is often used in the industry and therefore the value addition that is involved when optimizing the mining sequence is disregarded. This thesis summarizes a research that includes applying a model to optimize the NPV value, as the objective function, in a panel cave mine and evaluating this model with different mining systems, to study the drawpoints opening sequence and the NPV variations. The emphasis is in the precedence, geometrical and production constraints that are required to produce meaningful operational drawpoints opening sequences considering the exploitation method (panel caving), physical considerations and logical rules. Further on, while it applies the standard approach of maximizing NPV, other targets for optimization, such as the mining material handling system, are considered. The idea is to consider the drawpoints opening sequence as an output of the problem and to select the best sequence considering different mining systems. The results indicate that the selection of the mining system is important when comparing the results of the objective function or the grade. The results can vary up to 18%. En la actualidad, los planes de producción mineros son optimizados usando diferentes criterios como el beneficio económico, la vida de la mina, la concentración de contaminantes, los costos mina, el nivel de confiabilidad o las reservas mineras, atendiendo a restricciones relacionadas a la producción, capacidades de planta y leyes. Si bien esta aproximación es eficaz en términos de producir planes de producción de alto valor agregado, usa una secuencia de las unidades de producción estática (tanto para minería a cielo abierto como para minería subterránea) y por lo tanto la optimización es realizada con un grado de libertad menos, debido al uso de la secuencia predefinida (secuencia original) y esto está lejos de ser el valor óptimo del proyecto, de acuerdo con la función objetivo utilizada. Esta aproximación se usa a menudo en la industria y por lo tanto, cuando se optimiza la secuencia de explotación de las unidades de producción, el valor agregado involucrado no se percibe. Esta tesis resume una investigación que incluye la aplicación de un modelo para optimizar el VAN como función objetivo, en una mina de Panel Caving y evaluando este modelo para distintos sistemas mineros, de tal forma de estudiar la secuencia de apertura de los puntos de extracción y las variaciones del VAN asociadas. El énfasis se encuentra en las restricciones de precedencia, geométricas y de producción, que son requeridas para producir secuencias de apertura de puntos de extracción significativas considerando el método de explotación (Panel Caving), consideraciones físicas y reglas lógicas. Entonces, mientras se aplica la aproximación estándar para maximizar el VAN, se consideran otros inputs para la optimización como por ejemplo el sistema minero. La idea es considerar la secuencia de apertura de puntos de extracción como un output del problema y seleccionar la mejor secuencia dados distintos sistemas mineros. Los resultados indican que la selección del sistema minero es importante, ya que los resultados de la función objetivo son muy distintos (así como la ley media) para cada sistema considerado. Los resultados pueden variar hasta un 18%.