This dissertation utilizes a Foucauldian perspective to explore the relationship between at-risk youth and the acceptance and integration of long-term conventional goals and values held by the general population. I posit that orthodox theories, which argue that youth who engage in delinquent behaviors do so because they either reject the goals and values of society, or they realize they have no legitimate means of goal attainment, fail to adequately explain why some youth appear to integrate and strive for these goals. I argue that Foucault's work on power and knowledge, more specifically the use of bio-power and the technologies of normalization, can be used as an explanation for how at-risk youth come to integrate and accept these conventional goals and fully participate in the creation of themselves as "docile bodies". </p> <p>This issue is explored through an analysis of two sets of data collected through the development and implementation of two separate surveys; one given to the general population of youth and the other to at-risk youth. As well, I explore the findings of personal interviews collected with youth incarcerated in Kilburn Hall, a remand centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. </p> <p>What these data show is that, far from rejecting the conventional goals and values of society, at-risk youth appear to integrate both the goals and a strong ideology of personal responsibility for the attainment, or failure to achieve these goals.

Resilience is a phenomenon that results from strong and well-protected adaptation systems. It is not a one-dimensional quality that either one has or does not have but is instead the possession of many skills and resources at different times and to varying degrees. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of three resilient refugee children regarding what they felt contributed to their positive adaptation after facing adversity. This study examined how the participants understood the variables inherent in parenting and the new social milieu (e.g. friends, the mosque or church, community agencies supporting refugees, school and community involvement, involvement in sport) promoted their resilience. <p>Three nine to twelve year old refugee children identified as resilient by their teachers were each interviewed three times at their school. Data analysis consisted of developing qualitative themes and patterns from the interviews. These themes and patterns were categorized using the constant comparative method.<p>This study supports and extends the existing understanding of the factors that contribute to resilience in school-age children. The children in this study perceived their families, their friends, and their teachers as protective factors in their positive adjustment following adversity. The vital role of the community coordinator in their school as a person who could facilitate their involvement in school and community events became evident. In addition, this study highlights the role of sport as a contributing factor to resilience. Involvement in sports appears to serve as a buffer against the vulnerabilities of resettlement in a new country for some refugee children. Further research on the importance of sport for children with refugee status would be beneficial for expanding our understanding of resilience, and would have implications for school and community programming.<p>As Canadian society becomes increasingly diverse, the need to discover the processes contributing to resilience in individuals with a wide range of cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds takes on greater importance. It is hoped that discovering the factors that help refugee children to develop resilience will create a deeper understanding of the processes involved for other children.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a multifactorial caries risk assessment model by comparing the risk factor scores with caries increment. Secondary data analysis included a chart review of 434 dental patients in which basic caries risk scores, total risk score and caries increment were collected. ANOVA and logistic regression were conducted to assess the statistical significance of the difference between caries increments across categories of risk factors. Mean tooth caries increments of the risk groups were 0.20±0.8 (low), 1.13±1.59 (moderate), 2.09±2.63 (high), which were statistically significant (p<0.001). Past and present caries experience, carbohydrates, mucogingival bleeding index, and stimulated salivary flow showed statistically significant associations with caries increment (p<0.05) but the total risk score proved to be the most powerful predictor of future caries activity (p<0.001). The multifactorial etiology of caries necessitates the use of a risk assessment model that includes various factors that contribute to caries development.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a multifactorial caries risk assessment model by comparing the risk factor scores with caries increment. Secondary data analysis included a chart review of 434 dental patients in which basic caries risk scores, total risk score and caries increment were collected. ANOVA and logistic regression were conducted to assess the statistical significance of the difference between caries increments across categories of risk factors. Mean tooth caries increments of the risk groups were 0.20±0.8 (low), 1.13±1.59 (moderate), 2.09±2.63 (high), which were statistically significant (p<0.001). Past and present caries experience, carbohydrates, mucogingival bleeding index, and stimulated salivary flow showed statistically significant associations with caries increment (p<0.05) but the total risk score proved to be the most powerful predictor of future caries activity (p<0.001). The multifactorial etiology of caries necessitates the use of a risk assessment model that includes various factors that contribute to caries development.

Measuring, modeling, and managing risk has always been an important task for researchers. Many of the traditional assumptions relied on in risk research, such as the assumption of normality and single period optimization, have proven too restrictive and alternative methods have been developed. The objective of this dissertation is to explore and apply these tools to analyze geographical diversification. The first step to analyze geographical diversification is to understand how different climate and spatial variables impact yields. Yield dependencies for wheat, cotton, and sorghum are estimated using linear correlation and copulas. The copulas provide an alternative to linear correlation. The results of the different dependency estimations indicate that there is a significant difference between the results. The next step is to analyze geographical diversification in a portfolio setting. Traditional portfolio optimization has assumed that risk and dependence are symmetric. Using a single period model, an asymmetric risk measure, conditional value at risk, and asymmetric dependence measure, copulas, are implemented into the portfolio optimization model. The efficient frontiers under both symmetric and asymmetric assumptions show that ignoring the asymmetric nature of the data could lead to optimal portfolio allocations that could underestimate the actual risk exposure. The implication of these results provides researchers with more motivation to move beyond the standard assumptions of linear correlation and normality. Building on the single period problem, a multi-period portfolio model is formulated using discrete stochastic programming. One key in formulating a discrete stochastic program is the representation of uncertainty. Scenario generation is a method to obtain a discrete set of outcomes for the random variables. A moment matching routine is developed to capture the first four moments of the variables and the multivariate relationship is modeled using copulas. The results show that the moment matching routine closely captures the higher moments of the data. The results also indicate that there are possible gains from geographical diversification. Wealth levels increased for all three regions when production is diversified over the different regions. The optimal land allocation was dependent upon the base acreage assumption

Many infrastructure networks rely on each other to deliver utilities and services to the community. In the event of a disaster, these networks can sustain significant damage. It is therefore important to identify interdependencies among networks to mitigate the disaster consequences. In 2003, Public Safety Canada (PSC) and NSERC initiated the Joint Infrastructure Interdependencies Research Program (JIIRP) for this purpose. The research was carried out at six Universities across Canada including the University of British Columbia (UBC). The aim of JIIRP at UBC was to study infrastructure interdependencies during disasters in order to aid in decision making. This involved the development disaster simulation methodology and tool, and the implementation of a case study. UBC's Point Grey campus was used as case study. The campus is located in southwestern British Columbia, a known seismic zone, therefore earthquake disaster scenario was chosen. Reasonable estimations of the expected seismic damage and losses are required in order to simulate a realistic disaster scenario. For this reason, in this thesis, seismic risk assessment was carried out for the buildings at UBC. This involved the development of a building database, the assessment of the expected level of damage to the structural and nonstructural building components, and the estimation of monetary, human and functionality losses. Buildings in the database were classified into prototypes and the damage was estimated for several levels ofintensity using damage probability matrices. As expected, the most vulnerable buildings on campus were those containing unreinforced masonry. These buildings make up 7% of the buildings on campus. The least vulnerable buildings were multi-family residential woodbuildings which account for 27% of the buildings on campus. Losses were estimated following the damage assessments. Casualties were estimated for three times of day. 2PM was determined to be the critical time of day as the campus population is the greatest at this time. Monetary loss and functionality trends were examined with respect to earthquake intensity and it was shown that for moderate intensity earthquakes, the losses depend primarily on nonstructural damage, while structural damage plays the most important role for higher intensities.

No description available.

Små och medelstora företag (SME) utgjorde 2010 en andel på 99,8% av alla företag i Sverige och bankerna är en viktig källa till finansiering för SMEs. På grund av bankernas betydelseskapade Baselkommittén för banktillsyn 1988 internationella regelverk som medförde ett kapitaltäckningskrav på 8% till banker. Kapitaltäckningskravet skulle kunna täcka oförutsägbara förluster vid en finanskris, vilket bidrar till att banksektorn är en av de mest reglerade branscherna i världen. 2006 skapades Basel II vilket för banker medförde svårigheter att bedöma kredit till och risker med SMEs. Basel II skapade en oro att kostnaderna skulle öka för kredit till SMEs och oron finns fortfarande kvar vid införandet av Basel III, vilket i sin tur kan försämra kreditvillkoren till SMEs. Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva bankernas arbetssätt med kreditbedömning av SMEs i nuläget, analysera och tolka hur Basel III kan påverka bankernas arbetssätt med kreditbedömning av SMEs, ge förståelse för hur Basel III kan påverka bankernas attityd till kreditbedömning av SMEs, på grund av ökade kapitaltäckningskrav. För att kunna genomföra studien användes en kvantitativ metod där en webbenkät skickades ut till 790 respondenter på tre av de största nationella bankerna i Sverige på villkor om anonymitet. Av 790 respondenter var det 150 som svarade fullständigt på webbenkäten, vilket medför en svarsfrekvens på 19%. Resultatet visar att Basel III kommer att fullgöra syftet att skapa finansiell stabilitet i banksektorn men kommer att försvåra möjligheten för SMEs att få gynnsamma krediter. / In 2010, small and medium sized enterprises (SME) represented a share of 99,8 percent of all firms in Sweden. For these SMEs, banks are an important source of financing. Because of the significance of the banks, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision created international regulations in 1988, which resulted in a capital adequacy of 8% for banks. The Capital adequacy should cover unforeseen losses in a financial crisis, which make the banking sector to be one of the most regulated industries in the world. In 2006, Basel II was created, which made it difficult to evaluate the credit and risk with SMEs. Basel II created a fear that costs for credit to SMEs would increase, and the worry is still there present, even at the introduction of Basel III, which implies the possibility of weakened credit conditions for SMEs. The purpose of this thesis is to describe banks’ operation of credit appraisals to SMEs today, analyze and interpret how Basel III may affect banks’ operation of credit appraisals to SMEs, and to understand how Basel III may affect banks’ attitude towards credit appraisals to SMEs, due to increasing capital requirements. To perform this thesis, a quantitative method is used by using a web survey, which was sent to 790 respondents in three of the major national banks in Sweden on condition of anonymity. Of the 790 respondents there were 150 who returned a complete survey response. This gives a response rate of 19%. The result shows that Basel III will fulfill the purpose of creating financial stability in the banking sector but will complicate the ability of SMEs to obtain favorable credit.

No description available.

The field of decision making has largely focused on the influence of contextual factors on risk tolerance. Much work has focused on how the problem itself is presented, in hopes of understanding the circumstances under which individuals may be helped in areas of long-term investment and planning through encouragement of greater risk tolerance. Specifically, when making financial decisions, it has been suggested that by presenting individual decisions in groups (Gneezy & Potters, 1997), or by presenting feedback less frequently (Thaler et al, 1997), participants are able to process individual problems in a holistic manner, which encourages risk tolerance when deciding. This literature has typically made claims that these effects are dependent on how the problem is presented. However, evidence for the benefits of “broadly bracketed” problems often relies as much on the presentation of aggregated outcomes as it relies on the grouping of problems. The purpose of this thesis was to further examine whether bracketing effects might be attributable to manipulations of problem framing or outcome framing. In addition, it has been suggested that perhaps individuals who differ in processing styles might respond differentially to framing effects in general (Frederick, 2005). That is, perhaps individuals who are more intuitive decision makers might be more susceptible to context-based changes, and so might show larger framing effects. Deliberative decision makers, on the other hand, might overcome these framing effects by reflecting on, or actively “reframing”, the problem. A secondary purpose of this thesis was thus to investigate individual differences in the magnitude of the bracketing effect on risk tolerance. In Experiment 1, problem and outcome bracketing were examined in the domain of discrete choices, while in Experiment 2, bracketing was examined with continuous iv investments. Results suggest that when investment opportunities are identical, problem framing encourages long-term risk tolerance. However, when choices are somewhat different from one another, as is often the case in real-world investment situations, outcome information is critical to encouraging long-term risk tolerance. Together, results suggest a critical reevaluation of the bracketing hypothesis and its application to long-term investment.