O objetivo do presente estudo foi verificar as relações entre a percepção de esforço (PE) e diferentes cargas em exercícios de força (EF), em sujeitos adultos sedentários, ativos e treinados. Trinta homens com idade entre 18 e 34 anos, foram divididos em três grupos experimentais (GE) de 10 sujeitos cada, sendo os mesmos classificados pelo seu histórico recente (12 meses) de prática de exercícios físicos: grupo de sedentários (GSE), grupo de treinados em força (GTF) e o grupo de fisicamente ativos (GAT). A avaliação da força máxima foi estabelecida através do teste de uma repetição máxima (1RM) nos EF supino (SUP) e pressão de pernas (PP). Através da realização de séries de 12 repetições, diferentes cargas foram aplicadas até que os 4 índices de esforço percebido (IEP – 11, 13, 15 e 17 da Escala RPE de Borg) fossem determinados. O ritmo foi controlado (3 segundos para cada repetição), as cargas foram ocultas, os intervalos controlados (3 a 5 minutos), a ordem dos IEP randomizados, a PE localizada e determinada após a realização da série. Após identificada a carga correspondente à cada IEP, a mesma foi relativizada em percentuais pelo teste de 1RM correspondente (%1RM). A análise estatísitica foi realizada através da análise de variância com bloqueamento e pela correlação de Spearman, sendo o nível de significância de p < 0,05, com os dados processados no software SPSS v. 13. Os resultados indicaram altas (r = 0,826 a 0,922) e significativas (p < 0,05) correlações entre os IEP e o %1RM, conforme GE e EF. Um comportamento similar foi encontrado entre os EF. Maiores cargas estão relacionadas com maiores IEP, sendo diferenciado entre os GE. O GTF utiliza um maior %1RM em relação ao GSE, enquanto que o GAT, apresentou um comportamento intermediário em relação aos demais grupos. Menor variabilidade das respostas do %1RM é verificada nos IEP maiores. Desta forma, acreditamos que a utilização da percepção de esforço pode ser um instrumento confiável na mensuração da intensidade do treinamento de força. / The aim of this study was to verify the relationship between the perceived exertion (PE) and different intensity in strength exercise (SE), in sedentary, active and trained adults subjects. Thirty males with 18 and 34 years old, were matched in 3 experimental groups (EG) with 10 subjects in each group, classified for their recent description (12 months) of physical exercises activities: sedentary group (GSE), strength training group (GST) and the physically active group (GPA). The maximum strength was measured through the 1 repetition maximum test (1RM) on the bench press and leg press exercise. With the accomplishment of sets of 12 repetitions, different loads were applied until the 4 ratings of perceived exertion (Borg’s RPE Scale - 11, 13, 15 and 17 ratings) were determined. The rhythm was controlled (3 seconds for each repetition), the loads were blinded to subjects, the intervals were controlled (3 - 5 minutes), the order of the RPE and exercise were randomized, and the active muscular PE were assessed following each set. After determination of corresponding load to each RPE, it was related by percentages for the corresponding 1RM (%1RM). Statistical analysis was carried by analysis of variance with lock-in and for the correlation of Spearman, with significant level p < 0,05, processing wit SPSS v. 13 software. The results indicated high (r = 0,826 a 0,922) and significant (p < 0,05) correlation between RPE and %1RM, as EG and SE. Similar results were found between the SE. Higher loads are related with higher RPE, with different behavior between EG. The GST uses higher %1RM in relation to the GSE, while the GAT, presented an intermediate behavior related to the other groups. Lower variability of responses of %1RM is observed in higher RPE. Thus, we believe that utilization of perception exertion can be a trustworthy instrument in the measurements of intensity in strength training.

Correlated ordinal data typically arise from multiple measurements on a collection of subjects. Motivated by an application in credit risk, where multiple credit rating agencies assess the creditworthiness of a firm on an ordinal scale, we consider multivariate ordinal models with a latent variable specification and correlated error terms. Two different link functions are employed, by assuming a multivariate normal and a multivariate logistic distribution for the latent variables underlying the ordinal outcomes. Composite likelihood methods, more specifically the pairwise and tripletwise likelihood approach, are applied for estimating the model parameters. We investigate how sensitive the pairwise likelihood estimates are to the number of subjects and to the presence of observations missing completely at random, and find that these estimates are robust for both link functions and reasonable sample size. The empirical application consists of an analysis of corporate credit ratings from the big three credit rating agencies (Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch). Firm-level and stock price data for publicly traded US companies as well as an incomplete panel of issuer credit ratings are collected and analyzed to illustrate the proposed framework. / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

One of the assumptions upon which modern portfolio theory is based is the efficient market hypothesis which postulates that market prices fully reflect all available information, which implies that an abnormal return cannot be made. Evidence has amassed in contradiction to the efficient market hypothesis as demonstrated by Jegadeesh and Titman (1993); Mohanram (2005); Montier (2009) and Piotroski, (2000). However these studies demonstrated earning an abnormal return by buying an asset as opposed to selling an asset. Evidence by Altman (2000) and Beneish, Lee and Nichols (2013) affirmed that abnormal returns may be earned by selling a declining asset. There has been no published work conducted on the South African market pertaining to an instrument that may be used to detect a decline in share price due to prior earnings manipulation, thereby providing the scope of this research. In recent years the focus of the discipline of asset pricing has shifted away from theoretical modelling towards empirical analysis. The C-score by Montier (2008) is a binary earnings manipulation detection model, designed to identify stocks that may be shorted for an abnormal return. An exploratory study of stocks on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) from 2002 to 2010 was conducted. Vital focus areas included the resources and industrials sector. Results of this research prove that C-score is insufficient as a stand-alone tool for detecting shortable stocks on the JSE. Whilst negative relative returns were earned for certain holding periods of certain sectors, a consistent trend could not be isolated. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / pagibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) play a key role in financial markets by helping to reduce informative asymmetry between lenders and investors, on one side, and issuers on the other side, with regard to the creditworthiness of banks or countries. This crucial role has expanded alongside financial globalisation and received an additional boost from Basel II which integrates the ratings of CRAs into the rules for setting weights for credit risk. Ratings adjustment tends to be sticky, lagging behind markets, and often overreact when they do change. This overreaction may have aggravated the recent financial crises, contributing to financial instability and cross-country contagion. Criticism has been especially directed towards the high degree of concentration of the ratings industry. Promotion of competition may require policy action at the international level to encourage the establishment of new agencies and to discover alternative rules or regulatory requirements in order to achieve promising results. The recent growth of Middle Eastern and North African countries (MENA) and their commercial banking system has increased the need of paying widespread attention to this region of the world. This thesis crucially identifies, and estimates, the robust determinants of credit ratings for MENA countries and their commercial banks, incorporating a set of bank level accounting and financial risk factors, as well as country-specific characteristics, including indicators for regulatory, supervision, legal and economic environments. The research contributes, firstly, to the theoretical literature on credit ratings industry by reviewing extant methodologies specifically as they apply to banks and sovereign countries. Secondly, it conducts a systematic, cross-country empirical investigation using panel data econometric methodology for the purpose of estimating MENA countries sovereign and bank credit rating models. Thirdly, it provides tangible and statistically significant evidence on the different factors that determines the estimation of credit ratings and influencing bank's risk. The extant literature reviewed serves as a basis to achieve and develop the research aim, objectives and hypotheses of the thesis. The research then constructs an appropriate panel dataset from different sources, containing bank-level and country-level information for a sample of 108 commercial banks covering 13 MENA countries over the period 2000 - 2012. The methodological framework for estimating credit rating models (linear regression, logit and probit) is also reviewed and the procedures for panel data estimation are implemented using the econometric package STATA (version 13). All relevant data are drawn from public sources including Reuters, Bankscope, IMF and the World Bank. Using the random effects ordered probit and logit methodologies to estimate both sovereign (country) and bank level credit ratings models for the MENA countries, the evidence shows that real GDP growth, capital requirements, restrictions on banking activities and control of corruption all contribute negatively to the sovereign ratings. Furthermore, internal management and organisational requirements is considered as an additional regulatory factor not studied in previous research. The statistically significant and inverse relationship of the latter is considered an important and interesting outcome of MENA countries’ sovereign ratings. On the other hand, GDP per capita, investment (as a percentage of GDP), political stability, government effectiveness and the rule of law all reveal significant and positive impact on the sovereign credit ratings. In general, this research finds that improved macroeconomic conditions are correlated with higher ratings, while greater reserve regulations are correlated with lower ratings. The study also does find the significance of governance and regulatory variables plays a key role into the final credit rating. With regard to the impact on banks’ ratings, the results show that higher return on average assets and equity, larger bank size, more restrictions on bank activities, as well as higher official disciplinary power and higher standards of internal management, will yield higher credit ratings. Apart from having direct and positive impact on banks credit ratings, these variables are important for examining the risk-sharing incentives in MENA countries’ banks. In contrast, the estimation results indicate that net interest margin, net loans to deposits, liquid assets to deposits, capital requirements, deposit insurance scheme, liquidity requirements, unemployment rate and government effectiveness have an inverse and negative impact on banks ratings. In general, this study also finds various financial, macroeconomic, and regulatory effects on banks’ credit ratings. To a much lesser extent than government ratings, various macroeconomic variables also helped predict banks’ ratings, including real GDP growth and the unemployment rate. The thesis concludes by arguing that the combined use of financial and non-financial factors for estimating credit ratings models supports the relevant hypotheses examined and adds value to all stakeholders in improving and obtaining a better quality of credit ratings. This study also demonstrates that a diversity of bank-level and country-level factors influence the MENA sovereign and bank ratings differently, implying that policy makers, regulators alongside rating agencies should distinguish the different environmental factors between nations before any judgment and issuance can be model of the ratings. To conclude, there is no study which exclusively investigates credit rating models for the MENA region exploiting the richness of the data and methodology employed, and the current research aims to fill this gap.

Social anxiety disorder has several impairments (including attention bias in ratings of facial expressions). Character strengths has been seen to increase well-being and functioning among healthy individuals. With this in mind, three aims were stated; Is there a relation between SAD and VIA, can this relation be explained by confounding’s and does ratings of faces tell anything about the relation? Data were collected through a survey from 41 participants (13 men) with a mean age of 30 years. Correlation and regression models were performed to see if these constructs were related. The findings showed that character strengths and social anxiety were correlated, and that the regression model did not predict SAD. The regression model for Via were significant with all confounding variables. Ratings of facial expression were not related to any variables. Further studies need to look more into this correlation to see the underpinnings of these constructs.

Following the early days of the Internet and the World Wide Web, news media in Canada have gone on to develop their own news web sites with the intentions of meeting the on-line needs of media audiences, expanding their audience reach, and adding to revenue production and profitability on- and off-line. Web strategies have varied somewhat across the different media, but anecdotal evidence suggests that sports contents have been important for both print and television. This thesis focused on the latter, sports contents on television network websites, and was undertaken to evaluate how Canadian television stations are utilizing the Internet and web technologies to feature sports news and information. Only a few studies specific to sports television web sites have been done, and these have mainly focused on American news stations. The research objective of the thesis was to systematically examine the web presence of sports contents on Canadian television web sites by conducting a content analysis of identifiably unique sites in the Canadian context. A site analysis protocol was developed through an iterative process. An initial instrument was constructed drawing on past research in this area. In particular, prior work by Bates et al. (1996 & 1997), Pines (1999), Bucy, Lang, Potter & Grabe (1999), Sparks (2001) provided systematic measures for examiriirig the Web presence of television stations. Ha & James's definition of interactivity (1998) was also useful as was the work of Cho (1999), Rogers & Thorson (2000) on Internet advertising. The initial instrument was evaluated and modified during a series of trial scans. The final instrument focused on five areas: body of the home page, types of content, presentation mechanisms, interactivity and advertising. A systematic site analysis was conducted from August to October, 2003, and a total of twenty-one sports home pages were analyzed. Three web sites (TSN, Leafs TV and The Score) were found to have a good balance in the five areas evaluated in the study. The results of independent-samples t-tests showed that general television networks had more sports top news and hyperlinks to other news items than sport specialty networks. By comparison, sports specialty networks tended to have more sport-related search engines and greater efficiency of space. CBC's "Sports Forums" that were configured on its sports home page gave the public broadcaster the highest quotient for interactivity in comparison with the twenty private networks and stations in the study. Advertising was present in all of the sites, and the findings point to an increasing interest in the televisual and sport web site media in producing revenue through web-based advertising. / Education, Faculty of / Kinesiology, School of / Graduate

The purpose of this research is to examine whether U.S. banks that announced material operational risk loss (oprisk loss) events can still enjoy a lower cost of capital. I use the bank's credit rating as a proxy for the cost of debt capital, and the actual oprisk loss amounts announced by publicly traded U.S. banks for $10 million and over during the period 1998 to 2012 compiled from my own database. I also investigate whether the type of oprisk loss event and business line in which the loss event was incurred matter to credit rating agencies. I perform additional analysis to determine whether a downgrade in a bank's credit rating associated with the announcement of a material oprisk loss amount impacts the bank's reputation. This study focuses on the U.S. banking industry because of the increased market and regulatory scrutiny of oprisk losses; especially during the financial crisis of 2008 to 2010. The logistic analysis shows that banks' announcement of material oprisk loss amount is associated with a decline in credit ratings. The findings did not support the position that the type of loss event and business line in which the loss event was incurred matter to credit rating agencies. The results for the event study show that a downgrade in a bank's credit rating associated with an announcement of a material loss amount has a robust, statistically significant negative stock market reaction. Furthermore, the results reveal that the losses in market value significantly exceed the announced loss amounts associated with credit rating downgrades, indicating reputational loss to the banks. This research was limited to announcements of material oprisk loss amounts by U.S. banks publicly traded on major U.S. stock exchanges. Investigating the impact of announcements of material oprisk loss amounts by financial institutions publicly listed on major stock exchanges worldwide provides an avenue for future research. This study contributes to the literature on operational risk and the cost of debt capital as reflected in credit ratings by providing empirical evidence of the impact of oprisk losses on credit ratings of U.S. banks.

The purpose of this study was to determine the predictive value of selected input variables on the accountability rating of Texas high schools with student populations greater than or equal to 900. Specifically, this study analyzed the effect of student, staff and fiscal input variables in determining the odds of a high school in this study receiving a Low Performing, an Academically Acceptable, or a Recognized rating in the Texas public education accountability system - a system which is based in student performance on state standardized testing. Identifying a set of variables that helps predict campus accountability ratings provides campus administrators and teachers with information to improve student performance on standardized testing. Using statistical methods to determine the odds of campus ratings based on selected input variables, this study revealed that successful student remediation in mathematics is the most consistent, positive indicator of campus accountability rating out of 60 student, staff and fiscal inputs analyzed. However, the most telling aspect of this study is that inputs such as, teacher experience, teacher campus tenure, teacher degree level, student SAT performance, Advanced Placement testing performance and the percentage of low socioeconomic students were not statistically significant. The wider implications of these findings warrant further research into why these variables seem to have no affect on campus accountability rating.

The purpose of this study was to (a) develop an evaluation instrument capable of rating students' perceptions of the instructional quality of an online course and the instructor’s performance, and (b) validate the proposed instrument with a study conducted at a major public university. The instrument was based upon the Seven Principles of Good Practice for Undergraduate Education (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). The study examined four specific questions. 1. Is the underlying factor structure of the new instrument consistent with Chickering and Gamson's Seven Principles? 2. Is the factor structure of the new instrument invariant for male and female students? 3. Are the scores on the new instrument related students’ expected grades? 4. Are the scores on the new instrument related to the students' perceived course workload? The instrument was designed to measure students’ levels of satisfaction with their instruction, and also gathered information concerning the students’ sex, the expected grade in the course, and the students’ perceptions of the amount of work required by the course. A cluster sample consisting of an array of online courses across the disciplines yielded a total 297 students who responded to the online survey. The students for each course selected were asked to rate their instructors with the newly developed instrument. Question 1 was answered using exploratory factor analysis, and yielded a factor structure similar to the Seven Principles. Question 2 was answered by separately factor-analyzing the responses of male and female students and comparing the factor structures. The resulting factor structures for men and women were different. However, 14 items could be realigned under five factors that paralleled some of the Seven Principles. When the scores of only those 14 items were entered in two principal components factor analyses using only men and only women, respectively and restricting the factor structure to five factors, the factor structures were the same for men and women. A weak positive relationship between students’ expected grades and their scores on the instrument was found (Question 3). There was no relationship between students’ perceived workloads for the course and their scores on the instrument (Question 4).

This study examines and describes the perceptions of human resource professionals about their contribution and that of their departments to strategic planning and management. Human resource leaders from organizations with five hundred or more employees in Southern California responded to this survey. The significance of this study is its potential to increase our understanding of the contribution of the human resource function to strategic planning.