Pricing options quickly and accurately is a well known problem in finance. Quantum computing is being researched with the hope that quantum computers will be able to price options more efficiently than classical computers. This research extends the quantum binomial option pricing model proposed by Zeqian Chen to European put options and to Barrier options and develops a quantum algorithm to price them. This research produced three key results. First, when Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics are assumed, the quantum binomial model option prices are equivalent to the classical binomial model. Second, options can be priced efficiently on a quantum computer after the circuit has been built. The time complexity is O((N − τ)log(N − τ)) and it is in the BQP quantum computational complexity class. Finally, challenges extending the quantum binomial model to American, Asian and Bermudan options exist as the quantum binomial model does not take early exercise into account.

This thesis considers the nature of pottery and its wider roles in the Highlands and Northern Isles of Scotland from 2500-1800 BC. The period under study represents a key moment in British prehistory with the introduction of metallurgy and wide-ranging changes in society. Since the inception of early Bronze Age studies pottery has played an important role in examinations of identity and chronology. As identified by several scholars there has been a recurrent emphasis on a select number of interpretive themes and regions such as Wessex and Aberdeenshire. This has marginalised certain areas creating an imbalance in our understanding of the tempo and dynamics of change during the period. Recent reviews have begun to address this issue, highlighting the importance of regional studies to our overall understanding of change in the later 3rd millennium. At present, there is no synthesis of ceramic material from the Highlands and Northern Isles that considers the diverse array of pot types and the contexts in which they are found. In response, this thesis aims to characterise the range of ceramic types, their contexts and associations. Through the course of this thesis a series of detailed regional datasets and interpretations are constructed. This is coupled with a review of the longer-term ceramic sequence across the study area, situating the advent of novel pot types within the existing ceramic repertoire. Secondly, this thesis examines the dynamics of ceramic similarity and difference, and what this reveals about regional preferences and identities alongside broader intra and supra regional networks. Drawing on recent relational approaches this thesis explores how ceramic categories came into being, persisted and dissipated at a range of scales. These approaches highlight the fluid nature of change and the need to consider pots as elements of wider assemblages. Through this examination it is possible to detect distinct trends in regional ceramics, allowing for the construction of narratives that extend beyond defining visual similarities, contributing towards understanding the wider significance of similarity and difference.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:51:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 83915.pdf.jpg: 19618 bytes, checksum: fe8d0ad2af7e09d758b1cdd40109ad88 (MD5) 83915.pdf: 1301283 bytes, checksum: d7cce205d6b947be62e370adac38d342 (MD5) 83915.pdf.txt: 237809 bytes, checksum: b60aa3e9572111b63ccd0aa931651f9c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-05-12T00:00:00Z / A temática da ética empresarial vem despertando bastante interesse no meio acadêmico e também na sociedade em geral. Entre os que defendem o valor da ética empresarial, há aqueles que o fazem por uma questão de correção moral. Contudo, assoma na literatura de negócios uma visão mais instrumental da ética empresarial, identificando-a como fator de diferenciação de marcas, fidelidade do consumidor e conseqüente estabilidade dos fluxos financeiros. Aqui se empreendeu uma investigação empírica em cinco capitais brasileiras com o objetivo de relacionar a 'Importância Atribuída pelo Consumidor ao Comportamento Ético Empresarial' e as Expectativas do Consumidor acerca do Comportamento Ético Empresarial', por um lado, e a 'Propensão do Consumidor a Recompensar o Comportamento Ético Empresarial’ e a ‘Propensão do Consumidor a Punir o Comportamento Antiético Empresarial’, por outro. Para tanto, adotaram-se as escalas propostas por CREYER e ROSS Jr. (1997). Concluiu-se: a) pela necessidade de revê- las, tornando-as mais adequadas ao cenário brasileiro; b) pela falta de relação causal entre os construtos do modelo proposto.

The thesis describes the perception of dying and death among Werich family members, who were clients of Home hospice Tabita. The study is accompanied by an interview with Mr. Werich that took care of his dying wife. The observation has been performed by myself as an employee of Home Hospice Tabita. Facts obtained from the interview are supported by expert literature and my own participant observation. The study demonstrates what the dying families have in common, but also shows the specifics of individual cases. Although the hospice is based on Christian principles, it may profesionally and efectively work with non-Christian family members as well.

The Fairy shrimp Branchinecta gaini Daday, 1910 is the largest freshwater invertebrate in Antarctica and the top-level consumer of local freshwater food webs. Ecological demands of B. gaini that are accompanied by 'ruderal' life strategy together with its spatial distribution that exceeds to Patagonia indicate that it had survived last glacial period in South America and expanded to Antarctica shortly after this epoch endeed. On James Ross Island that is the most extreme environment where B. gaini occurs today was this fairy shrimp considered extinct until year 2008. Its disappearance was based on paleolimnological analysis of several lake sediment cores according to which it inhabited this island between years 4200 to approximately 1500 before present when it died out because of changes in lake catchments caused by harsh neoglacial conditions. Paleolimnological analysis of Monolith Lake presented in this study has shown that this assumption was wrong and B. gaini has lived on James Ross Island throughout neoglacial period up to recent time. Phylogeographic analysis of 16S rDNA of specimens from Patagonia, South Orkneys, South Shetlands and James Ross Island revealed that its high morphological diversity is not supported by this gene and that all examined populations of B. gaini is one species with very few...

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / This dissertation studies the computation methods of pricing of Asian options. Asian options are options in which the underlying variable is the average price over a period of time. Because of this, Asian options have a lower volatility and this render them cheaper relative to their European counterparts. Asian options belong to the so-called path-dependent derivatives; they are among the most difficult to price and hedge both analytically and numerically. In practice, it is only discrete Asian options that are traded, however continuous Asian options are used for studying purposes. Several approaches have been proposed in the literature, including Monte Carlo simulations, tree-based methods, Taylor’s expansion, partial differential equations, and analytical ap- proximations among others. When using partial differential equations for pricing of continuous time Asian options, the high dimensionality is problematic. In this dissertation we focus on the discrete time methods. We start off by explaining the binomial tree method, and our last chapter presents the very exciting and relatively simple method of Tsao and Huang, using Taylor approximations. The main papers that are used in this dissertation are articles by Jan Vecer (2001); LCG Rogers (1995); Eric Benhamou (2001); Gianluca Fusai (2007); Kamizono, Kariya and Nakatsuma (2006) and Tsao and Huang (2007). The author has provided computations, including graphs and tables dispersed over the different chapters, to demonstrate the utility of the methods. We observe various parameters of influence such as correlation, volatility, strike, etc. A further contribution by the author of this dissertation is, in particular, in Chapter 5, in the presentation of the work of Tsao et al. Here we have provided slightly more detailed explanations and again some further computational tables.

Thesis (M. Sc. Agriculture (Animal Production)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of dietary methionine level on productivity and carcass characteristics of Ross 308 broiler chickens. In each experiment, the diets were isocaloric and isonitrogenous but with different dietary methionine levels. Five diets were formulated to contain dietary methionine levels of 4, 5, 6, 8 or 9g/kg DM. The first experiment commenced with 300 unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens with initial average live weights of 42 ± 2g per chicken. The chickens were randomly assigned to five treatments with five replications, resulting in 25-floor pens with 12 chickens per replicate. The second experiment commenced with 150 male Ross 308 broiler chickens with initial average live weight of 637 ± 12g per chicken. The chickens were randomly assigned to five treatments with three replications, resulting in 15-floor pens with 10 chickens per replicate. A complete randomized design was used in each experiment. Data was analysed using the General Linear Model (GLM) procedures of the statistical analysis of variance, Version 9.3.1 software program. Where there were significant differences, mean separation was done using the Tukey test at the 5% level of significance. A quadratic regression model was used to determine the optimal productivity of the chickens while a linear model was used to determine the relationships between dietary methionine level and responses by the chickens in the variables measured. The treatments for the first experiment were UM4 (4g methionine/kg DM), UM5 (5g methionine/kg DM), UM6 (6g methionine/kg DM), UM8 (8g methionine/kg DM) and UM9 (9g methionine/kg DM). Feed intake, growth rate, feed conversion ratio (FCR), metabolisable energy intake and nitrogen retention of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged one to 21 days were not affected (P>0.05) by dietary methionine level. Similarly, dietary methionine level did not have any effect (P>0.05) on diet crude protein (CP), acid detergent fibre (ADF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and fat digestibilities in unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 14 to 21 days. Dietary methionine level did not have any effect on live weights of broiler chickens at 21 days. Live weights of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 7 or 14 days were not improved (P>0.05) by increasing dietary methionine level from 4 to 9g/kg DM. Crop, gizzard and small intestine weights and crop, proventriculus and gizzard digesta pH values of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 21 days were not affected v (P>0.05) by dietary methionine level. Similarly, dietary methionine level did not improve (P>0.05) caecum and large intestine lengths of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 21 days. However, dietary methionine level affected (P<0.05) dry matter (DM) and ash digestibilities of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 14 to 21 days. Proventriculus and large intestine weights, gastrointestinal tract and small intestine lengths of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 21 days were improved (P<0.05) by increasing dietary methionine level. In addition, increasing dietary methionine level increased (P<0.05) small and large intestine digesta pH values of broiler chickens aged 21 days. Thus, dry matter digestibility, live weights at day 7 ad 14, caecum length, large intestine length and digesta pH were optimized at different dietary methionine levels of 7.26, 5.29, 4.99, 6.80, 4.84 and 6.37g/kg DM feed, respectively. The treatments for the second experiment were MM4 (4g methionine/kg DM), MM5 (5g methionine/kg DM), MM6 (6g methionine/kg DM), MM8 (8g methionine/kg DM) and MM9 (9g methionine/kg DM). Dietary methionine level did not have effect (P>0.05) on feed intake of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 6 weeks. However, dietary methionine level improved (P<0.05) feed intake of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 4 or 5 weeks. Live weights of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 28 days were not affected (P>0.05) by dietary methionine level. However, live weights of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 35 and 42 days were affected (P<0.05) by dietary methionine level. Similarly, dietary methionine level affected (P<0.05) DM, CP, ADF, NDF, fat and ash digestibilities of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 35 to 42 days. Thus, dietary methionine levels of 6.93, 7.70, 6.85 and 11.27g/kg DM optimized dry matter, CP and fat digestibilities, and live weight of male broiler chickens aged 42 days. Dietary methionine level did not affect (P>0.05) FCR, growth rate and metabolisable energy intakes of male Ross 308 broiler chickens. Increasing dietary methionine level from 4 to 9g/kg DM improved (P<0.05) nitrogen retention of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 22 to 42 days. Dietary methionine level did not have any effect (P>0.05) on proventriculus, gizzard, caecum and large intestine weights, caecum, small and large intestine lengths, and crop, gizzard, caecum and large intestine digesta pH values of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 42 days. Crop and small vi intestine weights and gastrointestinal tract lengths of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 42 days were improved (P<0.05) by dietary methionine level. Similarly, dietary methionine level affected (P<0.05) proventriculus and small intestine digesta pH values of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 42 days. Thus, dietary methionine levels of 6.558 and 7.851g/kg DM optimized broiler chicken crop weight and GIT length. Dietary methionine level affected (P<0.05) carcass organ weights of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 42 days. Increasing dietary methionine level increased chicken breast meat weight. However, there was no clear trend for the other carcass organs. Meat flavour and shear force values of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 42 days were not affected (P>0.05) by dietary methionine level. However, dietary methionine level affected meat tenderness and juiciness. Thus, dietary methionine levels of 10.09 and 13.32g/kg DM optimized broiler chicken meat tenderness and juiciness. . / National Research Foundation (NRF) and VLIROUS

In this thesis, the pricing of counterparty credit risk on an OTC plain vanilla interest rate swap is investigated. Counterparty credit risk can be defined as the risk that a counterparty in a financial contract might not be able or willing to fulfil their obligations. This risk has to be taken into account in the valuation of an OTC derivative. The market price of the counterparty credit risk is known as the Credit Value Adjustment (CVA). In a bilateral contract, such as a swap, the party’s own creditworthiness also has to be taken into account, leading to another adjustment known as the Debit Value Adjustment (DVA). Since 2013, the international accounting standards (IFRS) states that these adjustments have to be done in order to reflect the fair value of an OTC derivative. A short background and the derivation of CVA and DVA is presented, including related topics like various risk mitigation techniques, hedging of CVA, regulations etc.. Four different pricing frameworks are compared, two more sophisticated frameworks and two approximative approaches. The most complex framework includes an interest rate model in form of the LIBOR Market Model and a credit model in form of the Cox-Ingersoll- Ross model. In this framework, the impact of dependencies between credit and market risk factors (leading to wrong-way/right-way risk) and the dependence between the default time of different parties are investigated. / I den här uppsatsen har prissättning av motpartsrisk för en OTC ränteswap undersökts. Motpartsrisk kan definieras som risken att en motpart i ett finansiellt kontrakt inte har möjlighet eller viljan att fullfölja sin del av kontraktet. Motpartsrisken måste tas med I värderingen av ett OTC-derivat. Marknadspriset på motpartrisken är känt som Credit Value Adjustment (CVA). I ett bilateralt kontrakt, t.ex. som en swap, måste även den egna kreditvärdighet tas med i värderingen, vilket leder till en justering som är känd som Debit Value Adjustment (DVA). Sedan 2013 skall, enligt den internationella redovisningsstandarden (IFRS), dessa prisjusteringar göras vid redovisningen av värdet för ett OTC derivat. En kort bakgrund samt härledningen av CVA och DVA ar presenterade tillsammans med relaterade ämnen. Fyra olika metoder för att beräkna CVA har jämförts, två mer sofistikerade metoder och två approximativa metoder. I den mest avancerade metoden används en räntemodell i form av LIBOR Market Model samt en kreditmodell i form av en Cox-Ingersoll-Ross modell. I den här metoden undersöks även påverkan av CVA då det existerar beroenden mellan marknads

Rückblick auf Klimaverhältnisse vor 100 Jahren, schwierige Trinkwasserversorgung der dörflichen Bevölkerung durch Brunnen mit Handschwengel, Tierversorgung zur Reinigung und Tränke in Schwemmen, natürliche in Bächen und Flüssen, künstliche als Bassins in Städten und Residenzen.

Thesis (M. Sc. Agriculture (Animal Production)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm larvae meal (Tenebrio molitor) in a diet on productivity, gut morphology, carcass characteristics and bone morphometrics of Ross 308 broiler chickens aged one to 42 days. In each experiment, a total of 360 Ross 308 broiler chickens were randomly assigned to the five dietary treatments, each treatment having four replications, and 18 chickens per replicate. Five diets were formulated to contain yellow mealworm replacement levels at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% to meet the nutrient requirements of Ross 308 broiler chickens. Data was analysed using the General Linear Model procedures of the Statistical Analysis System, Version 9.3.1 software program. Fisher’s least significant difference (LSD) test was applied for mean separation where there were significant differences (P<0.05). A quadratic regression model was used to determine the levels for optimal responses in the variables measured. The first experiment determined the effect of replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm larvae meal on productivity and gut morphology of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged one to 21 days. Replacement of soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet had no effect (p > 0.05) on feed intake, growth rate, FCR, live body weight, ME intake and nitrogen retention of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged one to 21 days. Replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet did not affect (p > 0.05) caecum weight of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens. However, replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet increased (p < 0.05) gastro intestinal tract, crop, ileum and large intestine weights. Crop and ileum lengths of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 21 days were not affected (p > 0.05) by replacement of soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in the diet. However, replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet increased (p < 0.05) gizzard, caecum and large intestine lengths of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 21 days. Yellow mealworm meal in a diet did not affect (p > 0.05) gut organ digesta pH values of unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 21 days. The second experiment determined the effect of replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet on productivity, gut morphology, carcass characteristics and bone morphometrics of Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 22 to 42 days. Replacement of soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet did not affect (p > 0.05) growth rate, FCR, ME intake and nitrogen retention of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 22 to 42 days. However, replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet affected (p < 0.05) feed intake and live body weight of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 22 to 42 days. Broiler chickens on diets containing 75 or 100% yellow mealworm meal had higher (p < 0.05) intakes than those on diets containing no yellow mealworm meal. Similarly, male broiler chickens on diets having 50% yellow mealworm meal had higher (p < 0.05) live body weights than those on diets containing no yellow mealworm. Quadratic equations indicated that feed intake and live body weight of male Ross 308 broiler chickens were optimized at yellow mealworm meal replacement levels of 13 and 61%, respectively. The present study showed that replacing soya bean meal with yellow mealworm meal in a diet did not affect (p > 0.05) gut organ digesta pH values, gut organ weights, gut organ lengths, meat colour, meat pH values, bone morphometric values, carcass part weights and meat sensory attributes of male Ross 308 broiler chickens aged 42 days. However, meat from chickens on diets containing yellow mealworm meal was softer (p < 0.05) than meat from chickens on diets having 100% soya bean meal. It is concluded that soya bean meal can be replaced with yellow mealworm larvae meal in a diet at 25, 50, 75 and 100% levels without having adverse effects on production and carcass characteristics of Ross 308 broiler chickens aged one to 42 days