The relationship between increased productivity and improved standard of living is not a questioned statement on the global level, but does productivity growth necessarily lead to higher standard of living on the national level? Supported by empirical results it is suggested that a high relative productivity growth should not always be worth striving for, since it translates into decreased welfare, in terms of deteriorated terms of trade. This study attempts to examine the impact of relative productivity on the terms of trade in the OECD-countries and in Sweden, with an error-correction model. Further is an extension of the purpose made in order to estimate the impact of increased relative productivity growth on the welfare. The results suggest that the method for measuring productivity has a great impact on the findings, but concludes that a 1% higher relative labour productivity growth is associated with a 0.23% decline in the terms of trade.

Colour is a basic aspect of perception and the perception of colour varies from individual to individual. This indicates that the perception of colours mean different semantics in various contexts to different individuals. Therefore, these differences in perception forms to behave in different attitudes towards colours among individuals and it is likely to achieve different attitudinal responses to colours from individuals. Relying on the effects of colours on individuals, the initial interest of this thesis is to explore the attitudinal approaches of individuals to colours. This thesis is first and foremost exploratory in nature. This thesis intended as a first step towards exploring the ways in which the individuals think of, construe and give meaning to colours in their own words. The subjective approach proposed in terms of this thesis is based on the underlying philosophy behind Personal Construct Theory (PCT). In order to elicit the individuals&rsquo / ways of construing and giving meaning to colours in their own words, an experiment was conducted with the utilisation of the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT). Sixty undergraduate students of Middle East Technical University (METU) Faculty of Architecture were voluntarily participated in the experiment. As a stimuli, eleven basic colours which were black, grey, white, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, brown, blue and green were utilised. For the second step, this thesis intended investigating the structure and interrelations between the elicited attitudes of individuals and eleven basic colours. As a result of the experiment, 60 repertory grids were elicited and were analysed by using the qualitative and quantitative applications of content analysis. The resulted data afterwards were analysed by using multivariate statistical analysis methods. The overall results of this research can support certain information for further scientific investigations on colour perception and colour psychology. Additionally, the results of this research can help and guide designers to attain objective understandings about the individuals&rsquo / attitudes to colours. This can contribute to designers as a practical worthwhile during colour design and colour planning in their products and services.

Colour is a basic aspect of perception and the perception of colour varies from individual to individual. This indicates that the perception of colours mean different semantics in various contexts to different individuals. Therefore, these differences in perception forms to behave in different attitudes towards colours among individuals and it is likely to achieve different attitudinal responses to colours from individuals. Relying on the effects of colours on individuals, the initial interest of this thesis is to explore the attitudinal approaches of individuals to colours. This thesis is first and foremost exploratory in nature. This thesis intended as a first step towards exploring the ways in which the individuals think of, construe and give meaning to colours in their own words. The subjective approach proposed in terms of this thesis is based on the underlying philosophy behind Personal Construct Theory (PCT). In order to elicit the individuals&rsquo / ways of construing and giving meaning to colours in their own words, an experiment was conducted with the utilisation of the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT). Sixty undergraduate students of Middle East Technical University (METU) Faculty of Architecture were voluntarily participated in the experiment. As a stimuli, eleven basic colours which were black, grey, white, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, brown, blue and green were utilised. For the second step, this thesis intended investigating the structure and interrelations between the elicited attitudes of individuals and eleven basic colours. As a result of the experiment, 60 repertory grids were elicited and were analysed by using the qualitative and quantitative applications of content analysis. The resulted data afterwards were analysed by using multivariate statistical analysis methods. The overall results of this research can support certain information for further scientific investigations on colour perception and colour psychology. Additionally, the results of this research can help and guide designers to attain objective understandings about the individuals&rsquo / attitudes to colours. This can contribute to designers as a practical worthwhile during colour design and colour planning in their products and services.

This final thesis was performed at Ericsson in Gävle between April and June of 2008. Ericsson is a world leading manufacturer of radio base stations (RBS), which handles mobile phone traffic with 2G and 3G technology. The main purpose of this study is to examine if two different types of products (RBS and site material) should have different terms and conditions, today the terms and conditions are the same for both types.   During the course of our study we have tried to think of the terms reliability, validity and generalization. The intention in doing that was to keep the thesis at a high academic level. To name an example of this we have tried to keep our minds at an objective level during the interviews and informal conversations. This was done to keep our minds open and help us draw our own conclusions.   Through our literature studies we have identified a few guidelines that are important to consider when you’re formalising terms and conditions. Later the constructed guidelines are compared to the information about Ericsson’s routines which is collected from interviews, Ericsson’s intranet and informal conversations. After a discussion we were able to see some conclusions about the formalising of terms and conditions.   One conclusion this study has resulted in is that it’s difficult to say whether the same terms and conditions can be used for different types of products. It is likely that it would be possible to have different terms and conditions, but to design these there would take more research in how the organization in question handles their orders and everything around them.   To complement the results of this final thesis more case based studies should be conducted within the subject of terms and conditions in the order process. Our reason to think this way about further studies is that we felt the currently existing theories to be few and far between in our research.

Science and Technology (S and T) information presents a rich resource, essential for managing research and development (R and D) programs. Management of R and D has long been a labor-intensive process, relying extensively on the accumulated knowledge of experts within the organization. Furthermore, the rapid pace of S and T growth has increased the complexity of R and D management significantly. Fortunately, the parallel growth of information and of analytical tools offers the promise of advanced decision aids to support R and D management more effectively. Information retrieval, data mining and other information-based technologies are receiving increased attention. In this thesis, a framework based on text mining techniques is proposed to discover useful intelligence implicit in large bodies of electronic text sources. This intelligence is a prime requirement for successful R and D management. This research extends the approach called Technology Opportunities Analysis (developed by the Technology Policy and Assessment Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, in conjunction with Search Technology, Inc.) to create the proposed framework. The commercialized software, called VantagePoint, is mainly used to perform basic analyses. In addition to utilizing functions in VantagePoint, this thesis also implements a novel text association rule mining algorithm for gathering related concepts among text data. Two algorithms based on text association rule mining are also implemented. The first algorithm called tree-structured networks is used to capture important aspects of both parent-child (hierarchical structure) and sibling relations (non-hierarchical structure) among related terms. The second algorithm called concept-grouping is used to construct term thesauri for data preprocessing. Finally, the framework is applied to Thai S and T publication abstracts toward the objective of improving R and D management. The results of the study can help support strategic decision-making on the direction of S and T programs in Thailand.

This thesis aims to construct a semantic system for the disparate uses of peh in TSM and peh¡¦s pragmatic functions in actual language uses in terms of cognitive accounts. Firstly, based on the data collected from dictionaries of the Ministry of Education, the present study divided the various meanings of peh into two main types, i.e., prototypical meaning and extended meanings. Prototypical meaning is further classified into perception-based type. How peh is perceived in perception-based type is in close relationship with the actual environment where we interact with. On the other hand, the main category under extended meanings is conception-based type, which is divided into four subcategories of cognitive mechanisms. That is, the diverse meanings of peh in conception-based type will be interpreted in the perspective of four subcategories of cognitive mechanisms. They are metonymic extension, metaphorical extension, the interaction of metaphor and metonymy, and culturally-related extension. Then, to better understand peh¡¦s pragmatic functions in TSM, the study shifts its foucus to the examination of the interrelationship between peh and the shared Taiwanese cultural background knowledge in actual language uses. Basically, the function which peh serves in discourse depends mainly on the context where it is used, and the world or the community will determine and pick up the most appropriate wordings for us (Mey, 2008). There is no definite answer as to which linguistic expression bears which meaning or interpretation when we try to sort out all possible interpretations and meanings for each linguistic expression containing peh. We need both contextual clues and cultural background knowledge to decipher peh¡¦s underlying meanings. The encodings of color perception do not lie in our biology; instead, it is structured socially (Lucy, 1997). In addition, certain uses of peh, e.g., pe̍h-pau (¥Õ¥]), pe̍h-thiap-á (¥Õ©«¥J), etc., in real life discourse make the function of peh more than a representation of the color itself but bridge the gap and create interpersonal relationship between their language users at the same time. On the whole, this research may shed light on the cognitive understanding of peh in TSM not only semantically but also pragmatically.

The subject of this study is to examine the determinants of the real exchange rate in Taiwan. The sample period is from the first quarter of 1982 to the second quarter of 2011, and the variables include the real exchange rate, terms of trade, productivity differential, the real oil price, reserve differential, real interest rate differential, and the net foreign assets of Taiwan and America. The empirical results show that there is no cointegration between the real exchange rate and independent variables. Using a VAR model, this study finds that although the central bank of Taiwan would intervenes the real exchange rate, the variable related to the economic growth is still significant. At 5% significance level, an increase in the productivity differential leads the real exchange rate to depreciate. In addition, from the result of the granger causality test, this study finds that there exists unidirectional causality from the productivity differential and central bank intervention respectively to the real exchange rate. The effect of central bank intervention on the real exchange rate only persists one period, and the effect of the productivity differential persists two more periods. Therefore, it can be concluded that when estimating the future real exchange rate, it may be useful to take the productivity differential into account.

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<p>One of the central issues in international macroeconomics is relative price movements and their sources. One such price is the price of crude oil. An increase in oil price leads to a transfer of income from importing to exporting countries through a shift in terms of trade. The general mechanism by which oil prices affect the economic performance is well under-stood. However, the dynamics of these effects – especially the adjustment to the terms of trade – are uncertain.</p><p>The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of an increase in oil price on the terms of trade during the time period 1970 to 2004. The relationship between oil price and world business cycle as well as the relationship between oil price, GWP and Saudi Arabia’s export is also examined in this paper.</p><p>The regression results show that an increase in oil price has a negative impact on terms of trade for the net importing country. Whether an increase in oil price has a positive or no effect at all on terms of trade for the net exporting country cannot be told form the regres-sion results.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>In English usages such as mankind and job titles ending in -man (fireman, chairman) when referring to people in general are considered sexist. Sexist language makes a distinction between women and men and it can exclude, trivialize or diminish women. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to study the sexist or non-sexist use of occupational terms in The San Diego Union Tribune and The Daily Aztec. The questions that were investigated were how the newspapers used affixed terms ending in –man and -woman, if they added female/woman/lady to refer to women, but also how they referred to traditional female professions (nurse, midwife). The study was conducted by hand by using a textual analysis, which was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The study showed that the newspapers primarily use non-sexist occupational terms and avoid using female markings, even when reference is being made to women who have traditional male professions. The sexist usage that was most common was the affixed terms ending in –man and –woman. One conclusion that could be drawn was that The San Diego Union Tribune follows The Associated Press Stylebook’s policy about the usage of coined words such as chairperson and spokesperson.</p>