By means of return-based style analysis (RBSA), heterogeneous style sub-categories were identified within the TARR category of the South African unit trust market to create a framework for sub-categorisation. The study dealt with TARR funds and their place within the investment universe. The literature review emphasised the importance of asset allocation, which supports the use of RBSA to identify asset allocation. The literature review further provided a motivation for the semi-strong form of RBSA applied to the sample data. In the study, RBSA was applied to two groups within the sample data, namely funds that have data points for the full measurement period (Group 1) and funds that have less than 75 data points (Group 2). A four-phase process was applied to the sample data. The findings suggest the following:<ul><li> in general, return-based style analysis applied to each fund identifies the asset allocation for the fund and is valid; but it is emphasised that for specific periods, the explanatory power of the regression model may become questionable; </li><li> the collective results of return-based style analysis applied to the funds can be used to create a framework for sub-categorisation. The framework proposed was the result of nine out of a potential 54 funds. The explanatory power of the regression results was less questionable. The proposed framework was applied to the remaining 45 funds (Group 2), but there were indeed inconsistencies in the application; </li><li> the framework created did not raise any concerns as a result of the Group 1 analysis. However, it was questionable when applied to the Group 2 funds in its entirety; </li><li> sub-categorisation based on only the allocation to the domestic short-term asset class was definitely a criterion that was true irrelevant of which sample group it was applied to. </li></ul> / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Financial Management / unrestricted

L '« action » est un mot clé dans la pensée de Kojève. Selon lui, l'être est l'action, l'être est la négativité. Toute l'histoire humaine est une histoire des luttes entre les esclaves et les maîtres. L'interprétation de Kojève sur Hegel a reflété l'angoisse existentialiste des intellectuels français entre les deux guerres, et a en même temps satisfait leurs curiosités à l'égard du marxisme après la révolution russe. En suivant Hegel, Kojève refuse une simple dichotomie entre l'action et la pensée. Il croit que le concept est le temps, la vérité se déroule au cours de l'histoire et ne peut pas s'achever sans action. Pour lui, le bien le plus supérieur est le savoir absolu qui peut s'apparaître automatiquement à la fin de l'histoire. L'aspect politique de la théorie de l'action de Kojève est plus marxiste dans un certain sens, et il est une extension naturelle de sa philosophie de l'action. Puisque la vérité ne peut pas s'accomplir d'un seul coup, Kojève a modifié sa théorie dans ses pratiques philosophiques et politiques. Par exemple, il a hésité plusieurs fois entre l'Orient et l'Occident en prévoyant l'orientation du développement de l'histoire humaine. Un autre exemple, son jugement pour la décolonisation politique de la France a changé considérablement. L'insistance de Kojève sur la négativité ne le guide pas à « la négativité éternelle » de Bataille. Son « savoir absolu » diffère évidemment de « la finité de l'objectivité historique » d'Aron. Mais tous ces conflits nous aideraient à mieux comprendre les débats sur la pratique dans l'intelligentsia française après la guerre. / "Action" is a key word in Kojève's thought. According to him, being is action, being is negativity. And the whole human history is a history of struggle between masters and slaves. Kojève's interpretation of Hegel has embodied also the existential anxieties in the French intelligentsia in the 1930s between the two world wars and catered for the curiosities of the French elites about the Marxism after the Russian revolution, thus produced profound influences. Following Hegel, Kojève refuses the simple dichotomy of the action and the thinking. He believes that the concept equals the time, the verity develops in the history and cannot be achieved without action. For Kojève, the most superior good is the absolute knowledge, or wisdom, or the sum of all the verities, and can appear automatically in the end of the history. This adds such a meaning of essentialism for Kojève's philosophy of action. The political aspect of Kojève's theory of action is a natural extension of his philosophy of action, and it seems more Marxist in a sense. Since the verity cannot be attained at one stroke, Kojève has corrected his theories in his philosophical and political practices. For example, he has swinged several times between the west and the east in anticipating the orientation of the historical development, and has discovered in Japan a development road differing from the Americanization. Another example, his judgment to the political decolonization in France has changed greatly. Here reflects the practical wisdom which is more directly related to the action. Kojève's assertion of the negativity doesn't le ad him to Bataille's "eternal negativity". His "absolute knowledge" clashes essentially with Aron's "finiteness of the objectivity of history». But these conflicts will also help us to better understand the debates concerning the practice in the French intelligentsia after the war.

An alternative form of investing that has grown steadily during turbulent economic conditions is the decision to invest in Hedge funds. Hedge funds differ from mutual funds by achieving absolute returns, meaning that the funds use complex investment strategies in order to achieve positive returns regardless of the performance of the stock market. The hedge fund market has grown significantly since the mid-1990s in the Nordic countries. Sweden has dominated the hedge fund scene in terms of pure numbers and is also in a dominant position in terms of hedge fund assets under management. Despite this growth, Swedish investors generally have a lack of knowledge about hedge funds as an alternative form of investment, which makes it difficult to assess its advantages and drawbacks. The purpose of the report is to study what hedge fund strategies on the Swedish market are able to generate absolute return over a given period. The purpose is also to compare the performance of the hedge fund strategies with the performance of the Swedish stock market over the given period. The strategies have been compared with the Swedish Stock Market Index SIXRX which reflects the performance of the Stockholm Stock Exchange, adjusted for dividends. The results show that all the hedge fund strategies had a lower volatility and generated a higher return relative to risk compared to the Stockholm Stock Exchange, over the given period. However, only three out of five hedge fund strategies managed to generate absolute return over the total period. / Ett investeringsalternativ som har vuxit sig starkare under turbulenta ekonomiska förhållanden är möjligheten att investera i hedgefonder. Hedgefonder skiljer sig från traditionellt förvaltade fonder genom möjligheten att utvinna s.k. absolut avkastning. Detta innebär att fonden använder komplexa investeringsstrategier i syfte att generera en positiv avkastning oberoende av aktiemarknadens utveckling. Hedgefonder har sedan mitten av 1990- talet vuxit sig allt starkare bland nordiska länder och Sverige är idag det land i Norden som dominerar avseende både antalet hedgefonder och förvaltat hedgefondkapital. Trots denna tillväxt har svenska investerare generellt sett låg kännedom om hedgefonder som placeringsalternativ, vilket gör det svårt att bedöma dess för- och nackdelar. Rapportens syfte är att undersöka vilka hedgefondstrategier på den svenska marknaden som klarar att generera absolut avkastning över en bestämd tidsperiod. Syftet är även att under samma period jämföra hedgefondstrategiernas utveckling med den svenska aktiemarknadens utveckling som helhet. Jämförelsen har gjorts med det svenska aktieindexet SIXRX som speglar Stockholmsbörsens utveckling, justerat för aktieutdelningar. Slutresultatet visar att samtliga hedgefondstrategier hade en lägre volatilitet samt genererade en högre avkastning i förhållande till risk jämfört med Stockholmsbörsen som helhet, under vald tidsperiod. Endast tre av fem strategier klarade dock att generera en absolut avkastning under tidsperiodens samtliga år.

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Die bisherigen Erkenntnisse und die gültige Rechtsprechung zur alkoholbedingten Fahruntüchtigkeit von Fahrradfahrern basieren im Wesentlichen auf den von Schewe et al. durchgeführten Experimenten [1, 2]. Hierbei wurden vergleichende Untersuchungen zwischen Nüchternleistungen und Leistungen bei Blutalkoholkonzentrationen von etwa 0,8 ‰ und etwa 1,3 ‰ an 71 Probanden im Alter zwischen 18 und 38 Jahren durchgeführt. Folgende Fahraufgaben waren von den Probanden zu bewältigen: Kreisfahrten bei Kreisdurchmessern von 6 bzw. 8 m, Geradeausfahrt auf einer sich verjüngenden Fahrspur von 45 m Länge, Durchfahren von acht seitenversetzten Toren, Slalomfahrt durch in Linie aufgestellte Kegel mit zunehmend geringerem Abstand. Die Versuche erfolgten dabei jeweils ab 9 Uhr morgens, also ausschließlich bei Tageslicht. Eine weitere methodische Einschränkung stellte die Tatsache dar, dass keine Brems- und Anhalteversuche und kein Screening auf Arzneimittel und Drogen durchgeführt wurden. Eine grundsätzliche, methodisch kaum vermeidbare Schwäche ergab sich daraus, dass die Probanden im Rahmen der gewählten Versuchsanordnung in der Regel besonders motiviert und konzentriert waren und die Versuchsanordnung den Probanden bereits vorher bekannt war. Die im Rahmen der vorliegenden Studie geplanten Untersuchungen sollten die Frage beantworten, ab welchem Alkoholisierungsgrad von absoluter Fahruntüchtigkeit auf dem Fahrrad auszugehen ist. Insbesondere war zu klären, ob der derzeit gemäß aktueller Rechtsprechung festgelegte Grenzwert der Blutalkoholkonzentration (BAK) von 1,6 ‰ zur Annahme einer absoluten Fahruntüchtigkeit geeignet ist. Dazu sollten erneut Probandenversuche durchgeführt werden, wobei der Alkoholkonsum und die Fahrtests unter realistischeren Bedingungen als bei Schewe stattfinden und die medizinischen Untersuchungen deutlich ausgeweitet werden sollten.

[pt] A presente tese tem como objetivo desenvolver uma discussão acerca das condições de possibilidade da quantificação irrestrita e existência da generalidade absoluta. O trabalho é dividido em quatro etapas. No primeiro capítulo, realizo, no âmbito da teoria dos modelos e teoria dos conjuntos, uma revisão do que chamo de semântica padrão dos quantificadores. A ideia básica é mostrar como, em tal semântica, quantificações estão associadas a domínios entendidos como conjuntos. Ao longo da tese, ficará patente que a semântica padrão impõe obstáculos intransponíveis ao tratamento formal de quantificações irrestritas. No segundo capítulo, apresento uma seleção do que considero os argumentos mais relevantes contra quantificações irrestritas e nossa capacidade de lidar formalmente com o que chamamos de generalidade absoluta. Alguns desses argumentos estão baseados em resultados tais como os paradoxos que Russell e Cantor derivaram na teoria dos conjuntos. No terceiro capítulo, apresento, de modo análogo, uma lista de argumentos agrupados em linhas de estratégias para reabilitar a quantificação irrestrita contra seus críticos. Além disso, desenvolvo uma discussão sobre os aspectos metafísicos do debate sobre o discurso a respeito da generalidade absoluta e sua correlação com argumentos por regresso ao infinito. Por fim, no quarto e último capítulo, desenvolvo um esboço geral de uma proposta alternativa de tratamento da quantificação irrestrita que apele para uma teoria paraconsistente dos conjuntos. Nela, as contradições obtidas na semântica padrão podem ser admitidas controladamente possibilitando assim a obtenção de domínios absolutos para quantificações. Essa proposta envolve a defesa de um sistema formal que seja inconsistente, porém dedutivamente não trivial. Em linhas gerais, o presente trabalho está pautado no seguinte conjunto de teses: (i) existe uma estreita correlação entre os obstáculos impostos pela semântica padrão às quantificações irrestritas e a estrutura de argumentos por regresso ao infinito; (ii) a existência de uma generalidade absoluta é um fenômeno que se impõe às nossas mais intuitivas concepções de realidade e, portanto, não devemos descredenciar o discurso sobre tal generalidade em virtude de limitações de nossas linguagens formais; (iii) nós devemos escolher entre assumir a lógica clássica e abdicar do discurso sobre a generalidade absoluta ou manter nossa intuição mais básica descrita em (ii) e abrir espaço para um tratamento não clássico da questão; finalmente, (iv) minha sugestão no presente trabalho é que temos boas razões para nos aventurar nas paisagens descritas pelos sistemas não clássicos. / [en] In this doctoral dissertation, I tackle the issues of the conditions for the possibility of unrestricted quantification and of absolute generality. The text is framed as follows. The first chapter is devoted to reviewing what I call the standard semantics of quantifiers, within the realm of both model and set theories. In such semantics, the idea is, quantificational domains are conceived as sets. It will become clear along the way that, given this construal of quantificational domains, a formal treatment of unrestricted quantification faces insurmountable obstacles. The second chapter focuses on what I take to be the most relevant arguments against unrestricted quantification as well as against our ability to formally deal with so-called absolute generality. Some of them are based on results obtained by Russell and Cantor within set theory – the notorious Russell s paradox and Cantor s theorem. Analogously, in chapter three I review a number of grouped-into-strategic-lines arguments put forward to save unrestricted quantification against its critics. I also elaborate on the metaphysical aspects of the debate and its connections with infinite regress arguments. Lastly, in the fourth chapter I outline an alternative proposal based on paraconsistent set theory to deal with unrestricted quantification. On this approach, the contradictions found in standard semantics are admitted, yet in a controlled way, thus turning absolute quantificational domains available. The proposal is, basically, to allow the existence of inconsistent, yet deductively not trivial formal systems. The present work is broadly guided by the following set of claims: (i) there is a strong correlation between the obstacles set by standard semantics to unrestricted quantification and the structure of infinite regress arguments; (ii) absolute generality is a phenomenon that imposes itself upon our most intuitive conceptions of reality; accordingly, the limitations suffered by our formal languages ought not to lead us to bring such generality into disrepute; (iii) one must choose between adopting classical logic and renouncing to appeal to absolute generality or sticking to our most basic intuitions as described in (ii) and make room for a non-classical treatment of the issue; (iv) we have, after all, good reasons to venture into the landscapes described by the non-classical systems.

This thesis examines the nature of long-term absolute pitch memory—an ability traditionally assumed to belong only to absolute pitch (AP) possessors—by testing for evidence of this memory for “standard” frequencies in musicians without AP. Standard frequencies, those based on the equally tempered system with A = 440 Hz, are common in the sonic environment of the Western college musical education, and thus could have the opportunity to penetrate listeners’ long-term memories. Through four experimental tasks, this thesis examines musicians’ ability to recognize and produce frequencies from the set of equally tempered frequencies based on A = 440 Hz, without regard to those musicians’ pitch-labeling abilities. The experimental tasks also compare freshmen with seniors to test if exposure to standard frequencies during a college musical education engrains standard frequencies in long-term memory. The results suggest that musicians without AP cannot distinguish between standard and nonstandard frequencies during listening tasks, but they may be able to recall them without prompting when singing familiar folk songs. However, musical training during the college years does not seem to improve these abilities. Further experimentation is needed to corroborate the results, including modifications to the current tasks and methodology, as well as a larger subject size.

The significance of ultrasound examination in the management of experimental uterine transplantation Abstract Uterine transplantation (UTx) represents a new experimental method of treatment of absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI), which includes inability to conceive and deliver as a result of absence of the uterus. This can be congenital (Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (MRKHS)) or acquired (after hysterectomy, severe congenital uterine malformations). For a woman affected this way is the uterine transplantation the only way to give birth to a child by herself. This is a very sophisticated and invasive procedure for the treatment of sterility with promising results, but the woman - recipient of the uterus - is burdened by at least three abdominal surgeries (transplantation, Caesarean section, explantation), in vitro fertilization and by the need to use immunosuppressive therapy. The dissertation summarizes current knowledge on this issue from the perspective of a gynecologist-obstetrician, who regularly examined by ultrasound or gynecologically participants in the Czech uterine transplant study in 2016-2019, which was carried out on the basis of a cooperation agreement between two Prague hospitals - IKEM and FN Motol. The set contains data on ten patients with a transplanted uterus, five from...