The dissertation examined the effect of cryptocurrencies on the portfolio risk-adjusted returns of traditional and alternative investments using daily arithmetic returns from August 2015 to October 2018 of traditional assets (South African stocks, bonds, currencies), alternative assets (commodities, South African real estate) and cryptocurrencies (Cryptocurrency index (CRIX) and ten other individual cryptocurrencies). This is worth investigating as cryptocurrencies have been performing well while the listed equities in South Africa and most alternative investments have been underperforming (Srilakshmi & Karpagam, 2017). The mean-variance analysis, the Sharpe ratio, the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) and the mean-variance spanning techniques were employed to analyse the data. The spanning test carried out was the multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression Wald test. The research findings showed that the inclusion of cryptocurrencies in a portfolio of investments improves the efficient frontier of the portfolio of investments and the portfolio of investments risk-adjusted returns. Moreover, the findings suggested that cryptocurrencies are good portfolio diversification assets. However, investments in cryptocurrencies should be made with caution as the risks of investments are high in relation to traditional and alternative investments. The findings of this study advocate for individual and institutional investors to include cryptocurrencies within their South African portfolio of traditional and alternative investments.

The unique experience of first generation college students from frontier communities as they transition to college has not yet been explored in the literature. The current study was designed to explore those experiences and the ways the frontier context and first generation status shape identity development once these youth have left their families and home communities and made the transition to college. To gain a rich understanding of the experiences of first generation college students from frontier communities, this study employed a phenomenological qualitative design and the findings were interpreted through a social constructionist lens. Eleven emerging adults were recruited from Utah State University for the current study. In-depth interviews were conducted with all study participants. In addition, each participant brought an item of significance to the interview and responded to a member checking email. Results of the study indicated that the emerging adults in the sample faced challenges when making the transition to college, but that these challenges were also accompanied by positive experiences. Four themes emerged as relevant to the participants’ identity formation in the college context: hard work, religion, appreciation for living simply, and importance of being a role model. For the current sample, their status as first generation students and the frontier context in which they were raised shaped their identities in unique ways. This interplay is discussed along with directions for future research.

Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) is used as a cutting tool in many industries because of its superior wear resistance compared to single crystal diamond. Engineers who design new PCD materials must have an understanding of the tradeoffs between material properties in order to tailor a product for different applications. Two competing material properties that are often encountered in PCD are transverse rupture strength and thermal-resistance. Thermal-resistance is directly related to the cobalt content of PCD, and is the ability of the material to withstand thermally induced degradation. In this thesis, we characterize the tradeoff boundary between transverse rupture strength and cobalt content of PCD. We also characterize the tradeoff boundary between cost and cobalt content, and show how both of these tradeoff boundaries can be used to manage product development, which adds value for managers in both engineering and business. In order to characterize these tradeoffs, empirical models are developed for each material property in terms of the design variables of sintering pressure and diamond grain size, where the pressure ranges from 55 kbar to 77 kbar and the grain size ranges from 12 μm to 70 μm in diameter. Then the models are used as optimization objectives in the normal constraint method to generate the tradeoff boundary. Finally, the tradeoff boundary is validated through additional experiments. The tradeoff boundary shows that the relationship between transverse rupture strength and cobalt content is not linear. It also shows that the optimal PCD designs can occur over a wide range of pressures and grain sizes, but pressures above 66 kbar and grain sizes between 20 and 30 μm appear to offer the best compromise between these material properties. These results are compared to the wear rates of PCD compacts in rock cutting tests. The rock cutting test results confirm that the designs with the best compromise between transverse rupture strength and cobalt content also have the highest wear resistance. In general, the designs that offer the best compromise between the properties are also the most expensive to manufacture.

Prior research confirms that the number of men in a population is associated with elevated levels of crime. The connection between higher numbers of males relative to females and crime is far less studied in larger aggregate populations, and the nature of the relationship is less clear. This study seeks to answer three questions: are unbalanced sex ratios associated with crime at the state level? At what level does the skew begin to matter? How quickly is the impact observed? These questions are examined through analysis of a novel longitudinal dataset of social characteristics and crime indicators for frontier American states between 1850 and 1920. Fixed effects longitudinal analysis reveals a positive association at the state level between skewed sex ratios - towards both men and women - and crime. This study concludes that any deviation from an equal sex ratio is associated with higher levels in crime, and this impact was demonstrated to occur within a short time frame.

The definition of rhetoric has recently been expanded to include elements of experience, particularly the experiences that landscape provides. One landscape that has rhetorical significance is the American frontier, both in Colonial times and in the nineteenth century. The frontier had a rhetorical impact on women, in particular, giving them freedom to change their roles and achieve economic, political, and social success. Because of the tremendous significance of the frontier in women's lives, a new definition of frontiers emphasizes conditions such as opportunity for change, a dangerous and uncertain atmosphere, a freedom of thought and action, and an ability to redefine roles. This new definition allows for both a literal and symbolic interpretation of frontiers. In studying American women's history, it becomes clear that women needed a frontier existence to flourish and create an independent (and decidedly American) identity. Colonial women enjoyed an unprecedented freedom because they existed on a frontier. As the frontier moved westward, women living on the East Coast were deprived of freedoms and opportunities and were increasingly confined to the home. As a result, suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony adapted a feminist rhetoric, the practice of which provided a symbolic frontier for eastern women. Though their female rights rhetoric empowered eastern women, society was too restrictive for complete change; consequently, it took over seventy years for women to obtain suffrage. While women on the East Coast struggled to attain suffrage, Mormon women living in the West enjoyed political, social, and economic freedoms (including the vote). Mormon women enjoyed this freedom because they existed on geographical, rhetorical, and religious frontiers. They lived in the untamed West, practiced the feminist rhetoric of their eastern counterparts, and participated in a radical new religion that not only gave them a mandate from God to change their roles, but also gave them the opportunity to be part of polygamous marriages. These marriages, though seemingly enslaving, actually benefitted Mormon women. Mormon women provide a great example of empowering effect of frontiers. The frontier, as defined in this thesis, gave women freedom and opportunity.

Much of Utah's history is the story of the relationship of humans and the land. Human perceptions of Utah's land have changed over time and affected the way it has been used. The homestead movement was an important phase in the use of Utah's land. Through federal settlement acts many Utahns obtained title to public land. This study is an attempt to learn more about the relationship between women and the land and about the lives of women in Utah. The study is based on Utah land records from 1869-1934. Most homesteading activity in Utah took place during this period. Federal land laws were extended to utah in 1869. In 1934 the nature of the federal land system was altered. Emphasis shifted from providing land to citizens for farming and livestock-raising to direct government supervision of public lands, making home steading more difficult. In spite of the significant role played by women in the settlement of Utah, their history has often been neglected. Historical studies of women in Utah have usually focused on female leaders, political movements such as suffrage, or women involved in plural marriages. Utah land records provide a rich source for looking into the lives of women who otherwise would go unnoticed. A significant number of women in Utah homesteaded. By looking at the women whose names appear in the land records, important information is added to the historical picture of women in Utah.

Social and computer networks permeate our lives. Large networks, such as the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), AND wireless smartphones, have indisputable economic and social importance. These networks have non-trivial topological features, i.e., features that do not occur in simple networks such as lattices or random networks. Estimating characteristics of these networks from incomplete (sampled) data is a challenging task. This thesis provides two frameworks within which common measurement tasks are analyzed and new, principled, measurement methods are designed. The first framework focuses on sampling directly observable network characteristics. This framework is applied to design a novel multidimensional random walk to efficiently sample loosely connected networks. The second framework focuses on the design of measurement methods to estimate indirectly observable network characteristics. This framework is applied to design two new, principled, estimators of flow size distributions over Internet routers using (1) randomly sampled IP packets and (2) a data stream algorithm.

This dissertation articulates the ways in which black (e)migration to the territorial frontier challenges the master frontier narratives as well as African American migration narratives, and to capture how black frontier settlers and settlements are represented in three contemporary novels. I explore through the lens of cultural geography the racialized landscapes of the real and symbolic American South and the real, symbolic and imaginary black territorial frontier. Borrowing perspectives from cultural and critical race studies, I aim to show the theoretical and practical significance of contemporary literary representations of an almost forgotten historical past. Chapter I traces the sites of history, memory and imagination in migration and frontier narratives of enslaved and newly freed black people in the Oklahoma Territory. Chapter II addresses an oppositional narrative of masculinity in frontier narratives depicted in Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson. Chapter III examines how the black frontier landscape can be created and recreated across three generations who endure racial threats, violence and the razing of Greenwood during the Tulsa Riot of 1921 in Magic City by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Chapter IV scrutinizes the construction of black frontier subjects and exclusive black communities in Paradise by Toni Morrison. My dissertation seeks to add to and expand the literary studies of migration and frontier narratives, taking into account two popular novels alongside a more academically recognized novel. The selected novels mobilize very different resources, but collectively offer insights into black frontier identities and settlements as sites of a past, present and future African American collective consciousness.

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