This dissertation examines the effect of income smoothing on information uncertainty, stock returns, and cost of equity. Following existing literature, I construct two income smoothing measures - capturing income smoothing through both total accruals and discretionary accruals. I show that income smoothing tends to reduce firms' information uncertainty, as measured by stock return volatility, analyst forecast dispersion, and analyst forecast error. Further, I provide evidence that market prices income smoothing and rewards income smoothing firms with a premium. Controlling for unexpected earnings shocks and other firm characteristics, income smoothing firms have significantly higher abnormal returns around earnings announcement. Finally, I show that income smoothing, particularly through discretionary accruals, reduces firms' implied cost of equity.

This project presents the development and design of a comprehensive interface coupled with a geodatabase (ArcGISwat 2003), for the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). SWAT is a hydrologically distributed, lumped parameter model that runs on a continuous time step. The quantity and extensive detail of the spatial and hydrologic data, involved in the input and output, both make SWAT highly complex. A new interface, that will manage the input/output (I/O) process, is being developed using the Geodatabase object model and concepts from hydrological data models such as ArcHydro. It also incorporates uncertainty analysis on the process of modeling. This interface aims to further direct communication and integration with other hydrologic models, consequently increasing efficiency and diminishing modeling time. A case study is presented in order to demonstrate a common watershed-modeling task, which utilizes SWAT and ArcGIS-SWAT2003.

Problematiken för vår undersökning grundar sig i den nya skollagen som trädde i kraft i juli 2011. Där står det reglerat att kommunen är ansvarig för alla elever i en kommun. Då det nu råder fritt skolval enligt den nya skollagen, kan elever och dess vårdnadshavare själva välja vilken grundskola de vill gå på. Eleverna kan antingen välja en kommunal grundskola eller en friskola och därmed blir planeringen och budgeteringen av elevantalet osäker för kommunerna då de inte vet hur många elever som kommer att gå i de olika skolorna. Vårt syfte med denna undersökning är att skapa förståelse för och en fördjupad kunskap om hur skolförvaltningen inom kommunen går tillväga för att planera och budgetera osäkerhet och om budgetarbetet har påverkats av det fria skolvalet och friskolorna. Undersökningen baseras på en kvalitativ metod med tre intervjuer av ekonomer på skolförvaltningen i tre kommuner; Helsingborgs stad, Lunds kommun och Kristianstads kommun. Utifrån det empiriska materialet har det framkommit att ledorden i budgetarbetet är; planering, kommunikation och kontroll. För att kunna budgetera för verksamheten som är oviss på grund av det osäkra elevantalet är dessa ledord viktiga i hela budgetarbetet, från förberedelser av budget till uppföljningen av budgetutfallet. Vad som har förändrats med införandet av det fria skolvalet och friskolorna är att det har blivit svårare att planera verksamheten och veta vilken skola som eleverna kommer att välja. Detta har medfört att behovet av långsiktig planering har blivit ännu viktigare och rektorerna har infört ett par tillvägagångssätt för att försöka ta reda på vilken skola eleverna kommer att välja. Det fria skolvalet och friskolorna har även bidragit till att kontrollen och själva uppföljningen har blivit än viktigare än det var tidigare. / The problem of our study is based on the new law of school which came into force in July 2011. In the law it is regulated that the municipality is responsible for all pupils in the municipality. Because of the new law of school the students and their guardians are free to choose which primary school they want to go to. Students can either choose a local school or an independent school and because of that planning and budgeting of the student population becomes more difficult for the municipalities when they do not know how many students will attend different schools. Our purpose in this study is to create an understanding and a deeper knowledge of how the school board in the municipality proceed in order to plan and budget uncertainty and if the budget has been affected by the free school choice and independent schools. This survey is based on a qualitative approach with interviews with economist on the school board in three municipalities; Helsingborgs’s city, Lund’s municipality and Kristianstad’s municipality. Based on the empirical material, it has emerged that the keywords in the budget are: planning, communication and control. To be able to budget for the schools which are uncertain because of the uncertain pupil numbers, these keywords are important throughout the whole budget process, from preparation of the budget to the monitoring of the budget. What has changed with the introduction of the free school choice and independent schools is that it becomes more difficult to plan for the schools and to know which school the students will choice. This has meant that long-term planning has become more important and principals have introduced a couple of approaches to attempt to find out at which school students will choice. The free school choice and independent schools have also contributed to the control and monitoring has become more important now than it was before.

Three stages of research were carried out to investigate the use of the self-paced visual occlusion technique, and to model visual information sampling. Stage 1. A low-fidelity driving simulator study was carried out to investigate the effect of glance duration, a key parameter of the self-paced occlusion technique, on occlusion times. Results from this experiment, paired with analysis of data available from an on-road driving study, found an asymptotic relationship between the two variables. This finding has practical implications for establishing the appropriate glance duration in experimental studies that use self-paced visual occlusion. Stage 2. A model of visual information sampling was proposed, which incorporates elements of uncertainty development, subjective thresholds, and an awareness of past and current states of the system during occlusion. Using this modelling framework, average information sampling behaviour in occlusion studies can be analysed via mean occlusion times, and moment-by-moment responses to system output can be analysed via individual occlusion times. Analysis using the on-road driving data found that experienced drivers demonstrated a more complex and dynamic sampling strategy than inexperienced drivers. Stage 3. Findings from Stage 2 led to a simple monitoring experiment that investigated whether human operators are in fact capable of predicting system output when temporarily occluded. The platform was designed such that the dynamics of the system naturally facilitated predictions without making the monitoring task trivial. Results showed that participants were able to take predictive information into account in their sampling decisions, in addition to using the content of the information they observed from each visual sample.

Three stages of research were carried out to investigate the use of the self-paced visual occlusion technique, and to model visual information sampling. Stage 1. A low-fidelity driving simulator study was carried out to investigate the effect of glance duration, a key parameter of the self-paced occlusion technique, on occlusion times. Results from this experiment, paired with analysis of data available from an on-road driving study, found an asymptotic relationship between the two variables. This finding has practical implications for establishing the appropriate glance duration in experimental studies that use self-paced visual occlusion. Stage 2. A model of visual information sampling was proposed, which incorporates elements of uncertainty development, subjective thresholds, and an awareness of past and current states of the system during occlusion. Using this modelling framework, average information sampling behaviour in occlusion studies can be analysed via mean occlusion times, and moment-by-moment responses to system output can be analysed via individual occlusion times. Analysis using the on-road driving data found that experienced drivers demonstrated a more complex and dynamic sampling strategy than inexperienced drivers. Stage 3. Findings from Stage 2 led to a simple monitoring experiment that investigated whether human operators are in fact capable of predicting system output when temporarily occluded. The platform was designed such that the dynamics of the system naturally facilitated predictions without making the monitoring task trivial. Results showed that participants were able to take predictive information into account in their sampling decisions, in addition to using the content of the information they observed from each visual sample.

A failure recovery methodology based on decomposing the platform task space into the major and secondary subtasks is proposed which enables the manipulator to minimize the least-squares error of the major subtasks and to optimize the secondary criterion. A methodology for wrench recovery of parallel manipulators is proposed so that the platform task is divided into the recoverable and non-recoverable subtasks based on the number and type of actuator failures, manipulator configuration and task/application purposes. It is investigated that when the Jacobian matrix of the manipulator is of full row-rank and the minimum 2-norm of the joint velocity vector satisfies the velocity limits of the joints, the full recovery of the platform twist will be provided. If the full recovery of the platform twist cannot be achieved, the optimization method followed by the partitioned Jacobian matrix is used to deal with the failure recovery. It is verified that the optimization method recovers as many as possible components of the platform velocity vector when the objective function, 2-norm of the overall velocity vector of the healthy joints, is minimized. To model uncertainty in the kinematic parameters, the interval analysis is proposed. Different interval-based algorithms to enclose the solution set to the interval linear systems are applied and the solution sets are compared. A novel approach in characterizing the exact solution of the interval linear system is proposed to deal with the failure recovery of parallel manipulators with velocity limits of the joints and uncertainty in the kinematic parameters. Simulation results show how the solution sets of the joint velocity vector are characterized by introducing uncertainties in the kinematic parameters. The calculation of the exact solution takes more computation time compared to the interval-based algorithms. However, the interval-based algorithms give the wider solution box with less computation time. The effect of variations and/or uncertainties in design parameters on the workspace of wire-actuated parallel manipulators without and with gravity is investigated. Simulation results show how the workspace size and shape are changed under variations in design parameters. / Thesis (Ph.D, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2014-03-09 16:18:12.74

Consumer foreign online purchasing (CFOP) in this thesis refers to the exchange between consumers and foreign online retailers. Despite empirical facts showing increasing interest of consumers to purchase from foreign online retailers, researchers have only paid modest interest to this new marketing field. In response to recent researchers’ calls for further studies in this new field, this thesis aims to add knowledge on why some consumers purchase from foreign online retailers and others do not. CFOP is associated with uncertainty, so it is important to study what affects uncertainty and how consumers deals with uncertainty. Contrary to marketing-management theory studies, this thesis employs behavior theory and adopts views from relationship and network perspectives. The theoretical framework in this effort is business relationship concepts (commitment, trust, and uncertainty) and provides deeper understanding of how consumers behave in foreign online purchasing contexts. The empirical studies in this thesis employ multiple methods, including, in-depth, focus groups, narrative interviews, and two quantitative studies. This thesis discusses previous studies on marketing management theory, business-to-business and business-to-consumer relationships. Based on the framework, this thesis contributes with deeper insight for understanding consumers’ foreign online purchasing behavior. The empirical and theoretical contributions of this thesis not only advance understanding of this market arena, but also may attract the interest of other researcher. In addition to the four papers with different theoretical contributions, the thesis contains a summary to properly position its theoretical background. Since the papers have a variety of emphases and stress different uses of analytical tools, uncertainty, commitment, and trust, the summary connects the four papers into a theoretical framework. The theoretical frame explicitly states the findings in the papers. It explains factors that affect uncertainty in CFOP and also how consumers deal with uncertainty in order to establish and develop relationships through the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase phases.

We extend Kreps and Porteus' (1978, 1979a,b) temporal utility theory to include measures of suspense for gambles that vary in the timing of uncertainty resolution. Our f$ sp t$-modification (of their theory) defines overall utility and suspense in terms of two functions: a standard utility function and an iterative function whose properties determine attitude towards temporal uncertainty resolution. Suspense, which is increasing with time delay to uncertainty resolution, is defined as the "variance" of the standard utilities of the outcome streams taken about our measure of overall utility (rather than about the standard mean utility). We explore the properties of our measures and their implications for the overall utility and suspense of various key examples. Two preliminary experiments are reported which give some support for our overall utility and suspense measures, and which suggest that risk and suspense are different concepts. Iteration theory is also discussed in some detail.

Computer models or simulators are becoming increasingly common in many fields in science and engineering, powered by the phenomenal growth in computer hardware over the past decades. Many of these simulators implement a particular mathematical model as a deterministic computer code, meaning that running the simulator again with the same input gives the same output. Often running the code involves some computationally expensive tasks, such as solving complex systems of partial differential equations numerically. When simulator runs become too long, it may limit their usefulness. In order to overcome time or budget constraints by making the most out of limited computational resources, a statistical methodology has been proposed, known as the "Design and Analysis of Computer Experiments". The main idea is to run the expensive simulator only at a relatively few, carefully chosen design points in the input space, and based on the outputs construct an emulator (statistical model) that can emulate (predict) the output at new, untried locations at a fraction of the cost. This approach is useful provided that we can measure how much the predictions of the cheap emulator deviate from the real response surface of the original computer model. One way to quantify emulator error is to construct pointwise prediction bands designed to envelope the response surface and make assertions that the true response (simulator output) is enclosed by these envelopes with a certain probability. Of course, to be able to make such probabilistic statements, one needs to introduce some kind of randomness. A common strategy that we use here is to model the computer code as a random function, also known as a Gaussian stochastic process. We concern ourselves with smooth response surfaces and use the Gaussian covariance function that is ideal in cases when the response function is infinitely differentiable. In this thesis, we propose Fast Bayesian Inference (FBI) that is both computationally efficient and can be implemented as a black box. Simulation results show that it can achieve remarkably accurate prediction uncertainty assessments in terms of matching coverage probabilities of the prediction bands and the associated reparameterizations can also help parameter uncertainty assessments.

Information entropy parameter has been applied for an expression of the result of data assessment and it is supplemented by an index of sample of data that was evaluated out of set of information. A modelling system and software have been developed that can be used and are used for practical processing of measurement data for circular raster scales. / Duomenų įverčiui išreikšti pritaikytas informacinės entropijos parametras pateiktoje rezultato išraiškoje yra papildytas rodikliu apie duomenų imtį, kuri buvo įvertinta iš visos šį objektą charakterizuojančių duomenų aibės. Sukurta modeliavimo sistema ir programinė įranga gali būti naudojama didelio skaičiaus nežinomųjų lygtims spręsti, o praktikoje naudojama rastrinių skalių matavimo duomenims apdoroti.