According to classical linearized resistive magnetohydrodynamics theory, pressuredriven modes are unstable in the reversed-field pinch (RFP) due to unfavorable magnetic field line curvature. The result is based on the assumption of an adiabatic energy equation where anisotropic thermal conduction effects are ignored as compared to convection and compression. In this thesis the effects of heat conduction in the energy equation have been studied. We have examined these effects on the linear stability of pressure-driven resistive modes using boundary value theory (Δ´ ) and a novel initial-value full resistive MHD code employing the Generalized Weighted Residual Method (GWRM). In the Δ´ method, a shooting technique is employed by integrating from the resistive layer to boundaries. The GWRM method, on the other hand, is a time-spectral Galerkin method in which the fully linearized MHD equations are solved. For detailed computations, efficiency requires the temporal and spatial domains to be divided into subdomains. For this purpose, a number of challenging test cases including linearized ideal MHD equations are treated. Numerical and analytical investigations of equilibria reveal that thermal conduction effects are not stabilizing for reactor relevant values of Lundquist number, S0, and normalized pressure, βθ, for tearing-stable plasmas. These studies show that growth rate scales as  γ~_ S0−1/5 , which is weaker than for the adiabatic case, γ~_ S0−1/3. A numerical study of optimized confinement for an advanced RFP scenario including ohmic heating and heat conduction, is also part of this thesis. The fully nonlinear resistive MHD code DEBSP has been employed. We have identified, using both Δ´ and GWRM methods, that the observed crash of the high confinement is caused by resistive, pressure-driven modes. / <p>QC 20130503</p>

optimizationover a discrete number of random variables. In this paperwe extend this theory from the discrete to the continuous case, andconsider the limiting distribution of the location of the best offer asthe number of offers tends to infinity.Given a set   Rd of possible offers we seek a distribution over ,the argmax measure of the best offer. It depends on , the samplingdistribution of offer locations, and a measure index , which assignsto each point x 2  a probability distribution of offers.This problem is closely related to argmax theory of marked pointprocesses, altough we consider deterministic sequences of points inspace, to allow for greater generality. We first define a finite sampleargmax measure and then give conditions under which it converges asthe number of offers tends to infinity.To this end, we introduce a max-field of best offers and use continuityproperties of this field to calculate the argmax measure. Wedemonstrate the usefulness of the method by giving explicit formulasfor the limiting argmax distribution for a large class of models, includingexponential independent offers with a deterministic, additivedisturbance term. Finally, we illustrate the theory by simulations.

(None) Technical Summary of Thesis: The topic of my thesis is currency crisis. Currency crises have been a recurrent feature of the international economy from the invention of paper money. They are not confined to particular economies or specific region. They take place in developed, emerging, and developing countries and are spread all over the globe. Countries that experience currency crises face economic losses that can be huge and disruptive. However, the exacted toll is not only financial and economic, but also human, social, and political. It is clear that the currency crisis is a real threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of currency crises for twenty OECD countries and South Africa from 1970 through 1998. It systematically examines the role of economic fundamentals and contagion in the origins of currency crises and empirically attempts to identify the channels through which the crises are being transmitted. It also examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. The first chapter identifies the episodes of currency crisis in our data set. Determining true crisis periods is a vital step in the empirical studies and has direct impact on the reliability of their estimations and the relevant policy implications. We define a period as a crisis episode when the Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) index, which consists of changes in exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates, exceeds a threshold. In order to minimize the concerns regarding the accuracy of identified crisis episodes, we apply extreme value theory, which is a more objective approach compared to other methods. In this chapter, we also select the reference country, which a country’s currency pressure index should be built around, in a more systematic way rather than by arbitrary choice or descriptive reasoning. The second chapter studies the probability of a currency exiting a tranquil state into a crisis state. There is an extensive literature on currency crises that empirically evaluate the roots and causes of the crises. Despite the interesting results of the current empirical literature, only very few of them account for the influence of time on the probability of crises. We use duration models that rigorously incorporate the time factor into the likelihood functions and allow us to investigate how the amount of time that a currency has already spent in the tranquil state affects the stability of a currency. Our findings show that high values of volatility of unemployment rates, inflation rates, contagion factors (which mostly work through trade channels), unemployment rates, real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and size of economy increases the hazard of a crisis. We make use of several robustness checks, including running our models on two different crisis episodes sets that are identified based on monthly and quarterly type spells. The third chapter examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. As in our previous paper, duration analysis is our methodology to study the probability of a currency crisis occurrence under different exchange rate regimes and capital mobility policies. The third chapter finds that there is a significant link between the choice of exchange rate regime and the incidence of currency crises in our sample. Nevertheless, the results are sensitive to the choice of the de facto exchange rate system. Moreover, in our sample, capital control policies appear to be helpful in preventing low duration currency crises. The results are robust to a wide variety of sample and models checks.

(None) Technical Summary of Thesis: The topic of my thesis is currency crisis. Currency crises have been a recurrent feature of the international economy from the invention of paper money. They are not confined to particular economies or specific region. They take place in developed, emerging, and developing countries and are spread all over the globe. Countries that experience currency crises face economic losses that can be huge and disruptive. However, the exacted toll is not only financial and economic, but also human, social, and political. It is clear that the currency crisis is a real threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of currency crises for twenty OECD countries and South Africa from 1970 through 1998. It systematically examines the role of economic fundamentals and contagion in the origins of currency crises and empirically attempts to identify the channels through which the crises are being transmitted. It also examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. The first chapter identifies the episodes of currency crisis in our data set. Determining true crisis periods is a vital step in the empirical studies and has direct impact on the reliability of their estimations and the relevant policy implications. We define a period as a crisis episode when the Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) index, which consists of changes in exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates, exceeds a threshold. In order to minimize the concerns regarding the accuracy of identified crisis episodes, we apply extreme value theory, which is a more objective approach compared to other methods. In this chapter, we also select the reference country, which a country’s currency pressure index should be built around, in a more systematic way rather than by arbitrary choice or descriptive reasoning. The second chapter studies the probability of a currency exiting a tranquil state into a crisis state. There is an extensive literature on currency crises that empirically evaluate the roots and causes of the crises. Despite the interesting results of the current empirical literature, only very few of them account for the influence of time on the probability of crises. We use duration models that rigorously incorporate the time factor into the likelihood functions and allow us to investigate how the amount of time that a currency has already spent in the tranquil state affects the stability of a currency. Our findings show that high values of volatility of unemployment rates, inflation rates, contagion factors (which mostly work through trade channels), unemployment rates, real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and size of economy increases the hazard of a crisis. We make use of several robustness checks, including running our models on two different crisis episodes sets that are identified based on monthly and quarterly type spells. The third chapter examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. As in our previous paper, duration analysis is our methodology to study the probability of a currency crisis occurrence under different exchange rate regimes and capital mobility policies. The third chapter finds that there is a significant link between the choice of exchange rate regime and the incidence of currency crises in our sample. Nevertheless, the results are sensitive to the choice of the de facto exchange rate system. Moreover, in our sample, capital control policies appear to be helpful in preventing low duration currency crises. The results are robust to a wide variety of sample and models checks.

This dissertation investigates the implications of using the Advanced Measurement Approaches (AMA) as a method to assess operational risk capital charges for banks and insurance companies within Basel II paradigms and with regard to U.S. regulations. Operational risk has become recognized as a major risk class because of huge operational losses experienced by many financial firms over the last past decade. Unlike market risk, credit risk, and insurance risk, for which firms and scholars have designed efficient methodologies, there are few tools to help analyze and quantify operational risk. The new Basel Revised Framework for International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards (Basel II) gives substantial flexibility to internationally active banks to set up their own risk assessment models in the context of the Advanced Measurement Approaches. The AMA developed in this thesis uses actuarial loss models complemented by the extreme value theory to determine the empirical probability distribution function of the overall capital charge in terms of various classes of copulas. Publicly available operational risk loss data set is used for the empirical exercise.

As a result of human resources for an enterprise¡¦s importance will get increasingly day by day, and human resources department¡¦s role will not to be a simply administration and assistant department. It will to be a strategic role and create some performances for an enterprise; therefore, how to estimate human resources department performance will to be an importance key point to evaluate enterprise competitive. Nearly years, Balance Scorecard (BSC) concept was used on scholarly researches popularly, but about human resources management scope are very fewer; generally the greater part of human resources management¡¦s researches were used by human resources management¡¦s activities; efficiency; talent as their research subjects, and they also were used research method: Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to develop human resources department¡¦s indicator. In view of this, the research purpose will use balance scorecard and enterprise value theories as viewpoint for the research key framework, because about human resources scorecard¡¦s researches are very fewer and enterprises which have followed out human resources scorecard are also fewer; therefore, in lack of explicit quantitative information, the research will fit qualitative research¡¦s characteristic than quantitative research¡¦s characteristic. The research will also use bibliography to collect; confer; analyze; compare; generalize and add reality experience to ratiocinate as the research methods. Finally the research will construct two models, including human resources department performance measurement perspective model and human resources department scorecard guiding steps model. The research of human resources department performance measurement perspective model develops four performance measurement perspectives, including (1) financial capital perspective; (2) customer capital perspective; (3) structure capital perspective; (4) human capital perspective; the research of human resources department scorecard guiding steps model develops three phases and eleven steps, including (1) planning phase has four steps; (2) developing phase has three steps¡F(3) practicing phase has four steps.

<p>The first part of this thesis studies tail probabilities forelliptical distributions and probabilities of extreme eventsfor multivariate stochastic processes. It is assumed that thetails of the probability distributions satisfy a regularvariation condition. This means, roughly speaking, that thereis a non-negligible probability for very large or extremeoutcomes to occur. Such models are useful in applicationsincluding insurance, finance and telecommunications networks.It is shown how regular variation of the marginals, or theincrements, of a stochastic process implies regular variationof functionals of the process. Moreover, the associated tailbehavior in terms of a limit measure is derived.</p><p>The second part of the thesis studies problems related toparameter estimation in stochastic models with long memory.Emphasis is on the estimation of the drift parameter in somestochastic differential equations driven by the fractionalBrownian motion or more generally Volterra-type processes.Observing the process continuously, the maximum likelihoodestimator is derived using a Girsanov transformation. In thecase of discrete observations the study is carried out for theparticular case of the fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process.For this model Whittle’s approach is applied to derive anestimator for all unknown parameters.</p>

The primary purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which educational expectations contribute to educational attainment for different subgroups of youth using a model of educational attainment that draws from two theoretical frameworks – status attainment theory and the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation. This combined model of educational attainment posits that certain factors contribute to attainment, including SES, achievement, self-concept of ability, educational values, and educational expectations. A within-subject fixed-effects approach is used in all of the models tested to address issues of endogeneity. Empirical findings suggest that expectations may not influence attainment for African American youth and youth from low-SES families. In the present study, the relations of expectations for attending college to the amount of education attained are investigated for African American and White youth and for youth from high and low SES backgrounds. Although there is no evidence suggesting that expectations contribute to attainment differently for males and females, research suggests that the link between achievement and self-concept of ability may differ by gender. Overall, the data support the hypotheses that: a) educational expectations predict educational attainment for each subgroup assessed; and b) educational values and self-concept of ability are precursors of this relation. However, the association between achievement and self-concept of ability is not statistically different for males and females. The results of this study suggest that expectations are important for attainment irrespective of race, socio-economic status, and gender differences. Because such similarities have not previously been reported in the literature, this study makes a unique contribution and may serve as a guide for future investigation. / text

“Who says what to whom and of what consequence?” is a fundamentally communicative question. This dissertation provides answers to this question by examining receivers’ expectations about, perceptions of, and responses to, requests for compliance. This dissertation asks: What impact does source credibility have on responses to and evaluations of request for compliance? Do people who receive requests for compliance have different language expectations for high and low credibility sources? If receivers perceive self-benefit from complying with a request, will that affect their responses to or evaluations of the message or message source? To answer these questions, this dissertation responds to the call for studies to extend language expectancy theory by focusing on interpersonal influence attempts; the results herein provide researchers with the opportunity to offer refined specifications when making predictions about social influence outcomes. In addition, this dissertation is novel in that it examines the intersection between language expectancy theory and predicted outcome value theory. / text

Syftet med studien var att undersöka vad som motiverar arbetslösa deltagare i AMA Arbetsmarknads verksamhet Jobbcentrum att söka ett arbete. Ett annat syfte var också att undersöka om AMA hjälper dessa deltagare att motiveras och kunna återvända till den ordinarie arbetsmarknaden. Tidigare forskning inom området har ofta fokuserat på samband mellan arbetssökarbeteende och de arbetslösas förväntningar på och värderingar av arbete. Motivation sägs vara påverkad utifrån såväl inre som yttre faktorer. Våra teoretiska utgångspunkter har varit Becks teori om risksamhället samt två motivationsteorier, dels en teori om förväntningar och dels en teori om självbestämmande. Studien är kvalitativ och den metodologiska ansats som använts är hermeneutik. Intervjuer genomfördes med 10 deltagare från Jobbcentrum som valdes ut genom ett ändamålsenligt urval. Resultatet visar att vad som värderas med ett arbete i första hand är den trygghet det ger, inte enbart pga. lönen utan även pga de sociala kontakterna och rutinerna. Att ha en meningsfull sysselsättning var motiverande för att söka arbete. Att vara aktiverad – både fysiskt och psykiskt – visades i studien vara viktigt för motivationen. Deltagarnas förväntningar på vad Jobbcentrum kunde göra för dem var låga, istället betonades det personliga ansvaret för att få ett arbete.