This thesis seeks to address three important issues relating to the efficient functioning of the Istanbul Stock Exchange. In particular the thesis seeks to answer the following questions 1. What makes markets informationally efficient or inefficient? 2. Has increased stock market volatility had an impact on the equity risk premium and the cost of equity capital to firms? and 3. How is it possible to reconcile the view that markets are weak form efficient and technical analysis is a pervasive activity in such markets? Unlike previous studies, this thesis seeks to examine the issue of efficiency when institutional features specific to the market under investigation are taken into account. Specifically, the thesis adopts a testing methodology which enables us to recognize possible non-linear behaviour, thin trading and institutional changes in testing market efficiency. The results from this investigation show that informationally efficient markets are brought about by improving liquidity, ensuring that investors have access to high quality and reliable information and minimising the institutional restrictions on trading. In addition, the results suggest that emerging markets may initially be characterised as inefficient but over time, with the right regulatory framework, will develop into efficient and effective markets. The second important issue to be examined in this thesis concerns the impact of regulatory changes on market volatility and the cost of equity capital to firms. It is not sufficient to simply examine whether volatility has increased following a fmancial market innovation such as changes in regulation. Rather, it is necessary to investigate why volatility has changed, if it has changed, and the impact of such a change on the equity risk premium and the cost of equity capital to firms. Only then can inferences be drawn about the desirability or otherwise of innovations which bring about increases in volatility. Surprisingly, these issues have not been addressed in the literature. The evidence presented here suggests that the innovations which have taken place in the ISE have increased volatility, but also improved the pricing efficiency of the market and reduced the cost of equity capital to firms. Finally, the thesis tries to identify the conditions under which weak-form efficiency is consistent with technical analysis. It is shown that this paradox can be explained if adjustments to information are not immediate, such that market statistics, in particular statistics on trading volume contain information not impounded in current prices. In this context technical analysis on volume can be viewed as part of the process by which traders learn about fundamentals. Therefore, the thesis investigates the issue whether studying the joint dynamics of stock prices and trading volume can be used to predict weakly efficient stock prices. In summary, the findings of this thesis will be of interest to international investors, stock market regulators, firms raising funds from stock markets and participants in emerging capital markets in general. The implication of the results presented here is that informational efficient emerging markets are brought about by improving liquidity, ensuring that investors have access to high quality and reliable information and minimising the institutional restrictions on trading. In addition, the evolution in the regulatory framework of, and knowledge and awareness of investors in, emerging markets may mean that they will initially be characterised by inefficiency, but over time will develop into informational efficient and effectively functioning markets which allocate resources efficiently. In addition, the results of this thesis have important implications, for emerging markets in general, in identifying the regulatory framework that will achieve efficient pricing and a reduction in the cost of equity capital to firms operating in the economy.

The method of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) is among the best probes of the dark energy equation of state, and worldwide efforts are being invested in order to perform measurements that are accurate at the percent level. In current data analyses, however, estimates of the error about the BAO are based on the assumption that the density field can be treated as Gaussian, an assumption that becomes less accurate as smaller scales are included in the measurement. It was recently shown from large samples of N-body simulations that the error bars about the BAO obtained this way are in fact up to 15-20 per cent too small. This important bias has shaken the confidence in the way error bars are calculated, and is motivating developments of analyses pipelines that include non-Gaussian features in the matter density fields. In this thesis, we propose general strategies to incorporate non-Gaussian effects in the context of a survey. After describing the high performance N-body code that we used, we present novel properties of the non-Gaussian uncertainty about the matter power spectrum, and explain how these combine with a general survey selection function. Assuming that the non-Gaussian features that are observed in the simulations correspond to those of Nature, this approach is the first unbiased measurement of the error bar about the power spectrum, which simultaneously removes the undesired bias on the BAO error. We then relax this assumption about the similitude of the non-Gaussian natures in simulations and data, and develop tools that aim at measuring the non-Gaussian error bars exclusively from the data. It is possible to improve the constraining power of non-Gaussian analyses with `Gaussianizations' techniques, which map the observed fields into something more Gaussian. We show that two of such techniques maximally recover degrees of freedom that were lost in the gravitational collapse. Finally, from a large sample of high resolution N-body realizations, we construct a series of weak gravitational lensing distortion maps and provide high resolution halo catalogues that are used by the CFTHLenS community to calibrate their estimators and study many secondary effects with unprecedented accuracy.

The method of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) is among the best probes of the dark energy equation of state, and worldwide efforts are being invested in order to perform measurements that are accurate at the percent level. In current data analyses, however, estimates of the error about the BAO are based on the assumption that the density field can be treated as Gaussian, an assumption that becomes less accurate as smaller scales are included in the measurement. It was recently shown from large samples of N-body simulations that the error bars about the BAO obtained this way are in fact up to 15-20 per cent too small. This important bias has shaken the confidence in the way error bars are calculated, and is motivating developments of analyses pipelines that include non-Gaussian features in the matter density fields. In this thesis, we propose general strategies to incorporate non-Gaussian effects in the context of a survey. After describing the high performance N-body code that we used, we present novel properties of the non-Gaussian uncertainty about the matter power spectrum, and explain how these combine with a general survey selection function. Assuming that the non-Gaussian features that are observed in the simulations correspond to those of Nature, this approach is the first unbiased measurement of the error bar about the power spectrum, which simultaneously removes the undesired bias on the BAO error. We then relax this assumption about the similitude of the non-Gaussian natures in simulations and data, and develop tools that aim at measuring the non-Gaussian error bars exclusively from the data. It is possible to improve the constraining power of non-Gaussian analyses with `Gaussianizations' techniques, which map the observed fields into something more Gaussian. We show that two of such techniques maximally recover degrees of freedom that were lost in the gravitational collapse. Finally, from a large sample of high resolution N-body realizations, we construct a series of weak gravitational lensing distortion maps and provide high resolution halo catalogues that are used by the CFTHLenS community to calibrate their estimators and study many secondary effects with unprecedented accuracy.

The present work consists of two main parts. In the first part, invariant subspaces of positive operators or operator families on locally convex solid Riesz spaces are examined. The concept of a weakly-quasinilpotent operator on a locally convex solid Riesz space has been introduced and several results that are known for a single operator on Banach lattices have been generalized to families of positive or close-to-them operators on these spaces. In the second part, the so-called generalized Alexandroff duplicates are studied and CDsigma, gamma(K, E)-type spaces are investigated. It has then been shown that the space CDsigma, gamma(K, E) can be represented as the space of E-valued continuous functions on the generalized Alexandroff duplicate of K.

The cochlea is an organ which extracts frequency information from the input sound wave. It also produces nerve signals, which are further analysed by the brain and ultimately lead to perception of the sound. An existing model of the cochlea by Fragni`ere is first analysed by simulation. This passive model is found to have the properties that the living cochlea does in terms of the frequency response. An analog VLSI circuit implementation of this cochlear model in CMOS weak inversion is proposed, using log-domain filters in current domain. It is fabricated on a chip and a measurement of a basilar membrane section is performed. The measurement shows a reasonable agreement to the model. However, the circuit is found to have a problem related to transistor mismatch, causing different behaviour in identical circuit blocks. An active cochlear model is proposed to overcome this problem. The model incorporates the effect of the outer hair cells in the living cochlea, which controls the quality factor of the basilar membrane filters. The outer hair cells are incorporated as an extra voltage source in series with the basilar membrane resonator. Its value saturates as the input signal becomes larger, making the behaviour rather closer to that of a passive model. The simulation results show this nonlinear phenomenon, which is also seen in the living cochlea. The contribution of this thesis is summarised as follows: a) the first CMOS weak inversion current domain basilar membrane resonator is designed and fabricated, and b) the first active two-dimensional cochlear model for analog VLSI implementation is developed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2004. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 254-261). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Physics, December 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, 2004. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references.

Abstract Title: Last Exit? A Study of Prison Sentenced Recidivists’ Subsequently Choice to Make Use of Criminals Return Into Society (KRIS) as a Resource in Order to Terminate the Criminal Lifestyle  Author: Jimmy Karlsson  A point of departure for this essay is my and my co-author’s bachelor thesis The Refuse to Walk More Yards Prison Corridor.   The purpose of the present essay is to illuminate in which conditions the organization KRIS (Criminals Return Into Society) develops from being directly or indirectly realizable to being a realized resource for recidivists who have served several prison sentences. The theoretical basis is Caroline Tovatt’s concepts potential, realizable and realized resources combined with Pierre Bourdieu’s capital metaphors and Mark S. Granovetter’s concept of strong and weak ties. To illustrate the process that led the interviewees (which I have interviewed from a life story perspective) to the realization of KRIS as a resource and ultimately the ending of the criminal lifestyle, I have used Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaughs stage theory of the role exit process.   The results indicate that recidivists’ choice to realize the resource KRIS has been occasioned by a specific composition of necessary components and a social capital. The necessary components are represented by negative life experiences which via a transformation in three stages have resulted in making KRIS available as a resource for the interviewees. The social capital in turn, which has to interact with the necessary components, is represented by weak and negative ties subsequently remodeled into positive ones. These ties have paved the way for the interviewees to access the organization. To finally fulfill the role exit process the interviewees have to possess or acquire an embodied cultural capital which allows them to differentiate and maintain all aspects linked to the previous and the current role, both to themselves and also to other individuals.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-03-20Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:47:28Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 figueroalopez_rn_me_sjrp.pdf: 751046 bytes, checksum: 50788892bf3e9440cb207b1489c88d57 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Neste trabalho vamos estudar um modelo matemático que descreve as oscilações não lineares de uma ponte suspensa. Este modelo é dado por um sistema de equações diferenciais parciais que estão acopladas. Basicamente, estudaremos a existência e unicidade da solução fraca do sistema. Usaremos a teoria de operadores maximais monótonos para modelo linear e os semigrupos fortemente contínuos de contração para o modelo não linear. / In this work we study a mathematical model which describes the nonlinear oscillations of a bridge suspended. This model is given by a system of partial di®erential equations which are coupled. Basically, we study the existence and uniqueness of weak solution of the system. We use the theory of maximal monotone operators to model linear and strongly continuous semigroups of contraction for the nonlinear model.