The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify possible relationships between academic achievement, as measured by high school graduation rate and ACT composite scores of individual school districts within the state of Tennessee, and the per-pupil expenditure of each district. Research was conducted to determine whether a significant difference existed in academic achievement measures (high school graduation rate, ACT composite score) among school districts in the state of Tennessee that were classified as above average, average, and below average in relation to their per-pupil expenditure (PPE) in the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-16 school years. Ex post facto data were collected from the Tennessee Department of Education website. All pertinent school district information reported appeared on the Tennessee State Report Card website. This publicly reported and available data were collected by accessing the Tennessee State Report Card website. The researcher recorded data related to each school district that reported data in all three of the following categories: per-pupil expenditure, graduation rates, and ACT composite scores. This study examined the relationship of graduation rates to per-pupil expenditure in the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-2016 school years. The results indicated that the high school graduation rates during the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school year were not significantly affected by per-pupil expenditure. However, significance was found regarding high school graduation rates in the 2015-2016 school year (p =.016). There was a significant difference in the means between the bottom-third (93.537%) and the top-third (90.422%) of per-pupil expenditure levels during the 2015-2016 school year, with the top-third having significantly higher graduation rates. This study also examined the relationship of ACT composite score to per-pupil expenditures in the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-2016 school years. The results for all of the research questions indicated that the ACT composite score during all years was not significantly affected by per-pupil expenditure.

The master's thesis is devoted to assessment and analysis of the economic capital of a commercial bank in conditions of increasing risk load. The purpose of the research is to develop a methodological approach to assessment of economic capital based on the account of typical banking risks. The paper concludes that the amount of economic capital, which includes all types of risks, may exceed the amount of regulatory capital. Proper assessment of "risk capital" directly affects the financial stability of a credit institution. / Магистерская диссертация посвящена вопросам оценки и анализа экономического капитала коммерческого банка в условиях повышения рисковой нагрузки. Целью исследования является разработка методического подхода к оценке экономического капитала на основе учета типичных банковских рисков. В работе сделан вывод о том, что величина экономического капитала, включающая все виды рисков, может превышать величину регулятивного капитала. Грамотная оценка «капитала под риск» напрямую влияет на финансовую устойчивость кредитной организации.

С увеличением контактов на литературном и культурном уровнях между Китаем и другими странами, ростом интереса к китайскому языку и культуре, возникает потребность в выполнении качественных переводов художественного текста с китайского языка на другие языки. Однако из-за различий языков, менталитетов и национальных особенностей разных стран, прагматическая адаптация представляет собой особые трудности для достижения адекватности при переводе художественного перевода. Объектом нашего исследования служит прагматическая адаптация при переводе художественного текста. Предметом работы являются приемы и стратегии прагматической адаптации при передачи китайских реалий в переводе рассказа Мо Яня «Белая собака на качелях» с китайского на русский и английский языки. Данная дипломная работа состоит из введения, 2 глав, выводов по главам, заключения, списка литературы и приложения. Первая глава посвящена основной теории данного исследования, точнее, изложению теории известных лингвистов и ученых о прагматической адаптации, адекватности, художественном переводе и реалиям, выяснению понятия определения, классификации, приемов и стратегий прагматической адаптации. Во 2-ой главе мы изучаем приемы и стратегии прагматической адаптации для достижения адекватности при переводе китайских реалий в рассказе Мо Яня «Белая собака на качелях». Сначала мы исследуем авторское своеобразие данного рассказа. Затем мы анализируем разные приемы при переводе реалий в художественном тексте, и в конце сравниваем стратегии, пользуемые переводчиками. В заключении подводятся основные итоги работы. В приложениях представлены список ошибок в переводах и таблица сравнения китайско-англо-русского перевода китайских реалий. В общем, в работе конкретизируются понятия прагматической адаптации, адекватности и художественного перевода, и описываются прагматические приемы и стратегии при переводе реалий в художественном тексте, что предоставляет нам больше материалов для изучения прагматической адаптации и дает нам возможность вникать в китайскую литературу и культуру. / With the increasing contacts at the literary and cultural levels between China and other countries and with the growing interest in the Chinese language and culture, there is a need for quality translations of literary text from Chinese into other languages. Due to the differences in languages, mentalities and national characteristics of different countries, pragmatic translations of word-realities present special difficulties for literary translation. The object of study of this work is pragmatic adaptation in the translation. The subject of our study is the pragmatic techniques and strategies used in transmitting Chinese realities in the translation of Mo Yan’s story “The White Dog and the Swing”. The theoretical materials for our study were the story “White Dog and the Swing”, its translations in Russian and in English, linguistic works of translation theory, linguistic dictionaries and other articles related to our study. The work consists of introduction, 2 chapters, conclusions on chapters, conclusion, list of references and applications. The first chapter is devoted to the basic theory of this study, more precisely, the presentation of the theory of famous linguists about pragmatic adaptation, adequacy and literary translation, clarification of the concepts of definition and classification of pragmatic adaptation, adequacy of translation and the specifics of literary translation. In chapter 2, we study the techniques and strategies of pragmatic adaptation to achieve adequacy in translating Chinese realities in the story. First, we introduce the originality of the author of this story and the backgrounds of two translators. Then we define the concepts of realities and describe the classifications of Chinese realities in this story. Then we analyze rich translation examples in aspects of different realities, and in the end we compare the strategies used by translators. In conclusion, the main results of the work are summarized. The appendices present a summary of errors in the translations and a comparison table of the Chinese-English-Russian translation of Chinese realities. In general, the paper concretizes the concepts of pragmatic adaptation used by translators to achieve adequacy in translating Mo Yan’s story “The White Dog on a Swing”, and describes pragmatic techniques and strategies for conveying realities in literary translation, which gives us the opportunity to delve into Chinese literature and culture.

Магистерская диссертация посвящена исследованию влияния операционного риска на финансовые показатели банка и выявлению специфики различных подходов к оценке операционного риска. В качестве научной новизны выявлено наличие обратно-пропорциональной корреляции между операционным риском и рентабельностью активов банка на основе корреляционно-регрессионного анализа, что позволяет прогнозировать величину ROA при изменении риск-метрик банка. На основе методических подходов BIA и TSA определена шкала критичного значения операционного риска. / The master's thesis is devoted to the study of the impact of operational risk on the financial performance of banks and the study of various approaches to assessing operational risk. As a scientific novelty, the presence of an inversely proportional correlation between operational risk and the profitability of the bank's assets was revealed, based on correlation and regression analysis, which makes it possible to predict the value of ROA when the bank's risk metrics change, and based on the calculations of operational risk and the bank's equity adequacy ratio based on the methodological approaches of BIA and TSA, the scale of critical operational risk values.

Although the U.S. Constitution espouses equality, it clearly is not practiced in all aspects of life with education being a significant outlier. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote about inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These two theories are related to education through educational adequacy and equality. Sufficientarianism, or educational adequacy, says that what is important is that everyone has “good enough” educational opportunities, but not the same ones. Egalitarianism, or educational equality, says that there is an intrinsic value in having the same educational opportunities and only having good enough opportunities misses something important, which causes problems for those who have not had the same opportunities. I will argue that the latter theory of egalitarianism, or educational equality is a better approach to the education system in America than sufficientarianism because every child deserves an excellent education and equal access to opportunities regardless of irrelevant factors.

No description available.

Due to an educational system that tends to prioritize receptive reading and listening skills and a concomitant lack of opportunities to engage in meaningful spoken production in the target language outside of the class, many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Japan struggle to develop their English speaking abilities even after many years of study. For many of these learners, post-secondary coursework presents a first opportunity to engage in consistent active oral production of the language in interactive communicative situations, but how language abilities develop in this context over time is not well understood. This longitudinal, mixed methods research study explores the development of interactive second language (L2) speaking proficiency of Japanese university students throughout their first year of post-secondary study. The participants were 92 female students from five sections of a required oral communication course of which I was the instructor: 34 from two mid-proficiency sections and 58 from three low-proficiency sections. In addition to the standard curriculum for this course, these participants also completed a series of ten 10-minute discussion tasks in groups of three to four participants on personal information topics of general interest over the course of two 15-week semesters that comprise the academic year. All of the group discussion tasks were video-recorded and carried out under the same procedures: without any pre-task planning time but with a post-task transcription and reflection assignment. The first group discussion task was administered for training and instructional purposes and excluded from the data analyses leaving seven tasks conducted roughly one month apart throughout the academic year as well as one additional repeated task with the same group assignments completed at the end of each semester. In total, nine discussion tasks were carried out for analysis in this study. A number of quantitative measures were collected for this study at various points throughout the academic year. First, all of the group discussion performances were rated using an adapted rating scale consisting of criteria dedicated to complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) as well as interactional engagement and overall communicative effectiveness. Additional measures consisting of participant ratings assigned to topic difficulty and group member familiarity were collected via questionnaire after each discussion task. Furthermore, measures of extraversion and English-speaking self-efficacy were collected along with the three repeated tasks that spanned the entire year. Finally, initial and end-of-year scores on the TOEIC-IP test consisting only of listening and reading sections were used as measures of general English proficiency. To provide a richer understanding of the participants’ perceptions of their development as well the social and individual difference factors considered most directly relevant to the research questions, an embedded qualitative component consisting of two focus groups and one individual interview was also carried out. The results indicated that the participants in this study made small but significant improvements in their mean interactive English speaking abilities across both the three repeated tasks and between the most temporally distant earliest and latest new tasks administered in the first and second terms, accounting for relatively large amounts of the variance in the measures. Furthermore, the social and individual difference factors investigated were found to jointly predict 56% of the variance seen in the interactive English speaking measures for the three repeated tasks. Of these factors, the participants’ initial general proficiency scores, English speaking self-efficacy ratings, and averaged group member initial proficiency scores were found to be much stronger predictors than their topic difficulty, group member familiarity, and extraversion ratings. When the ratings given along the five rating scale dimensions were inspected, strong relationships were revealed among all of them, though particularly among the CAF rating measures. Tracking these relationships over time revealed that they tended to strengthen from one task to the next with the most readily identifiable changes found among the relationships between accuracy, interactional engagement, and overall communicative effectiveness. Finally, the qualitative component of this study revealed that the participants interviewed perceived changes in their conscious attention during the group discussion tasks shifting from accuracy concerns to speaking fluently/effectively, a general lack of concern for and attention to complexity throughout, and improvement in their interactional engagement over the course of the academic year. Furthermore, the interviewees were found to generally ascribe a high degree of influence on their resulting group discussion task speaking performances to both the topic prompts assigned and their group members’ personalities as well as to the complex interplay between group member proficiency and familiarity among other factors. Although a number of limitations should be taken into account, it is believed that the results of this study provide new, important insights into the longitudinal development of interactive English speaking proficiency in an EFL university context where learners have little engagement with target language beyond limited classroom contact hours. / Teaching & Learning

The primary objective of this dissertation is to revisit the CAPM and the Fama-French multi-factor models with a view to evaluate the validity of the probabilistic assumptions imposed (directly or indirectly) on the particular data used. By thoroughly testing the assumptions underlying these models, several departures are found and the original linear regression models are respecified. The respecification results in a family of heterogeneous Student's t models which are shown to account for all the statistical regularities in the data. This family of models provides an appropriate basis for revisiting the empirical adequacy of the CAPM and the Fama-French multi-factor models, as well as other models, such as alternative asset pricing models and risk evaluation models. Along the lines of providing a sound basis for reliable inference, the respecified models can serve as a coherent basis for selecting the relevant factors from the set of possible ones. The latter contributes to the enhancement of the substantive adequacy of the CAPM and the multi-factor models. / Ph. D. / The primary objective of this dissertation is to revisit the CAPM and the FamaFrench multi-factor models with a view to evaluate the validity of the probabilistic assumptions imposed (directly or indirectly) on the particular data used. By probing for potential departures from the Normality, Linearity, Homoskedasticity, Independence, and t-invariance assumptions, it is shown that the assumptions implicitly imposed on these empirical asset pricing models are inappropriate. In light of these results, the probabilistic assumptions underlying the CAPM and the Fama-French multi-factor models are replaced with the Studentís t, Linearity, Heteroskedasticity, Markov Dependence, and t-heterogeneity assumptions. The new probabilistic structure results in a family of heterogeneous Studentís t models which are shown to account for all the statistical regularities in the data. This family of models provides an appropriate basis for revisiting the empirical adequacy of the CAPM and the Fama-French multifactor models, as well as other models, such as alternative asset pricing models and risk evaluation models. Along the lines of providing a sound basis for reliable statistical inference results, the proposed models can serve as a coherent basis for selecting the potential sources of risk from a set of possible ones. The latter contributes to the enhancement of the substantive adequacy of the CAPM and the multi-factor models.

在當前競爭態勢下，台灣金融市場的發展，勢必朝向跨業經營的方向前進。我國亦於民國九十年六月二十七日通過金融控股公司法，賦予台灣金融業跨業經營的法源，為國內金融業創造成為金融集團的契機，以達成金融跨業經營現代化、國際化的目標。雖然金融機構業務營運多樣化，但金融機構承擔風險亦隨之增加，金融監理機制在面臨這樣的挑戰下勢必得做一番調整，才能持續扮演健全及穩定國內金融體系的重要角色。 我國主管機關對於金融控股公司要求以合併基礎計算資本適足比率，並訂定了「金融控股公司合併資本適足性管理辦法」，以期能發揮適度的監理功能。然該辦法中僅以簡單的加減乘除運算求得之資本適足率，是否為反映集團資本需求的良好指標實不無疑問。因此，本文除了研究國際監理官組織所發布的相關報告外，並藉由介紹和討論歐盟指令對金融集團的補充監理原則和措施，如：資本適足性、集團內部交易、風險集中等問題，以及美國對於金融控股公司之相關監理規範，加以比較研究後，來探討我國現行規範是否妥當，並提出相關監理制度改善之建議，以期能作為我國建構健全金融市場之參考。 / Under current competitive circumstances, the development of Taiwan’s financial market will be bound to move forward in the direction of cross-sector business. In Taiwan, Legislative Yuan also has passed the “Financial Holding Company Act” in June 2001. With the passage of the act, it not only gives Taiwan’s financial institutions authority to operate cross-sector activities, but also creates a trigger for financial institutions to become financial conglomerates in order to meet the objectives of financial modernization and globalization. Although financial institutions may diversify their business, additional risks may arise. Financial regulatory mechanisms have to adjust their function to ensure the safety and soundness of financial system. Our competent authorities demand financial holding companies calculating their capital adequacy ratio on a consolidated basis, and enact “Regulations Governing the Consolidated Capital Adequacy of A Financial Holding Company.” However, in this regulation, the ratio was calculated in simple aggregated method, and it is doubtful that such ratio is a good index to reflect consolidated capital requirement. Therefore, this thesis not only studies on related publications issued by international supervision organizations, but also introduces EU Financial Conglomerate Directive with regard to some supervisory issues (e.g. capital adequacy, intra-group transactions and risk concentrations etc.) and U.S. framework for financial holding company supervision. After investigating and comparing different models, this study tries to find whether current regulation is appropriate or not, and make some suggestions concerning the supervisory system in order to construct a sound financial market as a reference in our country.

Text in Afrikkans / Summaries in English and Afrikaans / The capital-adequacy problem is essentially concerned with the amount of capital that a bank should maintain in order to conduct its operations in a prudent manner. Because one of the primary functions of bank capital is to act as a risk cushion for the protection of a bank's depositors, a bank's capital funds are often regarded as comprising an insurance element. The capital-adequacy concept, therefore, may be seen as part of the overall banking risk, or prudential management. An attempt has been made to indicate that bank supervisors should use not only capital ratios when analysing a bank's capital position. Other factors, such as asset quality and other financial risks, should also be taken in consideration. Financial ratio analysis, however, provides bank supervisors with useful information. When combining ratio analysis with non-quantifiable factors, bank supervisors may indeed achieve their goal of determining capital adequacy. / Die kapitaaltoereikendheidsprobleem is hoofsaaklik gebaseer op die hoeveelheid kapitaal waaroor 'n bankinstelling moet beskik, ten einde die bankbesigheid op 'n verstandige wyse te bedryf. Een van die primere funksies van kapitaal is om te dien as verliesabsorberingsbuffer ter beskerming van 'n bankinstelling se deposante, en daarom word toereikende kapitaal dikwels geag om 'n soort versekeringselement te bevat. Die konsep van kapitaaltoereikendheid kan dus beskou word as deel van die totale risikobestuurskonsep. Daar is tydens die studie gepoog om aan te dui dat banktoesighouers nie net kapitaalverhoudings behoort te gebruik om 'n bankinstelling se kapitaalposisie te ontleed nie. Ander faktore, soos batekwaliteit en antler finansiele risiko's, moet ook in ag geneem word. Finansiele verhoudingsgetalontledings voorsien banktoesighouers van waardevolle inligting. Indien verhoudingsgetalle egter met nie-gekwantifiseerde inligting gekombineer sou word, kan banktoesighouers hul doel om kapitaaltoereikendheid te bepaal, bereik. / M.Com. (Business Management)