<p>This study seeks to evaluate the performance of unit trust managers based on their client affiliation classification. Worldwide, the number of investors investing in unit trusts is on the rise and increasingly they want to be able to evaluate the performance of the managers managing their funds so as to make better investment decisions. This increase in the asset size and number of unit trusts funds could be attributed but not limited to the low capital required for investment by small investors who before could not afford to invest in portfolios requiring large capital (Prather, Bertin, and Henker, 2004). In addition, the fund managers of these units are believed to have special skills such as market timing and stock selectivity which contribute to the performances they achieve. The evaluation of the performance of unit trust fund managers is a largely unexplored area in South Africa. As a result, the study focuses on South Africa fund managers and has as aim to evaluate the performance of two groups of fund managers (independent and dependent) who were classified based on their client affiliation structure. The client affiliation classification is as a result of the fund manager‟s clientele base. The dependent group are those who formed part of a group structure and offer other wealth management services for which their clients or investors in the unit trust services originate from within the group while the independent group are those whose clients are pulled together from diverse individuals or institutions and does not form part of a group or render other services other than fund management. Two fund types were selected namely / general equity funds and balanced funds. It has also examined the underlying skills the different groups of fund managers possess. The performance of unit trust has an effect on many parties who are related in one way or the other to the unit trust funds. The results of this study will inform individual investors, trustees and asset consultants in their decision making process of selecting a fund manager. The results of the study will be of value to the asset management industry in terms of assessing their structures and restructuring the investment service business to meet the expectations of their clients / the investors. It could also be used as a marketing tool. Publicly available historical data on the returns generated by fund managers for a five year period from&nbsp / 2005 to 2009 was obtained. Analyses were done using the independent sampled t-test and the Treynor Mazel model respectively for the different research questions posed. The results obtained indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the performances of independent fund managers with those of dependent fund managers. However, dependent fund managers of equity funds performed better than their counterparts the independent fund managers. In the case of balanced funds, the independent fund managers performed better than their dependent counterparts. On average, both fund&nbsp / manager types possessed selectivity skills for equity funds and none for balanced funds. However for both fund types, the dependent fund manager demonstrated more selectivity skills than their independent counterparts. The results for market timing skills demonstrated that on average, both fund managers did not possess market timing skills for balanced funds while possessing these skills for equity funds. The dependent&nbsp / fund managers demonstrated more market timing skills for balanced funds though negative when compared to that of their counterparts. On the other hand, the equity fund independent fund&nbsp / managers demonstrated more market timing skills than the dependent fund managers.</p>

<p>Disclosure of HIV positive status to male partners is well established as a key element in the success of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV programmes, as it helps improve adherence to ARVs by the women within these programme. However, partner notification rates remain low in the urban areas of Lusaka, Zambia against a high HIV prevalence of 25%. The purpose of this study was to explore the timing of disclosure as part of the process of disclosure amongst women who were part of the PMTCT services at Kaulu health centre in Lusaka. An exploratory descriptive study using qualitative research methods was conducted. 15 women, who were attending the Kaulu health centre PMTCT programme, were requested to participate in a semi-structured interview. The women, who were purposively selected with the aid of the health centre‟s PMTCT focal point nurse, had to have disclosed their HIV positive status to their partner, either before or during the course of their pregnancy or after delivery. To increase rigour,&nbsp / individual interviews were conducted with 5 health workers associated with the PMTCT programme so as to obtain their perspective and experiences on the issue of HIV disclosure amongst their PMTCT patients. Participation in the study was voluntary and all information obtained during the course of the interviews remained confidential and secure. Potential participants were each provided with an explanation of the purpose and process of the study and their informed written consent obtained before the researcher embarked on the interviews. Content analysis of the transcripts was done so as to develop coding categories and identify emerging themes. Disclosure to male partners is an important step in PMTCT and facilitates adherence to HIV care for the family and should be done as early as possible after the woman receives her HIV test result, though there exists a range of alternative times when it can be done. The relationship existing between a couple is very important in determining the timing of when a woman chooses to disclose. PMTCT services need to provide ongoing counselling for HIV positive women during pregnancy and after giving birth that supports, informs and equips them with the necessary skills to make an informed and timely decision about disclosure to a partner. In addition, the PMTCT service providers need to be encouraged to implement couple counselling as a strategy to facilitate disclosure as well as establishment of a peer support network for HIV positive pregnant women. The study findings will be used to contribute to health workers‟ capacity to support women manage the disclosure process to their male partners, thus helping to increase the disclosure rate and also contributing to improving the positive effect of the PMTCT services, in Lusaka, Zambia</p>

Ideally, tumors that might cause morbidity and mortality should be treated, preferably early, with proven, convincing, and effective therapy to prevent tumor progression or recurrence, while maintaining a favorable risk-benefit profile for the individual patient. For patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), this diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic precision is currently impossible. Despite significant improvements in diagnostic procedures, a sizable number of patients with CRC have liver metastases either at presentation or will subsequently develop it. And in many parts of the world, most cancer-related deaths are still due to metastases that are resistant to conventional therapy. Metastases to the liver occur in more than 50% of patients with CRC and represent the major determinant of outcome following curative treatment of the primary tumor. Liver resection offers the best chance of cure for metastases confined to the liver. However, due to a paucity of randomized controlled trials, its timing is controversial and a hotly debated topic. This article reviews some of the main controversies surrounding the surgical management of colorectal cancer liver metastases (CRLM).

Multicarrier systems are widely used today due to their robustness to multipath effects and efficient implementation using FFT. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system is a class of multicarrier modulation which consists of splitting up a wide-band signal at a high symbol rate into several lower rate signals, each one occupying a narrower band. System performance improves because subcarriers experience flat fading channels and are orthogonal to one another. Recently, a number of papers have focused on a new alternative called Filter bank based multicarrier system (FBMC) which can offer a number of advantages over CP-OFDM system such as the improved spectral efficiency by not using a redundant CP and by having much better control of the out-of-band emission due to the time-frequency localized shaping pulses.Furthermore, asynchronism inherently exists in several communication systems due to many factors e.g. the propagation delays and the spatial distribution of users. As one of the most challenging issue in design of communication systems, the asynchronism can harmfully affect the system performance by causing the so-called asynchronous interference.In this dissertation, we investigate the impact of asynchronism on the performance of OFDM FBMC systems. First, we present a unified framework for multicarrier interference characterization and analysis in asynchronous environments. We propose a new family of interference tables that model the correlation between a given interfering subcarrier and the victim one, not only as a function of the spectral distance separating both subcarriers but also with respect to the timing misalignment between the subcarriers holders. These tables are derived for CP-OFDM, PHYDYAS-FBMC and IOTA-FBMC systems. Furthermore, the impact of the asynchronous interference on the average error rate and the average spectral efficiency of OFDM and FBMC systems is addressed. Based on computing the moment generating functions of the asynchronous interference power, simple new expressions for the exact evaluation of the average error rate and the average spectral efficiency are derived considering the frequency correlation fading between adjacent interfering subcarriers. These expressions significantly reduce the computation complexity of the performance evaluation.For each technique two scenarios are examined: fully-loaded network and partially loaded ones. The accuracy of the obtained expressions has been validated through different simulation results. In contrast to OFDM, FBMC waveforms are demonstrated to be less sensitive to timing asynchronism, due to the better frequency localization of the used prototype filters.

La campagne du LHC dans les premières années de prise de données a été un succès. La prise de données 2011 a permis d'enregistrer plus de $5~ifb$ de données à $sqrt{s} = 7$~TeV avec l'expérience ATLAS. Dans le travail présenté dans cette thèse l'ensemble de données 2011 est utilisé pour les différentes études. Cette thèse est organisée en cinq chapitres. Dans le premier chapitre est présenté une introduction théorique au modèle standard (MS) et son extension éventuelle la Technicouleur (TC). Le deuxième chapitre donne un aperçu du LHC et du détecteur ATLAS. Dans le troisième chapitre l'analyse temporelle des canaux de lecture du calorimètre à argon liquide est rapportée. Un alignement temporel de l'ensemble du calorimètre permet la synchronisation du système de lecture du détecteur avec l'horologe du LHC et est également utilisé dans des analyses de physique telles que celles pour la recherche de particules à longue durée de vie. Dans le cadre de recherches de nouvelle physique une excellente capacité identification des électrons avec un rendement élevé est nécessaire sur une gamme d'énergie étendue. Le quatrième chapitre de cette thèse présente les mesures d'efficacité du trigger (systeme de déclenchement ) et d'identification des électrons en utilisant les événements Zee . Enfin le dernier chapitre décrit la recherche de résonances à grandes masses dans le canal diélectron, ceci dans les cadre de deux scénarios différents, la Technicouleur "Low-scale" et la Technicouleur "Minimal Walking". L'importance de l'excès potentiel des événements TC par rapport aux prédictions du MS est évaluée dans la distribution de masse invariante dilepton. En l'absence d'écart significatif par rapport aux prédictions du MS des limites avec un niveau de confiance de 95% sont fixées sur la section transversale et sur la masse de résonance.

This thesis jointly models the 24 hour work trip timing and mode choice decisions of commuters in the Greater Toronto Area. A discrete-continuous specification, with a multinomial logit model for mode choice and an accelerated time hazard model for trip timing, is used to allow for unrestricted correlation between these two fundamental decisions. Statistically significant correlations are found between mode choice and trip timing for work journeys with expected differences between modes. Furthermore, the joint models have a wide range of policy sensitive statistically significant parameters of intuitive sign and magnitude, revealing expected differences between workers of different occupation groups. Furthermore, the estimated models have a high degree of fit to observed cumulative departure and arrival time distribution functions and to observed mode choices. Finally, sensitivity tests have demonstrated that the model is capable of capturing peak spreading in response to increasing auto congestion.

This thesis jointly models the 24 hour work trip timing and mode choice decisions of commuters in the Greater Toronto Area. A discrete-continuous specification, with a multinomial logit model for mode choice and an accelerated time hazard model for trip timing, is used to allow for unrestricted correlation between these two fundamental decisions. Statistically significant correlations are found between mode choice and trip timing for work journeys with expected differences between modes. Furthermore, the joint models have a wide range of policy sensitive statistically significant parameters of intuitive sign and magnitude, revealing expected differences between workers of different occupation groups. Furthermore, the estimated models have a high degree of fit to observed cumulative departure and arrival time distribution functions and to observed mode choices. Finally, sensitivity tests have demonstrated that the model is capable of capturing peak spreading in response to increasing auto congestion.

This study basically analyzes timing, sequencing and pace of the financial liberalization experience of the Turkish economy in the 1980s and evaluates its implications for the crises in the Turkish economy since the 1990s. The objectives of this study are threefold: Firstly, it aims to reveal the main policy objectives and political factors pushing the government to take capital account liberalization decision in 1989. It is concluded that domestic decision makers have shaped and taken the decision of capital account liberalization in 1989, while the interaction of economic and political factors has played a major role in its timing. Secondly, it examines the extent to which economic and political institutional weaknesses in the Turkish economy, which generated inappropriate sequencing of financial liberalization policies in the 1980s, can be held responsible for the crises of 2000 and 2001 crises. It is concluded that financial liberalization policies were inappropriately sequenced, as domestic financial market and capital account liberalization were not accompanied or preceded by macroeconomic stability and financial sector institutional reforms such as prudential regulation and supervision of the banking sector. These factors have been instrumental in the crises episodes in Turkey through contributing to an environment conducive to crises. Thirdly, it aims to analyze whether there exists a clear association between weaknesses in the regulation and supervision of the banking sector and banking crises through an empirical analysis. It is concluded that the nature of the banking crises is more associated with the institutional structure of the financial system rather than macroeconomic conditions of the economy.

In this thesis, two ultrasonic timing methods are used in order to investigate the accuracy and reliability of measurements for surface breaking cracks having different orientations and heights. Also the best applicable measurement technique is searched by comparing the received test results. These methods are the Time of Flight Diffraction (TOFD) Method using diffraction of longitudinal waves and another method using the reflection of shear waves from the crack tips. In order to simulate and measure the height of surface breaking cracks three sets of test blocks from steel, and two sets of wedges from plexiglas material are manufactured. Also several probes having frequencies of 2Mhz, 4Mhz, 5Mhz and angles of 45o and 70o are used. Some test procedures are created to make realistic comparisons between the test results and the ones found by previous studies in literature. The results are compared according to the standard deviations of errors in crack height measurements and it is found that the depth, orientation of defects and the frequency of probes have considerable affect on the results. With wider probe angles and higher frequencies of probes to some extent the errors are observed to be running low and the height of cracks could be measured closer to the original size. The amount of the errors is increased in measurements with the increasing angle of cracks. The results of both methods are found to be very satisfactory. A range of &plusmn / 0.5 mm for means of error from the original vertical crack heights is determined. The results agree with the previous studies.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / Generations X and Y have been described as constituting a ‘black hole’ in congregational life. The literature emphasises that generations X and Y are interested in spirituality but not institutional religion. There is now a substantial body of literature arguing that generations X and Y find churches ‘irrelevant’, ‘absent of God’, ‘too rigid’, and ‘laughably out of touch’ with their lives. This thesis argues that generational accounts of religion often fail to make an important distinction between the churched and unchurched in relation to generational distinctiveness. This is a distinction often drawn by sociologists of religion, pointing to two quite different cultures, one communally orientated towards faith communities and the other orientated towards personal freedom and a privatised spiritual quest. Generations X and Y in this thesis refer to a generational unit who share a particular type of faith: owned and embedded within a church community. Employing a methodological approach of in-depth religious life story interviews this thesis is a sociological investigation into the way Christian faith journeys of GenX and GenY are embedded within New Zealand church communities. It is argued that their faith does not make sense outside of this embeddedness. Embedded faith provides a framework for making sense of the participants’ religious biographies. Embedded faith is contrasted to a more privatised understanding of faith and religion popular within sociology of religion. The active dimension of embedded faith is demonstrated through an exploration of modes of engagement with worship and preaching. This thesis builds upon qualitative studies that continue to demonstrate the salience of the collective act of religious involvement and social belonging. One of the challenges of embedded faith however, is finding a church to embed it within. This thesis provides understanding and insight into the relationship between embedded faith and church switching. It explores the way that church switching is an intentional act of disembedding and re-embedding faith and the reasons for this practice.