University, Diss., 2002--Heidelberg.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Also available online.

No description available.

Thesis (M.C.E.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Jennifer Righman McConnell, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Is it possible for at-risk students attending a rural community college to succeed in attaining their stated academic goals if exposed to a retention program customized to suit the needs of students attending their type of institution? What role does a student's motivation to succeed play in his or her decision to pursue achievement behavior in college? Are academically at-risk learners aware of behaviors that limit their success in the classroom? If so, what affective and cognitive variables determine individual success and to what extent can these variables be screened for on entrance? To address the above questions, the LASSI and Trice Locus of Control inventory were administered to 45 students enrolled in the Opportunity For Success program, a retention effort for at-risk 17-21 years old students at Quinebaug Valley Community College in Connecticut. Using SPSS, a multiple regression analysis was performed by entering the 10 variables of the LASS I and the GP A for the subjects. Also, two 90- minute, in-depth interviews were conducted of 26 of the 45 students. Faculty and advisors of these students were asked to rate their performance. The findings support the literature on student success and college student attrition. At-risk learners are aware of behaviors that limit their success. Successful at-risk students possess a variety of strategies to cope with academic challenge while low achieving students often do not. Instead, the low achieving students develop theories to explain their failure to succeed. Similarly, this research illustrates that failure, like success, is a habit learned over time and context dependent; the high school experiences of underachieving subjects demonstrate that they are often unmotivated to succeed in the classroom because they lack the interest to invest in academic endeavors. Low achieving students in this study continued this pattern in college, while those who became high and moderately achieving adopted multiple strategies to ensure success. Participants were motivated to perform in classes they considered "fun" and relevant to their future goals. The findings also show that educators should assist at-risk students to overcome their fear of failure by increasing their ability to self-regulate learning, set goals, and evolve healthy self concept. This study concludes that the desire to persist, information processing, and attitude towards learning play a major role in the learner's decision to pursue achievement behavior. / 2031-01-01

This work is divided into two main parts, investigational and theoretical. The first part deals with the investigation of deposition values around integrated iron and steel works, and coke works, in South Wales, and with the changes in such values which arise as a result of modifications to process control or to arrestment equipment. A method of evaluation of such changes, based on the cumulative sum technique, is developed, which m1n1m1ses the effect of seasonal variations in the deposition values. It is demonstrated that there are two significant sources of particulate emission, from coke oven discharges, and from coke quenching. These are shown to have different spatial distributions, emissions from quench towers being very widespread, whereas emissions from oven discharges deposit relatively closer to the source. Methods to reduce both of these sources are described: It is shown that the use of arrestors in quench towers leads to enhanced emission of dissolved solids, but that the increase can be controlled by the use of additional sprays above the arrestors. The second part considers some theoretical aspects of quench tower operation. It is shown that the installation of arrestors leads to changes in gas temperature and gas composition in a quench tower, which cause increases in terminal settling velocity. The same changes lead to reduced condensation within the quench tower, and hence greater emission of steam, which gives a more buoyant emission, with more widespread dispersion than from open quench towers, as well as enhanced emissions of dissolved solids. Calculations are included which confirm the extent of the dispersion from towers fitted with arrestment devices.

PESSOA, Fernanda Salles de Oliveira. Gestão de risco setorial no mercado de ações brasileiro. 2013. 54f. Dissertação (Mestrado Profissional) - Programa de Pós Graduação em Economia, CAEN, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza-CE, 2013. / Submitted by Mônica Correia Aquino (monicacorreiaaquino@gmail.com) on 2014-10-16T19:40:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2013_dissert_fsopessoa.pdf: 2508692 bytes, checksum: 99478cdb7057ed103681a29a780db21e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Mônica Correia Aquino(monicacorreiaaquino@gmail.com) on 2014-10-16T19:40:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2013_dissert_fsopessoa.pdf: 2508692 bytes, checksum: 99478cdb7057ed103681a29a780db21e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-16T19:40:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2013_dissert_fsopessoa.pdf: 2508692 bytes, checksum: 99478cdb7057ed103681a29a780db21e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-21 / This work analyzes during the period between 2008/01 and 2011/12 the market risk of six sectorial indexes from the São Paulo´s Stock Market (BM&FBovespa): the real state index (IMOB), the eletric power index (IEE), the consumption index (ICON), the industrial sector index (INDX), the financial index (IFNC) and the telecommunications sector index (ITEL). Throughout the Value-at-Risk metric (VaR), four models are estimated. Two of those models are called unconditional, due to its variance: the Unconditional Gaussian VaR, that admits that the returns follow a normal distribution, and the Unconditional Best Fitting VaR, built from the distribution of probabilities that better fits to the returns series. The other two models are called conditionals, assuming that the volatility changes along the time. The GARCH autoregressive models are used to estimate the conditional variance of each index, allowing an estimation of the Unconditional Gaussian VaR and the Unconditional Best Fitting VaR. Afterwards, the VaR models backtestings are realized, revealing the conditional models superiority. Finally, throughout the Balzer´s graphics, the indexes performances were observed over the confrontations between them. It was found that, for the analyzed period, the IEE wins every confrontation against the all other indexes, showing the best relation risk x return. The real state index sector, represented by the IMOB, lost all the confronts. / Este trabalho analisa durante o período de 01/2008 a 12/2011 o risco de mercado de seis índices setoriais da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (BM&FBovespa): o índice imobiliário (IMOB), o índice de energia elétrica (IEE), o índice de consumo (ICON), o índice do setor industrial (INDX), o índice financeiro (IFNC) e o índice setorial de telecomunicações (ITEL). Através da métrica Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimam-se quatro modelos. Dois desses modelos são ditos incondicionais no que se refere à variância: o VaR Gaussiano Incondicional, admitindo que os retornos seguem uma distribuição normal, e o VaR Best Fitting Incondicional, construído a partir da distribuição de probabilidades que melhor se ajusta às séries de retornos. Os outros dois modelos são chamados de condicionais, assumindo que a volatilidade varia ao longo do tempo. Os modelos autoregressivos do tipo GARCH são utilizados para estimar a variância condicional de cada índice, possibilitando a estimação do VaR Gaussiano Incondicional e do VaR Best Fitting Incondicional. Em seguida, realizam-se backtestings dos modelos de VaR, revelando a superioridade dos modelos condicionais. Por fim, através de gráficos de Balzer, observou-se a performance dos índices por meio de confrontos entre eles. Foi constatado que, para o período analisado, o IEE vence todos os embates feitos com os demais índices, apresentando a melhor relação risco x retorno. O setor imobiliário, representado pelo IMOB, perde todos os confrontos.

No description available.

Ship collision accidents are rare events but pose huge threat to human lives, assets, and the environment. Collision resistance of ships is usually assessed in terms of ship structural response such as member displacement, energy dissipation and the extent of damage. Many researchers have sought for effective models that compute ship stochastic response during collisions by considering the variability of collision scenario parameters. However, the models were limited by the capability of the collision computational models and did not completely capture collision scenario, and material and geometric uncertainties. In addition, the simplified models capturing the input-response relationships of the ship structural impact mechanics are in implicit forms which makes them unsuitable for assessing the performance of structural design specifications in collisions. Furthermore, with increasing ship passages in the Arctic region, the probabilities of ship-iceberg interactions are increasing, highlighting the need to focus on risk based ship designs. In this research, a conceptual stochastic modelling framework is developed for performance characterisation and quantitative risk assessment of ship-ship and ship-iceberg collisions. In this direction, an interface for automated stochastic finite element computations was developed to model ship structural resistance in reference collision scenarios. The stochastic structural response was characterised based on the onset of the ship structural failure. The focus was initially on ship-ship collisions to quantify the uncertainties experimentally and to characterise the performance for a variety of striking ships. The framework was then extended to consider probabilistic performance measures in ship-iceberg collisions. The computationally intensive collision response models were captured with efficient surrogate representations so that the performance measures can be obtained with gradient based reliability approaches. The most probable input design sets for the response distribution were sampled with Latin Hypercube models. The probabilistic performance measures were also combined with available collision frequency models from literature for risk computations and to demonstrate the risk tolerance measures. The framework underlines the significance of different risk components, providing valuable guidance for improving risk-based ship designs. Although, a double-hull crude oil carrier is presented as the struck ship, the approach can be readily extended to characterise the performance and risk of other ship structures in collisions.