Thesis (Doctorat)--Université de Rennes, 1910. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-260).

Fatores como a volatilidade de preço de commodities, escassez de recursos, e sinais cada vez maiores de desigualdades sociais abrem espaço para diversas esferas da sociedade explorarem formas mais efetivas e sistêmicas de se fazer negócio. A economia circular tem como objetivo propor valores que possam ser gerados através de atividades agregadoras de valor; prolongados por mais tempo por meio de utilização de formas de desacelerar e fechar ciclos; capturados e distribuídos para uma diversidade de stakeholders através dos benefícios advindos do modelo circular. Entretanto, a literatura carece de referências que auxilie a identificar os valores que o modelo circular possibilita capturar e para quais stakeholders esses valores serão distribuídos. Assim, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo propor um guia para a identificação de oportunidades de valor no contexto da economia circular. A metodologia utilizada para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa foi a Design Research Methodology (DRM) que elenca quatro etapas principais: clarificação da pesquisa (visão da realidade atual da área de pesquisa por meio de conhecimento e entendimento inicial do tema de pesquisa); estudo descritivo I (revisão bibliográfica sistemática e exploratória sobre os temas economia circular, valor, cadeia de valor e stakeholders); estudo prescritivo (desenvolvimento da proposta para resolver o problema); e estudo descritivo II (realização de estudos empíricos para avaliar a proposta). Seguindo os conceitos de gamestorming o guia foi sistematizado resultando em sua primeira versão. Sendo composto pelas etapas: entender, explorar, alinhar, mapear e analisar. Em seguida, esta primeira versão do guia foi avaliada através da realização de um estudo de caso exploratório em uma empresa que adota práticas de economia circular, com o intuito de identificar a rede valor das organizações e as oportunidades de valor circular. Por fim, o guia foi revisado e melhorado, resultando na versão final. Esta pesquisa contribuiu para a teoria e para a prática relacionada ao tema economia circular, ao propor um guia, com base cientifica, ao passo que apresenta uma nova forma para identificar oportunidades de valor que suporte a melhoria do sistema circular. / Factors such as commodity price volatility, scarcity of resources, and increasing signs of social inequalities open space for diverse spheres of society to explore more effective and systemic ways of doing business. The circular economy aims to propose values that can be generated throught value-adding activities; for longer periods by using ways to decelerate and close cycles; captured and distributed to a wide diversity of stakeholders through the benefits derived from the circular model. However, the literature lacks references that help identify the values that the circular model allows to capture and to which stakeholders these values will distributed. Despite this, the works that approach this subject are almost null. Thus, this research aims to propose a guide for the identification of opportunities of value in the context of circular economy. The methodology utilized to the development of this research was the Design Research Methodology (DRM), which covers four main stages: clarification of the research (current reality view of the research area through knowledge and initial understanding of the research topic); descriptive study I (exploratory and systematic bibliographic review about the themes circular economy, value, value chain and stakeholders); prescriptive study (development of the proposal to solve the problems); and descriptive study II (realization of empirical studies to evaluate the proposal). Following the concepts of gamestorming the guide has been systematized resulting in its first version, which is composed of four steps: understand, explore, aling, map, and analyse. Then the guide was evaluated by conducting an exploratory case study in a company that adopts circular economy practices, with the aim of identifying the value network of organizations and the opportunities of circular value. Finally, the guide was revised and improved, resulting in the final version. This research contributed to the theory and practice related to the subject circular economy, by proposing a guide, based on scientific, while presenting a new way to identify the opportunities of value that supports the improvement of the circular system.

Fatores como a volatilidade de preço de commodities, escassez de recursos, e sinais cada vez maiores de desigualdades sociais abrem espaço para diversas esferas da sociedade explorarem formas mais efetivas e sistêmicas de se fazer negócio. A economia circular tem como objetivo propor valores que possam ser gerados através de atividades agregadoras de valor; prolongados por mais tempo por meio de utilização de formas de desacelerar e fechar ciclos; capturados e distribuídos para uma diversidade de stakeholders através dos benefícios advindos do modelo circular. Entretanto, a literatura carece de referências que auxilie a identificar os valores que o modelo circular possibilita capturar e para quais stakeholders esses valores serão distribuídos. Assim, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo propor um guia para a identificação de oportunidades de valor no contexto da economia circular. A metodologia utilizada para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa foi a Design Research Methodology (DRM) que elenca quatro etapas principais: clarificação da pesquisa (visão da realidade atual da área de pesquisa por meio de conhecimento e entendimento inicial do tema de pesquisa); estudo descritivo I (revisão bibliográfica sistemática e exploratória sobre os temas economia circular, valor, cadeia de valor e stakeholders); estudo prescritivo (desenvolvimento da proposta para resolver o problema); e estudo descritivo II (realização de estudos empíricos para avaliar a proposta). Seguindo os conceitos de gamestorming o guia foi sistematizado resultando em sua primeira versão. Sendo composto pelas etapas: entender, explorar, alinhar, mapear e analisar. Em seguida, esta primeira versão do guia foi avaliada através da realização de um estudo de caso exploratório em uma empresa que adota práticas de economia circular, com o intuito de identificar a rede valor das organizações e as oportunidades de valor circular. Por fim, o guia foi revisado e melhorado, resultando na versão final. Esta pesquisa contribuiu para a teoria e para a prática relacionada ao tema economia circular, ao propor um guia, com base cientifica, ao passo que apresenta uma nova forma para identificar oportunidades de valor que suporte a melhoria do sistema circular. / Factors such as commodity price volatility, scarcity of resources, and increasing signs of social inequalities open space for diverse spheres of society to explore more effective and systemic ways of doing business. The circular economy aims to propose values that can be generated throught value-adding activities; for longer periods by using ways to decelerate and close cycles; captured and distributed to a wide diversity of stakeholders through the benefits derived from the circular model. However, the literature lacks references that help identify the values that the circular model allows to capture and to which stakeholders these values will distributed. Despite this, the works that approach this subject are almost null. Thus, this research aims to propose a guide for the identification of opportunities of value in the context of circular economy. The methodology utilized to the development of this research was the Design Research Methodology (DRM), which covers four main stages: clarification of the research (current reality view of the research area through knowledge and initial understanding of the research topic); descriptive study I (exploratory and systematic bibliographic review about the themes circular economy, value, value chain and stakeholders); prescriptive study (development of the proposal to solve the problems); and descriptive study II (realization of empirical studies to evaluate the proposal). Following the concepts of gamestorming the guide has been systematized resulting in its first version, which is composed of four steps: understand, explore, aling, map, and analyse. Then the guide was evaluated by conducting an exploratory case study in a company that adopts circular economy practices, with the aim of identifying the value network of organizations and the opportunities of circular value. Finally, the guide was revised and improved, resulting in the final version. This research contributed to the theory and practice related to the subject circular economy, by proposing a guide, based on scientific, while presenting a new way to identify the opportunities of value that supports the improvement of the circular system.

Along this dissertation I propose to walk the reader through several macroeconomic implications of information asymmetries, with a special focus on financial issues. This exercise is mainly theoretical: I develop stylized models that aim at capturing macroeconomic phenomena such as self-fulfilling liquidity dry-ups, the rise and the fall of securitization markets, and the creation of systemic risk. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first one proposes an explanation to self-fulfilling liquidity dry-ups. The second chapters proposes a formalization of the concept of market discipline and an application to securitization markets as risk-sharing mechanisms. The third one offers a complementary analysis to the second as the rise of securitization is presented as banker optimal response to strict capital constraints. Two concepts that do not have unique acceptations in economics play a central role in these models: liquidity and market discipline. The liquidity of an asset refers to the ability for his owner to transform it into current consumption goods. Secondary markets for long-term assets play thus an important role with that respect. However, such markets might be illiquid due to adverse selection. In the first chapter, I show that: (1) when agents expect a liquidity dry-up on such markets, they optimally choose to self-insure through the hoarding of non-productive but liquid assets; (2) this hoarding behavior worsens adverse selection and dries up market liquidity; (3) such liquidity dry-ups are Pareto inefficient equilibria; (4) the government can rule them out. Additionally, I show that idiosyncratic liquidity shocks à la Diamond and Dybvig have stabilizing effects, which is at odds with the banking literature. The main contribution of the chapter is to show that market breakdowns due to adverse selection are highly endogenous to past balance-sheet decisions. I consider that agents are under market discipline when their current behavior is influenced by future market outcomes. A key ingredient for market discipline to be at play is that the market outcome depends on information that is observable but not verifiable (that is, information that cannot be proved in court, and consequently, upon which enforceable contracts cannot be based). In the second chapter, after introducing this novel formalization of market discipline, I ask whether securitization really contributes to better risk-sharing: I compare it with other mechanisms that differ on the timing of risk-transfer. I find that for securitization to be an efficient risk-sharing mechanism, it requires market discipline to be strong and adverse selection not to be severe. This seems to seriously restrict the set of assets that should be securitized for risk-sharing motive. Additionally, I show how ex-ante leverage may mitigate interim adverse selection in securitization markets and therefore enhance ex-post risk-sharing. This is interesting because high leverage is usually associated with “excessive” risktaking. In the third chapter, I consider risk-neutral bankers facing strict capital constraints; their capital is indeed required to cover the worst-case-scenario losses. In such a set-up, I find that: 1) banker optimal autarky response is to diversify lower-tail risk and maximize leverage; 2) securitization helps to free up capital and to increase leverage, but distorts incentives to screen loan applicants properly; 3) market discipline mitigates this problem, but if it is overestimated by the supervisor, it leads to excess leverage, which creates systemic risk. Finally, I consider opaque securitization and I show that the supervisor: 4) faces uncertainty about the trade-off between the size of the economy and the probability and the severity of a systemic crisis; 5) can generally not set capital constraints at the socially efficient level.

No description available.

M.Phil. / This work proposes a fast local image feature detector and descriptor that is im- plementable on a GPU. The BFROST feature detector is the first published GPU implementation of the popular FAST detector. A simple but novel method of feature orientation estimation which can be calculated in constant time is proposed. The robustness and reliability of the orientation estimation is validated against rotation invariant descriptors such as SIFT and SURF. Furthermore, the BFROST feature descriptor is robust to noise, scalable, rotation invariant, fast to compute in parallel and maintains low memory usage. It is demonstrated that BFROST is usable in real-time applications such as vision-based localization and mapping of images captured from micro aerial platforms.

Along this dissertation I propose to walk the reader through several macroeconomic<p>implications of information asymmetries, with a special focus on financial<p>issues. This exercise is mainly theoretical: I develop stylized models that aim<p>at capturing macroeconomic phenomena such as self-fulfilling liquidity dry-ups,<p>the rise and the fall of securitization markets, and the creation of systemic risk.<p>The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first one proposes an explanation<p>to self-fulfilling liquidity dry-ups. The second chapters proposes a formalization<p>of the concept of market discipline and an application to securitization<p>markets as risk-sharing mechanisms. The third one offers a complementary<p>analysis to the second as the rise of securitization is presented as banker optimal<p>response to strict capital constraints.<p>Two concepts that do not have unique acceptations in economics play a central<p>role in these models: liquidity and market discipline.<p>The liquidity of an asset refers to the ability for his owner to transform it into<p>current consumption goods. Secondary markets for long-term assets play thus<p>an important role with that respect. However, such markets might be illiquid due<p>to adverse selection.<p>In the first chapter, I show that: (1) when agents expect a liquidity dry-up<p>on such markets, they optimally choose to self-insure through the hoarding of<p>non-productive but liquid assets; (2) this hoarding behavior worsens adverse selection and dries up market liquidity; (3) such liquidity dry-ups are Pareto inefficient<p>equilibria; (4) the government can rule them out. Additionally, I show<p>that idiosyncratic liquidity shocks à la Diamond and Dybvig have stabilizing effects,<p>which is at odds with the banking literature. The main contribution of the<p>chapter is to show that market breakdowns due to adverse selection are highly<p>endogenous to past balance-sheet decisions.<p>I consider that agents are under market discipline when their current behavior<p>is influenced by future market outcomes. A key ingredient for market discipline<p>to be at play is that the market outcome depends on information that is observable<p>but not verifiable (that is, information that cannot be proved in court, and<p>consequently, upon which enforceable contracts cannot be based).<p>In the second chapter, after introducing this novel formalization of market<p>discipline, I ask whether securitization really contributes to better risk-sharing:<p>I compare it with other mechanisms that differ on the timing of risk-transfer. I<p>find that for securitization to be an efficient risk-sharing mechanism, it requires<p>market discipline to be strong and adverse selection not to be severe. This seems<p>to seriously restrict the set of assets that should be securitized for risk-sharing<p>motive.<p>Additionally, I show how ex-ante leverage may mitigate interim adverse selection<p>in securitization markets and therefore enhance ex-post risk-sharing. This<p>is interesting because high leverage is usually associated with “excessive” risktaking.<p>In the third chapter, I consider risk-neutral bankers facing strict capital constraints;<p>their capital is indeed required to cover the worst-case-scenario losses.<p>In such a set-up, I find that: 1) banker optimal autarky response is to diversify<p>lower-tail risk and maximize leverage; 2) securitization helps to free up capital<p>and to increase leverage, but distorts incentives to screen loan applicants properly; 3) market discipline mitigates this problem, but if it is overestimated by<p>the supervisor, it leads to excess leverage, which creates systemic risk. Finally,<p>I consider opaque securitization and I show that the supervisor: 4) faces uncertainty<p>about the trade-off between the size of the economy and the probability<p>and the severity of a systemic crisis; 5) can generally not set capital constraints<p>at the socially efficient level. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

About 3850 men of the First Australian Imperial Force were captured on the Western Front in France and Belgium between April 1916 and November 1918. They were mentioned only briefly in the volumes of the Official Histories, and have been overlooked in many subsequent works on Australia and the First World War. Material in the Australian War Memorial has been used to address aspects of the experiences of these neglected men, in particular the Statements that some of them completed after their release This thesis will investigate how their experiences ran counter to the narratives of CEW Bean and others, and seeks to give them their place in Australia???s Twentieth Century experience of war.

About 3850 men of the First Australian Imperial Force were captured on the Western Front in France and Belgium between April 1916 and November 1918. They were mentioned only briefly in the volumes of the Official Histories, and have been overlooked in many subsequent works on Australia and the First World War. Material in the Australian War Memorial has been used to address aspects of the experiences of these neglected men, in particular the Statements that some of them completed after their release This thesis will investigate how their experiences ran counter to the narratives of CEW Bean and others, and seeks to give them their place in Australia???s Twentieth Century experience of war.

Text is no longer confined to scanned pages and often appears in camera-based images originating from text on real world objects. Unlike the images from conventional flatbed scanners, which have a controlled acquisition environment, camera-based images pose new challenges such as uneven illumination, blur, poor resolution, perspective distortion and 3D deformations that can severely affect the performance of any optical character recognition (OCR) system. Due to the variations in the imaging condition as well as the target document type, traditional OCR systems, designed for scanned images, cannot be directly applied to camera-captured images and a new level of processing needs to be addressed. In this thesis, we study some of the issues commonly encountered in camera-based image analysis and propose novel methods to overcome them. All the methods make use of color connected components. 1. Connected component descriptor for document image mosaicing Document image analysis often requires mosaicing when it is not possible to capture a large document at a reasonable resolution in a single exposure. Such a document is captured in parts and mosaicing stitches them into a single image. Since connected components (CCs) in a document image can easily be extracted regardless of the image rotation, scale and perspective distortion, we design a robust feature named connected component descriptor that is tailored for mosaicing camera-captured document images. The method involves extraction of a circular measurement region around each CC and its description using the angular radial transform (ART). To ensure geometric consistency during feature matching, the ART coefficients of a CC are augmented with those of its 2 nearest neighbors. Our method addresses two critical issues often encountered in correspondence matching: (i) the stability of features and (ii) robustness against false matches due to multiple instances of many characters in a document image. We illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on camera-captured document images exhibiting large variations in viewpoint, illumination and scale. 2. Font and background color independent text binarization The first step in an OCR system, after document acquisition, is binarization, which converts a gray-scale/color image into a two-level image -the foreground text and the background. We propose two methods for binarization of color documents whereby the foreground text is output as black and the background as white regardless of the polarity of foreground-background shades. (a) Hierarchical CC Analysis: The method employs an edge-based connected component approach and automatically determines a threshold for each component. It overcomes several limitations of existing locally-adaptive thresholding techniques. Firstly, it can handle documents with multi-colored texts with different background shades. Secondly, the method is applicable to documents having text of widely varying sizes, usually not handled by local binarization methods. Thirdly, the method automatically computes the threshold for binarization and the logic for inverting the output from the image data and does not require any input parameter. However, the method is sensitive to complex backgrounds since it relies on the edge information to identify CCs. It also uses script-specific characteristics to filter out edge components before binarization and currently works well for Roman script only. (b) Contour-based color clustering (COCOCLUST): To overcome the above limitations, we introduce a novel unsupervised color clustering approach that operates on a ‘small’ representative set of color pixels identified using the contour information. Based on the assumption that every character is of a uniform color, we analyze each color layer individually and identify potential text regions for binarization. Experiments on several complex images having large variations in font, size, color, orientation and script illustrate the robustness of the method. 3. Multi-script and multi-oriented text extraction from scene images Scene text understanding normally involves a pre-processing step of text detection and extraction before subjecting the acquired image for character recognition task. The subsequent recognition task is performed only on the detected text regions so as to mitigate the effect of background complexity. We propose a color-based CC labeling for robust text segmentation from natural scene images. Text CCs are identified using a combination of support vector machine and neural network classifiers trained on a set of low-level features derived from the boundary, stroke and gradient information. We develop a semiautomatic annotation toolkit to generate pixel-accurate groundtruth of 100 scenic images containing text in various layout styles and multiple scripts. The overall precision, recall and f-measure obtained on our dataset are 0.8, 0.86 and 0.83, respectively. The proposed method is also compared with others in the literature using the ICDAR 2003 robust reading competition dataset, which, however, has only horizontal English text. The overall precision, recall and f-measure obtained are 0.63, 0.59 and 0.61 respectively, which is comparable to the best performing methods in the ICDAR 2005 text locating competition. A recent method proposed by Epshtein et al. [1] achieves better results but it cannot handle arbitrarily oriented text. Our method, however, works well for generic scene images having arbitrary text orientations. 4. Alignment of curved text lines Conventional OCR systems perform poorly on document images that contain multi-oriented text lines. We propose a technique that first identifies individual text lines by grouping adjacent CCs based on their proximity and regularity. For each identified text string, a B-spline curve is fitted to the centroids of the constituent characters and normal vectors are computed along the fitted curve. Each character is then individually rotated such that the corresponding normal vector is aligned with the vertical axis. The method has been tested on a data set consisting of 50 images with text laid out in various ways namely along arcs, waves, triangles and a combination of these with linearly skewed text lines. It yields 95.9% recognition accuracy on text strings, where, before alignment, state-of-the-art OCRs fail to recognize any text. The CC-based pre-processing algorithms developed are well-suited for processing camera-captured images. We demonstrate the feasibility of the algorithms on the publicly-available ICDAR 2003 robust reading competition dataset and our own database comprising camera-captured document images that contain multiple scripts and arbitrary text layouts.