Is GDP per capita one of the main drivers affecting demand for passenger air travelling? Based on the time series analysis conducted for North American and Middle Eastern region, we have not rejected hypothesis about positive impact of GDP per capita on demand for air travelling. The thesis also analyzes whether the effects observed are weaker for more developed and more saturated markets. The second hypothesis was rejected, as we have found that the effect of the GDP per capita was on average 10% stronger for the North American region than for the Middle Eastern region. Moreover, we have found that for both regions oil prices are the important driver of the passenger air travel demand.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis applies the ontological turn to the war fiction of veteran authors, Kurt Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien. It argues that some veteran authors desire to communicate truth through fiction. Choosing to communicate truth through fiction hints at a new perspective on reality and existence that may not be readily accepted or understood by those who lack combat experience. The non-veteran understanding of war can be more informed by entertaining the idea that a multiplicity of realities exists. Affirming the combat veteran reality—the post-war ontology—and acknowledging the non-veteran reality—rooted in what I label “pre-war” or “civilian” ontology—helps enhance the reader’s understanding of what veteran authors attempt to communicate through fiction. This approach reframes the dialogic interaction between the reader and the perspectives presented in veteran author’s fiction through an emphasis on “radical alterity” to the point that telling and reading such stories represent distinct ontological journeys. Both Kurt Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien provide intriguing perspectives on reality through their fiction, particularly in the way their characters perceive and express morality, guilt, time, mortality, and even existence. Vonnegut and O’Brien’s war experiences inform these perspectives. This does not imply that the authors hold an identical perspective on the world or that combat experience yields an ontological understanding of the world common to every veteran. It simply asserts that applying the ontological turn to these writings, and the writings of other combat veterans, reveals that those who experience combat first-hand often walk away from those experiences with a changed ontological perspective.

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Vid SSAB Europé i Luleå produceras höghållfaststål. För att uppnå sådan kvalité måste renligheten i stålet vara god i hela processen. Risken att få förhöjda värden av exempelvis vanadin efter LD-processen vid deoxidationssteget, då medföljande vanadininhållande slagg som återreduceras till stålet är hög. Det finns olika system som jobbar för att förhindra medföljande slagg vid tappning av LD-konvertern. På SSAB i Luleå används IR-kamera för att identifiera slagg vid tappning och en mekanisk slaggstoppare som blockerar tapphålet samt tvingar flödet tillbaka in i konvertern med hjälp av kvävgas. Ett annat möjligt system att använda skulle kunna vara slaggens viskositet, då en högviskös slagg skulle fungera som en vortexinhibitor och därigenom reducera mängden medföljande slagg. Målet med examensarbetet har varit att undersöka sena tillsatsers påverkan av medföljande slagg, där de sena tillsatserna syftar till att öka viskositeten på slaggen genom att skapa fasta partiklar. I daglig drift görs ingen uppskattning av mängden medföljande slagg eller hur sena slaggtillsatser påverkar detta. Genom slaggprovtagning samt stålprover innan och efter tappning av LD-konvertern kan en massbalans göras av mängden medföljande slagg. Beräkningsämnena som passade bäst i denna studie var kisel och vanadin, två ämnen som oftast återfinns endast i slaggen. Utifrån resultatet av proverna visade sena tillsatser inte ha någon påverkan av mängden medföljande slagg. Ingen påvisad skillnad av viskositetsberäkningarna kunde kopplas till de sena tillsatserna, där beräkningarna gjordes i FactSage. Studien visade att sena tillsatser inte har den önskade effekten på medföljande slagg som man tidigare trott och skulle kunna tas bort helt. Detta för att reducera kostnaderna för tillsatser och deponi. Slaggen fick flytegenskaper redan vid 72% andel fasta partiklar och en temperatur på 1379°C. Vid LD-processen har slaggen 8% andel fasta partiklar och temperatur på 1739°C. Detta påvisar att det blir praktiskt omöjligt att styva upp slaggen i LD-processen med hjälp av sena tillsatser. / SSAB Europé in Luleå produce high-strength steel. To reach this quality the purity must be good in the whole process. There is a risk to get a high value of for example vanadium in the steel after the LD-process at the deoxidations step. The carried-over slag from the LD-process has a high content of vanadium that may reduce back to the steel from the deoxidation agent.  Several process systems work to reduce the amount of carried-over slag at LD-converter. At SSAB in Luleå this system is an IR-camera that is used for detecting carried-over slag at the tapping of the converter and a mechanical slagblocker that block the tapping jet and blow back the slag using nitrogen.  Another possible system could be to use the slag viscosity. High viscous slag will work like a vortex inhibitor and reduce the amount of carried-over slag. The goal of this master thesis is to study late additives impact of the amount of carried-over slag, there the purpose of the late additives is to increase the viscosity of the slag through solve in solid particles.  In the daily operations SSAB doesn´t do an estimate of the amount of carried-over slag or how the late additives affect carried-over slag. By conducting slag and steel sampling before and after tapping the LD-converter a mass balance can be used to calculate the amount of carried-over slag. The base of the mass calculation that fit beast in this study was silicon and vanadium. Two substances that often occurs in the slag. From the results of the samples, the late additive didn´t do any impact on the amount of carried-over slag. No impact of the viscosity calculation could connect to the amount of carried-over slag. The calculation has been done in FactSage. The study shows that late additive don´t have any impact on the amount of carried-over slag and that is why it should be avoided. This could decrease the cost of additive and landfill. The slag gets flow properties as early as 72% share solid particles and temperature at 1379°C and in the LD-process the slag had 8% share solid particles and temperature at 1739°C. This shows that it´s practically impossible to stiff up the slag in the LD-process with help of late additive.

The resource curse is a defining feature of the African content. Despite vast resource wealth, Africa remains the poorest and most underdeveloped continent in the world. The aim of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the primary laws regulating of oil and gas exploration and product activities in Angola, Nigeria and South Africa in order to determine their effectiveness in protecting the continent's depleting petroleum resources. Different regulatory models apply to Angola, following the Norwegian carried-interest model, Nigeria, where a British discretionary model has been retained, an a South africa, where a unique model has been developed. The comparison is conducted by analysing and comparing these different regulatory systems in terms of legal frameworks; the legal nature of the regulatory systems; ownership of the oil and gas resources; legal nature of licenses; organisational or institutional structures; fiscal systems; local communities benefits from these proceeds of oil and gas resources; local content; state/government participation arrangements; and environmental challenges. The study evaluates the effectiveness of these regimes by examining the extent to which they recognise and enforce state ownership of he oil and gas resourcs in situ; recognise and enforce the doctrine of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources (PSNR); protect the environment; how they provide for institutional capacities for the management of resources; and the protection of local communities from exploitation and abuse by recognising their rights to benefit from revenues derived from these resources. An overall assessment of the three systems reveals that there is no ideal model for oil and gas regulation in Africa. The Norwegian model might well be considered an ideal model if it was applied with care and correctly in Angola. The study hopes to gain practical importance for the proper regulationof the oil and gas industries' upstream activities in Africa and assist governments of the selected jurisdictions in their policy revisions, as some recommendations are made. / Economics / LLD.

The problem of low domestic savings is inherent in most Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. This has motivated most of the SADC countries to institute policies that seek to attract foreign capital to cover the investment deficit that arises from low domestic savings rates. This study gives robust conclusions on the effectiveness of individual tax incentives commonly used by SADC countries in attracting foreign mobile capital. This study has broadened the dimensions research can take in analysing the contribution of tax incentives to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows into developing countries. In separating individual tax incentives mainly used in the SADC region the study gives a robust analysis on the impact of each tax incentive on FDI inflows into SADC countries. The tax incentives used in this study are: tax holidays, corporate income tax (CIT), reduced CIT in specific sectors and losses carried forward. The study also derives data indices for governance, infrastructure and economic policy variables which gives the study clean and reliable data for efficient regression results. These macroeconomic data derivations assist in giving the FDI attraction analysis more variables and well behaved data in drawing conclusions. Through an analysis and comparison of trends in FDI inflows and stock data in different African regions the study draws important conclusions on the impact of the socio-economic environment in FDI attraction. The study, in consultation with data from the period 2004 to 2013 separates the SADC countries into four panels based on resource richness. Panel 1 includes the resources-rich countries, Panel 2 the resources-poor countries, Panel 3 all SADC countries, except South Africa and Panel 4 all the SADC countries. Each of the estimate models in this study, use individual tax incentives variables to avoid the effects of collinearity between different tax incentives variables and to improve the predictive power of the panel data models. This study derived tax incentives data for individual SADC countries, from Ernst and Young’s worldwide tax data. Regular tax incentives in the SADC are derived from tax holidays, corporate income tax (CIT); losses carried forward and reduced CIT in specific sectors. This study seeks to achieve two major objectives: firstly, to establish the effectiveness of tax incentives in attracting FDI inflows into SADC countries, and, secondly, to establish other variables that influence FDI inflows into SADC countries. The study estimated four panels for SADC countries, separated according to resource richness. This was done because different types of FDI are dependent on the available resources in developing countries and thus factors that influence the FDI inflows differ according to resource richness. Resource-seeking FDI moves to resources-rich economies, market-seeking FDI goes to economies that have access to larger markets and efficiency-seeking and strategic-asset-seeking FDI move to economies that ensure efficient use of their capital resources. Thus, as expected, factors that attract FDI to countries in the separate panels differ in direction of causality and magnitude of impact. The study adopts a system Generalised Method of Moments (SYS GMM) methodology to address the problem of endogeneity associated with dynamic panel data models. The estimated results established that tax holidays positively explain FDI inflows in Panel 2. CIT was found to negatively affect FDI inflows into all SADC countries despite their particular category of resource-richness. Losses carried forward are insignificant in all panels and reduced CIT in specific sectors negatively influences FDI inflows in Panel 1 and surprisingly positively influences FDI inflows in Panel 2. The lagged FDI variable shows a positive relationship with current year FDI inflows. The governance index is significant and positively affects FDI inflows in panels 1, 3 and 4. Panel 2 shows a negative relationship between governance and FDI inflows. Market potential measured by GDP growth rate is insignificantly different from zero in all the four panels in the study and negatively signed, except in models A and C of Panel 2. The stock of infrastructure is significant and negatively signed in all the panels. The log natural resources variable though insignificant in some models, mainly, exhibit a significant and negative effect in most models of the study’s panel estimations. The trade openness variable is positively related to FDI inflows in Panel 1. Panel 2 show negative effects of trade openness to FDI inflows. Financial globalisation significantly impacts positive FDI inflows in all the four panels. The economic policy variable is insignificant in all the four panels of the study, except, in model B of Panel 1 where it is weakly significant at 10% level and negatively signed. The study concludes that tax incentives are important in FDI attraction in the SADC countries; therefore, an effective tax mix that ensures efficient use of tax incentives is important to ensure sustainable FDI inflows into the region. Good governance is important in the region for FDI inflows to increase. Increasing government rents from natural resources reduces FDI inflows in the SADC. Previous year flows of FDI are positively related to current year inflows, thus consistent FDI attraction policies in the SADC are important. Infrastructure in the SADC should be consistently improved to ensure suitability with the dynamic nature of foreign investment. Financial markets should be developed to ensure effective flow of capital and growth in economies through more investment. / Economics / D. Com.. (Economics)

This diploma theses deals with the challenges of a project management in a particular construction company that handles projects on daily basis. I focused on the analysis of a particular project in this company, that has been successfully implemented. This analysis served as a starting point for the designing of the changes, as well as a devising a tool that simplifies the set up of the changes into practice. Selected problem was solved by comparing the project management methodology in the project with the project management practices officially proposed in the literature. Tool design was carried out in the environment of Microsoft Excel. I managed to design a tool in which the shortcomings are treated the way that facilitates their implementation into practice, especially by using an easy environment and outputs well-arranged for the user. This tool is therefore mainly used to eliminate the identified shortcomings and thus to facilitate and simplify project management in practice.

The resource curse is a defining feature of the African content. Despite vast resource wealth, Africa remains the poorest and most underdeveloped continent in the world. The aim of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the primary laws regulating of oil and gas exploration and product activities in Angola, Nigeria and South Africa in order to determine their effectiveness in protecting the continent's depleting petroleum resources. Different regulatory models apply to Angola, following the Norwegian carried-interest model, Nigeria, where a British discretionary model has been retained, an a South africa, where a unique model has been developed. The comparison is conducted by analysing and comparing these different regulatory systems in terms of legal frameworks; the legal nature of the regulatory systems; ownership of the oil and gas resources; legal nature of licenses; organisational or institutional structures; fiscal systems; local communities benefits from these proceeds of oil and gas resources; local content; state/government participation arrangements; and environmental challenges. The study evaluates the effectiveness of these regimes by examining the extent to which they recognise and enforce state ownership of he oil and gas resourcs in situ; recognise and enforce the doctrine of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources (PSNR); protect the environment; how they provide for institutional capacities for the management of resources; and the protection of local communities from exploitation and abuse by recognising their rights to benefit from revenues derived from these resources. An overall assessment of the three systems reveals that there is no ideal model for oil and gas regulation in Africa. The Norwegian model might well be considered an ideal model if it was applied with care and correctly in Angola. The study hopes to gain practical importance for the proper regulationof the oil and gas industries' upstream activities in Africa and assist governments of the selected jurisdictions in their policy revisions, as some recommendations are made. / Public, Constitutional and International Law / LL. D.

Hexapod, ROS, Gazebo, Simulation, C++, Python, Node, Service, Publisher, Subscriber, Topic, URDF, SDF, AX-12+, USB2Dynamixel, CM-530, King Spider, Robotis, Navigation

Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-04T12:36:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009 / Este trabalho propõe analisar o fenômeno da terceirização desenvolvido ao longo das duas últimas décadas em Bio-Manguinhos. Trata-se de um estudo de caso realizado na unidade de produção de vacinas e reagentes para diagnóstico da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Inicialmente foi realizado um estudo de cenário, analisando a política de gestão do trabalho desenvolvida pelo Estado brasileiro para as instituições públicas. A seguir, a análise passou a verificar a inserção da Fiocruz nessas políticas, desde a sua criação e no decorrer de vigência de diferentes formas de contratação, alternando da extrema rigidez para a total flexibilidade sempre com foco na gestão do trabalho, e, como essas políticas se refletiram no desempenho de Bio-Manguinhos. Baseado no contexto da conformação do Estado e na análise do desempenho da unidade, o trabalho critica a falta de planejamento e de prospecção dessas políticas, que favoreça a inovação de processos, produtos e procedimentos e o desempenho pleno de uma unidade de produção de insumos para a saúde, tão necessários ao atendimento das necessidades da população brasileira. Critica também, a ausência de um modelo de Estado consolidado que sirva de arcabouço à formulação dessas políticas. Devido às fortes críticas dos órgãos de controle acerca da extrapolação dos limites da terceirização praticada nas últimas duas décadas e à falta de definição clara desses marcos legais, o trabalho apresenta uma metodologia baseada nas atribuições dos cargos do plano de carreiras da Fiocruz e culmina com a apresentação de uma matriz de atribuições passíveis de serem realizadas por contratação indireta. Conclui pela necessidade de convivência de dois quadros de trabalhadores: um permanente formado por servidores, estáveis e de carreira e outro flexível, executado por contratação indireta, de caráter eventual, temporário ou de apoio às atividades relacionadas à missão de Bio-Manguinhos. O trabalho ainda sugere a aplicação da mesma metodologia às demais unidades da Fiocruz e que a instituição afirme, frente aos órgãos de controle, quais atividades que ela precisa manter no quadro de servidores permanente e quais ela quer delegar a terceiros sem contudo, ferir a legislação vigente. Por fim, constata-se que a metodologia apresentada ameniza, mas não resolve o problema, dessa forma, recomenda-se à Fiocruz buscar mecanismos que altere o modelo de gestão pelo qual está submetida a fim de viabilizar as duas formas de incorporação de mão-de-obra.