Niels Annen (MdB) und Hans-Christian Ströbele (MdB) äußern sich in zwei Kommentaren zum Afghanistan-Einsatz der NATO.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a difference between the respondent groups preparers and non-preparers position in IASBs question if a reversal of previously impaired goodwill should be prohibited. The background is an exposure draft sent out by the IASB and we examine the answers, in form of comment letters, sent in by the respondents to reach our purpose. Our method is positivistic in the sense that we study already existing theories when we create our hypothesis which gives our assumption about how the result of the respondent’s answers will be. Our data, which we have collected from the comment letters, is qualitative secondary data. When we draw our conclusions we’re using both empirics and logics, this method characterises the hypothetic-deductive method. The theory we studied to reach our hypothesis mainly consisted of positive accounting theory, the agency theory and utility maximising theory. But we also studied existing laws, accounting standards and the special nature of goodwill as an asset to create a better understanding of how the different respondent groups would answer the question. The result of our research showed us that more non-preparers than preparers supported IASBs proposition, but the difference between the groups was not large enough to generalize our result and we could not statistically establish any relation with help from our Chi2 test. The result that preparers to a large extent agreed with IASB is interesting because it doesn’t correspond with the theories about positive accounting theory, agency theory and the theory about utilising individuals that we have studied. From the result a few questions arise. Could it be that preparers aren’t as utilising as the theory says? Another theory that could answer this question is the stewardship theory. Our conclusion after studying and analysing our theory and research results is that there in fact is a difference between the respondent groups preparers and non-preparers attitude towards IASBs proposal, even if the difference is smaller than we first thought.

Large-scale socially-generated metadata is one of the key features driving the growth and success of the emerging Social Web. Recently there have been many research efforts to study the quality of this metadata - like user-contributed tags, comments, and ratings - and its potential impact on new opportunities for intelligent information access. However, much existing research relies on quality assessments made by human experts external to a Social Web community. In the present study, we are interested in understanding how an online community itself perceives the relative quality of its own user-contributed content, which has important implications for the successful selfregulation and growth of the Social Web in the presence of increasing spam and a flood of Social Web metadata. We propose and evaluate a machine learning-based approach for ranking comments on the Social Web based on the community's expressed preferences, which can be used to promote high-quality comments and filter out low-quality comments. We study several factors impacting community preference, including the contributor's reputation and community activity level, as well as the complexity and richness of the comment. Through experiments, we find that the proposed approach results in significant improvement in ranking quality versus alternative approaches.

The concept of Public Participation comes from democratic theory. The core assumes that people are interested in public affairs and participate constructively. The consensus conference is developed to solve democratic problems. IT invites people without specialized knowledge to discuss controversial issues before they read related data. They set important problems in the domain and ask the experts in public. they debate controversial issues and make a decision. The youth consensus conference is the promise of President Chen in April. It provides youth the opportunity to participate social democracy. And we discuss the comment response adequately, conference satisfy, and conclusion reachable to make sure the difference between experts and participators. 61.1% participators thought comment response adequately is important and better. 55.6% participators thought that the conference satisfy is important and positive. The great conclusion is anticipated. 44.1% participator had different comment in conclusion reachable. Because about half people thought conclusion reachable was not easy to achieve. The experts had almost the same opinion in comment response and they believed the existence of sufficient comment reachable system. It makes everybody would say everything. A part of experts the topics influence consensus. The experts thought the conclusions was not possible adopt by the government. The point is the knowledge gained and the process of discussion.

Organisationen International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) har ett pågående arbete med att revidera Föreställningsramen. Studiens fokus ligger på att studera och analysera IASBs förslag på nya definitioner av tillgång och skuld. Förslagen som IASB ger ut, ges i ett så kallat Discussion Paper. I Discussion Paper diskuteras förslag på förändringar samt anledningar till förändringarna. Studiens syfte är att förklara och skapa förståelse för vad IASBs förslag på nya definitioner av tillgång och skuld kan innebära för användare respektive upprättare av de finansiella rapporterna. Studiens bidrag är att skapa förståelse inom studiens ämne för att underlätta för regulatorer i deras process att utforma nya standarder. Förståelse skapas genom att kartlägga vad en förändring av definitionerna av tillgång och skuld kan ha för betydelse för IASBs olika intressenter. Med hjälp av tidigare teorier inom studiens ämne har intervjufrågor till studiens empiriska undersökning kunnat utformas. Intervjuer med personer inom yrkesgrupperna regulatorer samt redovisningsprofessionen har varit en del av den empiriska undersökningen. Den andra delen, en dokumentundersökning består av en sammanställning av remissvar, så kallade Comment Letters. Comment Letters består av åsikter från IASBs intressentgrupper, vilka har kommenterat förslagen på nya definitioner av tillgång och skuld som återfinns i IASBs Discussion Paper. Efter den empiriska undersökningen sammankopplas studiens empiriska resultat med studiens teoretiska referensram i en analys. Analysen utmynnar i en slutsats som beskriver hur företag kan redovisa fler tillgångar i sin balansräkning med de föreslagna definitionerna av tillgång och skuld. Det ökade antalet tillgångar och skulder leder till att företagens värde ökar. För redovisningsprofessionens del innebär de föreslagna definitionerna krav på ökad kunskap och utbildning, då de föreslagna definitionerna gör att redovisningen blir mer flexibel. Regulatorer blir också påverkade av en förändring av definitionerna av tillgång och skuld, då de blir tvungna att ta hänsyn till dem i den fortsatta processen i att utveckla nya standarder.

This study discusses topic and focus constructions in spoken Korean within the framework of information structure. Information structure is a part of grammar that deals with the relation between linguistic forms and the mental states of speakers and hearers. Since the different formal realizations of topic and focus constructions in Korean are due to differences in speakers' assumptions about the mental states of hearers, research on Korean topic and focus constructions falls under the proper domain of information structure. Five different topic constructions in Korean are reviewed and their discourse contexts are analyzed; zero pronouns, bare NPs, and right-dislocated NPs are generally used for discourse-active topic referents, and the maliya-construction and nun-marked NPs are generally used for topic referents that are not discourse-active. Sometimes, active topic referents are also marked with --nun when the topic referents have more salient topics already established in the discourse or speakers are considering potential alternatives to the active topic referents. Topics are divided into ratified and ungratified topics according to whether their status as topics is assumed to be taken for granted by hearers. Among the five topic constructions in Korean, zero pronouns, bare NPs and right-dislocated NPs express ratified topics, while the maliya-construction and nunmarked topics express unratified topics. The marker --ka, which has been long regarded as a subject indicator, is reanalyzed, and it is suggested that --ka marks not only the subject but also argument focus and sentence focus. Accessible or active referents can sometimes be marked with --ka, constituting sentence-focus constructions. In those constructions, the propositional content of the sentences expresses some unexpected or surprising event. Also, frequent occurrences of the maker --ka in presupposed subordinate clauses are examined, and it is suggested that --ka can be used as a mere subject indicator, losing its function of indicating focus in presupposed clauses with topic-comment construals, in which there is no actual focus. / text

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This thesis is concerned with the syntactic properties of cleft constructions in Japanese within the Principles and Parameters framework with some consideration of the Minimalist Program. The constructions in question are divided syntactically into two sub-parts, a focus element and a presuppositional clause. This thesis claims that the focused element's position is not derived via a process of movement such as scrambling, but is instead base-generated in a predicate position occupied by a single constituent. Presuppositional clauses of clefts are argued to involve movement of a null operator, which is analyzed on a par with topicalization. This is supported by various syntactic parallelisms between cleft and topic constructions in this language. While the presuppositional clause is marked by a nominalizer, it is shown that it does not project a nominal category; in this sense, cleft constructions are analogous to head-internal relative clauses. Furthermore, one of the most interesting properties of the cleft construction, the syntactic phenomenon of 'connectivity', is closely examined. I propose that long-distance cleft constructions in Japanese have peculiar structures: a null operator originates adjoined to the highest complement clause, and its thematic position is occupied by pro. This analysis is supported by empirical facts which involve binding relations, weak crossover effects, interactions with another A'-dependency, and clefting adjunct PPs. It is shown that these types of resumptive A '-dependencies are observed across languages as well as in different constructions within the Japanese language. Finally, the discussion is extended to so-called sluicing in Japanese. This thesis observes similar syntactic behavior in sluicing and clefts, which leads to the argument that sluicing sentences are derived from cleft constructions.

This thesis explores the nature of voice in Malagasy, a language spoken in Madagascar. In chapter 2, it is claimed that different passives promote arguments from different structural positions. Evidence is provided for a particular position, [Spec, v2P], where a certain class of elements ("displaced themes") may be generated. One particular passive, the a-prefix, promotes to subject elements in this position. In chapter 3, arguments are presented in favour of a structural analysis of circumstantial topic (CT). CT morphology licenses all arguments of the verb. Due to a requirement that all clauses have a subject (the Extended Projection Principle), some element other than a DP structurally Case marked by the verb must raise to subject. Finally, chapter 4 addresses the left periphery in the Malagasy clause, in particular the structural positions of topic and focus.

Within a theoretical framework that combines generative X-bar syntax (Chomsky 1986), a compositional interpretive semantics and elements of Aristotelian logic, this thesis studies the nature of the syntactic and semantic constituents involved in the subject-predicate relations of elementary sentences containing 'be'. Interpretation is characterized in terms of the entities of various types that speakers intend to refer to and the various ontological types that the referents are said to belong to. 'Be' is analyzed as a single lexical item. This analysis unifies all syntactic functions (e.g., auxiliary, copula, main verb) and all "senses" of 'be' (e.g., definitional, equative, predicative, etc.). Conceptually, 'be' in English is an explicit sign of attribution. The propositional content of simple sentences of the form (NP be XP) is the attribution of a certain ontological type or types to the referent(s) of the subject NP. Although the value of postulating a single ontological category to account for all the entities that speakers can refer to and talk about (such as an Aristotelian substance) is questionable, nevertheless, such categories and types seem pertinent for linguistic analysis. With respect to linguistic inference, pronominalization, and question words, an analysis based on ontological types is shown to be more explanatory than one based on the assignment of a fixed set of thematic relations to arguments.