Land has always been the focus of public debates among scholars, policy makers and local populations due to its scarcity in face of population explosion and rapid urban growth. This is particularly so in the case of China. In order to support an unprecedented rate of urbanization, the institutional mechanism of land expropriation has been widely adopted by the government of the People's Republic of China over the last three decades. However, the effect of this institutional mechanism in rural China has become increasingly controversial. On one side, it is one of the most powerful tools to assemble land for urban development. Moreover, by means of land expropriation and land conveyance, local governments are capable of collecting substantial revenues to fund urban development. On the other side, the exclusive power of local governments over land expropriation, which is derived from the land management system, makes it possible for local governments to manipulate the price at which land is taken from farmers. In practice, local governments expropriate suburban or rural land at a low price and then lease it at a much higher price in land market. Therefore, inequitable compensation for land expropriation has led to numerous conflicts and social tensions between local governments and land-loss farmers. The issue of land expropriation and compensation has been identified as one of most primary sources of social discontents and complaints. Even though a growing number of studies have been conducted on the urbanization and regional development in China, a thorough cause–effect elaboration of the issue of land expropriation and compensation in rural China has rarely been carried out within the political regime. This thesis analyzes the institutional framework of land expropriation and compensation in rural China from the perspectives of property rights and land management system. In addition, it discloses the opportunities for Chinese legal system to solve this issue by borrowing legal norms, wisdoms and experience from other jurisdiction, such as the United States and Germany. Furthermore, it aims to improve and reconstruct the legal framework of compensation by elaborating the concept of long-term reciprocity. Three primary questions would be elaborated in this thesis. Is the compensation for land expropriation in rural China equitable? If the compensation is not equitable, how has such an inequity been caused? And most importantly, how to improve the compensability of land expropriation? / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The objective of this work is to design a damping controller for a thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC) to damp robustly inter-area oscillations in power systems with an immunity against sub-synchronous resonance (SSR) oscillations which may lead to torsional oscillations. The new control strategy has two main loops; an SSR mitigation loop and a bang-bang loop, the latter is designed with the aim of damping inter-area oscillations with a settling time 8-10 sec. The appropriate selection of the bang-bang series compensation component, ∆KC, is addressed by considering the Eigen analysis of the generators’ shafts and an impedance scan of the series compensated line for different compensation levels. The SSR mitigation loop is designed with the aim of providing a fine tune control signal to be added to the main value of the inserted series compensation (KC), to damp SSR oscillations and related torsional mode of oscillations. To address this issue, a new observer-based multiple model adaptive control algorithm is designed to control a multi-stage TCSC. The SSR modelling challenges associated with the load dynamics and with the insertion of the series compensation into the transmission system are overcome by a fine tuning control loop, which adjusts the resultant series compensation (KC). Considering the integration and coordination of oscillation damping and distance protection in the transmission system, a new adaptive technique must be designed to control the distance relay (DR) to prevent its mal operation (during the damping process). The new strategy is illustrated through an 11-bus 4-machine 2-area benchmark power system. The performance and advantages of the new algorithm are validated using time domain simulation via PSCAD software.

In this dissertation, I explore the systematic failure of the current state of the art statistical techniques to detect gender salary inequity in a special case to propose a more appropriate quantitative method for analyzing gender salary discrimination. This research contributes in three key areas for the development of the quantitative analysis of salary inequity detection. I uncovered salary inequities within gender groups that can mask the salary discrimination between these groups. I then proposed the Two-stage Classification Regression as an appropriate novel statistical method. Finally, the additional propositions made can enhance future salary inequity research.Regardless of the outcome of any gender salary inequity study, we can often find a subgroup of females that is discriminated against when compared to the rest of females. Likewise, a subgroup of males may also be victim of salary inequity when compared to other males. In this context, the first main discovery is that the existence of salary inequities within gender groups can prevent regular statistical techniques from detecting salary inequity between males and females. Detecting this form of salary inequity will increase the sensitivity of the statistical test and hedge its potentially higher risk to the institution.Facing such a statistical problem, the second main contribution was devising a novel statistical approach that can not only succeed where other techniques systematically fail, but also provide a new framework for a more informative statistical analysis. In addition, a more comprehensive definition of salary inequity that goes beyond the simple measure of gender salary gap was derived.The third significant contribution is a set of propositions aiming at framing the agenda for future research on salary inequity studies. A statistical test was proposed to determine when the outcomes of these the linear regression and reverse regression techniques can be expected to be the same. Also, the probability model which is not estimable, but the most robust model was shown to be equivalent to the logistic regression model which is easily estimable, but somewhat difficult to interpret. The goal is to create theoretical supports for better statistical and econometric analyses.

No description available.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)/ International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) proposed Conceptual Framework solidifies stewardship as a primary financial reporting objective. Concurrently, fair value (FV) continues to be emphasized in FASB and IASB standards. In this study, using data from real estate firms in the UK, I test whether FVs provide stewardship-relevant information incremental to information provided by historical costs. Measuring stewardship by changes in CEO cash compensation and FVs through revaluations of investment properties, I find FVs provide stewardship information beyond historical costs; however, FVs must be supported by external appraisals to be useful. Further, FVs help to explain the traditional association between stock returns and compensation. The actual realization of FV changes through sale continues to be rewarded through compensation, meaning the full compensation value of FV changes is not given until realized. FV changes provide more useful stewardship information when FV estimates are of higher quality or when the CEO is more strongly governed. I also find that higher sensitivity to management effort, proxied by firm growth opportunities, makes FV changes more stewardship-relevant. Overall, I conclude that for UK real estate firms, FVs are useful for assessing management's stewardship with improvements in estimate quality and sensitivity to management effort increasing stewardship-usefulness; however, historical costs continue to be relevant for stewardship. My thesis provides insight into what information best captures management stewardship.

Considerable research has been conducted on the control of pneumatic systems due to their potential as a low-cost, clean, high power-to-weight ratio actuators. However, nonlinearities such as those due to compressibility of air continue to limit their accuracy. Among the nonlinearities in a pneumatic system, friction can have a significant effect on tracking performance, especially in applications that use rodless cylinders which have higher Coulomb friction than rodded cylinders. Compensation for nonlinearities in pneumatic systems has been a popular area of research in pneumatic system control. Most advanced nonlinear control strategies are based on a detailed mathematical model of the system. If a simplified mathematical model is used, then performance is sensitive to uncertainties and parameter variations in the robot. Although they show relatively good results, the requirement for model parameter identification has made these methods difficult to implement. This highlights the need for an adaptive controller that is not based on a mathematical model. The objective of this thesis was to design and evaluate a position and velocity controller for application to a pneumatic gantry robot. An Adaptive Neural Network (ANN) structure was implemented as both a controller and as a compensator. The implemented ANN had online training as this was considered to be the algorithm that had the greatest potential to enhance the performance of the pneumatic system. One axis of the robot was used to obtain results for the cases of velocity and position control. Seven different velocity controllers were tested and their performance compared. For position control, only two controllers were examined: conventional PID and PID with an ANN Compensator (ANNC). The position controllers were tuned for step changes in the setpoint. Their performance was evaluated as applied to sinusoid tracking. It was shown that the addition of ANN as a compensator could improve the performance of both position and velocity control. For position control, the ANNC improved the tracking performance by over 20%. Although performance was better than with conventional PID control, it was concluded that the level of improvement with ANNC did not warrant the extra effort in tuning and implementation. / Thesis (Master, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-08 15:02:28.177

Narrowband optical filtering and chromatic dispersion are two important issues that affect optical fiber transmission performance. Recent technological developments in high-speed digital signal processors, digital-to-analog converters and analog-to-digital converters have enabled the implementation of electronic signal processing (ESP) in optical transmission systems leading to adaptive and cost efficient integrated solutions. This thesis focuses on applying ESP at the transmitter to pre-compensate for narrowband optical filtering and chromatic dispersion. A novel electronic pre-compensation approach was proposed to deal with narrowband optical filtering. The effectiveness was demonstrated by a straight-line experiment and a recirculating loop experiment for 10 Gb/s non-return-to-zero on-off-keying (NRZ-OOK). Moreover, the work was extended to NRZ differential-phase-shift-keying as well as 20 Gb/s NRZ differential-quadrature-phase-shift-keying. Experimental results demonstrate that electronic pre-compensation effectively reduces the degradation in system performance induced by narrowband optical filtering. Electronic dispersion pre-compensation was investigated using a semiconductor InP Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) for the NRZ-OOK modulation format at 10.709 Gb/s aiming at providing a cost efficient implementation for core and metro transmission networks. A brute-force method was developed to determine the requisite drive i voltages due to the nonlinear voltage dependent attenuation and phase constants of the InP MZM. The transmission results for the recirculating loop and straightline experiments demonstrate that an InP MZM provides comparable dispersion precompensation performance with a conventional LiNbO3 MZM. Use of the NRZ-OOK modulation format and InP MZM provides a simple and cost-efficient solution for core and metro transmission network. Dispersion pre-compensation was also performed for a 85.672 Gb/s polarization multiplexed 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (PM-16QAM) modulation format with digital coherent detection and offline digital signal processing. The transmitter was characterized to ensure the quality of the 16QAM signal generation. Simulation results indicate the impact of the modulator bias voltage error on system performance. Recirculating loop experimental results demonstrate that the performance of dispersion pre-compensation is comparable with dispersion post-compensation, thus providing the possibility to combine dispersion pre- and post-compensation for PM- 16QAM coherent transmission for further performance improvement. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2011-10-29 13:01:01.347

No description available.

This thesis examines the causes of financial malfeasance in the largest U.S. telecommunications corporations between 1995 and 2004. Specifically, it examines whether or not the executive compensation package influences the likelihood that a corporation will falsify its financial statements. The methods used are both qualitative and quantitative. I approach the question form a historical point of view and attempt to identify certain salient characteristics within the telecommunications industry that may influence of unethical or illegal activity. The findings support organizational-political embeddedness theory, which suggests that differential social structures create dependencies, incentives, and opportunities to engage in financial malfeasance. The historical analysis shows that neoliberal policies enacted in the mid-1990s resulted in organizational and political structures that permitted managers to engage in financial malfeasance while limiting the efficiency of regulatory bureaucracies. The quantitative analysis yields mixed findings, many of which are consistent with previous research on white-collar crime and financial malfeasance. This article adds to existing literature by outlining significant public policy shifts and the results those shifts may have on specific industries. These findings have important implications for political officials and corporate oversight organizations.

In this thesis defects and impurities in CdTe have been studied with ab initio methods. CdTe is a II-VI semiconductor with many important applications such as γ- and X-ray detectors, solar cells and medical imaging. Even though CdTe has been studied for more than 70 years, some of its properties connected with defects and impurities, are still shrouded in mystery. Todays experimental techniques are highly developed and can provide rather detailed data, but require elaborate theoretical analysis. Here ab initio modelling comes into play and in particular density functional theory (DFT). When reviewing different theoretical studies of defects and impurities in CdTe, one finds a vast number of discrepancies between experiment and theory. Mismatches appear even between different theoretical studies. Although many problems, such as, for example, the semiconductor band gap underestimation or the spurious interaction between charged defects, are avoided by employing corrections or implementing new functionals, some of them still remain. Employing the hybrid functional HSE06, the following topics were studied in this thesis: - Te antisites: Experimental data predict the defect state to appear in the middle of the band gap, thus "pinning" the Fermi level. In contrast, our calculations show that Te antisite alone cannot be the reason for the Fermi level pinning, since it does not form a defect level in the middle of the band gap. Instead we propose that charge compensation between Te antisites in a (+2) state and Cd vacancies in a (-2) state explains the Fermi level pinning. - Cd vacancy: Electron paramagnetic resonance experiments clearly show the existence of a hole polaron for the (-1) charged vacancy. But DFT studies report a completely delocalised hole. In our studies, for the first time, this state was found in its proper geometrical configuration with a hole localisation stabilised by a Jahn-Teller distortion, thereby removing the discrepancy between experiment and theory. - Cd chalcogenides: Additionally, with particular focus on the hole localisation problem, the series of isovalent compounds (CdTe, CdSe and CdS) was studied to understand the mechanism of hole polaron formation. We explain the trend of the hole localisation in terms of Coulomb interaction, explicitly showing that the effect of electron correlation is negligible. - Cl-doped CdTe: The formation of a Cl - Cd vacancy complex explains the selfcompensation and selfpurification mechanism. We find Cl to annihilate the hole polaron. - Te antisite under deformation: In an attempt to tailor the energy position of the Te antisite defect level in the CdTe band gap, we studied CdTe under different deformations. It is shown that by a carefully chosen deformation the defect levels can be pushed closer to the valence and/or conduction band and hence the CdTe detector performance may be improved.