Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) play a significant role in an economy. Thus, governments all over the world concentrate on the development of the small business sector to endorse economic growth. SMMEs are a large contributor to the creation of job opportunities, improvement of the economy, and promote the effective use of regional resources which leads to the engineering of economic development and growth. SMMEs are an important source of jobs, entrepreneurial spirit and innovation and are thus vital to promoting competitiveness. However, despite the noted contribution of SMMEs, in many countries they face serious constraints, often resulting in failure. The constraints and economic environment have significant and unequal effects on SMMEs in different industries and in different locations. Constraints have been used, amongst other growth factors, to understand why some SMMEs fail to grow.This study lays the foundation for understanding the concept of SMME growth. SMME growth was examined in detail, and found to be heterogeneous in nature. The variation in measures used in SMME growth studies, the variation in growth indicators, the variation in the measurement of growth over time, and the variation in the characteristics of the SMMEs are all important features of SMME growth as a phenomenon. SMME growth models were examined to further understand why some firms survive and grow, and others fail. The models examined the problems SMMEs experience at different stages of growth, and the actions to be taken to overcome them as they progress from one stage to the next. Four growth models identified in the literature is discussed: stochastic models of firm growth, the resource-based view of firm growth, the motivation view on organizational growth, and the life cycle view of firm growth. The study then discussed the concept of constraints to growth, and conducted a literature review on the effect of some factors that act as constraints to SMME growth. It was concluded that constraints have a negative effect on SMME growth. The study also discussed various theoretical models on the financing of firms, starting with the traditional concept of the financial behaviour of firms. The relevancy of trade-off theory, agency theory, and the pecking order theory to SMME finance and capital structure is also examined. The theories explain the financial behaviour of enterprises, taking into account their different characteristics and problems. It is suggested by the theories that internal sources of finance such as equity, retained earnings, and venture capitalists represent the cheapest and best source of SMMEs capital structure. The study applied a quantitative research survey. The approach enabled the determination of the factors acting as constraints to SMME growth, and examination of how SMMEs could overcome these constraints to survive and grow. The approach chosen aims at investigating the moderating effect of microfinance on the relationship between financial constraints and SMME growth. The primary aim of this study was to explore and investigate the factors acting as constraints to SMME growth. The study investigated the effect of nine types of constraints on SMME growth namely: lack of access to finance, lack of skilled employees, competition, corruption, lack of professional financial advisors, lack of clear business plan, government rules and regulations, lack of awareness of financial services and assistance, and lack of government support. The study also empirically examined the moderating effect of microfinance on overcoming, avoiding or mitigating the financial constraints to SMME growth in South Africa, particularly in the province of the Western Cape. In order to assess the aim of the study, five secondary objectives were developed. The objectives were subdivided into seven hypotheses. The study found evidence that the lack of skilled employees, competition, corruption, lack of awareness of financial services and assistance, lack of professional financial advisors and lack of access to finance were significant constraints to SMME growth in South Africa. An important contribution this study makes is that microfinance provides a way to overcome or mitigate financial constraints for SMMEs. The negative effect of a lack of professional financial advisors and the lack of access to finance is reduced when SMMEs make use of microfinance source. As such this is an important finding that adds to existing studies on the role of constraints as well as to the literature on entrepreneurship in developing economies. However, contrary to the study hypothesis, microfinance does not moderate the relationship between the lack of awareness of financial services and assistance, and SMME growth. This can be attributed to the important role that has to be played by the microfinance institutions (MFI) and government agencies in ensuring that procedures are simple, financial products are demand driven, and clear and brief financial information is provided. These results imply that microfinance can play a positive role in SMME growth particularly for SMMEs that experience financial constraints. The study also suggests that MFIs and government agencies should provide more information to the public in particular to SMMEs. This study is not without its limitations. Firstly, the study is based on the province of the Western Cape, of South Africa. In a South African context, with its two tiered economy, the Western Cape is perceived to be a "developed" economy as opposed to other developing African countries. Further studies can be conducted in other countries or can include samples from other provinces to compare the results. Secondly, as this study provides only a measurement at one moment in time, we are not able to establish causal and longitudinal effects. However, the sample size of this study is favourable in comparison to other recent studies, and thus provides extended validity. Future studies that apply longitudinal designs are needed to establish the causality of the relationships found in this study.

Yes / We empirically investigate the impact of different ownership groups on companies’ investment in Ukraine with a novel dynamic investment model where investment is based on present and historical levels of profitability (market-to-book value of equity) and lagged investment. Groups include state, insider, non-domestic, financial and financial and industrial group (FIG) ownership. Contrary to the literature, we find that the past level of profitability significantly affects investment; the presence of and increases in state ownership have a negative impact on firms’ investment, as is the case for non-domestic and financial companies’ ownership. Insider and FIG ownership have no impact on investment. We explain the results by the extent of liquidity concerns (hard and soft budget constraints) and the extent of asset stripping for the corresponding ownership group and relate them to over- and underinvestment, and to the free cash flow or cash constraint hypothesis.

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Thesis advisor: Donald Cox / What fraction of college-age youths in the United States comes from credit-constrained families? Can subjective assessments of financial difficulties inform the debate about pervasiveness of credit constraints in the demand for college education? My dissertation contains two essays addressing these questions. Credit constraints in education may lead to inefficient skill allocations and perpetuate imbalances in the distribution of economic well-being. Unfortunately, empirical evidence regarding their pervasiveness in the United States has not been consistent, in part because constraints tend to be inferred indirectly. The first essay evaluates how a potentially more direct measure can be used to enhance our understanding of the issue. I focus on subjective assessments of financial limitations available in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and find that about 12 percent of college-age individuals expect to underinvest in education because of financial reasons or the need to work. While the measure developed in this paper is noisy and not a precise indicator of credit constraints, it appears to capture important variations in educational choices, beyond these captured by the standard controls, such as parental income. The contribution of the second essay is the use of parents' reports of borrowing limitations in the NLSY79 Young Adult Supplement to evaluate the proportion of constrained college-age youths in the early 2000s. The focus on the 2000s is critical because the sharp increase in tuition costs and gradual erosion of real student borrowing limits over the past two decades have potentially made credit constraints in education more widespread. My analysis sample is limited to children of young mothers who are more likely to be disadvantaged economically and hence are of specific interest to policy-makers. Over one-fifth of youths in the sample come from families where mothers report borrowing limitations. Conditional on scholastic ability, family income, and family background characteristics, parental constraints have a strong negative correlation with children's college attendance. Although my results do not distinguish between alternative explanations for borrowing limitations, they do suggest that researchers interested in the connection between liquidity constraints and education might benefit from paying more attention to direct measures. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

by Yuen Siu Ming. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-110). / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Background --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- Approaches in Formal Hardware Verification --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Theorem Proving --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Symbolic Simulation --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Model Checking --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Temporal Theories --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- Related Works --- p.8 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Consistency and Satisfiability of Timing Specifications --- p.8 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Symbolic Constraint Satisfaction --- p.9 / Chapter 3 --- Problem Domain --- p.11 / Chapter 3.1 --- Basics of MC68000 Read Cycle --- p.11 / Chapter 4 --- Knowledge-based System Structure --- p.13 / Chapter 4.1 --- Diagnostic Reasoning Mechanisms --- p.14 / Chapter 4.2 --- Occurring Event Sequence --- p.16 / Chapter 4.3 --- Equivalent Goals --- p.17 / Chapter 4.4 --- CPU Databus Setup Time --- p.17 / Chapter 4.5 --- Assertion of CPU AS Signal --- p.19 / Chapter 5 --- Time Range Approach --- p.21 / Chapter 5.1 --- Time Range Represent ation --- p.21 / Chapter 5.2 --- Time Ranges Reasoning Techniques --- p.22 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Constraint Satisfaction of Time Ranges --- p.22 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Constraint Propagation of Time Ranges --- p.25 / Chapter 5.3 --- Worst-Case Timing Analysis --- p.28 / Chapter 5.4 --- System Implementation --- p.29 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- CPU Databus Setup Time --- p.30 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Assertion of CPU AS Signal --- p.36 / Chapter 5.5 --- Implementation Results --- p.40 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- CPU Databus Setup Time --- p.40 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Assertion of CPU AS Signal --- p.40 / Chapter 5.6 --- Conclusion --- p.41 / Chapter 6 --- Fuzzy Time Point Approach --- p.43 / Chapter 6.1 --- Fuzzy Time Point Models --- p.44 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Concept of Fuzzy Numbers --- p.44 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Definition of Fuzzy Time Points --- p.45 / Chapter 6.1.3 --- Semi-bounded Fuzzy Time Points --- p.47 / Chapter 6.2 --- Fuzzy Time Point Reasoning Techniques --- p.48 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Constraint Propagation of Fuzzy Time Points --- p.50 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Constraint Satisfaction of Fuzzy Time Points --- p.52 / Chapter 6.3 --- System Implementation --- p.55 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Representation of Fuzzy Time Point --- p.55 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Fuzzy Time Point Satisfaction --- p.56 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Fuzzy Time Point Propagation --- p.58 / Chapter 6.4 --- Implementation Results --- p.64 / Chapter 6.4.1 --- CPU Databus Setup Time --- p.64 / Chapter 6.4.2 --- Assertion of CPU AS Signal --- p.65 / Chapter 6.5 --- Fuzzy Time Point Model Parameters --- p.66 / Chapter 6.5.1 --- Variation of Semi-bounded ftps' Membership Function --- p.66 / Chapter 6.5.2 --- Variation of μftp --- p.67 / Chapter 6.5.3 --- Variation of K --- p.69 / Chapter 6.6 --- Conclusion --- p.69 / Chapter 7 --- Constraint Compatibility Reasoning --- p.72 / Chapter 7.1 --- Abstract Timing Parameters --- p.73 / Chapter 7.2 --- MC68000 Read Cycle: Wait States Insertion --- p.75 / Chapter 7.3 --- Constraint Compatibility of Fuzzy Time Point --- p.75 / Chapter 7.3.1 --- Crisp Threshold Value --- p.77 / Chapter 7.3.2 --- Possibility Quantification for the Number of Wait States --- p.78 / Chapter 7.3.3 --- Threshold Beyond Fuzzy Time Point --- p.80 / Chapter 7.3.4 --- Fuzzy Time Point Beyond Threshold --- p.80 / Chapter 7.3.5 --- Threshold Within Fuzzy Time Point --- p.82 / Chapter 7.4 --- Determine When CPU Clock State is S5 --- p.83 / Chapter 7.5 --- System Implementation --- p.84 / Chapter 7.5.1 --- Expert's Heuristic Rule --- p.84 / Chapter 7.5.2 --- Constraint Compatibility --- p.85 / Chapter 7.5.3 --- Wait States Insertion --- p.87 / Chapter 7.6 --- Implementation Results --- p.91 / Chapter 7.7 --- Conclusion --- p.93 / Chapter 8 --- Conclusion --- p.95 / Chapter 8.1 --- Applications in Other Domains --- p.97 / Chapter 8.2 --- Future Directions and Recommendations --- p.98 / Chapter A --- Constraint Compatibility Reasoning Output --- p.99 / Chapter A.1 --- No Wait Cycle Insertion --- p.99 / Chapter A.2 --- Single Wait Cycle Insertion --- p.100 / Chapter A.3 --- Two Wait Cycle Insertions --- p.100 / Chapter B --- MC68020 Read Cycle Problem --- p.101 / Chapter B.1 --- Basics of MC68020 Read Cycle --- p.101 / Chapter B.2 --- MC68020 Databus Setup Time --- p.102 / Chapter B.3 --- Implementation Results --- p.103 / Bibliography --- p.104

Many real life problems can naturally be modeled as constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs), which can sometimes contain both variable symmetries and value symmetries. Tree search based CSP solving algorithms often suffer from symmetries, which creates symmetrically equivalent states in the search tree. Exploring more than one of the symmetrically equivalent states is a waste of search efforts. Adding symmetry breaking constraints to a CSP can force the search to visit only one of the symmetrical regions and helps reduce search space. While variable symmetry breaking constraints can be expressed relatively easily and executed efficiently by enforcing lexicographic ordering, value symmetry breaking constraints are often difficult to formulate. In this thesis, we propose two methods of using symmetry breaking constraints to tackle value symmetries. In the first method, we show theoretically when value symmetries in one CSP model correspond to variable symmetries in another CSP model of the same problem. We also show when variable symmetry breaking constraints in the two models, combined using channeling constraints, are consistent. Such results allow tackling value symmetries efficiently using additional CSP variables and channeling constraints. In the second method, we identify a common and important class of value symmetries, namely symmetries of indistinguishable values, and introduce value precedence to break such symmetries. Although value precedence can be expressed straightforwardly using if-then constraints in existing constraint programming systems, the resulting formulation is inefficient both in terms of size and runtime. We present two propagation algorithms for implementing global constraints on value precedence for integer and set variables respectively. We also characterize the propagation levels attained by various usages of the global constraints and the conditions when the constraints are consistent with variable symmetry breaking constraints. Extensive experiments are conducted to verify the feasibility and efficiency of our two proposals. / Law Yat Chiu. / "September 2005." / Adviser: Jimmy Ho Man Lee. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: B, page: 3905. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 112-123). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

<p>This essay studies the design process from a collaborative point of view. A literature study has been carried out with focus on design processes and collaborative design, where important concepts and notions are presented. A practical design process was carried out where the project was to create a station identification for Swedish Channel 9. The process was than retrospectively analyzed and broken down into a time-line describing the whole process from amongst other a collaborative point of view. Collaboration between designers and client is found to be very important for the final design. Constraints are considered important to force creativity and the ability to convey abstract thoughts over long distance channels such as e-mail is found to be important in order to overcome the spatial barrier that exists in many design processes today.</p>