The philosophical and empirical study reported here developed from the observation that information science has had no comprehensive understanding of nonuse of information. Without such an understanding, information workers may use the words "nonuse of information" while referring to very different phenomena. This lack of understanding makes the job of the information professional difficult. For example, the model presented here reduces hundreds of theories of information behavior to a conceptually manageable taxonomy of six conditions that lead to nonuse of information. The six conditions include: 1) intrinsic somatic conditions, 2) socio-environmental barriers, 3) authoritarian controls, 4) threshold knowledge shortfall, 5) attention shortfall, and 6) information filtering. This dissertation explains and provides examples of each condition. The study of a novel area that had no prior theory or model required a novel methodology. Thus, for this study, I adopted the pragmatism formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce, a method of evaluating concepts by their practical consequences. This pragmatism applied in two ways to the study of nonuse of information. First, because nonuse of information is a behavior, pragmatism helped me to limit the psychologic implications of the study to behavior, rather than to expand the discussion to psychodynamics or cognition, for example. I justified this limiting on the basis that behavior reflects the use or nonuse of information, and behavior is more observable than other aspects of psychology, such as cognition. Second, Peirce's concept of pragmatism supported another of his contributions to philosophical inquiry, retroduction, sometimes referred to as abduction. To study nonuse of information through retroduction, I created a fivestep "definition heuristic," based on the writings of Spradley and McCurdy. I then created a nine-step "retroduction heuristic" based on the system of logic identified and termed "retroductive" or "abductive" by Peirce. I used this heuristic to identify examples of nonuse of information and applied the examples to a second corpus of research reports that contained examples of compelled nonuse of information. The taxonomy of this study resulted from this second application and represents a descriptive model of compelled nonuse of information. / text

The development of a numeric simulation for predicting the performance of an Ocean Current Energy Conversion System is presented in this thesis along with a control system development using a PID controller for the achievement of specified rotational velocity set-points. In the beginning, this numeric model is implemented in MATLAB/Simulink® and it is used to predict the performance of a three phase squirrel single-cage type induction motor/generator in two different cases. The first case is a small 3 meter rotor diameter, 20 kW ocean current turbine with fixed pitch blades, and the second case a 20 meter, 720 kW ocean current turbine with variable pitch blades. Furthermore, the second case is also used for the development of a Voltage Source Variable Frequency Drive for the induction motor/generator. Comparison among the Variable Frequency Drive and a simplified model is applied. Finally, the simulation is also used to estimate the average electric power generation from the 720 kW Ocean Current Energy Conversion System which consists of an induction generator and an ocean current turbine connected with a shaft which modeled as a mechanical vibration system.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T18:40:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Magali Aparecida Camazano.pdf: 740899 bytes, checksum: a0beef09f1c292595d15bc89e031aaca (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-14 / Deregulation and globalization of financial services allied with the sophisticated technology used to perform financial operations have increased the complexity of banking activities resulting in the subsequent exposure of financial corporations to operational risk. Several cases of huge losses related to operational risk have been reported in the last 10 years as the bankruptcy of the traditional Barings Bank in England. Therefore, the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II), published by the Basel Committee in 2004, established that internationally active banks are required to allocate capital to cope with operational risk (just as required for credit and market risks). The Brazilian Central Bank, following the demands as established by the Basel II Accord has also determined that Brazilian financial corporations are required to allocate regulatory capital to face operational risk as well as implement an operational risk management framework. At the same time, losses related to operational risk occurred in different segments of the economy where American corporations as Enron and WorldCom perpetrated huge accounting frauds resulting in their subsequent bankruptcy in 2001 and 2002 respectively. These events led to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. On account of the importance of operational risk management for the soundness of the financial market and the close relation existing between such risk and the requirements mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley, such as the enhancement of accounting internal controls and corporate governance attributes, this paper intends to study the influence as set forth by the American Act over the operational risk management within the Brazilian financial corporations that are required to comply with this Act such as Bradesco, Itaú and Unibanco. Thus, a comparison was made between the framework established by the Basel Committee for the banking operational risk management and the mandates of Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This study disclosed that both, either the Basel Committee framework as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act focus on the same purposes, that is, control and mitigate the events likely to result in operational risk. Sarbanes-Oxley enables the enhancement of both, accounting internal controls and corporate governance practices, as it will serve as an additional tool for the management of operational risk, cooperating with and supplementing the Basel Committee framework. Therefore, Sarbanes-Oxley allows the Brazilian financial corporations to lower the capital allocation for operational risk due to their decreasing exposure to related risk / A desregulamentação e a globalização dos serviços financeiros associadas à sofisticação das tecnologias financeiras têm aumentado a complexidade das atividades bancárias e a conseqüente exposição dos bancos ao risco operacional. Casos diversos de perdas catastróficas relacionadas ao risco operacional se fizeram presentes nos últimos 10 anos, a exemplo da quebra do tradicional Barings Bank, na Inglaterra. Por decorrência, o Novo Acordo de Capital da Basiléia (Basiléia II), divulgado pelo Comitê da Basiléia em 2004, introduziu a necessidade de alocação de capital para risco operacional (tal qual para os riscos de crédito e de mercado) pelos bancos internacionalmente ativos. O Banco Central do Brasil, à luz do Acordo Basiléia II, igualmente instituiu a necessidade de alocação de capital regulatório para o risco operacional por parte das instituições financeiras brasileiras, bem como a implementação de estrutura de gerenciamento do risco operacional. Paralelamente, prejuízos relacionados ao risco operacional ocorreram em outros segmentos da economia, destacando-se os escândalos contábeis e falências das empresas americanas Enron e WorldCom em 2001 e 2002, respectivamente, culminando na promulgação do Sarbanes- Oxley Act of 2002. Face à importância do gerenciamento do risco operacional para a solvência do mercado financeiro e à estreita relação existente entre tal risco e os requerimentos impostos pelo Sarbanes-Oxley, tais como o aprimoramento de controles internos contábeis e de aspectos de governança corporativa, este trabalho teve por objetivo estudar a influência das exigências da Lei americana sobre o gerenciamento do risco operacional das instituições financeiras brasileiras sujeitas à sua observância, a saber: Bradesco, Itaú e Unibanco. Para tanto foi adotado o método de procedimento comparativo, tendo sido realizado cotejo entre o marco regulatório do Comitê da Basiléia para o gerenciamento do risco operacional bancário e as exigências do Sarbanes-Oxley Act, cujo resultado revelou a existência de convergência entre ambos, pois possuem a mesma base conceitual de propósitos, qual seja, controlar os fatores de consubstanciação do risco operacional. O Sarbanes-Oxley proporciona o aperfeiçoamento dos controles internos contábeis e das práticas de governança corporativa, caracterizando-se como um instrumento adicional ao gerenciamento do risco operacional, contribuindo e complementando o marco regulatório do Comitê da Basiléia. Outrossim, o Sarbanes-Oxley propicia a redução de alocação de capital para risco operacional, pelas instituições financeiras brasileiras, haja vista seu potencial de redução à exposição ao referido risco

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-04T18:36:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adilson Luis Giacomelli.pdf: 1037380 bytes, checksum: aa36e196bfaa0c849cd94bf8815dad7b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-12-16 / The proposal of an information management model is characterized as a capable way of supporting and directing the enterprise management system. For the study of this subject, it was chosen a sector of the Brazilian economy that was out of the patterns of the new products and businesses enterprises, classified as dot.com and, at the same time globalized, with high fluctuation of prices and demand, requiring integrated information. According to this, it is important to consider that the way of sustaining the basic columns of enterprise management, named statistical, economical and behavioral, needs supporting of the information management. In this way, some information models have been developed, according to the management techniques, to make possible a dynamic process for the maximization of the performance indicators of the organization. Nevertheless, in these models, it is considered that the communication of information is closely related to the individual performance and, therefore, related to the human subjectivity. Thus, the relationship between the information management and the segments of enterprise management systems, aligned with the strategy of the undertaking, incite competitive differential, assuring the increasingly improvement of the organization process. / A proposta de um modelo de gest?o da informa??o caracteriza-se como um meio capaz de sustentar e direcionar o sistema de gest?o empresarial. Para o estudo deste assunto, escolheu-se um setor da economia brasileira que estivesse fora dos padr?es das empresas de novos neg?cios e produtos, categorizados como dot.com, mas que, ao mesmo tempo, estivesse globalizado, com alta volatilidade de pre?os e demanda, por conseguinte, requerente de informa??es integradas. Diante disso, urge considerar que a forma de sustenta??o dos pilares b?sicos da gest?o empresarial, denominados como estat?sticos, econ?micos e comportamentais, necessita do apoio da gest?o da informa??o. Neste sentido, foram desenvolvidos alguns modelos informacionais que, em conformidade com as t?cnicas de gest?o, venham possibilitar um processo din?mico de maximiza??o dos indicadores de desempenho da organiza??o. Todavia, nestes modelos, considera-se que a comunica??o da informa??o est? condicionada ? atua??o de cada indiv?duo, portanto, associada ? subjetividade humana. Desta forma, a rela??o entre a gest?o da informa??o e os segmentos do sistema de gest?o empresarial, alinhados com a estrat?gia do empreendimento estimulam diferenciais competitivos, assegurando, assim, a melhoria cont?nua dos processos da organiza??o.

This dissertation studies the role of sterling during the Bretton Woods period (1944-1971). The Bretton Woods system has often been described as a dollar system with sterling having lost its relevance as reserve currency. However, despite being a secondary reserve currency and having lost importance, sterling was the 'first line of defence for the dollar' as contemporaries put it. They frequently stressed the fact that a sterling crisis would have consequences on the stability of the Bretton Woods system but economic historians have never tested this empirically. This dissertation argues that sterling played an important role in the stability of the international monetary system. Foreign exchange market participants globally monitored sterling and US policymaker stepped in to avoid devaluation of the British currency. US support to sterling was mainly due to the fear of a British devaluation, which could trigger a run on the dollar. When the UK finally devalued the pound in 1967, it marked the beginning of an instable period for the international monetary system. The Gold Pool, a syndicate to defend the US gold parity, collapsed in 1968 and this prefigured the end of the Bretton Woods system. This dissertation presents new data along with novel archival material from seven archives across continents to demonstrate how contagion from sterling to the dollar occurred. Modern econometric methods are used to analyse a new dataset with over 80,000 observations of offshore exchange rates, central bank intervention and reserves. This evidence shows that a secondary reserve currency can still play a key role in the stability of the international monetary system.

Monitoring the mechanical integrity of critical structures is extremely important, as mechanical defects can potentially have adverse impacts on their safe operability throughout their service life. Structural defects can be detected by using active structural health monitoring (SHM) approaches, in which a given structure is excited with harmonic mechanical waves generated by actuators. The response of the structure is then collected using sensor(s) and is analyzed for possible defects, with various active SHM approaches available for analyzing the response of a structure to single- or multi-frequency harmonic excitations. In order to identify the appropriate excitation frequency, however, the majority of such methods require a priori knowledge of the characteristics of the defects under consideration. This makes the whole enterprise of detecting structural defects logically circular, as there is usually limited a priori information about the characteristics and the locations of defects that are yet to be detected. Furthermore, the majority of SHM techniques rely on sensors for response collection, with the very same sensors also prone to structural damage. The Surface Response to Excitation (SuRE) method is a broadband frequency method that has high sensitivity to different types of defects, but it requires a baseline. In this study, initially, theoretical justification was provided for the validity of the SuRE method and it was implemented for detection of internal and external defects in pipes. Then, the Comprehensive Heterodyne Effect Based Inspection (CHEBI) method was developed based on the SuRE method to eliminate the need for any baseline. Unlike traditional approaches, the CHEBI method requires no a priori knowledge of defect characteristics for the selection of the excitation frequency. In addition, the proposed heterodyne effect-based approach constitutes the very first sensor-less smart monitoring technique, in which the emergence of mechanical defect(s) triggers an audible alarm in the structure with the defect. Finally, a novel compact phased array (CPA) method was developed for locating defects using only three transducers. The CPA approach provides an image of most probable defected areas in the structure in three steps. The techniques developed in this study were used to detect and/or locate different types of mechanical damages in structures with various geometries.

金融危機是一種反常的金融現象，其共同的現象是資金外流、貨幣兌美元大幅貶值、股價重挫、經濟成長衰退、百業蕭條，這就是金融危機。而近代的金融危機趨勢不再只是單一區域的問題，就由這次1997下半年自泰國貨幣開始貶值的貨幣危機，經過一連串的蔓延效應後，影響所及不限於東南亞地區，更擴及俄羅斯、東歐、拉丁美洲等地，造成全球主要新興市場和新興工業國家的經濟遭受嚴重打擊，儼然已變成全球金融危機。 大部分過去經濟學者一開始均用傳統貨幣危機理論來分析金融危機，如Krugman在1979年提出標準的「第一代危機模型」，其中強調經濟基本面的持續惡化，導致維持固定匯率區間的制度遭到阻力，也因此產生了貶值的壓力，也就是由經濟的實質面去影響到金融面。但有鑑於這次亞洲金融危機並非以基本面因素來解釋即可令人信服，必須配合經濟趨勢的潮流，再加入金融面因素來探討以補基本面理論的不足，尤其再加入因金融恐慌的自我實現危機型態以及傳染蔓延因素，兩者互相配合以求能更完整分析為何這次金融危機能襲擊全球新興市場的原因。 此外，本文並描述各國因受金融危機衝擊所帶來的影響，以及各國政府採取何種因應措施，最後仍不敵國際投機客和市場預期心理下，紛紛請求IMF的支援。但IMF的援助貸款附帶有嚴苛條件，這些國家在實行IMF的政策後卻帶來經濟更加萎縮的事實。本文亦針對IMF的各項政策提出質疑與探討，並期研擬出更正確的政策方針。台灣在這次金融危機中雖相較受創較輕，但不容否認仍對台灣經濟社會帶來許多衝擊，本文亦分析台灣金融制度的問題，並且提出各項因應政策的比較分析。最後，匯總幾點本文研究結論與建議。 第一章 導論…………………………………………1 第一節 研究背景與目的…………………………………………1 第二節 研究內容與架構…………………………………………3 第三節 研究方法與流程…………………………………………5 第二章 金融危機發生的原因………………………7 第一節 第一代危機模型…………………………………………8 第二節 基本面因素…………………………………………….10 第三節 金融面實質現象的主要論點………………………….25 第三章 金融危機的原因--系統性風險的探討……46 第一節 系統性風險下的危機………………………………….48 第二節 第二代危機模型……………………………………….52 第三節 傳染蔓延……………………………………………….58 第四章 金融危機對世界各國的衝擊………………61 第一節 危機發生前的總體經濟條件………………………….62 第二節 1997上半年危機前的苦難……………………………65 第三節 1997年貨幣危機的蔓延效應…………………………67 第四節 金融危機的因應政策………………………………….70 第五節 與1930年代經濟大蕭條比較…………………………75 第五章 金融危機對台灣的影響……………………77 第一節 基本面優勢…………………………………………….78 第二節 金融危機的影響與台灣金融問題…………………….81 第三節 台灣所採取的因應政策………………………………86 第四節 金融危機的教訓和經驗萃取………………………….92 第六章 結論…………………………………………94 第一節 本文主要發現………………………………………….95 第二節 本文政策性意涵……………………………………….96 第三節 研究建議……………………………………………….98

This dissertation concentrates on the interplay between politics and financial markets using various empirical tools applied on historical financial statistics. The first essay examines the effect of stock transaction taxation on trading activity and asset prices, specifically focusing on the case of early 20th century Sweden. The main finding is that the tax substantially reduced trading as well as the level of asset prices. In the second essay, modern ex post historical writing is contrasted with the ex ante views of contemporaries which are estimated from historical price data. The specific case study is the events around World War II related to the Nordic countries and Germany. The comparisons point out considerable differences between the assessments of historical events in the ex post and ex ante approaches. The third essay is an empirical study of price controls on asset price movements and how these controls affect asset returns. The study finds that the controls have large significant effects which even may influence estimates of the long-run equity premium. Altogether, this raises concerns about the use of century-long series of asset returns without correcting for the impact of institutional variation and market constraints. Finally, the fourth essay examines the growth effects of international financial liberalization and integration using a large country- industry sample from the 1980s. The main result is that industries highly dependent on external financing do not experience higher value added growth in countries with liberalized financial markets. Liberalization does, however, increase the growth rates of both output and firm creation among externally dependent industries. These results are consistent both with increased competition and increased outsourcing. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2003</p>

Concern has been expressed regarding the impacts of climate change on the hydroecology of the Mackenzie Delta, thus identifying a need for better understanding of the ice break-up regime. Archived records at hydrometric stations in the delta for the period 1974 to 2006, supplemented with observations and remotely sensed imagery, are used to assemble a break-up chronology and examine spatial and temporal patterns of break-up flooding. Hydroclimatic controls on break-up are assessed by statistical, qualitative, and trend analysis of upstream discharge and downstream ice characteristics. For the most severe break-up flooding, two event types are identified: ice-driven events, with high backwater and high peak levels in the southern, eastern and western delta, and discharge-driven events, with high levels in the mid and outer delta and along Middle Channel. Break-up initiation during ice (discharge) events occurs earlier (later) than the delta average. Severity of break-up water levels is most influenced by upstream discharge, while timing is related to ice conditions and spring hydrograph rise. Rapid upstream melt and lower intensity melt in the delta prior to break-up characterize the most severe events. Trend analysis reveals a tendency toward earlier break-up, a longer prebreak-up melt interval, and a lower magnitude of hydroclimatic controls.

Concern has been expressed regarding the impacts of climate change on the hydroecology of the Mackenzie Delta, thus identifying a need for better understanding of the ice break-up regime. Archived records at hydrometric stations in the delta for the period 1974 to 2006, supplemented with observations and remotely sensed imagery, are used to assemble a break-up chronology and examine spatial and temporal patterns of break-up flooding. Hydroclimatic controls on break-up are assessed by statistical, qualitative, and trend analysis of upstream discharge and downstream ice characteristics. For the most severe break-up flooding, two event types are identified: ice-driven events, with high backwater and high peak levels in the southern, eastern and western delta, and discharge-driven events, with high levels in the mid and outer delta and along Middle Channel. Break-up initiation during ice (discharge) events occurs earlier (later) than the delta average. Severity of break-up water levels is most influenced by upstream discharge, while timing is related to ice conditions and spring hydrograph rise. Rapid upstream melt and lower intensity melt in the delta prior to break-up characterize the most severe events. Trend analysis reveals a tendency toward earlier break-up, a longer prebreak-up melt interval, and a lower magnitude of hydroclimatic controls.