An approach to education gaining popularity in the modern classroom, adaptive tutoring systems offer interactive learning environments in which students can access immediate feedback and rich tutoring while teachers can achieve organized assessment for targeted interventions. Yet despite the benefits that these systems provide, a number of questions remain regarding the optimal inner workings of adaptive platforms. What is the recipe for optimal student performance within these platforms? What elements should be taken into consideration when designing these learning environments? Can facets of these platforms be harnessed to increase students’ motivation to learn and to improve both immediate and robust learning gains? This thesis combines work conducted over the past two years through versatile approaches toward the goal of enhancing student motivation and learning within the ASSISTments platform. Approaches considered include a) enhancing motivation and performance through altered feedback using hypermedia elements, b) instilling motivational messages alongside media enhanced content and feedback, c) allowing students to choose their feedback medium, thereby exerting control over their assignment, d) altering content delivery by interleaving skills to enhance solution strategy development, and e) establishing partial credit assessments to drive motivation and proper system usage while enhancing student modeling. After a brief introduction regarding the main tenants of this research, each chapter highlights a randomized controlled trial focused around one of these approaches. All studies presented have been conducted or are still running within ASSISTments. Much of this work has already been published at peer reviewed conference venues, some with stringent acceptance rates as low as 25% for full papers. Two of the studies presented here are second iterations of previously published work that are still in progress, and only preliminary analyses are available. A chapter on conclusions and future work is included to discuss the contributions that have been made to the Learning Sciences community thus far, and to briefly discuss potential directions for my continued research.

Total valuation adjustment (XVA) is a new technique which takes multiple material financial factors into consideration when pricing derivatives. This paper explores how funding costs and counterparty credit risk affect pricing the American option based on no-arbitrage analysis. We review previous studies of European option pricing with different funding costs. The conclusions help to compute the no- arbitrage price of the American option in the model with different borrowing and lending rates. Another model with counterparty credit risk is set up, and this pricing approach is referred to as credit valuation adjustment (CVA). A defaultable bond issued by the counterparty is used to hedge the loss from the option's default. We incorporate these two models to assess the XVA of an American option. The collateral, which protects the option investors from default, is considered in our benchmark model. To illustrate our results, numerical experiments are designed to demonstrate the relationship between XVA and parameters, which include the funding rates, bond's rate of return, and number of periods.

The need for regulation of the credit rating agencies (CRAs) arose due to their role in the subprime mortgage crisis. The CRAs awarded risky securities '3-A' investment grade status and then failed to downgrade them quickly enough when circumstances changed which led to investors suffering substantial losses. The causes identified by the regulators for the gatekeeper failure were conflicts of interest (as the issuers of these securities pay for the ratings); lack of competition (as the Big Three CRAs have dominated the market share); and lack of CRA regulation. The regulators, both in the US and EU, have tried to address these problems by introducing soft law self-regulation in accordance with the International Organisation of Securities Commissions Code and hard law statutory regulation such as that found in the "Reform Act" and "Dodd-Frank Act" in the US and similar provisions in the EU. This thesis examines these provisions in detail by using a doctrinal black-letter law method to assess the success of the regulators in redressing the problems identified. It also examines the US case law regulation relating to the legal liability of CRAs. The findings are that the US First Amendment protection, exclusion clauses and case law, all lack a deterrent effect on the actions of CRAs. As CRAs have escaped substantial damages, investors are left uncompensated for their losses. The thesis concludes that the issues of conflicts of interest and an anti-competitive environment persist. This thesis recommends the introduction of liability for the CRAs based on the Australian Bathurst case and which should be put in a statutory footing, including the requirements that are needed for making exclusion clauses effective. Rotation of CRAs for every three years would minimise the conflicts of interest. Regulators should require CRAs to purchase professional indemnity insurance, if available, to compensate investors.

The dominant role of credit ratings, along with the failure of important FIs, exacerbated the 2008 crisis and caused further damage to European economies, which highlighted the need for effective regulation to prevent a reoccurrence. This thesis investigates the effect of EU and US recent regulatory reforms of the rating industry on the quality of credit ratings of financial institutions (FIs), as well as the impact of the new EU financial regulatory initiatives on the performance of FIs. The first empirical Chapter focuses on the EU reforms of credit rating agencies (CRAs) and provides evidence supporting the presence of a conservative rating bias in the post regulatory period, as increased scrutiny, fines and liability increase the cost of over rating. CRAs exhibit an unwarranted decrease in EU FI ratings, evidenced by an increase in false warning and a fall in the informativeness of FI rating downgrades in the post regulatory period. A subsequent rise in stock market responses to rating upgrades is consistent with CRAs expending greater effort to ensure they are justified. The second empirical Chapter focuses on the US reforms of CRAs and reports no significant impact on FI ratings, rather each CRA has responded differently to the passage of the US Dodd-Frank Act (DFA). There is, however, a significant reduction in stock market reactions to FI credit rating signals, consistent with diminishing reliance on credit ratings by market participants in the US. The third empirical Chapter builds and estimates a dynamic model of FI behaviour using discrete choice dynamic programming (DCDP). The model is used to simulate and examine the impact of regulations, including EU reforms of CRAs, capital adequacy regulation (Basel III), and the bail-in regime, on FIs' behaviour in the real economy. The results show that the shift to increasingly conservative rating behaviour triggered by the CRA reforms has caused FIs to respond by manipulating their capital ratios and to reduce lending activities. The results also show that more stringent capital requirements stimulate FIs to hold more capital, reduce lending and reveal a positive influence in reducing bank insolvency rates, particularly during the crisis period. The introduction of a bail-in regime reveals similar results, but crucially stimulates the adoption of a stable equilibrium (unlike Basel III). This thesis highlights drawbacks with the current regulatory reforms of the EU and US FI rating industries and suggests potential solutions. The thesis also informs the policy debate surrounding the best way to regulate both CRAs and FIs and ensure that there is not a reoccurrence of the problems present in the 2008 financial crisis.

Empreende à análise das decisões judiciais a respeito do contrato de cartão de crédito como meio de prevenir ou tratar o superendividamento do consumidor, por ser o contrato que representa a maior dívida dos consumidores brasileiros. A pesquisa consistiu em uma revisão bibliográfica dos temas superendividamento e cartão de crédito e uma pesquisa empírica documental, das decisões do Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ). O método utilizado foi análise de conteúdo, compreendendo a elaboração de fichas de leitura previamente estabelecidas. As fichas foram catalogadas de acordo com o assunto tratado pelo acórdão. Obteve-se um total de 7 (sete) grupos de análise: ações revisionais, ações indenizatórias, ações relativas a práticas abusivas, ações de prestação de contas, ações de exibição de documentos, ações de cobrança e declaratórias de inexistência de débitos. A partir da análise dos dados, depreendeu-se as seguintes conclusões: 1. O tema superendividamento ainda não faz parte do repertório da Corte, não tendo sido nem mesmo alegado pelas partes em algum processo. 2. A maior dos processos são ações indenizatórias que discutem meramente o valor exorbitante ou irrisório da indenização. 3. As decisões da Corte são, repetidamente, obstadas pelas Súmulas 5 e 7 do STJ. 4. As revisionais tratam apenas da taxa de juros nos contratos de cartão de crédito. / Undertakes the analysis of judgments about the credit card agreement as a means of preventing or treating consumer over-indebtedness, as the contract represents the largest debt of Brazilian consumers. The research consisted of a literature review of over-indebtedness and the contract of credit card and documentary empirical research of the decisions of the Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ). The method used was content analysis, including the development of previously established reading summaries. The sumaries were listed according to the subject matter of the judgment. We obtained a total of seven (7) analysis groups: revisional actions, compensation claims, actions related to abusive practices, accountability actions, document display actions, charging actions and declaratory absence of debts. From the data analysis, the following conclusions can be surmised: 1. The over-indebtedness issue is not yet part of the Court\'s repertoire and was not even alleged by the parties in any case. 2. Most of the cases are compensation claims than merely discuss the exorbitant or negligible amount of compensation. 3. The Court\'s decisions are repeatedly hindered by Precedents 5 and 7 of the STJ. 4. Revisional actions treat only about the interest rate on credit card contracts.

Man Po Kong = 信貸相聯票據和住宅按揭的預期損失之估值 / 文普綱. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-86). / Text in English; abstracts in English and Chinese. / Man Po Kong = Xin dai xiang lian piao ju he zhu zhai an jie de yu qi sun shi zhi gu zhi / Wen Pugang. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- The Structural model --- p.3 / Chapter 2.1 --- Merton's model --- p.3 / Chapter 2.2 --- The term structure of interest rate --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- The default-triggering mechanism and derivations from strict priority rule --- p.9 / Chapter 2.4 --- Stationary leverage ratio --- p.11 / Chapter 2.5 --- The three-factor structural model --- p.12 / Chapter 3 --- Credit-linked Notes with early default risk --- p.18 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction to credit-linked notes --- p.18 / Chapter 3.2 --- The pricing of credit-linked notes --- p.20 / Chapter 3.3 --- Non mean-reverting leverage ratios --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Special case (pQv=0) --- p.23 / Chapter 3.4 --- Mean reverting leverage ratios --- p.25 / Chapter 4 --- Numerical results and discussion --- p.28 / Chapter 4.1 --- Exact solution (KQ=kv=PQv=PVr=0) --- p.31 / Chapter 4.2 --- "Lower bound approximation (kQ,kv≠0,pQr,pvr≠0)" --- p.37 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Effect of interest rate --- p.43 / Chapter 4.3 --- Monte Carlo simulation (PQV≠0) --- p.47 / Chapter 5 --- Expected loss of residential mortgage loans --- p.56 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction to residential mortgage loans --- p.56 / Chapter 5.2 --- Calculation of expected loss of residential mortgage loans --- p.59 / Chapter 6 --- Numerical results and discussion --- p.65 / Chapter 6.1 --- Numerical results --- p.65 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusion --- p.73 / Chapter A --- Methodology --- p.75 / Chapter A.1 --- Monte Carlo Simulation --- p.76 / Chapter A.2 --- Finding lower and upper bound approach --- p.79 / Chapter A.2.1 --- Single stage approximation --- p.79 / Chapter A.2.2 --- Multistage lower bound approximation --- p.82 / Bibliography --- p.85

Yeung Kin Bong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-73). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Credit risk modeling --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2 --- Uniqueness of bi-directional: hybrid system --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Scope of the study --- p.5 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1 --- Statistical / Empirical approach --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Structural approach --- p.8 / Chapter 3 --- Background --- p.10 / Chapter 3.1 --- Merton structural default model --- p.10 / Chapter 3.2 --- Cross-sectional regression analysis (CRA) --- p.15 / Chapter 3.3 --- Neural network learning (NN) --- p.16 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Single-layer network --- p.17 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) --- p.20 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Back-propagation network --- p.22 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- "Supervised, unsupervised and combine unsupervised-supervised learning" --- p.23 / Chapter 3.4 --- Weaknesses of uni-directional modeling --- p.23 / Chapter 4 --- Methodology --- p.26 / Chapter 4.1 --- Bi-directional modeling --- p.26 / Chapter 4.2 --- Asset price estimation --- p.31 / Chapter 4.3 --- Quantifying accounting data noise --- p.33 / Chapter 5 --- Proposed Model --- p.37 / Chapter 5.1 --- Core of the model --- p.37 / Chapter 5.2 --- Feature selection --- p.41 / Chapter 5.3 --- Bi-directional default neural system --- p.44 / Chapter 6 --- Implementations --- p.49 / Chapter 6.1 --- Data preparation --- p.50 / Chapter 6.2 --- Experiment --- p.51 / Chapter 6.3 --- Empirical results --- p.61 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Predicted spreads from the uni-directional models --- p.61 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Predicted spreads from the proposed bi-directional model --- p.63 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Performance comparison --- p.64 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusions --- p.67 / Bibliography --- p.69

It is a well-known fact that international trade contracts bear inherently more risk than the trade contracts entered by the parties from the same country. This is due to the differences in business methods and practices used, trade cultures of the parties involved, laws and regulations in the respective jurisdictions. Under these circumstances, it is very important for the seller to have the assurance of that he receives the payment for the goods dispatched and for the buyer to receive the goods what has been ordered. One effective way of having such an assurance is to rely on a letter of credit as an international payment method. But for exporters in particular, this payment method has presented difficulties in meeting the compliance requirements necessary for the payment to be triggered. The UCP 600 published by the International Chamber of Commerce provide the rules that govern letters of credit transactions. At the introduction of the UCP 600, it was aimed to remove wording that could lead to inconsistent application and interpretation, as against the language and style used in the previous version, namely the UCP 500. Highlighting the experiences under UCP 500, the ultimate focus of the revision of the UCP was to minimise the level of litigations that had arisen under the rules provided in the UCP. In several surveys, it has been reported that, nearly 50% of the first presentation for payment under letters of credit are rejected by the banks. This situation implies the fact that the provisions which cover letters of credit transactions are not either clear enough or well understood by the parties involved. Similarly, the decisions made by Courts around the world on issues related to letters of credit have taken different approaches when applying and interpreting the rules. This can clearly be seen by a myriad of controversial judicial standards which have been applied to similar mistakes in documents presented to the bank for payment. This thesis is an investigation into those issues to find out the optimal standards that could be applied to solve the said problems. In doing so, this thesis will strive to ascertain what remedial measures could be taken to address the issues related to examination of documents, the rejection of payment and fraud exception. Key words: International Trade, International Trade Law, Law of Letters of Credit, Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credit 600, Examination of Documents and communicating the decision.

This thesis first examines the role of banks in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy by focusing on the eight European new member States of Central and Eastern Europe over the 2004-2013 period. We specifically investigate the influence of monetary policy changes on bank lending activity and if this potential influence is contingent on bank characteristics, such as banks' size, capital, liquidity, risk factor and market power. Moreover, we focus on the prospective role of banks in the monetary policy transmission mechanism in order to reveal any clear trends in banks' lending behaviour during the 2008-2011 financial crisis. Secondly, we investigate the impact of a protracted period of low monetary policy rates on loosening of banks' credit standards regarding enterprises, households and consumer loans through concentrating on the nine Eurozone countries involved since the initiation of the Euro area Bank Lending Survey in the three distinct time frames of pre- (2002Q4-2008Q3), mid- (2008Q4-2010Q4) and post- (2011Q1-2014:Q4) financial crisis. Furthermore, we test the fundamental concept of the risk taking channel by examining excessive risk-taking behaviour by banks in stressed vs. non-stressed countries of the Eurozone. In an additional analysis, the efficacy of the European Central Bank's 3 year Long-Term Refinancing Operations is evaluated in great depth in order to determine whether banks' credit standards have been softened and the degree to which demand for loans has increased. Thirdly, we explore the financing structure of bank lending constrained Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in the eleven Eurozone countries by utilising firm-level data over the period of 2009 to 2014. We estimate if bank lending constrained firms demonstrate relatively more usage or requests for alternative financing. Additionally, a comprehensive investigation is presented by unveiling the impact and determinants of various financing constraints including credit lines, bank loans, trade credit and other lending on Eurozone firms. Furthermore, the notion of discouraged borrowers originally formulated by Kon and Storey (2003) is empirically evaluated. Finally, we present the conclusion of our research by further outlining its limitations and prospective scope for future studies.

Venture capital (VC) is widely perceived by UK policymakers to be a key requirement for the growth and development of successful and innovative early stage firms. This thesis examines how government policy has impacted the emergence of VC sectors in the UK and US. Using historical, qualitative and quantitative methods it argues that the public rationale behind UK policy has been largely framed in ways that underestimate the importance of capabilities, demand for capital, and institutional differences. The thesis examines venture capitalists' key supply‐demand relationships: with funded firms; with limited partners; and with the markets that allow exit via IPO. It argues that the US VC sector has developed unique capabilities enabling the assembly of complementary assets to bring firms to successful IPO. In the UK, policy aimed at addressing the ‘equity gap' has focused on the provision of capital rather than developing the capabilities that have characterised the US sector. We perform quantitative analysis examining the effectiveness of recent UK schemes at providing VC funding to small firms. Drawing upon two proprietary datasets, including one new hand‐collected dataset of all investments made under the Venture Capital Trust scheme, the thesis provides new quantitative evidence on the success of government policy interventions, demand for capital by firms, and investment exit opportunities. The thesis then compares principal‐agent and evolutionary framing perspectives of the VC sector, arguing the evolutionary view explains some nuances more readily than a pure principal‐agent view. It concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications of the research.