The Taiwanese early intervention/early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) system is modeled after the federal legislation and practices of the U.S., incorporating specific cultural beliefs in Taiwan. Nonetheless, in EI/ECSE assessments, several challenges are presented, including: (a) limited resources and funding, (b) lack of reliable and valid instruments, (c) lack of progress monitoring for at-risk children, (d) no (or limited) active role for caregivers as informants in the assessment administration process, and (e) lack of communication between parents and professionals. The Ages and Stages Questionnaires: Inventory (ASQ: Inventory) is a dual-purpose tool that can be completed by early childhood practitioners and parents for developmental screening and progress monitoring. This instrument is considered a potential solution for the challenges in Taiwanese EI/ECSE assessments. Thus, the ASQ: Inventory was translated into Traditional Chinese following rigorous procedures. Its technical adequacy, cultural appropriateness, and utility were investigated in this study. Results indicated that the Traditional Chinese ASQ: Inventory was an instrument with solid internal consistency and construct validity and that it was well accepted by parent and professional participants. The instrument was also able to document progress in children's skills measured in chronological age intervals. Additionally, items in each domain were dispersed across a wide range of difficulty levels. When comparing between the two language versions using item response theory modeling, most items demonstrated invariant response patterns between the English and Traditional Chinese ASQ: Inventory. At the sample level, Taiwanese children scored significantly higher than U.S. children in problem-solving and personal-social, whereas U.S. children scored significantly higher in fine motor at the ages of 36, 42, and 48 months. The findings of this initial investigation suggested that the Traditional Chinese ASQ: Inventory should continue to be studied with the Taiwanese population. This instrument may help accelerate the referral and identification process in EI/ECSE and promote the concept of caregiver-completed assessments. By completing the questionnaire, caregivers may have increased awareness of child development and will be able to closely oversee a child's progress and focus on strengths in his/her learning profile. Future studies should focus on studying the technical adequacy of this instrument and exploring the development of a computerized ASQ: Inventory system.

Following a series of reporting scandals in the early 2000s, several researchers studied the gradual shift toward more principles-based accounting systems. There seems to be a general belief that the adoption of international principles-based accounting standards will improve financial reporting quality worldwide, although little evidence is provided for this claim. At the same time several studies claim that heterogeneity in countries’ environmental factors will not lead to harmonized accounting practices and that important differences will remain even though there is common international accounting system. This study contributes to the literature regarding a shift toward more principles-based standards by investigating the effect of increased requirements’ flexibility on disclosure practices in an international environment characterized by harmonized accounting regulations but heterogeneous disclosure practices. The standards that are used are IFRS 8 Operating segment and its predecessor IAS 14R Segment Reporting. IFRS 8 took effect from January 1 2009. The countries included in the study represent the four largest economies in Europe, namely the UK, Germany, France and Italy. The methodology used is quantitative and follows a positivistic research approach. This study investigates the impact that a regulatory change has on disclosure practices by observing data reported in the annual reports and asserts the eventual differences between the two standards and across the four countries. The study provides evidence of only a marginal change in segment disclosure practices after the introduction of IFRS 8. The change is mostly characterized by a loss of key information indicating that more flexible requirements negatively impact accounting practices. This implies that if the purpose of a regulatory change is to assure a certain level of information, more rigid requirements are to be preferred. Further, this study shows that, opposed to expectations; disclosure practices are more heterogeneous under more rules-based standards. However, there is indication that the reason for increased homogeneity is that companies listed in the UK and Germany, presenting a higher amount of segment information under IAS 14R, have decreased the information under IFRS 8. It seems thus that standard enforceability decreases under more flexible disclosure requirements.

Research Question: To what extent do social media reviews’ effect on the purchase   intention and actual buying behaviour of consumers differ in the beauty industry in a cross-country comparison?     Purpose:   The purpose of this study is to explore to what extent consumers in the beauty industry perceive the importance of social media reviews and if it has direct or indirect effect on either their purchase intentions or buying behaviors or if not on both. The aim is then to contribute to limited research available and to see if this connection differs with the country particularly between Sweden and Sri Lanka.   Methodology:     A descriptive qualitative research strategy was approached conducting semi-structured interviews with a total of fourteen participants both from Sweden and Sri Lanka. Open-ended questions were asked and thematic analysis was used when analyzing the collected primary data.   Conclusion: Respondents from Sweden were more engaged with social media reviews and their purchase decisions were based mostly on social media reviews. Sri Lankan respondents were interested in negative reviews while Swedish respondents were highly affected and motivated by positive reviews. Even if young consumers in Sri Lanka were motivated to purchase beauty products because of social media reviews, almost all of the Sri Lankan respondents’ purchase decisions were highly impacted by family and friends compared to effects of social media reviews.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第24099号 / 工博第5021号 / 新制||工||1784(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 CRUZ Ana Maria , 教授 須崎 純一, 准教授 松島 格也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

Bioenergy contributes significantly towards the share of renewable energies, in Europe and worldwide. Besides solid and liquid biofuels, gaseous biofuels, such as biogas or upgraded biogas (biomethane), are an established renewable fuel in Europe. Although many studies consider biomethane technologies, feedstock potentials, or sustainability issues, the literature on the required legislative framework for market introduction is limited. Therefore, this research aims at identifying the market and legislative framework conditions in the three leading biomethane markets in Europe and compare them to the framework conditions of the top six non-European biomethane markets. This study shows the global status and national differences in promoting this renewable energy carrier. For the cross-country comparison, a systematic and iterative literature review is conducted. The results show the top three European biomethane markets (Germany, United Kingdom, Sweden) and the six non-European biomethane markets (Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States of America), pursuing different promotion approaches and framework conditions. Noteworthy cross-national findings are the role of state-level incentives, the tendency to utilise biomethane as vehicular fuel and the focus on residues and waste as feedstock for biomethane production. Presenting a cross-country comparison, this study supports cross-country learning for the promotion of renewable energies like biomethane and gives a pertinent overview of the work.

The aim of the thesis is to understand why European countries show a very different picture of female employment (in their fertile ages) which is not the case for men of the same age. We shed light on the various positions of countries in this framework of earner-carer models, in analysing policy designs, policy outcomes and policy determinants. That is, respectively, family policy indicators, employment of mothers and childless women, gender role attitudes and their interacting effect with policies and employment outcomes. We have used a wide range of primary or secondary quantitative and qualitative data to carry out our comparative analysis, mixing approaches, techniques and methods, from micro-econometric models to macro-level harmonised indicators, supplemented with a case study. The dissertation is divided in three parts, each focusing on one question: (i) Are there complementarities or distinctions between types of family policies across Europe, as regards gender equality and dual-earner friendliness, and how can we compare different policy settings as they are found to be very heterogeneous? (ii) To what extent can institutional settings explain cross-country differences in female employment outcomes, and especially those of mothers, in a context of decreasing fertility? (iii) Do individual preferences counteract (or reinforce) the policy impact on employment in connexion with the prevalence of traditional gender role attitudes? Results show that the institutional variation across countries explains a great deal of differences in female employment, especially for mothers. If policies are not supportive of the dual-earner model, even those women who have a stronger preference for labour market attachment face obstacles that reduce their employment opportunities in the presence of young children. However, even in countries where a somewhat dual-earner friendly model is favoured, our detailed analysis of policy instruments reveals that gender equality is still far from being achieved.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the definition of the phenomenon corruption, and also if corruption can be measured. There are many definition of the concept, the most common and simplest definition being the one by the World Bank “the abuse of public power for private benefit” (Tanzi, 1998: 564). Various organizations measure corruption and each organization uses different methods to collect information. Many organizations present their results by ranking countries according to a scale, making a cross-country comparison. Using their own specific scaling gives a general view of how corrupted a country is. In this thesis, five international organizations are chosen. What they all have in common is that they are connected to corruption in some way. Most of the five organizations do not devote their time only on investigating corruption. Out of the five it is only Transparency International who focuses exclusively corruption. The other four organizations investigate corruption as a part of a more extensive research. The information from defining corruption and information based on international organizations are applied to four countries chosen for this study. The four countries are: Denmark, Greece, Italy and Sweden. The countries are chosen due to that they are all members of the European Union. Denmark and Sweden are generally placed on a high ranking when organizations measure corruption, indicating that there is little corruption in the country. Greece and Italy are not ranked as high as the two Nordic countries. This thesis is based on various literature and information from organizations, especially when investigating how corruption can be measured among countries.

The aim of the thesis is to understand why European countries show a very different picture of female employment (in their fertile ages) which is not the case for men of the same age. We shed light on the various positions of countries in this framework of earner-carer models, in analysing policy designs, policy outcomes and policy determinants. That is, respectively, family policy indicators, employment of mothers and childless women, gender role attitudes and their interacting effect with policies and employment outcomes. We have used a wide range of primary or secondary quantitative and qualitative data to carry out our comparative analysis, mixing approaches, techniques and methods, from micro-econometric models to macro-level harmonised indicators, supplemented with a case study.<p>The dissertation is divided in three parts, each focusing on one question:<p>(i)\ / Doctorat en sciences de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished