本論文將勞動市場的狀態過程說明非常完整，即是勞動者的搜尋過程、工作配合過程都是詳細介紹其理論背景，以及實証的結果。由於，在勞動市場上，由於勞動者與廠商之間的訊息不完全，造成勞動者與廠商兩者之間往往無法一拍即合，而導致勞動者可能離職他就，廠商亦可能另聘高明，於是工資變動與工作異動就成為經常看到的現象。 在本文研究勞動者工作異動的情形，在理論模型上是以工作契合理論為基礎，而要討論工作契合理論的基礎則必須先知道Lippmam與MaCall(1976)所提出的工作搜尋理論。因為工作契合理論又是以工作搜尋理論為基礎，因此在理論模型上必先討論工作搜尋理論，進而討論工作契合理論。 文中研究主要藉由民國八十五年九月高希均教授與林祖嘉教授於八十四年四月至八十五年六月期間針對民國八十一年六月專上畢業生的資料，分析全体專上畢業生、女性專畢業生與男性畢業生在工資、工作契合期間與勞工離職率決定以及動態行為決定。並且我們把這些資料分為四大類基本資料：個人背景資料、工作配合資料、人力資本資料與工作特徵及其基本資料。在工資的模型方面則利用一般的最小平方法來估計，因為假設市場上的工資分配為一常態分配，是一般實証文獻常用的。就勞工的契合期間，我們運用林祖嘉(1991)的模型，本文則用在勞動者的離職率與工作契合期間的決定。我們分為四個模型，分別是：Weibull、exponential、lognormal與logistic四種分配。在勞工離職方面我們運用了Cox(1972)的比例危險率模型，Lynch(1991)首次將之運用在勞動者工作異動的決定，除此之外，我們也進一步的討論工資、工作契合期間與離職率的進一步的動態的分析。

根據1990年住宅普查結果顯示，臺灣的住宅自有率為78.44%，空屋率為13.29%。此結果相較於1980年住宅普查的自有率79.11%與空屋率13.09%，發現十年來此兩住宅現象變化不大，其中臺灣的空屋現象與歐美國家一般正常3~5%的空屋水準比較，明顯偏高。然而臺灣長期面對如此高的空屋率，其背後的涵意、原因與影響為何？是否隱含臺灣住宅投資的偏高資本利得預期與偏低的持有成本及租金等現象？值得研究。尤其臺灣近年來的偏高房價並未因為高空屋率而有明顯的下降情形，此又代表何種意義？更重要的是：政府面對如此高的空屋現象，應有何住宅政策以為因應？ 　　本研究首先透過兩次住宅普查與臺灣電力公司表燈用電不足底度資料澄清臺灣地區各縣市空屋狀況。發現臺灣地區歷年空屋率均相當高，而至1993年底空屋數量持續增加達到歷年最高記錄：約76萬戶空屋，空屋率約為14%，此現象預期對未來房地產市場不景氣有嚴重深遠影響。本文其次利用計量經濟模型分析：一、影響臺灣空屋率的主要原因，藉此解釋臺灣各地區不同的空屋狀況；二、空屋率與價格間之相互關係，並計算臺灣地區各縣市歷年自然空屋率，以此探討現行空屋率是否合理；三、利用信義房屋公司之仲介資料，分析在市場上空屋所有權人之屬性及住宅屬性對住宅成為空屋機率之影響。最後，針對過去空屋現況與上述研究，研擬提高空屋利用之策略，並建議政府檢討國宅政策，有效利用空屋，從根本上解決日益嚴重之住宅問題。 / According to 1990 Taiwan's housing census, the homeowner occupancy rate was 78.44% and the vacancy rate was 13.29%. The result compared with homeowner occupancy rate 79.11% and vacancy rate 13.09% of 1980 census, it was not much different during the past 10 years. Comparing with the reasonable vacancy rate, 4-5% in the most western countries, the-vacancy rate in Taiwan was very high obviously. What are the implication, reasons, and impacts of high vacancy rate? Does it imply the expectation of high capital gain of housing investment as well as the low holding costs and rents in Taiwan? The most critical issue is what kind of housing policy should be proposed to solve the problems of high housing vacancy. 　　This thesis used housing census data and under minimum use of electricity data of Taiwan Power Company to clarify the phenomenon of housing vacancy in Taiwan during every past year. ffe found that housing vacancy rate was always high, 14.58% in average (1.2% in standard deviation) during 1980-1992. Up to the end of 1993, the stock of vacant house was about 760,000 units and the vacancy rate was about 14%. ffe then established econometric model to analyze the following topics: 　　(1) the reasons of high vacancy rate in Taiwan; 　　(2)the relationship between vacancy rate and housing price, and then to caculate the natural vacancy rate of each city in Taiwan; 　　(3)the possibility of a housing unit to be vacant was effected by characteristics of housing itself and its homeowner. 　　Finally, we suggest some housing strategies and policies to solve the high vacancy issue to the government.

In the financial industry , typical indirect-financial institution attracts deposit, inter-bank loan, or issuing negotiable certificate of time deposit and bonds.¡@After collecting money from excess capital units through auditing procedure then loan to the needed parties as a financial intermediary in the market. The roles of financial institutions such as banks are acting as a financial intermediary by providing buy-sell funding to enterprises or individuals. Those banks actually take whole funding liquidity risk to exchange main resource of bank¡¦s profitability. Once failure in managing risk or facing dynamically financial environment changing, bank may engage in difficulty and cause serious financial crisis. Comparison with large international financial institutions, our financial institutions hold a lot of NPL (Non-Performing Loan; Taiwan major NPL almost came from mortgage), it not only lower the liquidity of fund, longer payment duration but also raise operation risk can¡¦t recover financial assets. The quality of asset has also been worse off rapidly. These phenomena raise financial institution operation risk and influence stability of financial system and development of financial environment. With the financial environment is changing, those developed countries mostly adopted structured finance or financial asset securitization methods. The purpose of financial asset securitization in general is to raise fund for originator. Originator is the most important participant on the securitization process. The originators pool and reorganize those assets, which could create cash flow into small-amount unit security and sell to the investors. By this way originator don¡¦t have to wait till maturity and buyback those securities. That is why by using financial asset securitization will help financial institution to improve asset/liability management, spread asset risk and increase the ratio of equity to assets. At the same time, this will improve the effect and efficiency of finance institution¡¦s operating and open up the funding market. Mortgage securitization can raise banks¡¦ capital adequacy and current ratio. By way of asset securitization, the originators enjoy higher asset liquidity, lower funding cost, and improved capital ratio; while investors can use mortgage-backed securities to diversity their portfolios, improve liquidity and enhance yields. For originators, securitization is not only lower the cost of capital, increase the net profit but also enhances the liquidity of cash and balances the assets¡¦ structure. Assets-backed securitization has been prevailed in USA for years. It effectively controls the NPL (Non-performing Loans) problem and stabilizes financial management. Through financial asset securitization optimal asset allocation model, this thesis has the following finding: 1. Financial market funding supply shows multiple effects after Banking Financial asset securitization. In the initial stage of securitization, banks will lower risky assets and then will increase to original size. 2. After Financial asset securitization, a capital adequate ratio will rise first then become normal level. 3. Under assumption that financial asset securitization does not create any capital gain or loss; bank will lower profitability at initial stage. Then after a while, profitability will increase dramatically later. 4. After consideration of risk, this research discovers that securitization wills steeper Capital Allocation Line. It means every risk taking will compensate higher return. Improve Banking efficiency and profitability. Securitization provides a groundbreaking tool to increase profitability and avoid risk. Under MBS structure, the commissions and fees, absolutely out of risk, is major and stable income of the bank. On the other hand, the successful development of USA RTC implement is another contribution to resolve NPL. In sum, financial asset securitization not only accelerates the efficiency of financial institutions for more balance capital markets but also avoids financial risk in the banking system. At present, the prime theme of he banking sector should be how to maintain sound operations by strengthening credit risk management and restructure assets quality. Introducing successful external professional partner system is another way to deal with NPL problems.

The first part of this dissertation presents an innovative method for the assessment of generation system reliability. In this method, genetic algorithm (GA) is used as a search tool to truncate the probability state space and to track the most probable failure states. GA stores system states, in which there is generation deficiency to supply system maximum load, in a state array. The given load pattern is then convoluted with the state array to obtain adequacy indices. In the second part of the dissertation, a GA based method for state sampling of composite generation-transmission power systems is introduced. Binary encoded GA is used as a state sampling tool for the composite power system network states. A linearized optimization load flow model is used for evaluation of sampled states. The developed approach has been extended to evaluate adequacy indices of composite power systems while considering chronological load at buses. Hourly load is represented by cluster load vectors using the k-means clustering technique. Two different approaches have been developed which are GA parallel sampling and GA sampling for maximum cluster load vector with series state revaluation. The developed GA based method is used for the assessment of annual frequency and duration indices of composite system. The conditional probability based method is used to calculate the contribution of sampled failure states to system failure frequency using different component transition rates. The developed GA based method is also used for evaluating reliability worth indices of composite power systems. The developed GA approach has been generalized to recognize multi-state components such as generation units with derated states. It also considers common mode failure for transmission lines. Finally, a new method for composite system state evaluation using real numbers encoded GA is developed. The objective of GA is to minimize load curtailment for each sampled state. Minimization is based on the dc load flow model. System constraints are represented by fuzzy membership functions. The GA fitness function is a combination of these membership values. The proposed method has the advantage of allowing sophisticated load curtailment strategies, which lead to more realistic load point indices.

Im Rahmen experimenteller Untersuchungen wurden Stahlbetonplatten hergestellt, mit verschiedenen textilen Bewehrungen verstärkt, mit 125 % Gebrauchslast vorgeschädigt und anschließend unter Gebrauchslast mit einer Brandbelastung nach der Einheitstemperaturkurve (ISO-834, Cellulosic curve) beaufschlagt. Alle Platten hielten der Brandbelastung bei gleichzeitiger Biegebeanspruchung mehr als 60 Minuten stand und zeigten weder Betonabplatzungen noch andere optische Schädigungen auf. Die für dieses überraschend positive Ergebnis verantwortlichen Mechanismen werden diskutiert, sind aber noch nicht vollständig verstanden. Eine Schlüsselrolle spielt dabei vermutlich das gute Rissverhalten von Textilbeton und interne Umlagerungen zwischen Textil und Stahlbewehrung.

This dissertation is comprised of three chapters on the interaction between migrants and their source regions applied to China and Vietnam. The first chapter examines whether remittances are related to receivers' trust and trustworthiness in Vietnam. Using a combination of a field experiment conducted in 2010 and the "2002 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey", the chapter finds that while internal remittances have no significant relationship to trusting behavior, international remittances demonstrate a significantly positive connection. On the other hand, international remittances are negatively related to trustworthiness, while internal remittances are positively associated. Besides, this study finds that the level of trustworthiness is higher in the south than in the north. The second chapter explores the role of children by age and by gender as a motive for return migration in China by using a rural household survey conducted in Wuwei County (Anhui province) in 2008. Resorting to a discrete time proportional hazard model and a binary Probit model to estimate respectively the determinants of migration duration for both on-going migrants and return migrants, and the return intentions of on-going migrants, the chapter finds consistent results regarding the role of left-behind children as a significant motive for return. The last chapter examines the impact of the migration experience on individuals' choice of being self-employed upon their return to their home villages. By using the same data of Wuwei survey, the chapter finds that return migrants are more likely to be self-employed than non-migrants, and that both return savings and the frequency of job changes during migration increase the likelihood for return migrants to become self-employed.

The first two articles build procedures to simulate vector of univariate states and estimate parameters in nonlinear and non Gaussian state space models. We propose state space speci fications that offer more flexibility in modeling dynamic relationship with latent variables. Our procedures are extension of the HESSIAN method of McCausland[2012]. Thus, they use approximation of the posterior density of the vector of states that allow to : simulate directly from the state vector posterior distribution, to simulate the states vector in one bloc and jointly with the vector of parameters, and to not allow data augmentation. These properties allow to build posterior simulators with very high relative numerical efficiency. Generic, they open a new path in nonlinear and non Gaussian state space analysis with limited contribution of the modeler. The third article is an essay in commodity market analysis. Private firms coexist with farmers' cooperatives in commodity markets in subsaharan african countries. The private firms have the biggest market share while some theoretical models predict they disappearance once confronted to farmers cooperatives. Elsewhere, some empirical studies and observations link cooperative incidence in a region with interpersonal trust, and thus to farmers trust toward cooperatives. We propose a model that sustain these empirical facts. A model where the cooperative reputation is a leading factor determining the market equilibrium of a price competition between a cooperative and a private firm / Les deux premiers articles élaborent des procédures de simulation du vecteur d'état et d'estimation des paramètres dans des modèles espace-états non linéaires et non-Gaussiens. Nous proposons des spécifi cations des modèles espace-états qui offrent plus de flexibilité dans la modélisation des relations dynamiques avec variables latentes. Les procédures d'estimation des paramètres dans ces modèles sont une extension de la méthode HESSIAN de McCausland[2012]. Ainsi, elles utilisent une approximation de la densité à posteriori du vecteur d'état qui permet de : simuler directement de la loi à posteriori du vecteur d'état, de simuler en seul bloc le vecteur d'état et de le simuler conjointement avec le vecteur de paramètres, et de ne pas admettre l'introduction d'inconnues additionnelles. Ces propriétés permettent d'obtenir des simulateurs à posteriori avec une efficacité numérique relative très élevée. Les procédures d'estimation élaborées sont génériques. Elles ouvrent ainsi une voie pour une analyse des modèles espace-états non linéaires et non-Gaussiens sans une grande contribution du modélisateur. Le troisième article est une contribution dans l'analyse des marchés agricoles. Les firmes privées coexistent avec les coopératives de fermiers dans les marchés agricoles en Afrique subsaharienne. Les firmes privées accaparent les plus grandes parts de marché, alors que certains modèles théoriques prédisent leur disparition une fois confrontées aux coopératives agricoles. Par ailleurs, certaines observations et études empiriques lient la forte incidence d'une coopérative dans une région à la confiance interpersonnelle entre les personnes de cette région, et par conséquent la confiance de ces personnes envers les coopératives existantes. Nous proposons un modèle théorique qui cadre mieux avec ces observations empiriques. Un modèle où la réputation de la coopérative est un facteur déterminant de l'équilibre de marché dans la compétition sur le prix à la livraison entre celle-ci et une firme privée.

Lietuvoje išimtinai kūdikius iki 6 mėn. žindo tik 25, 7 proc. motinų, o 14 proc. jau nuo 1 gyvenimo mėnesio davė arbatos. Tyrimais yra nustatyta, kad žindymo ir laktacijos valdymo mokymas nėštumo metu, gali prailginti išimtinio žindymo trukmę.Tikslas – nustatyti nėščiųjų mokymo apie žindymo ir laktacijos valdymą įtaką išimtinio žindymo(IŽ) paplitimui, papildomo maitinimo(PM) įvedimo pradžiai bei įvertinti motinų žinias ir pastangas, siekiant spręsti su žindymu susijusias problemas.Uždaviniai: 1. Įvertinti nėščiųjų mokymo apie žindymą įtaką IŽ paplitimui ir trukmei; 2.Įvertinti nėščiųjų mokymo apie žindymą įtaką PM įvedimo pradžiai; 3.Įvertinti išklausiusių ir neišklausiusių mokymo apie žindymą motinų žinias ir pastangas siekiant spręsti su žindymu susijusias problemas; 4. Išsiaiškinti motinų nuostatas apie žindymo trukmę ir veiksnius, galinčius ją įtakoti; 5. Nustatyti motinų požiūrį į personalo pagalbą pradedant žindyti.Tyrimo metodas. Tyrimas buvo atliktas VU Sporto medicinos, reabilitacijos ir slaugos instituto ir RMC bazėje 2006-2008 metais. Naudojant anoniminę anketą-klausimyną buvo apklaustos 50 moterų, auginančios 6-18 mėn. amžiaus vaikus ir išklausiusios prenatalinį žindymo ir laktacijos valdymo pagrindų kursą (poveikio grupė(PG)), ir 50 moterų (kontrolinė grupė(KG)), auginančių tokio paties amžiaus vaikus ir neišklausiusios tokio kurso. Klausimyno pirmoje dalyje buvo siekiama išsiaiškinti moterų žindymo ir papildomo maisto įvedimo praktiką, nuostatas apie sėkmingo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In Lithuania only 25.7% of babies are exclusively breastfed (BF) up to 6 months. Evidence has proved that prenatal teaching on BF and lactation management(LM) can prolong exclusive BF. Objective: to determine the influence of prenatal BF training over the rates of exclusive BF and the initiation of complementary feeding(CF) and to assess the mothers‘ knowledge and efforts in solving BF-related problems. Tasks: 1.Assess the influence of prenatal BF training over the rates and length of exclusive BF. 2. Assess the influence of prenatal BF training over the initiation of CF. 3. Assess the knowledge and efforts in solving BF-related problems by mothers who have undergone and who haven‘t undergone prenatal BF training. 4. Determine mothers‘ attitudes toward the length of BF and the factors influencing this length. 5. Determine mothers’ attitudes toward the personnel’s assistance at the initiation of BF. Methods: The investigation was carried out at the IRSMN at the MF of VU and the NNC in 2006 – 2008. The survey included 50 women raising children aged 6–18 months, having completed a prenatal BF and LM course (“intervention group” IG) and 50 - raising children of the same age but having not completed such course (“control group” CG). The first part of the anonymous questionnaire was aimed at determining the practices of BF and initiating CF, the successful BF factors, the assessment of assistance in BF and trust in nurses in solving BF-related problems; the second - a test aimed at... [to full text]

本文分成兩個部分探討失業者的工作搜尋決策，第一部分利用遞延選擇權模型模擬市場景氣、預期工作機會出現機率、不確定性等因素對失業者工作搜尋決策的影響。第二部份利用2006年至2010年主計處的「人力資源調查」及「人力運用調查」資料從事實證分析。本文從實證分析中驗證以下的模擬結果：一、市場上的工資波動率與失業者的保留工資有正向關係，與移轉到就業的機率有負向關係。二、失業者對工作機會出現機率的預期較高時，擁有較高的保留工資，移轉到就業的機率較低。另外，學習速度較快的失業者在搜尋工作的過程中會以較快的速度下降保留工資，移轉到就業的機率較高。三、失業者對於工作搜尋報酬的不確定程度較高時，擁有較低的保留工資，移轉到就業的機率較高。 / This thesis consists of two parts. The first part is devoted to applying a real option approach to simulate the impacts of market prospect, expected offer arrival rate, and uncertainty on job search decisions. The second part provides an empirical illustration to validate the simulation results by using unemployment data from the 2006-2010 Taiwan Manpower Utilization Survey. The main findings of this thesis can be summarized as follows: (i) The wage volatility is related positively with the reservation wage of the unemployed, but inversely with the transition probability into employment. (ii) If a rising offer arrival rate is expected, the unemployed increase reservation wages and thus decrease transition probabilities. Furthermore, higher learning speed acts to intensively lower the reservation wage. (iii) When the degree of payoff uncertainty is higher, the unemployed decrease reservation wages and thus increase transition probabilities.

In this doctoral dissertation three proposed approaches were evaluated using two databases of different languages, one American-English and one Greek. The proposed approaches were compared to the state-of-the-art models in the phone duration modelling task. The SVR model outperformed all the other individual models evaluated in this dissertation. Their ability to outperform all the other models is mainly based on their advantage of coping in a better way with high-dimensionality feature spaces in respect to the other models used in phone duration modelling, which makes them appropriate even for the case when the amount of the training data would be small respectively to the number of the feature set used. The proposed fusion scheme, taking advantage of the observation that different prediction algorithms perform better in different conditions, when implemented with SVR (SVR-fusion), contributed to the improvement of the phone duration prediction accuracy over that of the best individual model (SVR). Furthermore the SVR-fusion model managed to reduce the outliers in respect to the best individual model (SVR). Moreover, the proposed two-stage scheme using individual phone duration models as feature constructors in the first stage and feature vector extension (FVE) in the second stage, implemented with SVR (SVR-FVE), improved the prediction accuracy over the best individual predictor (SVR), and the SVR-fusion scheme and moreover managed to reduce the outliers in respect to the other two proposed schemes (SVR and SVR-fusion). The SVR two-stage scheme confirms in this way their advantage over all the other algorithms of coping well with high-dimensionality feature sets. The improved accuracy of phone duration modelling contributes to a better control of the prosody, and thus quality of synthetic speech. Furthermore, the first proposed method (SVR) was also evaluated on the phone duration modelling task in emotional speech, outperforming all the state-of-the-art models in all the emotional categories. Finally, perceptual tests were performed evaluating the impact of the proposed phone duration models to synthetic speech. The perceptual test for both the databases confirmed the results of objective tests showing the improvement achieved by the proposed models in the naturalness of synthesized speech. / Η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή πραγματεύεται προβλήματα που αφορούν στο χώρο της τεχνολογίας ομιλίας, με στόχο την μοντελοποίηση προσωδίας με χρήση τεχνικών μηχανικής μάθησης στα πλαίσια ουδέτερης και συναισθηματικής συνθετικής ομιλίας. Μελετήθηκαν τρεις καινοτόμες μέθοδοι μοντελοποίησης προσωδίας, οι οποίες αξιολογήθηκαν με αντικειμενικά τεστ και με υποκειμενικά τεστ ποιότητας ομιλίας για την συνεισφορά τους στην βελτίωση της ποιότητα της συνθετικής ομιλίας: Η πρώτη τεχνική μοντελοποίησης διάρκειας φωνημάτων, βασίζεται στην μοντελοποίηση με χρήση Μηχανών Υποστήριξης Διανυσμάτων (Support Vector Regression – SVR). Η μέθοδος αυτή δεν έχει χρησιμοποιηθεί έως σήμερα στην πρόβλεψη διάρκειας φωνημάτων. Η μέθοδος αυτή συγκρίθηκε και ξεπέρασε σε απόδοση όλες τις μεθόδους της επικρατούσας τεχνολογίας (state-of-the-art) στη μοντελοποίηση της διάρκειας φωνημάτων. Η δεύτερη τεχνική, βασίζεται στην μοντελοποίηση διάρκειας φωνημάτων με συνδυαστικό μοντέλο πολλαπλών προβλέψεων. Συγκεκριμένα, οι προβλέψεις διάρκειας φωνημάτων από ένα σύνολο ανεξάρτητων μοντέλων πρόβλεψης διάρκειας φωνημάτων χρησιμοποιούνται ως είσοδος σε ένα μοντέλο μηχανικής μάθησης, το οποίο συνδυάζει τις εξόδους από τα ανεξάρτητα μοντέλα πρόβλεψης και επιτυγχάνει μοντελοποίηση της διάρκειας φωνημάτων με μεγαλύτερη ακρίβεια, μειώνοντας επιπλέον και τα μεγάλα σφάλματα (outliers), δηλαδή τα σφάλματα που βρίσκονται μακριά από το μέσο όρο των σφαλμάτων. Η τρίτη τεχνική, είναι μια μέθοδος μοντελοποίησης διάρκειας φωνημάτων δύο σταδίων με κατασκευή νέων χαρακτηριστικών και επέκταση του διανύσματος χαρακτηριστικών. Συγκεκριμένα, στο πρώτο στάδιο, ένα σύνολο ανεξάρτητων μοντέλων πρόβλεψης διάρκειας φωνημάτων που χρησιμοποιούνται ως παραγωγοί νέων χαρακτηριστικών εμπλουτίζουν το διάνυσμα χαρακτηριστικών. Στο δεύτερο στάδιο, το εμπλουτισμένο διάνυσμα χρησιμοποιείται για να εκπαιδευτεί ένα μοντέλο πρόβλεψης διάρκειας φωνημάτων το οποίο επιτυγχάνει υψηλότερη απόδοση σε σχέση με όλες τις προηγούμενες μεθόδους, και μειώνει τα μεγάλα σφάλματα. Επιπλέον εφαρμόστηκε η πρώτη μέθοδος σε συναισθηματική ομιλία. Το προτεινόμενο SVR μοντέλο επιτυγχάνει την υψηλότερη απόδοση συγκρινόμενο με όλα τα state-of-the-art μοντέλα. Τέλος, πραγματοποιήθηκαν υποκειμενικά τεστ ποιότητας ομιλίας ώστε να αξιολογηθεί η συνεισφορά των τριών προτεινόμενων μεθόδων στη βελτίωση της ποιότητας της συνθετικής ομιλίας. Τα τεστ αυτά επιβεβαίωσαν την αξία των προτεινόμενων μεθόδων και τη συνεισφορά τους στη βελτίωση της ποιότητας στην συνθετική ομιλία.