Uppsatsen behandlar personalekonomi och huruvida mänskliga resurser ska behandlas som en tillgång för organisationer eller inte och fokus ligger på ideella idrottsorganisationer. I teori och empiri påvisas att människan är en viktig resurs för en organisation. Fokus i uppsatsen ligger i att applicera beräkningen av värdet av personalen som en tillgång på ideella idrottsorganisationer, där personalen består till stor del av volontärer. Trots att det rör sig om donerad arbetskraft existerar ändå kostnader kring volontärer, vilket empirin bevisar. Det tydliggörs både av volontärer samt de som ansvarar för volontärer att viss ersättning som exempelvis mat och kläder förväntas, vilka är betydande kostnader att kalkylera. Det framkommer även att välmående och den sociala miljön kring eventet är av betydande vikt för ett fortsatt engagemang samt en positiv och motiverande miljö. / The essay deals with human resources and whether or not they should be treated as an asset or not for organisations and it focuses primarily on nonprofit sport organisations. Theory and empirics show that humans are an important asset in an organisation. The essay focuses on applicating the measurement of the value of personnel as an asset to nonprofit sport organisations, where the volunteers make up for a big part of the staff. In spite of it being donated workforce there are costs to consider in the usage of volunteers, which is proved in the empirics of the essay. It is made clear both by volunteers and people responsible for volunteers that some compensation, in the form of food and clothes for example, is expected by volunteers and these are significant cost to account for. Well-being and the social environment in events are shown to be of significance regarding a continued commitment from the volunteers and also to maintain a positive and motivating environment.

Under de senaste åren har en del förändringar skett inom det specialpedagogiska området, bland annat på hur man ser på stödinsatser inom skola och rådgivning. Yrkesrollen som rådgivare på Specialpedagogiska skolmyndigheten innebär ett stödjande arbete som utgår från ett av regeringen utformat myndighetsuppdrag. Arbetet har ett specialpedagogiskt fokus där det handledande samtalet utgör ett av de främsta verktygen. Det är också en yrkesroll som utifrån skolpolitiska uppdrag och samhällsutveckling ständigt är i förändring.Inom forskningsfältet specialpedagogik och skola pågår studier internationellt såväl som i Sverige kring handledning och samtalspraktiker. Ett centralt tema i dessa är perspektivval, i meningen vems lärande som är i fokus för samtalen. Fortsatt forskning kring ämnet efterfrågas och i dagsläget saknas studier kring rådgivares yrkesroll i förhållande till uppdrag och en samtalande praktik.Syftet med undersökningen är att studera yrkessocialisation bland rådgivare inom en statlig myndighet. Utgångspunkten tas i deras berättelser och beskrivna erfarenheter.Undersökningen har yrkeslivsberättelser och ett specialpedagogiskt perspektiv som utgångspunkt där ämnet beaktas utifrån individ såväl som grupp, kollektiv och organisation. Den innefattar ett språkligt såväl som kollektivt lärandeperspektiv. I första hand har undersökningen ett hermeneutiskt och livsberättelsegrundat förhållningssätt med utgångspunkt i narrationsforskningsteorier.Resultatet visar på en komplex verksamhet där rådgivare beskriver ett spänningsfält mellan de egna och organisationens förväntningar ur ett kunskapsutvecklingsperspektiv. Kollaborativt och kollegialt lärande utgör en viktig faktor för arbetet inom organisationens samtliga nivåer.

Context and rationale – This work originates from policy priorities established within Defra to manage exotic animal diseases (EAD); specifically to understand the causes of low probability events, and to establish contingencies to manage outbreak incidents. Outbreaks of exotic animal diseases, e.g. FMD, CSF and HPAI, can cause economic and social impacts of catastrophic proportions. The UK’s government develops and implements policies and controls to prevent EAD and thus minimise these impacts. Control policies to achieve this are designed to address the vulnerabilities within the control systems. However, data are limited for both the introduction of an EAD as well as its resurgence following the disposal of infected carcasses, i.e. the pre-outbreak and post-outbreak phases of an EAD event. These lack of data compromises the development of policy interventions to improve protection. To overcome these data limitations, predictive models are used to predict system vulnerabilities. Cont/d.

University students experience a range of life events whilst studying. Extensive research has established that university life events (events that are synonymous with studying) can be associated with student dropout from university. However, less is known about what university life events are experienced collectively by student ‘persisters’ (individuals who do not dropout). This study therefore sought to establish when persisters reported (and how they perceived) experiencing university life events. Between-group differences amongst students were considered. Life events have been attributed to personal change which can manifest in a number of ways, including change in career and professionalism. Understanding the associations between life events and career/professional development could serve to enhance the support that a university could provide to students in these areas. Consequently whether/when university life events were associated with students’ career thoughtfulness, decidedness and professionalism was addressed. An Interpretivist epistemological orientation was assumed and a comparative case study design was employed (involving three data collection phases). Phase one (pilot work) employed interviews and repertory grids to identify the range of events that student persisters might experience whilst studying at university; tentative between-group differences were considered. Based upon pilot work findings, three instruments were constructed, piloted and validated (phase two).These instruments addressed 1) university life event experiences; 2) career thoughtfulness and decidedness; and 3) professionalism status. Phase three (main study) involved administering the instruments quasi-longitudinally to students from two fundamentally different courses (‘professional’ (associated with a very well-defined career route and emphasis on specific professional development) and ‘generalist’ (associated with a more open-ended career route and less prescribed professional development)) at the start and end of the academic year. Result accuracy was checked through follow-up interviews with lecturers. III Trends were established between student groups in terms of what university life events were experienced and how these were perceived. Differences in reporting were found based on year group, course type and time of the academic year. Based on collective data, experiences most synonymous with specific stages of studying on a professional or generalist course were identified and are discussed. Different life events were found to be associated with enhanced or reduced career thoughtfulness, decidedness and professionalism throughout the academic year. Findings were considered holistically and an overview of how life events are associated with these areas was presented. Follow-up interviews overwhelmingly supported questionnaire findings. Explanations for findings and result applicability were considered. Suggestions for future work and recommendations are presented.

In the United States (U.S.), extreme temperature-related deaths account for far more deaths than hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes combined. An extreme heat event (EHE) or a heat wave is a sustained period of substantially hotter and/or more humid weather. EHEs cause a wide range of health problems such as rashes, cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and, in some instances, death. Further, meteorology plays a dominant role in the formation of air pollutants. In particular, extremely high temperatures are conducive to the formation of certain air pollutants. In order to understand the adverse health impacts of extreme heat and air pollution levels prevailing during EHEs, it is necessary to define what constitutes a heat episode; however, there is a lack of scientific consensus on definitions and procedures to accurately identify EHEs. This work employs a hierarchical clustering technique to group 92 different EHE definitions into homogeneous sets and uses negative binomial rate regression approach to identify those definitions that are most strongly associated with mortality. Our findings suggest that definitions with thresholds that are either too extreme or too moderate are poorly associated with heat-related mortality for most climate regions. Additionally, the association between air pollution and health, especially mortality, is well understood. However, the role of air pollutants in modifying the relationship between EHEs and mortality is not well characterized in the U.S., yet is critical to generating accurate estimates of health burden. Our results indicate that air pollution confounds the relationship between EHE and mortality, and the extent of confounding varies with climate regions. Further, through this work, the sensitivities associated with selecting an EHE definition is taken into consideration when providing region-specific health and economic burden associated with EHEs. Ideally, the excess deaths and costs presented in this work could be useful to study and quantify the public health risk associated with EHEs, either in a prospective or a retrospective setting.

This dissertation presents three essays on asset pricing and econometrics. The first chapter identifies rare events and long-run risks simultaneously from a rich data set (the Barro-Ursua macroeconomic data set) and evaluates their contributions to asset pricing in a unified framework. The proposed model of rare events and long-run risks is estimated using a Bayesian Markov-chain Monte-Carlo method, and the estimates for the disaster process are closer to the data than those in the previous studies. Major evaluation results in asset pricing include: (1) for the unleveraged annual equity premium, the predicted values are 4.8%, 4.2%, and 1.0%, respectively; (2) for the Sharpe ratio, the values are 0.72, 0.66, and 0.15, respectively. / Economics

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Η πιθανή επίδραση της μεταβλητότητας της ροής της κοσμικής ακτινοβολίας στη νέφωση, στην ατμοσφαιρική κατακρήμνιση και συνεπώς στο πλανητικό ισοζύγιο ακτινοβολίας έχει εγείρει μια έντονη έρευνα τα τελευταία χρόνια. Επιχειρείται μια κριτική ανασκόπηση των εργασιών στις οποίες έχει μελετηθεί η σχέση μεταξύ γαλαξιακών κοσμικών ακτίνων και ατμοσφαιρικών διεργασιών και το ενδιαφέρον επικεντρώνεται σε αυτές που αφορούν στην επίδραση των βραχυχρόνιων μεταβολών της γαλαξιακής κοσμικής ροής στα νέφη και την ατμοσφαιρική κατακρήμνιση. Η συσχέτιση μεταξύ των επεισοδίων βροχόπτωσης και της κοσμικής ακτινοβολίας είναι πολύ μικρή για να αποδείξει άμεση επίδραση των κοσμικών ακτίνων στην ατμόσφαιρα. Συνεπώς, σκοπός αυτής της μελέτης είναι να ερευνήσει τη συσχέτιση μεταξύ των επεισοδίων βροχόπτωσης και των μειώσεων της γαλαξιακής κοσμικής ακτινοβολίας σε ημερήσια βάση. Η μεθοδολογία που υιοθετείται παρέχει έναν χρήσιμο τρόπο διαχωρισμού του σήματος της γαλαξιακής κοσμικής ακτινοβολίας από άλλες πιθανές εξωτερικές και εσωτερικές επιδράσεις στην ατμοσφαιρική κατακρήμνιση. Η βασικότερη μέριμνα αυτής της μελέτης είναι ο προσδιορισμός ενός προτύπου επιβεβαίωσης του ορίου μείωσης και της χρονικής περιόδου της κοσμικής ακτινοβολίας που θεωρείται ως μείωση Forbush, αφού και στη βιβλιογραφία η μείωση Forbush ορίζεται μάλλον αυθαίρετα. Η μείωση του ρυθμού ατμοσφαιρικής κατακρήμνισης κατά τη διάρκεια των μειώσεων Forbush είναι σύμφωνη με τα αποτελέσματα της ερευνητικής εργασίας και άλλων επιστημόνων. Τέλος, εκτιμάται ένας πιθανός μηχανισμός μικροφυσικής των νεφών που ερμηνεύει τη συμπεριφορά των μειώσεων Forbush για τα πολύ έντονα επεισόδια βροχόπτωσης. Η πειραματική μελέτη των θεμελιωδών μικροφυσικών αλληλεπιδράσεων μεταξύ της κοσμικής ακτινοβολίας και των νεφών και η ανάπτυξη νέας τεχνολογίας οργάνων θα βοηθήσει στην κατανόηση του φυσικού μηχανισμού κοσμικές ακτίνες - νέφη - κλίμα. / The possible influence of variability of the cosmic ray flux on cloud cover, on precipitation and thus on the radiation budget of the planet, has stimulated a lively investigation during the recent years. We attempt a critical review cites of those papers studying the relation between galactic cosmic rays and atmospheric processes and we focus on those which pertain the influence of short - term changes of galactic cosmic flux on clouds and precipitation. The correlation between precipitation events and cosmic rays is very low to prove the direct influence of cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Consequently, the scope of this study is to investigate the correlation between precipitation events and galactic cosmic ray decreases on a diurnal basis. The methodology adopted provides a useful way to dissociate the signal of galactic cosmic rays from other possible external and internal influences on precipitation. The basic concern of this study is the determination of a model to confirm the limit of cosmic ray decrease and the corresponding time of occurrence assumed as a Forbush decrease, since this decrease is arbitrarily defined in literature. The determined decrease of precipitation rate during the Forbush decreases is in accordance to the results of other scientists. Finally, we estimate a possible cloud microphysical mechanism which may interpret the impact of Forbush decreases for the heavy precipitation events. The experimental study of the fundamental microphysical interactions between cosmic rays and clouds and the development of new instrumentation will help to understand the physical mechanism cosmic rays – clouds – climate.

This project examines the connections between popular Mexican celebrations, such as Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe and Día de los muertos, and transnational communities established in the United States in order to better understand the functions and ways in which cultural events and non-governmental organizations contribute to the (re)articulation of identity, representation, and community building in communities of residency. The aim is to study in depth the connections between Mexican transnational communities, many of them indigenous, and these popular cultural celebrations and events that take place in Mexico and in the United States. There are two regions in which transnational migrants from the Mixtec region in southern Mexico reside in significant numbers: the New York Metropolitan area, especially in New York City, and Southern California. In my analysis, I apply an eclectic methodology, stemming from Cultural Studies, Performance Studies, and Border Studies while also engaging with the work of Mexican academics in the field of Transnationalism and Anthropology. My project contends that these events reveal transnational and transregional elements that contribute to fulfill the needs of immigrants in the United States, many of who live in this country undocumented. The dissertation demonstrates how Mexican transnational communities participate in a complex system of networks that go beyond the binary perspective traditionally considered in migration studies of communities of origin and communities of arrival, while responding to a greater need to study transnational cultural events from a bi-national perspective.

Almost half of all graduate students leave their doctoral programs without finishing. Who leaves, taking which skills and strengths with them, is still poorly understood, however, because it is hard to measure exactly what graduate students learn in their doctoral programs. Since the expertise required of a PhD holder is highly dependent on discipline, the development of a better understanding of graduate education and attrition requires studying the process at the departmental level.This is a qualitative study of the cultural values and norms of academic astronomy, as transmitted through the socialization of graduate students into giving talks, asking questions, and participating in departmental speaking events. This study also looks at the conflicts that arise when implicit cultural norms, which are practiced but remain unacknowledged, are inconsistent with the official, explicit values and norms for speaking in astronomy.Doctoral students and faculty members in a single astronomy department, at a large western university, filled out a short survey about the stakes involved in astronomy speaking events. A subset of these individuals was interviewed in-depth about the goals of, and their experiences with, five departmental speaking events: Coffee Hour, Journal Club, research talks, Thesis defense talks, and Colloquia. These interviewees were: (1) graduate students who had given a verbal presentation at one of these events, and (2) graduate students and faculty members who were in the audience at a graduate student's presentation.The desired outcomes which were expressed for these speaking events included: (1) lively, informal discussion among all participants, (2) increasing graduate student verbal participation in these events as they "learn to speak like astronomers," and (3) the utility of these events in helping graduate students learn and practice their speaking and reasoning skills related to astronomy research. In practice these goals were not achieved due to: (1) the ubiquitous, but unacknowledged practice of judging others' speech performance to come to negative conclusions about those individuals' intentions, intellectual abilities or efforts, (2) a lack of feedback for graduate students on their verbal performances, and (3) a lack of faculty members making explicit their own solutions to the inherent dilemmas of academic speaking.