This thesis sets out to address the question: How is Swedish history put forward as expected identification in history textbooks for the years of compulsory schooling and how did this change during the period 1870-2000? This question is legitimate since the writing of history is a form of meaning-creation that is built through the merging of different components (place, time, actors, objectives, etc.) into a coherent narrative. The writing of history is therefore a form of power. The study include a quantitative total enquiry into all published history textbooks in Sweden between 1870-2000 aimed at compulsory schooling, as well as läroverk and gymnasium. In aim to map out and analyse the framing patterns displayed by the genre in order to answer questions about its characteristics and find out which have been the dominant history textbooks. These have formed basis for the qualitative investigation.   The genre has its own clear inherent components such as images which are used over a very long time and found in book after book and publisher after publisher. The genre of history textbooks has an independence in relation to current research in academia and equally The only time there is a fundamental change is after the 1950s and then the whole school system had been recast, but after a while the greater part of the elements under study returned. The results of the thesis point to the consumer side as being what largely upholds the tradition of the genre. A clear change is the significantly increased female representation during the 1990s. When the female representation is portrayed, it is more connected to traditional female values such as family than ever before. I argue that this is a consequence of the gender system’s logic of separation. When there is more space given to female representation, it becomes increasingly important to mark the boundaries between the female and the male.

[pt] O problema de como alocar ativos de forma eficiente tem sido uma das questões fundamentais em Finanças. Uma das mudanças recentes no mercado brasileiro tem sido o crescimento dos fundos de Contribuição Definida, seguindo a tendência observada em outros mercados. Entretanto, ao focalizar decisões de investimento sob o ponto de vista do investidor individual, surge a necessidade de incluir a tributação no processo de alocação de carteiras. Neste contexto, este trabalho analisa a decisão de alocação e localização preferencial para as classes de ativos, em veículos de investimento com tributação convencional, ou com diferimento de imposto, mediante a legislação local. O investidor possui dois tipos de riqueza, seu capital financeiro acumulado, e o capital humano, representado pela capacidade de gerar rendimentos futuros. A solução é obtida por alocação multiperiódica de recursos, seguindo o critério de maximização da utilidade esperada da riqueza final. Face à eficiência tributária dos fundos mútuos de ações domésticos, estes podem ser priorizados na localização externa aos planos com tributação diferida, coerente com resultados recentes para o mercado americano. Contudo, se existem diferenças nas rentabilidades das classes de ativos, nos distintos veículos de investimentos, aquela localização prioritária pode mudar, pelo menos para aplicações com objetivos a serem atingidos em prazos reduzidos. / [en] The question of how to allocate assets efficiently has been one of the central issues in Finance. As perceived in other markets, one of the recent trends in the Brazilian market has been the growth of Defined Contribution Funds. However, when focusing on investment decisions for individual investors, taxes must be taken into account. In this context, the asset allocation and location is solved for brazilian assets, when the investor has to save in both investment vehicles with conventional, and deferred taxation, according to the local rules. The investor has two kinds of wealth, the accumulated financial wealth, and the human capital, representing the cash-flows that can be produced in the future. The solution is obtained through multi-period asset allocation, for an investor maximizing the expected utility of terminal wealth. Due to the tax efficiency of domestic equity mutual funds, stocks should have preferential location outside the deferred account, in accordance with recent results for the american market. However, if there are performance differences among the asset classes, within distinct investment vehicles, that preferred location may change, at least for short term investment objectives.

Cette thèse traite de l’optimisation multiobjectif de fonctions coûteuses, aboutissant à laconstruction d’un front de Pareto représentant l’ensemble des compromis optimaux. En conception automobile, le budget d’évaluations est fortement limité par les temps de simulation numérique des phénomènes physiques considérés. Dans ce contexte, il est courant d’avoir recours à des « métamodèles » (ou modèles de modèles) des simulateurs numériques, en se basant notamment sur des processus gaussiens. Ils permettent d’ajouter séquentiellement des observations en conciliant recherche locale et exploration. En complément des critères d’optimisation existants tels que des versions multiobjectifs du critère d’amélioration espérée, nous proposons d’estimer la position de l’ensemble du front de Pareto avec une quantification de l’incertitude associée, à partir de simulations conditionnelles de processus gaussiens. Une deuxième contribution reprend ce problème à partir de copules. Pour pouvoir traiter le cas d’un grand nombre de variables d’entrées, nous nous basons sur l’algorithme REMBO. Par un tirage aléatoire directionnel, défini par une matrice, il permet de trouver un optimum rapidement lorsque seules quelques variables sont réellement influentes (mais inconnues). Plusieurs améliorations sont proposées, elles comprennent un noyau de covariance dédié, une sélection du domaine de petite dimension et des directions aléatoires mais aussi l’extension au casmultiobjectif. Enfin, un cas d’application industriel en crash a permis d’obtenir des gainssignificatifs en performance et en nombre de calculs requis, ainsi que de tester le package R GPareto développé dans le cadre de cette thèse. / This dissertation deals with optimizing expensive or time-consuming black-box functionsto obtain the set of all optimal compromise solutions, i.e. the Pareto front. In automotivedesign, the evaluation budget is severely limited by numerical simulation times of the considered physical phenomena. In this context, it is common to resort to “metamodels” (models of models) of the numerical simulators, especially using Gaussian processes. They enable adding sequentially new observations while balancing local search and exploration. Complementing existing multi-objective Expected Improvement criteria, we propose to estimate the position of the whole Pareto front along with a quantification of the associated uncertainty, from conditional simulations of Gaussian processes. A second contribution addresses this problem from a different angle, using copulas to model the multi-variate cumulative distribution function. To cope with a possibly high number of variables, we adopt the REMBO algorithm. From a randomly selected direction, defined by a matrix, it allows a fast optimization when only a few number of variables are actually influential, but unknown. Several improvements are proposed, such as a dedicated covariance kernel, a selection procedure for the low dimensional domain and of the random directions, as well as an extension to the multi-objective setup. Finally, an industrial application in car crash-worthiness demonstrates significant benefits in terms of performance and number of simulations required. It has also been used to test the R package GPareto developed during this thesis.

No description available.

The diploma thesis deals with the effectiveness of chosen fundamental analysis valuation methods on a sample of stocks. The sample consists of stocks traded on the Prague Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange. The Czech part of the sample consists of stocks of ČEZ, Erste Group Bank, Komerční banka, Philip Morris ČR and Telefónica O2. The American part of the sample includes stocks of Coca Cola, General Electric, Intel, Southern Company and Bank of America. These stocks are valued by dividend discount models and cash-flow models stepwise to the end of the years 2005 and 2006. As regards the dividend models, the Gordon model, the three-stage model and the H-model are applied whereas within the cash-flow models the DCF equity method was chosen. The effectiveness of the valuation process was subsequently tested over the course of three years by comparing the particular stock returns and the returns of the market portfolio represented by market index. The evaluation of effectiveness is then done in terms of the absolute, the relative and the portfolio effectiveness.

The dissertation called Economic and Psychological Aspects of a Consumer's Behaviour and Decision-Making is dedicated to a consumer's behaviour and decision-making in economic and financial issues from the perspective of classic economy, psychology and behavioural economy. The theoretical part describes the expected utility theory and psychological findings on one hand, and presents the so called Prospect Theory and systematic biases on the other hand. The practical part comprises a research. Mission of the questionnaire survey is to find out whether behaviour and decision-making are rational and correspond with the classic economy theory or whether consumers behave irrationally and verify presumptions of behavioural economy.

La educación es el instrumento clave para asegurar el éxito en el mercado laboral. Sin embargo, las características de este mercado laboral son factores importantes para decidir si resulta óptimo invertir en un año de educación adicional. Por ello, en esta investigación se analiza el efecto de las expectativas salariales sobre la decisión de participación en educación y cómo este eventualmente aseguraría la probabilidad de insertarse en el mercado laboral. Por tal motivo, se aplica el método de Heckprobit y se utiliza las Rondas 4ta y 5ta de la base de datos longitudinal del estudio internacional de Young Lives (Niños del Milenio)1. Debido a que esta información permite recoger los ingresos salariales del pasado para evaluar su efecto en el presente. La investigación concluye que se cumple la hipótesis de que las expectativas salariales no serían suficientes para decidir invertir en educación con el propósito de asegurarse la participación en el mercado laboral. Esto se debe a que el análisis se centra en jóvenes de 15 a 22 años que, en su mayoría, prefieren seguir educándose y depender de otras características para seguir invirtiendo en un año más de educación. / Education is the main instrument to guarantee success in the labor market. However, the characteristics of this labor market are important factors in deciding whether it is optimal to invest in an additional year of education. Therefore, this research analyzes the effect of salary expectations on the decision to participate in education and how this would eventually ensure the probability of the labor force participation. For this reason, the Heckprobit method is applied and Rounds 4 and 5 of the longitudinal database of the international Young Lives study are used. Due to, past salary income can be collected to evaluate its effect in the present. The research concludes that the hypothesis is fulfilled about the salary expectations would not be sufficient to encourage the education in order to ensure participation in the labor market. It is because, the analysis focuses on young people between 15 and 22 years old, who, for the most part, prefer to continue their education and depend on other characteristics to continue investing in another year of education. / Trabajo de investigación

No description available.

Insurance has been considered as a useful tool for farmers to mitigate income volatility. However, there remain concerns that insurance may distort crop production decisions. Positive mathematical programming (PMP) models of farmers’ cropping decisions can be applied to study the effect of agricultural business risk management (BRM) policies on farmers’ decisions on land use and their incomes. Before being used to examine agricultural producer responses to policy changes under the expected utility framework, the models must first be calibrated to obtain the values of the risk aversion coefficient and the cost function parameters. In chapter 2, three calibration approaches are compared for disentangling the risk parameter from the parameters of the cost function. Then, in chapter 3, to investigate the impacts on production incentives of changes in Canada’s AgriStability program, farm management models are calibrated for farms with different cost structures for three different Alberta regions. Results indicate that farmers’ observed attitudes towards risk vary with cost structure. After joining the program, all farmers alter their land allocations to some extent. The introduction of a reference margin limit (RML) in the AgriStability program under Growing Forward 2 (2013-2018), which was retained in the replacement legislation until 2020, has the most negative impact on farmers with the lowest costs. The removal of RML significantly increases the benefits to low-cost farmers. Traditional insurance products provide financial support to farmers. However, for fruit farmers, the products’ quality can be greatly affected by the weather conditions during the stage of fruit development and ripening, which may lead to quality downgrade and a significant loss in revenue with little impacts on yields. Hence, chapters 4 and 5 investigate the conceptual feasibility of using weather-indexed insurance (WII) to hedge against non-catastrophic, but quality-impacting weather conditions to complement existing traditional insurance. Prospect theory is applied to analyze a farmer’s demand for WII. The theoretical model demonstrates that an increase in the volatility of total revenue and the revenue proportion from blueberries increases the possibility of farmers’ participation in WII. On the other hand, the increase in the value loss aversion coefficient and WII’s basis risk leads to less demand for WII. To design a WII product for blueberry growers to hedge against quality risk, a quality index must be constructed and the relationship between key weather conditions, such as cumulative maximum temperature and cumulative excess rainfall, and the quality index should be quantified. The results from a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) show that the above goals are achievable. Further, rainfall and temperature can be modelled via a time-series model and statistical distributions, respectively, to provide reasonable estimates for calculating insurance premia. / Graduate / 2022-08-05

Experiencing and expressing emotions is an essential part of psychological well-being. It is for this reason that most graphic symbol sets used in the field of AAC include an array of symbols depicting emotions. However, to date, very limited research has been done on children’s ability to recognise and use these symbols to express feelings within different cultural contexts. The purpose of the current study was to describe and compare Afrikaans and Sepedi speaking grade R children’s choice of graphic symbols when depicting four basic emotions, i.e. happy; sad; afraid; and angry. After ninety participants (44 Afrikaans and 46 Sepedi speaking) passed a pre-assessment task, they were exposed 24 emotions vignettes. Participants had to indicate the intensity the protagonist in the story would experience. The next step was for the participants to choose a graphic symbol from a 16 matrix overlay which they thought best represented the symbol and intensity. The results indicated a significant difference at a 1% level between the two groups’ selection of expected symbols to represent emotions. Afrikaans speaking participants more often chose expected symbols than Sepedi speaking participants to represent different basic emotions. Sepedi speaking participants made use of a larger variety of symbols to represent the emotions. Participants from both language groups most frequently selected expected symbols to represent happy followed by those for angry and afraid with expected symbols for sad selected least frequently. Except for a significant difference at the 1% level for happy no significant differences were present between the intensities selected by the different language groups for the other three basic emotions. No significant differences between the two gender groups’ choices of expected symbols to represent emotions or between the intensities selected by the different gender groups were observed. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / Unrestricted