Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-166). Also available via the World Wide Web.

This study in constitutional history argues that the American framers created the Constitution of 1787 to address the problem of coercion in American society. It demonstrates that the framers’ antecedent commitment to a conception of the law that made coercion its sine qua non best explains why they sought fundamental reconstitution rather than amendment in 1787, and why they made certain choices and not others in establishing and administering the first federal government in the decade after ratification. The research revolves around two central questions. First, why did coercion concern the framers? Certainly a number of concrete policy-related failures coming to a head in 1787 starkly illuminated both the Continental Congress’s want of enforcement powers and the foundering magistracies in the states. Part I, however, situates the coercion problem in a deeper historico-intellectual context. The American Revolution produced a constitutional discourse that made the consent of the governed its essential ingredient and government by coercion ipso facto illegitimate and unrepublican. At the same time, the Revolution unleashed egalitarian social thinking predicated on the belief in an absolute equality of mind, ability, and opportunity among individuals. Part I shows that the principles of popular consent and individual equality had real legal consequences in the decade after Independence that scholars have overlooked. Specifically, the principle of consent produced a revolution against independent judicial power and the principle of equality produced a revolution against professional lawyers and the common law. Both insurgencies posed special threats to legal professionalism as such and both advanced upon a single shared legal ideal: law without force. Fearing anarchy and seeking to secure their own place within the constitutional order, American lawyers calling themselves Federalists waged a counterrevolution against this conception of law in 1787. But how? Those few historians who have acknowledged the Federalists’ stated commitment to the principle of coercion in 1787 have downplayed its practical significance in the early republic. They have suggested that Federalist legislators and administrators ultimately bowed to the strong anti-statist currents in American society and avoided coercive enforcement measures in the 1790s. Part II shows otherwise. The analysis recovers an originally understood constitutional structure of coercion that included military, magisterial, and judicial sanctions, to operate in accordance with a priority scheme that partially accommodated the inherited republican aversion to the deployment of military force in domestic affairs. It further demonstrates that in the decade after ratification the Federalists brought the constitutional structure of coercion to bear on individuals and states within the union in every area that concerned the framers and nothing in either the Jeffersonian ascendancy or the Revolution of 1800 immediately compromised the Federalists’ achievements in this regard. The constitutional structure of coercion’s effective implementation in the 1790s best explains why the first federal government succeeded where the Continental Congress had failed.

This dissertation studies newly founded U.S. firms’ survival using three different releases of the Kauffman Firm Survey. I study firms’ survival from a different perspective in each chapter. The first essay studies firms’ survival through an analysis of their initial state at startup and the current state of the firms as they gain maturity. The probability of survival is determined using three probit models, using both firm-specific variables and an industry scale variable to control for the environment of operation. The firm’s specific variables include size, experience and leverage as a debt-to-value ratio. The results indicate that size and relevant experience are both positive predictors for the initial and current states. Debt appears to be a predictor of exit if not justified wisely by acquiring assets. As suggested previously in the literature, entering a smaller-scale industry is a positive predictor of survival from birth. Finally, a smaller-scale industry diminishes the negative effects of debt. The second essay makes use of a hazard model to confirm that new service-providing (SP) firms are more likely to survive than new product providers (PPs). I investigate the possible explanations for the higher survival rate of SPs using a Cox proportional hazard model. I examine six hypotheses (variations in capital per worker, expenses per worker, owners’ experience, industry wages, assets and size), none of which appear to explain why SPs are more likely than PPs to survive. Two other possibilities are discussed: tax evasion and human/social relations, but these could not be tested due to lack of data. The third essay investigates women-owned firms’ higher failure rates using a Cox proportional hazard on two models. I make use of a never-before used variable that proxies for owners’ confidence. This variable represents the owners’ self-evaluated competitive advantage. The first empirical model allows me to compare women’s and men’s hazard rates for each variable. In the second model I successively add the variables that could potentially explain why women have a higher failure rate. Unfortunately, I am not able to fully explain the gender effect on the firms’ survival. Nonetheless, the second empirical approach allows me to confirm that social and psychological differences among genders are important in explaining the higher likelihood to fail in women-owned firms.

No description available.

No description available.

M.S.

The objective of this thesis investigation was to design an experiment to investigate superheat effect on gate velocities pressurized and unpressurized gating system each having two gates, and to analyze statistically any interrelationship between these variables in CO₂ molds. A discussion on metal flow through different parts of a gating system, with a minimum of turbulence and gas aspiration, and a discussion of hydrodynamic principles relating to gating systems were given. The realization of these conditions is desirable because it results in improved casting, fewer rejects, and greater economy in a casting production. This was followed by a discussion on metal flow variables. Principle and use of instrumentation used in the experiment was discussed. Split-split-plot type of statistical design was used. Statistical analysis of results were made. The author concluded that, the type of gating system (pressurized or unpressurized) and individual gate location have significant effect, whereas superheat (100-300°F.) has no significant effect on gate velocities of aluminum - 12 percent silicon in CO₂ molds. Also, all the there variables are independent of each other. / Master of Science

The typical industrial enterprise has, to a large degree, been slow in accepting and implementing statistical principles in an overall program designed to improve the efficiency of the enterprise and its included functions. Where statistical principles are used, they are for the most part limited to purely mechanical functions involving specific machinery applications. This thesis proposes that the limited use of statistical principles in purely mechanical applications makes use of only a small portion of the potential benefits available through more effective use of the principles involved in the science called Statistical Quality Control. This thesis proposes that through a systematic training program, beginning with use of control chart techniques in day to day operations, the responsible individuals comprising the four business functions, Specification, Production, Inspection, and Sales, may be made to realize the importance of the statistical term capability~of-process. Once the four functions are familiar with the true meaning of capability-of-process, this thesis proposes that the four functions will be better equipped to operate inter-functionally and intra-functionally in a controlled manner. The obvious advantage in operating within an overall capability-of-process framework lies in the ability of the users of such a system to attain realistic goals whether they be in the form of specifications or otherwise. Also of importance is the ability to know within predictable limits what may be expected from processes. This thesis proposes that processes must be defined in a broad sense to include the human, or, the organizational aspects involved in the enterprise. For illustrative purposes, a typical production foundry-machine shop complex was used for research data supporting the thesis. The research data results from a six year association of the researcher with the example enterprise. / Master of Science

Please read the abstract (Summary) in the section, 00front of this document / Thesis (PhD (Electronic Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / PhD / unrestricted