Two novel clock feedthrough compensation circuits for switched - current (SI) memory cells are proposed to reduce the clock feedthrough error. One is a current compensation first generation SI memory cell and another is an error voltage reduction second generation SI memory cell. Both circuits are designed using a 0.5£gm UMC CMOS process. In this study, the first circuit has obtained an accuracy about 0.1% error with a frequency of 5MHz, and the second circuit has achieved 0.12% error in accuracy with 10.5MHz in frequency. The results are obtained by SPICE simulates.

In the avian training community, a procedure has been utilized to maintain food reinforcer efficacy at high body weights. Elements of this procedure include limited holds and closed economies. To test this procedure, a baseline performance of keypecking on an FR 15 schedule at 80% ad lib weight for two pigeons was established. By imposing limited holds and a closed economy, rates of responding were increased compared to baseline, even while the pigeons were over 90% of their ad-lib body weights.

This research is concerned with the flight dynamic, pitch flight control and flying qualities assessment for the reference BWB aircraft. It aims to develop the longitudinal control laws which could satisfy the flying and handing qualities over the whole flight envelope with added consideration of centre of gravity (CG) variation. In order to achieve this goal, both the longitudinal stability augmentation system (SAS) and autopilot control laws are studied in this thesis. Using the pole placement method, two sets of local Linear-Time-Invariant (LTI) SAS controllers are designed from the viewpoints of flying and handing qualities assessment and wind disturbance checking. The global gain schedule is developed with the scheduling variable of dynamic pressure to transfer gains smoothly between these two trim points. In addition, the poles movement of short period mode with the varying CG position are analysed, and some approaches of control system design to address the problem of reduced stability induced by CG variation are discussed as well. To achieve the command control for the aircraft, outer loop autopilot both pitch attitude hold and altitude hold are implemented by using the root locus method. By the existing criteria in MIL-F-8785C specifications being employed to assess the augmented aircraft response, the SAS linear controller with automatic changing gains effectively improve the stability characteristic for the reference BWB aircraft over the whole envelope. Hence, the augmented aircraft equals to a good characteristic controlled object for the outer loop or command path design, which guarantee the satisfactory performance of command control for the BWB aircraft. The flight control law for the longitudinal was completed with the SAS controller and autopilot design. In particular, the SAS was achieved with Level 1 flying and handing qualities, meanwhile the autopilot system was applied to obtain a satisfactory pitch attitude and altitude tracking performance.

Officially and unofficially, Taiwan’s Global Private Banking business has established its significant market share in the region for around 20 years. It is no doubt that Taiwan is a very important market for international private banking industry. The rapid changing economical and political environments have spawned the demands of Taiwan rooted high net worth individuals for global financial solutions. The study focused on comparing the core marketing competencies of three European players ranging from big market dominator, emerging competitive player and a new entrant. The analysis framework is based on 4C model which is a core avenue to explore clients’ fears, needs, explicit and hidden expectations. 4C model sensitively unveils the tangible and intangible elements that hinder the efficiency of marketing success and provides direct and effective solutions to bankers to differentiate themselves in the fierce contention. The study raised the importance of priority for banks to the development of core competencies in increasing clients’ overt utility and abilities to hold-up clients. These are contemporary and trendy driving forces to PB bankers’ success. The study concluded with recommending the main differentiators from three perspectives – quality of marketers, innovative financial architectures and dynamic business models. The integration of well-established mechanisms from respective dimension will equip PB bankers’ distinguished competitiveness in managing ever-changing challenges and seizing the opportunities from this promising market.

Magíster en Economía Aplicada / Ingeniero Civil Industrial / En este trabajo se estudia un modelo de negociación secuencial entre dos agentes a la Rubinstein. La principal innovación presentada es la endogenización del protocolo de negociación y del monto a repartir en cada ronda. En el modelo, al principio de cada periodo, los jugadores pueden esforzarse para incrementar el monto disponible, lo que si bien es privadamente costoso, aumenta la probabilidad de manejar la agenda de negociación en el periodo. Este trabajo caracteriza la dinámica de la negociación y las ineficiencias en equilibrio perfecto en subjuegos. Los principales resultados son los siguientes. Primero, se caracteriza la dinámica de la creación de los beneficios del proyecto. Se muestra que esta consiste de una fase de construcción pura del monto a repartir, en la cual los jugadores se esfuerzan aun cuando la negociación no llegará a su fin, y de una fase de repartición, en la cual los jugadores llegarán a acuerdo y el juego termina. Los agentes ejercen esfuerzo a pesar de que la negociación no terminará porque prefieren hacerlo crecer hasta un monto mayor para luego dividirlo y obtener una ganancia más grande. Segundo, conforme avanza la negociación, los jugadores van ejerciendo un esfuerzo mayor hasta llegar al máximo posible. Hay dos efectos que motivan la realización de esfuerzo, el primero es que no es rentable tener periodos en que no haya crecimiento del monto a repartir porque esto implica una ineficiencia causada por el costo temporal, la cual es mayor a medida que el monto a repartir es más grande. El segundo es la posibilidad de manejar la agenda de negociación, lo que entrega un beneficio mayor al hacerlo, el cual se va incrementando a medida que crece el monto a repartir. En los primeros periodos en que se llega a acuerdo domina el primer efecto porque el beneficio extra por manejar la agenda no es tan grande en comparación con el costo del esfuerzo, no obstante a medida que el monto a repartir aumenta, el beneficio de ser quién controla la negociación también se incrementa, lo que lleva a que el segundo efecto sea mayor. Por último, el tercer resultado es que el monto final que se reparte es menor que el deseable socialmente. La intuición es que el jugador que maneja la agenda sabe que en periodos futuros enfrentará competencia, lo que significa que para volver a ser quien controla la negociación tendrá que incurrir nuevamente en un costo. Además existe un problema de Hold-Up debido a que el jugador que maneja la agenda no puede asegurar que los beneficios por el esfuerzo realizado le pertenezcan en futuras rondas. Esto genera que el agente prefiera asegurar su pago periodos antes de lo socialmente deseable, decidiendo llegar a acuerdo.

Apples and pears may be related fruits, but that does not mean they are the same! If I were to host a dinner party and intended to bake and serve an apple tart, but was delivered pears, I would end up with a pear frangipane and some very disappointed house guests. The context in which words are communicated is very important - apples and pears could relate to fruits or indeed stairs. Recognising intention as being important even in social contracts highlights the importance of intention in commercial transactions. The utility of contract law is to facilitate the agreement of parties and the rights and obligations assumed by them -this is the true essence of contract. Reverting to the analogy above, indemnity clauses although in some cases achieving similar ends as exclusion clauses, are not intended to result in exclusions of liability but are a more specific method of contractual risk management. One could infer that parties who specifically make use of indemnity clauses do not intend these to function as limitation of liability clauses, neither would they have intended such clauses be construed an exclusion of liability. Exclusion clauses could be construed as defences to accrued rights, however a central theme in this thesis is that an exclusion clause is clear in its function- it negates the accrual of a primary duty, implied by law. An indemnity on the other hand undeniably relates to secondary obligations to compensate or make good loss upon breach of primary obligations to perform. An indemnity clause, transfers secondary obligations to compensate to another who has assumed such obligation(s). In most cases the transferred obligation is financial; an indemnity is similar to a contractual insurance in this sense. An indemnity clause is not an exclusion clause. The difference is not only academic but also relevant to commerce. As the indemnity becomes a more common feature in high risk and high value contracting, certainty of its meaning is all too important. Where an indemnity is misconstrued as an exclusion of liability, the latter a duty defining clause, this could have an effect on the insurance arrangements between the parties ultimately making the venture uneconomical for one or both of the parties. The certainty of a contractual term enhances its effectiveness and consequently reduces the economic transaction costs of its inclusion. Thus, parties can focus on the first stage of Posner's transaction cost theory – 'negotiations and drafting' enhancing the utility of contract law.

At seventeen, I lost my fourteen-year old brother in a shooting accident. After hearing the news of my brother’s death, my Great Aunt Mary wrote a letter to my family. The one line I remember was “I’ve heard that it takes three years to heal from the passing of a loved one.” Five years after Jacob’s death, I was once again confronted with losing a brother. Jaxon was born and died within twenty-four hours. I hadn’t yet “healed” from Jacob’s death, and I didn’t know how to do so. The elusive nature of memory when confronted with personal trauma calls into question issues of identity. Does the previous self still exist after loss? In this memoir I document the impact of tragic grief and how death not only informs how we perceive the future, but how we interpret our past selves. Through the tri-part structure, I experiment with viewpoint, beginning with a first person “I,” struggling to fit my brothers’ deaths into a single narrative line. From here, the narrative shatters as I reflect upon my childhood self with a different lens and the distance of third person--the self being so fractured, there is no “I” left. Finally, the memoir moves to direct address, speaking to Jacob. Jacob is now a “you,” an alive and vibrant presence that becomes a part of the narrator as she explores her grief and begins to piece herself back together. Through this exploration, she discovers that “healing” is complex and that art can both aid in the process and chart the path.

The digital product increases widely and vastly. We need a converter to change analog signal to digital one. However, the requirement of analog-to-digital converter is rising due to progress of DSP (Digital Signal Processor). In most ADC structure there have an important building block called the front-end sample-and-hold circuit (SHA) . I will design and implement a high speed and low power sample and hold circuit. In this thesis, the circuits are designed with UMC 90nm 1P9M CMOS process and 1.2V of supply voltage. The speed and resolution of SHA are 100Ms/s and 10bits individually. The circuit is implemented with class AB amplifier.

The purpose of this research is to study the effect of market conditions on the performance of IPOs which is relevant information for investors and companies alike, involved with IPOs. The long-term underperformance of IPOs has been previously discussed by Loughran & Ritter (1995) which has later been named as the “New Issuance Puzzle” of IPOs. This underperformance, however, has later been contradicted by research from Carter et al. (2011) who did not find long-term underperformance of IPOs. By studying the previous research of Helwege & Liang (2004), who examined IPO issuances under different hot and cold IPO periods, we found a research gap of what effect the market conditions have on the IPO issuance.   By analysing the performance under different time periods, we compare the results to an index benchmark with matching time periods of the IPO issuing companies under our full sample period. We can then analyse the performance of the IPOs compared to their respective benchmark. By adding an analysis of hot/cold and bull/bear market conditions under which the IPOs were conducted, we will observe the effect of IPO performance under different market conditions.   Our positivistic and ontological view guided our article and research process. We relied on a deductive approach in order to test our anticipated outcomes and hypotheses. Articles yielding substantive theories, based on the explanation of middle-range theories serve as the benchmark of our theoretical framework.   The research came to a conclusion where we did not observe underperformance of the IPOs in the long-term, which contradicts the “New Issuance Puzzle” of Loughran & Ritter (1995). We could observe underperformance (overperformance) of IPOs under hot (cold) period market conditions when we defined the hot and cold market periods in accordance with the number of IPO issuance during each year. In accordance to initial first month IPO returns, we observe overperformance (underperformance) of hot (cold) period IPOs. We also included bull and bear market conditions into our research, where we could find patterns that the number of issuance had the same distribution as the bull and bear market conditions currently consisting on the market. The index of OMXS30 had the same price movement as the number of issuance each year. Therefore the number of issuance each year could hypothetically be used as an indicator of the future market performance of the OMX Stockholm. We did not find statistical significance of abnormal returns on the IPO market under different market conditions

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Paderborn 2001. / Includes bibliographical references and index.