This thesis investigates the profitability of the momentum strategy in the Swedish stock market. The momentum strategy is an investment strategy where past winners are bought and past losers are sold short. In this paper Swedish stocks are analyzed during the period 1999 – 2007 with the approach first used by Jegadeesh and Titman (1993). The results indicate that momentum investing is profitable on the Swedish market. The main contribution to the profits is derived from investing in winners while the losers in most cases do not contribute at all to total profits. The profits remain after correcting for transaction costs for longer termed strategies while they diminish for the shorter termed ones. Compared to the market index, buying past winners yield an excess return while short selling of losers tend to make index investing more profitable. The analysis also shows that momentum can not be explained by the systematic risk of the individual stocks. The evidence in support of a momentum effect presented in this thesis also implies that predictable price patterns can be used to make excess returns; this contradicts the efficient market hypothesis.

This thesis investigates whether or not changes in a country’s government debt could affect its domestic stock market performance. The relationship is investigated by examining three different European countries, Germany, Portugal and Sweden, on the basis of two variables; (1) quarterly government debt changes as a percentage of gross domestic product and (2) the quarterly stock market changes over the time period2000:Q2 – 2011:Q2. The evidence is presented with help of Ordinary Least Square Method and Granger Causality test for each respective country. According to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, stock market prices should fully reflect all relevant information, e.g. government debt changes, as soon as they occur, without any delay, if the market is efficient. Past information should be insignificant and therefore not affect the stock market prices in an efficient market. In the cases of Sweden and Germany, the results proved to be ambiguous and thus do not allow for either rejection or acceptance of the Efficient Market Hypothesis with respect to government debt changes. However, some support was found in the case of Germany since the government debt changes and the stock market performance were instantaneously correlated. The empirical results presented in this thesis further allowed for the assumption that Portugal was not able to efficiently capture changes in the debt levels without any delay. This indicates that the Efficient Market Hypothesis can be rejected in regards for Portugal with respect to government debt changes. Furthermore, since the Portuguese stock market performance was not able to capture efficiently changes in the government debt level, it hence could possibly mislead the direction of the economy when looking into the stock prices to determine economic conditions. Moreover, the results imply that each country faces different relationships between the variables and that the relationships possibly could depend on the economic health of a country.

In this thesis, I examine how auditors construct their mental representations and test their hypotheses about the strength of a client’s control environment. With regard to the former, I hypothesize that management’s frame of the control system and auditor’s retrieval of control environment information from memory may influence the auditor’s control environment mental representation and impact subsequent audit judgments. Consistent with my theoretical predictions, I find that retrieval of control environment information from memory biases an auditor’s mental representation, and that this biased mental representation impacts subsequent fraud assessment. In addition, there is limited evidence to support the conjecture that auditors may be susceptible to management’s framing of the internal control system resulting in relatively positive control environment evaluations which was found to transfer to some subsequent audit judgments. With regard to the latter, prior audit literature has examined how auditors evaluate person specific characteristics, such as competence, of other auditors, however there has been no research that has examined how auditors test such characteristics of client management. I disentangle whether auditors utilize a diagnostic and/or a conservative hypothesis testing strategy when testing client management’s ethicality and competence as these are fundamental components of the client’s control environment. A diagnostic testing strategy is evidenced by the auditor searching for the most informative information, whereas a conservative testing strategy is evidenced by the auditor searching for risks. I examine how a checklist decision aid contained in the current institutional context may inhibit auditors’ utilization of a diagnostic testing strategy, and examine how a schematic decision aid is able to enhance diagnostic testing. The results indicate that auditors utilize both diagnostic and conservative testing strategies when testing client management ethicality; however, the auditor’s testing strategy is only diagnostic when testing client management competence. In regard to decision aids, I found that when testing client management ethicality and competence, a schematic decision aid was able to increase the auditor’s extent of diagnostic testing. The checklist decision aid decreased the auditor’s extent of diagnostic testing only when testing client management ethicality, and was not different from unaided judgments when testing client management competence. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2011-02-22 13:43:07.232

This manuscript-based thesis explores the relationship between learning and development. The first manuscript reviews the important empirical regularities identified in human discrimination shift learning, including a qualitative age-related change in performance observed in childhood. Leading theoretical accounts of the empirical data are discussed, suggesting that none provides a comprehensive interpretation. The manuscript presents the novel, spontaneous overtraining interpretation. It hypothesizes that age-related changes in human shift learning stem from differences in amount of processing. Successful neural network simulations of the reversal and nonreversal shift tasks and of the optional shift task are reported as tests of the hypothesis. / The second manuscript reports simulations of additional discrimination shift tasks. These are the intradimensional and extradimensional shift tasks, in which novel stimuli are introduced in the relearning phase. Preschoolers and adults exhibit the same pattern of behavior in this variant of shift learning. Simulation results show that the spontaneous overtraining hypothesis captures this effect. / The third chapter reports an empirical validation of the shift learning model. If the shift learning performance of adults is a consequence of more extensive processing, it follows that adults in whom such processing is prevented should perform as preschoolers. Sixty adults took part in a shift learning experiment with a Brown-Peterson task as a cognitive load. Results mirror those observed with preschoolers. As a control, 40 adults performed the shift learning experiment without the cognitive load. These results replicate the typical adult performance. Overall, these experiments lend additional support to the model developed in Manuscript 1. / The final manuscript is a theoretical discussion of the relationship between learning and development. Two classes of neural networks are discussed, and their underlying assumptions about learning and development are highlighted. These are static architecture and generative architecture networks. It is argued that only generative algorithms, such as used in the shift learning simulations, qualify as developmental models. Both classes of networks are further contrasted with respect to innateness. The comparison suggests that only generative networks can acquire genuinely new representations. The manuscript proposes a novel formulation of Piaget's constructivism from the generative neural network perspective.

This study explores the Australian and New Zealand media-government relationship during foreign instability and regional military intervention. It offers a critique of print media coverage and political communication during the 2002-2003 Solomon Islands crisis and the subsequent Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. By reviewing the Indexing Hypothesis and CNN Effect, this thesis considers media and government data from the year preceding the intervention. By investigating the media-government relationship in the Pacific region, this study builds on the literature that has so far primarily focused on American and European led interventions. Previous research has illustrated the advantages and limitations to specific methodological practises. This study has drawn from the current literature to form a unique methodical approach. The methods to test the Australian and New Zealand media-government relationship include content analysis, and qualitative techniques for use in four complementary tests. Findings from this study indicate that while there is some degree of the media using the political elite as a cue for newsworthy issues, the media appear to often report independently from the political elite perspectives. The political elite set the range of debate, and while the media stay within this range, they appear to sensationalise certain aspects of the debate. Government also appear to benefit from this media behaviour as it uses the media to gauge responses during the policy formation process.

It is commonly said that 11:00 A.M. Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. The contact theory explains how interracial contact can help to ameliorate racism - and this type of interaction can easily be fostered in a church environment. Durkheim's idea of the "collective effervescence" felt in ritual experiences would be beneficial for crossing racial lines and improving race relations in the U.S. in multiracial churches. A great deal of recent sociological work has focused on the phenomenon of church segregation on a nationwide scale. This paper compares characteristics found in nationwide religious congregation surveys and case studies to the 2007 Kent County Congregations Survey to identify particularities in the Kent County region and scrutinize the previously identified characteristics and developing theories on multiracial congregations. In Kent County, the common characteristics of multiracial churches are being in an urban location (as opposed to a suburban or rural location), and having a higher percentage of theologically liberal members (for congregations less than 20 years old). Implications and suggestions for further research follow.

No description available.

Supramolecular polymers have a practical impact on the healthcare field as they can act as scaffolds to repair parts of organs such as the brain or heart. In addition, they can provide insight into theories relating to the origins of life. For instance, the hypothesis that RNA played a more important role in early biology, the RNA World hypothesis, would be strengthened if there were a way to show the spontaneous formation of RNA-like polymers from monomer units. However, the natural nucleobases do not assemble at the monomer level, nor do they form nucleosides readily with ribose, leading some to speculate that the first nucleobases may have been different from the ones used in biology today. This conundrum encouraged us to begin looking for alternative nucleobases that are able to self-assemble into polymers capable of storing information. Our lab has recently demonstrated that a modified 2,4,6-triaminopyrimidine (TAP) will assemble with cyanuric acid (CA) in water through interactions that are analogous to those between complementary nucleobases found in DNA and RNA. When TAP is modified at one of its three faces, it can pair through specific hydrogen bonding with CA on two of its faces, forming rosette structures. These rosettes self-assemble to form extremely long structures through the stacking of tens of thousands of rosettes. In this study we are investigating prebiotically relevant syntheses of TAP nucleosides. Using chromatography techniques and nuclear magnetic resonance we found that the unmodified TAP with D-ribose formed nucleosides in 60% yields with the major product (20%) being a C-nucleoside 5-β-ribofuranosyl-2,4,6-triaminoprymidine or TARC. TARC forms hydrogels with CA, both in the crude reaction and after purification, indicative of the formation of supramolecular polymers out of a complex mixture. The results of this study provide support for the possibility of pre-RNA molecules.

Momentum, or the basic idea of the momentum effect in finance, is that there is a tendency for rising asset prices to continue rising, while the falling prices continue to fall. As such, a momentum strategy is based on the idea that previous returns will predict future returns. In order to follow this line of thought, a momentum strategy is generally based on buying past winners and taking short positions in past losers. This quantitative study addresses the phenomenon of momentum crashes, which is a moment in time when a momentum strategy fails, and past losers outperform past winners. In our study we are setting out to study the momentum crash phenomenon during the years of 2006-2012 on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm, focusing specifically on the Small- and Large Cap segments. As we intend to explore the concept of momentum crashes as thoroughly as possible, we will also be researching momentum itself during this time period, as these two concepts are inevitably intertwined. In order to do this, we will be applying commonly used portfolio construction methods used in previous momentum research. These portfolios will be based on past winners and past losers, and their performance will then be tracked for different lengths of time, which will allow us to identify points in time where momentum crashes have occurred. What we found in our research was that, while we gathered data indicative of momentum trends during our chosen time period, we could not prove that momentum existed to any statistically meaningful degree. As for momentum crashes, we identified many different points in time where the past-loser portfolios outperformed the past-winner portfolios, thus resulting in negative winner-minus-loser portfolios and momentum crashes. The most interesting aspect of these findings was that the highest frequencies of momentum crashes were found in the years of 2008 and 2009, where we made the most negative winner-minus-loser portfolio observations. This finding is in line with similar research on other populations, as momentum crashes are theorized to occur at a higher frequency during times of market stress and high volatility. Furthermore, we also made some interesting connections between our findings and behavioral finance; we identified certain patterns which could be indicative of a relationship between the two. As for the research gap and the ultimate contribution of this study, we have increased the knowledge, understanding and awareness of momentum crashes in Sweden, and we have shown during which times these are likely to occur in a Swedish context. Additionally, we have also increased the general knowledge of momentum by exploring it from a Swedish perspective.

Research shows that children often confuse facial expressions of fear with surprise and disgust with anger. According to the perceptual-attentional limitations hypothesis, facial expressions are confused because they share action units (Camras, 1980; Wiggers, 1982). Experiment 1 tested this hypothesis for the confusion between fear and surprise and Experiment 2 for the confusion between disgust and anger. Eye movements were monitored in both experiments. In experiment 1, the results showed that children were more accurate when two distinctive action units were presented than when the brow lowerer was the only distinctive action unit differentiating between fear and surprise. Furthermore, the results showed that participants spent more time fixating on the mouth than the eyebrows. They made more saccades when the only distinctive cue was in the eyebrows. In experiment 2, participants identified the emotion as anger when the mouth was open, and disgust when the mouth was closed, spending more time on the mouth when the mouth was open. These findings suggest that facial expressions are confused, not only because of the amount of visual similarities they share, but also because children do not allocate their attention to facial regions equally; they tend to focus on the mouth.