O objetivo principal deste trabalho é analisar o efeito da assimetria da informação no custo de capital próprio das empresas negociadas em bolsa de valores no Brasil. O tema está em constante debate sobre a existência dessa relação e até mesmo sobre sua relação com o custo de capital ser favorável ou não. A assimetria da informação foi estimada através da Probability of informed trading (PIN), mensurando de forma direta a existência de negociações com informação privilegiada para a confrontação com custo de capital das empresas brasileiras. O resultado encontrado não apresentou relação estatisticamente significante a 5% entre a PIN e o custo de capital, de forma que não foi possível verificar a relação entre assimetria da informação e o custo de capital. Adicionalmente, o coeficiente encontrado para a PIN no modelo adotado indica uma possível correlação negativa da variável estudada e o custo de capital, deste modo o estudo corrobora com a conclusão de Lambert et al. (2012), segundo a qual, em mercados líquidos, a assimetria da informação não exerce papel relevante e sim a quantidade e a qualidade da informação disponível, não importando a forma de entrada da informação no mercado. / The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the effect of information asymmetry on the cost of equity of companies traded in stock exchanges in Brazil. It is constantly debated whether this relationship exists and also whether information asymmetry\'s effect on the cost of equity is favorable or not. Information asymmetry has been estimated using the PIN (Probability of Informed Trading), directly measuring the existence of insider trading for confrontation with the cost of equity of Brazilian companies. The result obtained did not show a statistically significant relationship at the 5% level between the PIN and the cost of equity; therefore, it was not possible to ascertain the relationship between information asymmetry and cost of equity. Additionally, the coefficient found for the PIN on the selected model indicates a possible negative correlation between the studied variable and the cost of equity, which indicates that the study corroborates the conclusion of Lambert et al. (2012), according to which information asymmetry does not exert a significant role in liquid markets but rather this role is exerted by the quantity and quality of available information, regardless of how information reaches the market.

This study aims to evaluate the implementation of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) trainings in Johnson City, Tennessee, and the surrounding Appalachian area. Previous TIC trainees were sent an email survey asking them if they had followed through with their plan to implement the training at their place of work or in other areas of their lives. The response rate for this study was 2%, possibly due to extraneous variables such as the Coronavirus Pandemic and the lag time between the initial training and survey follow-up. The responses that were analyzed indicated promise for the practical implementation of TIC concepts at the companies involved in the training initiative. Additional research is needed in order to further analyze TIC implementation.

Rape culture permeates the landscape of post-secondary education throughout Canada. In recent years, student-survivors and advocates have been influential in the creation of provincial legislation mandating colleges and universities to develop stand-alone sexualized violence policies. In British Columbia these policies are to be institutionally reviewed every three years, but there is no clear legislative direction as to how these reviews should be conducted, or how survivors and advocates voices will be included. My thesis examines the impacts of campus sexualized violence and the integral role that student-survivors and their stories play in transforming rape culture. Through the voices of nine University of Victoria student-survivors and five community-based service providers, I demonstrate that student-survivors and those who support them act as both change-agents and subject matter-experts regarding campus rape culture; as such, their inclusion in policy development and review is essential. However, my thesis also demonstrates that student-survivors and advocates navigate an increasingly corporatized post-secondary environment, whereby the stories of student-survivors are considered dangerous to the campus brand and reputation. In taking seriously the trauma associated with sexualized violence and the consequences of the corporate campus, my thesis offers a Trauma Informed Consultation Guideline. This guideline provides a trauma-informed and community based approach to consulting student-survivors in policy review with the intention of creating safer opportunities for story to inform future policy directions. / Graduate

My study examines trauma informed practice (TIP) policies in BC, Canada. My chosen methodology, what is the problem represented to be (WPR) (Bacchi 2009), makes politics visible in policies. I am interested in the effects of trauma policies on women who experience male violence. How does discourse produce certain effects and constitute specific subjects within these texts? I extend a politicized analysis of TIP policies, specifically, an in-depth feminist post structural analysis. I advance an understanding of the effects of policy, particularly for women who have experienced male violence and who receive services under the TIP guidelines. I note the absence of an intersectional analysis and the lack of attention paid to power relations, specifically associated with the provision of care within the health care system, the construction of the traumatized female subject and the absence of a social justice lens in TIP policies. My study addresses the meanings, and resulting practices arising from the TIP policy and its impacts on women's lived experiences. My feminist post structural analysis provides a critique of TIP policies glaringly absent from the literature. I examine available literature, which evaluates TIP. My analysis deepens the understanding of the policy's inherent assumptions by revealing the problem of trauma, as represented in TIP policies. I explore the emergence of the dominant concept of trauma in the completion of a genealogy of trauma. I uncover the commonly accepted trauma ethos, a set of principles and beliefs about violence against women that has set the path for a trauma discourse in BC's guidelines, policies, and programs. I explore my interest in iv the ontology of trauma, the nature of trauma itself and the way of being when trauma has occurred. While exploring this interest through a genealogy of trauma, I identify five historical figures; the traumatized female figure, the assaulted woman figure, the wounded veteran figure, the colonized Indigenous woman figure and the emancipated woman figure. My study explores how women are obscured and invisible in policies intended to address violence against women. I demonstrate that this invisibility results in gender-neutral policies-if there is no gender-based violence- we, therefore, do not have to think of gender-based treatment. The patriarchal erasure of women from trauma policies continually repositions what the problem is represented to be. These policies constitute women as the less valued subjects, fundamentally damaged and flawed. Trauma policies shape women as people who can damage staff; assuming they are a source of trauma infection; they can infect staff with their trauma resulting in vicarious traumatization of staff. Trauma policies characterize the traumatized female subject as fundamentally different from the staff or the professional expert. Only certain kinds of women can be traumatized, the mentally ill and substance-using women. My study exposes the presupposition embedded in policies that only certain women are violated, and other women are unlike them. This trauma discourse is grounded in racism, colonialism and sexism, built on stereotypical patriarchal representations of women, resulting in the stigmatization of women who experience male violence. / Graduate / 2022-08-25

Trauma exposure is endemic, and this study seeks to address childhood trauma in a compassionate and restorative manner. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are serious childhood traumas that manifest as toxic stress which can damage the developing brain of a child and affect overall health. The implications are expressed dualistically: academic performance of youth is subdued & diminished, and behavioral interactions can range from unreceptive to erratic and aggressive. Trauma exposure is a predictor of adverse outcomes, which range from higher rates of suspension, expulsion, and incarceration, to dire outcomes, such as lower life expectancy and quality of life. Streamlining trauma-informed curriculum and restorative behavioral responses will ensure that resilient and nurturing classrooms mediate and heal our nation’s youth. Instead of disproven and punitive, zero-tolerance consequences, schools must familiarize themselves with the effects of trauma, anticipate traumatic reactions, and respond accordingly. This study reveals how trauma-informed care informs trauma-informed curriculum and trauma-sensitive schools. A consistent and effective response to childhood trauma exposure is the missing link in our nation’s educational system.

<p dir="ltr">Machine learning and deep learning techniques now provide innovative tools for addressing problems in biological, engineering, and physical systems. Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) are a type of neural network that incorporate physical laws described by partial differential equations (PDEs) into their supervised learning tasks. This dissertation aims to enhance PINNs with improved training techniques and loss functions to tackle the complex physics of viscoelastic flow and rheology more effectively. The focus areas of the dissertation are listed as follows: i) Assigning relative weights to loss terms in training physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) is complex. We propose a solution using numerical integration via backward Euler discretization to leverage statistical properties of data for determining loss weights. Our study focuses on two and three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations, using spatio-temporal velocity and pressure data to ascertain kinematic viscosity. We examine two-dimensional flow past a cylinder and three-dimensional flow within an aneurysm. Our method, tested for sensitivity and robustness against various factors, converges faster and more accurately than traditional PINNs, especially for three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. We validated our approach with experimental data, using the velocity field from PIV channel flow measurements to generate a reference pressure field and determine water viscosity at room temperature. Results showed strong performance with experimental datasets. Our proposed method is a promising solution for ’stiff’ PDEs and scenarios requiring numerous constraints where traditional PINNs struggle. ii) Machine learning algorithms are valuable for fluid mechanics, but high data costs limit their practicality. To address this, we present viscoelasticNet, a Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN) framework that selects the appropriate viscoelastic constitutive model and learns the stress field from a given velocity flow field. We incorporate three non-linear viscoelastic models: Oldroyd-B, Giesekus, and Linear PTT. Our framework uses neural networks to represent velocity, pressure, and stress fields and employs the backward Euler method to construct PINNs for the viscoelastic model. The approach is multistage: first, it solves for stress, then uses stress and velocity fields to solve for pressure. ViscoelasticNet effectively learned the parameters of the viscoelastic constitutive model on noisy and sparse datasets. Applied to a two-dimensional stenosis geometry and cross-slot flow, our framework accurately learned constitutive equation parameters, though it struggled with peak stress at cross-slot corners. We suggest addressing this by exploring smaller domains. ViscoelasticNet can extend to other rheological models like FENE-P and extended Pom-Pom and learn entire equations, not just parameters. Future research could explore more complex geometries and three-dimensional cases. Complementing Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), our method can determine pressure and stress fields once the constitutive equation is learned, allowing the modeling of future fluid applications. iii) Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) are widely used for solving inverse and forward problems in various scientific and engineering fields. However, most PINNs frameworks operate within the Eulerian domain, where physical quantities are described at fixed points in space. We explore coupling Eulerian and Lagrangian domains using PINNs. By tracking particles in the Lagrangian domain, we aim to learn the velocity field in the Eulerian domain. We begin with a sensitivity analysis, focusing on the time-step size of particle data and the number of particles. Initial tests with external flow past a cylinder show that smaller time-step sizes yield better results, while the number of particles has little effect on accuracy. We then extend our analysis to a real-world scenario: the interior of an airplane cabin. Here, we successfully reconstruct the velocity field by tracking passive particles. Our findings suggest that this coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian PINNs framework is a promising tool for enhancing traditional experimental techniques like particle tracking. It can be extended to learn additional flow properties, such as the pressure field for three-dimensional internal flows, and infer viscosity from passive particle tracking, providing deeper insights into complex fluids and their constitutive models. iv) Time-fractional differential equations are widely used across various fields but often present computational and stability challenges, especially in inverse problems. Leveraging Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) offers a promising solution for these issues. PINNs efficiently compute fractional time derivatives using finite differences and handle other derivatives via automatic differentiation. This study addresses two inverse problems: (1) anomalous diffusion and (2) fractional viscoelasticity. Our approach defines residual loss scaled with the standard deviation of observed data, using numerically generated and experimental datasets to learn fractional coefficients and calibrate parameters for the fractional Maxwell model. Our framework demonstrated robust performance for anomalous diffusion, maintaining less than 10% relative error in predicting the generalized diffusion coefficient and the fractional derivative order, even with 25% Gaussian noise added to the dataset. This highlights the framework’s resilience and accuracy in noisy conditions. We also validated our approach by predicting relaxation moduli for pig tissue samples, achieving relative errors below 10% compared to literature values. This underscores the efficacy of our fractional model with fewer parameters. Our method can be extended to model non-linear fractional viscoelasticity, incorporate experimental data for anomalous diffusion, and apply it to three-dimensional scenarios, broadening its practical applications.</p>

The purpose of this quantitative study was to further the understanding on how access to trauma-informed professional learning changed research-based practices in classroom and school-wide settings in K-12 schools. The guiding question for this quantitative study was: How has trauma-informed professional learning influenced changes in research-based practices in school-wide and classroom settings in K-12 schools? This research assessed the perceptions of elementary, middle, and high school teachers in one school district to investigate access to trauma-informed professional learning and potential changes in research-based practices in school-wide and classroom settings. Participants were teachers, in Northeast Tennessee, employed in urban schools implementing trauma-informed practices. Six research questions guided the study and quantitative data were analyzed using one-sample t-tests. Additionally, this researcher analyzed themes gleaned from the four-open ended questions at the end of the survey. The findings indicated that the means of all measures were significantly higher than the midpoint in elementary, middle, and high schools. The findings also indicated that trauma-informed professional learning supports the development of school-wide and classroom research-based practices and application of trauma-informed strategies in K-12 schools.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines intimate partner violence (IPV) as abuse or aggression including physical and sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression in romantic relationships between current and former spouses and dating partners. In the United States alone, about 41% of women and 26% of men experience IPV incidences during their lifetimes, emphasizing the importance of IPV screening by healthcare providers across all specialties. Learning how to mitigate the past experiences of IPV survivors in healthcare settings requires a trauma-informed lens that starts in and includes those in the medical education classroom. Establishing a trauma-informed educational framework requires recognizing the risk of generating secondary traumatic stress in learners while mitigating the risk of retraumatization among unknown IPV survivors within the classroom. This thesis provides insights into a workshop that involved the participation of fourth-year medical students at an academic medical center that used a multidisciplinary approach to teaching about intimate partner violence. / Urban Bioethics

This work deals with the problem of reverse audio engineering for active listening. The format under consideration corresponds to the audio CD. The musical content is viewed as the result of a concatenation of the composition, the recording, the mixing, and the mastering. The inversion of the two latter stages constitutes the core of the problem at hand. The audio signal is treated as a post-nonlinear mixture. Thus, the mixture is "decompressed" before being "decomposed" into audio tracks. The problem is tackled in an informed context: The inversion is accompanied by information which is specific to the content production. In this manner, the quality of the inversion is significantly improved. The information is reduced in size by the use of quantification and coding methods, and some facts on psychoacoustics. The proposed methods are applicable in real time and have a low complexity. The obtained results advance the state of the art and contribute new insights.

This dissertation focuses on the issue of health care provision without the consent of a patient within the system of intensive care provision. Situations when its possible to hospitalize a patient without his or her consent are defined in § 38 ZZS (Health Services and Terms and Conditions of Health Service Provision Act as amended). In the intensive care unit we are very often faced with patients that need to be urgently treated without their consent. Also very frequently a treatment is provided to patients that are under the influence of addictive substances therefore are dangerous to themselves and to others. Health of these patients is damaged and even their lives are at risk. A treatment without a patient's consent is debatable from the ethical point of view. A conflict occurs between the fundamental ethical principles (benefit principle and principle of autonomy) because it is not entirely clear which one of the two principles should be prioritize during the treatment. Work and moral obligation of every medical personnel is to provide a medical treatment in accordance with the law and ethical principles. A theoretical part of the paper is dedicated to the legal and ethical sides of the examined issue. The empirical part of the paper is dedicated to the research. A qualitative analysis of...