Thesis (LL. M.)--McGill University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 1-11 (2nd set)).

Thesè (Docteur es Sciences).

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<p>The first section of this thesis identifies two schools of economic thought that were prominent between 1923 and the 1960s. Both employed a staples approach to organize, explain and interpret Canada’s history but used different scopes of inquiry, methodologies and time horizons. I call these two schools Innis’ <em>staples thesis</em> and Macintosh’s <em>staple economics</em>. No sooner were these two schools firmly established than the economics profession underwent a fundamental shift. Economic historians abandoned the old Canadian political economy in the 1960s and followed international trends toward increased specialization. Academic economists concentrated on theoretical and deductive methods with little concern for historical time. During this period of rapid transition, Mel Watkins developed a third approach known as the <em>staple theory</em>. If contemporary economists are cognizant of a staples approach, they most likely think about Watkins’ theory which was written during the ascendancy of the ‘new’ economic history in the United States.</p> <p>One of the legacies of the old political economy was the construction of historical data sets, but they are rarely used in contemporary studies. The collection of historical data related to staples activity waned as the focus shifted to the construction of national accounts. The reconstruction of Canada’s trade flows was abandoned. The last five chapters of this thesis remedy this neglect with a new series of trade flows for all British North America from 1829 to 1960. Economic historians will now have a continuous series of meaningful trade statistics to facilitate future research on the role of staples in international economy of British North America. With this information, research can begin to evaluate the long-run evolution of the structure, behaviour and performance of Canada’s external economy from a simple colonial society to a modern industrial nation.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

全球專利市場交易日趨白熱化，其背後隱含的意義除了各廠商之間的競爭角力外，更直接對營收帶來衝擊。目前專利市場中熱門的交易仍以電子相關產業為主之投資組合，台灣以積體電路及電子製造亮眼於國際舞台間，更應學習一種具備前瞻布局的眼光以及戰略。 競爭必然存在，回應市場的動能以及反應能力更應備妥，此論文以檢視台灣廠商的現有環境及條件，並環顧國際間爭相而起的新勢力，提出未來可能面臨的威脅及遭遇，並藉由台灣廠商的成功案例輔以說明，期望能剖析出市場的生態變化，並在變動的市場中做好因應的準備。

This research aims to analyse the direct and indirect effects of human capital, social capital and customer capital on the different types of innovations via organisational capital in the service sector. It also examines the interaction among the different types of innovations including product, process and organisational innovations and tests the role of human capital, social capital and customer capital in supporting organisational capital. This research employs the first stage of Actor Network Theory named problematisation to justify the research model. This study adopts a positivism philosophy, a deduction approach and a quantitative method as the research methodology. Hence, a questionnaire was used to gather data from 198 managers in the Egyptian banks (54% response rate). Structural Equation Modelling by Partial Least Square (warp PLS 3.0) was applied to test the research hypotheses. The research findings indicate that product, process and organisational innovation are positively associated with organisational capital. It is found that social capital and human capital have direct and indirect positive effects on both product and organisational innovation via organisational capital. It appears that social capital and human capital do not have a direct influence on process innovation whereas organisational capital fully mediates the relationship between social capital, human capital and process innovation. The study explores the direct and indirect positive effects of customer capital on three types of innovation through organisational capital. Additionally, organisational innovation has a positive relation with process and product innovation, which is significantly associated with process innovation. The most significant influence of intellectual capital is on product innovation, followed by organisational innovation, whereas the least significant influence is on process innovation. Moreover, the results also show that there are no significant differences between the public and private banks in terms of the path coefficients. The effect size of organisational capital on product and process innovation in the private banks is substantially larger than it is in the public banks. In the same way, the private banks have relatively larger effect sizes for human capital on product and process innovation via organisational capital than those in the public banks. Unexpectedly, in the public banks, the positive effect size of customer capital on product and process innovation via organisational capital is larger than it is in the private banks. This study has contributed to intellectual capital, innovation and service sector literature. It explores many benefits for the managers of the banks. It suggests that they should view intellectual capital as a catalyst for the different types of innovations. For example, banks should maintain and promote social connections amongst their employees to support innovation and to foster the cohesion of informal organisation.

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Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how mandatory obligation to follow the International &lt;IR&gt; Framework while producing the corporate reports influence the intellectual capital disclosures in the reports. Research design – The study uses a disclosure scoreboard to score a selected sample of annual reports depending on whether it disclose intellectual capital information or not. The sample consists of companies listed in South Africa were it is mandatory to follow the integrated reporting framework and companies listen in Sweden where it is not mandatory to produce an integrated report. Empirical results and conclusion – The results of this thesis indicates that the mandatory use of the International &lt;IR&gt; Framework have an impact on the amount of intellectual capital disclosures. Further it concludes that higher level of compliance with the framework further increases the intellectual capital disclosure. Contribution – This study has been an early step towards concluding whether the use of integrated reporting has any effect on the amount of intellectual capital information disclosed in companies’ annual report.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The telemetry industry is entering a new era in which the technology employed and standards adopted may be covered by United States patents. This paper provides an overview to aid in understanding the characteristics of patents. Topics discussed are: What a patent is and isn't, scope of claim coverage of patents, determining infringement, designing around patents, and issues with standards covered by patents.

This thesis is primarily concerned with the experiences and opinions of education held by pupils in late secondary school and by university students. Over several years, a small group of highly able pupils were interviewed about their experiences of school and university. Their comments were supplemented by interviews with and questionnaire studies of other age-groups of pupils and students. The research has two central emphasises. Firstly, it represents an attempt to increase our understanding of intellectual development in adolescence. At present, there is no coherent theory of adolescent intellectual activity, and little research or evidence on which to build one. Pupil and student experiences of post-compulsory education have been central to this study and it is hoped that they will make a contribution to building up a body of knowledge on which understanding can be enhanced and a theory developed. The second, and related aspect of the research concerns educational practice and its influence on pupils and students. Educational changes are not made on the basis of solid evidence or theory, rather, they are based upon commonsense notions and our own experiences of education. In Scottish education, sixth year pupils face a radical change in the ways in which they are taught and expected to study - the Certificate of Sixth Year Studies (CSYS). Through independent study and project work, CSYS aims to increase the 'educational maturity' of pupils. Pupils' responses to CSYS, and its effects on how and why they study at school and university form the central focus of this thesis. The thesis examines in detail how pupils and students react to changes in their academic environment, both within school and transferring to university. Finally, the implications of the research are discussed in terms of adolescent development, educational innovation, and on a more basic level, how pupils, students, teachers and lecturers can better understand and improve the experience and effectiveness of post-compulsory education.