Sustainable development is the modern rhetoric to guide environmental or natural resources management. There are many ways to do this and one concern the wider utilization of economic instruments, such as taxes or levies. Although such levies are becoming common in Australia and worldwide, the role of the taxes or levies is still limited. In many cases, these taxes/levies -although environmentally related- have a fiscal rather than a purely environmental motive, for example, the Natural Resources Management (NRM) Levy in South Australia. In South Australia, under the NRM Act 2004, all property owners are required to pay the NRM levy. Local governments collect the levy and distribute it to the relevant NRM board. The NRM boards have selected to calculate the levy on the basis of property value or simply applied a flat rate. The percentage of property value or the amount of the flat rate can vary amongst local government areas. How a tax or levy is designed should be determined by its ultimate purpose. Taxes or levies for fiscal and/or redistributive reasons should be designed in a way securing stable inflow of revenues, such as, levying on the values of property. However, this approach is often in sharp contrast with the goal of environmental taxes or levies which aim to change resource consumption behaviour. This study evaluates the NRM levy policy in South Australia using one NRM region and focussing on the urban community. The justification of this research is that few analyses of the effectiveness of environmental taxes or levies have ever been carried out, although the implementation of these measures has increased significantly during the last decades. There are fewer studies analysing the impacts of the tax or levy base method. This is the first study on this NRM levy policy from the perspective of the urban community who actually pay it. This study employed the Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein 1980) to examine the relationships between community attitudes to the levy policy and water consumption behaviour. Data was collected through a web-based survey with 770 respondents who answered 59 questions. The key findings show that governments are perceived to have the main responsibility for water resources management by respondents. However, there is huge information void towards the NRM levy policy. Community has few complaints about the levy level but strongly prefers to have a levy calculated on the volume of water consumed. Respondents also indicated that they would use less water if the levy were calculated on the volume of water consumed. The study makes contributions to relevant theory and policy analysis. Theoretically, the results show that the theory of reasoned action has limited strength in explaining the present research context. Practically, the study provides recommendations for policymakers and practitioners in South Australia, other Australian States, and internationally. The clear implications of the results suggest that if a tax or levy aims to change water consumption behaviour then it should be based on the volume of water consumed not on property value.

This study investigates the relationship between the individual and their monthly donation to the INGO Amnesty International Sweden as a process of identity stimulation. Problematizing how consuming a brand whichdoes not give anything concrete back to the individual communicates through core values in order to strengthen identity. The study uses theories from Zygmunt Bauman, Sidney Levy, Lilie Chouliaraki and Ronald E. Anderson. According to research for the relationship between the individual and brand there has been a shift where the individual choses brands from other parameters than function, rather this is made from its representation. Therefore consuming brands is an expression for identity. Furthermore research about charity organizations states that there has been a shift in how they communicate and affect individuals’ need to reduce suffering - identity stimulation - as a consequence of neoliberalism. The study is constructed through a qualitative methodology that collects empirical data from responsive- and flexible deep interviews, with respondents who donates monthly to Amnesty International Sweden and are in the age gap between 18-30 years old. The study does not aim for a generalization of the result, rather it investigates how identity can be stimulated through Amnesty International Sweden using concepts as self-oriented, others-oriented and reduce suffering. The result proves what have been stated by former theories, were the relationship between the individual and brand functions as an identity stimulation through different aspects such as identification and distance, the individual as a product and ways to materialize this. However, there has been a clear shift in the individuals awareness of online and offline behaviour which affects how they present themselves as a product. As pointed out earlier by theories from Bauman and Levy, the resultemphasizesthat the individual consumes a brand that represents themselves and strengthens their identity individually and to their social environment. Lastly,the study discuss its result of new individual behavior online and offline as a consequence of neoliberalism and how research within media- and communication studies can further help us understand how communication technology and political forces can affect each other in regards of individual behaviour. The study and its result is situated in the junction between the digital communicative sphere and constant political changes.

Recent scholarship has examined the lived experience of unmarried women in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, both in cities and in the countryside. Typically, scholarship in this field has focussed on women's social identity whether spinster, widow or lesbian and addressed how these types of women were variously used in fiction and the press to contest or uphold the gendered status quo. This thesis problematises the distinct characterisation of these social identities by examining works which seek to unify female social identity at the fin de siècle through a common modern experience: the conflict between individual and collective life. All of the female subjects examined in this thesis whether author, artist, or fictional character, and whether married, separated, unmarried, widowed, homosexual, or not easily identifiable either way are solitary figures. Their movement within and interaction with their environments reveal the uneasy combination of separation and exposure experienced by working women of all classes at the fin de siècle. This thesis examines the solitary female figure in works of British fiction produced between 1880 and 1922. It considers the pressures and implications of separation and exposure in relation to female celebrity and creative practices at the fin de siècle. My methodology involves examining the biography and auto/biographical works of Amy Levy (1861-1889), George Egerton (pseud. of Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright; 1859-1945), Sarah Grand (pseud. of Frances Elizabeth Bellenden McFall; 1854-1943) and Charlotte Mew (1869-1923), and drawing out aspects that speak to the desires for privacy and, conversely, publicity and/or companionship. I identify how their lived experience of this conflict broadly, between society and solitude affected the depiction of modern female consciousness in their literary works by examining their female characters subjective interaction with three environments: the foreign landscape, the home, and the city. My aim is to identify how Levy, Egerton, Grand and Mew used their literary works to acknowledge and retaliate against the restrictions which continued to limit urban women's physical, social and psychological autonomy.

Os estudos que abordam violência e trauma são, em larga medida, uma constante na literatura brasileira contemporânea. Vindo ao encontro dessa afirmação, a análise comparativa dos romances contemporâneos A chave de casa (2013), de Tatiana Salem Levy, e Sinfonia em branco (2013), de Adriana Lisboa, oferecem um tratamento original a essa temática na medida em que apresentam personagens femininas que subvertem a lógica da relação agressor versus vítima ao se tornarem agentes de violência. A partir dos romances em questão, este estudo visa a analisar de que maneira a memória é afetada pela experiência subjetiva, ou seja, pela percepção do trauma vivido. Para isso, dar-se-á destaque ao modo como as experiências traumáticas se manifestam ao longo das narrativas em termos de linguagem e recursos formais, bem como os efeitos dos acontecimentos no que concerne às reações/ações das personagens. Da mesma forma, buscar-se-á evidenciar em que medida a agência feminina rompe com a lógica binária naturalizada agressor masculino versus vítima feminina e se insere na fronteira de um espaço novo para se pensar o protagonismo feminino. / Studies that address violence and trauma are a constant in contemporary Brazilian literature. Following this trend, the present study analyzes two contemporary novels – A chave de casa (2013), by Tatiana Salem Levy, and Sinfonia em branco (2013), by Adriana Lisboa –, which offer an original treatment to the themes of trauma and violence, as both show women who subvert the logic of the abuser versus victim relationship by becoming agents of violence themselves. Based on these two novels, the present study aims to analyze how memory is affected by subjective experience, that is, by the perception of the trauma experienced. In order to do so, emphasis will be placed on the way traumatic experiences are expressed throughout the narratives in terms of language and formal resources, as well as the effects of events regarding the reactions/actions of the characters. We will also highlight the extent to which feminine agency breaks with the naturalized binary logic of ‘male aggressor versus female victim’, which gives us a new perspective on feminine protagonism.

Os estudos que abordam violência e trauma são, em larga medida, uma constante na literatura brasileira contemporânea. Vindo ao encontro dessa afirmação, a análise comparativa dos romances contemporâneos A chave de casa (2013), de Tatiana Salem Levy, e Sinfonia em branco (2013), de Adriana Lisboa, oferecem um tratamento original a essa temática na medida em que apresentam personagens femininas que subvertem a lógica da relação agressor versus vítima ao se tornarem agentes de violência. A partir dos romances em questão, este estudo visa a analisar de que maneira a memória é afetada pela experiência subjetiva, ou seja, pela percepção do trauma vivido. Para isso, dar-se-á destaque ao modo como as experiências traumáticas se manifestam ao longo das narrativas em termos de linguagem e recursos formais, bem como os efeitos dos acontecimentos no que concerne às reações/ações das personagens. Da mesma forma, buscar-se-á evidenciar em que medida a agência feminina rompe com a lógica binária naturalizada agressor masculino versus vítima feminina e se insere na fronteira de um espaço novo para se pensar o protagonismo feminino. / Studies that address violence and trauma are a constant in contemporary Brazilian literature. Following this trend, the present study analyzes two contemporary novels – A chave de casa (2013), by Tatiana Salem Levy, and Sinfonia em branco (2013), by Adriana Lisboa –, which offer an original treatment to the themes of trauma and violence, as both show women who subvert the logic of the abuser versus victim relationship by becoming agents of violence themselves. Based on these two novels, the present study aims to analyze how memory is affected by subjective experience, that is, by the perception of the trauma experienced. In order to do so, emphasis will be placed on the way traumatic experiences are expressed throughout the narratives in terms of language and formal resources, as well as the effects of events regarding the reactions/actions of the characters. We will also highlight the extent to which feminine agency breaks with the naturalized binary logic of ‘male aggressor versus female victim’, which gives us a new perspective on feminine protagonism.

This thesis examines the relation between classical and quantum mechanics from philosophical, mathematical and physical standpoints. It first presents arguments in support of "conjectural realism" in scientific theories distinguished by explicit contextual structure and empirical testability; and it analyses intertheoretic reduction in terms of weakly equivalent theories over a domain of applicability. Familiar formulations of classical and quantum mechanics are shown to follow from a general theory of mechanics based on pure states with an intrinsic probability structure. This theory is developed to the stage where theorems from quantum logic enable expression of the state geometry in Hilbert space. Quantum and classical mechanics are then elaborated and applied to subsystems and the measurement process. Consideration is also given to spacetime geometry and the constraints this places on the dynamics. Physics and Mathematics, it is argued, are growing apart; the inadequate treatment of approximations in general and localization in quantum mechanics in particular are seen as contributing factors. In the description of systems, the link between localization and lack of knowledge shows that quantum mechanics should reflect the domain of applicability. Restricting the class of states provides a means of achieving this goal. Localisation is then shown to have a mathematical expression in terms of compactness, which in tum is applied to yield a topological theory of bound and scattering states: Finally, the thesis questions the validity of "classical limits" and "quantisations" in intertheoretic reduction, and demonstrates that a widely accepted classical limit does not constitute a proof of reduction. It proposes a procedure for determining whether classical and quantum mechanics are weakly equivalent over a domain of applicability, and concludes that, in this restricted sense, classical mechanics reduces to quantum mechanics.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / This dissertation studies the computation methods of pricing of Asian options. Asian options are options in which the underlying variable is the average price over a period of time. Because of this, Asian options have a lower volatility and this render them cheaper relative to their European counterparts. Asian options belong to the so-called path-dependent derivatives; they are among the most difficult to price and hedge both analytically and numerically. In practice, it is only discrete Asian options that are traded, however continuous Asian options are used for studying purposes. Several approaches have been proposed in the literature, including Monte Carlo simulations, tree-based methods, Taylor’s expansion, partial differential equations, and analytical ap- proximations among others. When using partial differential equations for pricing of continuous time Asian options, the high dimensionality is problematic. In this dissertation we focus on the discrete time methods. We start off by explaining the binomial tree method, and our last chapter presents the very exciting and relatively simple method of Tsao and Huang, using Taylor approximations. The main papers that are used in this dissertation are articles by Jan Vecer (2001); LCG Rogers (1995); Eric Benhamou (2001); Gianluca Fusai (2007); Kamizono, Kariya and Nakatsuma (2006) and Tsao and Huang (2007). The author has provided computations, including graphs and tables dispersed over the different chapters, to demonstrate the utility of the methods. We observe various parameters of influence such as correlation, volatility, strike, etc. A further contribution by the author of this dissertation is, in particular, in Chapter 5, in the presentation of the work of Tsao et al. Here we have provided slightly more detailed explanations and again some further computational tables.

Après avoir fait un rappel sur les généralités concernant les familles exponentielles naturelles et  les lois Tweedie univariées qui en sont un exemple particulier, nous montrerons comment étendre ces lois au cas multivarié. Une première construction permettra de définir des vecteurs aléatoires Tweedie paramétrés pas un vecteur de moyenne et une matrice de dispersion. Nous montrerons que les corrélations entre les lois marginales peuvent être contrôlées et varient entre -1 et 1. Nous verrons aussi que ces vecteurs ont quelques propriétés communes avec les vecteurs gaussiens. Nous en donnerons une représentation matricielle qui permettra d'en simuler des observations. La seconde construction permettra d'introduire les modèles Tweedie multiples constitués d'une variable Tweedie dont l'observation sera la dispersion des autres marges, toutes de lois Tweedie elles aussi. Nous donnerons la variance généralisée de ces lois et montrerons que cette dernière peut-être estimée efficacement. Enfin, nous verrons que, modulo certaines restrictions, nous pourrons donner une caractérisation par la fonction de variance généralisée des familles exponentielles naturelles générées par ces lois. / After a reminder of the natural exponential families framework and the univariate Tweedie distributions, we build two multivariate extension of the latter. A first construction, called Tweedie random vector, gives a multivariate Tweedie distribution parametrized by a mean vector and a dispersion matrix. We show that the correlations between the margins can be controlled and vary between -1 and 1. Some properties shared with the well-known Gaussian vector are given. By giving a matrix representation, we can simulate observations of Tweedie random vectors. The second construction establishes the multiple stable Tweedie models. They are vectors of which the first component is Tweedie and the others are independant Tweedie, given the first one, and with dispersion parameter given by an observation of the first component. We give the generalized variance and show that it is a product of powered component of the mean and give an efficient estimator of this parameter. Finally, we can show, with some restrictions, that the generalized variance is a tool which can be used for characterizing the natural exponential families generated by multiple stable Tweedie models.

The thesis with the topic State Aid and Taxation of Renewable Resources deals with the renewable resources in general, reason of their support, function of renewable resources powerplants etc. This thesis describes also the state aid of renewable resources in the Czech Republic and their taxation as well. A small part of this thesis analyzes the state aid in the other EU countires and contains their comparision with the Czech Republic.

Corporate finance researchers have long been puzzled by low corporate debt ratios given debt's corporate tax advantage. What makes the capital structure debate especially intriguing is that the different theories represent such different, and in some ways almost diametrically opposed, decision-making processes.