High-order wavefront correction is not only beneficial for high-contrast imaging, but also spectroscopy. The size of a spectrograph can be decoupled from the size of the telescope aperture by moving to the diffraction limit which has strong implications for ELT based instrument design. Here we present the construction and characterization of an extremely efficient single-mode fiber feed behind an extreme adaptive optics system (SCExAO). We show that this feed can indeed be utilized to great success by photonic-based spectrographs. We present metrics to quantify the system performance and some preliminary spectra delivered by the compact spectrograph.

The RHEA Spectrograph is a single-mode echelle spectrograph designed to be a replicable and cost effective method of undertaking precision radial velocity measurements. Two versions of RHEA currently exist, one located at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia (450 - 600nm wavelength range), and another located at the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, USA (600 - 800 nm wavelength range). Both instruments have a novel fibre feed consisting of an integral field unit injecting light into a 2D grid of single mode fibres. This grid of fibres is then reformatted into a 1D array at the input of the spectrograph (consisting of the science fibres and a reference fibre capable of receiving a white-light or xenon reference source for simultaneous calibration). The use of single mode fibres frees RHEA from the issue of modal noise and significantly reduces the size of the optics used. In addition to increasing the overall light throughput of the system, the integral field unit allows for cutting edge science goals to be achieved when operating behind the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope and the SCExAO adaptive optics system. These include, but are not limited to: resolved stellar photospheres; resolved protoplanetary disk structures; resolved Mira shocks, dust and winds; and sub-arcsecond companions. We present details and results of early tests of RHEA Subaru and progress towards the stated science goals.

In my diploma theses I am comparing legal regulations of limited liability company in Czech and Spanish law. The comparison of characteristic features takes place in four different areas: basic provision, constitution of the company, company organs and dissolution of a company. In the last section I describe specil form of Limited Liability Company called Nueva Empresa.

This diploma thesis aims to compare the enactments of German GmbH and Czech s.r.o. (i.e. limited liability companies or private companies limited by shares). The introduction describes the historical evolution till today and defines the main differences in the Czech and German legal interpretations of the place of business, statutory body, registered capital, company shares, etc. Furthermore accounting principles and essential requirements of financial statements are discussed. The reader can find mandatory forms of financial balance sheets and profit and loss reports according to the German Commercial Law and the Czech ministerial regulation No. 500/2002 in the thesis appendix. The last part mentions basic tax liabilities of GmbH and s.r.o.

How to found an enterprise (legal and economic aspects) Abstract The object of this thesis is the founding of an enterprise from legal and economic viewpoint. Entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic evolved a lot since the Velvet revolution, legislatively and in the way entrepreneurs behave on the market. The Czech Republic joining the European Union had a huge impact on entrepreneurship, thanks to the harmonisation of the internal market and even through new types of companies available. The goal of this thesis is to help new entrepreneurs found an enterprise, to choose the correct legal framework and create a business plan. The focus is on saving financial and time costs. In the first part the legislature concerning enterprise in the Czech Republic is presented focusing on effective laws, despite mentioning the legislature before the civil law recodification from 2014. Enterprise, entrepreneur and companies are described in detail in the second part as the basic terms connected to founding an enterprise. The third part is concerned with the economic aspects of founding an enterprise, out of which the business plan is the most important. As a part of the business plan, basic internal and external analysis of an enterprise and basic financing options are presented. The fourth part comprises of the comparison...

Student Number : 0105964W - MPH research report - Faculty of Health Sciences / The Employment Bureau for Africa (TEBA Limited) established in 1902 recruits mineworkers from Lesotho and neighbouring countries for South African mines. Information on mineworkers’ health and welfare from Lesotho is scarce. Tuberculosis prevalence ranged between 159/100000 and 506/100000 from 1991 to 2001 in Lesotho. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the proportion of mineworkers affected with tuberculosis among adult male patients attending TB clinics in Maseru District’s three main hospitals and ascertain compensation of mineworkers affected by occupational lung disease including tuberculosis. A structured questionnaire was used to interview 421 adult male TB patients at Queen Elizabeth II, Saint Joseph and Scott hospitals in Maseru. 38.5% of participants in the study were mineworkers (former and active) in South African mines. Among these mineworkers, 70.4% were employed in goldmines. 30.7% of mineworkers were considered eligible for compensation. 42 mineworkers received compensation for previous and current tuberculosis whilst 33 mineworkers had not.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / This dissertation consists of three independent essays in applied microeconomics and econometrics. Essay 1 investigates the issue why individuals with health insurance use more health care. One obvious reason is that health care is cheaper for the insured. But additionally, having insurance can encourage unhealthy behavior via moral hazard. The effect of health insurance on medical utilization has been extensively studied; however, previous work has mostly ignored the effect of insurance on behavior and how that in turn affects medical utilization. This essay examines these distinct effects. The increased medical utilization due to reduced prices may help the insured maintain good health, while that due to increased unhealthy behavior does not, so distinguishing these two effects has important policy implications. A two-period dynamic forward-looking model is constructed to derive the structural causal relationships among the decision to buy insurance, health behaviors (drinking, smoking, and exercise), and medical utilization. The model shows how exogenous changes in insurance prices and past behaviors can identify the direct and indirect effects of insurance on medical utilization. An empirical analysis also distinguishes between intensive and extensive margins (e.g., changes in the number of drinkers vs. the amount of alcohol consumed) of the insurance effect, which turns out to be empirically important. Health insurance is found to encourage less healthy behavior, particularly heavy drinking, but this does not yield a short term perceptible increase in doctor or hospital visits. The effects of health insurance are primarily found at the intensive margin, e.g., health insurance may not cause a non-drinker to take up drinking, while it encourages a heavy drinker to drink even more. These results suggest that to counteract behavioral moral hazard, health insurance should be coupled with incentives that target individuals who currently engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as heavy drinkers. Essay 2 examines the effect of repeating kindergarten on the retained children's academic performance. Although most existing research concludes that grade retention generates no benefits for retainees' later academic performance, holding low achieving children back has been a popular practice for decades. Drawing on a recently collected nationally representative data set in the US, this paper estimates the causal effect of kindergarten retention on the retained children's later academic performance. Since children are observed being held back only when they enroll in schools that permit retention, this paper jointly models 1) the decision of entering a school allowing for kindergarten retention, 2) the decision of undergoing a retention treatment in kindergarten, and 3) children's academic performance in higher grades. The retention treatment is modeled as a binary choice with sample selection. The outcome equations are linear regressions including the kindergarten retention dummy as an endogenous regressor with a correlated random coefficient. A control function estimator is developed for estimating the resulting double-hurdle treatment model, which allows for unobserved heterogeneity in the retention effect. As a comparison, a nonparametric bias-corrected nearest neighbor matching estimator is also implemented. Holding children back in kindergarten is found to have positive but diminishing effects on their academic performance up to the third grade. Essay 3 proves the semiparametric identification of a binary choice model having an endogenous regressor without relying on outside instruments. A simple estimator and a test for endogeneity are provided based on this identification. These results are applied to analyze working age male's migration within the US, where labor income is potentially endogenous. Identification relies on the fact that the migration probability among workers is close to linear in age while labor income is nonlinear in age(when both are nonparametrically estimated). Using data from the PSID, this study finds that labor income is endogenous and that ignoring this endogeneity leads to downward bias in the estimated effect of labor income on the migration probability. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / This thesis proposes two semiparametric estimators; one for heavily censored panel models and another one for binary-outcome sample selection models. The first chapter proposes a new panel data estimator, and applies it to investigate whether the key assumption underlying most twin studies is valid. Roughly, the assumption is that differences in twins' outcomes can on average be attributed to differences in observed treatments, possibly after conditioning on observable covariates. The empirical results here cast doubt on this assumption, by showing that a particular outcome, survival, varies by birth order, even after conditioning on health-at-birth characteristics. The proposed panel data estimator is the first one in the literature that simultaneously handles having an unknown error distribution, fixed effects, fixed T, fixed censoring point, and heavy (greater than 50%) censoring. These features are all required to adequately deal with the limitations of available census data on twins. The proposed estimator also allows for coefficients that vary by t, and for a censoring point that is an unknown but deterministic function of regressors. The second chapter proposes a new semiparametric estimator for binary-outcome selection models that does not impose any distributional assumption, nor specify the selection equation. The estimator, however, requires a special regressor satisfying a support restriction in the outcome equation and a variable satisfying the exclusion/inclusion restriction; the former should be continuous whereas the latter can be discrete. The estimators of Klein et al. (2011) and Escanciano et al. (2012) require optimization, but our estimator for the outcome equation has a closed-form expression with no need for any optimization (but the selection equation estimation may still need an optimization). We apply MLE and the proposed estimator to US presidential election data in 2008 and 2012 where Barack Obama won to see to what extent racism mattered; we use a prejudice variable as a measure of racism. Putting our empirical findings in advance, there is evidence that the white Democrats voted less for Obama due to prejudice, whereas the white Republicans acted in a more muted fashion (i.e., almost no change in voting due to racism) or voted more for Obama to escape the stigma of racism. We also found evidence of "own-race favor" by blacks. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

The current reform of audit was introduced in 2010, which would mean that small limited firms in Sweden have the right to choose if they want to conduct an audit. The purpose of this study is to examine the expectations of smaller limited companies in Sweden have on conducting an audit. By examining these expectations, the essay also studies the companies’ perceptions of the auditor’s role and what kind of tasks they perceive to be included in the auditor’s role. In accordance with the study’s empirical results, the smaller limited companies are satisfied with their auditor’s work. The auditor’s role is perceived mainly as positive and to include tasks that are related to the firms’ financial area. This study has also shown that smaller limited firms in Sweden do consider audit to be important, which is why they use an auditor even with regard to the current reform that exempts them from this obligation.

A normatização da contabilidade no Brasil tem origem não só na Lei nº 6.404/76, que define as regras contábeis para as Sociedades por Ações, mas também na legislação fiscal, por meio do Regulamento do Imposto de Renda, pelas Instruções, Deliberações, Ofícios Circulares e outros documentos da Comissão de Valores Mobiliários - CVM, pelas Normas Brasileiras de Contabilidade emitidas pelo Conselho Federal de Contabilidade e, até mesmo, pelo Novo Código Civil. Além desse conjunto de órgãos normatizadores, existem ainda as regras ditadas por agências federais reguladoras como a Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (ANATEL) e a Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica (ANEEL), por exemplo, não se esquecendo do Banco Central do Brasil, que tem poderes para definir regras para as instituições financeiras. Mais recentemente foi criado o Comitê de Pronunciamentos Contábeis (CPC), com o objetivo de centralizar a emissão de Pronunciamentos na área contábil que poderão ser adotados pelos diversos órgãos normatizadores. E, finalmente, em dezembro de 2007, a Lei nº 11.638 alterou substancialmente a Lei nº 6.404/76 em suas disposições de natureza contábil. Nesse cenário de tantos órgãos normatizadores, os diversos Pronunciamentos e Normas produzidos não são iguais entre si quando tratam de um mesmo assunto e, em muitos casos, divergentes em alguns pontos. Além disso, é de se esperar que as práticas contábeis hoje não sejam as mesmas existentes nos anos 70. Este trabalho analisa as alterações julgadas mais importantes ocorridas em um período de aproximadamente trinta anos, isto é, de 1978, quando a Lei das Sociedades por Ações entrou em vigor, a 2008, quando a Lei das Sociedades por Ações foi reformulada em alguns de seus artigos que tratam dos aspectos contábeis. Foi constatado que as alterações ocorridas nas práticas contábeis no decorrer dos anos buscam atender à demanda do mercado, principalmente a exigência de maior confiabilidade e qualidade das informações contábeis publicadas pelas empresas. Podem ser destacados como exemplos a correção monetária integral na década de 80 e primeira metade da década de 90 e a primazia da essência econômica em detrimento de sua forma jurídica no processo de avaliação, entre outros. É importante ressaltar, ainda, a influência norte-americana na Lei nº 6.404/76 e nas normas emitidas pela CVM desde aquele período até a década de 90. Nos últimos anos, a CVM tem a clara preocupação com a convergência das práticas contábeis brasileiras às internacionais emitidas pelo International Accounting Standards Board IASB. / The standardization of accounting in Brazil has its origin not only based on the Law nº 6.404/76, which defines the accounting rules for the Limited Liability Corporation Law, but also on the fiscal law according to the Income Tax Regulation; in addition it is ruled by the Instructions, Rules and other documents complying with the Securities Commission (CVM), by Brazilian Accounting Standard issued by Federal Accounting Council, and also by the Civil Code. Besides these ruling agencies, there are the rules issued by Regulating Agencies such as National Agency for Telecommunications (ANATEL) and National Agency for Electric Energy (ANEEL), as well as the Brazilian Central Bank which establishes rules for financial entities. Recently the Accounting Pronouncements Committee (CPC) was founded for establishing the accounting pronouncements in Brazil, which may be adopted by several ruling agencies. And, finally, in December 2007, the Law nº 11.638 came to change substantially the Law nº 6.404/76 regarding its accounting subjects. Due to this scenario of such a large number of regulating agencies, there are different pronouncements and rules concerning the same issue and, in many cases, divergent in some aspects. Furthermore, the accounting practices nowadays are naturally different from those of the 70´s. This work analyses the main considered changes that have occurred in the last thirty years, in other words, from 1978 when the Limited Liability Corporation Law started, up to 2008, when the Limited Liability Corporation Law was reformulated concerning those articles regarding the accounting aspects. The changes occurred in the accounting practices along the years aim at responding to the market demand, mostly the great need of reliability as well as the quality of the accounting information disclosed by the companies. We can mention as examples the methodology of the Integral Correction in the 80´s and in the early 90´s, besides, the consideration of the economic essence rather than its juridical aspects in the valuation process, among others. It is important to cite, yet, the North American influence concerning the issue of the Law nº 6.404/76 as well as the Rules issued by CVM since then, up to the 90´s. In the recent years CVM is absolutely worried about the convergence between the Brazilian accounting practices and the international accounting practices issued by International Accounting Standards Board - IASB.