Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian continental rifting related to the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia framed the continental margin of eastern Laurentia and the departing cratons around the opening Iapetus Ocean. The result of continental extension was the production of a zig-zag set of promontories and embayments on the eastern Laurentian margin defined by northeast-trending rift segments offset by northwesttrending transform faults. The St. Lawrence promontory defines the Laurentian margin in western Newfoundland. There, Neoproterozoic-Carboniferous clastic, volcanic, and carbonate successions record protracted continental rifting and passive-margin thermal subsidence followed by destruction of the margin during the early, middle, and late Paleozoic Appalachian orogenic cycles. Palinspastic restoration of deformed Paleozoic strata by a set of balanced cross sections resolves the structure, stratigraphy, and timing of Paleozoic tectonic events on the St. Lawrence promontory. Synrift and post-rift subsidence profiles, as well as abrupt along-strike variations in the age, thickness, facies, and the palinspastically restored extent of synrift and post-rift stratigraphy, indicate the St. Lawrence promontory was founded upon a low-angle detachment rift system. Upperplate margins, lower-plate margins, and transform faults that bound zones of oppositely dipping low-angle detachments are recognized along specific segments of the promontory. A detailed U-Pb and Lu-Hf isotopic detrital zircon study elucidates the identity of specific cratons conjugate to the St. Lawrence promontory in the pre-rift configuration of Rodinia. Approximately 510 zircons from 9 samples collected from basement and overlying Early Cambrian synrift rocks in Newfoundland were analyzed by LA-ICP-MS for U-Pb ages and Hf isotopic ratios. Synrift samples yielded ages ranging from 3605 Ma to 544 Ma with maximum age frequencies of 1000-1200 Ma (Grenville), 1350-1450 Ma (Pinware), and 2650-2800 Ma (Superior), while two basement samples yielded U-Pb ages of 1044 Ma and 1495 Ma. 177Hf/176Hf isotopic ratios of ca.1000 Ma, 1200 Ma, and 1400- 1600 Ma zircons from Newfoundland basement and synrift rocks are a close match to reported 177Hf/176Hf ratios for Baltican zircons of the same vintage, suggesting that Baltica was conjugate to the St. Lawrence promontory.

Background The external requirements for the European top clubs within the UEFA football industry are changing. Due to mismanaged finances during a significant period of time derived from the clubs’ ruthless aim for short-term sporting success, UEFA (The Union of European Football Association) has decided to change the rules of the game. UEFA’s newly implemented financial fair play regulations, with the main requirement of breaking even, force clubs that aim to participate in future UEFA competitions to drastically improve their financial performance. Consequently, we are witnessing a fundamental shift in the European top club’s upcoming strategy. From now on, the club must go from pursuing a short-term strategy almost exclusively based on the quest for sporting success, to successfully implement a long-term strategy that besides being based on the main purpose of sporting success also is characterized by the quest for financial success. Purpose The purpose with this thesis is to provide guidance towards the European top club’s adjustment to UEFA financial fair play and its simultaneous achievement of competitive advantage within the changing UEFA football industry. Approach With the more decisive aim for profitability, the similarities between the European top club and a profit-seeking firm become evident. Consequently, the authors apply and adapt business strategic management theories to formulate a long-term strategy based on the simultaneous achievement of profitability and improved sporting performance.   Results Formulating a long-term strategy based on the simultaneous quest for financial and sporting success, the authors finally come to an understanding of how the European top club possibly could comply with financial fair play and simultaneously create conditions for competitive advantage within the changing UEFA football industry.

This thesis comprises four chapters, in two parts. The first part examines the result of a Swedish payroll tax reduction; first from the perspective of the worker, then from that of the employer. The second half of the thesis concerns subjective well-being, both from an individual and from an aggregate viewpoint. Payroll Taxes and Youth Labor Demand. In 2007, the Swedish payroll tax was reduced substantially for young workers. This paper examines whether targeted payroll tax reductions are effective in raising youth employment. We estimate a small impact, both on employment and on wages. However, the effect differs markedly across ages, with 4–5 times higher impact on 22–23 year-olds compared to 25-year-olds. Additionally, the employment effects are strongly procyclical, approaching zero in the deep recession. We calculate that the estimated cost per created job is more than four times that of directly hiring workers at the average wage. Payroll Taxes and Firm Performance. The Swedish payroll tax reform of 2007 had the effect that firms' average social fees came to depend on the age structure of their employees. This makes it possible to estimate how firms respond to shocks in labor costs. We find a significant, but very small effect on gross investments, and a negative, but not statistically significant, impact on labor productivity. There are no effects on exit rates or profitability. Beyond Income: The Importance for Life Satisfaction of Having Access to a Cash Margin. We study how life satisfaction among adult Swedes is influenced by having access to a cash margin, i.e. a moderate amount of money that could be acquired on short notice either through own savings, by loan from family or friends, or by other means. We find that cash margin is a strong and robust predictor of life satisfaction, also when controlling for individual fixed-effects and socio-economic conditions, including income. This suggests that cash margin captures something beyond wealth. On Aggregating Subjective Well-Being. This paper discusses the assumptions underlying the aggregation of individually measured well-being. Any aggregation method is associated with measurability assumptions regarding the underlying well-being measure, as well as moral philosophical assumptions with respect to how individual well-being is weighted into a composite metric. I compare welfare across a set of countries, under alternative aggregation methods, and find that countries often can be ranked under comparatively weak measurement assumptions, and, equally important, that aggregation methods can be chosen so as to refrain from strong ethical preconceptions.

Deference in international human rights law has provoked animated discussion, particularly the margin of appreciation doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights. Many commentators describe the practice of deference but do not explain how it affects judicial reasoning. Some approve characteristics of deference but do not provide a justification to defend the practice against criticism. Others regard deference as a danger to human rights because it betrays the universality of human rights or involves tribunals either failing to consider a case properly or missing an opportunity to set human rights standards. This thesis employs a different approach by focussing on deference as the practice of assigning weight to reasons for a decision on the basis of external factors. This approach draws on theories of second-order reasoning from the philosophy of practical reasoning. The thesis offers a conceptual account of deference that accords with the practice not only of the European Court of Human Rights, but also the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. Additionally the thesis presents a normative account of deference, that the role of these tribunals entails permitting a measure of diversity as states implement international human rights standards. Deference in international human rights law then is the judicial practice of assigning weight to the respondent states’ reasoning in a case on the basis of three factors: democratic legitimacy, the common practice of states and expertise. This affects judicial reasoning by impacting the balance of reasons in the proportionality assessment. The account defended in this thesis dispels concerns that deference is a danger to human rights, whilst providing a theory that justifies the practice of the tribunals. The thesis thus provides the contours of a doctrine of deference in each of the three international human rights systems.

This thesis proposes a novel experimental environment (non-linear stochastic gradient descent, NL-SGD), as well as a novel online learning algorithm (OL SVM), for solving a classic nonlinear Soft Margin L1 Support Vector Machine (SVM) problem using a Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) algorithm. The NL-SGD implementation has a unique method of random sampling and alpha calculations. The developed code produces a competitive accuracy and speed in comparison with the solutions of the Direct L2 SVM obtained by software for Minimal Norm SVM (MN-SVM) and Non-Negative Iterative Single Data Algorithm (NN-ISDA). The latter two algorithms have shown excellent performances on large datasets; which is why we chose to compare NL-SGD and OL SVM to them. All experiments have been done under strict double (nested) cross-validation, and the results are reported in terms of accuracy and CPU times. OL SVM has been implemented within MATLAB and is compared to the classic Sequential Minimal Optimization (SMO) algorithm implemented within MATLAB's solver, fitcsvm. The experiments with OL SVM have been done using k-fold cross-validation and the results reported in % error and % speedup of CPU Time.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse how the margin squeeze developed within the reasoning of the European Union. Margin squeeze is a special type of abuse of dominant position. This type of abuse has massively developed in last years. However, we cannot say that it is totally new form of abuse as we can find certain cases that concern margin squeeze already in the 70s. Nevertheless, especially because of the liberalisation of network industries in the 90s, this abuse has substantially spread up and because of that there was a necessity to answer certain questions that were unclear until that time. This thesis is composed of four main chapters that are further composed of particular subchapters for the purpose to analyse this development. Chapter one is dedicated to general characteristic of the margin squeeze. This abuse is first of all classified as a special type of the abuse of dominant position according to article 102 TFEU. Afterwards, the chapter concerns about the definition of this abuse and its particular legal and economical characters. This all from theoretical point of view. Chapter two briefly discuss the most significant cases that concern margin squeeze and that were decided by European institutions. All these cases are ordered chronologically and the main goal is to describe its...

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / Royce Ann Collins / Significant numbers of women drop out of GED preparation programs. This phenomenological study used interviews and demographic surveys to learn how 12 women perceived their experiences of dropping out of GED programs. Possible selves theory and McClusky’s theory of margin provided the theoretical framework for this research. Possible selves theory examined how women’s past, present, and future selves were considered in their experience of the phenomenon, while theory of margin was used to look at the network of challenges and supports present in their lives. This study found that at the time the women dropped out of GED programs: (a) they no longer believed they could achieve their desired future selves, (b) past choices continued to adversely affect them, (c) their burdens far exceeded their resources, (d) they identified the status quo as their feared possible selves, and (e) they believed that having a tutor would have enabled them stay in GED classes. The study recommends: (a) introducing theory of margin and possible selves to students as tools for taking stock and planning for educational success, (b) forming community volunteer tutoring networks, and (c) recording dropout numbers within GED programs to illustrate the need for additional funds. This population is marginalized because they become invisible to society and GED preparation programs when they stop attending.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru Hanawa Peterson / This thesis focuses on the question of the effect of commodity pricing and Federal programs on the cost of food in the United States. For many decades the debate around subsidy payments has been argued in the halls of Congress and in farm fields across the country. Corn, wheat, and soybeans are the three largest crops subsidized in the United States today; arguably, the prices of these crops are influenced by subsidy payments. The goal of this thesis is to determine the effects of the prices of the top three subsidized crops on the thrifty market basket for families for four published by the USDA, factoring in transportation costs, market spread, agricultural technology advancements, and market value share. Previous studies have focused on direct subsidy payments as a whole and their aggregate influence on the price of food. This paper builds on the past studies by evaluating the effects of crop-specific programs on the cost of food. Econometric regression analysis was used to analyze the data gathered to support or refute the hypothesis that commodity prices and Federal payments do influence the cost of food. Initially data were gathered from January 1960 to December 2012. The data were adjusted for inflation using the Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index where appropriate. After multiple attempts of modeling it was discovered that data from 1960 to 1970 needed to be discarded due to the difference in the market basket price calculations from the rest of the series. Furthermore, the model was adjusted based on the presence of multicollinearity, and the Hildreth-Lu Method was utilized to correct for the autocorrelation in error. The regression results illustrated that the only commodity of the three considered in the study that had a positive and statistically significant impact on the cost of food over the sample period was corn (p-value = 0.005). The coefficients on wheat and soybean prices were statistically insignificant. The historical fuel price had the expected positive sign and was statistically significant. The agricultural technology factor was not significant. The results also suggested that the cereal grains supply chain has significantly increased the cost of food. Both the cereal grain farm value share and the retail-to-farm spread for cereal grains were statistically significant (p-value < 0.000) with positive coefficients. The price spread of fruit was statistically significant, (p-value = 0.000), but the farm value was not. The regression results were initially surprising for the crop price variables. The overall analysis supports previous studies that crop subsidies alone may not have impacted food prices per se, but biofuel policies may have had unintended consequences. Crop-specific results provide more information to consider when discussing The Farm Bill and the implications of such a complicated and omnibus piece of legislation.

Climate and longleaf pine (Pinus palustris P. Mill.) radial growth relationships have been documented within its southern and western distribution. However, knowledge of this relationship is lacking along its northern latitudinal range margin (NLRM). Based on the principles of ecological amplitude, limiting factors, and studies of coniferous species in eastern temperate forests of the U.S., we hypothesized that the radial growth of longleaf pine in mixed pine-hardwood forests is responding to winter temperatures in southeastern Virginia. Two longleaf pine chronologies were developed to determine the relationship between radial growth and monthly temperature, precipitation, and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) via response function analysis (RFA). Results at the 0.05 level yielded significant response function coefficients with a positive response to current winter temperature and precipitation and a negative response to prior August PDSI. In studies of climate and longleaf pine radial growth in other parts of its range, winter temperature and precipitation have not shared a significant positive association with radial growth. Instead current spring and summer precipitation usually share this positive association. These findings add more evidence to an emerging pattern suggesting that winter temperatures contribute to limiting the radial growth of temperate conifers at northern range margins in the Northern Hemisphere.

La technique d'une DPC pour adénocarcinome a évolué ces dernières années tant au niveau sécurité qu'au niveau carcinologique mais cela n'a pas suffit à faire progresser la survie. On peut se demander si la modification de la technique chirurgicale pourrait avoir un impact significatif sur la survie.A) Nous avons recherché, sur 23 pièces de DPC encrées, la présence de la mutation K-ras au niveau de la marge veineuse affirmée R0 en analyse histologique : 13 spécimens (groupe kras+) exprimaient une mutation K-ras au sein de la marge veineuse versus 10 spécimens (groupe kras-) ne l'exprimant pas. Les tumeurs des 2 groupes étaient comparables (taille, envahissement ganglionnaire, engainement périnerveux…). La survie globale à 1 an et 3 ans des groupes kras- versus kras+ étaient de 80% versus 84,6% et 16,7% versus 0% (p=0,03), respectivement. Les médianes de survie des groupes kras- versus kras+ étaient de 24 mois versus 16 mois (p=0,04), respectivement.B) Nous avons comparé, après appariement, 19 patients ayant eu une DPC avec résection « par excès » de la veine porte (groupe VP) avec 19 patients ayant eu une DPC sans résection de la veine porte (groupe contrôle). Les survies médianes et à 3 ans du groupe VP versus groupe contrôle étaient 42 mois versus 22 mois (p=0,04) et 60% versus 31% (p=0,03), respectivement.En conclusion, notre travail a montré qu'au-delà de la marge déterminée par le chirurgien pendant la chirurgie, de celle de l'anatomopathologiste déterminée par l'analyse microscopique, il existait une marge génique. La résection systématique de la veine porte semblait bénéfique car elle permettait sans doute de passer au-delà de cette marge génique. / Pancreticoduodenectomy (PD) for adenocarcinoma was safer during the last decades but did not improve survival. We sought to determine if technical changes during PD could improve survival.A) In a first study, we determine the presence of K-ras mutation in the venous margin of 23 PD's specimens. Thirteen specimens had K-ras mutation (kras+ group) and 10 specimens did not (kras- group). Except K-ras mutation status, tumors of the 2 groups were not different when comparing major histological findings (margin status, lymph node invasion, perineural invasion…). Overall 1- and 3-years survival of patients of kras- group versus kras+ group were 80% versus 84,6% and 16,7% versus 0% (p=0,03), respectively. Median survival of patients of kras- group versus kras+ group were 24 months versus 16 months (p=0,04), respectively.B) In a second study, we compared 19 patients with “excessive” portal vein resection during PD (PV group) with 19 matched patients who underwent PD without venous resection (control group). Median survival of patients of PV group versus control group were 42 months versus 22 months (p=0,04), respectively.In conclusion, we showed that the « genic margin » concept was consistent. Systematic portal vein resection could avoid positive genic margin and might be benefic for patient who underwent PD for resecable adenocarcinoma.