Thesis (doctoral)--Universität zu Köln, 2001.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Local Government.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2012. / The point of departure of this study is to evaluate service delivery in the Office of the Compensation Fund. The year 1994 ushered in a new era for South Africa. Since then, the South African Public Service has gone through a process of transformation. The introduction of new legislation regarding service delivery and transformation changed the manner in which the South African Public Service functioned. The main task of those in power is to transform the lives of all South Africans and this could be achieved by improving service delivery. Service delivery improvements have characterised government institutions and have not left the Compensation Fund behind. The primary objective of this research is to suggest ways of evaluating improved service delivery in the Office of the Compensation Fund.

published_or_final_version / Law / Master / Master of Laws

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Les capteurs d'images CMOS sont de plus en plus utilisés dans le domaine industriel : la surveillance, la défense, le médical, etc. Dans ces domaines, les capteurs d'images CMOS sont exposés potentiellement à de grandes variations de température. Les capteurs d?images CMOS, comme tous les circuits analogiques, sont très sensibles aux variations de température, ce qui limite leurs applications. Jusqu'à présent, aucune solution intégrée pour contrer ce problème n'a été proposée. Afin de remédier à ce défaut, nous étudions, dans cette thèse, les effets de la température sur les deux types d'imageurs les plus connus. Plusieurs structures de compensation sont proposées. Elles reprennent globalement les trois méthodes existantes et jamais appliquées aux capteurs d'images. La première méthode utilise une entrée au niveau du pixel qui sera modulée en fonction de l'évolution de la température. La deuxième méthode utilise la technique ZTC (Zero Température Coefficient). La troisième méthode est inspirée de la méthode de la tension de référence bandgap. Dans tous les cas, nous réduisons de manière très intéressante l'effet de la température et nous obtenons une bonne stabilité en température de -30 à 125°C. Toutes les solutions proposées préservent le fonctionnement initial de l'imageur. Elles n'impactent également pas ou peu la surface du pixel

Silicon magnetic sensors based on the Hall effect have proven to be an excellent sensor choice for many applications, such as position sensing, gear-tooth sensing, contact-less switching and linear sensing. Although a sensor can be trimmed over temperature before it is shipped to the customer, little can be done about the sensitivity's stability once the sensor has been installed in its final application. The goal of this project is to propose and implement mechanisms to stabilize the Hall sensor's sensitivity through the use of mechanical stress feedback and magnetic feedback.

Background. In Sweden 10 percent (550,000) of the labour force, aged 18 to 65 years are disability pensioners and about four percent are on sick leave. The knowledge of the course from healthy individual to disability pensioner is not well known and was the theme of this thesis. Objectives, Material and Methods. The aims of the thesis were to follow the study population regarding sickness absence, health care utilisation, quality of life, and survival. Population based data including 14,538 women and men from three cities in Sweden were used, of whom 1,952 were granted a disability pension at baseline or received one during follow up. Register data, including sickness spells, health care utilisation, and mortality data during 30 years of follow up, and questionnaire data including socio-economic and quality of life data were used. Results. The most powerful determinant for being granted a disability pension was cumulative annual sick leave days, more powerful than all other tested determinants together. The degree of explanation for all determinants combined was 96%. Health care utilisation among disability pensioners continued to be high also after disability pension, 2.3 times higher for hospital admissions and 8 times higher for primary health case appointments than among referents. Disability pensioners had lower quality of life than non-pensioners and old age pensioners. For those who became disability pensioners after the baseline measurements quality of life measures decreased progressively until disability pension was granted and were then stabilised on a low level. During follow up 525 (7.6%) subjects died. Compared with subjects who did not become disability pensioners the hazards ratio was 2.78 among women and 3.43 among men, even when the effect of a number of other outcome affecting variables were taken into account. The mortality differences were not explained by underlying disease. Conclusions. The risk of disability pension may be predicted but only late in the course of events. Disability pensioners continue to have a high level of health care utilisation, and have a worse quality of life development and a higher mortality rate than non-pensioners. Given the unfavourable outcome of disability pension, other means of managing the reduced work capacity might be considered.

Les produits de contraste ultrasonore constituent un véritable apport pour l’imagerie échographique et sont aujourd’hui utilisés en clinique pour l’évaluation de la perfusion cardiaque ou encore la détection de tumeurs. Depuis quelques années, les transducteurs capacitifs micro-usinés (cMUTs) se présentent comme une alternative intéressante aux transducteurs piézoélectriques classiques et offrent certains avantages comme une large bande passante. Nous proposons dans cette thèse d’évaluer le potentiel de cette technologie pour l’imagerie de contraste. Dans un premier temps, notre étude s’est orientée vers l’adaptation des cMUTs à l’imagerie non linéaire. Ensuite, de nouvelles méthodes de détection de contraste, basées sur le comportement spécifique des microbulles, ont été développées pour exploiter les avantages de la technologie cMUT. Comparés aux méthodes conventionnelles, les résultats obtenus montrent une meilleure visualisation des agents de contraste par rapport aux tissus environnants. L’utilisation de cMUTs améliore l’efficacité de ces méthodes démontrant, ainsi, leur intérêt pour l’imagerie de contraste. / Using ultrasound contrast agents, many clinical diagnoses have now been improved thanks to new contrast dedicated imaging techniques. Contrast agents are now used routinely in cardiology and in radiology to improve the detection and visualization of blood perfusion in various organs (e.g. tumors). Since a few years, Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (cMUTs) have emerged as a good alternative to traditional piezoelectric transducer. cMUTs provide several advantages such as wide frequency bandwidth which could be further developed for nonlinear imaging. In this dissertation, we propose to exploit cMUT for contrast agent imaging. Firstly, the excitation signal was adapted to suppress the inherent nonlinear behavior of cMUT. Then, new detection methods based on specific acoustic properties of microbubbles have been developed and evaluated with a cMUT probe. Results show a good suppression from tissue responses whereas echoes from microbubbles are enhanced. Furthermore, the efficiency of each method is improved by the use of cMUT revealing the potential of this new transducer technology for contrast agent detection.

Le recours à l'arbitrage par les opérateurs du commerce international a une finalité très importante, qui est celle de l'indemnisation appropriée et efficiente du préjudice. En vue d'évaluer celle-ci, notre étude adopte une recherche juridique détaillée en matière de réparation pour aboutir à un résultat satisfaisant concernant le principe le plus adapté en tant que cadre commun de l'opération d'évaluation de l'indemnisation du préjudice par les arbitres internationaux, en mettant notamment la lumière sur l'arbitrage CIRDI et CCI. À cette fin, il était nécessaire de suivre une analyse juridique tant sur les règles fondamentales que contingentes de l'indemnisation dans le souci d'avoir une perspective entière du processus de l'évaluation du quantum du préjudice. Un passage transversal était ainsi inéluctable sur les règles juridiques relatives à la réparation en droit privé français ainsi qu'en système juridique de Common Law. Au demeurant, un examen sur la codification de ces règles a été suivi dans le cadre des instruments internationaux de droit uniforme. Toutes ces réglementations ont inspiré le droit de l'arbitrage et ont servi comme des sources de celui-ci en matière de la réparation. Ces développements nous ont conduits à percevoir que l'indemnisation doit être adéquate en prenant en compte non seulement les préjudices subis, conformément au principe général de l'indemnisation intégrale, mais aussi tous les intérêts lésés. Sachant que certains préjudices ne sont pas mathématiquement évaluables, une indemnisation arbitraire s'impose dans ce cas. Un nouveau concept d' « indemnisation adéquate» du préjudice pourrait alors dans l'avenir s'imposer dans le droit de l'arbitrage international. / Recourse to arbitration on the part of international business operators has a very important aim, which is the appropriate and efficient indemnisation of prejudice. ln order to evaluate this, our study adopts a detailed legal study of reparations to arrive at a satisfactory result concerning the most appropriate principle to be applied at a common framework as a mode of evaluation of the indemnisation of prejudice in international arbitration, focusing the spotlight on ICC and ICSID arbitration. To this end, it is necessary to follow a legal analysis of bath the fundamental and contingent rules of indemnisation in order to gain a complete perspective on the process of the evaluation of the quantum of prejudice. Thus an inevitably recurring feature throughout the thesis was the legal rules of compensation in French private law in addition to the common law legal system. Furthermore, a review of these rules' codification has been followed in the context of international uniform law instruments. Ali these regulations have inspired the arbitration law and served as its sources in reparation matters. These developments have led us to perceive that compensation must be adequate taking into account not only the damages suffered, in accordance with the general principle of full compensation, but also all the interests affected in the knowledge that certain harms are not mathematically evaluable, entailing the necessity in these cases of an arbitrary compensation. Therefore, a new concept of « adequate compensation » for the damage could impose itself in the future in the law of international arbitration.

Submitted by Marcos Barbosa Pinto (mpinto@gaveainvest.com.br) on 2011-12-21T18:59:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Microsoft Word - Dissertacao - Pós Banca - 16122011.pdf: 296612 bytes, checksum: e6c3d7f22d920776865e09918cec73f0 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2012-01-09T11:24:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Microsoft Word - Dissertacao - Pós Banca - 16122011.pdf: 296612 bytes, checksum: e6c3d7f22d920776865e09918cec73f0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-01-09T11:24:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Microsoft Word - Dissertacao - Pós Banca - 16122011.pdf: 296612 bytes, checksum: e6c3d7f22d920776865e09918cec73f0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-11-10 / Este trabalho procura identificar a relação entre dispersão da propriedade acionária e remuneração de executivos. A literatura sugere que, devido a problemas de ação coletiva e custos de agência, companhias com propriedade acionária mais dispersa tendem a remunerar melhor seus executivos. Utilizando dados disponíveis pela primeira vez no Brasil, este trabalho procura testar essa hipótese. Os testes econométricos realizados, com base em uma amostra de 315 companhias abertas brasileiras cujas ações são admitidas à negociação em bolsa de valores, evidenciam uma forte correlação, positiva e estatisticamente significante, entre a remuneração dos administradores e a dispersão acionária. O trabalho conclui que, ceteris paribus, companhias com propriedade acionária mais dispersa pagam remuneração maior a seus administradores. / The aim of this study is to identify the relationship between ownership dispersion and executive compensation. The literature suggests that, as a result of collective action problems and agency costs, companies with dispersed ownership tend to pay higher compensation to their executives. Using data available for the first time in Brazil, this study tries to test this hypothesis. The econometric tests conducted, using a sample of 315 public companies listed in the Brazilian stock exchange, suggest a strong correlation, positive and statistically significant, between executive compensation and ownership dispersion. This study concludes that, ceteris paribus, companies with dispersed ownership pay higher compensation to their executives.