This thesis examines three questions concerned with the relative income needs of families of different sizes - often summarised by indices known as ???equivalence scales???. The first is the extent to which researchers and policy makers should offset the costs of family composition (eg the expenditure costs of children) with the benefits associated with demographic choice (eg the ???joys of parenthood???). Chapter 2 concludes that there are demographic and financial market constraints that will often make a narrow focus on expenditure costs appropriate for distributional research and tax/transfer policies. However, this will not always be the case. One implication of this result is that it may be reasonable for distributional research to use different equivalence scales for adults and children in the same household. Part 2 of the thesis introduces a new method for the estimation of the within-household income distribution and expenditure costs of different family types. This is based upon the household welfare model of Samuelson together with Lau???s method for modelling the joint consumption of household goods. In Chapter 4, this method is applied to the estimation of equivalence scales for older singles and married couples. The estimation is based upon a detailed set of assumptions about the extent of joint consumption for 17 different commodity groups. The main conclusions are that: the theoretical model fits the observed behaviour well (with the exception of some home production effects); that aged couples share their income relatively evenly; and that the relative rate of pension for aged singles in Australia is probably too low. In Part 3, the thesis examines how changes in poverty can be estimated when there is uncertainty about the equivalence scale. The thesis proposes a new method which permits a set of upper and lower bounds for the equivalence scale to be assumed, which in turn determine upper and lower bounds for the increase in poverty. This method is applied to measure the change in poverty in Australia during the 1980s. Equivalence scales can be found that imply either an increase or a decrease in poverty.

This study aims to discuss equivalence and non-equivalence in some selected areas of English and Chinese lexis and their impact upon teaching, learning and translating. Attempts have been made to state the causes of lexical equivalence and non-equivalence and raise and solve some difficulties and problems arising particularly from nonequivalent lexemes between English and Chinese. As a subdiscipline of linguistics, contrastive linguistics is concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine the differences and similarities between them. Based on a practical aim this study tries to provide a model for the comparison and determine how and which lexemes are comparable so as to explore the notion of equivalence and non-equivalence. It is hoped to provide as much information as is possible in a limited study of this kind on lexical comparison between the two languages. It compares differences with examples, analyses some of the problems arising from the errors made by the Chinese students, and analyses their causes in the areas of noun, verb, preposition, compound lexemes, reduplicative words and phrases, negation, polysemy, idiomatic expressions and lexemes derived directly from the cultural background. Finally some suggestions and considerations are made for those who might have responsibility for designing courses to train interpreters, translators or teachers.

This thesis examines three questions concerned with the relative income needs of families of different sizes - often summarised by indices known as ???equivalence scales???. The first is the extent to which researchers and policy makers should offset the costs of family composition (eg the expenditure costs of children) with the benefits associated with demographic choice (eg the ???joys of parenthood???). Chapter 2 concludes that there are demographic and financial market constraints that will often make a narrow focus on expenditure costs appropriate for distributional research and tax/transfer policies. However, this will not always be the case. One implication of this result is that it may be reasonable for distributional research to use different equivalence scales for adults and children in the same household. Part 2 of the thesis introduces a new method for the estimation of the within-household income distribution and expenditure costs of different family types. This is based upon the household welfare model of Samuelson together with Lau???s method for modelling the joint consumption of household goods. In Chapter 4, this method is applied to the estimation of equivalence scales for older singles and married couples. The estimation is based upon a detailed set of assumptions about the extent of joint consumption for 17 different commodity groups. The main conclusions are that: the theoretical model fits the observed behaviour well (with the exception of some home production effects); that aged couples share their income relatively evenly; and that the relative rate of pension for aged singles in Australia is probably too low. In Part 3, the thesis examines how changes in poverty can be estimated when there is uncertainty about the equivalence scale. The thesis proposes a new method which permits a set of upper and lower bounds for the equivalence scale to be assumed, which in turn determine upper and lower bounds for the increase in poverty. This method is applied to measure the change in poverty in Australia during the 1980s. Equivalence scales can be found that imply either an increase or a decrease in poverty.

This thesis examines three questions concerned with the relative income needs of families of different sizes - often summarised by indices known as ???equivalence scales???. The first is the extent to which researchers and policy makers should offset the costs of family composition (eg the expenditure costs of children) with the benefits associated with demographic choice (eg the ???joys of parenthood???). Chapter 2 concludes that there are demographic and financial market constraints that will often make a narrow focus on expenditure costs appropriate for distributional research and tax/transfer policies. However, this will not always be the case. One implication of this result is that it may be reasonable for distributional research to use different equivalence scales for adults and children in the same household. Part 2 of the thesis introduces a new method for the estimation of the within-household income distribution and expenditure costs of different family types. This is based upon the household welfare model of Samuelson together with Lau???s method for modelling the joint consumption of household goods. In Chapter 4, this method is applied to the estimation of equivalence scales for older singles and married couples. The estimation is based upon a detailed set of assumptions about the extent of joint consumption for 17 different commodity groups. The main conclusions are that: the theoretical model fits the observed behaviour well (with the exception of some home production effects); that aged couples share their income relatively evenly; and that the relative rate of pension for aged singles in Australia is probably too low. In Part 3, the thesis examines how changes in poverty can be estimated when there is uncertainty about the equivalence scale. The thesis proposes a new method which permits a set of upper and lower bounds for the equivalence scale to be assumed, which in turn determine upper and lower bounds for the increase in poverty. This method is applied to measure the change in poverty in Australia during the 1980s. Equivalence scales can be found that imply either an increase or a decrease in poverty.

Cette thèse est une contribution à l'étude des arrangements. L'idée est le calcul de la combinatoire d'un arrangement de courbes ou surfaces compte tenu du fait que les données et les opérations ne seront connues qu'à une précision près. Dans cette démarche, il se pose un problème qui est de savoir si la combinatoire d'un arrangement est stable lorsque les éléments constitutifs sont perturbés. Un préliminaire indispensable est alors d'établir une définition rigoureuse adaptée à nos besoin concernant l'équivalence des arrangements. Le travail consiste essentiellement en un développement des notions mathématiques nécessaires pour étudier l'équivalence, la construction, les perturbations d'arrangements. Quelques résultats en terme d'analyse de complexité sont également énoncés. Des résultats sont obtenus sur les perturbations d'arrangements d'hyperplans en dimension quelconque. Dans le plan est étudiée une méthode particulière de calcul des arrangements des courbes, avec un exemple détaillé sur les cercles. Utilisant des transformations classiques de dualité, des applications des propriétés d'équivalence des arrangements d'hyperplans aux configurations de points et aux diagrammes de Voronoï sont aussi données

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

This thesis' main theme is successful principal leadership in secondary schools within the Swedish education system. Successful principal leadership is examined from three perspectives: What are the processes of a successful principal? Do the leadership processes relate to successful academic and social outcomes of schools? What are the prerequisites for successful principal leadership? The Frame Factor Model and the three concepts of prerequisites, processes and outcomes constitute an overarching framework. The prerequisites are categorized as internal prerequisites (the particular characteristics of individual principals) and external prerequisites operating within the Swedish educational environment. The successful principal processes are viewed as pedagogical leadership processes, on one hand as providing prerequisites for teaching and learning and, on the other hand as leading the core processes of teaching and learning. The definitions build on the empirical data, on the Swedish national curriculum and demands for pedagogical leadership, and on international findings on what successful principals do. The outcomes of successful principal leadership are here defined as the academic and the social outcomes of schools. The research undertaken is part of the research project 'Structure, Culture, Leadership - Prerequisites for Successful Schools?' The empirical data for this thesis are gathered in twenty-six Swedish secondary schools whereof five are regarded successful schools based on both academic and social outcomes. The findings, reported on in four articles, derive from interviews and questionnaires to principals and teachers. The principals in the main identify prerequisites of importance that are within their own realm of influence, such as themselves, teachers and school district level. They consider a limited area of responsibility and support from district level specialists as providing possibilities for their success. The principals accept the national governance of schools and principals via the national curriculum. The principals in the five successful schools however take a higher degree of responsibility for setting direction towards national goals, for processes inside schools and for school outcomes than do principals in less successful schools.They as pedagogical leaders attend to a higher degree both to providing prerequisites for teaching and learning and to leading the core processes of teaching and learning than do principals in less successful schools. In schools with a successful implementation of social goals, which shows as successful social outcomes, the principals, according to teachers, overall take responsibility for their national objectives and obligations to a higher degree than principals in schools with a less successful implementation of social goals. The implementation of social goals is of importance not only from an outcome perspective but also from a process perspective. It requires collaborative interpretation which can promote principal-staff professional relations and ultimately student learning. The identified overall differences between principals' leadership processes and processes in the twenty-six schools raise questions around consequences for equivalence in education. / Struktur, kultur, ledarskap- förutsättningar för framgångsrika skolor?

Today's EDA (Electronic Design Automation) industry faces enormous challenges. Their primary cause is the tremendous increase of the complexity of modern digital designs. Graph algorithms are widely applied to solve various EDA problems. In particular, graph dominators, which provide information about the origin and the end of reconverging paths in a circuit graph, proved to be useful in various CAD (Computer Aided Design) applications such as equivalence checking, ATPG, technology mapping, and power optimization. This thesis provides a study on graph dominators in logic synthesis and verification. The thesis contributes a set of algorithms for computing dominators in circuit graphs. An algorithm is proposed for finding absolute dominators in circuit graphs. The achieved speedup of three orders of magnitude on several designs enables the computation of absolute dominators in large industrial designs in a few seconds. Moreover, the computation of single-vertex dominators in large multiple-output circuit graphs is considerably improved. The proposed algorithm reduces the overall runtime by efficiently recognizing and re-using isomorphic structures in dominator trees rooted at different outputs of the circuit graph. Finally, common multiple-vertex dominators are introduced. The algorithm to compute them is faster and finds more multiple-vertex dominators than previous approaches. The thesis also proposes new dominator-based algorithms in the area of decomposition and combinational equivalence checking. A structural decomposition technique is introduced, which finds all simple-disjoint decompositions of a Boolean function which are reflected in the circuit graph. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique outperforms state-of-the-art functional decomposition techniques. Finally, an approach to check the equivalence of two Boolean functions probabilistically is investigated. The proposed algorithm partitions the equivalence check employing dominators in the circuit graph. The experimental results confirm that, in comparison to traditional BDD-based equivalence checking methods, the memory consumption is considerably reduced by using the proposed technique. / QC 20100804

To the pair (E,c), where E is a countable Borel equivalence relation on a standard Borel space (X,A) and c a normalized Borel T-valued 2-cocycle on E, we associate a sequentially weakly closed Borel *-algebra Br*(E,c), contained in the bounded linear operators on L^2(E). Associated to Br*(E,c) is a natural (Borel) Cartan subalgebra (Definition 6.4.10) L(Bo(X)) isomorphic to the bounded Borel functions on X. Then L(Bo(X)) and its normalizer (the set of the unitaries u in Br*(E,c) such that u*fu in L(Bo(X)), f in L(Bo(X))) countably generates the Borel *-algebra Br*(E,c). In this thesis, we study Br*(E,c) and in particular prove that: i) If E is smooth, then Br*(E,c) is a type I Borel *-algebra (Definition 6.3.10). ii) If E is a hyperfinite, then Br*(E,c) is a Borel AF-algebra (Definition 7.5.1). iii) Generalizing Kumjian's definition, we define a Borel twist G over E and its associated sequentially closed Borel *-algebra Br*(G). iv) Let a Borel Cartan pair (B, Bo) denote a sequentially closed Borel *-algebra B with a Borel Cartan subalgebra Bo, where B is countably Bo-generated. Generalizing Feldman-Moore's result, we prove that any pair (B, Bo) can be realized uniquely as a pair (Br*(E,c), L(Bo(X))). Moreover, we show that the pair (Br*(E,c), L(Bo(X))) is a complete invariant of the countable Borel equivalence relation E. v) We prove a Krieger type theorem, by showing that two aperiodic hyperfinite countable equivalence relations are isomorphic if and only if their associated Borel *-algebras Br*(E1) and Br*(E2) are isomorphic.