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The value of an IT system can be considered from a number of different perspectives. Specifically, the same IT system can be valued differently across different stakeholders, time periods, usage environments, and other contextual factors. When measuring the value of an IT system, it is important to consider what value perspectives are relevant and how those perspectives affect the development of value metrics. An IT value assessment framework is proposed to aid in identifying such contextual factors and exploring how those factors affect the value that is realized from an IT system.

Does community archaeology work? Worldwide over the last decade, there has been a boom in projects utilising the popular phrase ‘community archaeology’. These projects take many different forms, stretching from the public-face of research and developer-funded programmes to projects run by museums, archaeological units, universities and archaeological societies. Many of these projects are driven by the desire for archaeology to meet a range of perceived educational and social values in bringing about knowledge and awareness of the past in the present. They are also motivated by the desire to secure adequate funding for archaeological research. However, appropriate criteria and methodologies for evaluating the effectiveness of these projects have yet to be designed. This thesis sets out a methodology based on self-reflexivity and ethnology. It focuses on community excavations, in a range of contexts both in the UK and US. It assesses the values these projects produce for communities and evaluates what community archaeology actually does. It concludes that community archaeology frequently fails to balance the desired outcomes of its stakeholders. It suffers from its short-term funding and, therefore, often lacks sustainability, which hampers its ability to produce and maintain values. Evaluation of projects should be qualitative as well as quantitative in establishing the cost effectiveness of projects. Subsequently, recommendations are made for future community archaeology project designs.

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The objective of this thesis was to determine the effect of income volatility risk on quota values in the Canadian dairy industry. A quota valuation model was developed to explain the relationship between quota value and its potential determinants, including a risk premium that accounted for dairy producer risk preferences and a measure of income volatility risk. The empirical analysis was applied to the Ontario dairy industry, and monthly data was collected for the period October 1990 through July 2009. Three econometric models were estimated using the ordinary least squares and generalized least squares approaches to estimate the relationship between quota value and the explanatory variables. The generalized least squares estimation approach was applied to the econometric models to account for the presence of autocorrelation. Robust standard errors were reported in the presence of heteroskedasticity. The first model included the discounted flows of expected returns and risk premiums as explanatory variables. The second model expanded on the first by adding policy risk and technological change as explanatory variables. The third model adjusted the second model by replacing the discounted flows of expected returns and risk premiums with the non-discounted values of these variables. Three models were specified and estimated to compare the estimation results and determine which specification best explained quota values over the sample period. The significance test for the first regression under ordinary least squares estimation concluded that the discounted risk premium flows were statistically significant at the 5% significance level. However, the discounted risk premium flows took on an unexpected sign that did not coincide with economic theory. Hypothesis tests for all other regression scenarios concluded that the risk premium was statistically insignificant at the 5% significance level. Therefore, given the functional form of the econometric models, the dataset, and the estimation procedures, the empirical results did not provide definitive evidence that income volatility risk influenced quota values in the Ontario dairy industry for the period October 1990 through July 2009. / October 2016

Study Supervisor: Dr Jan Kruger Year submitted: 2008 / Companies must be able to adapt and evolve if they wish to survive in the highly competitive marketplace today. Businesses operate with the knowledge that their competitors will inevitably come to the market with a product that changes the basis of competition. The ability to change and adapt therefore is essential to survival. Changes in the technological landscape enable a number of new opportunities to be opened up in the marketplace. There is no need to emphasize the role of Information Technology (IT) in such endeavors. However, great uncertainties surround the IT project landscape where unpredictability of costs as well as quantification of benefits remaining prominent. Although NPV is often used as the de facto standard for IT investment appraisal, calculating the confidence levels of the inputs thereto or the output thereof is not attempted as often as desired. The purpose of this study was to determine how to perform better Net Present Value (NPV) approximations by improving the accuracy of input values thereto, in order to make informed business decisions. The study focuses on finding a practical solution to the above problem than a purist approach towards developing a theory.

Credit value adjustment (CVA), as a quantified measure of counterparty credit risk for financial derivatives, is becoming an increasingly important concept for the financial industry. In this thesis, we evaluate CVA for an interest rate swap via a new structural default model. In our model, the asset value of a company is assumed to follow meromorphic Lévy processes with infinite jumps but finite variation. One important advantage of our model is that we are able to assume a random recovery rate which depends on default severity. Compared with the case with a fixed recovery rate, we show that the effect on CVA with a random recovery rate is significant. / May 2016

[pt] A presente dissertação é uma análise da construção da identidade do oficial do Exército Brasileiro. Ampla e inédita pesquisa de opinião realizada com mais de seiscentos oficiais de carreira formados na Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (AMAN) clarifica o perfil atual da identidade dos oficiais do Exército destacando as variações impulsionadas pela pós-modernidade. A pergunta que norteia todo o trabalho é: com a chegada dessas transformações sociais a partir da década de 1970, a identidade dos oficiais do Exército Brasileiro sofreu alterações? Inicialmente é realizada uma exposição teórica acerca do conceito de identidade com abordagens da sociologia e textos da psicologia e filosofia, em que são traçados paralelos entre identidade e caráter, identidade e reconhecimento, diferença e identidade, além das abordagens da identidade profissional, institucionalização e valores do trabalho e das organizações. As identidades na modernidade e pós-modernidade são descritas sob uma visão sociológica abordando-se as diferenças impostas aos indivíduos e instituições nas relações pessoais e profissionais, caracterizando a necessária flexibilização das identidades, inclusive no meio militar. Também são utilizadas visões de autores consagrados acerca da identidade do homem brasileiro e dos militares, destacando os valores que cultuam, tendo por base biografias dos patronos do exército. Finalizando a análise, mediante tratamento estatístico quantitativo e qualitativo, toda a teorização é confrontada com os dados obtidos na pesquisa de opinião realizada com os oficiais de carreira para a obtenção do perfil da identidade dos oficiais do Exército destacando as variações impulsionadas pela pós-modernidade. / [en] This thesis is an analysis of the construction of the the official Brazilian Army identity. Extensive and unprecedented survey conducted with over six hundred trained career officers at the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras (AMAN) clarifies the current profile of the identity of army officers focusing on variations driven by postmodernity. The question that guides all the work is: with the arrival of these social transformations from the 1970s, has the identity of the Brazilian Army changed? First there is an exhibition about the theoretical concept of identity with approaches from sociology and psychology, and philosophy texts, in which parallels are drawn between identity and character, identity and recognition, identity and difference, besides the approaches of professional identity, values and institutionalization and labor organizations. The identities in modernity and post-modernity are described from a sociological view addressing the differences imposed on individuals and institutions in personal and professional relationships, characterizing the necessary flexibility of identities, including the military life. Beyond that, visions of acclaimed authors about the identity of the man and the Brazilian military, highlighting the values worshiped based on biographies of patrons Army. Concluding the analysis by statistical quantitative and qualitative, all the theorizing is confronted with the data obtained in the survey conducted with career officers for obtaining the profile of the identity of army officers focusing on variations driven by postmodernity.