In this study, I examine how sectarian and ethnic fragmentations along with the economic disparity have different deteriorating effects on the stability of the bloody conflict in Syria, and how these effects make it difficult for society to build a consensus that would end the conflict. Politicized Ethnic fragmentation and mobilized sectarianism fueled opposition that destabilized Syria; the government’s violent repression of opposition groups exacerbated the conflict that led to virtual civil war; the armed conflict precipitated a crisis of confidence that spawned mass migration; the economic disparity in the country caused more divided society, and it made society vulnerable to experience a civil war. Offering an explanation for the refugee crises caused by the Syrian conflict will provide more explanatory power over why people choose to flee and become refugees.

This thesis contributes to the literature on the consumption-portfolio choice under uncertainty and is motivated by several empirical failures of the standard consumption-based capital asset pricing model (CCAPM). This canonical model has proven disappointing empirically and has even been questioned whether it is theoretically valuable and practically useful even if it is in some sense the only model we have. The frustration is due to that the model performs no better in practice and generates some well-known consumption puzzles and asset pricing puzzles. The purpose of the thesis is to reexamine these puzzles and then to resolve them. After the debate of Hansen and Singleton (1983) and Hall (1988), the estimates of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) of consumption in a representative agent model have not resulted in any consensus. Based on this observation, the first chapter of this thesis is focused on resolving the elasticity puzzle or the unresponsiveness to interest rates. We propose a new theoretical and empirical perspective on the relationship between consumption growth and asset returns. In the spirit of Hansen and Singleton (1983), we demonstrate that observed growth rate of consumption responds not only to a specific asset return but also to other asset returns. Empirically, US postwar quarterly data are used to fit the regression model derived in the chapter, and the sample period is 1953Q2-2001Q2. Empirical results show that the EIS is greater than 0.1, the maximum value considered possible by Hall (1988). Accordingly, we argue that there is no elasticity puzzle in the standard representative agent model. The second chapter provides an explanation for the puzzle of excess sensitivity of consumption to expected income proposed by Flavin (1981). We exploit consumer's superior information (i.e., windfalls in investments and in income) to integrate the consumption Euler equations into a generalized Euler equation. The implications emerging from the equation can refute much of the empirical evidence against the permanent income hypothesis (PIH). In short, we conclude that consumption growth is sensitive to windfalls in income, but not to expected income. Thus, Friedman's prescient insight is being formally corroborated in standard utility theory. The equation also provides an alternative approach permitting one more precisely to estimate the preference parameters and much easier to identify the time-series properties of labor income. Empirical results based on U.S. postwar quarterly data show that the EIS is significantly positive and the labor income should follow a nonstationary second-order autoregressive process. The last chapter of the thesis, chapter three, attempts to address the equity premium puzzle, proposed by Mehra and Prescott (1985), and the risk-free rate puzzle, proposed by Weil (1989). These two asset pricing puzzles have troubled financial economists for nearly two decades. To date, there is still no convincing solution for the equity premium puzzle. The CCAPM is apparently inconsistent with the data, especially the annual data in the 1889-1978 period used by Mehra and Prescott (1985). This has led many economists to question whether the model should be abandoned. The purpose of the chapter is to resolve the two puzzles, and then to consolidate the Lucas-Breeden paradigm embedded in the standard CCAPM. We demonstrate that the equity premium puzzle is resulted from the gaps between the expected asset returns and the actual ones. These gaps have conventionally been regarded as regression disturbances, and explained as good luck or unexpected windfalls. We introduce an alternative way that, using other good luck to explain a given good luck, can help fill in the specific gap. Results of numerical calculations and parametric estimation show that, the gap has been significantly narrowed down and hence the equity premium and risk-free rate puzzles are successfully resolved.

This report discusses the design and development of Xeero, a 3D action-puzzle-platforming game constructed from our own custom engine, original art and sound assets. Despite a small development team, we strove to create a highly-polished and marketable interactive experience. We explain the methodology employed, results gained, and challenges faced by each member of the team in pursuit of this goal.

The family Corivdae, which includes crows and ravens, contains arguably some of the most intelligent species the animal kingdom has to offer. Separated from primates by at least 252 million years of evolution, birds bear striking physiological differences from mammals, while displaying similar intellectual abilities. This apparent convergent evolution of intelligence sheds light on what could possibly be a universal phenomenon. While many excellent studies show the abilities of corvids, the majority of them test only captive subjects. This study tested the capabilities of both captive and wild ravens, from three different species. The first portion of the study tested which of the four solutions offered wild ravens would choose when solving a Multi-Access Box. The second portion of the study tested the performance of wild and captive ravens when solving a Multi-Latch Box. The nine raven subjects were split into four different levels of enculturation based on their known histories. Two wild common ravens (Corvus corax) on the campus of the University of Arizona were level 1, four wild common ravens in the parking lot of a United States Forest Service parking lot were level 2, two captive and trained Chihuahuan ravens (Corvus cryptoleucus) from the Raptor Free Flight program at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum comprised level 3, and one captive and trained white-necked raven (Corvus albicollis) made level 4. It is possible to run trials with completely wild and free birds. It was found that ravens prefer direct methods of obtaining food, such as opening doors and pulling strings, instead of tool use. It was also found that while the relationship between enculturation level and success solving a puzzle was not linear, captive birds were the best solvers. The data given here suggest that captivity, training and enrichment history, and enculturation should all be considered when performing cognitive studies with animals.

Enter The Palace of the Monarch to experience Chinese horror and mystery in a fully realized virtual reality game. Follow a trail of cryptic letters and portraits, solving many unique puzzles in ever more extraordinary places—this is a mysterious journey where knowledge meets myth. This fully immersive game asks the player, in the role of the first son of House of Lin, to return to an ancient palace to fulfill solve a mystery. This game is unique to Western markets, bringing Chinese culture, history, writing, and horror sensibility and coupling this with a carefully designed and paced mystery that is told through discoveries in the game world. Ultimately, players will unveil the hidden secrets of the palace. Through research on environmental storytelling, human computer interaction, and game puzzle design, we want to provide the game with fascinating and immersive VR experience.

Enter The Palace of the Monarch to experience Chinese horror and mystery in a fully realized virtual reality game. Follow a trail of cryptic letters and portraits, solving many unique puzzles in ever more extraordinary places€”this is a mysterious journey where knowledge meets myth. This fully immersive game asks the player, in the role of the first son of House of Lin, to return to an ancient palace to fulfill solve a mystery. This game is unique to Western markets, bringing Chinese culture, history, writing, and horror sensibility and coupling this with a carefully designed and paced mystery that is told through discoveries in the game world. Ultimately, players will unveil the hidden secrets of the palace. Through research on environmental storytelling, human computer interaction, and game puzzle design, we want to provide the game with fascinating and immersive VR experience.

Le point de départ de cette thèse est relatif à la critique de Shimer, c'est-à-dire l'incapacité du modèle d'appariement à reproduire la forte volatilité du taux de chômage. L'introduction d'une rigidité du salaire réel fut considérée comme la réponse à cette critique. Néanmoins, Sveen et Weinke (2008) ont souligné que cette rigidité n'aurait pas d'effet sur la volatilité lorsque les entreprises choisissent le nombre d'heures effectuées par travailleur. Dans le 1er chapitre, nous précisons que ce résultat est lié à la manière d'intégrer la rigidité salariale. Nous montrons que lorsque cette rigidité est introduite par la «négociation crédible» de Hall et Milgrom (2008), la volatilité est fortement amplifiée, même lorsque le entreprises décident du nombre d'heures par travailleur. En outre, un arbitrage significatif entre stabilisation de l'inflation et stabilisation du chômage est restauré. Dans le 2ème chapitre, nous soulignons que la négociation crédible ne produit toutefois qu'un degré modéré de rigidité salariale et n'est en mesure de répliquer intégralement la volatilité du chômage que pour des valeurs peu réalistes de certains paramètres. Nous ajoutons à ce modèle une asymétrie d'information. Le surcroît de rigidité salariale qui en résulte permet de reproduire la volatilité avec un calibrage plausible. Enfin, nous montrons qu'il est possible de résoudre la critique de Shimer sans recourir aux rigidités salariales, mais en considérant un calibrage particulier du modèle avec destructions endogènes d'emplois. Nous mettons aussi en exergue un mécanisme central de ce modèle, tel que la volatilité du taux de destruction amplifie celle du taux de retour à l'emploi. / The starting point of this PhD dissertation is related to the Shimer puzzle, i.e. the unability of the search and matching model to reproduce the high volatility of the unemployment rate. Real wage rigidities were considered as the main solution to this puzzle. Nevertheless, Sveen and Weinke (2008) argue that those rigidities would not have any impact on the unemployment volatility when hours per worker are determined by the firms. In the first chapter, we argue that the capacity of real wage rigidities to solve the puzzle critically depends on the way that rigidities are introduced. When real wage stickiness results from the «credible bargaining» (Hall and Milgrom ,2008), we show that the unemployment volatility is magnified, even for hours being firms’ decisions. A significant stabilization trade-off between inflation and unemployment is moreover restituted. However, we stress in the second chapter that the credible bargaining delivers a moderate degree of wage rigidity and then requires unrealistic values for some parameters to completely replicate the unemployment volatility. We integrate asymmetric information into this framework and show that the resulting higher wage stickiness fully reproduces the volatility for a plausible calibration. ln the last chapter, we emphasize that it is possible to solve the puzzle without resting on real wage stickiness, by considering a particular calibration of the model with endogenous separations. We also highlight a central mechanism of this framework, for which the volatility of the separation rate amplifies that of the job finding rate.

We develop a stochastic control model for an investor's optimal investment and consumption over an uncertain planning horizon when the investor is endowed with a defaultable income stream. The distributions of the random time of default and the random terminal time are prescribed by deterministic hazard rates, and the investor makes investments in a standard financial market with a bond and a stock, modeled by geometric Brownian motion. In addition, the investor purchases insurance against both default and the terminal date, the default insurance serving as a proxy for the investor's disutility for default. We approximate the original continuous-time problem with a sequence of discrete-time Markov chain control problems by applying dynamic programming and the Markov chain approximation. We demonstrate how the problem can be solved numerically through a logarithmic transformation of the investor's wealth variable, even when the utilities are CRRA with large risk aversion parameter. The model and computational approach are applied to a retiree's optimal annuity decision in the presence of default risk, and we demonstrate that default risk can lead a retiree to annuitize significantly smaller proportions of savings, even when a portion of the defaulted annuity can be recovered, than is traditionally considered optimal by the retirement-finance community. Hence, we show that credit risk may play an important role in resolving the annuity puzzle.

Thesis advisor: Howard Straubing / The use of computer programs to automatically solve logic puzzles is examined in this work. A typical example of this type of logic puzzle is one in which there are five people, with five different occupations and five different color houses. The task is to use various clues to determine which occupation and which color belongs to each person. The clues to this type of puzzle often are statements such as, ''John is not the barber,'' or ''Joe lives in the blue house.'' These puzzles range widely in complexity with varying numbers of objects to identify and varying numbers of characteristics that need to be identified for each object. With respect to the theoretical aspects of solving these puzzles automatically, this work proves that the problem of determining, given a logic puzzle, whether or not that logic puzzle has a solution is NP-Complete. This implies, provided that P is not equal to NP, that, for large inputs, automated solvers for these puzzles will not be efficient in all cases. Having proved this, this work proceeds to seek methods that will work for solving these puzzles efficiently in most cases. To that end, each logic puzzle can be encoded as an instance of boolean satisfiability. Two possible encodings are proposed that both translate logic puzzles into boolean formulas in Conjunctive Normal Form. Using a selection of test puzzles, a group of boolean satisfiability solvers is used to solve these puzzles in both encodings. In most cases, these simple solvers are successful in producing solutions efficiently. / Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Computer Science.

This paper discusses the design and development of the action-puzzle-platforming game Xeero, constructed from our own custom engine, original art, and original sound assets. Despite a small development team, we strove to create a highly-polished and marketable interactive experience. This paper discusses the methodology employed, results gained, and challenges faced by each member of the team in pursuit of this goal.