A (closed) neighborhood-restricted 2-achromatic-coloring of a graph G is an assignment of colors to the vertices of G such that no more than two colors are assigned in any closed neighborhood. In other words, for every vertex v in G, the vertex v and its neighbors are in at most two different color classes. The 2-achromatic number is defined as the maximum number of colors in any 2-achromatic-coloring of G. We study the 2-achromatic number. In particular, we improve a known upper bound and characterize the extremal graphs for some other known bounds.

The recent state of art in the magnetic resonance area putsforward the electron paramagnetic resonance, EPR, and nuclearmagnetic resonance, NMR, experiments on prominent positions forinvestigations of molecular and electronic structure. A mostdifficult aspect of such experiments is usually the properinterpretation of data obtained from high-resolution spectra,that, however, at the same time opens a great challenge forpure theoretical methods to interpret the spectral features.This thesis constitutes an effort in this respect, as itpresents and discusses calculations of EPR and NMR parametersof paramagnetic molecules. The calculations are based on newmethodology for determination of properties of paramagneticmolecules in the framework of the density functional theory,which has been developed in our laboratory. Paramagnetic molecules are, in some sense, very special. Thepresence of unpaired electrons essentially modifies theirspectra. The experimental determination of the magneticresonance parameters of such molecules is, especially in theNMR case, quite complicated and requires special techniques ofspectral detection. The significant efforts put into suchexperiments are completely justi fied though by the importantroles of paramagnetic species playing in many areas, such as,for example, molecular magnets, active centers in biologicalsystems, and defects in inorganic conductive materials. The first two papers of this thesis deal with thetheoretical determination of NMR parameters, such as thenuclear shielding tensors and the chemical shifts, inparamagnetic nitroxides that form core units in molecularmagnets. The developed methodology aimed to realize highaccuracy in the calculations in order to achieve successfulapplications for the mentioned systems. Theeffects of hydrogenbonding are also described in that context. Our theory forevaluation of nuclear shielding tensors in paramagneticmolecules is consistent up to the second order in the finestructure constant and considers orbital, fully isotropicdipolar, and isotropic contact contributions to the shieldingtensor. The next three projects concern electron paramagneticresonance. The wellknown EPR parameters, such as the g-tensorsand the hyperfine coupling constants are explored. Calculationsof electronic g-tensors were carried out in the framework of aspin-restricted open-shell Kohn-Sham method combined with thelinear response theory recently developed in our laboratory.The spincontamination problem is then automatically avoided.The solvent effects, described by the polarizable continuummodel, are also considered. For calculations of the hyperfinecoupling constants a so-called restricted-unrestricted approachhas been developed in the context of density functional theory.Comparison of experimentally and theoretically determinedparameters shows that qualitative mutual agreement of the twosets of data can be easily achieved by employing the proposedformalisms.

Genetic programming is an approach that utilises the power of evolution to allow computers to evolve programs. While loops are natural components of most programming languages and appear in every reasonably-sized application, they are rarely used in genetic programming. The work is to investigate a number of restricted looping constructs to determine whether any significant benefits can be obtained in genetic programming. Possible benefits include: Solving problems which cannot be solved without loops, evolving smaller sized solutions which can be more easily understood by human programmers and solving existing problems quicker by using fewer evaluations. In this thesis, a number of explicit restricted loop formats were formulated and tested on the Santa Fe ant problem, a modified ant problem, a sorting problem, a visit-every-square problem and a difficult object classification problem. The experimental results showed that these explicit loops can be success fully used in genetic programming. The evolutionary process can decide when, where and how to use them. Runs with these loops tended to generate smaller sized solutions in fewer evaluations. Solutions with loops were found to some problems that could not be solved without loops. The results and analysis of this thesis have established that there are significant benefits in using loops in genetic programming. Restricted loops can avoid the difficulties of evolving consistent programs and the infinite iterations problem. Researchers and other users of genetic programming should not be afraid of loops.

When forecasting time series variables, it is usual to use only the information provided by past observations to foresee potential future developments. However, if available, additional information should be taken into account to get the forecast. For example, let us consider a case where the Government announces an economic target for next year. Since the Government has the empowerment to implement the economic or social policies to approach the target, an analyst that does not consider this information to get the forecast and makes use only of the historical record of the variables, will not anticipate the change on the economic system. In fact, if predictions based on historical data would be invalid when a policy change affects the economy, the economic agents are forward rather than backward-looking and adapt their expectations and behavior to the new policy stance. Thus, given some targets for the variables under study it is important to know the simultaneous future path that will lead to achieving those targets. Here it is considered the case in which a system of variables are to be forecasted with the aid of a VAR model with a cointegration relationship. The paths projected forward into the future as a combination of the model-based forecasts and the additional information provides what is known as a restricted forecast.This work is an attempt to contribute to the literature on Restricted Forecasting Theory for Multiple Time Series within the VAR framework. Specifically, Chapter 2 decomposes the JCT into single tests by a variance-covariance matrix associated with the restrictions and derives the formulas of a feasible JCT that accounts for estimated parameters. Chapter 3 develops, by Lagrangian optimization, the restricted forecasts of the multiple time series process with structural change, as well as its mean squared error. In addition, the univariate time series types of changes are considered here in a multivariate setting. Finally, Chapter 4 derives a methodology for forecasting multivariate time series that satisfy a contemporaneous binding constraint for which there exists a future target. A Monte Carlo study of a VEC model with one unit root shows that, for a forecast horizon large enough, the forecasts obtained with the proposed methodology are more efficient. A more detailed account of these contributions is provided below.

Abstract Council For Economic And Development Executive Yuan established a new land-use scheme in National Comprehensive Development Plan on the purpose of preventing the resource depletion and environmental disasters resulting from improper land-use activities. In the land-use scheme the land resources are identified as ¡¥developable areas¡¦ and ¡¥restricted areas¡¦ according to their importance and fragility. The restricted areas are imposed strict land-use regulations for the purposes of resources conservation and preservation. Thus, this research worked on the bases of the regulated¡¦s opinions. This research starts with discussing the regulation policy theory, the literature on the theory of property rights and a conceptual framework for determining whether the invaded land property rights should be compensated, and for suggesting how to compensate if the compensation is required. Finally, this research applied the framework to the Shoushen National Park to discuss whether the land property rights invaded by the regulations should be compensated and what kind of compensation would be appropriated.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-92). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3024508.

The English used in Malaysia is one of the varieties of New Englishes and this variety has emerged due to the spread of English around the world (Platt, et al., 1983; Pillai, 2006). In the case of Malaysia, Malay is the national language and standard English exists to be the language of an elite (Bao, 2006), also as a language of interaction. Over years of playing its various roles as a language of interaction, there has emerged a variety of English that is distinctively Malaysian (Asmah, 1992). Baskaran (2002) points out that English is now adopted and adapted in the linguistic ecology of Malaysia, and all Malaysians should be proud of it with all its local ‘nuances and innuendos’. Malaysian English today is ‘a rich tapestry of a typical transplanted variety of English’. Malaysian English (ME) is one of the new varieties of English, with some distinct features include the localized vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar as well as pragmatic features (Pillai, 2006; Pillai and Fauziah, 2006, p.39). The present study has embarked on a specialised study of vocabulary. In particular, it examined the English collocations produced by non-native speaker English users in Malaysia. The study provided insight into the nature of the internal norms of English used in Malaysia to see how these English restricted collocations being used by this group of learners. The investigation focused on the learners’ productive knowledge of Verb-Noun collocations of their written English with the impact of exposure and frequency. Nesselhauf (2003) has the opinion that verb-noun combinations are the most frequently mistaken so they should perceive particular attention of learners. Investigating collocation in English language learning is paramount as such study may inform us on the use of restricted collocations in English language teaching and learning in Malaysian context. The findings in Chapter 4 and 5 suggest that the frequency of the cloze verb does have an effect as predicted by Kuiper, Columbus and Schmitt (2009). This is so because frequency is a measure of likely exposure. The more frequent an item is in corpora, the more likely a learner is to be exposed to it. What is needed is a much more nuanced notion of exposure. The findings in Chapter 6 proves that the malformed collocations make sense could be a way of making the World English perspective relevant after all. A new testing approach is proposed; semantic plausibility metric, which is used as a tool for this study, can be useful used as a measure of vocabulary acquisition as well as looking at learners’ test taking strategies. The findings of the present research on Malaysian English collocations contribute new knowledge to the existing understanding and literature on the acquisition of collocations.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Univ., 2006. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-59).

This dissertation analyzes the effect of a stock market downturn on executive compensation plans which include stock option contracts. A model is developed to determine sufficient conditions for which the optimal compensation contract exhibits characteristics of a fixed salary plus stock option. If a publicly known shift in the distribution of firm value occurs after contracting and before the agent takes his action, then it can be shown to be in the principal's interest to renegotiate the agent's contract. The resulting contract is again a fixed salary plus stock options with lower exercise prices than in the original contract. It is assumed that the shift in the distribution of firm value is a low probability event that is not contracted upon. To determine whether or not it is optimal to contract on a low probability event the set of original contract and rengotiated contract is compared to a contract that is complete with respect to the event. Benefits to complete contracting exist if the agent commits to stay after information about the event becomes available. However, if the agent can leave at any time, the principal may prefer, initially, not to contract on low probability events and simply renegotiate the contract if a low probability event occurs. Renegotiation can take the form of lowering the exercise price of outstanding stock options or adding a layer of options with a lower exercise price than existing outstanding options. Nonparametric tests on stock option grants in 1985 through 1988 indicate that the size of grants in 1987 and 1988 is significantly larger than in 1985 and 1986. These results support the prediction that stock options outstanding in 1987 were renegotiated following the stock crash in October 1987. / Business, Sauder School of / Accounting, Division of / Graduate