This dissertation consists of three essays on the impact of non-market financial flows in developing countries. The first essay answers two questions. First, to what extent are remittances (as private transfers) differentiable from grants (as public transfers) in their effects on capital formation and growth? Second, how might the motivations to remit inform the nature of the relationship between remittances and growth? Using a sample of four developing countries, results suggest that remittances and grants, in fact, do behave differently. Remittances have no significant relationship with investment for all but one country (remittances are positively correlated with growth for Bangladesh). Grants’ impact on investment is negative in Egypt, positive in Pakistan and Syria and insignificant in Bangladesh. Migrants’ motivations to remit are found to be different across countries. Enlightened self-interest motivation to remit is the most likely cause of growth impacts in Egypt. A combination of self-interest and enlightened self-interest explains the growth impact in Bangladesh. Finally, a combination of migrants’ altruistic behavior and self-interest attitude explains the growth impact in Pakistan and Syria. The second essay demonstrates the allocation of foreign aid between consumption and investment with special emphasis on the importance of reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 61 countries from 1980 to 2006, results indicate that, on average, 23 to 25% of any increase in foreign aid has been directed towards financing reverse flows. 78% was consumed and an insignificant amount was invested. Additional investigation suggests that almost 50% of aid is used for reverse flows in Sub-Saharan Africa, 19% in the Americas and 16 to 20% in North Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The third essay examines how remittances are allocated between consumption, investment and reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 36 countries from 1980 to 2006, results suggest that almost 80% of any increase in remittances/GDP was consumed. With respect to investment, remittances had to statistically discernable effect on rate of investment. Additionally, 20% of any increase in remittances was diverted as reverse flows and contributed neither to increase consumption nor to investment.

Kyasanur Forest Disease Virus (KFDV) is a tick-borne, hemorrhagic fever-causing member of the Flaviviridae. With infections annually ranging from 50 to 1000 people in south-west India and the lack of effective treatments, a better understanding of this virus is needed. The development of a Reverse Genetics System for KFDV would provide the opportunity to address these issues in future studies. Using molecular techniques, the KFDV genome sequence was elucidated and the reverse genetics system was created. Utilizing this system live, infectious KFDV particles were produced from mammalian cell culture, thereby validating the success of the reverse genetics system. The implementation of this system will enable researchers to better study pathogenesis and disease progression, virus-host interplay, virion structure, genome replication and the emergence of effective therapeutics and vaccines.

There are two basic needs globally and that is the control and supply of reliable electricity and clean water. However, one of the biggest challenges the world is facing today is the lack of fresh water resources. Lower rainfall, together with population and industry growth, are only a few factors contributing to the fast increasing strain on existing water supplies around the world. This fast increasing need therefore necessitates the investigation into finding alternative sources. One such option is that of desalination. In the last 50 years desalination technologies have been applied to produce high quality fresh water from brackish and seawater resources. In the 1980's a breakthrough was made with the introduction of the membrane desalination technology, known as the reverse osmosis (RO) process. Today newly developed technologies are improving the competitiveness of the reverse osmosis process against the traditional distillation processes. There are a number of options to increase the efficiency of a reverse osmosis plant and one option is to use warm industrial waste water as the feed water to the desalination plant. It is known that the viscosity of water is inversely proportional to its temperature. Therefore, if the feed water temperature of a reverse osmosis plant is increased the membranes will become more permeable. This will result in a higher production volume or in a lower energy demand. South Africa is on the edge of building the first fourth generation nuclear power plant, called the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) at Koeberg. The PBMR will produce a cooling water outlet temperature of 40°C which can be used as feed water to a reverse osmosis plant. In this study design guidelines of a reverse osmosis plant are given in nine steps. These steps were then used during a basic component design of a reverse osmosis plant coupled to the waste water stream of a PBMR nuclear power plant. Furthermore design software programs were used to simulate the coupling scheme in order to validate the outcome of the design guidelines. The results of the two design approaches compared well to one another. It furthermore showed that by using the waste water from the PBMR nuclear power plant the efficiency of the RO plant is increased and the operating cost is decreased. Fresh water can be produced at a cost of R 5.64/m3 with a specific electricity consumption of 2.53 kWh/m3. / Thesis (M.Ing. (Nuclear Engineering)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Computing has reached a point where it is visible in almost every aspect of one’s daily activities. Consider, for example, a typical household. There will be a desktop computer, game console, tablet computer, and smartphones built using different types of processors and instruction sets. To support the pervasive and heterogeneous nature of computing there has been many advances in programming languages, hardware features, and increasingly complex software systems. One task that is shared by all people who work with software is the need to develop a concrete understanding of foreign code so that tasks such as bug fixing, feature implementation, and security audits can be conducted. To do this tools are needed to help present the code in a manner that is conducive to comprehension and allows for knowledge to be transferred. Current tools for program comprehension are aimed at high-level languages and do not provide a platform for assembly code comprehension that is extensible both in terms of the supported environment as well as the supported analysis. This thesis presents ICE, an Integrated Comprehension Environment, that is de- veloped to support comprehension of assembly code while remaining extensible. ICE is designed to receive data from external tools, such as disassemblers and debuggers, which is then presented in a series of visualizations: Cartographer, Tracks, and a Control Flow Graph. Cartographer displays an interactive function call graph while Tracks displays a navigable sequence diagram. Support for new visualizations is provided through the extensible implementation enabling analysts to develop visual- izations tailored to their needs. Evaluation of ICE is completed through a series of case studies that demonstrate different aspects of ICE relative to currently available tools. / Graduate / 0984 / dpucsek@uvic.ca

No description available.

Reverse auctions for ecological goods and services are an alternative to current agri-environmental government programs to provide incentives for farmers. This thesis reports on a testbed of laboratory auction experiments to assess efficiency and cost effectiveness of different design treatments. These were developed using estimated costs of wetland restoration in southern Manitoba. The testbed included a comparison of payment type (discriminatory versus uniform payments), and ranking rule for both budget based and target based auctions over repeated auction rounds and reserve prices for the target based auctions. It was found that 1) uniform payments outperformed discriminatory payments under a budget constraint, 2) discriminatory payments were superior to uniform payments under a target constraint, 3) where there is no budget constraint a reserve price can greatly increase efficiency and cost effectiveness. These findings highlight the complexity of auction design and may be used as an aid to guide policy decisions and agri-environmental program design. / Agricultural and Resource Economics

The ecology of human development has been shown to be different for different cultures and sub-cultures within a particular culture, and to play a significant part in shaping the outcome traits or character profile exhibited by individuals who experience a given ecology. This is the case for members of that sub-culture of children who spend childhood years abroad; who expect to eventually repatriate to their passport country. Those who experience the phenomenon have been called Third Culture Kids or TCKs, and the outcome profile for those with a North American background has been identified. However, no literature on children in the Australasian context exists. A progressive naturalistic study, using both qualitative and quantitative methodology, was undertaken providing foundational data on the experience of adult Australasians (Australians and New Zealanders) who had experienced such a childhood ecology. The Australasian self-reported reflections were compared with descriptions of the North American and international experience presented in existing literature. Further, accepted models of human development were merged and adapted to produce a TCK-specific model of human development. This model was a significant product of this research project. Components of particular importance to development that nurtured the outcome profile traits were identified and represented in the model. The study incorporated three phases: phase 1 involved the in-depth interview of 3 respondents who had experienced the TCK ecology on three different continents, phase 2 involved data collection on the demographics of the broader Australasian TCK population asking questions about family choices, education, and career trajectories (N=50), and phase 3 collected in-depth descriptions of the childhood TCK ecology through voluntary response to an extensive written survey and asked for comparison with the imagined alternative ecology had respondents remained in their passport country (N=45). In both phases 1 and 3 respondents were asked to describe character traits they believed they manifested as a direct result of immersion in the TCK ecology and then suggest traits they might otherwise have manifested had the imagined alternative ecology been the nurturing environment. Tabulation of the emerging data allowed comparison and contrast with the North American outcome profile traits that have been described in literature. In both tabulations many outcome profile traits were identified as being in polar contrast with each other; the TCK could manifest either or both of the apparently opposing traits. Manifestation was dependent upon the immediate context within which the TCK was functioning. There was shown to be a significant overlap in the outcome profile for Australasians and North Americans. However, in this study Australasians presented stronger in their self-report of altered relational patterns and traits related to resourcefulness and practical abilities than was described in the North American literature. In comparing outcome profile traits of the real TCK ecology and those that were associated with the imagined alternative ecology respondents reported that they would have been more confident and more socially competent, but less tolerant and less globally aware had they been raised in the passport country. The self-reported outcome traits or profile were linked to the developmental ecology by exploring the processes and tensions that were at work. It was shown that dynamic tensions emerged and increased in valence as the individual gradually developed polarised traits that manifested according to engagement in the multiple contexts the TCK was required to manage. The results of this study have implications for those who deploy families abroad, as well as those who educate, and nurture the social potential of TCKs. This study has served to extend understanding of the phenomenon at the international level and laid a foundation for specific understanding of the Australasian context.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- McMaster University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available via World Wide Web.

Zugl.: Berlin, Charité, Univ.-Med., Diss., 2006

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.