Education, as an indispensable component of human capital, has been acknowledged to play a critical role in economic growth, which is theoretically elaborated by human capital theory and empirically confirmed by evidence from different parts of the world. The educational impact on growth is especially valuable and meaningful when it is for the sake of poverty reduction and pro-poorness of growth. The paper re-explores the precious link between human capital development and poverty reduction by investigating the causal effect of education accumulation on earnings enhancement for anti-poverty and pro-poor growth. The analysis takes the evidence from a well-known conditional cash transfer (CCT) program — Oportunidades in Mexico. Aiming at alleviating poverty and promoting a better future by investing in human capital for children and youth in poverty, this CCT program has been recognized producing significant outcomes. The study investigates a short-term impact of education on earnings of the economically disadvantaged youth, taking the data of both the program’s treated and untreated youth from urban areas in Mexico from 2002 to 2004. Two econometric techniques, i.e. difference-in-differences and difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach are applied for estimation. The empirical analysis first identifies that youth who under the program’s schooling intervention possess an advantage in educational attainment over their non-intervention peers; with this identification of education discrepancy as a prerequisite, further results then present that earnings of the education advantaged youth increase at a higher rate about 20 percent than earnings of their education disadvantaged peers over the two years. This result indicates a confirmation that education accumulation for the economically disadvantaged young has a positive impact on their earnings enhancement and thus inferring a contribution to poverty reduction and pro-poorness of growth.

Partitur eines Kammermusikwerkes von Matthias Drude. Das Werk wurde 2010 für Oboe, Klarinette, Fagott, Marimbaphon und Streichquintett komponiert.

This research mainly tries to confirm the relationship between distress risk and stock returns in the Taiwan market. According to three factor theory raised by Fama-French (1992), the higher book-to-market ratio brings higher stock returns because of the higher distress risk, and also mentioned about the three significant factors in explaining expected stock return: risk, firm size, and book-to-market ratio (here replace it with price-to-book ratio). There are many studies had proved that high risk accompanies high expected stock return, but some other obtained the contrary outcome. It still depends on different characteristics of enterprises, industries, and countries. Following other researches, this paper use ¡§Z-Score¡¨ bankruptcy prediction model as the proxy of distress risk, and take the subsequent realized stock returns of the distress publicly-traded firms as a proxy of systematic risk. As it may be doubted of using Z-Score in the Taiwan stock market, this research add ¡§TCRI¡¨ to compare with. ¡§TCRI¡¨ is the credit rating score raised by Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ). Because of the same results of rating on sample companies, it supported the application of Z-Score in Taiwan stock market. In analyzing the relationship between distress risk and stock return, this research find that firm size, distress risk and price-to-book ratio effect are significant enough to explain the expected stock return,(although distress risk and price-to-book ratio are only significant in Y-3) similar to the findings of Fazilah Samad (2009) et al. This research also found that the theoretical expectation of the size effect on distress risk does not hold in the case of the Taiwan distress publicly-traded firms, but price-to-market ratio (PB ratio) does. Unlike the findings of Fazilah Samad (2009) et al. and Griffin and Lemmon (2002), the outcome shows that there is a significant inverse relationship between PB ratio and distress risk, similar to the theory and our original expectation. It directly proved that the lower PB ratio brings higher distress risk in Taiwan market, but inconclusive to deduce that it also brings higher stock return. Meanwhile, this research tries to find out if there is a difference between distress companies and most distress companies. Besides of firm size, there is no significant difference between these two groups, and they are similar as it was closer to distress happened. Although there is not significant relationship between three factors and stock return, this study reveals the decreasing trend of financial performance among those distress firms before facing distress circumstances. It shows again that Z-Score is suitable for Taiwan market although our sample companies including manufacturing and non-manufacturing companies.

Unlike single-label document classification, where each document exactly belongs to a single category, when the document is classified into two or more categories, known as multi-label file, how to classify such documents accurately has become a hot research topic in recent years. In this paper, we propose a algorithm named fuzzy similarity measure multi-label K nearest neighbors(FSMLKNN) which combines a fuzzy similarity measure with the multi-label K nearest neighbors(MLKNN) algorithm for multi-label document classification, the algorithm improved fuzzy similarity measure to calculate the similarity between a document and the center of cluster similarity, and proposed algorithm can significantly improve the performance and accuracy for multi-label document classification. In the experiment, we compare FSMLKNN and the existing classification methods, including decision tree C4.5, support vector machine(SVM) and MLKNN algorithm, the experimental results show that, FSMLKNN method is better than others.

This study investigates use of echocardiography to assess the related issues about whether the heart function of a subject examined is normal or not. Two-dimensional echocardiography can make the heart inspection, and provide very detailed informations for each part of the cardiovascular structures with a high degree of accuracy. Many studies indicated that the systolic and diastolic function with left ventricle of heart disease in patients was poorer than those of normal patients. Therefore it is of interest to study the systolic and diastolic function for examining whether there are heart problems. In this work, the data is the gray-scale values of left ventricular static ultrasound images. The gray-scale differences between systolic and diastolic period, are used to assess whether the patient suffers from the heart diseases or not. Here, we use factor analysis to simplify and select the crucial factors, namely the function in different area of the left ventricle. Finally, linear and quadratic discriminant analyses are used to distinguish the normal and the abnormal subjects.

Due to the association of heart diseases and the patterns of the diastoles and systoles of heart in left ventricle, we analyze and classify the data gathered form Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital by using the cardiology ultrasound images. We make use of the differences between the gray-scale values of diastoles and systoles in left ventricle to evaluate the function of heart. Following Chen (2011) and Kao (2011), we modified the way about the reduction and alignment of the image data. We also add some more subjects into the study. We treat images in two manners, saving the parts of concern. Since the ultrasound image after transformation to data form is expressed as a high-dimensional matrix, the principal component analysis is adapted to retain the important factors and reduce the dimensions. In this work, we compare the loadings calculated by the usual principal and sparse principal component analysis, then the factor scores are used to carry out the discriminant analysis and discuss the accuracy of classification. By the statistical methods in this work, the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the original classifications are over 80% and the cross validations are over 60%.

Non-invasive physical examination helps to make disease diagnosis with minimum injury to the body. Cardiology ultrasound is a non-invasive examination which can be used as a auxiliary tool for diagnose cardiac structure abnormalities. With more understanding of heart diseases, it has been recognized that heart failures are closely related to left ventricular systolic and diastolic function. Following Chen (2011) and Kao (2011), we study association of heart diseases with the change of gray-scale values in the cardiology ultrasound images of left ventricular systolic and diastolic. Since data obtained from ultrasound image is of matrix type with high dimensions, following the method proposed by Chen (2011) and Kao (2011), factor scores obtained from factor analysis are used as a basis for classification. We take the factor scores of normal subjects to establish the bench mark and calculate the Mahalanobis distance of each abnormal subject with the model established by the data from normal group. Later based on this distance to the normal group, cardiac function of the subject is distinguished as normal or not. In order to improve the accuracy of the classification, influential points which may cause inaccurate covariance matrix estimate on the subjects in normal group are identified. Based on concepts from optimal designs theory, some criteria are established for screening out the influential points.

Recent studies have reported that open-end fund has its performance persistence. However, those studies didn¡¦t mention the factors of performance persistence. Therefore, investors knows the character of the types of fund, but unable to determine which individual fund have the character given the type of fund. The main purpose of this study is to provide investors a new way to select funds. First, investors can select high performance funds in the past period and aim to pick the individual funds which fit the character of high performance persistence. This study is divided into two parts. In first part, the researcher use Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient Test to examine the existence of performance persistence. In second part, the study aims to use Panel Data Analysis to examine the impact of 10 factors on the performance persistence in different type of funds, and periods. Samples in the study are chosen from 160 Taiwan open-end equity funds during 2004-2011. The return rate data is rolling data. In order to remove the difference of the risks of the funds, simple return rates were transferred into Jensen¡¦s Alpha. The conclusions are shown as below¡G 1. In short term, Time of Establishment often has a positive effect on fund performance persistence. 2. In short term, Net Asset Value often has a negative effect on fund performance persistence. In long term, net asset value often has a positive effect on fund performance persistence. 3. In short and middle term, Average Investment Amount always has a positive effect on fund performance persistence. 4. Almost in all type of funds and all periods, Stock Holding Rate has a negative effect on fund performance persistence. 5. Almost in all type of funds and all periods, The Score of Monitoring indicator has a negative effect on fund performance persistence.

In this dissertation, the generalized score tests based on weighted estimating equations are proposed for missing covariate data. Their properties, including the effects of nuisance functions on the forms of the test statistics and efficiency of the tests, are investigated. Different versions of the test statistic are properly defined for various parametric and semiparametric settings. Their asymptotic distributions are also derived. It is shown that when models for the nuisance functions are correct, appropriate test statistics can be obtained via plugging the estimates of the nuisance functions into the appropriate test statistic for the case that the nuisance functions are known. Furthermore, the optimal test is obtained using the relative efficiency measure. As an application of the proposed tests, a formal model validation procedure is developed for generalized linear models in the presence of missing covariates. The asymptotic distribution of the data driven methods is provided. A simulation study in both linear and logistic regressions illustrates the applicability and the finite sample performance of the methodology. Our methods are also employed to analyze a coronary artery disease diagnostic dataset.

This study focuses on the evaluation of seismic safety of masonry buildings in Turkey by using fragility curves. Fragility curves for masonry buildings are generated by two behavior modes for load bearing walls: in-plane and out-of-plane. By considering the previous research and site investigations, four major parameters have been used in order to classify masonry buildings with in-plane behavior mode. These are number of stories, strength of load-bearing wall material, regularity in plan and the arrangement of walls (required length, openings in walls, etc.). In addition to these four parameters, floor type is also taken into account for the generation of fragility curves by considering out-of-plane behavior mode. During generation of fragility curves, a force-based approach has been used. In this study there exist two limit states, or in other words three damage states, in terms of base shear strength for in-plane behavior mode and flexural strength for out-of-plane behavior mode. To assess the seismic vulnerability of unreinforced masonry buildings in Turkey, generated fragility curves in terms of in-plane behavior, which is verified by damage statistics obtained during the 1995 Dinar earthquake, and out-of-plane behavior, which is verified by damage statistics obtained during the 2010 Elazig earthquake, is combined. Throughout the analysis, ground motion uncertainty, material variability and modeling uncertainty have also been considered. In the final part of the study, a single-valued parameter, called as &lsquo / vulnerability score&rdquo / , has been proposed in order to compare the seismic safety of unreinforced masonry buildings in Fatih sub province of Istanbul and to assess the influence of out-of-plane behavior together with the in-plane behavior of these existing masonry buildings.