My dissertation scrutinizes the implications of a harmonized European corporate tax system for firms' and businesses' decision-making. Specifically, I examine the cross-border consolidation of profits and losses, the design of the apportionment formula applied to allocate the consolidated tax base to single group entities, and the locational investment decisions that are mainly driven by the consolidation of the tax base and its allocation to the group entities. All of my analyses are conducted using model-theoretical methods and simulations, a partial equilibrium business perspective is maintained throughout. (author's abstract)

I believe that poetry has survived for thousands of years because it provides people with a transpersonal connection that they can't find elsewhere. I look for poetry that is more than an emotional expression, more than witty word play, and more than an interesting observation. I want poetry to give me that inspirational spark, that glimpse into a world beyond my own. Poems that succeed in doing this force me into a perspective that I haven't previously imagined by yoking together two or more seemingly disparate elements. This tension between the old elements and the new link between them creates energy for the poem. This poetic nexus contributes to the transpersonal experience that I seek.

People´s access to safe health care is not as common as one might think. Today with new and different health insurances and improved health policies people should in theory have safe health care. Although numerous of health insurances exist, targeting large parts of populations, there are still many issues with them. The Behavioural Model of Health Services Use and Separate Spheres are the two theories that are used in this study. Where Separate Spheres describes men´s and women´s separate worlds, their responsibilities in them and how it effects them and the Behavioural Model of Health Services Use, which describes factors that either impede or enable people’s access to health care utilization. This study´s purpose is to see what different perceptions men and women have about the insurance and how these perceptions can affect families’ choice to enroll to the insurance. The study uses a qualitative approach and is based on semi-structured interviews. Results in this study showed that men and women have very different perceptions about the insurance. Men want the insurance because they want to save money and decrease health expenses. While women wants the insurance for their children to always have access to health care. The roles between men and women in households are significant and their different responsibilities affect their priorities and perceptions.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse position and possibilities of a municipality in the Czech Republic in the field of environmental protection. The thesis is divided into six basic parts. The Introduction briefly illustrates the importance of municipalities and explains the system of this thesis. Chapter One deals with the environment, especially with its protection under the Czech constitutional law. Municipalities and their bodies are characterised in Chapter Two. The next chapter describes the town and country planning and examples of bylaws issued by a municipality within its separate power in order to protect the environment. Chapter Four introduces the legal instruments which can be used by a municipality in environmental protection within delegated power. In the Conclusion, the author draws attention on several problems connected with participation of municipalities in environmental protection, nevertheless he highlights that municipalities play an unquestionable role in this field.

Thesis advisor: Peter Weiler / Between 1866 and 1918, suffragists in Britain campaigned to acquire the vote for women. Opposition to women's suffrage derived mainly from separate spheres ideology – the belief that the genders are inherently different and must fulfill different roles in society. Many scholars claim that the suffragists challenged separate spheres ideology. By comparing the writings of Millicent Fawcett and Frances Cobbe, two prominent suffragists, with the writings of Mary Ward and Violet Markham, two prominent anti-suffragists, this work demonstrates similar themes within the opposing campaigns. More importantly, the similarities indicate that suffragists argued within the context of separate spheres ideology and did not seek to significantly alter traditional gender roles. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2005. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

My dissertation, Understanding the Gray:Aging Women in Victorian Culture and Fiction, explores the cultural construction of aging for middle-class Victorian women and how aging was experienced and then depicted within novels. Chiefly, I work from midcentury to the end of the century in order to understand the experience of aging and ways women were ascribed age due to their position in society as spinsters, mothers, and progressive women. I explore how the age of fictional women reflects and contributes to critical debates concerning how Victorian women were expected to behave. Debates over separate spheres, how women were perceived in British society, and how women’s rights changed during the 19th century highlight how aging affected women and how they were treated throughout the century. Victorian fiction illustrates the ways women achieved different roles in society and how age and the perception of age affected their ability to do so. Understanding how aging was experienced, understood, and ascribed to Victorian women who fought in various ways for new terms of citizenship and mobility helps us begin to trace how we treat and respond to aging in women today. The first chapter outlines the social status of unmarried women and spinsters, considering how age affected women’s ability to lead professional lives in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (1853). The second chapter, on George Eliot’s Felix Holt: The Radical, explores older motherhood through Mrs Transome and illustrates how the novel seeks to teach younger women of the pitfalls of unequal marriages. The third chapter builds a cultural understanding of how aging was linked to progressive, anti-domestic womanhood and racial impurity through the New Woman and in H.R. Haggard’s She.

This dissertation examines the relationship between women and economics in American Progressive Era through the discussion of selected works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, and Edith Wharton. The authors and texts included in the study together demonstrate how women responded to the economic development and the concept of the separate spheres at the-turn-into-the-twentieth-century America. Based on Thorstein Veblen¡¦s socio-psychological theory of the leisure class and the institutional economics and Gilman¡¦s analysis on the sexual-economic relationship in marriage, my discussion aims to investigate the interconnection between human relationships, women¡¦s economic values, and economic exchanges in business, focusing on the methods the three women writers employ to re/present how middle/upper-class women redefine womanhood and construct female subjectivity in an economic system that favors men. In my introductory chapter, I explain the historical background of the period, general concepts in Veblen¡¦s economic theory, and the motivation, methodology, and organization of the dissertation. Chapter Two, ¡§Veblenian Workmanship and Gilman¡¦s Woman-Made Land,¡¨ purports to cross-examine Gilman¡¦s Women and Economics and her utopian fiction Herland, aiming to show Gilman¡¦s optimistic view on women¡¦s emancipation from the private to the public. In Chapter Three, ¡§Barbarian Status of Women and Chopin¡¦s Feminism,¡¨ I discuss by Chopin¡¦s The Awakening the tension between women¡¦s growing sense of an autonomous self and men¡¦s adherence to the institutionalized habits of thought. My fourth chapter, ¡§Conspicuous Consumption and Society Women in Edith Wharton,¡¨ is a study on the relationship between the display culture in the consumer society and woman¡¦s role as the non-productive consumer in Edith Wharton¡¦s The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country. The concluding chapter, along with general comparisons of the heroines, outlines major arguments in the whole thesis.

The aim of this research was to determine the effects of the fineness of different mineral additives on loss on ignition, heat of hydration, physical, mechanical and chemical properties of blended cements. For that purpose, portland cement clinker was replaced with granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS), natural pozzolan (NP) and limestone (L) at 6%, 20% and 35% replacement levels. Blended cements containing GBFS and NP were ground to a fineness of 3000, 5000 and 6000 cm2/g. Cements containing L were ground to 3000 cm2/g, 4000 cm2/g and 4500 cm2/g. All of the blended cement types mentioned above were both interground and separately ground to the specified fineness levels. Therefore, a total of 57 different cements were produced. Loss on ignition, heat of hydration, chemical, mechanical and physical analyses were performed on the produced cements. Moreover, the chemical analyses of the cements were obtained for cement particles finer (-45&mu / m) and coarser (+45&mu / m) than 45 &mu / m in order to determine the ingredients of -45 &mu / m, which is known to be more reactive. As a result it was shown that the grindability differences of the cement ingredients affect the properties of blended cements. An increase in the specific surface area increases both the compressive strength and heat of hydration values and adversely affects the loss on ignition values. The results also showed that if the cement particles were ground finer, it was more prone to moisture which resulted in higher loss on ignition values after longer periods.

Stormwater pollutants originating from industrial facilities can lead to degraded water quality, even in residentially dominated regions of the country. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program regulates stormwater pollutants generated at industrial sites using Multi-Sector General Permits (Generic permits) for industrial facilities and a permit requirement for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) operators. All industrial facilities within 11 broad categories of industry are responsible for self-identifying the need to comply with the Generic permit, and subsequently, implementing self-selected pollution prevention strategies. MS4 operators are required to identify and inspect high risk industrial and commercial facilities that may be contributing substantial pollutant loads to the MS4, in addition to other requirements. This is partially in recognition that compliance with the Generic permit has been poor. This dual level of regulations is designed to enhance water quality protection, however, the reliance on local inspectors to develop a definition of high risk has led to irregular implementation. This research developed a methodology to identify industrial facilities and then screen out facilities that may not require inspection by the MS4 operator. Phone questionnaires were administered to 250 industrial facilities. Results were validated using fenceline visits and on-site inspections with local inspectors. Overall compliance by participating facilities with the Generic permit was approximately 10%. Neither the Generic permit nor the MS4 permit has been effective because numerous facilities have gone unregulated. Currently, the Generic permit has attempted to regulate too many facilities, many of which may not be affecting water quality. MS4 high risk inspections have not improved compliance with Generic permit either because of the prioritization of facilities. The reliance on local interpretation, which requires MS4 operators to select a definition of high risk based on their desired level of water quality protection and available resources, can potentially exclude many facilities from inspection. Adopting a definition of intensity for regulating industry may both improve compliance with the General permit, ensure water quality protection, and improve resource usage.

Stormwater pollutants originating from industrial facilities can lead to degraded water quality, even in residentially dominated regions of the country. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program regulates stormwater pollutants generated at industrial sites using Multi-Sector General Permits (Generic permits) for industrial facilities and a permit requirement for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) operators. All industrial facilities within 11 broad categories of industry are responsible for self-identifying the need to comply with the Generic permit, and subsequently, implementing self-selected pollution prevention strategies. MS4 operators are required to identify and inspect “high risk” industrial and commercial facilities that may be contributing substantial pollutant loads to the MS4, in addition to other requirements. This is partially in recognition that compliance with the Generic permit has been poor. This dual level of regulations is designed to enhance water quality protection, however, the reliance on local inspectors to develop a definition of “high risk” has led to irregular implementation. This research developed a methodology to identify industrial facilities and then screen out facilities that may not require inspection by the MS4 operator. Phone questionnaires were administered to 250 industrial facilities. Results were validated using fenceline visits and on-site inspections with local inspectors. Overall compliance by participating facilities with the Generic permit was approximately 10%. Neither the Generic permit nor the MS4 permit has been effective because numerous facilities have gone unregulated. Currently, the Generic permit has attempted to regulate too many facilities, many of which may not be affecting water quality. MS4 “high risk” inspections have not improved compliance with Generic permit either because of the prioritization of facilities. The reliance on local interpretation, which requires MS4 operators to select a definition of “high risk” based on their desired level of water quality protection and available resources, can potentially exclude many facilities from inspection. Adopting a definition of intensity for regulating industry may both improve compliance with the General permit, ensure water quality protection, and improve resource usage.