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In my Senior Thesis, I explore the growth of socially responsible investing (SRI) practices in U.S. equity markets and abnormal sin stocks returns. I analyze the historical performance of socially responsible ETFs and portfolios of current sin stocks—alcohol, tobacco, gaming, and aerospace & defense stocks. I propose that as socially responsible investing practices continue to grow in U.S. equity markets, more industries will eventually be deemed sinful—such as sugary beverages, fast food/sugary food, biotech & pharmaceuticals, and tech/social media. I examine two sinful industries—alcohol and tobacco—by comparing the performance of these sinful portfolios before and after their industries were widely perceived as sinful. I explored these topics for a few key reasons. First, socially responsible investing practices in U.S. equity markets have exploded in popularity over the last decade. Every year, we see increasing amounts of money screened for environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. Despite its increase in popularity, many people have claimed that socially responsible investing isn’t financially responsible investing—it underperforms as compared to common benchmarks such as the S&P 500. On the other hand, existing literature has supported the claim that investing in sin stocks generates abnormal returns for investors. I hypothesize that these two areas of portfolio management are connected—as socially responsible investing practices continue to grow, more industries will eventually be widely perceived as sinful. If the sin stock anomaly does exist and portfolios of sin stocks do generate abnormal returns, individuals and institutions can benefit from an immediate and long term investment strategy by investing in these “future” sinful industries now. Using three distinct capital asset pricing models—the Fama-French 3 Factor Model, the Fama-French 3 Factor Model plus Momentum, and the Fama-French 5 Factor Model—I come to four main conclusions. First, investing in socially responsible ETFs does not generate positive abnormal returns; in some instances, it generates statistically significant negative abnormal returns. Second, across the Fama-French 3 Factor Model, the Fama-French 3 Factor Model plus Momentum, and the Fama-French 5 Factor Model, portfolios of sin stocks from 1977-2018 generate statistically significant positive abnormal returns. Third, during the same time horizon, portfolios of future sin stocks exhibit similar levels of abnormal returns, especially portfolios of biotech & pharmaceutical stocks and portfolios of tech/social media stocks. Finally, portfolios of alcohol and tobacco stocks generated statistically significant abnormal returns after being widely perceived as sinful as compared to before they were widely perceived as sinful. My research has implications for practicing portfolio managers. First, socially responsible investing isn’t financially responsible investing. Second, portfolio managers should consider how the growth of socially responsible investing practices will impact perceptions of what is sinful. Anticipating which industries will become sinful can yield a profitable investment strategy. Third, I promote a profitable investment strategy in the short- and long-term time horizon. The results are clear: go long on sin and short on SRI.

A key feature of recent agricultural extension programs has been the focus on increased participation for local, rural communities in the overall decision-making process. This move towards increasing community participation has raised expectations in terms of communication: communication between central research facilities and rural communities, between rural communities and central research facilities, and amongst the rural communities themselves. In order to provide effective communication along each of these channels, attention is turning to the extension trainers deployed in the field. For extension trainers this emerging communication role is distinct from, and supplementary to, the conventional technical training function. The thesis highlights the lack of effective training in communication skills in existing extension training programs. It identifies the flip chart as the most widely used visual aid for farmer training, and the overhead projector as the most widely used visual aid for in-service training. The thesis develops a comprehensive set of training competencies and content for teaching those two technologies, derived from individual task analyses and an extensive literature review. A range of strategic alternatives for the delivery of those competencies in a developing country are then formulated and examined. Central to the different strategies considered is the use of interactive multimedia as a key delivery technology. Two proprietary CDROMs have been designed and produced specifically to the support training in the design and production skills for overhead projector and flip chart technologies. The design, content and production of the CDROMs is described, and both technical and user evaluations are presented. The two CDROMs have been field-tested in Sri Lanka, across a broad range of strategic alternatives. The outcome is a set of guidelines and specific structures for training programs in overhead projector and flip chart technologies. The guidelines are generic and broadly applicable. The case studies also indicate a particular subset of preferred strategies for the future deployment of interactive multimedia-based training in developing countries. Most specifically, the thesis indicates a balance between and the need for mix of interactive multimedia modules along with face-to-face training support / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis is a study of gender and organisation in Sri Lanka, a society of diverse cultural identities. The research question addresses factors related to women and men's orientations to work and the extent to which institutional factors, located in the broader societal context of Sri Lankan organisations, add explanatory power in analysis of the degree of job satisfaction and work perceptions. The thesis also investigates the relationship between organisational level attributes and the understanding of managers' work perceptions, as well as seeking variation at the institutional level. The main research instrument was a questionnaire, and quantitative data was generated from field surveys of 382 Sri Lankan male and female managers. The data is stratified randomly, forming a sample of top, middle and junior level managers. These managers belong to diverse Sri Lankan organisations in terms of size, ownership, and line of business. The findings illustrate that organisational level attributes have greater explanatory power in interpreting the work perceptions of male and female managers in Sri Lanka than do the institutional factors. However, qualitative interviews that were conducted reveal the salience of institutional factors to explain aspects of work perceptions. Organisational policies and recommendations that can be derived from this finding are elaborated in the conclusions. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines the sources for generating financial and social capital for ethnic small business owners, particularly for Sri Lankan ethnic small businesses in Australia. The results further our understanding of raising capital by introducing a model by generating capital for ethnic small businesses. This model identifies the informal and formal sources of financial capital, factors influencing those sources and networking activities for generating social capital. We found that competition and rising costs are the major business problem for Sri Lankan ethnic small business owners, not raising capital. The reasons for using personal savings as the major surce of capital include difficulties associated with approaching financial institutions and government agencies. The role of networking with ethnic associations was also explored. Finally, recommendations are made to business owners on how to overcome various business problems and to promote better networking activities through ethnic associations. Recommendations are also made to government agency officials to provide information about government progammes, and to financial institutions about satisfying banking needs of ethnic small business owners. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The aim of this thesis is to examine the employment situation of recent Sri Lankan skilled immigrants in Victoria and whether they need further education and re-training in order to face emerging technological changes or to update their skills. The underemployment and unemployment problem faced by the Sri Lankan skilled immigrants is an issue for both the Australian economy and the migrants. The following set of premises has been used for the study; a) the migrants' educational qualifications, training and skills are recognised by the Department of Immigration Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) of Australia, b) they are having difficulties in finding and keeping suitable jobs, although some have found employment commensurate with their qualifications, and c) the reason for their difficulties are many and complex. The essential format of the research is to identify and explain the many and complex reasons for such unemployment or underemployment. This study is based upon a survey of three contrasting Sri Lankan immigrant groups: a) trade persons and related workers with certificates or no qualifications b) technical or associate professionals with diploma or associate diploma level qualifications and c) professionals (engineers) with university degrees or their equivalent. Subjects for the surveys were through three relevant alumni organisations based in Melbourne, and through personal contact. The survey was supplemented with some applying qualitative methods that involved unstructured interviews, and small case studies. Recommendations have been proposed to assist in solving the issues that were identified through the study. Although the recommendations mentioned in the study provide a starting point, it is stressed that further research is needed to be undertaken before implementing such suggested solutions. Therefore, this thesis serves as a foundation in highlighting the loss of services of skilled immigrants within the labour market in Australia, particularly among the Sri Lankan community, and proposing recommendations to address this issue.

This thesis is a culmination of a research of a particular branch of Corporate Law, which has grown in several major parts of civilized jurisdictions. The thrust of the study was to evaluate the past, present and the future of a particular type of action known in Corporate Law under the umbrella of shareholder remedies - the 'Derivative Action' with emphasis to develop the law in one jurisdiction profiting from another. The research thus reveals how, when and where the so called action originated, the initial effects these actions had on the corporate world including shareholders, companies and related persons natural or juristic. Though much has been written by way of books, treatises and articles and several researches have dealt with the common topic shareholder remedies in its broad perspect, there is no separate study carried out on this topic in its global context with a comparative focus. This study has therefore given me the drive, initiative and courage to look at the conceptual view or the macro view of the so called 'Derivative Action' with of course special emphasis on the Australian and Sri Lankan jurisdictions in its micro aspects. This, I believe is the first time anyone has undertaken such a task. The study thus travels through distant roads of common law action to the statutory form of the action in the relevant jurisdictions and finds it driving with much purpose in jurisdictions such as Australia and Sri Lanka which are both in the transitional era from the common law action to the statutory action. The research is based on the collection of material namely, case law - Australian, Sri Lankan and international on the matters in issue, Legal treatises on the subject matter local and international, Law reform material - Australian, Sri Lankan and international on the topic, Bills and Statutes available on the topic in Australia, Sri Lanka and other countries. I have met resource personnel with regard to Law Reform in several jurisdictions on the matters in issue and visited the Australian Stock Exchange and the Colombo Stock Exchange. The research findings depend mainly on the electronic data available in addition to resources available at the University of Canberra, the Australian National University, Colombo Law Library, The Colombo Law Society Library and the Sri Lanka Supreme Court Judges' Chambers Library and the Sri Lanka Attorney General's Department Library. Visits to the McGill University in Montreal, Canada and the corporate law sector in New Zealand, including Universities and Law Offices in Christchurch and Auckland too has helped me considerably in the process. Review of the literature of the proposed statutory Derivative Action in Australia and the proposed statutory Derivative Action in Sri Lanka, are based mainly on; Enforcement of the duties of directors and officers of a company by means of a statutory derivative action (Report No. 12) Companies and Securities Law Review Committee. (November 1990.), Corporate Practices and the Rights of Shareholders (Report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs) Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. (November 1991.), Report on A Statutory Derivative Action Companies and Securities Advisory Committee. (July 1993.), Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (CLERP) Proposal Paper No 3 (1997), the CLERP draft legislative provisions (1998), Australian case law on the application of the common law Derivative Action, both in the High Court and in individual States and Australian articles on Derivative Action as a common law remedy and on the introduction of the statutory action. In the Sri Lankan context, the proposals in Sri Lanka for the statutory Derivative Action and the case law in Sri Lanka on the application of the common law remedy has been referred to. Other literature include, material available on the Canadian formula of Derivative Action, including Statutes, Rules, case law, articles and other relevant data, material available on the Derivative Actions in the United States, material available in New Zealand on Derivative Actions, material available in England on Derivative Actions, namely on the common law approach, case law, articles, Bills, Rules and other connected material, Statutes on Derivative Actions in other jurisdictions at present and Hong Kong proposals for a statutory Derivative Action, to name some. The aforesaid material and the review of the same have assisted the study as follows: -To place the past, present and the future of the common law Derivative Action. -Examine the objectives of the Derivative Action. -The operation of the common law aspects of the action. -The benefits of the statutory form of the action. -Experiences of other countries in the recent past on the subject. -The Australian reform process presently underway. -The best experiences in Australia with regard to case law. -To evaluate whether the remedy should be limited to fraud on the minority or whether it should be extended further even to negligence. -How best Sri Lanka could benefit from the Australian formula of the statutory form of the action. -To evaluate whether the proposed model of the statutory action in Sri Lanka is adequate in view of the Australian and other accepted formulae on the subject. -Whether the common law action should be expressly abolished in Sri Lanka. -Consider the possible introduction of the best methods to Sri Lanka. Finally, the research speaks for itself the need for a statutory Derivative Action for Sri Lanka in the future, to be an improvement on the Canadian, New Zealand and Australian models. The research findings, especially in its conclusions and recommendation in Chapter 8, will no doubt help to improve the proposed statutory Derivative Action in Sri Lanka in a small way.

The fieldwork on which this dissertation is based was done in Sri Lanka from 1984 to 1986 when the critique of the of the anthropologist as 'Knower of the Other' was surfacing in the literature (Fabian, 1983, Clifford and Marcus, 1986, Marcus and Fisher 1986). When I returned from the field most works of this genre were generally unknown in Adelaide. However, I began by writing with the insights of Bakhtin who himself had inspired central dimensions of the burgeoning critique of anthropological practice. Like Bakhtin's work, the debates about ethnographic authority continue to invite us to reflect upon the methods employed in the production of any text which claims to define the world of others. It therefore seems appropriate for me to preface this dissertation by highlighting relevant features of the processes which have culminated in this work, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices. The nature of my fieldwork was distinctive. I did not work in a spatially constrained community. Rather my work was anchored by the work of specialist ritual practitioners, both deity priests and performers. Because the practitioners themselves not only live in dispersed locations but are also highly mobile in relation to the work that they do, my work entailed extensive travel in and between urban centres and rural areas across several provincial divisions. In the course of eighteen months of this kind of fieldwork, I attended in excess of fifty rituals of different types and scale. Over time, I developed personalized networks with more than fifty ritual practitioners privileging me to a broad span of rituals. I worked regularly, and often intimately, with a core of five priests and ten performers to give depth to my understandings. Many of these practitioners appropriated me to themselves at rituals where they publicly announced the purpose of my presence to ritual audiences as being to document Sinhala culture. I was claimed by them as 'our madam' ('ape noona') and as a university lecturer, which they knew very well I was not. This public acknowledgement legitimated my documentation of performances which were, after all, paid for by others. It also had the effect that the sponsors largely treated me as a member of the performing troupe. My growing familiarity with ritual practitioners had the further ramification that some of them insisted that I discuss the meanings of the rituals I documented with those people whom they considered specialists in their field. Soon, therefore, in addition to attending rituals, I spent a great deal of my time entertaining, and being entertained by, ritual specialists with whom I discussed deeper levels of their knowledge and work. In this way, and through my own unique constellation of relationships, I accumulated ritual knowledge, albeit at the theoretical, not practical, level. Some people shared esoteric and valued information with me that they would not disseminate to others with whom they were in competition. This field exercise provided a singular vantage point from which I have interpreted Sinhalese Buddhist ritual practices. While the final selection of rituals interpreted in the dissertation is mine, and represents only aspects of the larger body of knowledge carried collectively by Sri Lanka's ritual practitioners, the interpretations are based not simply on my observations, but on this body of knowledge which was shared with me even as it was constantly discussed, disputed, disseminated and transformed by ritual practitioners. My understandings of the meanings of ritual were consolidated in both quasi-formal and informal social settings, at my home and theirs, with people renowned as ritual experts by their peers. I collected ritual knowledge like ritual practitioners, in bits and pieces from different people. And, like practitioners who publicly acknowledge only one gurunnanse, I acknowledge mine formally, in the public arena of my own world, in the Introduction. There is another dimension of my field experience that I want to mention before discussing how it was metamorphosed by writing. My three children, Grant, Vanessa and Mark accompanied me to Sri Lanka at the ages of 9, 11 and 12 respectively. Their beautiful, inquisitive and effervescent youth attracted many people to us as a family which meant that they became wonderful sources of new friends and colloquial information. Both of the boys were fascinated with the unique rhythms of Sri Lanka's ritual music and dance and before long, they were keen to learn these for themselves. Grant was deeply disappointed that he could not because, like Vanessa, he was committed to his schooling and, even at 12, he was taller than many of the ritual practitioners. Mark was younger and, in any case, of a much smaller build so he became a pupil of Elaris Weerasingha, a ritual practitioner with international fame, who became my husband. Mark left school to work with Elaris and his sons, often at rituals other than those I attended. With Elaris as his gurunnanse, Mark made his ritual debut just as novice Sinhala performers do. The Sri Lankan press discovered this unique cross-cultural relationship in late December 1986 just as we were preparing to return to Australia. Memorable photographs appeared in both English language and Sinhala papers accompanied by full-page stories praising Elaris for his teaching and acclaiming Mark for proficiency in dance and fluency in Sinhala language and verse. We were delighted. Mark and Elaris continued to perform together in Adelaide at the Festival of Arts, on television and at multicultural art shows before Elaris returned to Sri Lanka to live for family reasons early in 1988. I remember Elaris for both the joy of our union and the pain of our parting. I want to thank him here for sharing his culture with us and especially for the way he supported me to believe in my understandings of the rituals he knew so well. I transcribed my field experience with the help of Bakhtinian insights. The rituals I studied are analysed for their performative value under the heading Cosmic Horizons with faithful reference to what their producers, including Elaris, consider to be one of their most important dimensions if they are to be efficacious; where and when they should occur. I call these facets of ritual their time-space co-ordinates and I employ Bakhtin's conception of the chronotype, in conjunction with practitioner's naming practices, to give them the analytical emphasis they deserve. Using elaborations of ritual meanings articulated to me by ritual specialists and colloquial understandings of words rather than their linguistic etymologies, I variously explore the chronotopic dimensions of the names of supernatural. beings, myths, ritual boundaries and segments to render explicit those unifying symbolic dimensions of a ritual corpus which would otherwise remain implicit to all except ritual practitioners. In particular, the Bakhtinian conceptions I use to analyse ritual serve to reveal and crystallize an integral relationship between the time-space co-ordinates inherent in ritual performance and the oscillations of the sun, moon and earth. Part 1 is my synthesis but it is based on the time-space co-ordinates of ritual; it is deliberately constructionist but it elaborates what I learned from ritual practitioners in the ways I have described. Part 2 is deconstructionist, it is an attempt to represent rituals as events with complex and indirect discursive reference to the elegant symbolic dimensions of the ritual performances themselves. As its title, Social Voices, suggests, Part 2 of the thesis privileges discourse about ritual - by ritual practitioners, ritual sponsors, Buddhist monks, the media and scholars - above the structural symmetry or chronotopic logic of the ritual corpus. It is in this domain, just to offer one example, that religion (agama) is distinguished from culture (sanskruthaiya) and exploited to make value judgements about people's participation in orthodox or unorthodox ritual practices, a judgement which is a possibility of the comic horizons constituted in ritual but which is not, as I argue, determined by them. This dissertation is ultimately an attempt to represent, in written form, fragments of an-Other world through a prosaic Bakhtinian focus on the way particular people named and talked about that world to me. Although I chose not to identify individuals in the text for personal reasons, my methodology is purposeful, giving value to Sinhalese performative ritual as the product of specialist knowledge. And, in keeping with the new imperatives for writing ethnography, this preface describing my field experience is intended to make explicit the way the dissertation explores its foundation in relationships between Self and Other, Observer and Observed, without abrogating the responsibility of authorship. Not pretending to be the voice of the Other, Cosmic Horizons and Social Voices is my voice, echoing the voice of Sri Lanka as it spoke to me. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Social Sciences, 1990.

<p>Large environmental, health, social and economical problems are connected with the use of</p><p>fossil fuels and, in a dominating part of the world, also the use of firewood. The goal for this</p><p>project was to develop and design an optimal solar oven system intended for food cooking</p><p>and water pasteurisation. Further the advantages and disadvantages, compared with other</p><p>energy resources were evaluated. Tests were carried out in Sweden as well as in Sri Lanka.</p><p>An extensive range of prototypes were tested and sifted out to a small number of designs that</p><p>were tested in Sri Lanka. A large number of evaluations and tests were carried out on many</p><p>different materials, among others tests were conducted according to the international standard</p><p>“Testing and Reporting Solar Cooker Performance ASAE S580 JAN03”.</p><p>The report shows a number of benefits compared to previous reports on the subject, for</p><p>example the development of indoor tests, the extensiveness and objectiveness of the tests, and</p><p>the fact that the report combines extensive practical test results with solid theoretical</p><p>background information.</p><p>The test resulted in two solar ovens with the same parabolic design but made out of different</p><p>materials. One oven is cheaper, simpler to produce and is considered for the target group poor</p><p>people in developing countries. This is made out of a corrugated cardboard that is covered</p><p>with aluminium foil. The second oven is more expensive but also more durable and is</p><p>intended for more wealthy people in the west that wants a good alternative to regular ways of</p><p>cooking food. It is made out of aluminium plate and mirrors.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>This paper applies an impressionistic and reflexive genre of ethnography to understand the ethnographer’s meeting with the humanitarian aid workers in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. It offers an analysis of the political atmosphere in the country prior to the tsunami as a central framework for understanding current tensions and debates over the distribution of tsunami aid resources, and traces the emergence of what has been termed Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism. Based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork from April to July 2005 among aid workers at the central level in Colombo and a careful attention to the rhetorics and arguments that characterized the writings in the Sri Lankan press during this period, the paper argues that while public debates over tsunami aid distribution has been entwined with political rivalries between the Sri Lankan government, and Sinhala and Tamil nationalist groups, the everyday reality of international humanitarians evolved around the forming of a common development language to categorise the demands of the aid intervention and on the performances of individual organisations, personified by a limited number of individuals in the professional fora of the humanitarians in Colombo.</p>