Singapore gained access to independence sixty years ago. Since then, in order to improve its economic growth, the country went through many economic development plans, and nowadays the success of the past economic policies, made Singapore a diversified economy, where industrial development is its milestone. The Singaporean government and foreign companies played a very important role in the history of its economic development. From the status of colony with a fragile economic structure, to a diversified economy after the independence, industrialization is the cornerstone of Singapore¡¦s economic transformation. Industrialization made Singapore become a newly industrialized country with petrochemical industry as the most important industry. Singapore Economic Development Board was established in 1962, and after its establishment a series of domestic economic planning were implemented. Subsequently, the JTC was created to manage the entire country¡¦s industrial Affairs. Via an efficient planned economy by the governmental institutions, the Jurong Industrial park gradually developed and helped Singapore to reach its industrial development¡¦s objectives. In the process of promoting the development of the petrochemical industry or the global industry, it is evident that Singapore¡¦s government followed the pattern and specificities of the developmental sate, by the combination of economic planning institutions, an outstanding bureaucracy, and Multinational Corporations, Singapore managed to develop the petrochemical industry which became the country¡¦s most important industry.

Since the Vietnamese Communist Party passed the resolution to implement the ¡§Doi Moi¡¨ policy in the sixth National Congress in December 1986, Vietnam¡¦s economy has transformed from state-controlled economic system to market and socialism-oriented economy. This change of economic system has contributed to the recent economic improvement in Vietnam, a key point of studying Vietnam¡¦s political development. On the perspective of political economy, modernization theory contends that economic development helps political democratization, whereas stably hegemony theory argues that economic achievement may bring about stability for authoritarian regimes. Based on state theory, this paper takes two dimensions, i.e. state autonomy and state capacity, to examine the issue whether the Vietnamese state will be influenced after Vietnam¡¦s political and economic reforms. This paper concludes that modernization theory is not able to explain the current political economy of Vietnam, because Vietnam did not change from a strong state to a weak state. Rather, Vietnam maintains a strong state, which fits the explanation of state theory.

In the late 1980s and through the mid-1990s, Mexico underwent an enormous neoliberal transformation that affected almost every level of its economic, political, and social systems. Research has shown that rural and poor areas of Mexico have been particularly hard hit by these transformations. At the same point in time, Mexico established an unprecedented number of natural protected areas - national parks, biosphere reserves, wildlife reserves, and the like. Mexico is not alone in this transformation. Other "less industrialized" countries are also implementing these dual policies.While many working in the field of conservation in less industrialized regions assume little connection between their work in natural protected areas and the larger political economy, I argue that the two are interrelated and have compounding outcomes. The goal of this study is to understand the connection between these two seemingly incongruous policies. In addition, this study seeks to understand the process through which natural protected areas were territorialized and the outcomes of this territorialization process on landscapes and livelihoods within the larger context of Mexico's neoliberal reformation.To understand these questions, I look at Mexico as a case study at the national level as well as two more local case studies - the Loreto Bay National Park (LBNP) in Baja California Sur and Cuatro Ciénegas Wildlife Reserve (CCWR) in Coahuila, Mexico. Both areas support the neoliberal agenda, although in different ways. In addition, both are being reterritorialized so that nature is separated from society and treated as a marketable commodity through tourism or privatization. In addition, both have created uneven or patchy regional landscapes in which resources are more heavily extracted outside of reserves (due largely to neoliberal reforms) while inside the reserves small-scale production activities are limited.

While it is known that social policies influence the organization of employment and family life, this knowledge is rarely used to understand women's health. The current study uses feminist welfare state theory to examine socioeconomic inequalities in women's health dynamics in countries differing by the extent to which their social policies encourage male breadwinning and female caring/homemaking. The pathways underlying these inequalities are also investigated. Socioeconomic inequalities in health are hypothesized to be largest in strong male-breadwinner states (Britain/Germany), smallest in weak male-breadwinner welfare states (Denmark), and intermediate in modified male-breadwinner states (France). Further, family and income will explain more of health inequalities in strong and modified versus weak male-breadwinner regimes. The analysis uses longitudinal data from the European Community Household Panel (1994-2001) for working-aged women from Britain (n=2,193), Germany (n=2,421), France (n=2,400) and Denmark (n=1,412). The effects of socioeconomic position (measured by education) on self-rated health trajectories are examined using Latent Growth Curve Models; model estimates iii are compared cross-nationally using z-scores. Pathways linking education to health are identified by determining how much employment status, family roles and household income attenuate health inequalities in each country. The analyses are repeated for a sub-sample of mothers of young children—a group for whom policies surrounding the integration of employment and family are critical. Low education predicts worse initial health in all countries, but not faster health decline. Against expectations, education-based inequalities in health are largest in weak male-breadwinner states, but income explains virtually none of that inequality. By contrast, income has a larger explanatory role in regimes where women's unpaid caregiving is encouraged. Employment status is a relatively important mediator of the education-health relationship in all policy contexts, while family roles are not. Restricting the analysis to mothers reveals a much smaller education gradient in health in Denmark, providing evidence that weak male-breadwinner states are most effective at reducing health inequalities among mothers, relative to all women. Feminist welfare state theory better predicts cross-national differences in pathways underlying socioeconomic inequalities in health than the magnitude of inequalities, and may be most useful for understanding the health of mothers with young children.

Making spintronic devices is a hot topic for future technical development. In this work the non-equilibrium dynamics of a single spin in a tunnel junction is analyzed and numerically simulated. This is done in order to understand the dynamics of e.g. a magnetic molecule between two metal contacts for future spintronic devices. The work starts with looking at the system in a many-body theory picture in order to derive the interesting properties of the system. An initial solution for the system is analytically calculated as well as for the dynamic case. The dynamic has then been numerically simulated in order to get the time evolution of the system. The results showed that the dynamics of the molecular spin induced a spin dependent charge and spin currents in the system and that the currents could be used to control the molecular spin. It showed qualitatively how different parameters, for example coupling strength, effect the system and what to consider when designing a system similar to this.

The timescale of chemical reactions in solid-state systems greatly exceeds what may be modeled by direct integration of Newton's equation of motion. This limitation spawned the development of many different methods such as (adaptive) kinetic Monte Carlo (A)KMC, (harmonic) transition state theory (H)TST, parallel replica dynamics (PRD), hyperdynamics (HD), and temperature accelerated dynamics. The focus of this thesis was to (1) implement many of these methods in a single open-source software package (2) develop standard benchmarks to compare their accuracy and computational cost and (3) develop new long timescale methods. The lack of a open-source package that implements long timescale methods makes it difficult to directly evaluate the quality of different approaches. It also impedes the development of new techniques. Due to these concerns we developed Eon, a program that implements several long timescale methods including PRD, HD, and AKMC as well as global optimization algorithms basin hopping, and minima hopping. Standard benchmarks to evaluate the performance of local geometry optimization; global optimization; and single-ended and double-ended saddle point searches were created. Using Eon and several other well known programs, the accuracy and performance of different algorithms was compared. Important to this work is a website where anyone may download the code to repeat any of the numerical experiments. A new method for long timescale simulations is also introduced: molecular dynamics saddle search adaptive kinetic Monte Carlo (AKMC-MDSS). AKMC-MDSS improves upon AKMC by using short high-temperature MD trajectories to locate the important low-temperature reaction mechanisms of interest. Most importantly, the use of MD enables the development of a proper stopping criterion for the AKMC simulation that ensures that the relevant reaction mechanisms at the low temperature have been found. Important to the simulation of any material is knowledge of the experimental structure. Extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) is a technique often used to determine local atomic structure. We propose a technique to quantitatively measure the accuracy of the commonly used fitting models. This technique reveals that the fitting models interpreted nanoparticles as being significantly more ordered and of much shorter bond length than they really are. / text

In the technologically driven information age, the consumption of power is as vital to daily life as food and shelter. The generation of that power comes from a variety of sources of which coal is the predominant provider of electrical energy. Coal combustion is a well-known technology and the United States possesses the most abundant coal deposits on Earth, however, the drawback accompanying this process is the significant emissions which are released during combustion. Over the years, much effort has gone into reducing the emissions of majority constituent elements CO2, CO, NOx, SOx, etc. but it is only in the last decade or so that much attention has been given to the trace metals present within coal. Most of the work into examining these trace metals has been upon Hg and how it speciates within the flue gas in order to determine the most effective means of removal. In this study, the trace metals arsenic (As) and selenium (Se) will be investigated in a similar manner to evaluate the speciation of these elements. While previous experimental work has been performed in this area, it has been limited to thermodynamic studies which determine the speciation after equilibrium has been reached, this ignores the fact the residence times within the flue are often only several minutes during which time rapid quenching is taking place. This study takes a different approach by examining the speciation using computational chemistry which affords the advantage of being able to perform a kinetic study which is more useful in creating a flue gas model. Using ab initio the properties of various As and Se species can be evaluated compared to existing experimental data for validation. After which, a number of reactions may be selected and the structure of the transition state for each identified. Once the properties of the transition structure are known, the appropriate kinetic model, be it Transition State Theory, RRKM Theory, etc. can be applied and the rate constant determined. It is by the determination of these rate constants that the kinetic model of the flue gas can be improved and a more accurate depiction of the speciation of these race metals created.

This thesis provides a historical materialist policy analysis of the diversity of capital-account policies (CAPs) deployed in Brazil and South Africa over the period 2008-2014. Facing relatively similar patterns of cross-border money-capital movements and comparable financial challenges, these two emerging capitalist countries implemented radically different CAPs: while Brazil deployed a remarkable array of measures (capital controls on inflows, foreign exchange interventions, regulations of derivatives contracts, etc.), the policy response in South Africa was much more orthodox, and mainly characterised by the further liberalisation of outflows. The historical materialist policy analysis combines a variety of theoretical literatures (including historical materialism, financial and economic geography, and post-Keynesian economics) and research methods (qualitative research interviews, policy document analysis, and macroeconomic analysis). It examines the drivers of the CAP policy-making process in Brazil and South Africa in the light of (1) the social constitution and the class character of the capitalist state and money-capital, conceived of as particular 'moments' in the totality of capitalist social relations from which they are constituted; (2) the historical-geographical specificity of the Brazilian and South African capitalist development trajectory, (3) the unfolding of the broader social struggles of the working class, and (4) with specific reference to the highly uneven geographies of the contemporary global financial system. I claim that in both countries, post-crisis CAPs were not part of a political attempt at restructuring the state and altering class relations. By contrast, CAPs were instrumental in reproducing particular modes of managing class relations and accumulation in a changing international context, though in a precarious and temporary manner. Post-crisis CAPs involved the creation, enhancement, and adaptation of financial and monetary regulatory capacity (involving both drastic innovation and more subtle forms of change) to deepen the CAPs deployed in the previous decade, while coping with their (perceived) worst consequences: sustaining the historically-specific mode of mediating the global movement of money-capital in each country required the uneven re-articulation of state power. The thesis contributes to the literatures on the distinctively Marxian-inspired approaches to development, the uneven geographies of finance/financialisation, materialist state theory, and to the debates about more progressive forms of financial governance in emerging capitalist countries. It also shows the limits of the concept of 'policy space' as an analytical device, chiefly due to its almost complete blindness to class and to the active role of the working class in shaping policies. This results in difficulties in envisaging progressive policy alternatives, that is, policies that do not only aim at stabilising capital accumulation and facilitating the reproduction of key capitalist social forms in the short term.

Fragile states are characterized by institutions which do not have the political will or ability to reduce poverty in the interests of their citizen, to establish basic social security, to promote a successful development process, and to guarantee security and human rights. The regional disintegration processes after the period of imperialism and the fall of the iron curtain have created many new states, which still are politically unstable and unable for a sustainable development. In the literature such states are describes as "weak", "failing or failed", "collapsed", "conflict or post-conflict" - dependant on the extent of the particular state failure. Several indicators try to describe such states and partly allow for projections of the future development. Then the role of taxation is discussed in detail before recommendations for the development cooperation are presented. Obviously taxation plays a key role for the democratization process in fragile states.

The hydroboration of simple alkenes with BH3 preferentially occurs in an anti- Markovnikov fashion. The standard explanation for this preference, reproduced in all general organic chemistry textbooks, is that the selectivity arises from a greater stability for the anti-Markovnikov transition state. This explanation presupposes the applicability of the transition-state theory model for reactivity and selectivity. This dissertation explores the applicability of transition state theory to selectivity in hydroborations and finds that in some cases transition state theory fails to accurately account for observations. Experimental results for the hydroboration of propene-d6 and styrene-d8 with excess BH3 was analyzed by 2H-NMR to determine the percentage of the Markovnikov product for the BH3-mediated reaction. The experimental selectivities were then compared with predictions based on very high-level calculations using transition state theory. It was observed that the regioselectivity of the hydroboration of these alkenes is lower than can be accounted for by transition state theory. The regioselectivity discrepancy was explored through dynamic trajectory analysis. It is proposed here that the observed regioselectivity is that of a “hot” reaction, resulting from an exothermic association of alkene with borane to form an intermediate complex. This complex then overcomes low-energy barriers to form anti-Markovnikov and Markovnikov products faster than excess energy is lost to solvent. This hypothesis was explored for the hydroboration of internal disubstituted and trisubstituted alkenes. The applicability of transition state theory and the role of dynamics in determining the selectivity was gauged by determining product ratios in the presence of large excesses of borane and by considering the energetics of the calculated hydroboration reaction path. In all cases the enthalpic barriers for the rate-limiting association step and the formation of products from the intermediate π -complex were small. Isotope effects were determined experimentally and were found to be too small for the conventional mechanism to be the predominate pathway. When the hydroboration reaction of propene with BH2Cl or BHCl2 was explored through a series of experimental and theoretical studies, we observed that the regioselectivity was lower than that predicted from transition state theory. However, the calculated pathways indicated that energy barriers for product formation were too large for this reaction to be considered a “hot” reaction. The regioselectivity discrepancy was attributed to the chloroboranes undergoing equilibration with selective reaction of the most highly reactive forms of the borane.