This thesis is about the causal relationship between interest rates. In chapter 1, with the help of time-series econometrics and by applying linear Granger causality tests based on the Toda-Yamamoto approach, the linear causality directions between the federal funds rate and five different interest rates during the last seven business cycles in the U.S. are investigated. We also examine the linear Granger causality directions between the overnight rate and five other interest rates during the last three business cycles in Canada. In chapter 2, the Diks and Panchenko Granger causality test is applied to explore the nonlinear causality effects between the short-term and long-term interest rates. By combining nonlinear causality effects with the linear ones which are found in the first chapter, it is seen that during the related periods in the U.S. and Canada, the most common Granger causality direction between short-term and long-term interest rates is a bidirectional one. Moreover, our findings show that during recent periods, the federal funds rate and overnight rate Granger cause other interest rates significantly. In chapter 3, the rolling window strategy is employed to detect the linear and nonlinear Granger causality relationship between the federal funds rate and the 10-year government bond rate, during different time horizons, investigating whether these causalities change with the passing of time. Our findings show that during different time horizons, there is a significant two-way Granger causality relationship between these interest rates. Although we have a different interpretation of the existence of bidirectional causation between short-term and long-term interest rates, this conclusion provides some support to some post-Keynesian structuralists viewpoints like Pollin (2008). However, Pollin's claim indicating that with the passing of time the significant causality effects of the federal funds rate to the market rates becomes insignificant is not supported by the current thesis findings because our results demonstrate that these causality effects have not been diminishing over the most recent business cycles.

[Abstract]:Background:Baddeley and Hitch’s (1974) multi-component model of working memory (WM) has provided the basis for exploration into the nature of remembering and manipulating information over a short period of time. This model arguesthat the passive short-term storage system is not involved in the more dynamic working memory tasks and has formed the basis of much research on clinical populations known to have deficits in WM. However, other models argue that short-term memory and working memory rely on common storagefacilities. The aim of this thesis was to explore whether there is justification for the continued separation of WM into fractionated components.Schizophrenia (SZ) is associated with a wide range of cognitive deficits, including working memory problems. There is also some evidence to suggest that psychotic symptoms exist on a continuum and cognitive deficits similar to those found in SZ have been reported in people endorsing “psychotic-like” symptoms without a formal diagnosis of schizophrenia. It was hypothesizedthat the pattern of errors made by the SZ group would help to delineate the nature of deficit shown on WM tasks.Methods:General MethodsIn order to explore the structure of WM and performance of groups hypothesized to be impaired on WM tasks, a range of span and non-span tasks were administered. Forty-two (42) control subjects were recruited for the study. Based on their scores on the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ - Raine, 1991), this group was divided into low scoring (NCL = 27 ) and high scoring (NCH = 15) groups. Thirty (30) people with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia were also recruited.Experiment 1Experiment one investigated the performance of these groups on simple, complex and delayed span tasks. A simple four-word recall task, with and without interference was used to examine accuracy, error types and anyrelationship to symptomatology.Experiment 2Experiment two set out to investigate the contributions to span performance. All subjects were administered measures of articulation speed, lexical access ability, and a range of STM, WM and LTM tasks.Experiment 3This experiment used a cued-recall paradigm to explore proactive interference effects by manipulating phonological and semantic representations over briefperiods. The task consisted of trials where the subject studied a series of one or two blocks of four words.Results:Experiment 1The results of this experiment replicated previous findings (Tehan, Hendry & Kocinski, 2001) of similar patterns of performance across the three tasks withperformance decrements increasing with task difficulty. The SZ group showed significant deficits even on the simple four-word span task. Patterns of errors were similar across the groups once overall levels of performance were taken into account. SZ subjects made more movement (order) errors than the other two groups and movement errors were associated with disorganised symptoms. The association between disorganised symptomsand loss of items from the end of the list were suggestive of impaired maintenance of item information. The high schizotypy control group performed below that of the low schizotypy controls, but only a few of the differences were significant.Experiment 2For both groups articulation and lexical access formed two of the composites. For the control group, all memory tasks contributed to form one single factor. For the SZ group three separate memory composites were needed. Usingregression analyses previous findings (Tehan & Lalor, 2000; Tehan, Fogarty & Ryan, 2004) were replicated for the control group with both lexical access and to a lesser degree, rehearsal speed contributing to memory performance.Rehearsal speed was a more important predictor for recall of familiar materials (such as letters and digits) in the SZ group. The reverse was true for simple word span, with lexical access making a significant impact and rehearsal speed having little impact. For more complex memory tasks,neither articulation rate nor access to lexical memory contributed to the performance of the SZ group. Once again poorer performance for the SZ group was associated with disorganised symptoms.Experiment 3The findings from this experiment revealed that even on the simple one block trials, the SZ subjects had difficulty accurately recalling the target word with acategory cue, even in the absence of distractor activity. The SZ group made more omissions and significantly more intrusion errors than the control groups. Intrusion errors were associated with disorganised symptoms on thePositive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS). Despite their poorer overall performance, the SZ group did not have significantly more block-1 intrusions than the control groups suggesting that the interference effects for semantic and phonemic information were the same.Conclusions:This thesis presented evidence which is somewhat supportive of a common storage approach to WM. It calls into question the need to fractionate WMinto components. The multi-component model of WM is often used to investigate performance of SZ subjects, a population know to have WM deficits. Errors across a range of STM, WM and LTM tasks were examined in a SZ group and their performance was compared to two groups of controls: agroup with high scores on a measure of psychometric schizotypy and one with low scores. Implications regarding the purported source of deficits in WM are discussed.

Thesis (M.H.A.)--University of Michigan, 1964.

Thesis (M.H.A.)--University of Michigan, 1964.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 20-22). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-40). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Visual long term memory (VLTM) research has shown that we are capable of learning a virtually infinite amount of visual information. At the same time, visual short term memory (VSTM) research has shown that there is a severe limitation in the amount of information we can simultaneously apprehend at a given time. How does the severe capacity limitation in the initial uptake of information influence the encoding of information into VLTM? To this date, there has been no direct test of such influence, and the effect of such limitation has been unclear. Here, we demonstrate that, across wide varieties of conditions, the severe-capacity limitation in VSTM dictates the encoding of information into VLTM by determining the "bandwidth" of information transfer. This finding has a substantial implication for the understanding of the role of severely-capacity limited VSTM in forming many types of VLTM representations. / 10000-01-01

This thesis is about the causal relationship between interest rates. In chapter 1, with the help of time-series econometrics and by applying linear Granger causality tests based on the Toda-Yamamoto approach, the linear causality directions between the federal funds rate and five different interest rates during the last seven business cycles in the U.S. are investigated. We also examine the linear Granger causality directions between the overnight rate and five other interest rates during the last three business cycles in Canada. In chapter 2, the Diks and Panchenko Granger causality test is applied to explore the nonlinear causality effects between the short-term and long-term interest rates. By combining nonlinear causality effects with the linear ones which are found in the first chapter, it is seen that during the related periods in the U.S. and Canada, the most common Granger causality direction between short-term and long-term interest rates is a bidirectional one. Moreover, our findings show that during recent periods, the federal funds rate and overnight rate Granger cause other interest rates significantly. In chapter 3, the rolling window strategy is employed to detect the linear and nonlinear Granger causality relationship between the federal funds rate and the 10-year government bond rate, during different time horizons, investigating whether these causalities change with the passing of time. Our findings show that during different time horizons, there is a significant two-way Granger causality relationship between these interest rates. Although we have a different interpretation of the existence of bidirectional causation between short-term and long-term interest rates, this conclusion provides some support to some post-Keynesian structuralists viewpoints like Pollin (2008). However, Pollin's claim indicating that with the passing of time the significant causality effects of the federal funds rate to the market rates becomes insignificant is not supported by the current thesis findings because our results demonstrate that these causality effects have not been diminishing over the most recent business cycles.

Experimental evidence was needed to help answer the question of whether the decrease in retention from Trial 1 to Trial 2 was caused by PI from Trial 1 decreasing retention of Trial 2, or by a primacy effect increasing retention of Trial 1 over the natural retention baseline of a S. The present experiment was designed to help answer this question.

Previous researchers, especially on large enterprises, have revealed that debt financing structure influences enterprise performance. Though the issue has been extensively researched, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) have traditionally been operating differently as compared to large enterprises in terms of their financial decisions, ownership and management style, and behaviour. Therefore, this study will explore the gaps encountered by all MSMEs to grow their businesses. These include forms and type of industry, firm size, asset tangibility, and a firm’s current assets in relation to its current liabilities and profitability level. The study examines the influence of financing structures on performance of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in South Africa. The ordinary least squares (OLS) technique of measurement is applied to examine the effects of financing structure on performance across various industrial sectors in the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. The findings in this study indicate an increase in the use of leverage to drive the influence of total debt on performance in all industrial sectors of MSMEs in South Africa. From the cross-sectional regression analysis, the results show that financing structure has a negative effect on the profitability of MSMEs, although not absolutely. The findings show that the size of the enterprise, asset tangibility, and the ratio of current assets to current liabilities are the most influential of borrowing decisions in total debt, short-term debt, and long-term debt. A significantly negative effect is observed for long-term debt, while short-term debt (STDR) exhibits a significantly positive effect. Thus the influence on MSMEs’ leverage on performance is driven by the usage of short-term debt. The variables of size of the firm, and ratio of current assets to current liabilities, do not have the same effect in all debt levels; the significance is substantially higher for long-term debt than for total debt and short-term debt. On the other hand, our empirical results suggested that transactional costs, and an asymmetric information problem in smaller firms, may lead to a mainly negative influence on size and total debt. The asset structure on profitability observed across the years showed mixed experiences. The ratio of current assets to current liabilities was found to be positive and significant on long-term debt and short-term debt leverage.