The thesis deals with the assessment of the investment project of the construction and operation of biogas plant Kralovická zemědělská, a.s. The emphasis is placed on the evaluation of the investment project by calculating the net present value and on the assessment of an optimal option for drawing subsidy for electricity generation.

Nesta tese observa-se o papel que a semântica e a pragmática desempenham, na gramática inicial (early grammar) da interlíngua de falantes de português, na compreensão de textos em inglês e em espanhol nos quais se relatam eventos passados e se empregam as oposições Present Perfect x Past Simple e Pretérito Perfecto x Pretérito Indefinido. Assumimos (MICHAELLIS, 1998) que um dos valores mais fortes das formas compostas dessas duas línguas é o resultativo e que como o português, na maioria das vezes, expressa o resultado de outros modos, o aprendiz vê naquelas apenas uma maneira de expressar ações passadas. Em função disso, ao analisar a estrutura da língua estrangeira, acaba atribuindo aos tempos compostos de ambas os valores aspectuais das perífrases [TER+Particípio] e [ESTAR+Gerúndio] do português, que em muitos casos não coincide com os valores das formas perifrásticas das línguas que estão aprendendo. Enquanto as perífrases da língua estrangeira têm o aspecto perfectivo resultativo, as do português têm valor imperfectivo continuativo. Tal fato, que afeta a compreensão do texto, não é percebido pelos aprendizes. Estes analisam primeiramente a sintaxe da língua-alvo (top-down procedure, Liceras, 2003a) uma vez que não têm acesso aos traços que desencadeiam a fixação de parâmetros para a realização do bottom-up. O padrão de atribuição dos valores das perífrases da L1 para a L2 aparece nas interlínguas do espanhol e do inglês, apontando para um mesmo processo, independente de a língua-alvo ser mais ou menos próxima do português. Testes com análise de variância comprovam que se trata de um mesmo processo para as duas línguas, que começa a partir da reestruturação da L1, sugerindo que a aquisição dessa é regida pelos princípios da GU, mas que a marcação de parâmetros não acontecerá como na L1, mas se dará via reestruturação de porções da L1. Os valores semânticos utilizados na interlíngua, nesse estágio, também são os da L1, o que aponta que, assim como acontece com a fonologia, a criança nasce com sensibilidade para acessar qualquer valor semântico, mas existe um período crítico que faz com que a aquisição da L2 ocorra por reestruturação não apenas sintática mas também semântica dos valores da L1. A pragmática, por sua vez, será acessada, após a semântica, como uma sintonia fina do sentido / In this thesis, the roles of Semantics and Pragmatics in text comprehension tasks have been investigated in Portuguese speakers interlanguage early grammar. The texts in both English and Spanish had past events told employing Present Perfect x Past Simple and Pretérito Perfecto x Pretérito Indefinido pairings. We have adopted (Michaellis, 1998) that the English periphrasis has as its most salient meaning the resultative reading and have applied it to the Spanish periphrasis as well. Portuguese, on the other hand, expresses resultative meaning in different ways most of the times leading students to see in the Present Perfect and Pretérito Perfecto structures the past event meaning alone. Consequently, when analyzing the foreign language structures, learners end up assigning them the aspectual values which belong to the Portuguese [TER+Participle] and [ESTAR+Gerund] periphrases, despite their not sharing the same aspectual values most of the time, because the English and Spanish forms express the perfective and resultative aspect, while the Portuguese periphrasis indicates the imperfective and durative aspect. This mismatch affects text comprehension, but is not perceived by the students. Learners first analyze the target language structure (topdown procedure, Liceras, 2003a), once they cannot have access to the features which trigger the parameter setting, precluding a bottom-up procedure. The same pattern of value assignment from the L1 periphrasis to both L2 is noticeable in both English and Spanish interlanguages. Analysis of Variance tests have proven that both interlanguages undergo the same process, which starts from L1 reestructuring. This fact suggests that adult L2 learner will make use of UG principles, but will not set parameters the way children do, L2 will grow by reestructuring portions of L1. The semantic values applied in both English and Spanish interlanguages at this stage, are L1?s as well, allowing a comparison to the phonology acquisition. Children are born sensitive to any semantic value, but due to a critical period for semantics, adult L2 learners will acquire L2 semantic values by reestructing not only the syntax of L1 but also its semantic values. Learners will have access to pragmatics, after semantics, as a fine-tuned meaning

Christmas is generally described as cultural, ritual and sociological phenomena of devotion, community and consumption. The topic of this dissertation concerns a specific stream of research within the general domain of consumer behaviour. The focal objective of this study is to develop a model and generate theory about parental gift giving behaviour at Christmas. My study is unique because it attempts to model parental gift giving at Christmas in a consumer behaviour context. Consumer behaviour theory suggests that parents seek information about possible gifts, set selection criteria for gift purchase, evaluate alternatives and buy the gifts for their children. Following this broad view of theory, parents respond to children's request behaviour, evaluate the suitability of any requests and purchase the approved or appropriate items as Christmas gifts. Children are encouraged to request any gifts that they desire, and these gift requests are often for specific brands. In general Christmas gifts are selected from children's products and brands and there is extensive debate and research relating to television advertising and children's request behaviour at Christmas. However, parents are not exposed to the same sources of advertising as their children and there is little evidence of research into the very important topics concerning motives, strategies, evaluations and the giving of brands that characterize parents' Christmas gift giving to their children. The significance of this dissertation resides in the development and presentation of a comprehensive model for the conceptualisation of parental gift giving at Christmas, based on antecedents to parents' social roles of gift giving and direct and indirect behavioural outcomes of those gift giving roles. Measures for each of these outcomes are developed and gender effects are also explored. The sample frame was described as a parent with at least one child between the ages of 3-8 years and a survey package was delivered to parents of children from participating schools and kindergartens. There were 2560 surveys distributed, with 450 individual responses representing a return rate of 17.6%. The 450 cases available for analysis were factor analysed and formed into composite and latent variables to facilitate statistical analysis via Partial Least Squares (PLS) regression, which is an appropriate procedure when the relationships are unknown or theoretical. The results of the research have two distinct streams. The first stream relates to the creation and validation of measurement constructs for the concept of Christmas spirit, parental gift giving, request communication, brand benefits and use of information sources, as well as involvement in giving gifts and involvement in giving brands as gifts. The second stream relates to the relationships between variables; the results support the relationships antecedent to the parents' social roles of gift giving. There is a significant relationship of Christmas spirit with involvement in giving gifts and with parental gift giving roles. A significant relationship also exists between involvement in giving gifts and parental gift giving roles. However, there is limited support for propositions related to outcomes of parental gift giving roles where there are significant relations between these roles and Christmas request communication, brand benefits and information sources. There is also a significant, indirect relationship between brand benefits and involvement in giving brands as gifts. As part of the second stream, gender differences were examined; the results show that mothers' Christmas spirit has no effect on their gift giving roles and gift giving roles have no significant effect on request communication and information source usage. On the other hand, the results show that the fathers' gift giving activities reflect the relationships outlined in the parental model. The study has academic implications for sociology and consumer behaviour disciplines and commercial implications for manufacturers, advertisers, brand owners and retailers. Further investigations will be necessary to incorporate other elements into the parental gift-giving model and to extend the theory toward a fuller understanding of the parental Christmas gift giving phenomena.

本研究參考王(2005)的研究，探討台灣國中生在英語現在完成式的學習表現。研究對象為台北縣120名國三學生，測驗學生在40分鐘內填答包含文法正確性判斷是非題、時態填充題及中英翻譯題共計50道題目。研究重點在：(1)受試者對時態和時貌的理解；(2) 現在完成式的誤用情形；(3) 現在完成式不同功能的習得，以及 (4) 母語的影響及對副詞的依賴狀況。研究發現如下：首先，學習者在中文及英文的時態時貌表現有理解上的困難，顯示他們並未真正理解中英文表達時間概念的差異。其次，現在完成式的誤用最常發生在現在簡單式及過去簡單式。他們習慣依賴常用於現在式的時間副詞或頻率副詞來決定使用時態，在看到這些副詞時，未真正理解上下文語境意涵而誤用成現在簡單式；而學習者對於過去已完成事件，未意識到其和現在的關聯及說話者態度，所以用過去式。這些結果顯示學習者並未真正理解英文現在式、過去式的真正涵義，也不了解現在完成式核心意涵及其語用功能為何。此外，現在完成式的四個主要功能中，學習者在表動作連續性的完成態 (continuative perfect)和表經驗的完成態 (experiential perfect)表現的最理想。而中文的影響顯示學習者習慣依賴副詞來決定使用時態為何，有副詞的句子或情境現在完成式的答對率偏高。研究進一步發現動詞特性會影響學習者對現在完成式的使用判斷，學生在狀態類動詞（包含心智類動詞）用於現在完成式的理解表現較差，此結果可能和中英文的差異有關。此外，檢視國中課本中現在完成式呈現方式的結果顯示這四種功能出現的語言輸入次數和學生的學習速率並未有直接關係，很可能是單句（不含上下文）的呈現方式讓學生有不完整的概念，因此建議教科書或文法書作者避免僅提供單句式例句及過度強調副詞的搭配。最後，教授現在完成式的老師本身應該對中文及英文的時間概念及時態、時貌有清楚的認識，無論是在給予講解範例、課堂練習或評量測驗，都應給予上下文情境讓學生能理解事件時間的相對應關係及覺察到說話者的觀點來決定是否該事件有現在關連性(current relevance) 而能正確使用現在完成式。本研究最後參考幾位研究者觀點及根據研究發現提出一些教授現在完成式的建議。 / This study explores Taiwanese junior high students’ performance on the English present perfect use. One hundred and twenty participants in Taipei County finished 50 questions out of three types of elicitation questions within 40 minutes. The test included a grammaticality judgment task, a blank-filling test and a translation task. The analyses focus on (1) learners’ awareness of tense/aspect; (2) misuses of other tense/aspect forms for the present perfect; (3) acquisition rates of the four functions of the present perfect, and (4) L1 interference and dependence on the adverbials. The main findings are as follows. First, the learners have difficulty acquiring the concept of tense/aspect for the difference of the temporal concepts of Chinese and English. Then, misuses of other tense/aspect forms for the present perfect mainly fall on simple past and simple present. The former misuse may result from the fact that learners do not see completed past events’ relations to the speech moment and neglect the speaker’s attitude; the latter misuse is observed to happen when learners rely much on certain temporal markings that goes mostly with the simple present and thus their judgment on tense/aspect use is misled. These results suggest that learners do not fully understand the semantics of the present simple and past simple, nor do they comprehend the semantic and pragmatic meanings of the present perfect. Furthermore, L1 interference can be witnessed in learner’s reliance on the adverbials. The accuracy rate increases in contexts with certain adverbials. As for the performance on the four uses of the present perfect, learners demonstrate satisfactory performance on the ‘continuative perfect’ and ‘experiential perfect’. A close look into learners’ errors also reveals that lexical aspect plays a role in the comprehension of the present perfect; learners have difficulty in using stative verbs (including mental verbs) in the present perfect. Such performance may result from the difference of lexical aspect and grammatical aspect between Chinese and English. A review on the presentation of the present perfect in the domestic textbooks then discloses that frequency of input alone cannot be responsible for the differentiated acquisition rates. It is, however, the isolated sentence patterns that lead the learners to form rudimentary concepts about the perfect aspect. It is therefore suggested that textbook or grammar book writers avoid sentential examples and overemphasis of its association with certain adverbials. Last but not the least, classroom teachers who are to teach the present perfect should equip themselves with the distinct concepts of tense/aspect between English and Chinese. On giving modeling examples, drill practices, or assessment, contexts should always be given for learners to anchor the relational concept of time so that they make appropriate tense/aspect uses.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: “My social extension” – Twelve girls on the relationship with the mobile phone (“Min sociala</p><p>anknytning” – Tolv tjejer om relationen till mobiltelefonen)</p><p>Number of pages: 42 (43 including enclosure)</p><p>Author: Mattias Köhlmark</p><p>Tutor: Göran Svensson</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies D</p><p>Period: Spring semester 2006</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science,</p><p>Uppsala University.</p><p>Purpose/Aim: To investigate the emotional aspect of mobile phones and the source of those</p><p>emotions.</p><p>Material/Method: The data presented stems from three unstructured focus groups with participants</p><p>at the age of 16-19 years.</p><p>Main results: The key findings largely supports Vincents theories that the emotional language</p><p>guided towards mobile phones comes from the friends it allows us connect with. Also emancipation</p><p>can be seen as a driving force behind these emotions.</p><p>Keywords: mobile phone, mobility, absent present others, emancipation, cell phone, emotion,</p><p>emotional language,</p>

Biofuels have been widely recognized as a potential renewable energy source, and the United States’ government has been interested in producing ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass such as switchgrass. To evaluate whether lignocellulosic biomass based biofuels production is economically feasible, this paper estimated the capital investment outlays, operation costs, and net present value for investment in alternative switchgrass feedstock supply chain configurations in East Tennessee a 25 million gallon per year ethanol biorefinery. Two scenarios are analyzed in the study. The conventional hay harvest scenario includes the production, harvest, storage and transportation of biomass feedstocks from the fields to the biorefinery. The preprocessing scenario added preprocessing facilities into the biomass supply chain. According to various harvest, storage, preprocessing, and harvest equipment options, analysis and comparisons were made among different systems. The capital budgeting model developed in this study generated the optimal feedstock supply chain configurations to determine the largest net present value of cash flow from investment. Results of this study shown that with the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) incentives, a round bale system using feedstock stored without tarp on pallets using custom hired equipment had the largest positive net present value. By comparison, if all the harvest equipment is purchased rather than custom hired, the stretch wrap baler preprocessing systems, using switchgrass harvested by a chopper with rotary cutter-header, was found to have a cost advantage over conventional hay harvest logistic systems (large round bale and large square bale systems) and pellet preprocessing systems. Assuming most likely values for switchgrass price and production costs, none of the feed stock supply chain configurations evaluated in this study produced a positive net present value when BCAP subsidies were assumed to not be available. However, without the BCAP incentives and based on combination of optimistic assumption, the round bale system using feedstock stored without tarp on pallets using custom hired equipment still has the largest positive net present value. Without the BCAP incentives, no feedstock supply chain configuration using purchased rather than custom hired equipment generated a positive net present value.

Abstract Title: “My social extension” – Twelve girls on the relationship with the mobile phone (“Min sociala anknytning” – Tolv tjejer om relationen till mobiltelefonen) Number of pages: 42 (43 including enclosure) Author: Mattias Köhlmark Tutor: Göran Svensson Course: Media and Communication Studies D Period: Spring semester 2006 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University. Purpose/Aim: To investigate the emotional aspect of mobile phones and the source of those emotions. Material/Method: The data presented stems from three unstructured focus groups with participants at the age of 16-19 years. Main results: The key findings largely supports Vincents theories that the emotional language guided towards mobile phones comes from the friends it allows us connect with. Also emancipation can be seen as a driving force behind these emotions. Keywords: mobile phone, mobility, absent present others, emancipation, cell phone, emotion, emotional language,

Co-workers who are physically distributed in the same building often obtain information about others through the windows in office doors. Using the information gathered by looking through the window, they can determine whether it is a good time to initiate a conversation with the occupant. There are, however, two problems with ordinary glass windows. First, there are times when the window does not provide enough information, such as when the occupant is away. Second, there is potential to violate the occupants privacy; as a result of the privacy risk, people often cover their windows entirely. If office windows are to work efficiently as a support for collaboration, there must be a balance between awareness and privacy. In this research, I augmented the functions of a physical office window with a computer-mediated replacement called the Magic Window. The Magic Window collects video of the occupant, mediates the signal in various ways, and then presents the altered view on a screen that replaces the glass window. The Magic Window provides a better balance of awareness and privacy in office settings by allowing occupant to differentiate the amount of awareness information based on the viewer. The Magic Window system was tested in an eight-month field trial. The trial showed that the augmented window did provide a balance of privacy and awareness, and also raised a number of issues that will aid the design of future design of co-present media spaces.

Abstract    Cinematic time is the most complex of all: it is composed of public time (clock), personal time (experienced) and in addition, it can run backwards, be contingent, stored and (re)created. The present study examines some aspects of cinematic time, with special reference to the instant, the moment and the present. The strictly defined instant or moment does not exist. It is a passage between the past and the future and it is impossible to record on film or a photograph. One example is the moment of death, which is an abstraction with zero duration. The present must consequently contain the past and/or the future. Roland Barthes describes these complex multidimensional time relations in a photograph. André Bazin emphasizes that the image and the duration are ”mummified”. According to Gilles Deleuze , before the Second World War, the movement-image dominated and time was subordinated. With the long take of uncut time and deep focus, the cinema creates an increased experience of presence. After the war the time-image dominated. According to Deleuze it can represent time itself in the ”pure state”. Several images, simultaneously present, represent the crystal-image. Such an experience of time, a non-chronological present (durée), is founded in the philosophy of Henri Bergson. For the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, time and rhythm in the shot, was the essence of the cinema. His work is flooded with time-images, and it is possible to experience a time and space beyond the frame, in a multidimensional present. The digital technique has made cinematic time even more complex due to the possibility to create a continuous, synthetic present.

Co-workers who are physically distributed in the same building often obtain information about others through the windows in office doors. Using the information gathered by looking through the window, they can determine whether it is a good time to initiate a conversation with the occupant. There are, however, two problems with ordinary glass windows. First, there are times when the window does not provide enough information, such as when the occupant is away. Second, there is potential to violate the occupants privacy; as a result of the privacy risk, people often cover their windows entirely. If office windows are to work efficiently as a support for collaboration, there must be a balance between awareness and privacy. In this research, I augmented the functions of a physical office window with a computer-mediated replacement called the Magic Window. The Magic Window collects video of the occupant, mediates the signal in various ways, and then presents the altered view on a screen that replaces the glass window. The Magic Window provides a better balance of awareness and privacy in office settings by allowing occupant to differentiate the amount of awareness information based on the viewer. The Magic Window system was tested in an eight-month field trial. The trial showed that the augmented window did provide a balance of privacy and awareness, and also raised a number of issues that will aid the design of future design of co-present media spaces.