published_or_final_version / Law / Master / Master of Laws in Corporate & Financial Law

The aim of this work is to find out how slanguage is translated from English into Lithuanian, identify its effect on the language and compare its frequency in the ST vs the TT. Slanguage items are used all over the world and it is not always possible to translate them directly into the TL or find the exact equivalent for certain slang words because of the differences between languages and cultures. Hence, the translation methods of softening, direct transfers, stylistic compensation are suggested by linguists to solve problems of slang and taboo words translation and to achieve the translation which is linguistically correct and acceptable by the reading audience of the target culture. The present thesis is divided into six main sections and has fourteen appendices. Chapter 1 introduces the aim and goals of the research as well as discusses the material and methods that are used in the thesis. In Chapter 2 the term slanguage is defined, its classification is described and the usage of slanguage in the Lithuanian and English cultures is compared paying specific attention towards the use of slang and taboo words in the language. Chapters 3 and Chapter 4 deal with the definitions of terms slang and taboo words, identification of their role and functions in the language as well as presentation of their types in more detail. The main translation problems of slang and taboo words with respect to the cultural and linguistic differences are identified in Section 5.1 of Chapter 5... [to full text] / Šio darbo tikslas – sužinoti kaip slengo kalba yra verčiama iš anglų kalbos į lietuvių kalbą, nustatyti jo įtaką kalbai bei palyginti slengo kalbos vartojimo dažnį originaliame ir išverstame tekste. Slengo kalba yra naudojama įvairiose pasaulio šalyse, kurių kalbos ir kultūros skiriasi, todėl surasti tinkamos reikšmės žodį verčiant tekstą yra sudėtinga. Lingvistai siūlo naudotis vertimo metodais, kurie padėtų išspręsti vertimo problemas bei padarytų tekstą lingvistiškai teisingą ir priimtiną skaitytojams: sušvelninimas, tiesioginis vertimas, stilistinė kompensacija. Šis darbas yra sudarytas iš šešių pagrindinių skyrių ir keturiolikos priedų. Tikslas, uždaviniai, tyrimo medžiaga ir metodai yra aptariami pirmame skyriuje. Antrame skyriuje yra supažindinama su terminu slengo kalba, šios kalbos klasifikacija bei slengo ir taboo žodžių vartojimu lietuvių ir anglų kalbose. Slengas bei taboo žodžiai yra apibrėžiami, jų vartojimas ir funkcijos kalboje yra aptariamos trečiame ir ketvirtame skyriuose. Pirmame penkto skyriaus poskyryje apibūdinama slengo ir taboo žodžių vertimo problemos, atsiradusios dėl kultūrinių ir lingvistinių skirtumų, o antrame poskyryje yra aprašomi vertimo metodai: sušvelninimas, tiesioginis vertimas, stilistinė kompensacija. Šeštame skyriuje yra atliekama slengo kalbos analizė lyginant originalų ir išverstą tekstus. A priede yra pateikiami sušvelninimo metodo pavyzdžiai, B priede – tiesioginio vertimo pavyzdžiai ir C priede – stilistinės kompensacijos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for a Master's Degree in Technology: Business Administration, Durban University of Technology, 2008. / The purpose of this research is to compare the firearm legislation between South Africa and selected countries and to determine if multiple firearm owners and firearm dealers are affected in terms of economics, and changes to their business environment by the new Firearms Act, 60 of 2000.The sub-objectives of this study are as follows: - To compare firearm regulations between countries that were affected by access to firearms and deaths as a result thereof; - To evaluate the economic effect of the legislation on a firearm dealer/dedicated hunter/dedicated sportsman/collector of firearms; - To evaluate the economic effect of the restrictions on the number of firearms an owner may legally possess; - To evaluate the economic impact of the cost involved for re-licensing a firearm; - To establish how the firearm business environment is affected according to the political, economic, social, technological and ecological influences on business strategies. The research does not include firearm owners with hand weapons or individuals with fewer than four firearms. It also excludes South African Police Service and South African Defence Force weapons, as these are not usually provided to the public. The aim of this research is to establish if there is an effect on the dealers and hunters in the firearm industry in South Africa with the advent of the Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000. The world trend changed firearm legislation world-wide and South Africa followed. In the following chapter the global and South African issue is discussed with some of the arguments on why the firearm legislation had to change.

This dissertation comprises theoretical and empirical models to manage watersupply risk in irrigated agriculture. While irrigation is by itself a strategy to regulate thesupply of water for farm use, water systems that depend on surface water sources are stillsubject to the random inflows that feed their reservoirs. Depending on the size of thereservoir, the demand for irrigation, and the seasonal distribution of inflows, wateravailability may decrease to levels that severely constraint agricultural production. Thisdissertation begins with a theoretical examination of on-farm cropping decisions underwater endowment risk. However, the analysis is extended to the use of a risk-sharinginnovation to transfer the water availability risk outside an irrigation district. Specifically,the design, use, and economic feasibility of an inflow-based derivative are studied for theRio Mayo irrigation district, located in Northwestern Mexico.On the theoretical front, the analysis consists of modeling the on-farm economicsof hedging against uncertain irrigation endowments. The basic model starts by analyzingthe role of crop diversification. As expected, the firm responds to higher degrees of risk,as measured by the variance in the supply of water, by allocating less land towards thewater-intensive crops. The underlying motivation in these strategies is the need to avoidthe relatively larger reductions in productivity sustained by water-intensive cropportfolios. However, crop diversification comes at the cost of reduced profits. As analterative to crop diversification, the model is modified to study the role of an institutionthat transfers water contingent on the states of nature. The extension shows that, undercertain conditions, enrolling in such a scheme produces the same profit as undercertainty.In the empirical component of the dissertation, the economics of an inflow-basedderivative are examined. The modeling strategy consists of simulating the economicenvironment and hydrological profile of the Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez Reservoir on the RioMayo irrigation district. Specifically, a stochastic dynamic simulation model is developedthat captures the intra and inter seasonal risk aspects associated with water risk and wateruse for irrigated agriculture. The results indicate that the inflow-based derivative is aviable instrument in the terms of affordability (i.e. premiums) and yield effective incomeprotection (i.e. risk reduction).

Background: While substantial progress has been made globally towards achieving United Nations Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4) on child mortality, the decline is not sufficient to reach the targets set for 2015. The South Asian region, which includes India, was to achieve the MDG 4 target of 39 deaths per 1000 live births by 2015 but was estimated to have reached only 61 by 2011. A part of this under-achievement is due to the gender-differentials in child mortality in South-Asia. The inherent biological advantage of girls, reflected inlower mortality rates as compared to boys globally, is neutralized by their sociocultural disadvantage in India. The availability of technology for prenatal sex determination has promoted sex-linked abortions. Current government efforts include a law that regulates the use of ultrasound and other diagnostic techniquesfor prenatal testing of sex and a conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme thatinvests a certain amount of funds at the birth of a girl child to attain maturity when the girl turns 18 years of age. This thesis describes the trends in genderspecific mortality during the period 1992-2011 and gender differentials in causes of death among children (paper I), compares gender differentials in child survivalby socio-economic status of the family (paper II), explores the contribution of non-specific effects of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccination to the excess mortality among girls (paper III), and evaluates the impact of CCT schemes of the government and explores community attitudes and practices related to discrimination of girls (paper IV). Methods and Results: This study is set in Ballabgarh Health and DemographicSurveillance System (HDSS) of Haryana State in North India that covered a population of 88,861 across 28 villages in 2011. This study uses the electronic database that houses all individuals enumerated in the HDSS for the period 1992-2011 along with other demographic, socio-economic and health utilization variables. Sex ratio at birth (SRB) was adverse for girls throughout the study period, varying between 821 to 866 girls per 1000 boys. Overall, under-five mortality rates during the period 1992-2011 remained stagnant due to the increasing neonatal mortality rate and decreasing mortality in subsequent age groups. Mortality rates among girls were 1.6 to 2 times higher than boys during the post-neonatal period (1-11 months) as well as in the 1-4 year age group. Girls reported significantly higher mortality rates due to prematurity (relative risk of 1.52; 95% CI = 1.01-2.29); diarrhoea (2.29;1.59-3.29), and malnutrition (3.37; 2.05-5.53) during 2002-2007. The SRB and neonatal mortality rate were consistently adverse for girls in the advantaged groups. In the 1-36 month age group, girl children had higher mortality than boys in all SES groups. The age at vaccination for and coverage with ivabstractBacillus Calmette–Guérin, DTP, polio and measles vaccines did not differ by sex. There was significant excess mortality among girls as compared to boys in the period after immunization with DTP, for both primary (hazard ratio of 1.65; 95% CI 1.17-2.32) and DTPb (2.21; 1.24-3.93) vaccinations until the receipt of the next vaccine. No significant excess mortality among girls was noted after exposure to BCG (1.06; 0.67-1.67) or measles (1.34; 0.85-2.12) vaccine. A community survey showed poor awareness of specific government schemes for girl children. Four-fifths of the community wanted government to help families with girl children financially. In-depth interviews of government programme implementers revealed the themes of “conspiracy of silence” that was being maintained by general population, underplaying of the pervasiveness of the problem coupled with a passive implementation of the programme and “a clash between politicians trying to cash in on the public sentiment of need for subsidies for girl children and a bureaucratic approachof accountability which imposed lot of conditionalities and documentations to access these benefits”. While there has been some improvement in investment in girl children for immunization and education during the period 1992 to 2010, these were also seen among boys of the same houses and daughters in-laws who come from outside the state where such schemes are not in place. Conclusions: In the study area, girl children continue to be disadvantaged a tall periods in their childhood including in utero. In the short run, empowerment of individuals by education and increasing wealth without a concomitant change in culture of son-preference is harmful as it promotes the use of sex determination technology and female feticide to achieve desired family size and composition. There is a need to carefully review the use of health-enhancing technologies including vaccines so that they do not cause more harm to society. Current government efforts to address the gender imbalance are not working, as these are not rooted in a larger social context.

We live in an era where internationalization and globalization are two extremely attractive concepts. People aim to create a society where limits and restrictions are erased and a thriving society is a reality. Numerous transformations have occurred in order to realize this and one of the most vital ones is the globalization of the economy. The globalization was made possible through the discovery on the capital market. This market enables people to trade with each other, no matter place or time. Thus, a more efficient solution is offered for rapid and significant transfers such as loans and investment. According to various researchers, the capital market determines, in a way, which company will grow and which will stagnate in development. However, the capital market needs to be efficient in order to offer the services intended. The aim of this dissertation is to explain how efficient the capital market is when incorporating information regarding football player transfers. By examining the empirical findings, it will also be able to establish if assets of the same market value cause different share price fluctuations depending on if they are acquired or sold.

The continued existence of the Russian defence and arms industry, known as the Oboronnyi Promyshennyi Kompleks (OPK), was called into question following the disintegration of the Soviet Empire in 1991. Industry experts cited the lack of a domestic market, endemic corruption, and excess capacity within the industry as factors underpinning its predicted demise. The most telling factor was the sudden removal of considerable government subsidies and high defence industry wages that had traditionally buttressed the industry's economic viability and encouraged the cream of Russia's workers into the sector. It was a crippling blow. However, the industry's export customers in China, India and Iran during those early years became the OPK's saving grace. Their orders introduced hard currency back into the industry and went a long way to preventing the forecasted OPK collapse. Although pessimistic predictions continued to plague the OPK throughout the 1990s, the valuable export dollars provided the OPK the breathing space it needed to claw back its competitive advantage as an arms producer. That revival has been further underpinned by a new political commitment, various research and development initiatives, and the restoration of defence industry as a tool of Russian foreign policy. In order to gauge the future prospects for the OPK, it is necessary to examine the domestic and external drivers that have either underwritten its success to date or are still required to ensure its long term endurance. Domestically, continued success demands a closer collaboration between the OPK and the Russian armed forces. It also requires serious efforts to curb endemic corruption, further consolidation of the defence industry and continued development of the Russian domestic market for arms. Externally, the strength of the state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, global market diversification and joint military ventures with strategic partner countries are essential ingredients for long term OPK success. Cultivating and maintaining the economic and political momentum vital for the OPK's progress will be a daunting undertaking for Russia. However, Russia's accomplishments in these key areas since 2000 suggest that continued success is a genuine prospect and that the OPK could potentially grow to be the proverbial 'phoenix from the ashes'. China and India constitute approximately eighty percent of the total Russian arms transfer market. Trading and cooperation with these two countries has provided Moscow with the finances to sustain its defence industry through continued orders and valuable finance for research and development programmes for military hardware. However, post 2015, the Chinese market will be nearing total saturation and the Indian market will have contracted somewhat, as the indigenous defence industries of these nations can be expected to usurp the demand for Russian equipment. This scenario, together with a more active foreign policy under Putin has seen Russia launch aggressive marketing campaigns into the Middle East, South East Asia and Latin America. The strategy has already begun to pay dividends with large contracts being signed by Algeria, Indonesia, and Venezuela. The Russians hope that large sales to these countries will trigger further sales within the respective regions. The realised or potential contracts for arms from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Mexico, and Brazil suggest that this strategy is producing the desired result. The short term future of the Russian OPK looks promising. The rising domestic defence order is beginning to challenge the export market as the OPK's most important customer. Meanwhile, exports will be safeguarded by continued foreign demand for niche Russian defence products such as cruise missiles and air defence systems as well as cost effective and user friendly Russian aircraft, ships, submarines and land systems. Flexible financing options offered by Rosoboronexport will stimulate demand in new markets such as Algeria and Indonesia and sustain the economic viability of the OPK for at least the next decade.

This thesis presents the synthesis of porphyrin arrays for light-harvesting applications using Wittig chemistry, which allows the construction of covalently bound systems that are conjugated, stable and easy to characterize. This was achieved using a dendrimer strategy utilizing tetraarylporphyrins as building blocks, monofunctionalized with either aldehyde or phosphonium salt groups at the β-pyrrolic position, and benzenes, polyfunctionalized with either aldehyde or phosphonium salt groups; stepwise control of the addition of each porphyrin moiety was thus obtained. In this way, different porphyrins in different metallated states were arranged in a determinate geometrical relationship, which is of great importance in the investigations on electron/energy transfers. Arrays containing up to five metalloporphyrin units (two kinds of porphyrins coordinating two different metals) were synthesized and characterized. The unexpected chromatography behaviour and 1H-NMR spectra of a Zn porphyrin functionalized with a 1,3-bis(methyl(diethylphosphonate) benzene were the reason for an investigation, which uncovered, mainly with the use of NMR spectrometry, the first case of intramolecular coordination between the Zn centre and a phosphonate group of the same porphyrin. The dynamic nature of this coordination was characterized and chemical-physical parameters for Zn porphyrin/phosphonate binding were determined. In order to establish the photophysical properties of our conjugated arrays, we synthesized a series of dyads containing Zn and free-base tetraphenylporphyrins (TPPs) connected through variable length phenylenevinylene-type bridges; along with this series, the preparation of the Zn and free-base homometallic homologue dyads and two series of monomers carrying the conjugated linker were realized. Collaboration with IFOS-CNR in Bologna, Italy was established in order to investigate the intramolecular photophysics of those systems, which involve efficient intramolecular energy transfer from the Zn to the free-base porphyrin. Finally, dyads composed of Fe(III) and Zn porphyrin were prepared as part of a project in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania for the investigation of new artificial photosynthetic systems. Two series of dimers were prepared in order to obtain incorporation in both the classes of hydrophobic and hydrophilic proteins. TPPs were used for the making of the hydrophobic dyads while hydrophilicity was achieved by employing tetraester porphyrin derivatives, which can be quantitatively hydrolyzed to afford the correspondent water soluble acids. A new monosubstituted porphyrin was also synthesized and incorporated in the arrays to minimize steric hindrance inside the protein binding sites.

In the last twenty years, regional trade agreements have proliferated. These have usually taken the form of customs unions (CUs) or free trade areas (FTAs). This thesis concentrates mostly on the formation and behaviour of CUs. Union members levy a common external tariff (CET) on non-members. Existing theoretical models, however, do not agree on how the CET rate is chosen. Every model imposes a different choice rule exogenously. In this thesis, for the first time, plausible choice rules, based on the CU's social welfare function, are derived endogenously. The strategic behaviour of members and non-members, reveals that responsibility for CET choice tends to be assumed by the member that can induce the rest of the world to levy those tariffs members prefer to face. Relatively few general results exist describing the relationship between country characteristics and trade bloc formation. Here, new light is shed on this issue, by systematically analysing bloc formation in an asymmetric world, and investigating the role of preferences in coalition formation. It is found that global free trade is most likely to arise when all countries are similar. Customs unions tend to form between relatively well-endowed countries or those with similar preferences. It is also demonstrated that CUs will usually Pareto dominate FTAs, except where preferences differ significantly. The role of transfers in CU formation has received relatively little attention in the regionalism literature. In this thesis, optimal intra-union transfers are introduced and their impact on CET choice is investigated. The impact of transfers on CU behaviour depends on the direction of the transfer. When the relatively inelastic member is the recipient, the CU responds less aggressively to non-member tariff choices than it does when transfers are not permitted. However, if the relatively elastic member is the transfer recipient, the union's aggression increases. Moreover, when one union member exercises a similar degree of control over both CET and transfer choice, then the equilibrium CET tends to be lower than in the corresponding no-transfers situation.

Master of Science/Doctor of Clinical Psychology / Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that over 40% of all Australian children moved at least one time in the census period from 1996 to 2001 (ABS, 2001). The literature varies in the impact that this has on children. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between residential relocation, resilience and the emotional, behavioural and academic adjustment of children 8-12 years of age who had moved. Risk factors as identified in the literature as well as the relative impact of resilience were examined. By studying how adjustment occurs in the context of resilience, possible areas for prevention and intervention may be developed for the large numbers of children who move. Results showed that the sample population was in the normal range in academic and behavioural terms. The sample was found to have repeated more grades than average; however the children did not exhibit significant behavioural or emotional consequences. A number of demographic factors have been indicated in the literature as affecting adjustment after residential relocations, yet these were generally not found to be significantly associated with adjustment for this study population. Socioeconomic status was the only factor other than resilience to have been significantly associated with adjustment. Possibly due to the developmental stage of the participants, only the resilience subscales of interpersonal strength and school functioning were found to be significant in their positive association with adjustment, leading to fewer behavioural and academic problems. While the children in this study have all had the potential stress of moving house, the demographic characteristics of this sample would suggest that they might not have had to encounter multiple life challenges or adversities. This conclusion may help explain the lack of significant effects of demographic factors on the adjustment of the children in this sample. Results highlight the importance of good schooling and that the core business of schools in building and enhancing the intellectual functioning of children, is a vital component in the development of resilience. These findings suggest that different aspects of resilience may be important for different developmental stages and different life stressors. The distinction between cause and effect when examining resilience factors is discussed and it is suggested that outcomes in one context may be treated as influences upon outcomes in another context.