Bank-managed equity funds are not inferior to their non-bank counterparts. Previous research reporting relative underperformance of bank-managed funds ignored their differing fiduciary standards. To evaluate bank and non-bank funds facing similar fiduciary responsibilities, domestic retail funds approved for Singapore’s Central Provident Fund Investment Scheme were examined, as they meet the same standard for managing social security savings. Returns from these funds correlate highly with market performance. Even though these fund returns exceeded guaranteed interest rates, they did not outperform their market index.With financial market deregulation in Southeast Asia, local banks in small economies withstand erosion of business by foreign competitors. Banks, in order to increase profits, compete with local as well as foreign insurance and investment companies by offering mutual fund products. To remain competitive, banks need to shed their reputation for not being able to generate impressive fund returns, as their funds are not inferior to those from insurance and investment companies in terms of assets under management, expenditures, returns and risk. To gain competitive advantage, banks can differentiate their fund characteristics and reduce portfolio management costs.Mutual fund characteristics can affect expected returns or transaction costs. Factors affecting expected returns include asset allocation and systematic risk, while transaction costs include explicit and implicit ones, which can be measured by expense ratios and size of funds respectively. Insignificance of transaction cost determinants in affecting actual returns can be attributable to dominance of factors affecting expected returns.

Bank-managed equity funds are not inferior to their non-bank counterparts. Previous research reporting relative underperformance of bank-managed funds ignored their differing fiduciary standards. To evaluate bank and non-bank funds facing similar fiduciary responsibilities, domestic retail funds approved for Singapore’s Central Provident Fund Investment Scheme were examined, as they meet the same standard for managing social security savings. Returns from these funds correlate highly with market performance. Even though these fund returns exceeded guaranteed interest rates, they did not outperform their market index.With financial market deregulation in Southeast Asia, local banks in small economies withstand erosion of business by foreign competitors. Banks, in order to increase profits, compete with local as well as foreign insurance and investment companies by offering mutual fund products. To remain competitive, banks need to shed their reputation for not being able to generate impressive fund returns, as their funds are not inferior to those from insurance and investment companies in terms of assets under management, expenditures, returns and risk. To gain competitive advantage, banks can differentiate their fund characteristics and reduce portfolio management costs.Mutual fund characteristics can affect expected returns or transaction costs. Factors affecting expected returns include asset allocation and systematic risk, while transaction costs include explicit and implicit ones, which can be measured by expense ratios and size of funds respectively. Insignificance of transaction cost determinants in affecting actual returns can be attributable to dominance of factors affecting expected returns.

Mandatory notification of disease forms the backbone of disease surveillance in New Zealand and overseas. Notification data is used by public health professionals and academics to identify cases requiring public health control, monitor disease incidence and distribution, and in epidemiological research. However, there is emerging evidence that notification rates do not accurately reflect the true extent of notifiable diseases within the community, resulting in the underascertainment of many notifiable cases. While adequate surveillance does not necessarily require that all cases of notifiable disease be captured, the systematic underascertainment of disease can have significant implications for perceived spatial and demographic trends in disease prevalence; potentially threatening the credibility of spatial epidemiological research by under or overestimating the burden of disease in different populations. There is evidence that systematic underascertainment occurs as a result of the differential actions of laboratories and general practitioners. It has also been recognised that that underascertainment can be influenced by a patient's willingness to seek medical attention and participate in laboratory tests. However, few studies have investigated whether these factors systematically influence notification either in New Zealand or overseas. Furthermore, the discipline of health geography has been slow to engage with this topic of public health importance, despite the inherently spatial nature of the processes involved, and the close ties to the geographic literature on health service utilization and healthcare provision. This thesis explores the spatial and temporal variation in notification rates in New Zealand for the period 1997-2005 and the potential relationships between notification rates and different variables. Unlike many underascertainment studies, which have used individual data and capture-recapture methods, data constraints inspired a unique ecological approach to investigating the factors which may be associated with notification in New Zealand. Variables were divided into categories based on Anderson's behavioural model for healthcare utilization and the influence of these variables on notification was determined through multiple regression analyses. The main findings of this research indicate that in New Zealand notification rates have increased during the period 1997-2005 and that there is a north-south gradient in notifications, with substantially lower rates in the North Island than in the South Island. Furthermore, it is also evident that the variables associated with notification vary according to disease, spatial aggregation and spatial scale. Notification rates are significantly associated with a range of predisposing and enabling factors which might influence patient choice to consult for many frequently underascertained diseases. More variation in enteric diseases is explained by the independent variables analysed than the variation in non-enteric diseases. However, further research into these relationships, and underascertainment in general, is required before firm conclusions can be drawn.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2010.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-02-26Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:03:32Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 burger_kp_dr_jabo.pdf: 725200 bytes, checksum: 5e4c4e8260d410b23eaf834ba198697a (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Considerando-se a demanda por Médicos Veterinários envolvidos em Saúde Pública, e a preocupação com a formação acadêmica nessa área idealizou-se a presente pesquisa objetivando realizar o diagnóstico de situação sobre o ensino de Saúde Pública Veterinária nos cursos de graduação em Medicina Veterinária do Estado de São Paulo. Para análise dos currículos realizou-se uma pesquisa documental tomando como fonte as matrizes curriculares utilizadas nos cursos, e para a identificação do conhecimento dos estudantes foram desenvolvidos e aplicados dois tipos de questionários individuais, para os alunos. Os resultados evidenciaram que as matrizes curriculares não contemplam de forma adequada a área de atuação da Saúde Pública Veterinária, direcionando os estudantes para uma formação individual e curativa, sem consciência de seu papel na sociedade, e as disciplinas relacionadas à área de atuação da Saúde Pública Veterinária têm cargas horárias reduzidas, além de serem oferecidas nos últimos períodos do curso, que não favorece a aproximação dos alunos à área. A análise dos questionários mostrou que o perfil dos estudantes do curso de graduação em Medicina Veterinária pode ser considerado como composto na sua maioria por mulheres, jovens, que não optaram pela carreira de uma forma marcante e, mostraram que a motivação para escolha do curso foi influenciada por aspectos afetivos, e que os estudantes, em geral, desconhecem o significado e a importância da atuação do profissional médico veterinário na área de Saúde Pública Veterinária, não se dedicando adequadamente as atividades relacionadas à área. Assim, indica-se uma reestruturação no ensino médico-veterinário baseada na integração de todas as áreas de atuação, com a utilização da estratégia da interdisciplinaridade e na mudança da forma de pensar e ensinar dos docentes... / Considering the need for Veterinarians involved in Public Health and the concern over the academic graduation training this area, the present work was shaped with the objective of performing a situation diagnosis over the teaching of Veterinary Public Health in the under graduation courses of Veterinary Medicine in São Paulo State. A documentary research was made to analyze curriculums taking as sources the curricular matrix used in the courses, and for identification of the student’s notions, two types of questionnaires were developed and applied individually to students attending first, third and fifth year. The results made clear that the curricular grade don’t privilege the Veterinary Public Health area of acting, leading the students to an individual and healing development in no awareness of its role in society, and the subjects related to the Veterinary Public Health area of acting have minimized hours, beyond being offered in the latest periods of the course which doesn’t promote the forthcoming of the students to the area. The analysis of the questionnaires showed that the students’ profile of Veterinary Medicine graduation courses is composed in its most, by young woman, that didn’t decide for the career in a well marked way and showed that the motivation for the course was influenced by its affective side and that the students generally don’t know the meaning and importance of the veterinary professional acting in the Veterinary Public Health area, and further not dedicating themselves properly to the related area activities. Thers, an organization in the Veterinary Medicine teaching is necessary based on the gathering of all acting areas using an interdisciplinary strategy and a change in the way of thinking and training professors, beyond their team work in each course

Climate resilience is increasingly an attribute of competitive global cities. Cities that are most responsive to change will continue to prosper. To achieve this, governance structures and decision-making approaches that promote flexible and/or robust adaptation action are required. This thesis introduces a framework for urban adaptation planning that links medium-term risk management with the development and appraisal of long-term adaptation pathways. A long-term plan informed by the appraisal of a range of plausible pathways provides the opportunity to retain the flexibility to respond to future uncertainties, whilst also demonstrating how a city could manage future climate risk. This provides stakeholders with confidence that long-term risk is adequately considered, even if there is not a need to act immediately. To demonstrate how adaptation pathways can support adaptation decision-making in an urban system, the approach and methods developed as part of this thesis are applied in London. Adaptation pathways in response to water scarcity, surface water flood and heat risk were developed, and their appraisal presented as pathways diagrams. These diagrams provide a visual representation of the sequencing of decision points and plausible adaptation actions that may be implemented in the future. Pathways diagrams present climate risk and adaptation information for decision-makers in a salient and actionable manner. The pathways responding to individual risks in London are then brought together to demonstrate how an integrated assessment framework may be used to appraise city-scale adaptation pathways that respond to multiple climate risks. The growing emphasis within adaptation planning on approaches that can react flexibly to change increases the need to better understand the dynamics of climate risk and embed learning about the effectiveness of adaptation actions. To complement the pathways and adaptation decision-making research presented in this thesis, a framework that links adaptation monitoring and evaluation (M&E), risk assessment and decision-making is presented and explored to highlight the potential benefits of, and mechanisms for, adaptation M&E to inform and strengthen iterative risk-based adaptation planning. Demonstrated for the Thames Estuary, where concepts of adaptation planning have been pioneered but the opportunities of linking to monitoring and evaluation have not been extensively explored, we show how the framework can highlight actions and factors that are contributing to improving adaptation outcomes and those that require strengthening. This thesis contributes to the literature on urban climate change adaptation planning under conditions of uncertainty. This thesis also contributes to the evidence base needed to justify long-term planning and realise the benefits of climate risk reduction through the implementation of flexible, long-term integrated urban adaptation plans.

A busca por novas soluções técnicas que, de modo sustentável, diminuam o tempo de construção de obras de engenharia e as tornem mais econômicas, tem tomado, cada vez mais, as linhas de pesquisa do grupo de Engenharia Geotécnica da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, onde já foram realizadas inúmeras pesquisas para estudar e compreender o comportamento de solos artificialmente cimentados. O cimento Portland é mundialmente utilizado no melhoramento da resistência e da deformabilidade dos solos, outrora impróprios para utilização. Para estudar a contribuição da cimentação para altas tensões de confinamento, foi construído um equipamento triaxial com capacidade de atingir 10 MPa de tensão confinante que permite o estudo do comportamento tensão-deformação-dilatância de solos artificialmente cimentados curados sob tensão. Juntamente, foi realizado um estudo um numa areia fina e uniforme, artificialmente cimentada, para três tempos de cura (3, 7 e 28 dias), da resistência à compressão simples (qu) e da resistência à compressão diametral (qt) em função da razão vazios/cimento (η/Civ). Os resultados mostraram que a resistência aumenta com a redução da relação vazios/cimento (η/Civ) e com o aumento do tempo de cura (t), sendo que a relação tração/compressão (qt/qu) é independente do tempo de cura e apresenta um valor médio de 0,15. Além dos resultados proferidos, outras misturas de solos granulares com diferentes tipos de cimento, variados tempos de cura, foram analisados e normalizados, obtendo-se uma curva única em que a resistência à compressão simples (qu) e a resistência à compressão diametral (qt) foram normalizadas e estão em função da relação vazios/cimento (η/Civ). Paralelamente pretendeu-se verificar qual o efeito do tipo de cura (sob tensão ou atmosférica) em misturas cimentadas com a realização de ensaios para tensões efetivas médias desde 250 kPa até 4000 kPa. Além disso, avaliou-se a variação do η/Civ e do tempo de cura para amostras curadas sob tensão. Os resultados mostram que, de um modo geral, com o aumento da tensão efetiva média, o tipo de cura não afeta os valores das tensões de desvio máximas. A parcela friccional tem uma predominância no comportamento tensão-deformação. O tipo de cura tem influência na definição da superfície de plastificação e da rigidez, verificando-se o aumento destas propriedades para amostras curadas sob tensão em relação a amostras curadas sob pressão atmosférica. Com base nos resultados obtidos nesta pesquisa, um modelo elasto-plástico com degradação da rigidez, que tem como parâmetros a resistência a compressão simples (qu), ângulo de atrito (ϕ’) e uma deformação equivalente (εs 0,7), foi proposto para simular o comportamento tensão-deformação de misturas de areias artificialmente cimentados em ensaios triaxiais, apresentando resultados satisfatórios. / The search for new technical solutions to reduce construction time of engineering works and to make them more cost-effective has been object of the research lines of the group of Geotechnical Engineering of Federal University do Rio Grande do Sul. Numerous studies have been conducted to analyse and understand the behaviour of artificially cemented. Portland cement is widely used for improving strength and deformability characteristics of soils. To study the contribution of cementation under high pressures, a 10 MPa confining pressure triaxial apparatus was built to study the stress-strain-dilatancy behaviour of artificially cemented soils cured under stress. In parallel a study was conducted on a artificially cemented uniform sand at three curing times (3, 7 and 28 days) to determine the unconfined compressive strength (qu) and splitting tensile strength (qt) according to voids/cement ratio (η/Civ) dosage methodology. The results showed that strength increases with the reduction of voids/cement ratio (η/Civ) and with the increasing of cure time (t). The tensile/compression ratio (qt/qu) is independent of curing time and presents a mean value of 0.15. In addition to these results, other granular soils mixtures with distinct types of cement and different curing times were analysed. A unique normalized curve was fit to unconfined compressive strength (qu) and splitting tensile strength (qt) against voids/cement ratio (η/Civ). At the same time, the effect of the curing type (under stress or atmospheric) was verified through triaxial compression tests with mean effective stresses ranging from 250 kPa to 4000 kPa. In addition, the variation of η/Civ and cure time was evaluated for samples cured under stress. The results show that, in general, by increasing the mean effective stress, the type of cure does not affect the values of the maximum deviatoric stress. The frictional portion is predominant in the stress-strain behavior. The type of cure affects the yielding surface and the stiffness of the samples. It was observed the increase in this properties for samples cured under stress compared to samples cured with atmospheric stress. Based on the outcomes of this study, with satisfactory results, an elastoplastic model with stiffness degradation (using unconfined compressive strength (qu), friction angle (’) and an equivalent strain (  s0.7)) was proposed to simulate the stress-strain behaviour of artificially cemented sands in triaxial tests.

Formulations of optimization under uncertainty (OUU) commonly used in aerospace design—those based on treating statistical moments of the quantity of interest (QOI) as separate objectives—can result in stochastically dominated designs. A stochastically dominated design is undesirable, because it is less likely than another design to achieve a QOI at least as good as a given value, for any given value. As a remedy to this limitation for the multi-objective formulation of moments, a novel OUU formulation is proposed—dominance optimization. This formulation seeks a set of solutions and makes use of global optimizers, so is useful for early stages of the design process when exploration of design space is important. Similarly, to address this limitation for the single-objective formulation of moments (combining moments via a weighted sum), a second novel formulation is proposed—horsetail matching. This formulation can make use of gradient- based local optimizers, so is useful for later stages of the design process when exploitation of a region of design space is important. Additionally, horsetail matching extends straightforwardly to different representations of uncertainty, and is flexible enough to emulate several existing OUU formulations. Existing multi-fidelity methods for OUU are not compatible with these novel formulations, so one such method—information reuse—is generalized to be compatible with these and other formulations. The proposed formulations, along with generalized information reuse, are compared to their most comparable equivalent in the current state-of-the-art on practical design problems: transonic aerofoil design, coupled aero-structural wing design, high-fidelity 3D wing design, and acoustic horn shape design. Finally, the two novel formulations are combined in a two-step design process, which is used to obtain a robust design in a challenging version of the acoustic horn design problem. Dominance optimization is given half the computational budget for exploration; then horsetail matching is given the other half for exploitation. Using exactly the same computational budget as a moment-based approach, the design obtained using the novel formulations is 95% more likely to achieve a better QOI than the best value achievable by the moment-based design.

This essay is about the lyric authorship of the Swedish poet Hjalmar Gullberg (1898-1961), who was nicknamed “The Lyric Hegelian” due to his love of paradox. It focuses on certain traits in his authorship in its entirety, with a specific focus on a select number of poems. The primary concerns of this essay are questions of an existential nature raised by Gullberg’s poetry, as well as his poetry’s relation to his time and age. As a member of the Swedish Academy Gullberg was an important literary presence in his day, most likely influencing the outcome of several Nobel Prizes. Gullberg’s poetry is part classicist and part modernist, combining traditional forms with newer ones, and in doing so it bears witness to contemporary society entering a state of modernity. Gullberg held feelings of both appreciation and aversion towards his time and age. His poetry touches upon a multitude of topics and includes motifs that are both ancient and contemporary, and these are combined as the poet searches for meaning in ephemeral existence. The present essay traces the development of an existential worldview and a type of philosophy in the authorship, which are characterised by complexity and uncertainty; these change with time, and this development can be seen in the different collections of poems. A shift can be observed from a spirit of optimism and religiosity towards a contrary mindset of pessimism and disbelief. This essay argues that Gullberg’s authorship is representative of its time and age in the sense that the views expressed in the poetry seem to correlate to the development of society and the general mentality in Sweden and much of Europe during the twentieth century, with regard to the process of secularisation that took place. The poetry of Gullberg leaves us with many questions and few definite answers. However, its value lies in the eloquent treatment that it gives to the subject-matter which is presented, and in that it encourages reflection. Gullberg was a late representative of an older literary tradition and an early representative of a new one; accordingly he embodied an important change in Swedish literary history.

My proposed PhD, titled Zola's Naturalism in The Rougon-Macquart: The Fatality of Sexuality, aims to study the basics of the naturalistic novel in the second half of the nineteenth-century France. Firstly, I have looked back at previous critical studies that were dedicated to the themes of sexuality and/or fatality in Zola's writing. This introductory chapter helped me understand how far critics have gone and what a long way we still have to go before we can fully appreciate the importance of these themes in the context of naturalism. Throughout the twenty novels that make The Rougon-Macquart series, I studied the fictional characters in their being, their appearance and their evolution in space and time. I therefore investigated whether or not these characters were masters or slaves of their space and time and beyond that, what influences they had on each other. Afterwards, I questioned the fecundity of the theme of sexuality in Zola's work to find out both the aspects of originality in his writing and his contribution to the modern novel. Nevertheless, I have criticized Zola on a wider angle as an emeritus writer with his own "weaknesses". Methodologically, I have largely used the semiotics approach along with psychoanalysis due to the specificity of sexuality. Despite the wide range of critical studies on Zola's novels, in my sense, most of them have so far failed to tackle naturalism at its foundations, i.e. sexuality. In fact, if one attempted to free The Rougon-Macquart from the theme of sexuality, neither the Rougon-Macquart family would exist nor the twenty novels they generated. Studying sexuality therefore appeared to be essential to the understanding of the naturalistic theory. However, and surprisingly so, most of Zola's critics have avoided that inescapable theme, perhaps more likely for reasons of decency rather than for scientific ones. It is in such context that I have decided that it was time to bring it to light for the sake of truth about the knowledge of Zola.