Investing in commodities may have important benefits for investors but only in the last few decades have they started to think more about this possibility. Furthermore, large investors are more inclined to change their own personal view. Therefore, understanding the benefits that commodities could give to an investment portfolio might alleviate investors’ concerns. Several previous studies, as Belousova and Dorfleitner (2012) suggest, that the commodities with higher benefits are precious metals and gold, in particular. The purpose of our work is to understand which possible benefits are for equity investors and if they are common for certain commodities with different physical characteristics. The first part of our empirical work focuses on the main descriptive statistics of the return distribution (mean, variance, volatility, skewness, kurtosis and correlation) for 8 stock indices and 7 commodity futures. The main goal of this is to understand the differences among the commodities and between the commodities and the stock indices. In the second part of the empirical work, we test the safe-haven and the hedge properties of these commodities on a weekly basis for all of them with stock indices, and we do the same on a daily and monthly basis for only commodities which are negatively correlated on average with the stock indices. In the last part of our work, we combine these 7 commodities, following the principles of Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM), in order to create a well-balanced and well-diversified commodity index. Additionally, we create some mixed portfolios using this index and a different stock index every time. After that we look at the volatilities and the returns of these mixed portfolios with different weight combinations. Our main goals in this section are to understand the characteristics of the commodity index in comparison with stock indices and then, finding which weight combinations give the mixed portfolios the optimal risk-return trade off. Understanding which are efficient weights, can lead to conclusions about the weight that commodities should have in a portfolio according to the risk tolerance of the investors.  The research is done considering three time frequencies: daily, weekly and monthly; in line with the ones used by Baur and McDermott (2010). The sample size differs among these three different time basis. In fact, daily data started in January 2007 and the other two time frequencies data began with January 1997. All the time samples ended in March 2016. The results of the first part show that gold is the only commodity with a volatility similar to the stock indices (it also has a higher average return) and that on the daily, weekly and monthly basis. Whereas, the other commodities are much riskier than stock indices since they have higher volatility for all the three time-frequencies analyzed.  The results of the second part suggest that only gold is both a safe-haven and hedging commodity in line with the methodology used by Baur and McDermott (2010), but only for DAX 30 on a weekly basis. Furthermore, our results also show that natural gas is strong hedge in some cases such as natural gas for STI (Singapore) on a monthly basis or gold for Nikkei 225 on daily, weekly and monthly basis. Other commodities are neither safe-haven nor hedge in any case, except for silver which is a safe-haven commodity for DAX 30 and Sensex which at its worst, 1% and 5%, declines in the market respectively. The results of the last part of our work show that all the minimum variance mixed portfolios (the ones with the weights give the lowest risk) - made on a weekly basis - reduce the portfolio volatility and make the portfolio returns higher than the stock indices returns in 5 cases out of 8. Additionally, the results show how investors, who add a well-balanced and well-diversified commodity index to their portfolios, are able to observe several weight combinations and choose the one which suits their risk tolerance. Moreover, our results show that the optimal-weight combinations for commodity weights are lower than 0,5 only for FTSE 100 and S&P 500 (both values are 0,49) and higher than 0,62 but lower than 0,7 for DAX 30, Nikkei 225, Hang Seng, Sensex, SSEC. Furthermore, the optimal weight for STI is 0,54.

No presente trabalho foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico sobre os critérios, fatores e ponderações envolvidos em processos de localização de aterros de resíduos sólidos. Com base nesse levantamento, foram identificados os principais elementos de avaliação envolvidos no contexto decisório em questão e estabelecida a importância relativa através de cada descritor em questão através de ponderação dos mesmos. Estes dados foram aplicados em um estudo de caso (em torno de Ribeirão Preto - SP) visando a seleção preliminar de áreas adequadas à disposição de resíduos sólidos utilizando-se o sistema de informações geográficas (SIG). Este estudo teve como objetivo principal discutir os dados obtidos. Para a seleção de áreas com viabilidade ambiental foram utilizados três diferentes métodos - lógica boleana, ponderação dos fatores e fuzzy - que resultaram na exclusão de 96,2% e 13,8%, respectivamente, da área estudada. / Sanitary landfilling is the conventional method of disposing of municipal solid waste. Thus, the focus of the work was to develop the data and tool necessary to aid decision makers and special interest groups begin to understand the alternatives and tradeoffs in the landfill siting process. A Geographic Information System (GIS) were used to determine suitable areas for solid waste landfill sites in Ribeirão Preto (SP). The siting criteria for selecting a potencial site include geological and hydrogeological conditions, surface water distances, buffer zone of roads, topography, soil, land use and proximity to centres of population. The weights or \"importance\" these criteria have a huge bearing on the decision making process. In spatial siting analysis with multiple factors, balancing the relative importance of varied factors can be difficult. Thus, a set of weights for the factors was presented and discussed.

This thesis is devoted to an investigation of boundedness of a general convolution operator between certain weighted Lorentz-type spaces with the aim of proving analogues of the Young convolution inequality for these spaces. Necessary and sufficient conditions on the kernel function are given, for which the convolution operator with the fixed kernel is bounded between a certain domain space and the weighted Lorentz space of type Gamma. The considered domain spaces are the weighted Lorentz-type spaces defined in terms of the nondecreasing rearrangement of a function, the maximal function or the difference of these two quantities. In each case of the domain space, the corresponding Young-type convolution inequality is proved and the optimality of involved rearrangement-invariant spaces in shown. Furthermore, covering of the previously existing results is also discussed and some properties of the new rearrangement-invariant function spaces obtained during the process are studied. / <p>Paper II was a manuscript at the time of the defense.</p>

A crescente tendência de utilização de materiais austeníticos soldados e cladeados em componentes críticos em alguns setores industriais, como nas indústrias de óleo&gás e nuclear, leva a um aumento na demanda sobre ensaios não-destrutivos confiáveis na avaliação de sua integridade estrutural. Dentre os métodos utilizados na inspeção de soldas cladeados austeníticos estão os métodos de ultrassom por phased array, que são normalmente utilizados na detecção e localização de defeitos. No entanto, componentes com esse tipo de microestrutura são difíceis de inspecionar por phased array devido a anisotropia e inomogeneidade causadas pela microestrutura de grãos grosseiros que costumam levar ao aumento do nível de ruído, ao deslocamento de indicações e ao surgimento de indicações falsas. Sendo assim, a seleção de um método de phased array apropriado precisa levar em conta a habilidade do método em superar os problemas causados pela anisotropia e inomogeneidade. Esta tese apresenta dois métodos de imagem por phased array ultrassônico não-convencionais pensados como formas de ajudar na determinação da integridade de componentes onde soldas e cladeados austeníticos estão presentes. Ambos os métodos tem como base o método de foco total (TFM), sendo que o primeiro é uma extensão do método de leis de atraso adaptativas chamado Método de Foco Total de Atraso Adaptativo (ADTFM) e o segundo método usa fatores de coerência associado à imagens de TFM. A partir dos métodos de imagem aplicados é possível aumentar significativamente a qualidade das imagens por ultrassom em comparação com as imagens padrão obtidas por TFM, especialmente quando foi possível utilizar ambos os métodos combinados. / The increasing trend to use austenitic welded and cladded materials in critical components employed in some industrial sectors, such as the oil&gas and nuclear industries, leads to an increasing demand for their non-destructive assessment by reliable non-destructive methods. Among the methods used to access the integrity of austenitic welds and claddings are the Ultrasonic Phased Array methods, which are usually used to detect the presence and determine the position of defects. However, austenitic welds and claddings are challenging to inspect with Phased Array methods due to the anisotropy and inhomogeneity caused by their coarse grain microstructure, which is capable of increasing noise levels, misplace indications and create false indications. Therefore, the selection of an appropriate phased array method needs to take into account the method’s ability to overcome the impairment caused by anisotropy and inhomogeneity. This thesis presents two non-conventional methods based on ultrasonic phased array imaging techniques designed to assist the structural integrity assessment of components where austenitic welds and clads are present. Both proposed methods are based on the Total Focusing Method (TFM); the first approach is an expansion of the adaptive delay laws concept named Adaptive Delay Total Focusing Method (ADTFM), while the second method uses the coherence weights combined with the TFM images. From the imaging methods applied it was possible to significantly increase the quality of the ultrasonic images in comparison with the standard TFM, primarily when it was possible to combine both approaches.

No presente trabalho foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico sobre os critérios, fatores e ponderações envolvidos em processos de localização de aterros de resíduos sólidos. Com base nesse levantamento, foram identificados os principais elementos de avaliação envolvidos no contexto decisório em questão e estabelecida a importância relativa através de cada descritor em questão através de ponderação dos mesmos. Estes dados foram aplicados em um estudo de caso (em torno de Ribeirão Preto - SP) visando a seleção preliminar de áreas adequadas à disposição de resíduos sólidos utilizando-se o sistema de informações geográficas (SIG). Este estudo teve como objetivo principal discutir os dados obtidos. Para a seleção de áreas com viabilidade ambiental foram utilizados três diferentes métodos - lógica boleana, ponderação dos fatores e fuzzy - que resultaram na exclusão de 96,2% e 13,8%, respectivamente, da área estudada. / Sanitary landfilling is the conventional method of disposing of municipal solid waste. Thus, the focus of the work was to develop the data and tool necessary to aid decision makers and special interest groups begin to understand the alternatives and tradeoffs in the landfill siting process. A Geographic Information System (GIS) were used to determine suitable areas for solid waste landfill sites in Ribeirão Preto (SP). The siting criteria for selecting a potencial site include geological and hydrogeological conditions, surface water distances, buffer zone of roads, topography, soil, land use and proximity to centres of population. The weights or \"importance\" these criteria have a huge bearing on the decision making process. In spatial siting analysis with multiple factors, balancing the relative importance of varied factors can be difficult. Thus, a set of weights for the factors was presented and discussed.

Computer Numerical Control (CNC) is widely used in many industries that needs high speed machining of the parts with high precision, accuracy and good surface finish. In order to avail this the generation of the CNC part program size will be immensely big and leads to an inefficient process, which increases the delivery time and cost of products. This work presents the automation of high-accuracy CNC tool trajectory planning from CAD to G-code generation through optimal NURBs surface approximation. The proposed optimization method finds the minimum number of NURBS control points for a given admissible theoretical cord error between the desired and manufactured surfaces. The result is a compact part program that is less sensitive to data starvation than circular and spline interpolations with potential better surface finish. The proposed approach is demonstrated with the tool path generation of an involute gear profile and a topologically optimized structure is developed using this approach and then finally it is 3D printed.

The aim of this thesis is to find suitable mortgage, describe important criteria for comparison of mortgages and what types of mortgages the banks offer. The theoretical part of the thesis is divided into four parts. At first, I describe methods of determining the weights and methods of multi-criteria decision making. Then I focus on information about mortgage loan and about loan application process. In the third part I present variants and criteria and in the fourth I detect the best mortgage. I used WSA, TOPSIS, ELECTRE III and MAPPAC and add-on of Microsoft Excel - Sanna.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Utilizou-se 28.873 registros de pesos do quinto aos 660 dias de idade de 6.471 animais da raÃa TabapuÃ, pertencentes ao arquivo do Controle do Desenvolvimento Ponderal da AssociaÃÃo Brasileira dos Criadores de Zebu (ABCZ) para estimar as funÃÃes de covariÃncia utilizando modelo de regressÃo aleatÃria. Foram empregados como aleatÃrios os efeitos genÃtico, aditivo direto e materno de ambiente permanente de animal e materno e como efeitos fixos foram considerados os grupos contemporÃneos, a idade mÃdia das vacas ao parto como covariÃvel. O resÃduo foi modelado por funÃÃes de variÃncias de ordem quÃntinca. As anÃlises com polinÃmios ortogonais foram realizadas para o efeito genÃtico aditivo direto, ambiente permanente de animal e segundo efeito de animal (ambiente permanente materno e efeito materno) de ordens 4,5,2 e 3 respectivamnte. Os modelos foram comparados pelos critÃrios de informaÃÃo Bayesiano de Schwarz (BIC) e de Akaike (AIC). As estimativas de herdabilidade para os efeitos diretos apresentam decrÃscimo do nascimento atà a desmama e apresenta um leve aumento apÃs a desmama para novamente tender a decrescer, com valores de 0,48 ao nascimento; 0,27 aos 240 dias e 0,14 aos 660 dias de idade. As correlaÃÃes genÃticas variaram de moderadas a altas, diminuindo conforme o aumento da distÃncia entre as idades. / The study used 28,873 weight records taken along the life of 6.471 animals of the race TabapuÃ, finery birth to 660 days of age, belonging to the animal archives of the Brazilian Association of Zebu Breeders (ABCZ) to estimate the covariÃnce functions using the models of random regression. The genetic, addictive direct an permanent environmental effects were used as random effects the contemporary groups as fixed effects. The average age of the cows at delivery as covariavel (linear and quadratic). The residue was modeled by functions of variances of quadratic order. The analyses with orthogonal polynomials were performed for the direct genetic effect, genetic of animal permanent environment atmosphere of linear and quadratic. Models were compared by the Bayesian of information criteria of Schwarz (BIC) and of Akaike (AIC). The heritability estimates for the direct effects were greater in the beginning and by the end of the studied period, with values of 0,48 at birth, 0,27 to the 240 days and 0,14 to the 660 days of age. The genetic correlations varied from moderate to high, reducing as intensity in proportion to the increase of the increase of distance between ages the distance accordingly among the ages.

We study mixed boundary value problems for an elliptic operator A on a manifold X with boundary Y / i.e., Au = f in int X, T±u = g± on int Y±, where Y is subdivided into subsets Y± with an interface Z and boundary conditions T± on Y± that are Shapiro-Lopatinskij elliptic up to Z from the respective sides. We assume that Z ⊂ Y is a manifold with conical singularity v. As an example we consider the Zaremba problem, where A is the Laplacian and T− Dirichlet, T+ Neumann conditions. The problem is treated as a corner boundary value problem near v which is the new point and the main difficulty in this paper. Outside v the problem belongs to the edge calculus as is shown in [3]. With a mixed problem we associate Fredholm operators in weighted corner Sobolev spaces with double weights, under suitable edge conditions along Z {v} of trace and potential type. We construct parametrices within the calculus and establish the regularity of solutions.

We study (pseudo-)differential operators on a manifold with edge Z, locally modelled on a wedge with model cone that has itself a base manifold W with smooth edge Y . The typical operators A are corner degenerate in a specific way. They are described (modulo ‘lower order terms’) by a principal symbolic hierarchy σ(A) = (σ ψ(A), σ ^(A), σ ^(A)), where σ ψ is the interior symbol and σ ^(A)(y, η), (y, η) 2 T*Y 0, the (operator-valued) edge symbol of ‘first generation’, cf. [15]. The novelty here is the edge symbol σ^ of ‘second generation’, parametrised by (z, Ϛ) 2 T*Z 0, acting on weighted Sobolev spaces on the infinite cone with base W. Since such a cone has edges with exit to infinity, the calculus has the problem to understand the behaviour of operators on a manifold of that kind. We show the continuity of corner-degenerate operators in weighted edge Sobolev spaces, and we investigate the ellipticity of edge symbols of second generation. Starting from parameter-dependent elliptic families of edge operators of first generation, we obtain the Fredholm property of higher edge symbols on the corresponding singular infinite model cone.