Esta Dissertação tem como objetivo desconstruir discursos acerca dos modos de ser jovem na contemporaneidade articulados ao consumo como prática social. Compreendo que é através das estratégias engendradas no âmbito da cultura do consumo que objetos, imagens, desejos, identidades, valores, modos de ser podem ser transformados em mercadorias: podem ser ‘adquiridos’, consumidos e por fim descartados. Tornam-se ‘objetos’ a serem usados e exibidos. Entre tantos artefatos que circulam e são produzidos nessa cultura de consumo, está o Caderno Patrola, encartado no jornal Zero Hora – jornal de maior circulação no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Assim, realizo uma leitura (entre tantas possíveis) a respeito de mídia, cultura de consumo e juventudes. De certa forma, é uma leitura que os Estudos Culturais, campo teórico no qual me movimento, possibilitam-me produzir. Para que esta Dissertação pudesse ser construída tal como está, o corpus de pesquisa se constituiu de diferentes materiais, a saber: seleção de edições do Caderno Patrola, pesquisas em diversos sites, incursões em comunidades virtuais do orkut e em blogs,, conversas com jovens leitores do Caderno através do Messenger e e-mails com a editora do Caderno. Nas análises, trago algumas reflexões a respeito dos modos de endereçamento do Caderno Patrola, discutindo algumas das estratégias do Caderno para interpelar os sujeitos jovens para suas páginas, bem como para convidá-los a consumir produtos que ‘anuncia’. Ainda, analiso o modo como os discursos do Caderno Patrola não apenas sugerem objetos de consumo que podem constituir certos modos de ser jovem, como também podem ensinar o que consumir para ‘possuir’ tais modos, para, assim, adotarse as ditas posições desejáveis de ser jovem. A partir das problematizações realizadas no decorrer do estudo acerca do Caderno Patrola, é possível compreender como se investe no promissor mercado jovem, não só fabricando produtos para eles como também transformando os produtos fabricados pelos jovens em algo rentável. Além disso, é possível constatar como as próprias culturas juvenis se tornam um produto, uma vez que muitos desejam ser, estar, permanecer jovem e, por isso, passam a consumir produtos ditos pertencentes a elas. Assim, através do potencial pedagógico do Caderno, procuro entender algumas das configurações da cultura de consumo, como somos produzidos nessa condição cultural e de que modo o Caderno, como um artefato dessa cultura, apresenta-se articulado a ela. / This Dissertation aims to deconstruct discourses concerning the ways of being young in the contemporary articulated to consumption as social practice. I understand that it is through the produced strategies in the scope of the consumer culture where objects, images, desires, identities, values, ways of being can be transformed into products: they can be ‘acquired', consumed and finally discarded. They become objects to used and to shown. As an artifact between much others that circulate and are produced in this consumer culture is the section Patrola – a newspaper supplement that circulates on Fridays in Zero Hora, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Thus, I realize a reading (one of those that is possible to) about media, consumer culture and youths. In some way, it is a reading that the Cultural Studies, theoretic field in which I movement myself, make possible to produce. In order to this dissertation be constructed as it is, the corpus is constituted of different materials: select edition of the Patrola section, research in many sites, incursions in virtual communities of orkut and in blogs, talks with young readers of the Patrola through Messenger and e-mails with the editor of the section. In the analyses, I reflect about modes of address of Patrola section, discussing some strategies of the section that interpellate young for its pages, as well as inviting them to consume the ‘announced' products. I also analyze how the discourses of Patrola not only suggest consumption of products that can constitute ways of being young, but how they can teach what consume to own theses ways, in order to adopt desirable positions of being young. From the problematization of this study concerning to Patrola, its possible to understand how one invests in the promising young market, not only producing manufactures for them as well as transforming the manufactured products by the young into income-producing. Still, I could examine how the youth cultures become a product, once that many people desire to be young through the consumption of products that one says to belong to them. Therefore, thought the section’s pedagogy potential, I looked for understand some of the configurations of the consumer culture, how we are produced in this cultural condition and the way that Patrola, as an artifact of this culture, is articulated to it.

Thesis (M.A. (African languages)) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / The aim of this study was to investigate the problems encountered by translators when translating medical terms from English into Tshivenda. It has been revealed in this study that the major problem that the translators are confronted with is lack of terminology in the specialized field such as Health. This problem is caused by the fact that different languages entail a variety of culture. The study revealed that most translators and lexicographers resort to transliteration and borrowing when confronted with zero-equivalence. They regard transliteration and borrowing as the quickest possible strategies. The study discovered that transliteration should not be opted as an alternative strategy to deal with zero-equivalence as users will be led to a state of confusion. The study revealed that communicative translation is regarded as the most fruitful method of translation as it conveys the exact message of the original in a best possible manner. Both the source and the target users get the same message. KEY CONCEPTS Translation, Culture, Source Language (SL), Target Language (TL), Translation equivalence and Zero-equivalence.

This study seeks to understand how school processes affect disproportionate minority contact within the Hardin County Juvenile Justice System. A study completed by Lovell and Drummond (2016) in conjunction with the Hardin County BRIDGES Council, is used as the foundation for the current research. The original research, along with several others, examined disproportionate minority contact (DMC) after the student had been referred from their respective schools to the juvenile court system. The current study investigates 858 juvenile court records, with permission of the Hardin County Juvenile Judges, and examines school information included in the court records related to the student in correlation to race. School data was collected from the court cases to identify points of DMC that begin within the school system, which ultimately led to their referral to the juvenile court system.

Historically, credit market conditions have been shown to impact economic activity, at times severely. For instance, in the late 2000s, the United States experienced a financial crisis that seized domestic and foreign credit markets. The ensuing lack of access to credit brought about a steep decline in output and a sluggish recovery. Accordingly, policymakers commonly take steps to mitigate the effects of adverse credit market conditions and, at times, conduct unconventional monetary policy once traditional policy tools become ineffective. This dissertation is a collection of essays regarding monetary policy, the flow of credit, financial crises, and the macroeconomy. Specifically, I describe monetary policy’s impact on the allocation of credit in the U.S. and analyze the role of upstream and downstream credit conditions and financial crises on international trade in a global supply chain. The first chapter assesses the impact of monetary policy shocks on credit reallocation and evaluates the importance of theoretical transmission mechanisms. Compustat data covering 1974 through 2017 is used to compute quarterly measures of credit flows. I find that expansionary monetary policy is associated with positive long-term credit creation and credit reallocation. These impacts are larger for long-term credit and for credit of financially constrained firms and firms that are perceived as risky to the lender. This is predicted by the balance sheet channel of monetary policy and mechanisms that reduce lenders’ risk perceptions and increase the tendency to search for yield. Furthermore, I find that, on average, the largest increases in credit creation resulting from monetary expansion are to firms that exhibit relatively low investment efficiency. These estimation results suggest that expansionary monetary policy may have a negative impact on future economic growth. The second chapter evaluates the quantitative effects of unconventional monetary policy in the late 2000s and early 2010s. This was a period when the traditional monetary policy tool (the federal funds rate) was constrained by the zero lower bound. We compute credit flow measures using Compustat data, and we employ a factor augmented vector autoregression to analyze unconventional monetary policy’s impact on the allocation of credit during the zero lower bound period. By employing policy counterfactuals, we find that unconventional monetary policy has a positive and simultaneous impact on credit creation and credit destruction and these impacts are larger in long-term credit markets. Applying this technique to analyze the flows of financially constrained and non-financially constrained borrowing firms, we find that unconventional monetary policy operates through the easing of collateral constraints because these effects are larger for small firms or those with high default probabilities. During the zero lower bound period, we also find that unconventional monetary policy brings about increases in credit creation for firms of relatively high investment efficiency. The third chapter pertains to the global trade collapse of the late 2000s. This collapse was due, in part, to strained credit markets and the vulnerability of exporters to adverse credit market conditions. The chapter evaluates the impact of upstream and downstream credit conditions and the differential effects of financial crises on bilateral trade. I find that upstream and downstream sectors’ needs for external financing is negatively associated with trade flows when the exporting or importing country’s cost of credit is high. However, I find that this effect is dampened for downstream sectors. I also find that downstream sectors’ value of collateral is positively associated with trade when the cost of credit is high in the importing country. High downstream trade credit dependence coupled with high costs of credit in the importing country also cause declines in imports. There are amplifying effects of credit costs for sectors that are highly dependent on external financing when the importing or exporting country is in financial crisis. Further, the magnitude is larger when the exporting country is in financial crisis. Finally, I find that these effects on trade flows are large when the exporting country is a developed economy, but they are muted for developing economies.

Mass spectrometry (MS) is widely used for proteomic and metabolomic profiling of biological samples. Data obtained by MS are often zero-inflated. Those zero values are called point mass values (PMVs). Zero values can be further grouped into biological PMVs and technical PMVs. The former type is caused by the absence of components and the latter type is caused by detection limit. There is no simple solution to separate those two types of PMVs. Mixture models were developed to separate the two types of zeros apart and to perform the differential abundance analysis. However, we notice that the mixture model can be unstable when the number of non-zero values is small. In this dissertation, we propose a new differential abundance (DA) analysis method, DASEV, which applies an empirical Bayes shrinkage estimation on variance. We hypothesized that performance on variance estimation could be more robust and thus enhance the accuracy of differential abundance analysis. Disregarding the issue the mixture models have, the method has shown promising strategies to separate two types of PMVs. We adapted the mixture distribution proposed in the original mixture model design and assumed that the variances for all components follow a certain distribution. We proposed to calculate the estimated variances by borrowing information from other components via applying the assumed distribution of variance, and then re-estimate other parameters using the estimated variances. We obtained better and more stable estimations on variance, means abundances, and proportions of biological PMVs, especially where the proportion of zeros is large. Therefore, the proposed method achieved obvious improvements in DA analysis. We also propose to extend the method for clustering analysis. To our knowledge, commonly used cluster methods for MS omics data are only K-means and Hierarchical. Both methods have their own limitations while being applied to the zero-inflated data. Model-based clustering methods are widely used by researchers for various data types including zero-inflated data. We propose to use the extension (DASEV.C) as a model-based cluster method. We compared the clustering performance of DASEV.C with K-means and Hierarchical. Under certain scenarios, the proposed method returned more accurate clusters than the standard methods. We also develop an R package dasev for the proposed methods presented in this dissertation. The major functions DASEV.DA and DASEV.C in this R package aim to implement the Bayes shrinkage estimation on variance then conduct the differential abundance and cluster analysis. We designed the functions to allow the flexibility for researchers to specify certain input options.

A practical problem often encountered with observed count data is the presence of excess zeros. Zero-inflation in count data can easily be handled by zero-inflated models, which is a two-component mixture of a point mass at zero and a discrete distribution for the count data. In the presence of predictors, zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression models are, perhaps, the most commonly used. However, the fully parametric ZIP regression model could sometimes be restrictive, especially with respect to the mixing proportions. Taking inspiration from some of the recent literature on semiparametric mixtures of regressions models for flexible mixture modeling, we propose a semiparametric ZIP regression model. We present an "EM-like" algorithm for estimation and a summary of asymptotic properties of the estimators. The proposed semiparametric models are then applied to a data set involving clandestine methamphetamine laboratories and Alzheimer's disease.

The first chapter evaluates the zero-leverage effect on firms' financial constraints. Moreover, using investment- and cash-to-cash-flow sensitivities as financial constraint indicators, the results suggest that unleveraged firms are expected to face lower constraints relative to leveraged firms. Lastly, the results indicate that the zero-leverage effect on firms’ financial constraints is more likely stronger for smaller firms, zero-dividend firms, firms with lower proportions of tangible assets, and growth firms. The second chapter develops a new quantitative measure that reflects the extent to which a firm complies to Shariah relative to the other firms located in a certain region at a certain time. This measure can be customized to be consistent with each investor’s objectives, constraints, and beliefs. We argue that the use of this measure is preferable to the existing use of ratio thresholds for the following two reasons. First, it is more Shariah-appropriate because it provides the Shariah-compliant investor with a clear understanding of the relative compliance status of each firm he wishes to invest in. Second, it can be incorporated into any portfolio optimization model to create a balance between improving Shariah compliance and not compromising investment returns.

This research will investigate the problem on the propagation of electromagnetic wave through a specific nanomaterial. The nanomaterial analyzed is a material consisting of a field of Pt nanorods. This field of Pt nanorods are deposited on a substrate which consists of a RuO2 nano structure. When the nanorod is exposed to an electron beam emitted by a TEM (Transmission electron microscopy). A wave disturbance has been observed. A video taken within the chamber shows a wave with a speed in the scale of um/s (Á?10Á?^(-6) m/s), which is 14 orders of magnitude lower than speed of light in free space (approximate 3ÁÁ?10Á?^8 m/s ). A physical and mathematical model is developed to explain this phenomenon. Due to the process of fabrication, the geometry of the decorated Pt nanorod field is assumed to be approximately periodic. The nanomaterials possess properties similar to a photonic crystal. Pt, as a noble metal, shows dispersive behaviours that is different from those ones of a perfect or good conductors. A FDTD algorithm is implemented to calculate the band diagram of the nanomaterials. To explore the dispersive properties of the Pt nanorod field, the FDTD algorithm is corrected with a Drude Model. The analysis of the corrected band diagram illustrates that the group velocity of the wave packet propagating through the nanomaterial can be positive, negative or zero. The possible zero-group velocity is therefore used to explain the extremely low velocity of wave (wave envelope) detected in the TEM.

The Will County community supports community policing efforts and wants their law enforcement agencies to be transparent, service-orientated, and committed to their diverse neighborhoods. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore current policing methods and tactics to improve community relationships within Will County, Illinois. Six different focus group studies were completed where 33 participants completed questionnaires and follow-up, in-depth interviews were conducted to gather data on personal police experiences and perceptions. The questionnaire responses were separated into three categories including Likert-scale response questions, dichotomous (yes and no answers), and ranking police tactics by levels of importance. Nine statistically data driven tables were generated into percentage totals that created comparisons of police methods, police tactics, and issues. The main policing tactics that Will County residents expected from their policing agencies were rapid response for service and police professionalism (appearance, conduct, communication skills). The participants expected that police agencies solve major crimes (high-profile murders, assaults, robberies). The lowest ranked police tactics discovered in all 4 subcategories surveyed were aggressive enforcement efforts (even for minor offenses) and traffic enforcement. The participants demonstrated support for community policing efforts that requires law enforcement agencies to work with their neighborhoods. The results of this study can be used to create a policing culture that incorporates traditional policing efforts and combines these efforts with the newer community policing methods that are positively impacting the Will County communities.

Thesis (M.A. (African Languages)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / This study entails the translation of scientific terms from English into Northern Sotho. The reason one conducted this study is because translators experience difficulties in finding the correct equivalent terms, especially in Northern Sotho. Consequently, borrowing and transliteration of terms becomes their last resort. However, that does not help users of dictionaries to achieve their communicative goal. The study highlights that, the borrowing of terms leads to language shift and death as users no longer consider other equivalents. In addition, the study indicates that the constant usage of the borrowed terms causes the terms to lose meaning and function. The way in which people translate idiomatic expressions is a huge problem as well. Mostly, people end up using literal translation and subsequently, the whole meaning of a text is lost or misunderstood.