Based on data on publicly traded insurance firms, the first essay examines questions about the effect of large catastrophic events on insurance firms. Rather than looking at a single event, thirty catastrophic events were aggregated into quintiles and the cumulative abnormal returns around these events were found to ...
This thesis proposes a reconceptualization of the "attitude" as a multidimensional latent process, which may be unstable across situations, individuals, and time. A review of the literature in light of this reconceptualization reveals aspects of the survey situation that may systematically influence measures of ...
The electrostatic interaction between two charged spheres in the presence of a screening electrolyte is calculated at the level of the linearized Debye-Hückel theory. The calculation is performed analytically as a multipole expansion by applying two-center spherical harmonic expansions and symbolic ...
This thesis is dedicated to assess the accuracy of logistic regression (LR) and artificial neural networks (ANN) in the diagnosis of calvarial lesions using computed tomography (CT). The importance of the different features needed for the diagnosis in both models is also analyzed. The models were developed using ...
Vertical and horizontal expansion of irrigated agriculture to feed the increasing population has contributed to excessive groundwater withdrawal and affected the availability of water in terms of both quality and quantity. To sustain agricultural growth, strategic measures should be adopted to reduce water consumption ...
In this work we explore the relation between some local Dirichlet spaces and some operator ranges. As an application we give numerical bounds for an equivalence of norms on a particular subspace of the Hardy space. Based on these results we introduce an operator on H^2 which we study in some detail. We also ...
The prospect for democracy in Africa is the central concern of this study. The factors that contribute to the existence of undemocratic or autocratic governments in most of Africa, therefore, become our major focus for evaluation.An analysis of the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial political history of Africa ...
Two hundred ninety-three college students responded to a measure designed to examine retrospective accounts of the physical affection received during early childhood. The study looked exclusively from the perspective of the adolescent. Assessing the importance of touch in human development, and the role it plays in ...
An empirical study was undertaken to (a) examine various determinants influencing (de-)centralisation in Trans-World, the largest producer of television programs in Taiwan, and (b) make normative recommendations as to how insights from organisational dynamics models can be used in practice. The research was based on a ...
We study the spatially resolved properties of star-forming galaxies at redshift z ~ 2 - 3 on scales ~ 1 kpc using a combination of morphological and kinematic analyses in an effort to characterize the major mechanisms of galaxy formation in the young universe. Using a sample of 216 galaxies which have been ...
