Rozprawy doktorskie na temat „Bankers in literature”

Mercury contamination is an environmental issue with high priority due to its high toxicity. In addition to the atmospheric deposition, several lakes and rivers in Sweden are contaminated as a result from wood and pulp-fiber industries which stretches back 200 years. In Luleå, Sweden, a former groundwood industry, Karlshäll, has contributed to mercury pollution in the sediments of Notviken, a small bay connected to Luleå River and the Bothnian Sea, through release of process water. Industrial release of chemicals and wood pulp have resulted in a special type of sediment called fiber banks. The fiber banks contain high levels of organic matter and very little oxygen which contributes to large gas emissions from the fiber banks, gas ebullition. There is no generally accepted method for examining how mercury contaminants are spread through gas ebullition. The aim of this thesis was to review and find methods for that purpose. Through the literature review several types of methods emerged. Some of them were useful for measuring volumes of gas, whereas others were better designed for collecting gas and analysing it for concentration of elements. There are pros and cons with all methods but the one considered most useful in the case of Karlshäll would be Skarp’s method with active and passive sampling. The passive part includes setting up tents over the fiber bank with a known area, and then calculate the volumes of gas which migrate up through the water during a certain amount of time. The active sampling consists of stirring the fiber bank sediment with a stick and then gather the ascending gas bubbles in a Teflon-bag. The Teflon bag is thereafter sent to a chemical environmental laboratory for analysis of the concentration of elements. This method is the only one of the ones reviewed in this thesis which have been tested in Sweden at sites with gas- ebullition facilitated mercury transport. Although, Varadharajan et al’s (2011) sampling device with automation could be applicable if a long-term, high frequency monitoring programme would be used at Karlshäll. In addition, a sampling device with an integrated carbon-absorption-tube collector for trapping gaseous Hg would be beneficial if the samples can’t handle a long-distance transportation. Thus, the samples could be sent to a local laboratory instead. However, this type of device is not yet invented and would need further studies to develop.
Kvicksilverföroreningar är ett stort miljöproblem som räknas till de särskilt farliga ämnena vilka skall fasas ut för att nå miljömålet giftfri miljö. Föroreningarna är mycket giftiga för djur och miljö och det kvicksilver som redan spridits ansamlas och stannar kvar under lång tid i mark, vatten och biota. Utöver den atmosfäriska depositionen så är floder, älvar och sjöar i Sverige förorenade med kvicksilver, ett resultat av en 200-årig industri för tillverkning av pappersmassa och träfiber där kvicksilver varit en del i tillverkningsprocessen.  I Luleå fanns det ett träsliperi kallat Karlshäll mellan åren 1912–1962 som släppte ut orenat processvatten innehållandes kvicksilver tillsammans med rester av träfiber till den närliggande viken, Notviken, som är ett inlopp från Lule älv. Industriella utsläpp av kemikalier och träfiber har resulterat i bildandet av en viss typ av bottensediment, kallad fiberbank. Fiberbankarna innehåller höga nivåer av organiskt material i kombination med lite syre vilket bidrar till stora gasutsläpp från fiberbankarna, gasavgång. Det finns ingen vedertagen metod för att undersöka hur kvicksilverföroreningarna sprids genom gasavgång. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka och hitta metoder som kan undersöka kvicksilverföroreningarnas spridning via gasavgång. Genom en litteraturstudie och intervju med en entreprenör inom miljöteknik framträdde flertalet olika metoder för att kunna kvantifiera eller mäta kvicksilver i gas från fiberbankar. Några av dem var användbara för att mäta volymer av gas. Andra metoder lämpade sig bättre för att samla in gas för analys av koncentrationer av olika ämnen.  Även om alla metoder i viss mån lämpar sig för att undersöka gasavgång från sediment ansågs Jonny Skarps metod som inkluderade både aktiv och passiv provtagning med gasfällor och teflonpåsar vara den mest passande för fiberbankar likt den i Karlshäll. Den passiva metoden innefattar installation av tält över en känd area på sedimentbotten och sen beräkna mängden gas som bubblar upp under en viss tid. Den aktiva insamlingsmetoden bygger på att sediment störs med ett spetsigt föremål, exempelvis ett lod, så att gasbubblor släpper från sedimentet och samlas in med hjälp av en teflon- påse. Teflon-påsen skickas sedan till ett kemiskt laboratorium i Göteborg för analys av innehållet i gasen. Båda dessa provtagningssätt kunde tillsammans mäta mängden kvicksilver ifrån gasen samt volymen av gasen. Denna metod är den enda av de som undersökts i denna uppsats som testats i Sverige på platser med kvicksilver som avgått i gasform från fiberbankar. Dock så är Varadharajan med fleras (2011) automatiserade gas-insamlare ett bra alternativ ifall en hög frekvens av provtagning är nödvändig i kombination med en lång insamlingstid. Denna skulle kunna kombineras med en insamlingsmetod av gasbubblor där det lokala kemilaboratoriet kan analysera innehållet. I detta fall krävs att ett kolfiber-rör är en del av mätinstrumentet. Dock finns det ännu inte något sådant instrument och fler studier behövs för att utveckla ett sådant.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007.
The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on January 29, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis, which is written in French, examines the problems of translating modem Scottish literature into French. To illustrate them, a case study on The Crow Road by lain Banks will be undertaken. A short introduction first establishes the content of the thesis, its different parts and the strategy that we have adopted to tackle our main problem. This is identified as the cultural "otherness" of Scottish writing, which has been to a greater or lesser degree occulted in French translations of Scottish Literature. Chapter I looks at theoretical aspects of translation from a thematic point of view ranging from a philosophical approach, through a linguistic one to various cultural approaches, with specific reference to Eugene Nida and Lawrence Venuti. Chapter II examines Scotland as a nation and as a country with important linguistic and cultural differences from its southern neighbour. We will see how important this separation is in literature and how some theorists have dealt in particular with the problem of translating the vernacular. Chapter III is devoted to the analysis of the French translations of four Scottish authors, James Kelman, William McIlvanney, Irvine Welsh and lain Banks. It examines passages from the texts but also emphasises the strategies adopted by the translators. Chapters IV and V focus on respectively on lain Banks and The Crow Road in order to provide thorough social and cultural contextualisation before considering ways of translating the novel. Chapter VI considers a number of potential strategies for translating sections of The Crow Road: a 'domesticated' one, a Nabokov style, the use of a French dialect and finally one using Venuti's concepts. The conclusion suggests that translators are free to choose between competing strategies, or even to mix them, but that what is crucial is to have a thorough knowledge of the source culture, and a conscious and apparent strategy, before approaching works as culturally laden as contemporary Scottish novels. The Translator may have to have the courage to offend against existing French translation norms if translation is to be truly trans cui tural.

This thesis explores the notion of perversity in literature, specifically with regard to representations of taboo and abjection in Iain Banks‟ The Wasp Factory, Ian McEwan‟s The Cement Garden, and Irvine Welsh‟s Marabou Stork Nightmares. Julia Kristeva‟s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, as well as her notion of revolt, constitute the central theoretical framework for my analysis. However, I also draw upon the concepts of monstrosity, grotesqueness and the uncanny in order to explicate the affect of abject fiction on the reader. I posit, then, that to engage with literary works that confront one with perversity, abjection and taboo entails exposing oneself to an ambiguous or liminal space in which culturally established values are both disrupted and affirmed. The subversive and revolutionary potential of the aforementioned novels is discussed with reference to the notion of the perverted Bildungsroman since, in their respective transgressions of taboos, the narrators of these novels disrupt social order, and their narratives end on a note of indeterminacy or the absolute finality of death, rather than self-actualisation. Moreover, in exposing the binaries of sex and gender as arbitrary and fluctuating, these narrators‟ perverse sexual and gender performativities gesture towards alternative modes of being (beyond social sanction), and invoke Kristeva‟s notion of individual revolt as a „condition necessary for the life of the mind and society‟.

Over and above applying Sartrean literary philosophy to Banks and Kelman this thesis therefore also offers a model of literary criticism that can be applied to a number of other contemporary Scottish authors. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that Sartre’s theories of literature can assist in the attempt to better understand the value of the writer in society, and of Kelman and Banks in particular. The comparison and contrast between Banks and Kelman makes clear the importance of contextualising the individual writer not only with the work of their contemporaries, but with the time, place and position in which they are writing. The intention of the thesis is to discover how Sartre’s ideas of existentialism and literature can be applied to writers and their work in a way that allows ‘the critic’ to analyse both the novelist’s fictional technique and to gauge the value of their role in society – in other words, how Sartre’s theories allow us to better understand the individual writer in a social, political and moral context, both nationally and internationally.

Cette étude se penche sur les œuvres de Russell Banks, Raymond Carver et Richard Ford, qui ont débuté leur carrière dans les années 1960-1970. À une époque où les milieux académiques s’intéressent davantage à l’autoréflexivité et aux jeux métafictionnels des écrivains postmodernes, les trois auteurs revendiquent, quant à eux, leur appartenance à la tradition réaliste. Dans « Quelques mots sur le minimalisme », John Barth suggère que le retour du réalisme social à partir des années 1970 peut être vu à la fois comme une réaction à la fiction dite « postmoderne » et comme un symptôme du malaise social et économique de l’époque. En effet, Cathedral, Continental Drift et The Sportswriter décrivent, dans un souci de vraisemblance et d’exactitude, la vie quotidienne d’Américains ordinaires malmenés par la politique de Reagan. Cette étude montre que les trois auteurs s’inscrivent dans la tradition du réalisme social, mais qu’ils sont influencés par le contexte postmoderne dans lequel ils écrivent et tiennent compte des problèmes de représentation typiques de cette période. Leurs œuvres sont donc marquées par une tension entre le respect des conventions littéraires propres à la tradition réaliste et la mise en évidence de l’artificialité de l’illusion mimétique, à une époque où la réalité elle-même est vue comme une construction linguistique
His study focuses on the works of Russell Banks, Raymond Carver and Richard Ford. They started writing during the 1960s and 1970s, at a time when the self-reflexivity and metafictional play of postmodernist writers were drawing a lot of critical attention in academic circles. However, they consider themselves to be realist writers. In “A Few Words about Minimalism,” John Barth suggested that the return to realist fiction in the mid-1970s could be both a reaction against so-called “postmodernist” fiction and a symptom of the social and economic unease of the period. Indeed, Cathedral, Continental Drift and The Sportswriter describe in accurate detail the everyday lives of ordinary American men and women during Reagan’s presidency. This study demonstrates that these authors are part of the American realist tradition, but that their strand of social realism also takes into account the postmodern context in which they write, by dealing with problems of representation that are typical of the period. Their works both use and challenge the literary conventions associated with the realist tradition, by underlining the artificiality of mimetic illusion at a time when reality itself is seen as a linguistic construct

To be perceived as trustworthy in the eyes of the stakeholders is one of the main assets of any successful firm, for a positive image will reflect positively on business. This study focuses on the analysis of trust-building strategies in Annual Reports (ARs) and Corporate Responsibility Reports (CRRs) of two Swiss banks, UBS and Credit Suisse. The analysis aims to identify the linguistic means used to project a trustworthy image, as well as to point out any changes in their use which might have occurred after the financial crisis of 2008. For this purpose, a corpus of ARs and CRRs from the years 2007, 2012 and 2017 has been compiled. The corpus was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to identify the frequency and distribution of lexical expressions indexing competence, benevolence, and integrity. The results, though tentative, provide insights into the use of trust-building linguistic means and their diachronic development.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore the boundary between human and other created by virtual worlds in contemporary science fiction novels. After a close reading of the three novels: Surface Detail, Existence, and Lady of Mazes, and the application of contemporary literary theories, the boundary presented itself and led to the discovery of where the human becomes other. The human becomes other when it becomes lost to the virtual world and no longer exists or interacts with material reality. Each of the primary texts exhibits both virtual reality and humanity in different ways, and each is explored to find where humanity falls apart. Overall, when these theories are applied to real life there is no real way to avoid the potential for fully immersive virtual worlds, but there are ways to avoid their alienating effects.

This paper researches the theoretical background needed for the implementation of literary texts with multicultural themes for use in EFL courses in Sweden and it offers several concrete didactical solutions for multicultural reading. The theory of multicultural education by J. A. Banks is presented with focus on the dimension of knowledge construction. The processes that are examined are the learning processes in the zone of proximal development by Vygotsky (1986), the concept of scaffolding by Woods, Bruner & Ross (1976) and the process of perspective-taking by Thein & Sloan (2013). These processes each employ a three-step sequence that moves students from their existing knowledge to new knowledge and revised personal opinions. The teacher’s role is to provide support during the learning process. The second part of the paper suggests different activities for the multicultural reading of a novel, used to make the process of multicultural knowledge construction and scaffolding visible. Teacher support includes text reduction, book discussion and language analysis. Discussion points found in Love Medicine start with revising the stereotypical images, discovering how personal experience influences knowledge or how ethnicity influences professional career choices. When teachers and students read literary texts with multicultural themes, students’ racial prejudice can be reduced (Banks 2004) and their ethical attitudes become more open (Thein & Sloan 2013). The literary work chosen for framing in the theory is Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. The paper ends with a reflection over the limitations of multicultural reading projects.

Den här studien analyserar Tranströmers diktsamlingar 17 dikter, Hemligheter på vägen och Klanger och spår utifrån tematiken kring tid. Detta genom närläsning av dikterna och application av kognitiv lingvistik på metaforerna kopplade till tid. Resultatet av studien är att all tid existerar samtidigt i Tranströmers poesi, enligt T.S. Eliots teori att både dåtid och framtid finns här och nu, vilket syns på diverse historiska aspekter i nuet såsom ordval och porträttdikter. Tiden i dessa dikter tar formen av insekter såsom ett armbandsur och ett fjärilsmuseum. Fåglarna i dikterna vaktar tiden, olika fågelarter har hand om olika tidsperioder och de kan även misslyckas med tiden. Utöver detta kan tiden även ha en rumslighet likt en labyrint, schakt eller sjukhusbyggnader samt att den kan flöda i en nedåtgående rörelse. Vanliga konceptuella metaforer förekommer i Tranströmers poesi men oftast på ett nyskapande sätt som strider mot den allmänna definitionen av tid som kronologisk, linjär och uppdelad i mindre enheter.

The “statement” from senior decision-maker is a section in the sustainability           report, where the most “senior decision-maker” of the institution (such as CEO,            chairman, or equivalent senior position) gives the personal view about the           relevance of sustainability to the ​institution and its strategy for addressing           sustainability. Such a statement is one medium used by company leaders to            communicate their attitudes and values to stakeholders in sustainability reports.          Under commercial circumstances, sustainability is also referred to as Corporate          Social Responsibility (CSR). This paper analyzes Chinese and Nordics senior decision-makers’ perception of CSR within the banking sector. The research sample consists of statements of senior decision-makers from sustainability reports of four Chinese banks, respective four Nordic banks. Previous studies show that CSR conception is influenced by cultural and social backgrounds. By analyzing respective Chinese/Nordic senior decision-maker’s statement, this study isaimingtofindout how Chinese/Nordic culture and social concepts are promoted in their respective bank institutions, and therefore lead to different CSR focus and strategies. The results from the study show that Chinese senior decision-makers’ statements are strongly influenced by t​raditional Chinese philosophy and social background, especially Confucian and Taoism, as well as​Xi Jinping’s guidelines delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Communist and the 13th Five-Year Plan. In relation to the Nordic senior decision-makers the gender equality and racial equality were noted. Senior decision-makers of Chinese banks mainly focus on “social stability and progress”, “economic responsibility”, and “customers”,while         senior decision-makers of Nordic banks mainly focus on “economic responsibility”, “customers”, and “environmental protection”.
公司资深决策者(首席执行官，董事长，或同等级别)会在可持续发展报告中 用一个章节来申明他们的观点。这个章节的内容涵盖可持续发展与该公司组 织架构的相关度，以及该公司可持续发展的战略和对策。公司领导通过这种 形式对股东传达公司的态度和价值观。在商业环境中，可持续发展也经常被 称为公司社会责任(CSR)。 本论文分析了中国和北欧银行业资深决策者们对于企业社会责任的认知。本 论文的研究对象是银行可持续发展报告中资深决策者的陈述观点，它们分别 取自4家中国银行和4家北欧银行。现存的研究指出公司社会责任这一概念以 及对其的认知受到文化和社会背景的影响。通过研究中国和北欧不同银行资 深决策者在可持续发展报告中的陈述及观点，本论文意在深入理解文化和社 会因素是如何在公司中得到，并最终影响公司社会责任的实践和战略。 研究结果显示中国传统哲学和社会背景深刻影响中国银行业资深决策者对于 可持续发展的陈述和观点，特别是儒家思想，道家思想，​和​习近平​在​19大​的 报告，​以及​中国​第​十三​个​五​年​规划。而在北欧，可持续发展报告主要受到性 别平等和种族平等方面​的​影响。在银行可持续报告中，中国的资深决策者主 要关注“社会平稳和发展”，“经济责任”，和“客户”，而北欧的资深决策者主 要关注“经济责任”，“客户”和“环境保护”。

Iain (M.) Banks never refrains from focusing on his characters: their thoughts, feelings, behaviour, and identity. While critics acknowledge the importance of character-building within Banks’ fiction, existing criticism on Banks is heavily oriented on the narrative strategies he is using, and rarely focuses on the writer’s preoccupation with the “celebration of the human” emphasised by Farah Mendlesohn (2005). The phenomenon Mendlesohn pinpointed became my primary point of interest, encouraging me to investigate what being human means within Banks’ oeuvre. In order to achieve my aim, I decided to follow an interdisciplinary method which incorporates within my literary study texts originating from the fields of neuro- and cognitive sciences. This decision grew out of three interconnected observations: Banks is predominantly focused on the human; he is often investigating deeply culturally-established terms and metaphors associated with the human being (such as the ones associated with emotions, memory, or consciousness); and he is in favour of seeking universal laws and schemes -instead on concentrating upon the specific. Thus, I treat Iain (M.) Banks’ fiction as the groundwork of my discussion, which includes close readings of the relevant parts of his works: both mainstream and science fiction. I use scientific texts within my literary study as a key, which allows me to not indulge in genre criticism or stylistic discussions, but to approach Banks’ oeuvre as a unified whole, focusing on persistent ideas and themes which Banks continues to explore. As Banks’ main area of focus is the human being - or, as I shall argue, the human mind – brain and mind sciences are particularly useful. I am postulating that by paying close attention to the different brain-based processes, such as the ones responsible for memory, emotions or consciousness, Banks aims for providing an integrative perspective of the human being. In terms of the cross-disciplinary approach I am using, I am indebted to Steven Shaviro, whose Discognition (2016) has been an example of how fiction can be put together with neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. My analysis is divided into five chapters. I begin the discussion of Banks’ fiction with a chapter on memory and imagination perceived as interconnected faculties of the mind. In the second chapter I discuss Banks’ ideas concerning the cognitive nature of religious thinking and the fear of death. In the third chapter I analyse the concept of consciousness and that of the self. In the fourth chapter I focus on the differences separating - and similarities connecting - the Culture’s sentient machines with the panhuman citizens. The investigation of memory and imagination, religion, immortality and consciousness, as well as the discussion of the cognitive parallels between humans and machines in Banks’ novels, leads me to a conclusion that there is one question underlying Banks’ literary output: What is humanness? The answer is, according to Banks, the cognitive capacity for language, and, hence, for storytelling. I argue that for Banks, human cognitive powers amount to this unprecedented ability for the creation and sharing of stories.
W swojej twórczości literackiej, Iain (M.) Banks zawsze skupia się na kreacji i prezentacji bohaterów – ich myśli, uczuć, zachowań oraz ich tożsamości. Jednak, mimo iż krytycy zaznaczają istotność kreacji postaci w fikcji Banksa, dotychczasowa krytyka skupia się przede wszystkim na strategiach narracyjnych wykorzystywanych przez pisarza, a rzadko na jego zainteresowaniu człowiekiem. Swoista „celebracja człowieka”, którą Farah Mendlesohn (2005) przypisuje twórczości Banksa, zachęciła mnie do zbadania, co to człowieczeństwo oznacza, i z czym się wiąże w jego twórczości. Aby osiągnąć swój cel, postanowiłam skorzystać z interdyscyplinarnej metody badawczej - wykorzystuję w moim studium literaturoznawczym teksty wywodzące się z dziedzin neuronauk i nauk kognitywnych. Ta decyzja była pochodną wysnucia trzech powiązanych ze sobą wniosków na temat twórczości Banksa: po pierwsze, pisarz skupia się głównie na człowieku; po drugie, zgłębia silnie zakorzenione w kulturze pojęcia i metafory związane z człowieczeństwem (m.in. z emocjami, pamięcią, czy świadomością); po trzecie, Banks jest zwolennikiem poszukiwania ogólnych zasad i wzorców zamiast koncentrowania się na studium przypadku. Traktuję twórczość literacką Iaina (M.) Banksa jako podstawę mojej pracy badawczej. Rozprawa zawiera więc interpretacje fragmentów prozy Banksa – zarówno tej głównego nurtu, jak i tej wydawanej jako fantastyka naukowa. W procesie interpretacji tekstów literackich korzystam z tekstów naukowych. Metoda ta pozwala mi na rezygnację z krytyki rodzajowej i analiz stylistycznych na rzecz holistycznej analizy twórczości Banksa - ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem idei i tematów, które Banks niestrudzenie porusza. Jako że głównym zainteresowaniem pisarza jest człowiek – a właściwie rzecz biorąc, jego umysł – nauki o mózgu i umyśle są w tym kontekście szczególnie przydatne. Udowadniam, że poprzez skupienie się na różnych procesach mentalnych – na przykład na tych, które odpowiadają za pamięć, emocje, czy pojawienie się świadomości, Banks konstruuje holistyczny obraz człowieka. Na wybór takiej, a nie innej metody badawczej, duży wpływ miała praca Stevena Shavira pod tytułem Discognition (2016), w której to Shaviro zestawia fikcję literacką z tekstami z dziedzin neuronauk, psychologii oraz filozofii. Moja praca składa się z pięciu rozdziałów. W pierwszym skupiam się na pamięci i wyobraźni rozumianych jako wzajemnie zależne zdolności ludzkiego umysłu. W drugim rozdziale omawiam podejście Banksa do myślenia religijnego i do strachu przed śmiercią. W trzecim rozdziale analizuję fenomen świadomości i tożsamości. W czwartym rozdziale koncentruję się na różnicach oraz podobieństwach między czującymi maszynami a biologicznymi organizmami w uniwersum Kultury. Analiza tematów regularnie poruszanych przez Banksa (takich jak pamięć, wyobraźnia, religia, nieśmiertelność czy świadomość), a także zbadanie jego podejścia do organizmów i maszyn, doprowadza mnie do konkluzji, że cała twórczość literacka Banksa podszyta jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytanie, czym jest człowieczeństwo. Według Banksa, odpowiedzią jest poznawczo-mentalna umiejętność tworzenia narracji. W twórczości Banksa ludzkie mentalne procesy przyczyniają się do wyłonienia się wyjątkowej i kluczowej zdolności do tworzenia opowieści i dzielenia się nimi.

Trabalho Final do Curso de Mestrado Integrado em Medicina, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, 2015
Uma das patologias mais comuns na prática clinica de ortopedia é a luxação anterior do ombro, durante actividades de vida diária ou desportivas. O conhecimento dos diversos factores contribuintes para a instabilidade tem uma importância fundamental para a prevenção e o tratamento desta patologia. Este trabalho trata-se de uma de uma revisão actualizada destes conceitos, através do estudo dos materiais já publicados, alcançando assim uma perspectiva actual do tema. O doente típico com alto risco de desenvolver IAO recorrente é do sexo masculino, adolescente ou no início da segunda década de vida, que sofre um primeiro episódio de luxação anterior do ombro ao praticar um desporto de contacto, em que a luxação normalmente ocorre após uma queda com o braço numa posição de risco ou por impacto directo no ombro. A principal lesão consequente da instabilidade é a lesão de Bankart, sendo muitas vezes também acompanhada da lesão de Hill-Sachs. O tratamento é feito com técnicas de fixação, denominado procedimento de Bankart.
One of the most common diseases in orthopedic clinical practice is the anterior shoulder dislocation during daily life or sports activities. The knowledge of many contributing factors to instability is of fundamental importance for the prevention and treatment of this pathology. This work is an updated review of these concepts through the study of material already published, thus achieving an actual perspective of the subject. The typical patient with high risk for recurrent anterior instability of the shoulder is male, adolescent or early in the second decade of life that suffers a first episode of anterior shoulder dislocation while practicing a contact sport, where the dislocation usually occurs after a fall with his arm in a risk position or direct impact on the shoulder. The main injury consequent of the instability is the Bankart lesion, usually accompanied by Hill - Sachs lesion. Treatment is done with fixation techniques, called Bankart procedure.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
應用外語系碩士班
90
In the modern society, parents have paid more attention to children’s education, hence extracurricular reading is regarded as a crucial part at children’s premier learning stage. In order to assess of children’s literature books, the government as well as private organizations has founded a number of awards to evaluate the quality of books and reward outstanding writers. Besides local literary work, there are plenty of translated works on the market. As for a good translated work, it should include three elements: the ingenious idea and structure organization of the original writer, and a translator’s zeal for translation work. Hence, this research provides criteria of evaluating translation of children’s literature work and discusses translation problems as well. Within translation field, the standard of a good translated work is usually vague. Different theorists have different comments; in other words, the assessment of translation is subjective. This research aims to generalize features of children literature and obstacles to translation on this subject. Based on the findings, the author translates four fairy tales “The Indian in the Cupboard” series by Lynne Reid Banks. Consequently, the translated works will be published and hopefully it can offer more options to children readers. As for features of children’s literature, the author envisages four parts of children’s literature works: structure, dialogue, word usage and description. The approach aims to find appropriate criteria of evaluating translation. Accordingly, translated works conform to the criteria cannot only influence the selection of extracurricular readings but also help control the quality of translated works. For translation obstacles, the author concludes three aspects: translation methods, cultural differences and ethics of a translator and describes each aspect in the fourth part of he thesis. In the fifth part, the author considers features of children’s literature as basic rules of translation and illustrates examples to support discussion. The purpose of the thesis is to provide special reference to the author''s peers and a high-valued translated work to children.

The Reflection of the Exclusion Crisis (1678-1683) in Contemporary Literature Kristýna Hoblová abstract This work of literary history analyses the reflection of the Exclusion Crisis (1678-1683) in contemporary literature across genres. It is based on the theory of the rise of the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas and on the theory of Michael McKeon, understanding the ideology of the late Stuarts as a last remnant of aristocratic ideology. The Exclusion Crisis is presented here as a period of unsettling negotiations between the declining Stuart ethos and the Whig ideology of the rising mercantile classes. The interpretation of chosen texts serves to discover creative transformations of the political discourse of the newly emerging political parties of Whigs and Tories, stressing the negotiations between genres, individual authors and political ideologies. The first chapter offers a brief overview of the socio-historical context, Habermas's theory of the rise of the public sphere and Michael McKeon's conception of aristocratic ideology. It also introduces the Tory political theory defending the Stuart divine right of kings on the basis of Robert Filmer's patriarchal household-state analogy and the Whig defence against absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts through asserting the priority of Law over the Royal...

abstract: This study investigates three issues that are relevant for the development of multinational investment banks in China. The first is about the domestic market conditions that are necessary for a country to develop multinational investment banks. The second issue is about the degree to which China has met these conditions. The last issue focuses on the potential strategies Chinese investment banks can undertake to become multinational corporations. To address the first issue, I draw an important distinction between international investment banks and multinational investment banks. For an international investment bank to be regarded as a multinational, I propose that it must have a strong presence (i.e., holding at least one percent of the market share) in at least two of the seven major capital markets in the world. Using this criterion, I identify 25 multinational investment banks. I then analyze their home countries’ domestic market conditions and propose that the following six factors are important to the development of multinational investment banks: the size of the home country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the total capitalization of its domestic security market, the number of its Global 500 firms, the volume of its foreign direct investment (FDI), the internationalization of its currency, and the openness of its capital market to foreign investors. By comparisons, I find that China’s domestic market conditions are comparable to the home countries of multinational investment banks with respect to the size of GDP, total market capitalization, the number of Global 500 firms, and the volume of FDI. What China lags behind are the internationalization of currency and the openness of capital market to foreign investors. Given the current trends of development, it is very likely that China will be able to catch up on the latter within ten years, thus meeting all the conditions necessary for the development of multinational investment banks. Based on the above findings, I suggest that Chinese investment banks seize this historical opportunity, speed up the internationalization of their businesses, and learn from the experiences of global industry leaders to become truly multinational corporations.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2015

Investigating the factors which determine bank profitability has been a hot topic for decades, however, there is still no consensus among researchers, practitioners, or policymakers regarding the set of factors that affect bank profitability due to the differences in social, economic, legal, and technical contexts across banking systems all over the world which give rise to the existence of many econometric specifications and samples design. In this paper, we survey 65 studies on bank profitability which covers the banking systems in three major blocs; the US, the EU, and the rest of the world (RoW). We followed two approaches; the first is to classify the surveyed studies into subgroups based on the used measure of profitability (ROA or ROE), sample size (small or large), and the time frame (the period) that data covers in each study (short or long). We then trace the impact of each of the factors of profitability (defined earlier) on the measure of profitability within the aforementioned subgroups across the different geographical areas. We call this approach “between blocks”. The second approach was to trace the impact of each factor on ROA or ROE within each geographical area; namely the US, EU, and RoW. We call this approach the “within blocks”. Factors are said to have an impact on ROA or ROE based on a set of rules we design within the paper. Based on “between blocks”, we find three factors with consistent impact on ROA in all subgroups (CAP, CE, and GGDP) which are all positively related to ROA; One factor (CR) was found to have a negative impact on ROA in three subgroups. Comparing the impact of each factor on ROE across the three subgroups, we find only one factor (CE) that is positively related to ROE in three subgroups. Based on “within blocks”, and within the US, factors that are found to be positively related to ROA are CAP, CE, GGDP, and INF, while CR is negatively related to ROA. On the other hand, factors that are found to be positively related to ROE are CE and NII, while CR and LIQ are negatively related to ROE. In the EU, factors that are found to be positively related to ROA are CAP, CE, and GGDP, while CR, LIQ, BSD, and INF are found to be negatively related to ROA. On the other hand, factors that are found to be positively related to ROE are CE and GGDP, while CR is the only factor with a negative impact on ROE. Finally, factors that are found to have a positive impact on ROA within RoW are CAP and CE, while CR and LIQ are negatively related to ROA. When it comes to ROE, CE and GGDP have a positive impact while LIQ is negatively related to ROE. To check for the robustness of our findings, we decided to account for the “quality” of each of the surveyed papers to assure that they are equally weighted in terms of each paper’s quality. Hence, we have to consider only the papers which come from top journals, or in some cases, bad journals but the papers are of high quality. To perform this task, we build a “quality index” which rules out all the papers that are of scholarly low quality by defining some rules. As a result of applying this index, our surveyed studies were downsized from 65 to only 45 studies. Our findings confirm the results obtained before the index was applied which confirms that the inclusion of such index represents a special case of the approaches we developed in tracing the impacts of determinants of bank profitability internationally and, therefore, our results are robust.
Using the fixed effect estimator, this paper analyzes the profitability of 11 private banks in Syria over the period from 2007:Q1 to 2018:Q4. To evaluate the impact of the Syrian crisis (civil war), we separately consider the pre-crisis period, 2007:Q1-2012:Q4, and the crisis period of 2013:Q1-2018:Q4. Our profitability determinants include bank-specific characteristics as well as industry-specific and macroeconomic factors, some of which have not been considered in previous studies. The inclusion of these additional factors as well as the separate consideration of the crisis years allow us to gain new insights into what determines the profitability of private banks in Syria. Our results clearly show that there exist large differences in profitability among our sample banks and that a significant amount of this variation can be explained by the factors included in our analyses.
Unlike the past literature which focuses on studying the effects of bank efficiency on the bank performance (in the same period) using different methodologies to assess how differences in the efficiencies obtained across the different methods lead to different impacts, we test the impacts of bank efficiency of the Syrian banking sector in normal times on bank performance (risk & profitability) during the subsequent crisis. We extend the work of Assaf et al. (2019) by opting to use two different methodologies; Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Free Distribution Approach (FDA) to estimate cost and profit efficiencies during normal times and assess how the different methodologies lead to different impacts of the estimated efficiencies on bank performance during crisis times assuming two scenarios for the estimation of inefficiencies; the first is a time-invariant inefficiency while the second is a time-varying inefficiency. With respect to bank risk, we find that cost efficiency during normal times was translated into increasing banks risk, under time-invariant and time-varying inefficiency. However, we find that profit efficiency has a negative impact on bank risk during the subsequent crisis under timeinvariant and time-varying inefficiency. This suggests that cost efficiency may better proxy management quality, while profit efficiency may partially reflect temporary high returns during normal times from low-risk investments that are reversed during the subsequent crisis. With respect to bank profitability, we find that cost efficiency, during normal times, was translated into helping banks to increase their profitability under the time-invariant inefficiency. However, the results were contradictory under the time-varying inefficiency. On the other hand, profit efficiency in the pre-crisis period seems to be conclusive with respect to its negative impact on profitability during the subsequent crisis. This was proven based on the results of two models under time-invariant inefficiency and one model under timevarying inefficiency suggesting that bank managers were tending to engage in high revenues-low risk activities in the period prior to the outbreak of the Syrian crisis. Findings have policy implications and imply policymakers, regulators and supervisors should consider more sophisticated means of monitoring and surveillance of banks characterized with high-cost efficiency as early as possible in order to decrease and minimize the occurrence of potential problems that might surface during future financial crises. In addition, bank managers should focus on utilizing policies and procedures that promote and foster cost efficiency, which may drive better bank performance and enhance the response of banks to possible negative shocks during any subsequent crises.

The period from 1960 to 2000 saw a major evolution in monetary policy and institutions. This dissertation makes the claim that there is a better explanation of these events than the typical narrative, or dominant discourse. The typical narrative is that a relationship between inflation and unemployment (the Phillips Curve) was proposed around 1960. One interpretation of the relationship was that increasing aggregate demand would reduce unemployment with some acceptable inflation. Milton Friedman then stated in 1968 that, in the long run, this practice would entrench inflationary expectations and there would be no useful employment benefits. This was accepted by the economics profession, especially by the mid-1970s, around the time of the first oil shock. This period also saw the rise of stagflation and the countries that managed the inflationary outbreak best were those where independent central banks were able to withstand politicians’ short term instincts. Economists attributed this to a commitment concept; if governments could override their central bank only at the cost of legislation or constitutional change, then monetary policy would focus more on long term expectations, rather than the political short term. Empirical work in the 1990s established this relationship and many countries made their central banks more independent during this decade. A better view acknowledges some features of this narrative. For example, Milton Friedman’s theory of expectations was very influential. (Chapter 2). But there is reduced evidence for the rest of this narrative. For example, the Federal Reserve did tighten monetary policy after 1982 compared with the period before 1979, but this appears to have been through placing less emphasis on output instead of being more inflation averse. Further, policymakers in the late 1960s and 1970s underestimated the level of unemployment at which inflation started increasing. (Chapter 3). Politicians were generally involved in disinflations, but their role and visibility decreased as legal inflation and central bank independence (CBI) increased. This suggests that, in practice, legal independence bestows the disinflation role on the central bank (Chapter 4). The role of politicians, however, is not fully clear because the proportion of elections where a voter backlash against inflation occurred was small. Therefore, the political dynamic against inflation may have occurred through elites, rather than popular opinion (Chapter 5). Finally, there was not a strong correlation between CBI in developed countries because the literature made errors of omitted variable bias and not examining whether CBI was endogenous. Inflation in the 1970s and 1980s was more clearly related to economic factors such as currency performance, output, past inflation, oil prices, and a time trend (Chapter 6). The weakness of CBI theory is that, by excluding politics, it overstates the costs of overriding a central bank. If there is little popular support for disinflation, then the costs of overriding the central bank will be low, regardless of the legal arrangements in place. Central banks perceive this and deliver policy within the politically palatable decision set.