VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Managing a commons, community management of indigenous woodlands in Chimanimani District, Zimbabwe

In Independent Zimbabwe, control over land and resources in the rural areas is complex and divided. In spite of a multitude of forces that threaten local control, local management regimes maintain a degree of resilience that needs to be acknowledged. This thesis documents a local woodlands management regime and argues that there exists a firm basis for expanding local participation in and control over the "development process." Defining woodland management broadly as the regulation of access to and use of trees, this study reveals a level of complexity and dynamism at times overlooked by planners and scholars alike. In this thesis the nature and coherence of the local woodlands management "regime" found in the study area (Gudyanga, south-eastern Zimbabwe), are discussed and implications for theory are explored. The discussion of woodlands management in Gudyanga begins with a review of social history and present social undercurrents. The role of trees in daily life and the mechanisms that regulate household wood use are detailed. It is suggested that the management of local woodlands cannot be separated from the management of all other local resources. The forms of political control of land and people, and tenure relations in particular, are often contradictory yet woodlands are managed as a commons. Common interests are given expression in local land management although they are circumscribed by divisions within the local political arena and the influence of powerful external interests. Significant opportunities exist for external intervention through ostensibly benign development activities carried out by state agencies. The threat to local control over resources posed by development activities is something that needs greater attention, particularly by the development agencies that design and fund projects that are carried out in Third World countries like Zimbabwe.
Three essays on the state

The thesis formalizes the military origin of modern states and economies. It consists of three essays. Chapter four, the third essay, is the apex. Chapter two and three, the first and second essays, lay the ground for Chapter four. Chapter two models an economy comprising a large number of agents interacting through both production and exchange and appropriation. The state, which monopolizes the means of coercion, centrally enforces a property rights regime and finances it through compulsory taxation. Complementarity between taxation and property rights policy is introduced and analyzed. A comparison is made between production with and without the state. Comparative statics are done with respect to changes in appropriation effectiveness to address Olson's argument (1982) that increased effectiveness in rent seeking will compromise economic performance. Chapter three compares two alternative conflict models with interdependent sectors where the economy depends on the military to capture and secure a share of world resources and the military depends on the economy to pay for its expenditure. In one model, contestants set military expenditures equal to some proportion of production, and in the other model contestants set military expenditures equal to some absolute amount of production. The paper concludes that the proportionate approach results in a more intense conflict than the absolute approach and that both the scale factor in production and the mass factor in conflict are strategically important. Chapter four analyzes the military origins of modern states and modern economies. The literature on state making and war making stresses that it was the competitive states system of Europe and its intensive warfare that led to the rise of modern states with bulky rationalized bureaucracy. Political economists with a statist perspective argue that the rise of modern economies is impossible without the rise of modern states and that both are driven mainly by geopolitical considerations. This paper formalizes these arguments and explains the civilianization paradox: the war driven process of state making resulted in a declining share of military expenditures in government budget and national income. It also provides a geopolitical explanation for Wagner's law.
Contributions to seismogram modeling by classical Maslov and new Maslov-Kirchhoff methods

Seismic modeling is important in exploring the earth's structure. Although numerical integration of the wave equations is now beginning to be practical, approximate theories of wave propagation often are more useful. For instance, ray theory (GRT) has been widely used since seismology's early days. Maslov (1965) developed an asymptotic theory that promises a modeling of many informative waveforms that GRT cannot model, while is nearly as efficient as GRT. In this thesis, a variety of contributions have been made to demonstrating and improving the accuracy, robustness, and automation of the Maslov technique, and to developing a more robust modeling tool. I compared the Maslov integral (MI) and finite difference solutions. The results show that MI can accurately predict high-frequency waves, and also some diffracted/distorted low-frequency waves that GRT cannot give, provided a wavefront is sampled properly, and pseudocaustics, if any, can be eliminated by phase partitioning. Low-frequency inaccuracies can be roughly anticipated from a knowledge of the wavefront geometry. The role of the weighting functions in blending GRT and MI solutions for a uniform seismogram was examined. A robust weighting scheme which invokes the trigonometric function was devised. It was shown stable and is therefore suitable for automation. The blending method should be used routinely, if caustics and pseudocaustics are separate. Rotation of MI was shown useful for sampling wavefront anomalies such as bends, kinks and folds that cause waveform diffraction/distortion, in addition to its role known in removing pseudocaustics. Its implementation can be easily performed by using a systematic method that I devised. I proposed a new Maslov-Kirchhoff method. This method invokes Maslov theory to avoid caustics, and Kirchhoff theory to reduce pseudocaustic errors. It was shown more robust than Maslov theory, more accurate than ray-Kirchhoff theory or extended Kirchhoff-Helmholtz theory. It is applicable to many realistic, complicated modelings. I also applied Maslov theory to Kirchhoff extrapolation and conducted two experiments. The results have shown that the wavefield can be reversely extrapolated accurately if the medium varies smoothly, and satisfactorily if the medium varies relatively rapidly.
Theoretical investigation of heave dynamics of an air cushion vehicle bag and finger skirt

This thesis describes a theoretical investigation of the nonlinear and linear heave dynamics of an air cushion vehicle (ACV) equipped with a bag and finger skirt system with the purpose of understanding the skirt's effect on the vehicle heave dynamics. Throughout the course of this work, the pure heave motion of a two dimensional section of the skirt is investigated using several mathematical models. Both the nonlinear and linearized analyses include a detailed model of the skirt geometry, which is modelled as a combination of inelastic membranes and links. Air flow processes from the bag to the cushion and from the cushion to the atmosphere are assumed to be quasisteady, and the bag and cushion volumes are modelled as lumped pneumatic capacitances. The modulation of the escaping cushion air by skirt-ground contact is also included. The nonlinear simulations reveal that characteristically nonlinear dynamical phenomena such as period doubling and chaos can be expected to occur during the normal operation of ACVs. Furthermore, a configuration representative of a 37 tonne vehicle shows a resonance at frequencies in the range for which humans are most sensitive. Although these results thus show that some aspects of the bag and finger skirt heave dynamics can be highly nonlinear, they indicate that under certain circumstances, standard linear techniques can yield useful insights. Results from the linear analysis suggest that changes in skirt geometry cannot be used to radically modify the undesirable heave response of the bag and finger skirt, but reducing the skirt mass is quite effective. The pneumatic capacitance of the bag and cushion volume proves to be an important factor in the heave response. In particular, it contributes to heave instability. The air compressibility also affects heave response at high frequencies, with the effect becoming more prominent as the flow rate is reduced. The importance of unsteady fan effects on ACV dynamics is investigated by the application of a measured frequency response scaled from a small laboratory fan. The results showed that the unsteady fan has a significant impact on the heave response, and that it introduces major phase-shifts in the neighbourhood of the skirt resonance. These effects contribute to instability.
The relativity of social construction, towards a consultative approach to understanding health, illness and disease

This dissertation constitutes a first step in the development of what I am calling the consultative approach to understanding health, illness and disease. Its primary concern is to outline a rationale for, and delineate the theoretical tools to help think about, the relativity of the social construction of disease. Particular emphasis is placed on the medical construction of disease, and how medicine constructs some diseases more than it does others. To this end, a preliminary typology is suggested for "mapping" the degree to which different diseases are constructed. This has implications for the social constructionist position, and what is referred to more broadly as horizontalism, because it suggests that medicine, while certainly constructing diseases, may also be getting at certain (many) diseases for more or less what they are. It also has consequences for verticalism--an epistemological and ontological orientation informing much of current biomedicine--because it challenges, along with social constructionism, the idea that medicine, or any paradigmatic orientation for that matter, has special access to the "real" workings of the body. Finally, various philosophical implications that follow from the relativity of the social construction of disease are discussed. As I see it, developing the consultative approach involves two major projects. The first is to demonstrate the utility of meaningful interparadigmatic collaboration for achieving better understanding of disease (and reality, more generally). The second is to establish the power of a particular communicative process termed "consultation" for achieving such collaboration. While, for the most part, I leave these two projects for subsequent study, this dissertation lays the theoretical foundation for the first. I say this because, if different paradigms can (at least potentially) see and penetrate into (aspects of) reality (or disease, more specifically), then there is utility, theoretically speaking, in fostering meaningful interparadigmatic collaboration. And as discussed, different paradigms (such as medicine and social constructionism, as discussed herein), can indeed (at least potentially so), see and penetrate. This is confirmed by the relativity of the social construction of reality (of disease).
Caravan porters of the Nyika, labour, culture, and society in nineteenth century Tanzania

Caravan porters were vital to the functioning of trade and transportation throughout precolonial and early colonial Sub-Saharan Africa. In nineteenth century East Africa, the world's largest supplier of ivory. Lens of thousands of caravan porters carried ivory to the coast from all parts of the interior. Porterage was the only form of land transportation because sleeping sickness precluded the use of pack or draft animals. Porters were the first migrant labourers in the region and were transmitters of new ideas. Porterage has received only cursory attention in spite of its centrality to precolonial African labour history, which to date has concentrated on slave studies. This has led to an assumption that free migrant labour emerged only from colonial economies. This view needs to be modified. In Tanzania most porters were wage labourers, and many were professionals. The emergence of the professional porter was an African response to East African conditions rather than a consequence of the decline of indigenous entrepreneurship, or a process of impoverishment caused by outside forces. It is incorrect to imagine rural society everywhere as on the defensive. Some groups, like the Nyamwezi, were at the forefront of change. Entrepreneurship, the market, and wage labour were becoming increasingly familiar to them. Forms of caravan organization and work invented by the Nyamwezi and influenced by others became dominant. Over time, Nyamwezi work norms and leisure activities formed at home and on safari came to constitute the main features of a broad "caravan culture," an integrating way of life along the central caravan routes between Lake Tanganyika and the coast, and along the branch routes. Attention to the subtleleties of culture shows how porters struggled to defend concepts of work derived from their own experience from outsiders determined to impose different working patterns. Porters successfully bargained with employers over conditions, discipline, rations, and payment, which had become standardized by custom. Porters were able to force up wages at crucial junctures. Customary patterns of work survived into the early colonial period. Foreign travellers had little choice but to bow to custom, with some adaptations.
Predictors of preschool performance skills of extremely low birth weight children at three years of age

The study was undertaken to examine extremely low birth weight (ELBW) preterm three year olds in order to determine the relationship between perinatal risk variables and preschool performance. A multivariate risk index consisting of eight risk predictors (birthweight, gestational age, number of days ventilated, presence of brain lesions, presence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, small or average weight for gestational age, gender and socioeconomic status) was designed and seven outcome variables of the Peabody Motor Scales (PDMS) and the Miller Assessment for Preschoolers (MAP) were examined in a regression analysis. The risk index was most accurate in predicting the MAP Nonverbal Index (which measured memory and visual-spatial perception) and the MAP Complex Tasks Index(which measured skills combining visual-spatial perception and motor planning). Gender, Birthweight, Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia and Brain Lesion entered most frequently at levels of significance into logistic regression analysis between the risk index and outcome measures. Comparative analysis of the data indicated that this population of ELBW preschoolers were performing one standard deviation below the mean in gross motor and fine motor skills as measured by the Peabody Motor Scales and below the fortieth percentile on the Miller Assessment for Preschoolers in other domains of preschool performance. The risk index successfully classified ELBW preschoolers at a rate of 80 percent at extreme ranges of performance on the MAP Nonverbal Index and the Complex Tasks Index. Implications for use of corrected vs uncorrected age scores for the ELBW population are discussed as are the relative strengths and weaknesses of their skills in preschool performance domains.
Three essays in the formation and evolution of fiscal policy under uncertainty and asymmetric information

This thesis examines the formation and evolution of fiscal policy within models of positive political economy. The first two essays focus on tax policy while the third essay examines the optimal provision of public goods. The central theme is that observed government policy is the outcome of its self interested behavior based on its ideology and the desire to get reelected. The first essay presents a classical signaling model in which there are two types of incumbents whose preference on income distributions is private information. The incumbents use tax policy to signal their type. The separating and pooling equilibria are characterized. In the second essay, voters know are uncertain about two relevant aspects of the incumbent's characteristics, namely his preferences towards income distribution and his rents. This additional noise in the signal prevents the voters from knowing the incumbent's exact preference towards income distribution. The incumbent takes advantage of this signal extraction problem by appearing more moderate than he really is to increase the probability of his reelection. In the second period, if he is reelected, there is no future to worry about because of term limits, so he reverts back to his preferred tax policy, creating intertemporal volatility in taxes. The first two essays examine the effects of rents, uncertainty about the location of the median voter, political polarization and income distribution on the level and the volatility of taxes. Normative theory provides efficiency conditions on the provision of public good but it fails to specify the optimal level of these goods. The third essay presents a simple model in which the incumbent has concerns about ideology and reelection. Its purpose is to determine the incumbent's privately optimal level of public goods provided. In the model, the incumbent can spend current revenues as current transfers for an immediate payoff or for the provision of public goods which are available only after the elections. Given uncertain reelection prospects, the incumbent does not fully internalize the benefits that public goods provide and this failure results in a suboptimal provision of public goods. It is demonstrated that the predictions of the model are in close conformity with data from India.
The politics of assassination, the death of the Duke of Berry, February 14, 1820, and its aftermath

The Duke of Berry, youngest heir to the French throne, was assassinated on February 13, 1820. Seven months later, his child, the Duke of Bordeaux, was born. This thesis analyses the significance of these events in the political history of Restoration France, focusing on the first nine months following Berry' s death. It is divided into three chapters. Chapter One examines the assassination's impact in the realm of parliamentary politics. Following the assassination political power shifted first to moderate royalists and then to ultra royalists, a process known as the Royalist Reaction. Louis XVIII's ministers took advantage of fears raised by the assassination to pass laws that increased the central government's powers tremendously. In response to those laws, French politics radicalized for the remainder of the Restoration, and conspiratorial movements began to proliferate. Chapter Two investigates how the central government and the Gallican Church manipulated the assassination for their own political ends. The central government made Berry' s assassination and Bordeaux's birth the focal points of a nationwide publicity campaign intended to both imprint the Bourbon presence on the French consciousness and discredit opposition groups. The campaign consisted of memorial services for Berry and celebratory fetes for Bordeaux in every church in France, the publication of Addresses sent to Louis XVIII after the assassination, and finally, national subscriptions for Berry and Bordeaux. The Church supported the government's actions, hoping to increase its popularity by blaming Berry's death on revolutionary forces that prevented the Church's return to its pre-1789 prominence. Chapter Three assesses the vital role played by the print and visual media in the political controversies that followed the assassination. Newspaper coverage of the assassination and political brochures fostered an intense national debate between royalists and liberals that to a great extent created the Royalist Reaction. The visual industry generally supported the royalists. Assassination illustrations typically glorified Berry and the royal family. This stress on the familial aspects of Berry's death and Bordeaux's birth illustrate how the assassination came to symbolize the royalist spirit and to provide a unifying historical event for royalists in France and throughout Europe.
Essays on equilibrium valuation of options, theorem and empirical estimates

This thesis consists of three essays which study the valuation of options in an equilibrium framework. The first essay uses a general equilibrium model to study the valuation of options on the market portfolio with predictable returns and stochastic volatility in a complete market. In a closed endowment economy where aggregate dividend is the only source of uncertainty, I investigate why the stock return exhibits certain predictable features. I also examine the equilibrium relationship between the price of the market portfolio and its volatility, as well as the relationship between the spot interest rate and the market volatility. Equilibrium conditions imply that the predictable feature of the market portfolio is induced by the mean-reverting of the rate of dividend growth. It is shown that there is strong interdependence between the stock price process and its volatility process. Using the Euler equation, I derive equilibrium pricing formulas for options on the market portfolio which incorporate both stochastic volatility and stochastic interest rates. Since there is only one source of uncertainty, this model preserves the completeness feature for hedging and risk management purposes. With realistic parameter values, numerical examples show that stochastic volatility and stochastic interest rates are both necessary for correcting the Black-Scholes pricing biases. The second essay focuses on the currency options in an incomplete market where the economy is subject to shocks in aggregate dividend and money supply. The key feature is that the exchange rate exhibits systematic jump risks which should be priced in the currency options. The closed-endowment equilibrium model in the first essay is extended to a small open monetary economy with stochastic jump-diffusion processes for both the money supply and aggregate dividend. It is shown that the exchange rate is affected by both government monetary policies and aggregate dividends. Since the jump in the exchange rate is correlated with aggregate consumption, the jump risk in the exchange rate derived from aggregate consumption must be priced by means of utility maximization. I further derive the foreign agents' risk-neutral valuation of the European currency option and provide restrictions that ensure the law of one price in currency option pricing. In general, these restrictions depend on the agent's risk preference. The objective of the third essay is to empirically study the existence of systematic jump risks in exchange rates and analyze their importance for currency option pricing. The empirical study is based on the theoretical model studied in the second essay, which argues that exchange rates are inherently correlated with the market and so must exhibit systematic jump risks. The third essay uses the maximum-likelihood method to estimate the joint distribution of exchange rates and the price of the market portfolio. Empirical results show that it is important to incorporate both systematic and non-systematic jump components in exchange rates in order to correctly price currency options.