Workplace Violence and Security: Are there Lessons for Peacemaking?

Workplace violence has captured the attention of commentators, employers, and the public at large. Although statistically the incidents of workplace homicide and assault are decreasing, public awareness of the problem has heightened, largely through media reports of violent incidents. Employers are exhorted to address the problem of workplace violence and are offered a variety of programs and processes to prevent its occurrence. Many techniques, however, conflict with values that are critical to achieving sustainable peace. We focus on types of workplace violence that are triggered by organizational factors. From among the plethora of recommendations, we identify those responses that are most and least consistent with positive peace. We find that processes that promote privacy, transparency, and employee rights hold the most promise for peacemaking. We submit that such structures and processes can be transportable beyond the workplace to promote peace locally, nationally, and globally.workplace violence, employee rights, sustainable peace, and corporate governance

Workplace Violence and Security: Are there Lessons for Peacemaking?

Workplace violence has captured the attention of commentators, employers, and the public at large. Although statistically the incidents of workplace homicide and assault are decreasing, public awareness of the problem has heightened, largely through media reports of violent incidents. Employers are exhorted to address the problem of workplace violence and are offered a variety of programs and processes to prevent its occurrence. Many techniques, however, conflict with values that are critical to achieving sustainable peace. We focus on types of workplace violence that are triggered by organizational factors. From among the plethora of recommendations, we identify those responses that are most and least consistent with positive peace. We find that processes that promote privacy, transparency, and employee rights hold the most promise for peacemaking. We submit that such structures and processes can be transportable beyond the workplace to promote peace locally, nationally, and globally.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39920/3/wp535.pd

Uncertainty And Learning In Dynamic Financial Econometrics

Every day the news reminds us that we live in a complex, ever-changing world. Against that background, this dissertation studies the econometrics of the interaction between time-varying uncertainty and learning. In particular, it develops parsimonious nonparametric methods for estimating risk in real time. The first two chapters develop tractable models and estimators for entire densities. The third chapter provides identification-robust inference for the prices of market and volatility risk when volatility exhibits complex dynamics. The first chapter, Jumps, Realized Densities, and News Premia, studies how jumps affect asset prices. It derives both a tractable nonparametric continuous-time representation for the price jumps and an implied sufficient statistic for their dynamics. This statistic — jump volatility — is the instantaneous variance of the jump part and measures news risk. It also develops estimators for the volatilities and nonparametrically identifies continuous-time jump dynamics and associated risk premia. It also provides a detailed empirical application to the S&P 500, showing that the jump volatility commands a smaller premium than the diffusion volatility does. The second chapter, Bypassing the Curse of Dimensionality: Feasible Multivariate Density Estimation, is coauthored with Minsu Chang and studies nonparametrically estimating multivariate densities. Most economic data are multivariate and estimating their densities is a classic problem. However, the curse of dimensionality makes nonparametrically estimating the data’s density infeasible when there are many series. This chapter does not seek to provide estimators that perform well all of the time (it is impossible) but instead adapts ideas from the Bayesian compression literature to provide estimators that perform well most of the time. The third chapter, Identification-Robust Inference for Risk Prices in Structural Stochastic Volatility Models, is coauthored with Xu Cheng and Eric Renault and studies the identification problems inherent to measuring compensation for risk in stochastic volatility asset pricing models. Disentangling the channels by which risk affects expected returns is difficult and poses a subtle identification problem that invalidates standard inference. We adapt the conditional quasi-likelihood ratio test Andrews and Mikusheva (2016) develop in a GMM framework to a minimum distance framework to provide uniformly valid confidence sets

Double Dippers or Bureaucracy Busters? False Claims Act Suits by Government Employees

This Article begins with a brief description of the False Claims Act and its 1986 amendments. The Article then describes the Act\u27s jurisdictional provisions, which classify potential plaintiffs. Next, the Article discusses judicial and congressional responses to the 1986 amendments and how they relate to FCA suits filed by government employees. Finally, the Article evaluates the benefits and drawbacks of permitting government workers to file FCA suits and proposes a framework for permitting such actions in certain circumstances

Predicting Pore Pressure and Applications to Complex Loading Problems

Methods for predicting and modeling the pore pressure response when soils are subjected to cyclic loading are described. These predictions include both the limiting states of pore pressure and the intermediate stages of development as a function of number of cycles. Applications of pore pressure prediction in effective stress methods are illustrated for a group of problems including sequencing of irregular loading, degradation of stress-strain modulus, volume changes and strength changes

Laboratory test procedures to predict the thermal behaviour of concrete.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThe cracking of mass and structural concrete due to thermal stress is a major problem in the concrete construction industry. Concrete will crack when the thermal stress exceeds tbe tensile strength of the concrete, Decisions on the type of concrete mix, cooling facilities and construction techniques to be used in the erection of a concrete structure can only be made if the thermal behaviour and strength of the concrete can be predicted during hydration. This thesis describes the development of a low cost, computer controlled, adiabatic calorimeter to determine tlte heat of hydration and a probe to determine the thermal conductivity or concrere samples. The main thrust of this thesis is the development of the thermal conductivity probe which, for the first time, can measure the thermal conductivity of concrete through all stages of hydration. A thermal model was also developed to verify the results, and the use of the calorimeter for temperature matched curing tests is also discussed. Results, obtained from the test procedures described, will provide far more accurate predictions of the temperatures in concrete structures than was possible in the past.Andrew Chakane 201