An analysis of schema change intervention

Successful organizational transformation relies on being able to achieve paradigm or collective schema change, and more particularly, the ability to manage the interplay between pre-existing schemas and alternative schemas required for new environments. This conceptual paper presents an analysis and critique of collective schema change dynamics. Two schema change pathways are reflected in the literature: frame-juxtapose-transition and frame-disengage-learning. Research findings in each pathway are limited and/or contradictory. Moreover, research on schema change focuses primarily on social dynamics and less on the relationship between social schema change dynamics and individual schema change dynamics. One implication of this lack of focus on individual schema change dynamics is the masking of the high level of cognitive processing and cognitive effort required by individuals to effect schema change. The capacity to achieve organizational transformation requires that more attention is given to managing these dynamics, which, in turn, requires significant investment in developing the change leadership capabilities of managers and the organizations they manage

Credit derivatives: new financial instruments for controlling credit risk

One of the risks of making a bank loan or investing in a debt security is credit risk, the risk of borrower default. In response to this risk, new financial instruments called credit derivatives have been developed in the past few years. Credit derivatives can help banks, financial companies, and investors manage the credit risk of their investments by insuring against adverse movements in the credit quality of the borrower. If a borrower defaults, the investor will suffer losses on the investment, but the losses can be offset by gains from the credit derivative. Thus, if used properly, credit derivatives can reduce an investor's overall credit risk.> Estimates from industry sources suggest the credit derivatives market has grown from virtually nothing two years ago to about $20 billion of transactions in 1995. This growth has been driven by the ability of credit derivatives to provide valuable new methods for managing credit risk. As with other customized derivative products, however, credit derivatives expose their users to risks and regulatory uncertainty. Controlling these risks is likely to be an important factor in the future development of the credit derivatives market.> Neal provides information on the rationale and use of credit derivatives. He describes how to measure credit risk, whom it affects, and the traditional strategies used to manage it. Next, he shows how credit derivatives can help manage credit risk. Finally, he examines the risks and regulatory issues associated with credit derivatives.Derivative securities ; Risk ; Credit

Option Investor Rationality Revisited

Do option investors rationally exercise their options? Numerous studies report evidence of irrational behavior. In this paper, we pay careful attention to intraday option quotes and reach the opposite conclusion. An exercise boundary violation (EBV) occurs when the best bid price for an American option is below the option’s intrinsic value. Far from being unusual, we show that EBVs occur very frequently. Under these conditions, the rational response of an investor liquidating an option is to exercise the option rather than sell it. Empirically, we find that the likelihood of early exercise is strongly influenced by the existence and duration of EBVs. Not only do these results reverse standard theory on American option valuation and optimal exercise strategy, but they also suggest that the ability to avoid selling at an EBV price creates an additional source of value for American options that is unrelated, and in addition to, dividend payments. This additional value may help explain why American options appear overpriced relative to European options

An exploratory study of help-giving interactions occuring among a selected group of hospitalized mentally ill patients

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Knocking tones off their perch: investigating the intelligibility of Anglophone beginner learners of Mandarin Chinese at two secondary schools in the North of England

Knocking tones off their perch: investigating the intelligibility of Anglophone beginner learners of Mandarin Chinese at two secondary schools in the North of England Robert Neal Abstract Set within the context of teaching and learning Chinese at two secondary schools in the North of England and adopting a case study research design, the aim of this PhD study is to explore the intelligibility of young Anglophone beginner learners of Chinese in order to make a contribution towards the creation of a more evidence-informed Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) pedagogy. Data collection activities included recording the spoken Chinese of 20 L2 learners during a variety of speaking tasks – from reading aloud single words and sentences to speaking extemporaneously in role plays. 40 L1 raters were subsequently interviewed as they tried to comprehend the learners’ randomised speech samples. I also made use of stimulated recall interviews in which learners listened to selected audio extracts of their own L2 Chinese spoken data and were invited to comment upon any perceived pronunciation errors. Distinguishing between the key constructs of accentedness, comprehensibility and intelligibility, I found that heavily accented tones did not necessarily lead to lower levels of comprehensibility and intelligibility. Furthermore, many intelligibility breakdowns – i.e. when raters failed to correctly transcribe the learners’ intended utterances - could be traced to problems with individual words which usually implicated segmental sounds as well as tone. All learners demonstrated low levels of awareness of their own pronunciation errors both during and after speech production while learners who were more intelligible were generally more aware of their own pronunciation errors. The majority of findings were interpreted in terms of indicating a need for more explicit forms of instruction, particularly in light of the low levels of awareness surrounding learners’ own pronunciation errors. Nevertheless, I also recognised the need to provide a healthy balance of more implicit forms of instruction to cater for more incidental learning. In light of the case study nature of the research design, the pedagogical suggestions were framed with reference to the learners who participated in this study. However, it is hoped that they will also be useful for wider application within the context of teaching Chinese as an L2 to young beginners in Anglophone settings. In terms of methodology, the coding systems developed to investigate listeners’ responses to the L2 Chinese speech signal and the learners’ awareness of their own pronunciation errors provide a new tool for other researchers in the field.ESRC (Award 1088044

Probing Satellite Quenching With Galaxy Clustering

Satellites within simulated massive clusters are significantly spatially correlated with each other, even when those satellites are not gravitationally bound to each other. This correlation is produced by satellites that entered their hosts relatively recently, and is undetectable for satellites that have resided in their hosts for multiple dynamical timescales. Therefore, a measurement of clustering statistics of cluster satellites may be used to determine the typical accretion redshifts of those satellites into their observed hosts. We argue that such measurements may be used to determine the fraction of satellite galaxies that were quenched by their current hosts, thereby discriminating among models for quenching of star formation in satellite galaxies.Comment: 7 page

El paper de la traducció en la consolidació de la percepció social del gallec com a Abstandsprache

Aquest article pretén contribuir a la formació d'un corpus teòric sobre la influència de la traducció en la política lingüística. Parteix de la qualificació del gallec que proposa la Norma ILGRAG, una llengua del tipus Ausbau, i passa després a considerar el paper que pot exercir la traducció intencionadament diferencialista en el procés de consolidació de l'estatus social d'aquestes llengües embrionàries com a llengües Abstand de ple dret, a partir de llengües que altrament s'haurien de considerar part del mateix continuum lingüístic, en el nostre cas el portuguès estàndard.This paper intends to contribute to the theoretical corpus on the incidence of translation on language politics by exploring the nature of modern 'standardised' Galician (ILG-RAG Norm) as an Ausbausprache and the role that translation can play in consolidating the social status of such emerging Ausbau languages as full Abstand languages in their own rights, especially via intentionally differentialist translations from members of what would otherwise be considered the same linguistic continuum, in this case Standard Portuguese