Gold is known in the financial world to be an important asset in unstable periods, especially as a hedge against inflation. If the gold price can be forecasted, it will be possible to strategically invest in gold rather than acquire it as a last-minute hedge against economic downturns. Although there are many studies on forecasting, few focus directly on gold returns. This study investigates the

Hostile architecture is a tool used to control and regulate behavior, individuals, and groups in public spaces. This research explores the use, purpose, and meaning of hostile architecture in Copenhagen. To explore the phenomenon, I conducted fieldwork and semi-structured interviews. The fieldwork consisted of sensory ethnography within a phenomenological framework of data collection and analysis.

The outbreak of COVID-19 plunged the world economy into a pandemic with severe consequences. However, the pandemic may very well have been a blessing in disguise for the mitigation of another killer: ambient air pollution. This study investigates how the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in India affected the ambient air pollution concentrations in a sample of Indian cities. Based on air pollution da

I denna masteruppsats jämförs de två svenska översättningarna av Henry David Thoreaus Walden (1854): Frans G. Bengtssons förstaöversättning från 1924 och Peter Handbergs nyöversättning från 2006. Uppsatsen behandlar översättningen av verkets ordlekar i syfte att utröna hur de två översättarna har hanterat detta humoristiska inslag. I en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ analys undersöks hur översättar

This thesis aims to investigate the accuracy of Value-at-Risk and Expected Shortfall forecasts of various GARCH-type models based on five currency exchange rate pairs. The GARCH models are employed under different conditional distributional assumptions, and extended using the two-stage Extreme Value Theory (EVT) approach of McNeil and Frey (2000). The forecasts are evaluated through simulation usi

Most prior research into the field of Binarized Neural Networks (BNNs) has been motivated by a desire to optimize Deep Learning computations on traditional hardware. These methods rely on bit-wise operations to drastically decrease computation time, however to address the resulting loss in accuracy it is common practice to reintroduce continuous parameters and train using batch normalization. Here

In order to address land shortages, many large cities worldwide, including Jakarta, adopt coastal land reclamation (CRL) as a solution, boosting the city's economic development. However, it comes with several unfavorable side effects. Therefore, this thesis aims to analyze the development process of coastal land reclamation along with the impacts on society and power relations in these constru

Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSSs) build on market-based governance mechanisms to create fairer and more equitable terms of trade within smallholder-dominated agricultural value chains. Various frameworks and theoretical approaches have arisen to assess social impacts generated through VSSs; however, the findings are scattered and inconsistent. This thesis aims to contribute to a more nuanc

Pip’s transformation to become a gentleman in manners and behaviour in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations illustrates the difference and importance of class in the Victorian society. Through an unknown benefactor, Pip makes a journey from working-class blacksmith apprenticeship in the countryside to gentleman life in the upper-middle class London, with access to economic, cultural and social capi

This thesis presents a numerical study of the emission of jets by a trapped Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). The Gross-Pitaevskii equation is used for the simulation of this phenomenon. When the scattering length of a trapped BEC is periodically modulated it emits jets of matter. We study how the pattern of these emitted jets changes when a BEC is trapped in a circular trap, an equilateral triangul

The aim of this study was to explore how healthcare counselors in their role as child representatives at adult habilitation clinics in Sweden experience the implementation of support for children as next of kin. Healthcare law in Sweden states that children as next of kin are entitled to information, advice and support by healthcare professionals when living together with an adult relative that ha

This study aims to scrutinize the role of the social media application Telegram as a protest mobilizing structure during the 2020 post-election uprising in Minsk, Belarus. The purpose is to strengthen the understanding on how protest mobilizations online relate to offline protest participation in authoritarian states, and how the usage of social media in social movements impact, and is influenced

This Bachelor's degree project investigates how sofas can reach longer life span through circular design. It follows the steps of a classic design development process, from research and ideation to a final prototype. The result is Remain, a modular sofa that can be assembled, disassembled and reassembled multiple times enabling reuse, repair, refurbishment and recycling.

This thesis was dedicated to investigating the use of different parameter update schemes for Hidden Markov models with time-varying parameters, with an emphasis on developing alternatives to the quasi-Newton step. The focus was on applications to financial returns, using data from the S\&P-500 and the Nikkei index, and for comparison, a trial using synthetic data was also performed. Different

This essay investigates the effects of a same-sex teacher assignment on female and male 8th grade students in Australia and New Zealand using data from the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). I employ the first difference (FD) method introduced by Dee (2007) to analyze the impacts on students' math and science academic achievements, as well as their attitudes toward these subjects

This thesis evaluates the impact of corruption perception index (CPI) on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from China and 34 OECD source countries to 54 African host countries using the gravitational model. China is of particular interest as it has become Africa’s largest trading partner as well as the greatest investor among the developing countries in Africa, in addition to Chinese firms hav

In this survey, we shall prove the Lucas–Lehmer primality test used to find the Mersenne primes. A proof of the Law of Cubic Reciprocity will also be presented, which will be applied in the proof of a generalisation of the Lucas–Lehmer primality test.

This paper examines the effects of key macroeconomic and trade variables on invoicing currency patterns. Departing from common model assumptions of complete local currency pricing or partner country pricing, the existing analytical and empirical literature suggests a range of macroeconomic and strategic determinants of internationally trading actors’ currency usage. Using panel data on trade invoi

The aim of this thesis was to study individual experiences of depression and the meetings between individual experiences and the diagnostic criteria of depression. The purpose of this study was to analyse depression from a social constructionist perspective to determine how individuals construct the illness known as depression. The study was conducted by using 5 autobiographies. The autobiographie