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The present qualitative study aimed to investigate how school garden-based science pedagogy improves students' attitudes toward science learning, particularly in under-resourced urban school districts. The findings of this study suggest that the implementation of school garden-based science pedagogy can positively impact elementary students' attitudes and engagement with science learning. Notably, the involvement of academic service-learning university students as mentors and role models helps amplify the effects of garden-based science initiatives while concurrently providing reciprocal benefits for the university students, including enhanced civic awareness and applied academic development. These findings indicate that collaborative garden-based science projects could be effective strategies for supporting science education and cultivating curiosity among young students in high-needs school districts. The implications include integrating hands-on, cooperative learning pedagogical approaches more broadly across elementary science curricula in order to harness their potential for generating interest, fostering positive attitudes, and ultimately improving science learning outcomes. Further research studies could help refine best practices for implementation across various educational contexts. Additionally, the study highlights the promise of university-community partnerships as a means to develop and evaluate innovative experiential pedagogies that leverage gardening to effectively address persistent inequities in the opportunity gap. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Museums are spaces in which people, culture and collections are woven together. In the 21st century, the museum sector has been encountering demands for transformation, stemming from societal change, contributing to individual and societal well‐being. Of the various contemporary missions, the role of museums and collections in contribution to human rights have come to the fore. The thesis seeks to investigate the public's right to take part in cultural life enshrined in Article 15(1)(a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 ('ICESCR'), in the context of museums and their collections. The UK and Taiwan are bound to respect, protect and fulfil the right to cultural participation under the ICESCR. On this ground, this thesis engages in comparative legal research to look at legal and ethical guidance provided for the English and Taiwanese museums. It takes a socio‐legal approach to the discussion of Article 15(1)(a) of the ICESCR, the English charity law, museum ethics (including the ethical codes for museums published by ICOM and the Museums Association in the UK), and Taiwanese laws, including the Two Covenants Implementation Act in 2009 and the Cultural Fundamental Act in 2019.

While much of the existing literature on code-switching focuses on languages that differ typologically, this dissertation focuses on typologically similar languages. Code-switching between Mandarin and Taiwanese is examined through the perspectives of 1) sociolinguistics, 2) typology, 3) phonetic and phonological production, and 4) speech perception. Sociolinguistically, a questionnaire that examined usage domains and sociolinguistic perception revealed that Mandarin-Taiwanese code-switching is predominantly used in informal situations with social equals. Moreover, despite Taiwanese being a low-prestige language in Taiwan, Mandarin-Taiwanese code-switching is perceived positively and associated with solidarity. For the typological and phonetic/phonological investigations, a Mandarin-Taiwanese bilingual corpus containing approximately 11.6 hours of spontaneous speech was built. It was found that typologically, Mandarin-Taiwanese code-switching patterns can be affected by the sociolinguistic standings of the languages, the lexical gaps in the languages, a speaker's language dominance level, and the dominant language of the conversation. For the phonetic and phonological analyses, the production of Mandarin Tone 3 (T3) at code-switching boundary was examined to determine if speech production is affected by the relative level of language activation. On the phonetic level, code-switching boundary T3 contour is reduced when using monolingual language mode (i.e., speaking monolingually), and shows more variability when using bilingual language mode (i.e., speaking bilingually), suggesting a difference in language activation patterns in the code-switching in monolingual vs. bilingual language modes. On the phonological level, cross-language Mandarin T3 sandhi is more rule-governed when Mandarin is the matrix language of the code-switching utterance, revealing higher phonological control of sounds from the language at a higher level of activation. For the perception examination, a reaction time experiment was conducted to explore the perceptual cues of Mandarin-Taiwanese code-switching on the code-switched word. The results show that Mandarin-Taiwanese bilinguals are more sensitive to language-specific phonetic properties that occur earlier in the word, i.e., onset and nucleus. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This PhD explores the possibility of synthesizing cultural elements from my Taiwanese heritage and Western musical training, through different compositional approaches and composed works. The portfolio pieces present the whole spectrum of my PhD study. “Sound” is the core element I work with, while employing different cultural materials and instrumentations, and the concepts and attitudes of spectralism and electroacoustic music have strongly influenced my compositional aesthetic. I have explored how Taiwanese cultural elements such as Nanguan, Beiguan, and aboriginal music can be synthesized into new musical forms, presented variously in electronic media, instrumental ensemble, combinations of traditional instrument and electronics, and orchestral score. The written commentary presents the compositional ideas behind each of the pieces, and relevant approaches, techniques, and structural analyses. The content of this PhD includes notated scores, supplementary performance materials, and documentation (audio/video media files) of live performance of each work.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause for visual impairment and blindness registration in the developed world. Globally, 8.7% of the population has AMD and it has been projected that the number of people afflicted with AMD by 2020 will be 196 million, increasing to 288 million by 2040. AMD is multi-factorial and the key pathogenesis of AMD is not known, but it has been postulated to be related to oxidative stress. As there is no known treatment for atrophic AMD, many researchers have investigated the modifiable risk factors such as smoking and diet to prevent progression to neovascular AMD. Following large clinical trials such as AREDS and AREDS 2, many supplements to support eye health emerged in the market. With such a large selection of products and various information, this could be confusing for the patients and even eye care practitioners. This doctorate programme consists of three distinct studies (chapters three to five) and the first objective of this research was to evaluate the nutritional and smoking advice for patients with or at risk of AMD by optometrists in Singapore. This objective was achieved via a questionnaire (online and hardcopy) (chapter three) as well as face-to-face in-depth interviews (chapter four). The questionnaire consisted of 41 questions and participants received the hardcopies through mail or an online link through social media or email to complete the questionnaire electronically. The questionnaire elicited demographic information, frequency of dietary advice to patients with early, advanced or at risk of AMD, as well as smoking advice to AMD patients. The response rate of the questionnaire was 18.2%. 52.9% of the respondents provide dietary advice to patients with advanced AMD most of the time, and 31.7% of the respondents provide dietary advice to patients at risk of AMD most of the time. Optometrists in Singapore advise AMD patients to consume green leafy vegetables and oily fish but seldom advise on the amount to consume. Slightly more than one-third of the optometrists in Singapore will inform smokers of the link between smoking and AMD and slightly more than half will advise AMD patients to stop smoking. From the face-to-face in-depth interviews, Singapore optometrists do believe that nutrition are beneficial for the eye but they need more knowledge and a guideline in this area to be more confident when providing nutritional advice for AMD patients. The second objective of this research was to evaluate a Clinical Decision-Making Aid (CDMA) in the form of a flowchart to determine its impact on the self-efficacy of qualified and student optometrists in providing dietary advice regarding risk or progression of AMD (chapter five). The results show that the self-efficacy scores increased after using the CDMA for both qualified and student optometrists and the number of correct answers for five simulated clinical scenarios also increased after using the CDMA. Despite some conflict regarding nutritional research for AMD, provision of appropriate nutritional and smoking advice is important with regard to reducing risk of progression to sight loss related to AMD. Moreover, optimising nutritional intake and avoiding smoking are beneficial for general well-being. This thesis shows that, with the CDMA, eye care practitioners are able to provide more accurate and research-based nutritional information to their AMD patients with more confidence.

The study of the history of domesticated species reveals environmental conditions and human needs in the past and elucidates how plants have been shaped by local culture through time. Therefore, combining biological, archaeological and anthropological methods to study domesticated plants provides new insights to the long journey of human evolution. European grape (Vitis vinifera) is an agriculturally important species that has been grown for thousands of years. In this study, I used archaeological, historical, modern grape material and rootstocks of modern grape to investigate the genomic changes that occurred in grape as a consequence of cultural influences, grafting, and pathogen. The aim is to ascertain whether human manipulation has caused any genomic changes. This variation is examined between 1) different time periods, 2) distinct varieties, and 3) different scions and rootstocks.

In examining the Paiwan, an indigenous group in Taiwan, this thesis illustrates how wealth affects social hierarchy amongst people in house societies. Paiwan wealth is examined through the idea of abduction of agency, as suggested by Gell (1998), to reveal how people associate with past interactions in perceiving both present and future social relations. Investigating the notion of Paiwan wealth provides a means by which Lévi-Strauss' idea of the 'house society' is reconsidered. In possessing wealth, as Lévi-Strauss (1982:194) emphasises, the house is "a corporate body holding an estate made up of both material and immaterial wealth" for organising social groups. In addition to providing an argument for how people are grouped in and by the house itself, this thesis focuses on the processes that form the house as an agent in itself. Moreover, studying Paiwan wealth gives further insights into how features of Dumontian hierarchy (Dumont 1980) and precedence (Fox 1994, 2004) can co-exist in terms of employing multiple values to achieve supreme value of owning wealth. In mapping out the aim of this thesis, discussion begins from how the fieldwork process leads to certain empirical elucidation. By re-examining pervious research about the Paiwan, the significance of processes of interactions from past to present is explored. The social interaction not only enables the position of a house to be established and further gives Christian churches hierarchical position to be a house in the society. By participating in social interaction, Paiwan wealth shows its quality of index in Gell's (1998) argument of art. The association between hierarchy, house and wealth is, therefore, can be exemplified by looking into the Paiwan marriage. Under these circumstances, the study of Paiwan society offers a channel to encompass different perspectives of anthropology to approach indigenous context.

This PhD project seeks to understand how chinaware was used and appreciated in London tradesmen's homes between 1700 and 1750. Statistical evidence from London Court of Orphan Inventories reveals the consumption of key household items in London tradesmen's homes. Chinaware, a synonym for Chinese porcelain, was one such commodity which enjoyed a surging popularity during the first half of the eighteenth century. Records show that the ownership of Chinese porcelain fluctuated amongst London tradesmen's households, indicating potential competition between chinaware, silver, pewter and delftware. This thesis thus argues that local metal and ceramic productions could no longer support the lifestyle required for polite living in eighteenth-century England while chinaware successfully established itself as a luxurious item for tea and dinner services. The change of household fashion not only highlights the increasing number of emerging consumers but also celebrates their desire to upgrade their material life. The dynamic cultural imaginary of exotic goods gave emerging consumers an opportunity to purchase a new social identity which had not been available in the previous century. Ultimately, the want for a better material life changed the hierarchy of things at home and the social behaviour of people. Gender representation, family alliance and business partnership are exemplified through surviving ceramic objects.

This research investigates the potential impact on design creativity of using parametric CAD methodologies (BIM design and algorithmic design) in the early design stage/process of hospital buildings. The research design consists of comparative studies between parametric and nonparametric CAD methods, and the study of creativity, which focuses on two domains: process creativity and product creativity. Besides, the study extends the creativity research to the area of reviewing design behaviour and design cognition to investigate the advantage and disadvantage of using CAD to improve, or hinder, the performance of the problem solver throughout the design process. The selection of research methodologies was designed to support evidence-based objective research findings. Dual methodologies were employed: 1. a retrospective questionnaire evaluation of design performance and 2. a computer-based protocol analysis of the on-going design process. The first part of the research findings went through a questionnaire survey and the data was mined, processed and statistically analysed using the SPSS package. Two seminal works were used and adopted as a bench mark criteria for assessing and determining creativity during the design process: that of Torrance's test for creative thinking (TTCT) for measuring creativity as a 'process' and that of Amabile for appraising creativity as a 'product'. The result indicates that parametric CAD, especially the algorithmic CAD method, significantly supports the creativity process during the initial hospital ideation process and is significantly different from the other two CAD methods in the production of idea numbers, variety, and uniqueness. While judging the product creativity of the hospital building design, the parametric CAD architects (the algorithmic CAD and the BIM design) both reported that the CAD working environment helped a lot in this regard. On the one hand, the BIM group replace reported with either that CAD supported them in their idea development, spatial functional coordination, and design message delivery. On the other hand, the algorithmic CAD group recounted that the CAD method enhanced the elaboration of their ideas and novel thinking. In the design cognition review, the computer-based protocol analysis was applied to investigate the ongoing design process with different CAD groups. It was found that when using the algorithmic CAD process, the participants could construct to a large extent reconstruct their long-term memory (LTM) in the design cognition process, which has ultimately assisted the architects' design learning and helped them focus more on the creation of the design strategy rather than repeatedly using the same examples. Thus, the algorithmic CAD process through suggesting different mathematical interpretation was found to reinforce cognitive design reasoning and offering varied idea segmentation (considered as a measure for divergent thinking, an essential indicator for creativity). It is believed that the CAD method can create a flexible with systematic and associative ideation activity. With this advantage of the algorithmic CAD program, this PhD study also discovered a parameter-based real-time design representation (3D models) and visible design content/script (node diagrams) so architects can instantly revise their design and update their cognitive processes to perform a better design synthesis and evaluate their proposed ideas. This PhD research will contribute to current architectural design knowledge and future hospital design research and will help to develop a better environment in healthcare design practice as well as in the areas of architectural CAD teaching and Its promotion within the curriculum.

This dissertation's idea began with my class notes and questions in the statistics courses I attended in my doctoral program. These notes and questions originally were about the concepts of the bell shape, statistical distribution, and hypothesis testing. They then became my inquiries of p-values because what I learned in the courses about how the dominant use of p-values have generated inequities such as academic bias and misleading statistics education; they caught my attention as inequities were at the root of my learning growing up as a Taiwanese Indigenous student and woman. I reference Indigenous critical theories' (ICT) concept of "challenging the mastery of knowledge via centering Indigenous intelligence in the knowledge" (Justice, 2016) as the primary epistemology to conduct this autoethnographic study. All in all, using autoethnography as the research method, I ask four research questions to explore my meaning-making of learning the dichotomous use of p-values: 1. How do I make meaning of the dichotomous use of p-values in the statistics courses I attended? The exploration of this research question illustrates how and why I was drawn to the issue of p-values and what is the essential problem of using p-values dichotomously. Using p-values dichotomously means using statistical significance to decide the effectiveness of a research treatment or intervention. 2. How do I make meaning of the dichotomous use of p-values in the literature of this study? The analysis of this research question shows the broader contexts of the canonical teaching and use of p-values and that of inequities engendered by them. To answer this research question, I explored the history and philosophy of the connection between statistics and scientific research and inequities caused by using p-values dichotomously. These inequities explored and explained in this study are death, job loss, life threats, and academic bias. 3. How do research questions 1 and 2 help me address inequities discussed in this study as an Indigenous woman researcher? The answer to this research question explains how the inequities generated from improper use of p-values. It also aligns with the inequities I have encountered as an Indigenous woman and graduate student in a country not of my birth. 4.How do research questions 1, 2, and 3 help me overcome my fear of statistics? Pondering this question led me to complete this dissertation--"Grandma, Could This Dissertation Be My Indigenous Tayal Facial Tattoo? An Autoethnography of Overcoming the Fear of Statistics through the Dichotomous Use of P-Values." This study not only critiques the dichotomous use of p-values but also explains the inequities generated from it by unraveling the social norm ingrained in the use of p-values. It also heals me from feeling unintelligent, timid, and small about statistics as, during the process of completing this dissertation, I have overcome the fear that accompanies emotional trauma associated with the numeric dimension of confirming realities. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This thesis examines the media impact of academics, and in particular focuses on the conditions of research publication being covered in the news and the pathways that academics become media stars (celebrity). University actors are increasingly required to demonstrate research impact on society. The first chapter provides an overview of the changing landscape of the ‘broader impact’ and highlights the role of the media as an intermediary in delivering scientific research across the boundary between academia and the public. The second chapter provides an overview of the quantitative data in the two studies. Study 1 seeks to explain the role of research quality signals, as evidenced by journal prestige, in whether a press release is being picked up by the media. This study explores the tension between research quality and public resonance in explaining which academic publications are covered in the news. Results show how various dimensions of public resonance may strengthen or weaken the importance of research quality as a signal. Specifically, it finds that there is a substitution effect between the signal of research quality and the unexpectedness of the research content, and a complementarity effect between the research quality signal and contribution relevance of the research in explaining the media attention of academic articles. Study 2 explores the question of through what pathways do academics become celebrities in the media. The results show that academics who achieve ‘research’ celebrity status are discovered – based on the quality of their research – rather than manufactured, whereas academics who excel at commentary in the media tend to be manufactured rather than discovered. My findings also show that it is difficult for academics who excel in achieving one type of media coverage to switch to achieving the other type. Only academics who are both academically excellent and who actively push for media attention tend to become celebrities both in terms of research coverage and public commentary.

Single-photon sources are essential building blocks in quantum photonic networks, where quantum-mechanical properties of photons are utilised to achieve quantum technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum computing. In this thesis, a single-photon source driven by a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is developed and characterised. This single-photon source is based on a SAW-driven lateral n-i-p junction in a GaAs quantum-well structure. On this device, the lateral n-i-p junction is formed by gate-induced electrons and holes in two adjacent regions. The SAW potential minima create dynamic quantum dots in a 1D channel between these two regions, and are able to transport single electrons to the region of holes along the channel. Single-photon emission can therefore be generated as these electrons consecutively recombine with holes. After characterisation and optimisation in four batches of devices, clear SAW-driven charge transport and the corresponding electroluminescence (EL) can be observed on an optimised SAW-driven n-i-p junction. Time-resolved measurements have been carried out to study the dynamics of SAW-driven electrons. Time-resolved EL signals indicate that a packet of electrons is transported to the region of holes in each SAW minimum. In addition, the carrier lifetime of SAW-driven electrons in the region of holes is shown to be $\sim 100$ ps, which is much shorter than the SAW period of $860$ ps. Hence, it is promising to observe single-photon emission in the optimised device. In order to test single-photon emission, a Hanbury Brown-Twiss experimental setup has been employed to record an autocorrelation histogram of the SAW-driven EL signal at the single-electron regime. Suppression of autocorrelation coincidences at time delay $\Delta t = 0$ is evidence of photon antibunching. By fitting theoretical functions describing the SAW-driven EL signal, it is found that the second-order correlation function shows $g^{(2)}(0) = 0.39 \pm 0.05$, which is lower than the common criterion for a single-photon source $g^{(2)}(0) < 0.5$. Moreover, theoretical calculation and simulation suggest that, if a constant background signal can be filtered out, $\sim 80 \%$ of the SAW-driven EL is single-photon emission.

The White Terror in Taiwan was a 43-year period during which the Kuomintang (KMT) regime, with significant support from the United States during the Cold War era, persecuted its political opponents, imprisoning tens of thousands of people and executing some 1200. In the wake of democratisation since the 1980s, Taiwan has instituted a scheme of transitional justice to acknowledge and atone for the past political oppression and to promote national reconciliation. As this initiative was undertaken by the same regime that perpetrated the White Terror, questions of objectivity and transparency arise. Accordingly, this thesis aims to assess the progress of transitional justice in Taiwan by examining the official discourse on the subject and also analysing the non-official discourses amongst survivors of the White Terror in present-day Taiwan. Tensions between the different discourses are identified. This thesis focuses on the construction of the past in the present, which refers to contestation of the past in the context of present-day society in Taiwan. Drawing on discursive analysis of Taiwan’s transitional justice initiatives since the late 1990s, as well as in-depth interviews with 24 former political prisoners, it discerns how the official transitional justice discourse is circumscribed and limits our knowledge of the White Terror. Since the implied fall of communism, the aim of reconciliation has not embraced the former socialists and communists at the global level, enabling the KMT government to elude accountability in its transitional justice efforts by rationalising the White Terror in the name of anti-communism. As a result, Taiwan’s socialist dissidents remain stigmatised in the official discourse, which offers redress only to those individuals who disassociate themselves with subversion and identify as ‘political victims’. This restriction in the official discourse suggests that the government wishes to reconcile only with those who were ‘innocent’ of treason. By the same token, the identity of White Terror victims is de-politicised, distorting the content of their trauma and shame and their survivorhood in present-day Taiwan. Informants’ non-official discourses, which point up the contradictions in the government discourse, reveal that survivors tend to feel profound shame owing to the failure of their political projects, viewing themselves as inept revolutionaries. Much of their interest in transitional justice lies in seeking opportunities to advocate for the causes to which they still adhere. Thus, their identity as survivors is focused less on persecution than on sustaining their political activism in the era of reconciliation. Thus, the tension between the official and non-official transitional justice discourses in Taiwan is not only a contestation of the past but, more profoundly, a contestation of the vision for the nation’s future.

There are different aims in this thesis. The primary aim is to investigate visual perception in Chinese orthography, from its fundamentally distinct unit, characters, to sentence reading. The first aim of the thesis is to investigate how a single Chinese character is processed in many ways. We have looked into an effect called orthographic satiation/decomposition (Cheng & Wu, 1994). It refers to the feeling of uncertainty about the composition of some characters when staring at a character for too long. Lee (2007) extended Cheng and Wu’s study (1996), and the results have showed that orthographic satiation occurred faster in females than males. We replicated Lee’s study (Experiment 1) (Chapter 3), and have found that: (1) there was no significant difference between male and female and (2) a radical that can stand alone as a single character makes characters in which it occurs resistant to satiation. Following orthographic satiation, in Chapter 4, we explored the preference for eye/hemisphere visual pathways in Chinese characters (Experiment 2 & 3) and words (Experiment 4). In English, researchers have reported a contralateral preference when four-letter words were presented very quickly using a haploscope (Obreg´on & Shillcock, 2012) . It raises the question of whether presenting Chinese characters and words will show similar results considering the complexity and the special characteristics of Chinese orthography. We presented Chinese characters and words to participants using a haploscope. Our results showed that: (1) the contralateral visual pathway was preferred in perceiving right-left structured Chinese characters and two-character words, (2) when a semantic radical is projected to the LH, participants are able to recognise the semantic component better, (3) neighbourhood size (NS) (Tsai, Lee, Lin, Tzeng & Hung, 2006) affects how participants recognise words, and(4) males do better than females recognising characters but not words. After investigating the recognition of Chinese characters and words, we analysed the eye-movements in Chinese and English reading corpora. The processes of reading are intuitively thought to be more complex than perceiving a single character or words. The last studies in the thesis focused on the reading behaviours in Chinese and English. The eye movement differences and similarities between reading Chinese and English were investigated. In Chapter 5, we showed that reading Chinese elicits more divergence of the eyes within a fixation, compared with reading English. We interpreted these data in terms of recent demonstrations that apparent size causes increases in visual sensitivity (Arnold & Schindel, 2010) and engages more cortical resource in V1 (Kersten & Murray, 2010). Our analyses were based on movement within exactly temporally synchronized binocular fixations in the reading of Chinese and English 5000-word multi-line texts, using monocular calibration, with EyeLink-2 technology. When faced with visually complex orthography, the oculomotor system ‘tricks’ the rest of the visual system into ‘zooming in’ on the text. We consolidated the relevant theorizing into the ‘Divergence Affects Reading’ (DOLLAR) Theory. In Chapter 6, we reported that (1) vertical movements within a fixation tend to be smaller than horizontal ones, and (2) vertical movements within a fixation tend to be upwards. We speculated that it is appropriate for the earlier part of the fixation to be associated with visual recognition and for the later part of the fixation to be associated with executive action. The tendency to move upwards also suggested that in real-world reading, the upper part of words/characters were informative. In the last chapter analysing the reading corpus (Chapter 7), we reported corrective saccades after return sweeps. We found that in English, there were more corrective saccades after return sweeps than in Chinese. We interpreted these data in terms of spatial coding (Kennedy & Murray, 1987). In terms of Chinese and English differences, the stimuli that were used in our corpus show that the length for each line was different in English. The length for each line in Chinese was less different. Though the first character of each line was at the same place for two languages, it was more difficult for English subjects to locate the correct place after return sweeps because the length of return sweeps was different. In short, this thesis investigated visual perception in Chinese orthography, in terms of characters, words, and real-world reading. Moreover, we compared the differences and similarities between languages (English and Chinese). Despite the fact that the orthographies of English and Chinese are very different, we still found similar effects (e.g., contralateral preference) between them. This thesis thus has contributed to a better understanding of the differences and similarities between English and Chinese in terms of the orthographies.

The aim of this thesis is to propose new tests for validating market risk models for financial losses using realized probability-integral transform (PIT) values. We introduce a flexible framework for testing Value-at-Risk (VaR) exceptions at multiple levels based on a weighted transformation of the realized PIT values, where the weight function reflects the risk objectives of the modeller. This framework can be extended to perform tests using multiple different weight functions. We show that this extended framework either nests or is closely related to many of the traditional VaR and realized PIT tests in existing literature. This approach to model validation is preferable to likelihood-ratio based testing, which can be shown to be a test that is based on a set of specific weight functions that may not reflect the modeller's risk objectives. A further advantage of this framework is that it can be easily extended to explicitly tests for serial independence of the realized PIT values. We do this using the idea of blocking, as well as exploiting the martingale difference (MD) property. In the empirical studies, we have also found that tests based on VaR exceptions have great difficulty in detecting poorly calibrated historical simulation (HS) models. We will see how tests based on elicitability theory and proper scoring rule complement the tests based on VaR exceptions to detect poorly calibrated HS models.

Physical inactivity and mental disorders are considered to be two urgent health challenges and strongly associated with non-communicable diseases in today's highly urbanised society (World Health Organization, 2010a). Green Physical Activity (PA) is suggested to be a tangible means to effectively promote physical health and mental wellbeing for urban residents (Pretty, 2004). In order to increase the probability of application for a wider urban population, this thesis focused on the first level of green PA (viewing nature indoors) for designing indoor PA environment. Lacking an appropriate underpinning theoretical framework, the ecological dynamics theory was proposed to guide the experimental setting and offer theoretical explanations. The aim was to examine the experience and effects of nature-based affordances for green PA. A theory-guided PA setting was created to examine varying richness of nature-based information (dynamic or static images, presence of visual-only or visual-acoustic information, single or multiple videos) with qualitative and quantitative data collected and compared to a more representative PA environment in three studies. The same physical measurements were made in all PA conditions, including heart rate, estimates of energy expenditure, speed, distance and rated perceived exertion. Responses to two questionnaires for psychological and emotional assessments were recorded, along with follow-up interviews with a sub-sample of participants in each study. In Study 1, three PA conditions that were designed included: two types of visual-only nature information (involving a dynamic and a static nature image) and use of self-selected entertainment to examine the physical, psychological and emotional effects and experiences of participants. A group of 30 individuals with diverse demographic backgrounds were recruited (mean ± SD: age 27.5 ± 9 years; mass 67.6 ± 11.1 kg; stature 173.7 ± 8.2 cm; BMI 22.2 ± 2.1) and completed all trials. Sixteen participants of the same group took part in follow-up interviews. Findings suggested that the appropriateness of nature information for treadmill running was vital for PA quality and experience because strong engagement with the dynamic image had positive and negative effects. Study 2 explored further the significance of the dynamic images effects on participants during physical activity. Another two types of nature information were investigated with increasing richness of information resources (a collection of ten short dynamic images with and without sounds) compared to an audio-only self-selected entertainment using the same measurements. A mixed-background group of 24 participants were recruited (mean ± SD: age 30 ± 6.9 years; mass 68.1 ± 10.7 kg; stature 172.0 ± 8.6 cm; BMI 23.0 ± 2.9) and completed all trials. Eight participants took part in follow-up interviews. Results indicated that personal preferences and the diversity of nature information presented in the dynamic images were proposed to be influential factors to when designing indoor PA environment. In both studies, running with diverse nature videos with sound was found to provide the most beneficial PA environment for a bout of running for 20-minutes. A preliminary study (Study 3) was performed to examine whether these effects might last for an extended period of time. Participant experiences were investigated when undertaking PA with multiple nature videos (9 participants) or with self-selected music (6 participants) over a longer experimental period (6 weeks). All 15 participants completed the follow-up interviews. No physical performance differences were observed, but the nature group reported greater psychological benefits and the music group reported that they received emotional benefits improvement. In terms of experience, participants developed their personally-favoured PA behaviours over time when running with rich and diverse nature-based information but no such observation was found in the music group. Overall, this programme of research endorses the benefits of green PA designed for an indoor environment between one to six weeks. Findings suggested that the essential considerations included the diversity of nature information a used in dynamic displays, with inclusion of nature sounds. Results highlighted that personal preferences of nature information are important when designing green PA programmes for promoting physical health and mental wellbeing.

The application of crop residues is one of the most common agricultural practices used to maintain soil ecosystems and crop productivity. This thesis focuses on the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) agroecosystem, an important tropical crop that has expanded rapidly over the past four decades. Both land conversion and business-as-usual practices within the plantations have contributed to soil degradation. The application of oil palm residues, such as empty fruit bunches (EFB) and oil palm fronds, are thought to have positive effects on the soil ecosystem; yet there is currently a deficit of knowledge on their effectiveness. This thesis aims to examine the effects of oil palm residue application on soil physicochemical properties, soil biota, and ecosystem functions. It reports the results of extensive field trials, sample collection, and statistical analysis of crop residue applications in oil palm plantations in Central Sumatra, Indonesia. Four key results emerged from the thesis. First, in this study site land conversion from secondary forest to oil palm does not affect litter decomposition rate, but positively influences soil fauna activity. Second, there is greater soil fauna activity following EFB application than oil palm fronds or chemical fertilizers, and the fauna activity is highly associated with changes in soil chemical properties and soil moisture conditions. Third, EFB application enhances soil ecosystem functions, through the direct provision of organic matter, and by influencing soil biota. Finally, over 15 years of application, EFB appears to be effective in maintaining or increasing annual crop yield in comparison to chemical fertiliser treatment. Temporal changes in crop yield under EFB application appear to be associated with climatic conditions and soil organic carbon. Overall, these findings improve our understanding of the potential of oil palm residue applications to increase soil quality, soil biota, and ecosystem functions. They also provide useful information for a wider audience of soil ecologists, agricultural managers, and policy makers to improve sustainable management of the oil palm ecosystem.

This work outlines two different projects. The first project was the study of a stereodivergent oxy-Michael cyclisation and its application towards the synthesis of natural products, diospongin A, diospongin B and psymberin/ircinistatin A. The α,β-unsaturated thioesters under TBAF-mediated conditions gave the 2,6-trans-tetrahydropyran; under acid-mediated conditions gave the 2,6-cis-tetrahydropyran. The 4-hydroxyl group is crucial for the stereodivergence; when the hydroxyl group was removed or protected the stereodivergence vanished. The second project was the study of (L)-proline benzyl ester-catalysed asymmetric aldol reactions in water. The reaction was carried out in a pH 7 buffered aqueous solution of cyclohexanone and a series of aryl aldehydes to provide anti aldol products in 7-89% ee. The aldol reaction between various ketone donors with 4-nitrobenzaldehyde under the same conditions were also developed to provide products in 13-61% ee.

During the Cold War era, the island of Jinmen was the frontline of the Republic of China in its military standoff with the People’s Republic of China. From 1949 to 1992, the life of the islanders was profoundly disturbed and altered by wars and militarization generated by the bipolar politics. Despite this, the localized patrilineages dating from imperial times remain central to the organization of local social life. Grounded on fifteen months of fieldwork in a patrilineal community, this dissertation demonstrates the significant roles of kinship and kinship-related rituals in sustaining the local social fabric through turmoil and uncertainty during and after the Cold War. The first part of this thesis focuses on lineage ancestral sacrifices, domestic worship, and funerals. The continuation of rituals that sustain patterns of interpersonal relationships is argued to constitute a means of negating the destruction of social order experienced in the period of military control and conflict. Yet, against the background of these ritual continuities, the thesis also examines how they have been adapted to shifting circumstances, such as the involvement of military and political authorities in folk ritual practices as a means for securing their legitimacy, and the material changes in rituals that have accompanied rapid commercialization from the 1990s. The second part focuses on the impact of the Cold War on local political and economic life and state-society relations. Despite some salient changes, the ways that people define their social roles and relate to one another are shown to have remained largely framed by values and morals from the sphere of kinship. Kinship therefore actually continues to constitute a distinctive feature of the local political-economic structure, countering an often-seen formula assuming causal relations between the dramatic political-economic changes and the declining role of kinship or “traditional” values in orienting people’s life and action.

Paternalistic employment relations have been a tradition supported by the government in Taiwan whilst trade unions were brought in to support political development and economic growth. The government promulgated a ‘harmony culture’ in order to control employment relations, and in the 1980s set up the campaign of the ‘factory as one family, factory as one school’ to encourage employers to inculcate paternalistic beliefs in their employees’ everyday working lives. Authority, benevolence and morality, the characteristics of paternalistic management, make workers docile and loyal to management and stunt the sense of collective identity. This qualitative research selects one primary case, a privatised enterprise SteelCo and its union Steel-U, to conduct participant observation, in-depth interviews with union officers, labour representatives and management, surveys of union members, and documentary analysis of official documents and meeting minutes. One supplementary case is a state-owned enterprise SugarCo with its union Sugar-U; this mainly involved in-depth interviews with union representatives and limited access to some documents. Corporate trade unions take advantage of the paternalistic tradition to gradually develop their organisations as recognised by employers. Implementing nonunion representation is a practice of paternalistic ideology, offering trade unions another platform on which to work with management. Workers identify both themselves and the trade union as parts of the enterprise family rather than seeing the union as an agent of collectivity. The union has to be a service provider offering welfare and benefits to attract members before triggering any mobilisation. To conclude, paternalism has helped corporate trade unions to establish themselves in state-owned and privatised workplaces, and empowered trade unions to engage legitimately, effectively and autonomously in workplace affairs. To revitalise themselves from the paternalistic ideology, trade unions are expected to take the route of partnering unionism with the manipulation of nonunion representation in a top-down process of shaping labour’s collective identity.

This thesis employs a historical-critical approach to explore the theme of 'the Gentiles' in Zechariah's vision reports. Chapter 1 introduces the aim and methodology and the four texts to be studied, viz. Zech 1:15, 2:4, 12-13 and 15a [Eng. 1:21; 2:8-9 and 11a]. It provides a literature review, a proposal, namely that YHWH's attitude toward the Gentiles in Zechariah's vision reports is coherent throughout, describes the structure of the thesis, and gives an explanation of terminology. Chapter 2 investigates the literary and historical contexts of the relevant texts. It argues that the series of vision reports (Zech 1:8-6:8) is a compositional unity. The oracular material is as integral as the visionary material and so both forms of material may be examined for evidence of the meaning of the four texts. This chapter also explores the international situation in the ancient Near East around the date, the integral character of which is supported, in Zech 1:7. Chapter 3 investigates the four texts from three perspectives: whether all the components are integral, what the texts mean, and who 'the Gentiles' referred to as גוים are. This chapter reaches the conclusions that all of the components in the MT readings of the four texts are probably original and that the גוים in the texts refers to two distinct sets of Gentiles, viz. Nebuchadnezzar's army of Chaldean tribes (Zech 1:15; 2:4 and 12-13) and Gentiles in general (Zech 2:15a). This division explains the different views of the Gentiles in the abovementioned four texts. Chapter 4 argues that the message concerning YHWH's attitude toward the Gentiles in the four texts is coherent and would have been relevant to the contemporary Judahites in sixth-century Yehud. Chapter 5 provides concluding remarks.

This thesis investigates materiality, meanings and the use of three crucial elements, World, Dust, and Daemon in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy. Together, the three novels Northern Lights (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000) juxtapose and represent not only Philip Pullman’s counter-interpretation of Biblical representation, Genesis in particular, but also his worries about religious absolutism and story-telling based in Christian belief. As a New Atheist fantasy fiction written to young adult and adult readers, Pullman’s enthusiasm for playing with and materializing obscure religious concepts and relating them to our real life through story-telling is remarkable. This research is aimed to analyse the methodologies and further to understand how Pullman can fulfill his unique cosmology, as well as the problems and paradoxes these elements could have brought together with. The first chapter, World, composes etymological, philosophical and constitutive studies of Pullman’s World system in His Dark Materials. That system takes an organic tuber-like form in its arrangement of worlds in time and space. The thesis attempts to suggest that Pullman’s atheistic cosmology is, paradoxically, constructed in terms of a heavily theological materiality. The research in the second chapter, Dust, focuses on the transformation of Dust. It attempts to argue that Pullmanic Dust is a process of becoming rather than a status of being. The whole process is divided into three stages, and my critique observes how Dust is materially changed in meaning in each stage. The research also provides detailed studies of how Dust can be metaphorically related to the doctrine of original sin and, in consequence, the work’s close relation to the very Christianity that it seeks to eschew. Daemon, as the most materialized entity made of Dust, is at the crux of Pullman’s understanding of the human soul. It is also a starting point for high fantasy in His Dark Materials. By studying the materiality and meaning of Daemon, my research into what is termed the laws of “settlement” finds that they violate the ontological foundation of Pullman’s realism and of his psychological (and philosophical) understanding of the soul. This chapter suggests that Pullman’s animalization of the human soul and, conversely, his anthropomorphism of daemons together make for a significant contradiction in his cosmology.

Researchers of drama education and literacy learning in Taiwan or the majority of western countries have suggested that the application of drama strategies in literacy teaching has a significant effect on students’ capacities for literacy learning. However, most research in Taiwan has been focused on the results and effects on the learner and not the teachers’ thoughts, problems, concerns and behaviours and there is an absence of research in Taiwan dealing with the problems and difficulties of implementation that the teacher who is new to using drama might face. Hence, one important consideration in this research is to investigate what kinds of factors or difficulties might impede or assist the motivation of teachers who are willing to bring new ideas and new materials, specifically the application of drama and picture books, to their literacy teaching. Another aim of this research, therefore, is to investigate the various dynamics and difficulties that might affect the success or otherwise of in-service education in drama for elementary teachers. This research explores five situations of experienced teachers Grade 3 teachers in four elementary schools in Taiwan while applying drama strategies and picture books in their literacy teaching. The data collection procedure was divided into two phases: the first phase of three interviews with the teachers I worked with and classroom observations made while they applied three teaching schemes in their classes; the second phase moving from the classroom level to the school level, and interviews with not only the teachers but also section administrators of the curriculum in each case school. The results of this study show that fear of the new application already had a negative effect which could reduce teachers’ commitments and motivation for change; especially when they were overloaded with their existing duties. In addition, the new application also indicated that there is a need to ensure that short courses are integrated within an overall framework for in-service development in drama education if there are to be positive outcomes of in-service work. Moreover, in this study, the school culture also affected the teachers’ practice and further professional development in these schools. In conclusion, although the results of this study cannot be generalised for the greater population of the elementary school teaching in Taiwan, it has provided valuable insights that might shape future professional development in this area. Ideally, this study will enable me to help develop effective, additional innovative programmes in Taiwan and provide other researchers with a framework for carrying out further research intended to improve the standard of teachers’ professional development.

Having a child or sibling with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be a positive experience, but it influences every family member differently. The present thesis examined the psychosocial adjustment of typically developing (TD) siblings of children with ASD and the extent to which this is impacted by key demographic and psychological variables. In addition, the influence of variables more specific to the families of children with ASD were considered, such as the broader autism phenotype (BAP) in parents and siblings, and the severity of symptoms in the child with ASD. A cross-cultural perspective was also adopted, in order to compare the coping and adjustment processes of siblings of children with ASD within two different cultures - Taiwan and the United Kingdom (UK). A combination of the Double ABCX Model and the Diathesis-Stress Model was used to explore: the influence of BAP-related traits; the interaction between coping, stressors, and support resources; and how these variables influenced TD siblings‘ adjustment outcome in the two locations. The research model was explored in two, interlinked studies using complimentary quantitative and qualitative methods. The first study was a large-scale questionnaire study including 89 and 77 parent-TD sibling dyads, in Taiwan and the UK, respectively. The findings indicated that UK siblings evaluated themselves as having significantly more adjustment difficulties but also significantly higher prosocial behaviour than their Taiwanese counterparts. Furthermore, there were substantial differences in terms of the variables which predicted TD siblings‘ adjustment outcome between the two countries. Taiwanese TD siblings‘ adjustment was more related to children‘s internal characteristics, while the UK TD siblings were influenced by both internal and external variables. The benefits of social support for adjustment were also evident in both countries. The discrepancies between parents and TD siblings‘ reports could be interpreted as resulting from culturally-specific patterns in parent evaluation of child behaviours. The siblings‘ level of BAP traits was also found to moderate the relation between ethnicity/culture and TD siblings‘ self-report adjustment difficulties. If Taiwanese TD siblings were reported to have higher BAP level by their parents, they showed fewer adjustment difficulties than those with lower BAP level, whereas the opposite pattern was found in UK siblings. This may indicate that for Taiwanese TD siblings‘ BAP level had a negative impact on their ability to evaluate their adjustment difficulties. Seven parent-TD sibling dyads from each country participated in the follow-up interview study. From thematic analysis of the data, a negative tone in the descriptions of the influence of ASD on the TD sibling was more evident in parents‘ and TD siblings‘ transcription in Taiwan, while a more balanced tone was apparent in the UK families. With the emphasis on involving their children in decisions about the child with ASD and providing age-appropriate information from the UK parents, it was speculated that UK siblings had a greater understanding of their parents‘ stress. Various types of support service were mentioned in the UK, whereas the availability of social services and support was relatively limited in Taiwan, whether for parents or TD siblings. Taken together, the findings from the two studies have important implications for clinical and educational settings. UK siblings‘ adjustment could be enhanced through modelling the coping of parents, while Taiwanese siblings could benefit from increased social support from peers. Health professionals should be aware of the influence of the BAP level displayed in parents and TD siblings, which might change the way they experience stress and respond under pressure. This thesis emphasised the importance of using TD siblings‘ report in comparison with parents‘ evaluation. Some potential relations, such as between BAP level and the coping style of parents and TD siblings remain unclear. With further development of self-report measurements, future research could replicate the present research design to clarify the influence of the variables discussed.

The aim of this study is to review Taiwan’s training structure through a lens comparative study on the UK’s training approach for beauty professionals. Due to the distinctive differences between Taiwan and the UK, the methodological approach was designed differently for each in order to meet the aim and objectives. Apart from document analysis used for both countries, auto-ethnography was conducted in the UK; while in Taiwan observations and expert interviews were employed to identify the fundamental causes of the mismatch between education and industry. A strategy was proposed, based on the strong points identified from the UK, to improve the current structure of Taiwan. Three key features are identified from the UK that could be considered to alleviate Taiwan’s fundamental problems. They are respectively: National Occupational Standards, a Professional Body and a Quality Assurance process. Three key features are new to Taiwan, so that their implementation requires time and collaborative effort from the Taiwanese government, vocational education and industry. These features were embedded in three proposed models. Three models were proposed as a holistic structure to include all relevant stakeholders. The three models are the Service, Work Placement and Nurturing models. The impact of this study on Taiwan training structure will be substantial because it is the first step to bring all relevant stakeholders to communicate and interact through setting an agreed standard and through the treatment service framework provided by the Service Model. Secondly, the Work Placement Model provides a structure for assessment in workplaces to ensure that learning takes place in the workplace and to create an opportunity of knowledge sharing, allowing the theory to meet the practice. Thirdly, an overall Nurturing model of the training for beauty professionals is developed, with a professional body to provide a platform for all stakeholders, including government. Ultimately, everyone involved in the profession would be benefited and more importantly, the broad concepts and models might be of use to other domains.

There is a growing emphasis on students' cultural experiences on campus. As such, the purpose of this study was to explore Taiwanese American students and their connection to Taiwanese culture. As a critical-cultural narrative inquiry this study (a) brought attention to Taiwanese American students and their engagement with Taiwanese culture, (b) expanded upon notions of home and experiences of bicultural integration, and (c) utilized diaspora as a theoretical perspective in a student development and higher education context. Research questions guiding this exploration included the following: (1) What do Taiwanese American students identify as significant and meaningful components of Taiwanese culture? (2) How and where do Taiwanese American students connect to Taiwanese culture on campus? (3) In what ways do the experiences of Taiwanese American students contribute to the existence of Taiwanese diaspora? Eight Taiwanese American students from a Mid-Atlantic University participated in this study. Each participant engaged in two interviews. The outcome of this study included individual participant narratives and a grand narrative encompassing four themes: recognizing their parents' influence, navigating multiple cultural contexts, finding meaningful connections in non-Taiwanese American settings, and making decisions to move closer to Taiwanese culture. This study explored the importance of Taiwanese American students' connectedness to their ethnic cultural background. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Recombinant human erythropoietin as well as the other synthetic analogs darbepoetin alpha and methoxy-polyethyleneglycol-epoetin-β, are protein-based drugs which have the ability to stimulate erythrocyte production that leads to their abuse as blood doping agents in both human and equine sports. These epoetins may produce anti-rhEPO antibodies that can cause severe inhibition of erythropoiesis, leading to anemia and even death. Thus, it is essential to develop an efficient screening method to detect these doping agents in equine plasma at low concentration. A fast and sensitive method was explored in this project to differentiate and identify recombinant human erythropoietin and darbepoetin in equine plasma by LC- MSMS for doping control. Various approaches were investigated to improve the sensitivity, differentiating the unique peptide fragments of the synthetic analogs, and by creating more on-line techniques to reduce the sample handling time and avoid contamination. Capillary flow and nano flow chromatography were study and compared with conventional high flow LC. Results of this study showed that capillary flow is capable of detecting immunoaffinity-extracted plasma at 0.2 ng. Nano flow has also been shown to give better sensitivity when compared with capillary flow. I had also explored the fabrication of an internal tapered capillary tip packed with commercial C18 silica to use as a nano-electrospray tip. This application was shown to improve the sensitivity for detecting the peptides. To differentiate the synthetic analogs, requires the identifying of the unique peptide fragments, which involves enzyme digestion and deamination. Immobilised enzyme reactors were fabricated to reduce the handling time, avoiding autolysis and sample contamination. The on-line enzyme reactors for both the trypsin digestion and deglycosylation were shown to be as effective as the off-line in-solution digestion. It also showed better sensitivity for some peptides. A novel organo cross-linker was synthesised and polymerised with a polar zwitterionic monomer to form a HILIC monolith. The morphology of fabricating the HILIC monolith was studied. Different polymerisation times were studied, with a shorter polymerisation time resulting in a monolith that had a significant proportion of both mesopores and macropores and this allowed rapid and high resolution separation of large biomolecules. Finally, with the configuring of the orthogonal set-up, solved the incompatibility of the loading buffer, which is highly aqueous, and the high organic buffer used for HILIC phase. This configuration enables an on-line concentration and desalting, which minimised the preparation steps, therefore achieving good sensitivity.

R. Buckminster Fuller's design and architectural work is frequently described as being "inspired by nature." However, to date there has been little investigation of this claim. What was Fuller's understanding of "nature" and how did it affect the conception, production, and presentation of his work? This thesis attempts to characterize R. Buckminster Fuller's understanding of nature, which will be called a model of nature, and to trace its impact upon his work over the course of his career using an interdisciplinary historical approach. Fuller's model of nature was a unique amalgam of religious, scientific, and philosophical ideas from the past and the present. It drew upon Enlightenment ideas about natural laws, and American Transcendentalist ideas about the spiritual importance of experiences in the natural world. Fuller combined these with 20th century ideas about technological progress and the efficiencies of mass production. This model of nature affected both the conception and presentation of Fuller's work. For example, his understanding of nature shaped the design of the 4D/Dymaxion house from the late 1920s until the 1940s, in particular the notion of the house as a living organism and the use of natural metaphors such as circulation and respiration to describe its functions. Other works are also discussed. Fuller's understanding of nature was present throughout his lifetime, yet it did not always figure into the presentation of his work. Fuller deftly adapted his message to his audiences—in some cases foregrounding the role of nature in his work, in other cases omitting it altogether. He found a particularly avid audience for nature-related narratives of his work with the 1960s counterculture, and established common ground with the counterculture in part by appealing to their ideals of pastoralism, holism, and individualism. The countercultural understanding of Fuller as a designer deeply inspired by nature has persisted to this day. The 1960s also saw the rise of alternative models of nature, such as an eco-political model of nature adopted by the burgeoning environmental movement; and a cybernetic ecology model of nature that grew out of systems theory and cybernetics. In the thesis, these two alternate models of nature are compared and contrasted with Fuller's. In particular, comparison with the eco-political model of nature affords the opportunity to discuss whether Fuller was an early environmentalist, as some scholars have argued, or whether, as I argue, he largely chose to sidestep the environmental debate. Taken together, these investigations into Fuller's model of nature help us to understand his unique, comprehensive view in which nature, mankind and technology were bound together in continuous coevolution under the benevolent watch of a Greater Intellect. Nature was a source that he returned to again and again to provide conceptual and formal inspiration for his architectural projects; confirmation of his religious faith; and a way of understanding the role of technology in human civilization.

This research aims to unpack the paradoxes in cross-border knowledge transfer and learning processes and their impacts on the performance of international strategic alliances. This research thus develops a co-evolutionary view on international strategic alliance performance and empirically investigates the interplay between contextual and processual antecedents of alliance performance. -- By large-scale and cross-sectional survey research on a sample of 671 Taiwanese information and communication technology manufacturers with international strategic alliance experience, this research finds that an alliance is likely to be considered as unsuccessful if there is large institutional distance between the countries from where the partner firms originate, because such difference could simultaneously fortify the transferor’s protectiveness behaviour towards knowledge transfer and the recipient’s ambiguous perception towards the transferred knowledge. This, in turn, weakens the recipient’s potential absorptive capacity and decreases the amount of knowledge acquired through international cooperation. Yet this research also discovers that relational capital accumulated by the partner firms along with cooperation could facilitate the cross-border knowledge transfer processes, as with a more harmonious relationship between the partners, the transferor’s protectiveness behaviour towards knowledge transfer would be unnecessary and thus be lessened, and the recipient’s ambiguous perception towards the transferred knowledge would be diminished as well. This could subsequently enhance the recipient’s potential absorptive capacity and the amount of knowledge acquired, leading to a greater notion of a successful international strategic alliance.

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death worldwide and becomes increasingly prevalent in the elderly population. Independent of etiopathogenesis, heart failure (HF) is the final common stage of numerous heart diseases. Cardiac stem cell (CSC) therapy has emerged as a promising cell-based strategy for treatment of HF. However, cell replacement is not able to fully restore a structurally damaged myocardium in advanced and end-stage HF. The objective of this project was to test the following hypotheses: that a bioengineered heart extracellular matrix (ECM) with preserved intact geometric structure could be generated using decellularization by coronary perfusion; and that autologous CSCs, to repopulate this ECM, could be isolated and expanded from the adult heart, with the caveat that autologous CSCs are depleted and impaired by both aging and chronic dilated cardiomyopathy. This will help to develop a possible therapeutic approach for advanced HF, using a combination of CSCs and engineering technique. Resident CSCs were isolated from explant-derived cells (EDCs) and expanded into cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs) via cardiosphere formation. The CDCs expressed CSC markers (c-kit and Sca-1), pluripotent markers (Oct3/4 and Sox2), and the cardiac lineage-committed marker (Nkx2.5), and showed clonal expansion, self-renewal, and cardiomyogenic potential in vitro. In tissue engineering experiments, CDCs survived and proliferated within biomaterial alginate scaffolds for up to 7 weeks. An engineered bioartificial ECM scaffold was successfully produced from a whole rat heart using retrograde coronary perfusion and possessed an intact 3D architecture with functionally perfusable vascular network. Compared with ventricles, cultures derived from atria produced significantly higher number of c-kit+ and Sca-1+ CSCs (c-kit: 13% vs. 3.4%; Sca-1: 82% vs. 53%, respectively) and exhibited greater clonogenic and proliferative capacity. CDCs could be grown from young and aged mice, but the yield of CSCs significantly declined with age, as did cell migration and differentiation potential. In comparison to wild-type mice, atrial-CDCs from dystrophic mice showed no significant differences in CSC subpopulations and characteristics, despite confirmation of cardiac dysfunction using MRI. In conclusion, CDCs could be considered to be a viable cell candidate for cardiac therapy and may be used to treat HF at various stages, in combination with myocardial tissue engineering.

This thesis explores the connection between the democratic ideas of Fred Clarke (1880-1952), an English educationist, and his contribution to educational reconstruction in England in the 1940s. By drawing on biographical method and documentary research, this thesis demonstrates that Clarke's democratic ideas reflected the ideals of liberal democracy and ways in which his ideas informed his positions on various issues of the educational reform and his actions or activities towards them, which constituted his substantial contribution to the reform. Three general themes in this thesis support the main argument. First, Clarke's ideas about the distinction between community and the State, his conception of equality, and his emphasis on free personality and moral qualities of all citizens found their roots in the ideals of liberal democracy, especially those of developmental democracy. Second, Clarke's ideas of democracy underlay his positions on educational issues such as the reorganization of the central authority; the public schools; the administrative system, selection and organization of secondary education; further education; teacher education and the teaching profession; and adult education. Third, Clarke contributed himself to the reform primarily through arousing and guiding public opinion by means of his speeches, writings, cooperative actions, engagement in professional organizations, and the publication of the first report of the Central Advisory Council, School and Life (1947), which were also in accordance with his ideas of democracy. Clarke also exerted his influence on cultural elites through discussion groups and on policy-makers and key figures through memoranda, private meetings and correspondence. Given these findings, this thesis helps fill a significant gap in the current knowledge as to Clarke's democratic ideas, his contribution to educational reconstruction in the 1940s, and above all, the intimate link between them. Moreover, it sheds some light on the nature and tensions of the major educational reform of this period.

Landscape policy in the UK has a tradition of conserving natural beauty within designated areas. As a result of both the progressive development of landscape analysis techniques, of which the most recent is the use of Landscape Character Assessment (LCA), and contemporary environmental trends, landscape policy in the past twenty years has undergone a significant ‘landscape character turn’ from this focus on the 'best' landscapes to the wider notion of the 'rest'€of the landscape. This poses a particular challenge for the non-statutory locally defined landscape designations. Over time questions have arisen about whether these designations should be retained or replaced by criteria-based policies informed by LCA and covering the countryside as a whole. The 'turn' underlines significant changes in landscape concepts and the way in which they contribute to planning policies and practice in the UK and also at a global scale. This research explores how the character-based approach has, in the last two decades, developed into an alternative tool to the traditional local landscape designation approach. The evolution of these two approaches has been examined at both the national (England) level and the local level (English local authorities) by conducting policy document review, case study analysis and in-depth interviews. At the national level, the discourses concerning the transition between the two approaches have been extracted to scrutinise their development and interrelationships. At the local level, three sample local authorities have been identified to investigate how the approaches have been delivered. Lastly, the research examines the extent to which knowledge gained from the UK experience can be compared to the cultural context of Taiwan, where the use of local landscape designations is still prevailing. The research shows that the character-based approach is appropriate to replace the use of local landscape designations given that certain conditions are met. Outside the UK this approach is not readily application to other planning contexts where crucial elements for carrying out this approach are absent.

Evolution of the financial system involves continual institutional changes for reform purposes. However, reform experiences differed considerably from one country to another. Why is it that some countries can effectively implement reforms to foster successful development while others fail to do so? This study takes a first step in answering this question. It aims to explain the variations of financial reform experience in terms of informal institutional influence and highlight the importance of governance in shaping the reform outcome. The thesis studies governance characteristics that influence Taiwan's banking evolu- tion and examines the development of both formal and informal institutions. It argues that development of Taiwan's banking sector has been path-dependent and significantly influenced by informal institutions, which held back its recent reform progress. The study comprises three parts: theoretical framework, quantitative statistical research and qualitative country study. It applies the analytical framework set out in the theoretical part and draws on empirical evidences from quantitative research to form the basis for an empirical investigation into the historical financial development and recent reform experience in Taiwan. At the conceptual level, the research adopts the New Institutional Economics (NIE) framework and argues that governance bears a decisive importance for an effective reform because it fosters trust in the institutions and facilitates the reform by encouraging cooperative behaviours among actors. It identifies that governance of financial service industry is perceived from institutional qualities of property rights protection, corruption prevention, and political stability. Using the case of Taiwan's banking sector, the research explores the sector has been shaped and conditioned by the institutional contexts in which it operates. It discovers that that the underdeveloped mechanism for creditors' rights protection, collusion between financial businesses owners and politicians, deadlocked political situation with China contribute to weak governance which amplified its 1990s banking crises. It is observed that government's behaviours did not transform with the reform to form new habits and thoughts under the influence of the institutional persistence, hence only had limited success in inducing policy enforcement. In terms of policy implications, the research encourages policy makers to study historical development and to build upon existing initiatives taking into account the path-dependent environment and informal institutional embeddedness of implemented projects.

Hairdressers’ exposure to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) appears to be insufficiently described in the literature. Knowledge regarding musculoskeletal disorders in this group is also sparse. The purpose of the research was to investigate the status of work-related musculoskeletal disorder cases found in Taiwanese hairdressers and to develop user-centred, strategic solutions to prevent the accumulation of musculoskeletal disorders in this group, especially newcomers to the industry. The study involved a series of investigations into the status of WMSDs for hairdressers in Taiwan as a first step towards their prevention. A hairdresser-oriented, musculoskeletal questionnaire was used to discover the risk factors associated with WMSDs and a validated, on-line, rapid, upper-limb assessment tool was used to identify critical hairdressing working postures. Improvements to the main critical hairdressing working postures identified by the first stage of the research have been addressed by an ergonomics training programme. The effectiveness of this is validated using 3D-motion analysis based on a pre- and post-test evaluation of awkward movements. A scientific approach to 3D-motion analysis has been achieved specifically by the study of the awkward working postures of the upper extremity during hair-blow-waving and hair-straightening activities. The relationship between working postures and WMSDs in various body regions is discussed. In this regard, poor posture and movement can lead to local mechanical stress on the muscles, ligaments and joints, resulting in discomfort in the musculoskeletal system, particularly the neck, back, shoulder and wrist. This research has provided a WMSDs prevention framework as a strategic method of securing a continuous improvement in the awkward working postures adopted during various hairdressing activities. Topics for further studies are suggested.

This study explores the construction of indigeneity in two indigenous villages of Taiwan and how it has been intertwined with environmental politics since the end of the Second World War. Drawing on Stuart Hall's idea of articulation (1996) and Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality (1991), I develop a theoretical framework that regards the construction of indigeneity as a continuous and historically inflected process, and treats environmental politics as a complex dynamics among various 'regimes of ecology', i.e. regimes of government that aim to govern the relations between humans and the environment. The data analysed include government documents, interviews with scholars and governmental officials, and ethnographic data from and archive materials about two indigenous villages, Cinsbu and Hsinkuang. Starting with the Japanese occupation of 1895-1945 and continuing until the early 1990s when the process of political democratisation officially began, the dominant regimes of ecology in Taiwan were exploitative and coercive in nature. One crucial effect of this in Cinsbu and Hsinkuang was the articulation of resistant indigeneity, a product of the villagers' active engagement with these colonial regimes of ecology and the critical ideas and actions that were developed to challenge them. Since the early 1990s, 'neoliberal ecology', a set of regimes of ecology that is more liberating and characterised by more commercialised human-nature relationships, has prevailed. In Cinsbu and Hsinkuang, such a shift from colonial to neoliberal ecology has been manifested mainly through the promotion of tourism and community-based natural resources management by the state, tourism industry, professionals, local indigenous villagers and environmentalists. As a result, a more complex politics of indigeneity and nature, rather than one simply of domination and resistance, has developed, both between the villagers and the state and within the indigenous communities.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how the gendered division of teaching work is shaped, so as to theorise these dynamics of gender and power: male domination and female subordination within the primary teaching workplace. Drawing on empirical data from the ethnographic research in a primary school in Taiwan, men's dominance in higher posts as well as the preference for men in the teaching of PE and computing courses has been observed, despite the fact that female teachers are a majority. By contrast, women and feminine attributes are devalued in the administrative hierarchy. The evidence supports that the teachers, regardless of their gender, value caring and its critical role in their classroom practices. More importantly, the influence of personal attributes, the emphasis on professionalism, and the humanist approach have been identified as providing various accounts of caring. Disciplinary roles, role models, the teaching of older children and difficult classes and leadership roles are considered to be men's work. I argue that male association with authority and power is generated through gendered task segregation. Furthermore, male domination in power is a consequence of the endorsement of women. The differentiation of power is thus embedded in interpersonal interactions as part of this teacher workplace culture. The findings further indicate the complexities of gendered power: female teachers' reliance on men and their masculinity, which revealed not only that women suffer more negative experiences from the principal's leadership but also their lack of confidence in the power struggle. In addition to involving male domination and female subordination, power relations in my research may also indicate the importance of male allies and their sharing of power in the workplace.

The term “Bibliotherapy” was first coined in 1916. It was mainly used in hospitals for veterans and psychiatric patients before the 1970s (Alexander & Buggie, 1976). Later on, bibliotherapy was applied in the developmental and psychotherapeutic field. Russell (1958) defined bibliotherapy as the application of relevant literature to deal with the client’s personal problem and developmental needs at the proper time. In this thesis, an appropriate source of reading to effect stress reduction has been found in Zhuang Zi’s fables. This philosophy may have current relevance for our hectic and materialistic modern life. This thesis presents an experiment in bibliotherapy carried out with Taiwanese college students reading a popularized version of the fables. For the purpose of studying the effects of bibliotherapy with Zhuang Zi’s fables on various aspects of stress that could be anticipated in the lives of students, an inventory called the “Philosophical Beliefs toward Stress Coping Inventory” was designed, and after pilot testing it was composed of 45 items with a Likert scale. These expressed a low-key philosophy of acceptance of circumstances, i.e., “go with the flow”, seeking inner peace rather than worldly achievements. The dimensions were confirmed in retrospect through factor analysis to be “Discarding Prejudice”, “Removing Greed”, and “Forgoing Demands”. The main findings of this study are as follows: 1. There are significant effects on reduction of the following stress: Financial Problems, Career Planning, School Work, and Interpersonal Relationships. 2. Reducing the stress of Financial Problems is mainly influenced by the concept of Removing Greed. 3. Career Planning stress reduction is significantly influenced by the concepts of Quitting Stubbornness, Managing Emotions, Freeing the Spirit, and Accepting Life’s Fate. 4. Accepting the concepts of Quitting Stubbornness and Being Optimistic in Adversity facilitates stress reduction. 5. People with a “Type A Behaviour Pattern” can be helped in stress reduction. 6. Females are more influenced than males in stress reduction by bibliotherapy intervention; however, males are more influenced than females in stress reduction by self-help bibliotherapy. The results show the beneficial effects of the intervention, which can be recommended by educational or health professionals as an alternative approach in coping with stress.

The focus of this research is whether the Habermas’ ‘bourgeois public sphere’, which is characteristic of Western society, can be extended to China. My main contribution is to demonstrate that the concepts of ‘sentiment’ and ‘reason’ are central to any discussion of the public sphere in China. This is in sharp contrast to the West where rational discussion and the rule of law are the twin foundations of the classical discourse of the public sphere. China’s society is distinct from Western democracies the West in at least two fundamental ways. In the first place, the political system remains ‘communist’ with a single party controlling all of the media. As a result, the degree of freedom of thought and speech is extremely limited, and there is no obvious way in which the mass media can act directly as a forum for free and informed discussion of public policy. Secondly, whereas the rule of law is understood as a central element in Western democratic culture, it has a subordinate place in Chinese culture. These assumptions are examined through a study of the readership of the Popular Press and through text analysis. How the Popular Press engages with the general public, how the general public reads and judges media messages, and crucially whether the Popular Press could employ an indirect approach working to constitute an ‘imaginary’ public in China were the discoveries. In the end, this study concludes that while China’s cultural, political and economic system of control is the main factor leading to the restriction and dissent of the general public, a ‘reasoning’ popular public might, in time, be shaped through their reading of controversies in political and public affairs in the Popular Press.

The potential of Management Development (MD) to act as a strategic catalyst for managing change has been recognised; however, the key problems associated with MD, such as its weak strategic role and weak link to organisational effectiveness remain unsolved. MD practitioners have been struggling to show how MD benefits organisational performance, as empirical studies in this regard are in short supply. Despite the range of literature on this subject in the Western context, there is only limited research into the application of MD in the workplace and challenges facing MD/HR practitioners in a transitional economy like Taiwan. This study thus explores the potential role of MD in the context of change management, with specific reference to Taiwan. A mixed-method approach using a combination of questionnaire, interviews and organisational documents was employed to collect data, and analyses were performed using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. This study's findings provide an understanding of the nature of MD in Taiwan. The MD is mainly derived from company strategy; the findings have further highlighted a need to balance the focus of 00 with personal development needs. It also emphasises the fact that more involvement of all the stakeholders in the MD process will lead to improved outcomes. The findings further stress the critical effect of a supportive and participative environment for the success of MD. This study provides evidence to support calls for a more systematic and integrated approach to MD in the workplace. Within an CD-focused setting, it is necessary for Taiwanese firms to conjoin the interest towards MD by individuals with more organisationally-based coherent strategies. The study also identifies a need for these organisations to re-think and tackle the collision between their performance-oriented climate and people development. In short, this study provides an insight into some of the challenges and effectiveness issues of practicing MD in large private sector companies in Taiwan.

The thesis is a qualitative account of the much neglected issues of the bottom-up, and interconnected organization of the Cross-Industry Network (CIN) phenomena within the Audiovisual Sector (AVS). The aims are achieved by exploring the why and how of the independent screen content producers in developing CIN during the production process. By conceptualizing the CIN phenomenon as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS), I used its theories as analogies to analyze the multi-case and multi-level studies conducted at two scenarios of independent TV production sector in the UK/ the developed, and the independent film production sector in Taiwan/the developing. My research produced the following four conclusions. 1. From Top-Down Industry Disintegration to Bottom-up Production Reconfiguration The industrial disintegration of the media industry has resulted in the reconfiguration of content production networks and intense self-adaptation of creative producers who are facing multi-directional connections within the CIN during their production process. Such adaptation reveals tensions between the producers’ self-perception as ‘independent’ and ‘creative’ producers and their networking decisions and actions. 2. From Managing the Creative Project to Managing the Creative and Commercial Venture The evolution of the CIN in the creative and media production is not entirely top-down/linear/serial, but more accurately, bottom-up/ non-linear/parallel. These internal self-organizing dynamics enable the production network to radiate outwardly, which induces trade-offs between and beyond commercial and creative priorities. 3. From Distribution-led Value System to Production-led Microcosm The production process has evolved its own diverse CIN, involving different types of relationships, a higher degree of complexity and structural tensions inherent in the value-creating system. Such production-led networking functions are the most fundamental source for developing broader CIN and the economic return for creative producers. 4. From Network Adaptation to Complex Adaptive System The networking activities of independent and creative producers radiate and interact outwards to connect and affect all levels of the network, resulting in unexpected directions and complex collaborations. In particular, the elements of multi-directional adaptation and tensions of the involved network actors have an important impact on the emergence and organization of the network. The main contributions of the research are firstly to have taken a bottom-up analysis by integrating the micro-level organizational complexity of the independent production into the theorizing about the AVS; and secondly, to have placed the intangible values and real practice of creative producers at the centre of the network study.

This practice-based PhD thesis examines the proposition that during early motherhood an artist can establish visual strategies for sustaining a creative identity to counteract the stereotypical role of a mother in the patriarchal society of Taiwan. The thesis comprises six artworks, consisting of photographic self-portraits and related boxes, within an installation, together with a written component and an Artist’s Book.

A considerable amount of work has been conducted developing exposure estimate models for quantitative evaluation of Hg intake and human health risks, but few have assessed the applicability and the validity for evaluating the risks posed by Hg in the environment and have achieved very mixed results. The present study focused on verifying the daily Hg intake estimates using exposure estimate models. Deterministic methods and the probabilistic methods (the Monte Carlo) were applied to simulate the daily Hg intake doses which were verified by comparing the estimates to those established from measured Hg concentrations in the hair of 289 participants. The results showed that the single-value deterministic method for simulating Hg exposure levels overestimated the level of risk by a factor of 1.5 when compared with the highest concentration of the Hg observed in the hair of the study population. The average daily Hg intake doses simulated using the probabilistic simulation were similar in distribution to the biomarker data, with the variability of 23%. The difference between the probabilistic simulation and the data derived from hair Hg levels was considered to be most likely due to the uncertainties in unconfirmed questionnaire-based survey data, small sampling sizes and the surrogates used in the exposure models. When the reference dose (RfD) of 0.1 μg/kg body weight/day was adopted as the acceptable dose for daily intake rate, there were approximately 19% estimated to have potential Hg exposure risks based on the Monte Carlo simulation. This percentage was favourably similar to the 17% determined from Hg concentrations in the hair samples. The findings implied that the existing exposure models together with the probabilistic approach were appropriate for the research of human exposure to Hg. On the other hand, low Hg levels in the participants’ hair indicated that Hg accumulated in the study population was not very serious, probably due to the good Hg absorptivity of the on-site fly ash. However, it should be advised that consumption of river fish elevates the health risks to the local population.