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Evaluation of solar potential is a necessary step for integrating solar technologies in buildings in order to properly assess the benefits of harvesting solar energy and draw well-informed decisions in various design phases. Solar energy planning at urban scale requires large-scale solar analysis to support various decision-making contexts, such as making urban solar targets, prioritizing urban zones or buildings for solar integration, and optimizing solar technologies tailored for targeting buildings. Existing tools have the following major limitations to support such decision-making situations. (1) Current advanced simulation models based on ray trace and ray interception techniques are not effectively scalable to evaluate solar potential at urban scale due to the expensive modelling process and computational cost. (2) Simple and statistical models developed for large-scale analysis are not suitable to accurately predict solar irradiance on individual surfaces with proper consideration of urban shading and reflection. This dissertation addresses the need for developing scalable, efficient analysis methods to support the solar energy planning process. This dissertation has developed a simplified vector-based model that effectively predicts the solar potential of urban areas on the basis of consideration of the urban context. The proposed model is based on vector-based methods without the use of ray trace and ray interception techniques, and consists of new methods that suitably account for the non-uniform solar radiation of the sky, obstruction by urban surfaces, and reflection by urban surfaces in urban areas. The proposed model establishes three new methods to simplify the calculation in the context of urban applications: (1) a two-segment discretisation model, (2) an edge-angle detection obstruction model, and (3) a unified view-angle-based reflection model. This dissertation demonstrates the usability of the new model in supporting decision-making in the solar energy planning process. It addresses the following two hypotheses to examine the usability of the new model: (1) Simplified, vector-based model, tailored to urban applications, predict accurate solar radiation on urban surfaces to effectively support urban-scale analysis and (2) solar analysis with full representation of urban surroundings is necessary in the calculation of urban shading and solar reflection to correctly support distributed PV planning. For the first hypothesis, the performance of the method is compared against the advanced daylight simulation program RADIANCE and measurements obtained from controlled experiments. The first comparison demonstrates the new method provides flexible setting options for different resolution and prediction accuracy requirements and generates reasonably accurate predictions. The second comparison further confirms the prediction accuracy against the measurements for the horizontal and vertical surfaces under different shading and reflection conditions. The comparison with the ray interception approach demonstrates the computational efficiency of the proposed obstruction model for solar analysis that substantially reduces calculation iterations for detecting sky and building obstructions. For the second hypothesis, predictions and decisions derived by the developed method are compared against those by a lower fidelity models to investigate the importance of modelling urban shading and reflection with full representation of urban surroundings in three decision making contexts of urban-scale distributed PV planning process. Additionally, the second hypothesis is furthered examined and highlighted by investigating the effect of an additional dynamic PV model on decision-makings in comparison with the effect of the proposed high-fidelity solar radiation model for urban shading and solar reflection. The new model is demonstrated to enable cost-efficient solar potential analysis based on urban contexts for supporting solar energy planning at urban scale.

This thesis investigates whether humans possess the capacity to resist ideology via two dimensions: empirical analysis and philosophical discourse. For the empirical analysis, academic ideology-specialists and their publications (articles related to ideological analysis or critique (IAC)) are selected as research subjects. Through analysing ideology-specialists’ IAC works, this thesis attempts to examine their immunity against (their own or social) ideology and humans’ limitation of undertaking (ideological) critique. Inspired by the Frankfurt School’s argument of standardisation in cultural creations, this thesis has analysed 33 IAC articles to determine whether these IAC works are composed in the same way and lead to an academic industry (as with the culture industry critiqued by Adorno and Horkheimer). Based on the commonalities between the 33 IAC articles, it has been found that standard writing procedures (SWPs) when writing IAC articles do indeed exist. Accordingly, through an empirical analysis, this thesis argues that ideology critics are incapable of exempting from either their own or from the social ideology in which they are embedded. Humans’ capacity to undertake a neutrally and objectively ideological critique is limited. In the philosophical discourse, Adorno’s works are selected since many of his ideas seem to guide a way out of ideology’s dungeon; yet, Adorno only succeeds in a theoretical dimension. His discourses have conveyed certain significations that represent his personal ideology resulting from his life experience. His defeat reveals the limitation of undertaking (ideological) critique: criticising one subject, even through an ideological angle, involves an ideology itself. Finally, in order to solve this dilemma of fatalism, this thesis suggests the concept of humbleness and the action of self-critique. The former asks readers to realise humans’ limitation of undertaking a neutral and objective (ideological) critique, so that humans have to minimise their egocentricity. The latter indicates a possible way to escape from ideology.

This thesis incorporates a study of the syntactic distribution and pragmatic properties of empty pronouns in Mandarin Chinese (Chinese in short) from the point of view of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). With reference to various accounts of Chinese empty pronouns by previous researchers (e.g., J. Huang 1984; Y. Huang 1995; Pan and Hu 2000) and the problems with their analyses, we offer a conjunctive approach to capture how Chinese zero anaphora is constrained at the level of syntax and the level of pragmatics. A series of syntactic rules are proposed and every occurrence of Chinese empty pronouns must strictly obey these absolute, inviolable syntactic constraints. Intersententially, discourse-dependent pragmatic conditions based on Lambrecht’s (1994) information-structure theory form the second part of our two-way characterization of Chinese empty pronouns. Lastly, we present a comparison between the case study of empty pronouns in Japanese by Kameyama (1985) and our current study of empty pronouns in Chinese, and demonstrate two distinctive pro-drop phenomena. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the notion of pro-drop, types of empty pronouns identified in Chinese, and the theoretical frameworks assumed in this study. Chapter 2 reviews three different previous analyses of Chinese empty pronouns, discusses the problems each account suffers, and promotes an integrating account which takes both syntax and pragmatics into consideration. Chapter 3 investigates the syntactic distribution of Chinese zero anaphora, whilst Chapter 4 provides a contrasting pragmatic characterization, followed by an examination of our proposal by testing it in naturalistic data and then a comparative study of Chinese and Japanese empty pronouns in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 summarizes the previous chapters, points out relevant issues that are not covered in this thesis but which could be research topics for future investigation, and reiterates how LFG is useful in this present work.

This study investigates expatriate English teachers’ cross-cultural adjustment in Taiwan. Cross-cultural adjustment theories and the differences between Chinese and Western culture are reviewed. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected in order to develop the framework for the study. The process was examined across three facets of adjustment: general, working and interaction with host nation. The study was based on the framework of Black, Mendenhall and Oddou (1991) and develops an empirical cross-cultural adjustment model for native English- speaking expatriates who work in Taiwan as English teachers. The framework was successfully implemented by means of questionnaire and interview data and a literature review. The key findings of this study are: 1. Expatriate English teachers’ job satisfaction, age, previous crosscultural experience and their motivation for or purpose in coming to Taiwan are the key factors which affect their intention to stay in Taiwan. 2. Expatriate English teachers’ Mandarin or Taiwanese language ability has significant effects on their daily activities and social life outside work in terms of general adjustment. 3. Cross-cultural training for expatriate teachers could improve their living conditions in Taiwan in terms of general adjustment. 4. Expatriate teachers who possessed an undergraduate degree had more difficulties in their relationship with school management. 5. The total time expatriate teachers had spent living in Taiwan had some effect on their job satisfaction and adjustment in relation to interacting with the Taiwanese. Based on the empirical findings of this study, some recommendations for language education institutions and Westerners who are working or planning to work as English teachers in Taiwan are as follows: 1. Those who are planning to go to Taiwan to work as English teachers should receive some cross-cultural training and gain basic Mandarin or Taiwanese language skills before departure. An undergraduate degree is the basic qualification but an English teaching certificate or higher degree is strongly recommended. 2. English language education institutions should offer expatriate teachers cross-cultural training which includes basic local language skills, general information about living and working in Taiwan and the differences in the education system, teaching methodology and management style between Taiwanese and Western cultures. 3. When recruiting expatriate teachers, it is recommended that English language education institutions should avoid those who are including a trip to Taiwan as part of wider Asian travel and who are likely to stay in Taiwan for a relatively short time.

In generative syntax, the theory of asymmetry in syntax has gained much attention due to the influential work of Kayne (1994), who adopts the null hypothesis that syntax is inherently asymmetric. However, such a direction does not seem fully compatible with the general assumptions in Galilean style scientific theories, all of which aspire to uncover hidden symmetry (in theoretical models) from observed asymmetries (see also Brody 2003, Stewart & Golubitsky 1992, Stewart 1998). In view of this tension, it will be argued in this dissertation that the base syntactic representation should be symmetric, while surface phrase structures are actually derived from symmetric representations by the symmetry-breaking mapping rules that are induced by the asymmetric natures of the interfaces (Prinzhorn & Vergnaud 2004 et seq.). The hidden invariance/symmetry of syntax can be revealed by studying recursive parallel patterns, which can be identified in three types of primitive syntactic coupling relations. The three types of fundamental relations are the N-V relation, the substantive-functional (S-F) relation, and the k-k' (generalized connectives) relation. Following Prinzhorn & Vergnaud (2004 et seq.), it is hypothesized that the basic unit characterizing syntactic merger (a base structure in the sense of Chomsky 1964) can be viewed as a Cartesian product that simultaneously encodes primitive syntactic relations (i.e., a base structure = {N,V}*{S,F}*{k,k'}), which can be represented in a graph-theoretical way as a three dimensional cube, and each node of the cube is a certain combination of syntactic relations that defines the syntactic role played by the lexical item inserted in that node (e.g. a noun (N,S,k) = a nominal substantive root coupled with a classifier (N,S,k')). Each instance of merge, then, is a reflection of a syntactic relation (Collins 2002). The symmetry of syntax, eventually, arises from the recursive parallelisms generated by the primitive syntactic relations. Considering the asymmetry of phrase structures (in the sense of Kayne 1994), it is argued that the asymmetry is imposed by the asymmetric nature of the interfaces. Thus, the translation from a highly symmetric syntactic representation (i.e. a Cartesian product of primitive syntactic relations) to asymmetric phrase structures is identified as a symmetry-breaking process in syntax. Generalizing Moro (2000), labeling can be taken as an asymmetric direction-marking mechanism of symmetric Merge. Following Prinzhorn & Vergnaud (2004), it is argued that different orderings among the primitive syntactic relations may be responsible for the macroparameters found in the cross-linguistic phrase structures. With the primitive syntactic relations remaining invariant, each possible type of phrase structures can therefore be viewed as a member of the symmetry group of the underlying symmetric syntax. Evidence from classifier constructions and indefinite expressions (with special reference to the Chinese languages) will be discussed in favor of the symmetric syntax. [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.]

In this dissertation, we consider the base station (BS) and the resource management problems for the cloud-based radio access network (C-RAN). The main difference of the envisioned future 5G network architecture is the adoption of multi-tier BSs to extend the coverage of the existing cellular BSs. Each of the BS is connected to the multi-hop backhaul network with limited bandwidth. For provisioning the network, the cloud centers have been proposed to serve as the control centers. These differences give rise to many practical challenges. The main focus of this dissertation is the distributed strategy across the cloud centers. First, we show that by jointly optimizing the transceivers and determining the active set of BSs, high system resource utilization can be achieved with only a small number of BSs. In particular, we provide efficient distributed algorithms for such joint optimization problem, under the following two common design criteria: i) minimization of the total power consumption at the BSs, and ii) maximization of the system spectrum efficiency. In both cases, we introduce a nonsmooth regularizer to facilitate the activation of the most appropriate BSs, and the algorithms are, respectively, developed with Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) and weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE) algorithm. In the second part, we further explicitly consider the backhaul limitation issues. We propose an efficient algorithm for joint resource allocation across the wireless links and the flow control over the entire network. The algorithm, which maximizes the utility function of the rates among all the transmitted commodities, is based on a decomposition approach leverages both the ADMM and the WMMSE algorithms. This algorithm is shown to be easily parallelizable within cloud centers and converges globally to a stationary solution. Lastly, since ADMM has been popular for solving large-scale distributed convex optimization, we further consider the issues of the network synchronization across the cloud centers. We propose an ADMM-type implementation that can handle a specific form of asynchronism based on the so-called BSUM-M algorithm, a new variant of ADMM. We show that the proposed algorithm converges to the global optimal solution.

This study explores the musical-rhetorical tradition in German Baroque music and its connection with Johann Sebastian Bach’s fugal writing. Fugal theory according to musica poetica sources includes both contrapuntal devices and structural principles. Johann Mattheson’s dispositio model for organizing instrumental music provides an approach to comprehending the process of Baroque composition. His view on the construction of a subject also offers a way to observe a subject’s transformation in the fugal process. While fugal writing was considered the essential compositional technique for developing musical ideas in the Baroque era, a successful musical-rhetorical dispositio can shape the fugue from a simple subject into a convincing and coherent work. The analyses of the four selected fugues in this study, BWV 546, 552.2, 577, and 582, will provide a reading of the musical-rhetorical dispositio for an understanding of Bach’s fugal writing.

A new nanochannel electroporation (NEP) was developed recently in our laboratory to realize dosage-controlled delivery. The nanochannel was fabricated by using large DNA molecules as building blocks in a new DNA combing and imprinting process. Large DNA was stretched to generate the nanowire array that was then used to fabricate the nanochannel array. During the electroporation, transfection agents including DNA molecules were electrophoretically driven through microchannel, nanochannel, and finally into individual cells. Therefore, DNA dynamics and cell electroporation are two main components in the process of NEP. In this dissertation, we study the DNA stretching dynamics in DNA combing, DNA electrophoretic dynamics in the microchannel and nanochannel, cell electroporation mechanism in NEP, and the detection of membrane poration.Computational analyses and simulations along with experimental observations and measurements were performed to investigate micro/nanofluidics induced DNA dynamics and cell electroporation. Brownian dynamics simulation with the bead-spring model was combined with the dewetting free surface flow computation to study the DNA stretching dynamics on a micropattern. The droplet formation during the dewtting creates the flow pattern standing for DNA stretching and immobilization. The dependence of electrophoretic (EP) mobility on the DNA instantaneous conformation was studied in DNA microfluidic electrophoresis that was set up in a converging microchannel. From experimental observations, DNA instantaneous EP motilities were determined by tracking DNA center-of-mass locations and correlated with their conformations. It was found that the mobility increases with the stretching and the degree of enhancement is conformation dependent. The experimental findings were explained by a theoretical model based on electrohydrodynamic interactions. Due to the use of electric pulses in nanochannel electroporation, DNA electrophoretic transport through the nanochannel under pulses was studied computationally using the Brownian dynamics simulation with the bead-rod model. Because of the chain recoiling between electric pulses, distinguished single DNA transport processes were found between long and short pulses even though the total pulse length were the same. For each individual DNA, degree of entrance was affected by its conformation and geometrical span over the electric field. Multiple-chain dynamics was also studied by considering the intermolecular interaction. The effect of multi-chain dynamics is stronger and the chain passing rate is reduced under short pulses.The mechanism of NEP was clarified by computational analysis. High applying voltage in NEP can generate much higher electrophoretic driving force without damaging the cell because of high electrical resistance and small channel cross section. A pore in the size of nanochannel could be created by considering the pore formation. Thus, large transfection agents could be delivered into the cell in NEP. However, the pore formation on the cell cannot be observed directly in the experiment. We proposed to use electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to detect the membrane poration. This idea was tested on the tethered lipid bilayer membrane where the pores were created by reducing the lipid concentration. The measured impedance spectra were verified by finite element analysis. A correlation between membrane morphology and impedance spectrum was established that provides the knowledge base for the detection of cell membrane poration.

This paper investigates how dedicated investors, who have concentrated investments and long investment horizons, affect agency costs of debt and firms’ debt financing decisions. I propose a management-shareholder alignment hypothesis that argues that dedicated investors concern debtholders, while mitigating management entrenchment. Consistent with this hypothesis, I find that interest rates in both bank loans and corporate bonds increase with dedicated ownership. I also find that firms with greater dedicated ownership use banks’ monitoring mechanisms to resolve the agency problems of debt caused by dedicated investors. Firms with greater dedicated ownership are more likely to have bank loans that include financial covenants and that include provisions restricting capital expenditures. As a result, the association between interest spreads and dedicated ownership is attenuated for firms that use bank debt. Finally, I find that firms with more dedicated ownership tend to choose bank loans over corporate bonds when they decide to use debt financing. This result suggests that monitoring by dedicated investors and monitoring by banks serve as complements in reducing total agency costs of capital.