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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.