This research explores the spatial practices of male prostitutes meeting gay male clients in various urban environments in Bangkok, Thailand. The research focuses on the male prostitutes’ spatial practices in three meeting places: the streets around Saranrom park, the gay go-go bars in Surawong’s Boys’ Town, and the representations of space in local gay newsletters. Examining the male prostitutes’ spatial practices through ‘tactics’, this research suggests that male prostitutes use the meeting places differently as ways of responding to the ‘strategies’ of gay male clients. This research also suggests that the tactics of male prostitutes can be examined by exploring the relationship between spatial practices and subjectivities. By exploring how specific performative acts constitute male prostitutes’ subjectivities, this research suggests that male prostitutes ‘perform’ homosexuality. This thesis draws upon Judith Butler’s performativity theory as a discursive mode of constituting subjects and Michel de Certeau’s theoretical discussion, specifically spatial practices of ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’, as a means of differentiating between ‘place’ and ‘space’. Methodologically, this research works in two directions: the first explores how the spatial practices of male prostitution produce ‘gay’ subjectivities in the moment of sexual encounter – arguing that male prostitutes actively reposition themselves as ‘subjects’ rather than ‘objects’ through spatial and sexual practices; and the second examines the social and sexual constitution of space – arguing that ‘places’ are produced as ‘spaces’ through the practices and tactics of male prostitutes. This research aims to make an original contribution to knowledge in four main ways. The first is an exploration of the relationship between de Certeau’s spatial theory of ‘tactics’ and Butler’s concept of ‘performativity’ as a constitution of subjectivity. The second is the use of de Certeau and Butler’s theories to explore three spaces of male prostitution in contemporary Bangkok, Thailand, through observations drawn from interviews, accounts of spatial experience, and discussions of various representations of space. The third is a reconsideration of these theories of performativity and spatial practices in the light of the specific conditions of the case studies in Bangkok. The fourth is the production of new forms of cross-disciplinary knowledge to bring this discussion of tactics, performativity and gay subjectivities in streets, go-go bars and magazines into architectural history and theory, thereby producing new ways of understanding how spaces are produced through encounters and looks.

Technical change is the driving force behind modern economic competitiveness and the evolution of enterprise and industry. The process, however, is not insular; in particular the location environment is regarded as a key component of how technical change is derived, implemented and diffused. This research study explores this assumption in relation to knowledge-based trade via small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) engaged in the development of advanced producer service (APS) software in the South East Region (SER), a region that has been identified as being post-industrial in character and knowledge-based. As a result of the intangible nature of technical change associated with knowledge-based trade, the research objective is not only to understand the supply architecture, i.e. the location environment in the context of operation and trade, but also interaction including tacit knowledge transfer. This research study employs an interdisciplinary set of approaches including geography, economics, sociology and organisational management. It also takes a bottom-up research approach via use of a qualitative format to analyse the interrelationship between location environment and technical change. Whilst the evidence gathered suggests that agglomeration economies are important both in terms of demand and supply hierarchy, this also inhibits wider opportunities for technical change within the region. Established firms within the survey knew in general where and how to get appropriate knowledge and skills advice. In fact they were in a far better position than public referral entities because of their involvement and awareness of their own specific technologies and markets. Rather than attempt to go against the entrepreneurial nature found within SER (which is a key driver of endogenous growth and competitiveness), what emerges is the need to facilitate greater knowledge interaction, but in a way that does not seek to directly intervene, to impose unsustainable network or partnership structures. Further, the study suggests that development bodies should take a greater interest in the process of knowledge translations and incorporations, particularly using the ‘actor-network’ theory approach to map regional knowledge dynamics.

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This thesis develops and investigates Mixed Reality Architectures (MRA), dynamic shared architectural topologies, which span physical and virtual spaces. A theoretical framework is developed to describe the field of possible architectures. As the result of a first pilot study, this is then extended with the concept of the Mixed Reality Architectural Cell (MRACell). MRACells consist of one physical and one virtual space, linked by a two-way video and audio connection. The video of a real physical space is rendered on an MRACell, which can move within the virtual environment. A projector and screen in the real space renders an image of the virtual environment from the point of view of that MRACell. Inhabitants can move their MRACell in relation to all others within the shared virtual environment, allowing ad hoc as well as planned remote social interaction. In this sense MRACells can be described as novel architectural interfaces extending real physical space, via a shared virtual environment to link to other real spaces. An in-depth study lasting one year and involving six office-based MRACells, used video recordings, the analysis of event logs, diaries and an interview survey. This produced a series of ethnographic vignettes describing social interaction within MRA in detail. The study found that the MRA was effective at supporting remote social interaction between users. Usage patterns appeared to be motivated by awareness and communication or conversely privacy requirements. This usage maintained and strengthened social ties. Social interaction was both visible to others and part of the everyday activities at the respective office spaces. It resulted from the virtual adjacencies introduced by MRA that allowed the ‘spatial’ integration of remote locations. However, the virtual spatial framework making this possible, introduced new topological limitations on the number of concurrent connections that were available. Overall, it was found that the dynamic architectural topology directly affected social interaction, while social interaction itself re-shaped the topology. These findings are of direct relevance to current developments, which aim to use communications media to overcome the spatial dispersion of work groups in modern organizations. Finally, the differences in use that were observed between groups of inhabitants suggest that spatial cognition in Mixed Reality is affected both by the interface technology and by the social practices surrounding it. In response, it is suggested that in order to investigate the new generation of mixed physical and virtual technologies, cognitive science should take into account their affordances as ‘virtual extensions’ to both our bodies and to our environment.

Submitted by Isaac Francisco de Souza Dias (isaac.souzadias@ufpe.br) on 2016-07-08T18:58:50Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) dissertaçao_sem_assinada.pdf: 713571 bytes, checksum: 9ed07946ec33f7974bdc7767a9e928fe (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-08T18:58:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) dissertaçao_sem_assinada.pdf: 713571 bytes, checksum: 9ed07946ec33f7974bdc7767a9e928fe (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-22 / CAPES / Nesta dissertação, tratamos de refinamentos para testes de hipóteses em modelos de regressão não lineares heteroscedásticos. Na primeira parte da dissertação, reunimos resultados importantes da literatura sobre correção de Bartlett às razão de verossimilhanças perfiladas modificadas (CYSNEIROS; FERRARI, 2006) e razão de verossimilhanças bootstrap (ROCKE, 1989) nos modelos de regressão não lineares da família exponencial com parâmetros de dispersão que não são constantes para todas as observações, respectivamente. Na segunda parte, obtemos um fator de correção tipo-Bartlett para a estatística gradiente (TERRELL, 2002), nesta classe de modelos. Na terceira parte, desenvolvemos estudos de simulação Monte Carlo para avaliar e comparar numericamente os desempenhos dos testes em amostras finitas. Finalmente, realizamos uma aplicação empírica. / In this dissertation, we deal with refinements for hypothesis tests in nonlinear heteroskedastic regression models. Firstly, we describe important results in the literature on Bartlett corrections to the modified profile likelihood ratio and likelihood ratio bootstrap to the class of the exponential family nonlinear models with dispersion parameters that are not constant over the observations, respectively. Secondly, we obtain a Bartlett-type correction to the gradient statistic in this class of models. Thirdly, the finite-sample performances of the various tests considered in this dissertation are evaluated and compared using Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, we present one empirical application.

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Submitted by Danielle Karla Martins Silva (danielle.martins@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-12T13:25:58Z No. of bitstreams: 2 CD- Dissertação Thiago A. N. de Andrade.pdf: 787795 bytes, checksum: eccb193488aebfede11aa4dd03b03587 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-12T13:25:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 CD- Dissertação Thiago A. N. de Andrade.pdf: 787795 bytes, checksum: eccb193488aebfede11aa4dd03b03587 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / CNPq / A classe de Modelos Lineares Generalizados com Superdispersão (MLGSs) proposta por Dey et al. (1997), tem sido amplamente utilizada na modelagem de dados cuja variância da variável resposta excede o valor nominal predito no modelo. O principal objetivo da presente dissertação é a obtenção de um fator de correção de Bartlett, segundo a metodologia proposta por DiCiccio e Stern (1994), à estatística da razão de verossimilhanças perfiladas ajustadas proposta por Cox e Reid (1987) para o teste conjunto dos efeitos da dispersão nesta classe de modelos. Estudos de simulação de Monte Carlo foram realizados com o objetivo de avaliar os desempenhos dos testes baseados nas estatísticas da razão de verossimilhanças usual (LR), razão de verossimilhanças perfiladas ajustadas (LRpa) e razão de verossimilhanças perfiladas ajustadas corrigida (LRc pa), no que se refere a tamanho e poder em amostras finitas. Os resultados numéricos obtidos favorecem o teste proposto nesta dissertação.

Includes the novel and exegetical essay. / With: "Knitting a novel" in the back section of the volume bound upside down. / Bibliography: p. 92-97. / 97, 244 p. ; 30cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Discipline of English, Creative Writing, 2006

The empirical likelihood method introduced by Owen (1988, 1990) is a powerful nonparametric method for statistical inference. It has been one of the most researched methods in statistics in the last twenty-five years and remains to be a very active area of research today. There is now a large body of literature on empirical likelihood method which covers its applications in many areas of statistics (Owen, 2001). One important problem affecting the empirical likelihood method is its poor accuracy, especially for small sample and/or high-dimension applications. The poor accuracy can be alleviated by using high-order empirical likelihood methods such as the Bartlett corrected empirical likelihood but it cannot be completely resolved by high-order asymptotic methods alone. Since the work of Tsao (2004), the impact of the convex hull constraint in the formulation of the empirical likelihood on the finite sample accuracy has been better understood, and methods have been developed to break this constraint in order to improve the accuracy. Three important methods along this direction are [1] the penalized empirical likelihood of Bartolucci (2007) and Lahiri and Mukhopadhyay (2012), [2] the adjusted empirical likelihood by Chen, Variyath and Abraham (2008), Emerson and Owen (2009), Liu and Chen (2010) and Chen and Huang (2012), and [3] the extended empirical likelihood of Tsao (2013) and Tsao and Wu (2013). The latter is particularly attractive in that it retains not only the asymptotic properties of the original empirical likelihood, but also its important geometric characteristics. In this thesis, we generalize the extended empirical likelihood of Tsao and Wu (2013) to handle inferences in two large classes of one-sample and two-sample problems. In Chapter 2, we generalize the extended empirical likelihood to handle inference for the large class of parameters defined by one-sample estimating equations, which includes the mean as a special case. In Chapters 3 and 4, we generalize the extended empirical likelihood to handle two-sample problems; in Chapter 3, we study the extended empirical likelihood for the difference between two p-dimensional means; in Chapter 4, we consider the extended empirical likelihood for the difference between two p-dimensional parameters defined by estimating equations. In all cases, we give both the first- and second-order extended empirical likelihood methods and compare these methods with existing methods. Technically, the two-sample mean problem in Chapter 3 is a special case of the general two-sample problem in Chapter 4. We single out the mean case to form Chapter 3 not only because it is a standalone published work, but also because it naturally leads up to the more difficult two-sample estimating equations problem in Chapter 4. We note that Chapter 2 is the published paper Tsao and Wu (2014); Chapter 3 is the published paper Wu and Tsao (2014). To comply with the University of Victoria policy regarding the use of published work for thesis and in accordance with copyright agreements between authors and journal publishers, details of these published work are acknowledged at the beginning of these chapters. Chapter 4 is another joint paper Tsao and Wu (2015) which has been submitted for publication. / Graduate / 0463 / fwu@uvic.ca

The aim of this work is to question the notion of space that underlies the claimed ‘spatial turn’ in geographical and social theory. Section 1 examines this theoretical literature, drawing heavily on Soja as the self declared taxonomist of the genre, and also seeks parallels with more populist texts on cities and space, to suggest, following Williams, that there is a new ‘structure of feeling’ towards space. Section 1 introduces two foundational concepts. The first, derived from Soja’s misunderstanding of Borges’ story The Aleph, argues for an ‘alephic vision’, an imposition of a de-materialized and revelatory understanding of space. This is related to the second, an ‘ecstatic vision’, which describes the tendency, illustrated through the work of Koolhaas and recent exhibitions on the experience of cities, to treat spatial and material experience in hyperbolic and hallucinatory terms. Section 2 offers a series of theoretical reconstructions which seek to draw out parallels between the work of key theorists of what I term the ‘respatialization’ literature (Harvey, Giddens, Foucault and Lefebvre) and the work of Hillier et al in the Space Syntax school. A series of empirical studies demonstrate that the approach to the material realm offered by Space Syntax is not only theoretically compatible but can also help to explain ‘real world’ phenomena. However, the elision with wider theoretical positions points to the need for a reworking of elements of Space Syntax, and steps towards this goal are offered in section 3. In the final ‘speculative epilogue’ I reopen the philosophical debates about the nature of space, deliberately suppressed from the beginning, and suggest that perhaps the apparent theoretical and empirical versatility of Space Syntax, based upon a configurational approach to space as a complex relational system, may offer an alternative approach to these enduring metaphysical debates.