Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1983.

This essay focuses on location and class in The Great Gatsby. The essay argues that the aspect of location has a defining role in the characters' effort to become a part of the leisure class. The essay will show that some characters use location to elevate their social status and consequently become members of the leisure class: Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom and Daisy Buchanan all use location to elevate their social standing. In addition the essay will show how location works against the characters Myrtle and George in their desire for a better life, and consequently they have to use other methods to try to acquire what they want. Thus, as location is shown to be a method for elevating the characters' social status it also becomes apparent that this method is only available for those who already have a substantial amount of money.

Land surface models (LSMs) simulate vertical fluxes, including evapotranspiration, in a rigorous manner, and are included in atmospheric models, including Regional and Global Circulation Models (RCMs and GCMs). Large-scale hydrological models on the other hand simulate the lateral processes that generate streamflow. Coupling of the two models (referred to as a hydrological land surface model) has the potential to combine the strengths of each. The MESH model developed at Environment Canada is such model that combines the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) with a distributed hydrological model called WATFLOOD. In this thesis, the performance of the MESH model was explored using two different runoff generation schemes (i.e., elementary and enhanced runoff generation) and with a priori parameter values and with parameter calibration. The model was tested in the White Gull creek Basin located in the boreal forest, central Saskatchewan using meteorology and flux data recorded at two monitoring stations within the basin for driving and validation. Application of the model with a priori parameter values without calibration resulted in poor performance in simulating both streamflow and evapotranspiration while optimization to calibrate the model to the observed streamflow resulted in a good performance. Streamflow simulation with enhanced runoff generation included performed even better. The optimal model configuration was taken forward for a detailed parameter sensitivity analysis. Univariate analysis was used for pre-screening the parameter space to eliminate insensitive parameters, and subsequently multivariate analysis was performed for a subset of parameters. Vegetation parameters were more identifiable when an objective function measuring the fit to observed latent heat flux was used than when measuring the fit to streamflow. Physiographic and topographic parameters were more identifiable when a streamflow objective function was used. Streamflow was more sensitive to parameter variability than latent heat flux. The use of multiple objective functions to simultaneously constrain the model was explored. Selection of objective function had no significant effect on the simulated evapotranspiration but had some influence on streamflow. Using NSE objective function with streamflow was found to be the most effective way of identifying the best model runs. The additional constraints imposed by evapotranspiration had no impact on the results.

An important sub-field of machine learning is the inductive formation of a pertinent class description. Given a collection of positive and negative examples of the concept, the aim is to create a description not only capable of correctly classifying the training examples, but one able to be used predictively on unseen examples. This thesisi nvestigatesth e problemo f inductivec onceptf ormation in poorly understood domains.M any well-understoodp roblemse xist wheret he individual attribute-valueuss ed to describee xamplesv ary systematicallyw ith categorym embership.O ften this meanst hat such descriptions are sufficient to identify significant regularities in the concept. In contrastm, anyr eal-worldp roblemsa rep oorly understoodi,. e . examplesa re describedb y a relatively large number of seemingly irrelevant attributes (because expertise is often unavailablet o specify a suitable level of abstractionw hen measurementas re initially recorded). The fundamentaal ssumptionb eing that when combinedi n somew ay, these attributes are complete enough to identify the target concept. This initial language insufficiency,o ften causedb y concealeda ttributei nteractionp resentsp roblemsf or many current induction algorithms which typically reply on uncovering simpler correlations. For all but the simplestp roblems,t he combinatoriale xplosiona ssociatedw ith unconstrained hypothesis generation means that the inductive process must employ more intelligent mechanisms. A two-stage solution is proposed based on first identifying whether the initial problem formulation has the potential to cause difficulties for typical inductive learners. A qualitative measure based on a novel information theoretic function is used to gauge the absence of conditional dependencies between attributes. This approach is compared to other current identification measures, in particular a bias towards misleading estimates of concept difficulty due to irrelevant attributes is addressed. Once the level of attribute interaction has been estimated one of two learning components is selected for acquiring the relevant concept. For low to moderate degrees of attribute interaction, a general-to-specific beam search is utilised. However this mechanism focuses the induction process on the most promising hypotheses by utilising relative assessment measures i. e. the degree with which a specialised hypothesis improves with respect to its constituent parts. This relative improvement becomes increasingly important as conditional dependencies increase. In addition, a pair of relative bounds are calculated for each hypothesis based on the assessmenht euristic used for validation whilst learning. These bounds place limits on the number of negative examples a hypothesis can cover and still outperform its best constituent part. These bounds result in a substantial reduction in the number of poor hypotheses generated during concept formation. For extremel evels of featurei nteraction,a specific-to-generagl reedy searcht echniquei s employed. This approach is more likely to uncover hidden interactions than approaches that begin hypothesisf ormationb asedo n one-dimensionapl rojections. This combination of search direction and a heuristic based on Minimum Description Length, ensures that highly conditional dependenciecsa n be pinpointed. In addition a number of speedup operatorsa re developedw hich curtail the numbero f tentativeh ypothesesg enerateda nd alsor esulti n fewerp roblemsa ssociatedw ith local searchs pacem inima.

Objective: To determine the magnitude of the skeletal and dental movements in subjects with different facial patterns following Class II correction using the XbowTM appliance. Materials and Methods: A retrospective sample of 134 subjects exhibiting Class II malocclusions was used. Subjects were categorized into three growth types according to pre-treatment cephalometric variables (MPA and Y-axis), which yielded 27 brachycephalic, 70 mesocephalic, and 37 dolichocephalic subjects. A ANOVA test statistic was used to investigate the differences between the three facial groups at pre and post-treatment time points. Results: Dental changes induced by the XbowTM appliance included: proclination of the lower incisors (L1-MP 7.3-12.3o±1.0o), protrusion of the lower incisors (L1-APo 2.1-3.8mm±0.3mm), mesial movement of the mandibular first molar (5.5-6.9mm±0.7mm) and retrusion of the maxillary incisor (2.4-3.1mm±0.4mm). Retroclination of the maxillary incisor (U1-PP 0.2-0.8o±0.7o) and distal movement of the maxillary molar (0.4-0.7mm±0.3mm) were not significantly influenced by XbowTM treatment. Reduction of the skeletal Class II relationship was represented by a significant decrease of the Wits value (2.4-4.5mm±0.5mm) in all three groups. The p value was considered significant at <0.05. Conclusions: Class II correction with the XbowTM appliance is the result of mesial movement of the mandibular molar, proclination/protrusion of the lower incisor and retrusion of the upper incisor. Skeletal correction must be validated by more than one cephalometric variable. Facial growth pattern appears to be unrelated to the amount of dental movement and there is a trend for pronounced dental movements of the lower incisor in brachycephalic patients.

The conceptual and empirical analysis of the interrelationship between gender and ethnicity has been largely neglected in the social sciences in general, and in Latin America in particular. The current research examines this relationship in the context of the local labour market of the Caribbean port of Limon, Costa Rica. The presence of a significant Afro-Caribbean minority along with the predominant white/mestizo population in the city, allows for the analysis of the distribution of ethnic and gender groups in the local economy, and the ways in which gender and ethnicity intersect with one another to produce particular patterns of employment differentiation. The above interrelations are explored with special reference to labour market segmentation and segregation. The approach adopted comprises the synthesis of three perspectives, the first of which is concerned with tracing the historical development of the region and city as an enclave economy. The second perspective deals with the labour market itself where current patterns of labour demand also influence segmentation and segregation. The third examines the contemporary household level, where factors such as household structure and gender ideologies (both of which may be mediated by ethnicity) operate to shape the supply of labour. Combination of the above three elements in the context of an holistic approach indicates that the configuration of employment differentiation in the enclave economy of Limon departs from more generally found patterns of vertical segmentation in gender and ethnic terms. Instead, horizontal distribution prevails in which Afro-Caribbean women do not occupy the most subordinate position in the labour market. Explanations for this lie in the historical evolution of the labour market and the dynamics of interaction between contemporary factors operating within the spheres of both household and workplace. A survey of 250 randomly-sampled households was conducted in three low-income settlements in Limon using structured and semi-structured questionnaires and targeting both male and female respondents. An employer survey was also conducted of 17 firms in the city, including large and small-scale enterprises. The principal conclusion is that a reconsideration of conventional conceptual approaches to labour markets is necessary in order to fully recognise the importance of the interaction between gender and ethnicity in employment differentiation.

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