This dissertation investigates the determinants of China's exports and regional economic growth, the direction of causality between foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports; and convergence analysis among Chinese provinces. The study firstly discusses the evolutional process of China's foreign trade regime through comparing the strategies and policies before 1978 with those after 1978. It is emphasised that the export-promotion development policies result in the recent basic export patterns and characteristics. Furthermore, the study reviews the existing literature on exports, FDI, and convergence/growth determinants in the case of China. The empirical work comprises three parts. Firstly, fixed-effects ordinary least squares (OLS) and random-effects generalised least squares (GLS) panel data estimators are applied to test the determinants of provincial exports from 1994 to 2003. It is found that FDI, geographical location, investment in manufacturing innovation, and human capital have significant influences on regional export performance. Secondly, the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) tests are carried out to test stationarity and the Granger causality tests are conducted to test the causal direction between FDI and exports, based on monthly national data from January, 2002 to June, 2006. The empirical results indicate that there is a one-way complementary causal link from FDI inflows to China's export flows. Thirdly, three methods, beta convergence, sigma convergence, and Markov Chain analysis, are used to do convergence debate among China's regions and the standard OLS cross-section and random-effects GLS panel data are applied to test the conditional convergence. The results suggest that the convergence hypothesis does not hold in China between 1994 and 2003 and there is a sign of conditional convergence, conditioning the explanatory variables such as exports, human capital, and population growth. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

This thesis aims to compare the political discourses of immigration and integration of political parties in Canada and Germany from 2008 to 2013. As some scholars have noted a convergence of immigration and integration policies in Western liberal democracies, this thesis seeks to identify whether a convergence of discourses took place in Canada and Germany, or whether the different national traditions of immigration and integration in Canada and Germany remain stronger in influence than forces of convergence, like international organization or treaties, on immigration and integration discourses. Coming from a critical constructivist perspective and applying a discourse analysis that builds on Lene Hansen and Roxanne Lynn Doty’s work, this thesis found that no convergence of immigration and integration discourses in Canada and Germany took place. Different national traditions appear to remain more central for immigration and integration discourses in both Canada and Germany. / Graduate / 0615 / b.c.hoffmann@gmx.net

Data from satellites and reanalysis products are analyzed to study the behavior of wave trains in the three major Southern Hemisphere Convergences zones: the South Pacific, the South Atlantic, and the South Indian. Using composites on high rain-rate days, a wave pattern is identified that is characteristic of high rain events. This wave pattern is then compared to the patterns of variability of brightness temperature using empirical orthogonal functions. A linear regression technique is used to examine the behavior of potential vorticity corresponding to the patterns of maximum variance. Planetary-scale waves, propagating in favorable regions, slow and break, dragging streamers of moisture from the tropics into higher latitudes. These streamers, combined with lifting, lead to the enhanced rain seen in the Southern Hemisphere’s convergence zones. It is concluded that the convergence zones are areas of enhanced streamer activity and that a more thorough study of streamers will yield more information on the structure and behavior of the convergence zones.

In the first part of this thesis, the design of a compass robot is explored by considering its components and their interaction with each other. Three components including robot's structure, gear and motor are interacting during design process to achieve better performance, higher stability and lower cost. In addition, the modeling of the system is upgraded by considering the torque-velocity constraint in the motor. Adding this constraint of DC motor make the interaction of different components more complicated since it affects the gear and walking dynamics. After achieving the design method, different actuators (motor+ gear+ batteries) are selected for a given structure and the their performance is compared in the terms of cost, efficiency and their effect on the walking stability. In the second part of the thesis, structural optimization of the compass robot with stability constraint is investigated. The stability of a compass robot as a hybrid system is analyzed by Poincare map. Including stability analysis in the optimization process, makes it very complicated. In addition, the objective function of the system has to be evaluated in the convergent limit cycle. Different methods are examined to solve this problem. Limit cycle convergence is the best solution among the existing methods. By adding convergence constraint to the optimization, in addition of making the stability analysis valid, it helps the optimization estimates the correct objective function in each iteration. Finally, the optimization process is improved in two steps. The first step is using a predictive model in the optimization which covers the stable domain so that one does not need to check the stability of walking in each iteration. The Support Vector Domain Description (SVDD) approach which is applied to establish the stable domain, improve the decreases the optimization time. Another important step to upgrade the optimization is developing a computational algorithm which obtains the convergent limit cycle and its fixed-point in a short time. This algorithm speeds up the optimization time tremendously and allows the optimization search in a broader area. Combining SVDD approach in combination with Fixed-Point Finder Algorithm improve the optimization in the terms of time and broader area for search.

This dissertation explores the production, circulation, and regulation of Shanzhai online videos in order to understand how people's everyday lives are governed and how the governing power is resisted through the media system in contemporary China. This research is situated in the specific socio-cultural and historical context where Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have proliferated among various social strata, where the media are both the propagandistic mouthpiece and a profit-oriented industry, and where people are encouraged to pursue their life goals under a neoliberal rationality that is pervasive in media. I use a Foucauldian framework to examine the power modalities and power relationships manifested in the Shanzhai practices. I argue that both disciplinary power and the power of governmentality are found in this cultural practice. It is through the production, circulation and regulation of Shanzhai videos that power is exercised on different parties involved in this process as governance and resistance. This power relationship, I argue, is explicated through a ritualistic view of the reality presented in the trans-media, trans-genre narratives that people internalize in order to develop specific ways of using media to pursue their life goals. Meanwhile, people also employ various strategies to negotiate for resources to achieve these goals. In these negotiations, power relationships manifested themselves as their actions upon each other. Ordinary people are disciplined through patterned uses of media to live their lives and governed by a neoliberal mentality to pursue their life projects on the Internet. However, there is more than one set of discourses with a claim to the "truth" about Shanzhai in Chinese media. Thus, people are also empowered to take advantage of this discrepancy to gain symbolic as well as material favors. This study examined a nuanced and dialectic power relationship in contemporary Chinese society. First, it is found that people are both empowered and subjected to the ways they use media to pursue personal goals. Second, the resistance in the Shanzhai practices not only brought them symbolic power as much previous literature suggests, but also material resources such as media access and sponsorship. Last, the holistic view of the media system helps us situate Shanzhai online videos in the convergent media environment and draw a better picture of the web of power relationships.

Convergence acceleration techniques for the iterative solution of system of equations arising in the discretisations of compressible flow problems governed by the steady state Euler or Navier-Stokes equations is considered. The system of PDE is discretised using a finite difference or finite volume method yielding a large sparse system of equations. A solution is computed by integrating the corresponding time dependent problem in time until steady state is reached. A convergence acceleration technique based on semicirculant approximations is applied. For scalar model problems, it is proved that the preconditioned coefficient matrix has a bounded spectrum well separated from the origin. A very simple time marching scheme such as the forward Euler method can be used, and the time step is not limited by a CFL-type criterion. Instead, the time step can asymptotically be chosen as a constant, independent of the number of grid points and the Reynolds number. Numerical experiments show that grid and parameter independent convergence is achieved also in more complicated problem settings. A comparison with a multigrid method shows that the semicirculant convergence acceleration technique is more efficient in terms of arithmetic complexity. Another convergence acceleration technique based on fundamental solutions is proposed. An algorithm based on Fourier technique is provided for the fast application. Scalar model problems are considered and a theory, where the preconditioner is represented as an integral operator is derived. Theory and numerical experiments show that for first order partial differential equations, grid independent convergence is achieved.

This is a revisionist audience study examining the everyday media cultures of twenty-four young teenage girls from Melbourne in Australia. It argues that in an era of proliferated and convergent media, audience studies cannot restrict its vision to a single media text, technology, or genre. / It takes a broad approach to girls’ media culture and considers the full range of media that girls engage with on a daily basis. It identifies a hegemonic discourse about girls’ media use which it calls “(feminist) new media effects”. This anxiety takes as its key concern the proliferation of media and mediated representations of girls across the spaces of everyday life. (Feminist) new media effects discourse renders girls passive and unable to cope with such media presence without the guidance of adults to teach them how to correctly engage with the media. In order to challenge this construction, the thesis examines participants’ engagements with a range of convergent media texts and technologies, including Internet social networking, repeat DVD spectatorship, young female celebrities, and discourses of moral panic. It shows how mediated representations of girls across these sites are embedded in the fabric of participants’ everyday lives. Apart from highlighting the challenge that this poses to the practice of conducting audience research, it demonstrates the ways that girls both resist and incorporate mediated constructions of femininity within their everyday negotiations of teenage girlhood. It argues that the representation of girlhood constructed in (feminist) new media effects discourse – the vulnerable girl overwhelmed by toxic media messages – is key to girls’ media culture. My findings indicate that participants are primarily invested in resisting this construction of youthful femininity.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2008. / Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 166 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Tez (Yüksek Lisans) - Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Matematik Anabilim Dalı, 2008. / Bibliyografya var.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed on June 23, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-95).