Since the nineteenth century, social exclusion and inclusion have been prominent concepts in policy debates across Europe. This thesis discusses the fact that poverty and social exclusion are often seen as closely related, overlapping or even indistinguishable in the existing literature. Thus there are no uncontested definitions of poverty, social exclusion and inclusion, and these concepts remain the subject of definitional disagreements among intellectuals. This research has tried to bring out these concepts in a gender perspective on Bangladesh as a developing country, examining indigenous women’s status at the domestic and wider societal levels and recent developments in this. The data were collected using qualitative methods. Data analysis was done through the qualitative approaches that are presented by thematic analysis. The findings of this research indicate that the processes of social exclusion and inclusion of indigenous people, especially women, need to be addressed in a policy paper, since creating appropriate policy tools would be the best way of spreading – rather than imposing – the basic values and standards necessary to give a sense of inclusion to all the people of Bangladesh. At the same time, this research has highlighted the fact that, though Chakma and Garo indigenous women live in communities with different social structures – patriarchal for Chakma women and matrilineal for Garo women – in practice these two groups share common life experiences.

This is a study exploring the effects of blog assisted language learning (BALL) in the EFL writing classroom in Taiwan. It focuses principally on a comparative experimental project that was carried out over the period of one academic year. The project involved two groups of first year university students of a low intermediate level in English. There were 25 students in each group, and both groups were taught by the same teacher-researcher (i.e. the author of this thesis). In this thesis, we present a detailed statistical examination of various aspects of BALL, including students’ writing performance, learning motivation towards writing and self-efficacy beliefs with regard to their EFL writing skills and abilities. We also take a corpus-based look into the written language collected from both of the groups using a series of numerical counts obtained by computerised measurements. We also present the results of a qualitative, phenomenological analysis that reflects the nature of the participants’ BALL experience. The overall argument of the thesis is that BALL is at best no more effective than traditional approaches to EFL writing pedagogy, and in some cases is actually less effective than traditional, low-tech methods.

The thesis explores the mysticism of service and moral living of the nāyaṉmār through a comprehensive study of the Tamil literary and devotional masterpiece i.e. the Periya Purāṇam or the ‘Great Epic Narrative’. As a twelfth century poetical hagiography that reflects the lives of the nāyaṉmār or Tamil spiritual leaders, the mysticism of this sacred and canonical text of Tamil Śaivism is neither appreciated, as it deserves to be, nor has it been sufficiently studied in academia. The modest research is intended to fill a vacuum in the literature of Tamil Śaiva mysticism. Besides this primary purpose, the research aims to make an academic contribution by introducing this mysticism of service and moral living of the nāyaṉmār as narrated in the Periya Purāṇam to a wider academic community and to the Tamil Śaiva religious community at large. The claim is that this mysticism that is embedded in the text has been largely overlooked. Through an integral approach of hagiographical and thematic exegesis, it is argued that Cēkkiḻār, the author, by imbuing himself in the mystical quest of the early Tamil literary, moral and devotional traditions, textured around these nāyaṉmār, initiates a way to Śiva that was foreign to the Tamil tradition of his milieu. Cēkkiḻār shapes his mystical theology and ideology in the form of two aims i.e. service and moral living. By his radical theology of Siva, he presents a theology of service and moral living which is ‘Person’ centred and a mystical thirst for Transcendence which is ‘Divine’ oriented. This interplay of cosmic and meta-cosmic levels of mystical experience provided a worldview, an alternative vision for political and social change in Tamil society.

Global value chain (GVC) analysis serves an important role in the global economy and development. Whereas research on governance is well documented in GVC research, only recently has the institutional context emerged as a new dimension of GVC analysis. This thesis integrates critical frameworks of governance, including the five types of governance of Gereffi et al. (2005) and institutional theory with the four mechanism of Beckert (2010), to develop further analysis of GVCs. These frameworks are fundamental for exploring the nature of problematic issues, such as tensions, in re-shaping GVC structures. The research employs method triangulation in both data collection (semi-structured interviews, observations and documents) and analysis (thematic analysis, discursive devices and institutional logics) to achieve the research objective of solving the institutional governance tensions within GVCs in the research setting of the Vietnam Textile and Garment Industry. The findings show that tensions stem mainly from two resources, symmetrical power and new circumstances. Although tension is often neglected or considered a negative factor in management, it can motivate creative responses and effectively serve as a motional factor. In any form, the influence of tension on GVC structures occurs in both convergent and divergent trends but creates a new balance of power between actors in the chain.

This thesis examines and re-evaluates what interculturality means and how it manifests itself in contemporary Asian Shakespeare performances. The thesis is organised into four chapters. The first three chapters focus on the distinctive theatre cultures of South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore respectively. Each of these three chapters includes brief historical surveys that trace the development of Shakespeare production, and contextualises the diverse approaches to, and concepts of, intercultural Shakespearean performativity in these countries. These chapters also contain performance case studies that are representative of twenty-first century Asian Shakespeare productions from South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. The close analysis of these selected Shakespeare performances explores the larger topics of authenticity, translation and identity. These performances also demonstrate how theatrical interculturalism impacts and complicate the ways in which we understand these common subjects in Shakespeare performance studies. Through these historical reviews and in-depth performance analysis, the thesis reassesses the value and validity of existing intercultural theory, and attempts to expand this field of study by suggesting alterative ways of thinking about intercultural Shakespeare performance. Chapter Four puts forward a proposed model of theatrical interculturalism that can be used to consider and discuss different types of (inter)cultural exchanges that materialise in Shakespeare performance.

If the media and politicians are to be believed diplomatic visits from government officials and their entourage to existing and potential trade partners can have a dramatic impact on future international trade and investment, China’s emergences as a global trading power has put visits from and to China in the spot light. In this thesis, we examine the impact of Chinese leaders’ visits as well as the impact of foreign dignitaries who have visited China on China’s international trade and FDI. Employing log-linear and Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) approaches, the gravity model finds little evidence that diplomatic visits are effective to promote international trade between China and the rest of world. Diplomatic visits appear to exert different impact on trade with two relatively homogeneous groups of countries, African countries and OECD countries. In addition, it is found that diplomatic visits are significantly associated with a higher amount of OECD outward FDI to China.

China is facing epidemic of cardiovascular disease propelled by obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and hyperglycaemia. Epidemiological studies are continuing to show an increase in the prevalence of the aforementioned cardiovascular disease risk factors in the Chinese and studies are yet to shown signs of abating. Diet is able to affect the cardiovascular function by influencing the risk factors but very little is known about the diets of the Chinese. This thesis identified three dietary patterns (Non-nut and Non-cruciferous Vegetable, High Protein-High Fat, Omnivorous) using principal component factor analysis and examined the cross-sectional relationships with hyperglycaemia, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome in 20,146 middle-aged and older Chinese adults. The Non-nut and Non-cruciferous Vegetable diet was adversely associated with hyperglycaemia and the metabolic syndrome but showed no association with hypertension. The High Protein-High Fat diet was associated with reduced risk of hyperglycaemia and hypertension but exhibited no relationship with the metabolic syndrome. The Omnivorous diet was inversely associated with hyperglycaemia and the metabolic syndrome but demonstrated an adverse association with hypertension. In addition, the thesis developed a conceptual model and highlighted the putative mechanisms mediating the relationships between the High Protein-High Fat diet and cardiovascular disease risk factors using the structural equation model.

Willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) has become an important focus of inquiry in applied linguistics over the last decade or so. However, little is currently understood about the practical tasks of producing communicatively competent L2 users in Chinese higher education, an aim which has been fully recognized by the English language teaching (ELT) sector in China. In order to fill this gap, this research study was conducted in one of the universities in mid-east China over a period of one academic term with the aim to produce an empirically-supported fine-grained portrait of Chinese EFL learners’ L2 WTC in actual communication actions. Informed by complexity theory and adopting a qualitative multi-case study research design, this research focused on five first-year postgraduate student participants and investigated their L2 WTC experiences in communicative actions through multiple sources of data, including individual life story interviews, ethnographic classroom observations followed by stimulated recall interviews, and photo-based interviews. The findings confirm L2 WTC as a multidimensional and complex construct, and further demonstrated that the features and trajectories of individuals’ L2 WTC are interrelated, dynamic and largely unpredictable. This study has also identified a construct that seems central to understand L2 WTC: socially constructed future self-guides. The study has shown that our understanding of students’ actual L2 engagement offers critical pointers for practical interventions for encouraging and supporting language learners’ development of a healthy sense of self with regards to L2 learning and, consequently, of their L2 WTC.

When an ancient Near Eastern city was besieged and looted the statues and cultic appurtenances of the gods were often confiscated by the conquerors. Their loss was more than a heavy blow to the defeated people: the statue was the god‘s representation on earth and watched over and protected the city so his abandonment of his city was thought to have a lasting devastating effect. From the point of view of the conqueror the statue could be used not only as a tool of intimidation but for bribery and a crude form of diplomacy and as propaganda for his might and glory. In this thesis the history of the phenomenon of godnap is explored for the first time and there is also an investigation of related problems in religion and cultural history. At the outset a detailed investigation of the numinous character of an ancient Mesopotamian statue is given including an account of the ritual that imbued it with this divine quality. Special attention is given to Marduk of Babylon and the episodes in which even he found himself the victim of theft. The thesis includes an excursus on evocatio and parallels between Hittite and ancient Roman practices are drawn.

Este trabalho é um estudo de raízes para aplicações f : S → Wn, onde S é uma superfície compacta, conexa e sem bordo e Wn é o espaço obtido pela reunião em um ponto do círculo S1 com n esferas S2 . / The propose of this work is studies the root problem for maps f : S → Wn, where S is a closed, connected, compact surface and W n is the space obtained by the one point union of circle S1 and n spheres S2.