This research is a fulfilment of the author’s long-standing desire to furnish the Korea Baptist convention with its complete history. Particular emphasis has been given to the ideological development of the denomination from its origin in 1889 to present. It is hoped that this research will provided intellectual guidance for the convention and serve as a credible chapter in the historical and theological development of Korean Christianity especially Baptists and Pentecostals-Charismatics. Being the first attempt in compiling a comprehensive, scientific history of the denomination, this work based largely upon primary sources, many of them are unpublished. The methodology utilized by the author incorporated both documentary study and observation or interview. Accordingly, Korean documents are extensively used, while English sources comprise equally important grounds of information. Proper names have been trans-literate as closely to their original sound as possible. In pursuing the study the author has followed a strictly objective method. Any deficiency that might be found in this undertaking belongs solely to the realm of his judgment. As a foreigner the author is well aware of the lack of his rhetorical subtlety in English language. The writer hopes that this research will give a momentum for both Korea Baptist Convention and Pentecostals-Charismatics within Korean Christianity to reflect on the efforts which had been made for the expansion of Christianity in Korea, and to catch a vision for the future work, which God will reveal through his word and His Spirit.

Between 30 and 14ka the Arabian Gulf was a river valley possibly comprising large freshwater lakes, marshland and estuaries. As a possible environmental refugia this landscape is important, particularly as prehistoric research in Arabia has yet to find any “evidence for human presence between 38 and 11ka” (Bretzke et al. 2013), poignantly at the same time as the Gulf became free of marine influence. This might suggest that attempting to piece together the jigsaw of regional prehistory without reference to the former sub-aerial Arabian Gulf landscape is to ignore a significant part of the puzzle. This research combines the results of excavations on Neolithic Littoral Gulf Ubaid sites with marine fieldwork in order to investigate late Palaeolithic/early Neolithic dispersals. This is contextualised through geomorphology, hydrology, geophysics and environmental analysis. This research has highlighted thousands of new sites in Qatar of all periods, and put in place effective methodologies for conservation and management of both the terrestrial environment and the Arabian Gulf submerged landscape. Importantly, terrestrial research has identified landscape signatures that informs research into the submerged Gulf landscape.

In 1999, Korea adopted the Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS) to enhance fiscal efficiency by preventing unsuitable projects from being allocated a budget in the budget selection (BS) process. The PFS uses both economic and non-economic assessment criteria. However, according to data collected since the introduction of the PFS, about 30 per cent of projects not recommended for budget allocation received a budget. This raises questions about the relationship between the PFS and budget allocation. According to previous research, three issues about the effect of the PFS on budgetary decisions caused concern: the effect of PFS results on budgetary decisions, the appropriateness of the current PFS methodology, and the potential non-neutral behaviour of stakeholders taking part in the PFS. To deal with these, the thesis uses three key research questions: What is the impact of PFS results on budgetary decisions? Does the current PFS methodology lead to inappropriate decisions? And, lastly, what are the types of, extent of, and reasons for non-neutral behaviour by stakeholders in the PFS, and how might such behaviour be reduced? The study suggests that PFS results have a positive impact on budgetary decisions. The thesis also examines the appropriateness of the current PFS methodology and provides potential alternatives through both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Lastly, the thesis provides evidence of non-neutral behaviours by stakeholders in the PFS, which are categorized into four types: Promoter, Blocker, Dr. Pangloss, and Cassandra type. After this, this thesis examines the reasons for non-neutral behaviour and suggests possible policy alternatives for reducing non-neutral behaviour.

Purpose- The main purpose of this research is to develop and validate the innovation resistance model across Middle Eastern countries. Design/ Methodology/ Approach- The solar panel is used as an example of a disruptive innovation in the Middle East. Data is collected by distributing questionnaires from 810 houshold decision makers from residential areas across three countries in the Middle East: Iran, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The main method of analysis is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Findings- The results show that fatalism and traditionalism are key cultural indicators of innovation resistance in the Middle East. In addition, the prominent role of consumer innovators in reducing resistance to innovation is approved. Research Implications- None of the previous studies have developed an empirical model of innovation resistance using a wide range of forces, i.e. culture, consumer characteristics, attributes of innovation and socio-demographics. Practical Implications- Fast diffusion of innovations can be challenging within fatalistic and traditional societies. Marketers should position solar panels as a continuous innovation that fits well within the context of past experience. In addition consumer innovators as opinion leaders can influence and advise other members of a society to make a purchase decision and should be targeted by marketers.

This thesis seek to provide a study of the evolutionary process of ancient civilizations stressing the complementarily between theoretical principles with the relevant historical evidence. For this reason, the study will focus on the origin, development and collapse of the first stage of the ‘Central Civilization’, which was the result of the merger of two primeval civilizations, such as Mesopotamia and Egypt, during the ‘Near Eastern phase’ of this Central Civilisation. This merger seems to have been the result of the political expansion of an imperial entity coming from Mesopotamia under the aegis of the so-called Neo-Assyrian Empire from 1000 BC to 600 BC – better known as the \(Pax\) \(Assyriaca\) – although the process of full integration with Egypt seems to have been concluded by the successor empires of Assyria circa 430 BC.

This thesis is to build bridges between the West and China for a better understanding of the recent history of Christianity in China. Regarding western Christians we have to take into account the two Opium Wars and the following historical events. Because they had a significant negative impact on Chinese conceptions of Christianity, and knowledge of these events is vital to a better understanding of why Christianity was and is closely linked to imperialism in Chinese thoughts. lt offers us insights into why Chinese people are not anti-religious but anti-Christian, and why the Chinese government is anti-religious but particularly anti-Christian. Regarding Chinese people, acknowledgement should be given to the contribution of missionaries and the positive impact of Christianity on Chinese society, especially regarding the anti-opium movement of the nineteenth century, which have remained until today overlooked, either intentionally or not. However, this thesis is only a step toward a more complete project, an additional work and further research are still required to develop a fuller and better understanding in order build bridges between the West and China; understandably, this is a complex task.

In the direct sequence-code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system, which uses direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) technique to perform multiple-access, the major limitation of the system capacity is the capability of interference rejection. In this system, multiuser receivers usually divided into two groups, the first group is called the ¡§centralized receiver,¡¨ because it must know the information of total users, including the spreading sequence of each user, channel response, etc. Due to the complexity of computation, this kind of receivers is suitable for the base station. The second group is called the ¡§decentralized receiver,¡¨ because it only needs to know the information of desired user, therefore, it is very suitable for mobile station. The decentralized receiver can be further separate into two kinds: data-aided and non-data-aided receivers. Usually, the non-data-aided receiver is also called the blind receiver; our proposed interference cancellator belongs to this blind one. This thesis mainly discusses the performance of our proposed interference cancellator in different conditions. There is a novel interference detector which can efficiently detect strong interferers in our proposed interference cancellator. When strong interferers exist, the received signal will be passed through the interference-blocking transformer, which exploits the subspace approach to block strong interference. After interference cancelled, conventional de-spreading technique is used to obtain the desired data. In this thesis, besides the complete mathematical analysis of our proposed interference cancellator, computer simulations are also used to observe its performance behavior in different conditions. The simulation results exhibit that this interference cancellator has good performance in different conditions, and due to have the property of low complexity, our proposed interference cancellator is very suitable for the mobile station. Finally, we make a conclusion for this blind interference cancellator, and expect to realize a mature multiuser receiver based on this technique in the future.

In this thesis, an improved genetic algorithm (GA) for multi-user detectors is investigated in synchronous and asynchronous DS-CDMA systems. Although the embedded GA and multistage detector (E-GA/MSD) can also improve the conventional GA performance for multiuser detection, the MSD incurs high computational consumption when the users are growing. To eliminate the MSD operation at each generation, an improved GA with adjustable parent size and enlarged sampling space is developed. The proposed GA with much less complexity can achieve almost the same BER performance as the E-GA/MSD. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed GA is near to an optimum detector. Additionally, we apply the proposed GA to a spatial diversity reception assisted multiuser detector over uncorrelated flat Rayleigh fading channels in synchronous CDMA systems. As expected, computer simulations also show that the proposed GA can achieve the lower BER performance than conventional GA.

This thesis examines the quality of Malaysian interim financial reports (interims) and the impact of corporate governance on the quality. The quality of interims is proxied by timeliness; compliance with the FRS 134, Interim Financial Reporting; compliance with the Bursa Malaysia Listing Requirements (BMLR); and comparability of profit and loss items when they were originally issued and placed in the next year’s corresponding quarter and comparison against the annual reports. Two methods are used to assess the quality of interims namely dichotomous and continuous. The first method provides one score for each proxy if it is in compliance and zero score otherwise and the latter method use the actual values. This thesis has found that the quality of interims is remarkably high for each proxy if a dichotomous method is used and it is moderate for continuous method. The lower quality is due to timeliness and comparability, because Malaysian companies are inclined to publish interims towards the end of the allowable period and most of the interims’is remarkably high for each proxy if a dichotomous method is used and it is moderate for continuous method. The lower quality is due to timeliness and comparability, because Malaysian companies are inclined to publish interims towards the end of the allowable period and most of the interims’ profit and loss items are not comparable. Consequently, compliance with the FRS 134 contributes the most to the quality of interims, while comparability contributes the least. Corporate governance is proxied by the frequency of directors’ meetings, independence, financial literacy, corporate governance expertise, and the ethnicity of directors. This thesis has found that all corporate governance variables are associated with the quality of interims except independence and corporate governance expertise. Despite these associations, multivariate regression reveals that the impact of corporate governance on the quality of interims is very low. These findings have implications for several users such as Malaysian regulatory bodies to ensure that PLC complied with the interim reporting standards; policymakers to ensure there is no misapplication of provision of accounting standards; protect shareholders to appoint appropriate composition of directors; and academicians for future research.

Background: The 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2 DS) causes a wide variety of symptoms, but the central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction is the one most likely to affect the day-to-day life of those affected by this genetic disorder. In addition to affecting the educational needs of children with 22q11.2 DS, the neurological deficits in childhood and adolescence could be related to future psychosis and schizophrenia, which can affect 30% of these patients. Thus, the development of screening tools for CNS dysfunction could help identify children who are most at risk for developing later psychosis, allowing them to receive additional care. As saccadic eye movement behaviours reflect the integrity of multiple brain structures, a battery of oculomotor tasks could help identify neurological deficits. This study sought to test the hypothesis that children with 22q11.2 DS would have deficits in oculomotor performance compared to typically developing children. Methods: A cohort of 16 children with 22q11.2 DS, and 32 age- and sex-matched controls completed prosaccade, antisaccade, delayed memory-guided sequential (DMS) and predictive eye movement tasks. Results: Compared to controls, children with 22q11.2 DS exhibited increased direction errors in the antisaccade task, increased timing errors in the DMS task, as well as decreased predictive and increased regular saccades in the predictive task. The group of children with 22q11.2 DS also exhibited an increase in saccade amplitude in the prosaccade, antisaccade and predictive tasks, increased error in saccade trajectory in the prosaccade, antisaccade and DMS tasks and decreased saccade velocity in the predictive saccade tasks. Conclusion: This study showed that performance in the eye movement tasks could be used to assess injury to the frontostriatal circuitry and cerebellum in children with 22q11.2 DS. / Thesis (Master, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-04-29 15:16:39.848