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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
21

Journey

Li, Wenmin, School of Arts, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
???Journey??? as a term in the dictionary, indicates a distance covered in travelling, usually by land, from one place to another. In my paper, ???journey??? becomes equal to life experience, consisting of time, space or place, and thoughts. I see my life as a linear journey, made up of many points, in different time and space, facing diverse scenes, causing various emotions, and creating distinct relationships with the world. My project deals with time, space and thoughts in my life???s journey. I have turned to the space of everyday life in order to explore its shifting physical, social and psychological dimensions. This is where I would locate my work in relation to Contemporary Art, where the relationship between the inner and outer world, between private and public, between art and everyday, are also the key issues. These are my truly personal experience of my stay in Australia, where I have been provided an opportunity to experience the differences in various ways. Since all experiences take place in time and space, the two categories provide a comprehensive framework, in which my thoughts have a place to occur and develop. In my real life experience, what I have been through is not only to confront the conflicts and the uneasiness, but also to understand the differences, and then to accept and get used to these until I have harmony in my heart.
22

Understanding viral-immune dynamics in HIV infection

Zhang, Lei, Centre for Vascular Research, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
The HIV epidemic has caused a health crisis globally. Using mathematical and statistical tools, we have analysed and modelled data from animal models of HIV, HSV and influenza virus, in order to understand the role of neutralising antibodies (nAbs), CD4+ T cells, CTLs and APCs in HIV infection and the implications of this for HIV vaccine design. Our analysis suggests that antibody and CTL responses confer protection at different stages of HIV infection. Passive antibodies confer protection against SHIV89.6PD infection by either neutralising the initial viral inoculum or reducing the acute viral level and growth. Consequently, CD4+ T cell preservation allows the immune system to control long-term disease progression. Therefore, vaccines that elicit high nAb levels during early infection may induce sterilising immunity or delay disease progression. By contrast, we observed that vaccine-elicited CTLs did not proliferate until day 10 following SHIV89.6P infection. More potent CTL-inducing vaccines did not reduce this delay, but further increased it and reduced CTL growth. However, more potent vaccines result in better memory CTL formation, better CD4 preservation and improved disease outcome. HIV vaccine design should aim to reduce the delay in CTL activation. To further understand the pathogenesis of HIV, we investigated the relationship between viral load and CD4+ T cell levels using simple ODE models. Our results demonstrate a positive correlation between peak viral level and the acute CD4+ T cell depletion in SHIV89.6P infection, which demonstrates how reduction of peak viral level significantly preserves CD4+ T cells. Surprisingly, this relationship between virus and CD4+ T cells was reversed in SIVmac239 infection and other CCR5 tropic infections. Future work should focus on understanding this difference between X4 and R5 infections. Regardless of viral infections, antigen presentation is essential for stimulating effective immune responses. Our study on influenza and HSV-1 infections suggests that antigen loading rate of APCs determines the magnitude of antigen presentation and the APC decay is mainly due to the degradation of pMHC, not CTL killing. The slow kinetics of HIV viral growth may be one factor that limits the level of antigen presentation and subsequent CTL response.
23

Mother knows best: mothers as moral educators in the fiction of Anne Bront?? and Elizabeth Gaskell

Chan, Amiria Ai-Mee, School of English, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
This thesis concentrates on identifying and examining ambivalence and contradictions in the discourse of moral education within mid-nineteenth-century British literature. Through an analysis of contemporary women???s advice literature and the fiction of two authors I locate the discourse within the larger ideologies of femininity (which defined women as different from men based on their gender) and domesticity (which assigned women to the domestic sphere because of gender) and analyse its fundamental features. The mother was a representation of the ideal woman and thus the measure for standards of behaviour within the discourse of moral education, and, indeed, within the ideologies of femininity and domesticity for all women. I focus on the inconsistencies that the discourse of moral education attempts to mask in its representations of women. Part I (Chapters One, Two and Three) examines the social standards of behaviour for mothers established in women???s advice literature and the literature???s simultaneous resistance to these standards. Chapters Four and Five are dedicated to Anne Bront?????s two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; in particular, Chapter Five examines how Helen Huntingdon???s attempts to be the perfect moral mother are constantly open to conflicting ideological interpretation exposing ambivalence within the discourse of moral education and in the novel???s approach to the discourse. Chapters Six, Seven and Eight focus on many of Gaskell???s short stories as well as her novel Ruth. The inherent conflict within the discourse of moral education results in three separate images of motherhood for Gaskell???s fiction: traditional mothers who gain their moral influence through an association with death, the ideologically contradictory moral mother, and women who use maternal traits to live in communities of women without men. I conclude that none of the texts are categorically resistant to or complicit with the ideals within the discourse of moral education but are internally contradictory. In particular, the fiction simultaneously promotes conventional ideals of womanhood and moral mothers as self-sacrificing and nurturing and offers a vision of women either in unhappy compliance with or otherwise defying these ideals, for example, by living in unconventional relationships without men.
24

Corporate disclosure by listed companies in the People???s Republic of China and Australia: seeking an appropriate pathway for the regulation of the Chinese securities market

Fu, Jian, Law, Faculty of Law, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
With the rapid growth in the development of economic reform in the People???s Republic of China since the late 1970s, China???s legal system has also been undergoing major reform and development. This has seen the emergence of a major effort to draw upon the law reform experiences of other countries, especially in the area of economic law reform. As the securities industry is a key component of an increasingly corporatised market economy, it has been necessary to adopt an effective body of securities laws. Disclosure is the fundamental issue of securities laws as it exists in market transactions and the conduct of market participants. As such, the development of an appropriate body of disclosure law and practice is vital to the integrity of securities law and ultimately to the market economy. It is for this reason that this dissertation looks at the development of China???s securities market and corporate disclosure laws, and identifies the forces that have led to its current form and content. This dissertation argues that China???s legal system must be seen as a product of China???s distinctive history and local circumstances. It analyses the current nature of China???s corporate disclosure laws and notes that China???s law reformers have relied heavily upon the US model which may not necessarily suit China. Based upon a number of theoretical understandings of the transplantation and development of law, this dissertation argues that China???s approach to law reform in this area has not always produced a body of law that is appropriate to China???s particular circumstances. It suggests that valuable insights can be gained from a comparison of the methods of corporate disclosure law reform that were followed in Australia. The Australian experience is relevant to China as Australian lawyers and regulators have played an important role in fashioning securities regulation in Hong Kong and as Hong Kong has sometimes been seen as providing useful models for China itself.
25

The effects of mood and judgmental heuristics on decision making under uncertainty

Chan, Yu Man Norman, Psychology, Faculty of Science, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
Five experiments investigated the effects of mood and judgmental heuristics on decision making under uncertainty. According to the mood-and-general-knowledge model (Bless, 2000), the assimilation-accommodation model (Fiedler, 2000) and the numeric-priming account of anchoring (Jacowitz & Kahneman, 1995; Wong & Kwong, 2000), happy individuals should rely more on the anchoring heuristic in decision making under uncertainty. However, the semantic-priming account of anchoring (Strack & Mussweiler, 1997) and the processing account of mood (Bless, 2000; Fiedler, 2000) predict that it is sad individuals who should be more susceptible to the anchoring bias. Experiment 1 used a new methodological paradigm, which captures the key methodologies of past mood and anchoring studies to test these two competing hypotheses. The overall results of Experiment 1 found that neither positive nor negative mood influenced the reliance on the anchoring heuristic, but a post-hoc analysis suggests that happy participants relied more on the anchoring heuristic in making decisions for low personal relevance, low familiarity scenarios whereas sad participants were more susceptible to the anchoring heuristic in making high personal relevance, high familiarity decisions. Experiment 2 tested this suggestion and confirmed that personal relevance significantly moderated the effects of mood on the use of the anchoring heuristic. Experiment 3 replicated this result and showed that sad participants processed longer in the high personal relevance condition whereas happy participants were comparably fast in making high and low personal relevance decisions. These findings support the suggestion that it was changes in processing styles that were responsible for the effects of mood and personal relevance on the reliance of the anchoring heuristic. In addition, Experiment 3 found no evidence that familiarity moderated the effects of mood on anchoring. Experiment 4 extended these results to the domain of general knowledge questions but failed to show that an individual difference variable, the Need for Cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) moderated these effects. The fifth and final experiment extended these findings to a different kind of heuristic, the representativeness heuristic. It was predicted and found that, contrary to the previous results, happy participants relied more on the representativeness heuristic in the high personal relevance condition. These findings have important implications for the theories of mood, judgmental heuristics and decision making under uncertainty.
26

Evaluating the effectiveness of Australian aid to Samoa

Hamblin, William John, School of Sociology, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
On a global basis over A$450 billion is invested each year in foreign direct investment and aid with a view to supporting development. Developing countries themselves allocate significant sums out of their own budgets in order to stimulate development. Development is concomitantly a major goal and enterprise of the global economy. Developed countries through aid (Official Development Assistance) spend large sums purportedly to improve the development status of developing countries. Recently voices from within the developed world???s establishment have derided the performance of aid and by default the performance of state organisations charged with managing aid delivery. Australia has not been immune from this criticism. Its aid program while modest by global standards still consumes A$1.5 billion in taxpayers money each year. Australian aid is delivered primarily by the Australian International Aid Agency (AusAID) with smaller contributions through the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Defence and Australian Federal Police. AusAID has recently faced severe criticism over failure of the aid investment in the South Pacific to engender development. Most South Pacific countries (excluding Fiji and Samoa) have failed to show desired development. A number have faced bankruptcy (Naru, Solomon Islands), while others have increasing lawlessness (Papua New Guinea). It is important in the above milieu to examine the delivery mechanisms of Australian aid through its chosen vehicle (AusAID) and determine whether aid has really been effective or not. This thesis reviews the development effectiveness of Australian aid in one Pacific island nation ??? Samoa. In this context, the effectiveness of Australian development assistance is reviewed in terms of the results of four case studies of project aid to Samoa. The four case studies cover a range of project activity in differing sectors and offer specific insights into aid policy and delivery and the effects other variables such as culture, history and development status have on development outcomes. The thesis tests the hypothesis that Australian aid to Samoa has resulted in only limited development success and then in ways that are not generally sustainable. In confirming the hypothesis, this thesis identifies that while variables such as the procedural and policy underpinnings of the Australian aid program, aid design/delivery and management, and the history, culture and development status of Samoa impact on the development outcomes, they do not prohibit development. This thesis concludes that development outcomes will be maximised when there are good macro policies present, sound sector policies and real commitments of the government and people to development. Moreover, this thesis finds that while development theories inform the debate over aid none successfully encapsulates the actual development process.
27

Multiple Mobilities: Race, Capital, and South Asian Migrations to and Through Houston

Quraishi, Uzma 16 September 2013 (has links)
please see original submittal
28

The VCLP concessions as a tool of capital market design

Banfield, Stephen, Banking & Finance, Australian School of Business, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
Since the early stages of the Hawke government, Australia???s taxation system has been modified with a view to attracting additional capital into the domestic venture capital market. In December 2002, the Howard government enacted the Taxation Laws Amendment (Venture Capital) Act 2002 (Cth) and the Venture Capital Act 2002 (Cth). This legislative package created a prospective concession primarily aimed at qualifying limited partnerships who participate in the Australian venture capital market. Subject to a rather stringent qualification criteria, such partnerships are treated as fiscally transparent for the purposes of Australian taxation law. In addition, the gains made upon the disposal of portfolio investments by these partnerships may not be subject to Australian capital gains tax (&quotCGT&quot) or otherwise assessable as ordinary income. The central concept of these measures is the venture capital limited partnership (&quotVCLP&quot), and other fund of fund organisational forms which are founded on the limited partnership. For this reason, the provisions of the Taxation Laws Amendment (Venture Capital) Act 2002 (Cth) and the Venture Capital Act 2002 (Cth) are collectively identified as the &quotVCLP Concessions&quot. This thesis has been prepared as a rigorous assessment of the VCLP Concessions. It draws upon an analysis of the nature and structure of venture capital investing to determine whether the particular features of the VCLP Concessions appropriately cater for the needs of prospective foreign investors. The efficacy and appropriateness of the VCLP Concessions from a policy perspective is also examined. Recommendations are provided which, if enacted, would address regions of structural inconsistency and improve the functioning of this concessional regime.
29

Neuromelanin in human dopamine neurons

Fedorow, Heidi, School of Medical Science, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
Neuromelanin (NM) is a dark polymer pigment present in specific populations of catecholaminergic neurons in the brain. Interest in this pigment has rekindled in recent years because of a hypothesised link between NM and the especial vulnerability of NM-containing neurons to cell death in Parkinson???s disease (PD). Many aspects of the biology of NM are yet to be characterised. It is not known if NM like the similar melanin of the skin is synthesised via an enzymatic pathway or solely through autoxidation as has traditionally been thought. Examination of the ultrastructure of NM granules showed that in contrast to peripheral melanosomes, an electron-lucent lipid component was present that represented 30% of pigment volume. The identity of the lipid component of NM has remained unclear since it was first suggested that NM contained lipid in the 1960???s. NM lipid was biochemically isolated from the substantia nigra of 32 human brains. Using reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography, atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation mass spectrometry and 1H- and 13C NMR techniques, it was shown for the first time that the NM lipid is the polyisoprenoid dolichol. The age-related development and regulation of NM has not previously been described. Optical density and area measurements of unstained NM in ventral substantia nigra neurons spanning the ages of 24 weeks to 95 years old demonstrated three developmental phases. NM was not present at birth and initiation of pigmentation began at approximately 3 years of age, followed by a period of increasing pigment granule number and colouration until age 20. In PD brain, the ultrastructure of NM demonstrated that the amount of lipid did not change. However, filipin staining showed a reduction of cholesterol in PD NM containing neurons. In addition, immunogold staining of ??-synuclein demonstrated that this protein redistributed to the NM lipid in PD brain. The finding of phases in the development of NM, and the identification of lipid species in NM suggest that NM biology is regulated. This thesis has also demonstrated changes in the lipid and associated proteins in PD, suggesting NM???s chemical composition alters which may have functional consequences that contribute to PD.
30

Zinc and nickel disrupt tubular vacuole and mitochondrial networks, but only nickel disrupts microtubules in hyphal tip cells of two Paxillus involutus strains

Tuszynska, Sandra, School of Biotechnology & Biomolecular Science, UNSW January 2005 (has links)
Ectomycorrhizal fungi are able to ameliorate heavy metal stress to host trees in polluted soils. Their sensitivity or tolerance to heavy metals is usually examined based on growth and proliferation on heavy metal amended media. However, there are no data on cellular effects of heavy metals and detoxification in live cells of these fungi. Organelle morphology has recently been recognized as an indication of cellular health and its changes can be used to assess cytotoxicity. The aim of this study was, therefore, to investigate short term effects of common heavy metal pollutants, Zn2+ and Ni2+ on the morphology of vacuoles, mitochondria and microtubules in hyphal tip cells of two Paxillus involutus strains. Vacuoles, mitochondria and microtubules were labeled with Oregon Green?? 488 carboxylic acid diacetate, 3,3'-dihexyloxacarbocyanine iodide ((DiOC6(3)) and anti-??- tubulin antibodies, respectively. They were treated with 0-1 mmol L-1 NiSO4 or 0-100 mmol L-1 ZnSO4 or K2SO4 (SO4 2- control) and examined by fluorescence microscopy. Vacuoles and mitochondria in untreated hyphal tip cells of strain P2 which originated from a heavy metal-rich soil were motile and tubular forming networks. Exposure to the metals caused tubular vacuole thickening and vesiculation as well as fragmentation of tubular mitochondria in living hyphal tip cells. The highest K2SO4 concentration also had severe effects on mitochondria. These effects were metal, concentration and exposure time dependent. NiSO4 caused these effects at a hundred fold lower concentration than ZnSO4 and induced severe microtubule disruption. Vacuole tubularity recovered after removal of the metal solutions depending on the metal, concentration and exposure time. Mitochondrial tubularity recovered to pretreatment morphology in a shorter time and even during exposure to the highest metal concentration. Vacuoles of strain P46 which originated from a non-polluted soil were pleomorphic, but mainly spherical with occasional tubular interconnections. The vacuoles were too sensitive to UV light exposure required for fluorescence microscopy to investigate their response to heavy metals. The mitochondrial network and microtubules resembled those of strain P2. The highest ZnSO4 and NiSO4 concentrations caused similar trends in response of mitochondria and microtubules of the two strains. However, mitochondria of strain P46 were less sensitive at lower metal concentrations. The highest K2SO4 concentration had more severe effects on mitochondria of strain P46 than in strain P2 from which tubularity was not recovered. This investigation is the first to reveal that heavy metals affect organelle morphology in two strains of an ectomycorrhizal fungus. Nickel effects on the organelles are likely to result from microtubule disruption. Metal induced mitochondrial fragmentation is possibly an apoptotic response and the recovery of tubular organelle networks suggests cellular detoxification.

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