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Previous cross-cultural research in nonverbal immediacy indicates that nonverbal immediacy behavior varies across cultures, and some researchers have suggested that power distance might serve as a moderating variable, however no research has systematically set out to determine whether that is the case. This study assessed the perceived use of nonverbal immediacy under symmetric and asymmetric power conditions, as well as gender, in three cultures: Brazil, Kenya, and the United States. Quantitative data was collected from 527 participants who completed a nonverbal immediacy measure and an individual power distance measure under either a symmetric or an asymmetric power condition. Results related to power distance partially supported the idea that cultural power distance may act as a moderating variable with regard to the use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors. Related to gender, results revealed that: (a) female participants perceived more nonverbal immediacy behaviors than males, (b) under symmetric power conditions females were perceived to use more nonverbal immediacy than males, and (c) under asymmetric power conditions there was no statistically significant difference between use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors between females and males. Implications of results, limitations, and suggestions for future research are presented.

本文首先檢視國際、美國與拉丁美洲對於毒品之定義，發現國際與美國對於毒品之定義與拉丁美洲之定義不同，使毒品政策之合作在還未開始前就有了歧異。美國對拉丁美洲反毒政策的實行多是依靠其在區域中的權力分配地位而為之，從雷根政府時期開始，分為前哥倫比亞計畫、哥倫比亞計畫以及美里達計畫，論述美國在拉丁美洲的毒品政策。之後，檢視美國在拉丁美洲的毒品政策對拉丁美洲國家之影響，包括：人權問題、環境問題、經濟發展問題、貪腐問題、暴力問題和民主問題。面對美國毒品政策的負面影響，拉丁美洲國家於本世紀初開始在區域或是多邊的國際場域挑戰美國在拉丁美洲的毒品政策。最後，對於美國在拉丁美洲毒品政策的影響提出個人的看法作結。 / This essay offers a view of how U.S. antidrug policy influences Latin American, introducing its repercussions and how Latin America response to it. First, we analyze how international community, U.S. and Latin America define drugs. We find that Latin America has its own interpretation of drugs and its problem, especially when it refers to cocaine and coca leaf. Thus, it foreshadows conflicts over implementation of the U.S. antidrug policy on Latin America. Second, we review the U.S. antidrug policy on Latin America since the Raegan Administration via the aspect of asymmetric power relations in international relation, introducing and delineating important antidrug policy on Latin America; meanwhile analyze consistence and modification in different administrations. Third, we categorize the repercussions of U.S. antidrug policy on Latin America, such as violation of human rights, environmental pollution, economic issue, corruption problem and democracy development. And we raise some cases to indicate that facing those repercussions, Latin America starts to challenge U.S. antidrug policy. Last, we make a conclusion through the aspect of asymmetric power relation between U.S. and Latin America and raise opinion on whether the U.S. antidrug policy on Lain America is successful or not.

This thesis presents a collection of papers that has been published, accepted or submitted for publication. They assess price, volatility and market relationships in the five regional electricity markets in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM): namely, New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD), South Australia (SA), the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme (SNO) and Victoria (VIC). The transmission networks that link regional systems via interconnectors across the eastern states have played an important role in the connection of the regional markets into an efficient national electricity market. During peak periods, the interconnectors become congested and the NEM separates into its regions, promoting price differences across the market and exacerbating reliability problems in regional utilities. This thesis is motivated in part by the fact that assessment of these prices and volatility within and between regional markets allows for better forecasts by electricity producers, transmitters and retailers and the efficient distribution of energy on a national level. The first two papers explore whether the lagged price and volatility information flows of the connected spot electricity markets can be used to forecast the pricing behaviour of individual markets. A multivariate generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) model is used to identify the source and magnitude of price and volatility spillovers within (intra-relationship) and across (inter-relationship) the various spot markets. The results show evidence of the fact that prices in one market can be explained by their own price lagged one-period and are independent of lagged spot prices of any other markets when daily data is employed. This implies that the regional spot electricity markets are not fully integrated. However, there is also evidence of a large number of significant ownvolatility and cross-volatility spillovers in all five markets indicating that shocks in some markets will affect price volatility in others. Similar conclusions are obtained when the daily data are disaggregated into peak and off-peak periods, suggesting that the spot electricity markets are still rather isolated. These results inspired the research underlying the third paper of the thesis on modelling the dynamics of spot electricity prices in each regional market. A family of generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH), RiskMetrics, normal Asymmetric Power ARCH (APARCH), Student APARCH and skewed Student APARCH is used to model the time-varying variance in prices with the inclusion of news arrival as proxied by the contemporaneous volume of demand, time-of-day, day-of-week and month-of-year effects as exogenous explanatory variables. The important contribution in this paper lies in the use of two latter methodologies, namely, the Student APARCH and skewed Student APARCH which take account of the skewness and fat tailed characteristics of the electricity spot price series. The results indicate significant innovation spillovers (ARCH effects) and volatility spillovers (GARCH effects) in the conditional standard deviation equation, even with market and calendar effects included. Intraday prices also exhibit significant asymmetric responses of volatility to the flow of information (that is, positive shocks or good news are associated with higher volatility than negative shocks or bad news). The fourth research paper attempts to capture salient feature of price hikes or spikes in wholesale electricity markets. The results show that electricity prices exhibit stronger mean-reversion after a price spike than the mean-reversion in the normal period, suggesting the electricity price quickly returns from some extreme position (such as a price spike) to equilibrium; this is, extreme price spikes are shortlived. Mean-reversion can be measured in a separate regime from the normal regime using Markov probability transition to identify the different regimes. The fifth and final paper investigates whether interstate/regional trade has enhanced the efficiency of each spot electricity market. Multiple variance ratio tests are used to determine if Australian spot electricity markets follow a random walk; that is, if they are informationally efficient. The results indicate that despite the presence of a national market only the Victorian market during the off-peak period is informationally (or market) efficient and follows a random walk. This thesis makes a significant contribution in estimating the volatility and the efficiency of the wholesale electricity prices by employing four advanced time series techniques that have not been previously explored in the Australian context. An understanding of the modelling and forecastability of electricity spot price volatility across and within the Australian spot markets is vital for generators, distributors and market regulators. Such an understanding influences the pricing of derivative contracts traded on the electricity markets and enables market participants to better manage their financial risks.

The purpose of this study has been to analyze whether the asymmetric power may increase or decrease between citizens and authorities, based on authorities choice of language and appeal. A qualitative approach has been used as a method, with a qualitative content analysis as a base and qualitative interviews as a complement. In order to collect the empirical material, a qualitative content analysis has been made on 20 different municipalities' websites, where the introduction of financial aid has been analyzed. The theoretical point of departure has been powerposition and Ervin Goffman’s view on stigma, shame and guilt. Research shows that authorities have the opportunity to take power and control of citizens already in the offer of support. The authority has the power to design the text and therefore also the power to decide and determine its limits. Based on the language selection found on the websites, recipients  are  included or excluded by the texts chosen language and appeal. The result shows that the chosen language and appeal on websites may risk to increase the asymmetric power relationship between authorities and citizens.

The subject of the thesis is creation and description of mathematical model of three-phase asymmetric power line and proposal for three-phase operation calculating of the power network by variet aspects. Another component is the creation of a program in PHP, which would use this mathematical model for the calculation of the three-phase operation of the power network. Part of this work deals with derivation of matrices of elementary multipoles and their serial ordering derive complex multipoles that can be use for concentrated parameters compensation of the power lines.

This qualitative study analyses gendered metaphors in selected Zimbabwean Shona songs. The study explores how musicians deploy gendered metaphors to propagate, reinforce or challenge gender views and positions held in the Zimbabwean contemporary society. The corpus of data comprised Shona popular songs released between 1988 and 2018 and down loaded from You-tube. The songs were transcribed, translated into English and metaphors identified and interpreted using a combination of the Pragglejaz Group (2007), Steen (2007) and Charteris-Black (2004) metaphor identification methods. Charteris-Black’s (2004) Critical Metaphor Analysis was adopted as the key theory and method of analysis. The analysis drew support from Lazar's (2007) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, Foucault (1980) and Butler's (1990) ideas on discourse and gender. The findings reveal that Zimbabwean musicians singing in Shona discursively use gendered metaphors to construct, reinforce or challenge views and positions on gender. While the metaphors describe and evaluate men and women positively and negatively for ideological purposes, the metaphors largely marginalise women more than men. The metaphors therefore, have the effect of legitimising and naturalising male dominance in the Zimbabwean society. However, the same musicians occasionally utilise metaphor discoursal power to resist, challenge and control the dominance. Metaphors become a conduit through which topical contemporary gender issues, norms and values, gender views and positions are highlighted and debated. Two contesting ideologies were noted: one ideology emphasised that women are inferior to men and men should tolerate them for their weaknesses and the second projected women as men’s equals and that men and women roles complement each other. It is the conclusion of this study that gendered metaphors in Shona song lyrics allow musicians to discursively and for ideological purposes reinforce, contest and negotiate various gender perspectives making metaphors a powerful tool for shaping views on gender. Therefore the research, recommends that stakeholders recognise and promote the critical role played by language on inculcating gender perceptions in such domains as music, to come up with language programmes that promote gender parity and equality in society. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / Ph. D. (Languages, Linguistics and Literature)