Scholars of rhetoric and speech communications have suggested that the study of a women's rhetoric should focus on the "distinctly female modes of leadership" that may be found among women in "out-groups" that challenge established political authority. Such leaders must be especially inventive to be effective, and are thus likely to be talented rhetoricians. In looking for such leaders, the religious and political rhetoric of early Latter-day Saint women provides a noteworthy, unique study. Nineteenth-century Mormon women not only battled discriminatory political norms—arguing fervently for both universal woman's suffrage and for the freedom to practice polygamy—they did so from their position as members of a stigmatized and persecuted religious community.One exemplary figure is Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball (1818-1898). A founding member of the Church's Female Relief Society in 1842, Kimball was later instrumental in reestablishing the organization in Utah. In Salt Lake City she was called to be president of her ward's Relief Society; she served over 40 remarkably influential years in that position, while instituting and organizing programs church-wide. During the same four decades she also served in two General Relief Society presidencies, as a member of the territorial committee of the People's Party, and as a national delegate and President of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association. Kimball was a leader dedicated to stimulating thought in and provoking action from her Relief Society sisters and her fellow citizens, and she developed her own powerful voice as a communicator.Kimball used her rhetorical skills and leadership strategies both to "educate and agitate" and to "instruct and happify" her audiences. This thesis is a historiography which examines Kimball's public discourse within its social contexts, analyzing samples of her rhetoric from several different genres: autobiographical sketch; political rally; ceremonial speeches; formal encomium; official minutes from weekly Relief Society meetings; and the text of her own life's actions. These various texts survey the broad range of Kimball's social and spiritual concerns, and showcase her discursive skill among her contemporaries. This textual analysis illustrates the strategies she developed to establish her noted effectiveness as a rhetor and widespread influence as a leader.

The comprehensive effect of sleep deprivation on biological and behavioral functions largely remains unknown. There is evidence to support that human sleep must be of sufficient duration and physiological continuity to ensure neurocognitive performance while we are waking. Insufficient sleep would lead to high risk of human-error related to accidents, injuries or even fatal outcomes. However, in modern society, more and more people suffer from sleep deprivation because of the increasing social, academic or occupational demand. It is important to study the effect of sleep deprivation, not only on task performance, but also on neurocognitive functions. Recent research that has explored brain effective connectivity has demonstrated the directed inference interaction among pairs of brain areas, which may bring important insight to understand how brain works to support neurocognitive function. This research aimed to identify the brain effective connectivity pattern associated with changes of a task performance, response time, following sleep deprivation. Experiments were conducted by colleagues at Neuroergonomics Department at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. Ten healthy young women, with an average age of 23-year-old, performed visual spatial sustained-attention tasks under two conditions: (1) the rest-wakeful (RW) condition, where participants had their usual sleep and (2) the sleep-deprived (SD) condition, where participants had 3 hours less sleep than their usual sleep, for 7 nights (amounting to 21 h of sleep debt). Measures included eye tracking performance and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In each condition, each subject*s eye-position was monitored through 13 sessions, each with 46 trials, while fMRI data was recorded. There were two task performance measures, accuracy and response time. Accuracy measured the proportion of correct responses of all trials in each session. Response time measured the average amount of milliseconds until participants gazed at the target stimuli in each session. An experimental session could be treated as a short window. By splitting long trials of fMRI data into consecutive windows, Granger causality was applied based on short trials of fMRI data. This procedure helped to calculate pairwise causal influences with respect to time-varying property in brain causal interaction. Causal influence results were then averaged across sessions to create one matrix for each participant. This matrix was averaged within each condition to formulate a model of brain effective connectivity, which also served as a basis of comparison. In conclusion, significant effect of sleep deprivation was found on response time and brain effective connectivity. In addition, the change of brain effective connectivity after sleep deprivation was linked to the change of response time. First, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant difference for response time between the RW condition and the SD condition. No significant changes for accuracy were found. A paired t-test showed that response time was significantly shorter in sleep deprivation for the visual spatial sustained-attention task. Second, Granger causality analysis demonstrated a reduction of bidirectional connectivity and an increase of directed influences from low-level brain areas to high-level brain areas after sleep deprivation. This observation suggested that sleep deprivation provoked the effective connectivity engaged in salient stimuli processing, but inhibited the effective connectivity in biasing selection of attention on task and in maintaining self-awareness in day time. Furthermore, in the SD condition, attention at the visual spatial task seemed to be driven by a bottom-up modulation mechanism. Third, a relationship was found between brain effective connectivity with response time. Decreases of Granger causal influences in two directions, from medial frontal lobe to sub cortical gray nuclei and from medial parietal lobe to sub cortical gray nuclei, were associated with shorter response time in the SD condition. Additionally, an increase of Granger causal influence from medial parietal lobe to cerebellum was associated with longer response time in the SD condition.

A music performance is an exciting environment for studying joint action and nonverbal communication. This thesis utilized music ensemble performances to study nonverbal communication occurring from two different perspectives. We examined bi-directional communication between co-performers and uni-directional communication of the musicians to the participants. The first paper (Chapter 2) used statistical measures (i.e., Granger causality analysis) to quantify head movements as a measure of joint action during a musical performance. We observed a change in direction and magnitude of information flow between co-performers based on the availability of visual and auditory cues. We wanted to extend this line of research to see how audience perception of the performances may change due to the auditory and visual manipulations of the performers. The second paper (Chapter 3) examines participant ratings of expression, cohesion, and general liking of the performance when presented with audio-visual, audio-only, and visual-only stimuli. These ratings not only show which sensory modality allows for the highest sensitivity to performer manipulations, but also provide insight into how musicians change their performances to communicate to the audience. My aim was to create a cohesive examination of co-performer communication and observer perception of musical performances. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) has been shown to provide useful indications on where the economy is heading (Afshar et al., 2007; Koenig, 2002; Harris, 1991). We examine the predictive abilities of PMI on stocks that are sensitive to business cycle movements by testing if the index can contribute to forecasting a group of Swedish industrial machinery stocks during 2012-2023. We approach this by employing pairwise Granger Causality tests, using PMI data from five countries, and stock performance data for 11 industrial machinery stocks included in the OMXS30. The results indicate that PMI cannot contribute to forecasting the stock performance. Instead, we find empirical evidence of a predictive relationship in the opposite direction, suggesting that the stock performance can forecast the PMI.

No / The relationship between exports and economic growth has been analysed by a number of recent empirical studies. This paper re-examines the sources of growth for the period 1971-2001 for India. It builds upon Feder's (1983) model to investigate empirically the relationship between export growth and GDP growth (the export led growth hypothesis), using recent data from the Reserve Bank of India, and by focusing on GDP growth and GDP growth net of exports. We investigate the following hypotheses: (i) whether exports, imports and GDP are cointegrated using the Johansen approach and Breitung's nonparametric cointegration test; (ii) whether export growth Granger causes GDP growth; (iii) and whether export growth Granger causes investment. Finally, a VAR is constructed and impulse response functions (IRFs) are employed to investigate the effects of macroeconomic shocks.

自從中國實施經濟改革之後，其經濟快速成長。從1978到2002年之間，中國的年平均成長率為8.07﹪。但同時期，中國的不平等卻顯示不同的變動趨勢。在1980年代，經濟改革似乎同時促進經濟成長與不平等程度的下降。然而1990年代之後，不平等卻呈現向上爬升的趨勢。本論文的研究目的，即是探討改革後，中國經濟成長與不平等間的因果關係。 根據之前的文獻，經濟成長和不平等之間可能相互影響，但影響方向卻不確定。本論文研究方法採用Granger因果檢定，估計成長與分配的因果關係以及影響方向。本研究採用Toda and Yamamoto (1995)所提出的向量自迴歸程序，對Granger因果模型進行卡方檢定的統計推論。Toda和Yamamoto證明，研究者能夠估計一個k+dmax階的向量自迴歸模型，其中dmax是時間數列變數最大整合階數，k為落差期數。然而，進行統計推論時，研究者只需利用卡方統計量檢驗前k階的迴歸係數是否顯著，而不需檢驗最後的dmax階迴歸係數。利用此研究方法，本論文發現以下結果：一、經濟成長會正面且顯著地影響不平等；二、不平等不會影響到經濟成長；三、實證結果是穩健的，其不因使用不同的所得不平等指數或落差期數而有所變化。 會產生第一種結果的主要原因，在於中央政府傾斜政策的實施。與先前文獻完全集中研究自由經濟或計畫經濟不同，中國經濟正處於轉型過程，可能是本研究不能發現所得不均等對經濟成長的主要因素。 本研究的政策意涵為，由於經濟持續增長，使得不均等的情況更加惡化。因此，中央政府應該取消向東部沿海傾斜的政策，並且增加對中西部地區進行投資的意願。但是，將資源投入在中西部，使得到的收益遠遠小於投入在東部者。因此為了促進持續經濟成長，不建議採取某些能迅速降低不平等的政策，例如財政移轉。 / Ever since economic reform has been carried out in China, its economic growth rate has been remarkable. Its annual growth rate of per capita GDP was about 8.07% for the period 1978-2002, but its income inequality level presented a different moving trend during this time. In the 1980s, it seemed that economic reform decreased this inequality successfully, but the situation of income distribution started to deteriorate beginning in 1990. The purpose of this study is to research if the relationship between economic growth and inequality exists in post-reform China. According to previous literature, economic growth and inequality can influence each other, but their influential directions are uncertain. This study adopts the Granger-causality test as a methodology to estimate their relationship and influential directions. This study tests Granger-Causality with the chi-square statistic, which was proposed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995). They wrote that researchers could estimate a (k+dmax)th-order VAR where dmax is the maximal order of integration. Only the first k coefficients have to be jointly tested with the chi-square statistic, and the last dmax coefficients are ignored. This study finds the following results: (i) growth positively influences inequality; (ii) inequality does not influence growth; and (iii) the results are sturdy no matter what inequality index or what lag lengths are used in the empirical test. The result (i) can be attributed to the biased central government policy. Differencing from previous studies, which focused on democratic or undemocratic economies, this study researches a transitional economy. It could be the reason why this study finds no evidence of the effect of inequality on growth. The policy implications of this study are that China’s government has to give up biased policies and increase the incentives of investing in inland regions. Besides, in order to promote sustainable economic growth, some policies like fiscal transfers, which can reduce inequality quickly, are not recommended.

Os programas de computador têm apoiado o estudo de sistemas biomédicos em que um volume considerável de dados são empregados. Na biomecânica, a análise das influências entre as articulações pode melhorar o conhecimento das lesões relacionadas à corrida associadas ao uso excessivo durante a atividade de corrida. Compreender os padrões de interação entre diferentes articulações anatômicas, durante o movimento, pode contribuir para o aprimoramento de programas de treinamento, reabilitação e prevenção a lesões. Neste trabalho, um software personalizado foi desenvolvido para implementar a Coerência Parcial Direcionada (PDC), uma abordagem no domínio da freqüência da Causalidade de Granger (GC), adequado às especificidades da fisioterapia. Com entradas independentes e padronizadas, modularização e parametrização, as rotinas investigaram a direção de interação entre diferentes canais, registrando e salvando arquivos intermediários. Separados nos três planos anatômicos, sagital, frontal e transverso, foram utilizados dados cinemáticos para analisar as interações entre tornozelo, joelho, quadril, pelve e tronco durante a corrida. Três modificações de técnica de corrida foram abordadas: com aterrissagem iniciada com o antepé, com aumento de 10% na taxa de passo e com aumento de flexão de tronco, além da habitual. As análises foram realizadas para o ciclo completo (apoio e balanço) e com separação da fase de apoio, e revelaram que essas duas estratégias de processamento são complementares. Comparando as influências proximal e distal, os procedimentos sugeriram uma predominância das interações proximal a distal, mostrando uma origem central de movimentos. Dessa forma, destaca-se a relevância em controlar e fortalecer tronco e quadril para a minimização de lesões. Considerando os resultados e a oportunidade de configuração, o software pode ser empregado para estudar outras articulações e aplicações, bem como evoluir para um sistema automatizado de apoio à decisão. / Computer programs have supported the study of biomedical systems in which a considerable amount of data is employed. In biomechanics, analysis of influences between joints can improve the knowledge of the Running-Related-Injuries (RRI) associated to overuse during running activity. Understanding the patterns of interaction among anatomical joints during movement can contribute to the improvement of training, rehabilitation and injury prevention programs. In this work, a customized software was developed to implement Partial Directed Coherence (PDC), an approach in the frequency domain of Granger Causality (GC), adapted to the physical therapy specificities. With independent and standardized inputs, modularization and parameterization, the routines investigated the interaction direction between different channels, logging and saving intermediate files. Separated in the three anatomical planes, sagittal, frontal and transverse, kinematic data were employed to analyze the interactions between ankle, knee, hip, pelvis and trunk during running. Three running technique modifications were addressed: forefoot strike landing pattern, increasing 10% of the step rate and increasing trunk flexion, in addition to usual running. The analyzes were performed for the complete cycle (stance and swing) and with separation of the stance phase, and revealed that these two processing strategies are complementary. Comparing proximal and distal influences, procedures suggested a predominance of proximal to distal interactions, showing a central origin of movements. In this way, the importance of controlling and strengthening trunk and hip to minimize injuries is highlighted. Considering the results and the processing configuration opportunity, the software can be employed to study other joints and applications, as well as evolve to an automated decision support system.

Os programas de computador têm apoiado o estudo de sistemas biomédicos em que um volume considerável de dados são empregados. Na biomecânica, a análise das influências entre as articulações pode melhorar o conhecimento das lesões relacionadas à corrida associadas ao uso excessivo durante a atividade de corrida. Compreender os padrões de interação entre diferentes articulações anatômicas, durante o movimento, pode contribuir para o aprimoramento de programas de treinamento, reabilitação e prevenção a lesões. Neste trabalho, um software personalizado foi desenvolvido para implementar a Coerência Parcial Direcionada (PDC), uma abordagem no domínio da freqüência da Causalidade de Granger (GC), adequado às especificidades da fisioterapia. Com entradas independentes e padronizadas, modularização e parametrização, as rotinas investigaram a direção de interação entre diferentes canais, registrando e salvando arquivos intermediários. Separados nos três planos anatômicos, sagital, frontal e transverso, foram utilizados dados cinemáticos para analisar as interações entre tornozelo, joelho, quadril, pelve e tronco durante a corrida. Três modificações de técnica de corrida foram abordadas: com aterrissagem iniciada com o antepé, com aumento de 10% na taxa de passo e com aumento de flexão de tronco, além da habitual. As análises foram realizadas para o ciclo completo (apoio e balanço) e com separação da fase de apoio, e revelaram que essas duas estratégias de processamento são complementares. Comparando as influências proximal e distal, os procedimentos sugeriram uma predominância das interações proximal a distal, mostrando uma origem central de movimentos. Dessa forma, destaca-se a relevância em controlar e fortalecer tronco e quadril para a minimização de lesões. Considerando os resultados e a oportunidade de configuração, o software pode ser empregado para estudar outras articulações e aplicações, bem como evoluir para um sistema automatizado de apoio à decisão. / Computer programs have supported the study of biomedical systems in which a considerable amount of data is employed. In biomechanics, analysis of influences between joints can improve the knowledge of the Running-Related-Injuries (RRI) associated to overuse during running activity. Understanding the patterns of interaction among anatomical joints during movement can contribute to the improvement of training, rehabilitation and injury prevention programs. In this work, a customized software was developed to implement Partial Directed Coherence (PDC), an approach in the frequency domain of Granger Causality (GC), adapted to the physical therapy specificities. With independent and standardized inputs, modularization and parameterization, the routines investigated the interaction direction between different channels, logging and saving intermediate files. Separated in the three anatomical planes, sagittal, frontal and transverse, kinematic data were employed to analyze the interactions between ankle, knee, hip, pelvis and trunk during running. Three running technique modifications were addressed: forefoot strike landing pattern, increasing 10% of the step rate and increasing trunk flexion, in addition to usual running. The analyzes were performed for the complete cycle (stance and swing) and with separation of the stance phase, and revealed that these two processing strategies are complementary. Comparing proximal and distal influences, procedures suggested a predominance of proximal to distal interactions, showing a central origin of movements. In this way, the importance of controlling and strengthening trunk and hip to minimize injuries is highlighted. Considering the results and the processing configuration opportunity, the software can be employed to study other joints and applications, as well as evolve to an automated decision support system.

In this paper we estimate the short-term and long-term relationship between stock prices and exchange rates for the sample of US and Asian markets during the period 2004 – 2014. Monetary variables include money supply, interest rates, foreign exchange rates, and the consumer price index. All the data are monthly indices and have been examined using multivariate co integration analysis and Granger causality analysis. The empirical analysis employed provides evidence of a positive co-integrating short- run relationship between these variable with Granger causality found to run from stock prices to the exchange rate during the sample period in Japan. For US, significant relationships were not been established. The results for Japan confirm the conclusion of other studies that stock returns are significant predictors of short – run exchange rate movements especially in period of financial crisis. We also apply LS model in order to estimate a linear regression. / Στην εργασία αυτή θα εκτιμηθεί η βραχυπρόθεσμη και μακροπρόθεσμη σχέση μεταξύ των τιμών των μετοχών και των συναλλαγματικών ισοτιμιών για το δείγμα των αμερικανικών και ασιατικών αγορών κατά την περίοδο 2004-2014. Νομισματικές μεταβλητές περιλαμβάνουν την προσφορά χρήματος, τα επιτόκια, τις συναλλαγματικές ισοτιμίες και τον δείκτη τιμών καταναλωτή. Όλα τα στοιχεία είναι μηνιαία και έχουν εξεταστεί σύμφωνα με πολυπαραγοντική ανάλυση και την ανάλυση της αιτιότητας. Η εμπειρική ανάλυση που χρησιμοποιείται παρέχει απόδειξη της θετικής σχέσης μεταξύ αυτών των μεταβλητών με Granger αιτιότητα από τις τιμές των μετοχών προς την συναλλαγματική ισοτιμία κατά τη διάρκεια της περιόδου του δείγματος στην Ιαπωνία. Για την Αμερική, σημαντικές σχέσεις δεν έχουν τεκμηριωθεί. Τα αποτελέσματα για την Ιαπωνία επιβεβαιώνουν το συμπέρασμα άλλων μελέτών ότι οι αποδόσεις των μετοχών είναι σημαντικοί παράγοντες πρόβλεψης των βραχυπροθεσμων διακυμανσεων των συναλλαγματικών ισοτιμιών,ιδίως σε περίοδο οικονομικής κρίσης. Μπορούμε επίσης να εφαρμόσουμε το μοντέλο LS, προκειμένου να εκτιμηθεί μια γραμμική παλινδρόμηση.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Raphael Yokoingawa de Camargo / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociência e Cognição, 2016. / Sabe-se que o comportamento, a percepção e a cognição estão relacionados à atividade conjunta de uma ou mais regiões cerebrais. Sendo assim, é interessante verificar como as regiões cerebrais interagem e como acontece a transferência de informação entre elas. Nesse trabalho avaliamos a efetividade da coerência parcial direcionada e da coerência parcial direcionada generalizada na inferência da conectividade efetiva entre redes neurais simuladas. As redes neurais foram utilizadas para simular regiões cerebrais. A atividade elétrica dos neurônios que compõem as redes neurais foi descrita pelo modelo matemático de Izhikevich. Através da variação dos parâmetros responsáveis pelo comportamento dinâmico dos neurônios das redes, simulamos diferentes sinais de LFP (local field potential). Os métodos de conectividade foram aplicados sobre esses sinais de LFP simulados afim de recuperar, para cada um dos modelos estudados, a conectividade previamente estabelecida entre as diferentes redes neurais. Avaliamos também o comportamento da causalidade de Granger, da coerência parcial direcionada, da correlação de Spearman e da coerência espectral de acordo com o aumento no peso sináptico das conexões entre os neurônios de diferentes redes. Os resultados desse trabalho nos fornece informações sobre aplicabilidade desses métodos de conectividade em dados com características similares a dados eletrofisiológicos. / It is known that behavior, perception and cognition are the result of the combined activity of multiple brain regions. This way, it is interesting to understand how the brain regions interact and how information transfer occurs. In this work we verified the efficacy of partial directed coherence and generalized partial directed coherence to infer the effective connectivity between simulated neuronal networks. Neuronal networks was used to simulate brain regions. The electrical activity of neurons that belong to networks was described by Izhikevich mathematical model. Through the variation of parameters responsible for the dynamical behavior of neurons we simulated different LFP signals. The connectivity methods were applied to simulated LFP signals to recovery the previously established connections. We analysed the values obtained by Granger causality, partial directed coherence, Spearman correlation and spectral coherence according to increasing synaptic strengths of connections among different networks. These results provide information about to what extent the methods might be applied to the analysis of actual electrophysiological data.