The intergroup contact effect is well-documented in the research literature (for a meta-analysis see Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). Although researchers have identified a few moderators of the contact effect, the constraints under which the contact effect is optimally effective are not well understood. The current research explored two individual difference measures related to anti-gay attitudes, AIDS stigma and motivation to respond without prejudice (internal and external motivation), as potential moderators of the contact effect on heterosexual men’s attitudes towards gay men. Results indicated that increased external motivation and AIDS stigma hinder the benefits of contact for anti-gay attitudes. Implications of these findings for understanding how intergroup contact serves as a prejudice-reduction technique are discussed.

The fact that saving is one of the main factors to economic growth is unquestionable. Accumulated saving can be consider as the sources of capital stock to which play a crucial role in creating investment, production, and employment. And all these activities eventually enhance the economic growth. Therefore the main objective of this paper, ―The relationship between domestic saving and economic growth and convergence hypothesis: case study of Thailand‖, was to investigate the causality relationship between the domestic saving and economic growth of Thailand. This paper will analyze whether the direction of causality go from domestic saving to economic growth, or vice versa. Granger causality test were conducted by using time series annual data from 1960 to 2010, and the empirical result suggests that the direct of causality go from economic growth to domestic saving only. Aiming to grow its economy, Thailand had had development plans which used both saving and direct investment to stimulate economy. This paper examine whether the convergence hypothesis does hold in Thailand. This part would check whether or not Thailand is in the process of convergence, catching up, lagging behind, loose catching up, loose lagging behind or divergence over time compared with other developed countries. This test was conducted in pairwise between Thailand-Singapore, Thailand-United States, Thailand-United Kingdom, deployed data from 1970 to 2010, and the Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) Test. The regression results demonstrate that convergence hypothesis does not hold in Thailand. Finally, the result of Granger Causality report that economic growth rate does matter lead to growth rate of domestic savings in Thailand only. Thus, in order to learn the effect of gross domestic saving per capita growth rate can help narrow the different of GDP between two countries concerned, this paper will examine the correlation of two variables, deployed the OSL methods to investigate the correlation between gross domestic saving growth rate and the different of GDP per capita between Thailand and Singapore. This test also examine whether saving does help support convergence hypothesis for Thailand or not. The test results shows that domestic saving growth rate does not help narrowing the range of different of income of Thailand and Singapore which mean that domestic saving growth rate does not support the convergence hypothesis in Thailand.

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Lifes origin is, in many ways, coupled to understanding the evolution of nucleic acids. In contemporary life, proteins and nucleic acids are intricately dependent upon each other for a host of functions including, but not limited to, replication and chemical ligation. Protein enzymes are necessary for the synthesis of DNA and RNA, while nucleic acids are necessary for both the coding and synthesis of proteins. According to the RNA World hypothesis, early life used nucleic acids for both information storage and chemical catalysis before the emergence of protein enzymes. However, it still remains a mystery how nucleic acids were able to assemble and replicate before the advent of protein enzymes. We have utilized the ability of small molecule intercalation to assemble nucleic acids into stable secondary structures. Our motivation in this pursuit comes from the recently proposed Molecular Midwife hypothesis where small molecules may have acted as nanoscale structural scaffolds upon which the nucleic acid bases were able to stack into stable structures and undergo assembly into polymers. We have also found that the kinetics and thermodynamics of small molecule-mediated assembly and secondary structure formation are strongly dependent upon oligonucleotide length. Small molecules bind to nucleic acids by multiple modes of binding and this phenomenon must be properly understood in order to achieve robust and versatile assembly of nucleic acid structures.

Some scholars argue that organized sport is a viable context for different ethnic and racial groups to learn about one another and experience positive intergroup contact. Other scholars insist that hierarchical arrangements and competitive natures may actually exacerbate existing tensions among ethnic and racial groups. Less is known about whether or not recreational sport settings can facilitate positive intergroup contact. These contexts are often free of hierarchical arrangement and competition among participants, which potentially secure the equality of participants and facilitate positive interracial contact. The purpose of this study was to gain richer insights into the phenomenon of interracial contact that Korean Americans experience in recreational sport settings. This study was guided by three research questions: (1) Do Korean Americans perceive the presence of contact hypothesis' optimal conditions in recreational sport settings? (2) What factors influence Korean Americans' perception toward the presence or absence of optimal conditions? (3) Can participating in serious leisure activity with different racial groups contribute to interracial harmony? This study adopted qualitative research methods with a phenomenological approach. Face-to-face, in-depth, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 Korean American males who participated or have been participating in recreational sports with racially mixed teams. The interviews were conducted in August and September, 2008, in two southern cities. Four findings are articulated. First, informants held variable perceptions toward the presence of contact hypothesis' optimal conditions. Second, informants supported the existence of friendship opportunities. This study identified six key factors that play a critical role in formulation of informants' perceptions toward the existence of each optimal condition. They were: (1) skill level, (2) racial stereotypes, (3) physical attributes of recreational sport participants, (4) language proficiency, (5) atmosphere or culture within different recreational sport contexts, and (6) longevity of contact. Finally, informants felt that participating in recreational sports with different racial groups contributes to harmonious interracial relations. The findings showed that it is problematic to a priori assume that recreational sports satisfy the optimal conditions of contact situations. Moreover, findings suggest that satisfaction of optimal conditions in recreational sport contexts may not be necessary for positive interracial contact to occur.

In examining the racism in sport literature, two general trends emerge: (a) a focus on Western sport organizations and the prejudice expressed by Whites in these entities; and (b) the tendency to document the occurrence of prejudice without examining key antecedent conditions. The purpose of this study was to address these gaps in the literature. Specifically, I compare the racial prejudice of White Americans with Asians and also examine the degree to which intergroup contact impacts this level of prejudice. Data were collected from Asian (n = 104) and White American (n = 100) college students. They completed a questionnaire that assessed their contact with African Americans as both team mates and exercise partners, their intergroup anxiety, and racial prejudice. Results indicate that all of the study variables were significantly correlated with one another. As expected, a multivariate analysis of variance further illustrated that Asians, relative to Whites, expressed more anxiety and prejudice, while also having less contact with African Americans. Finally, results from a moderated regression indicated that the relationship between nationality and intergroup anxiety was moderated by contact with African Americans as team mates and as exercise partners. In both cases, the lack of contact resulted in greater anxiety for Asians than it did for Whites. This study contributes to the literature by explicitly examining racial bias across cultures. In addition, the findings point to the importance of diversity in exercise and team settings as a way of reducing racial prejudice. That is, since in being contact with African Americans as team mates and exercise partners helped to reduce intergroup anxiety, efforts should be made to increase racial diversity in exercise and sport team settings.

Abstract The impact of environmental regulation on competitiveness is a major issue of concern to policy makers. It has also been the subject of considerable academic debate in the past few years on environment-competitiveness. The relationship between environmental goals and industrial competitiveness has conventionally been thought of as involving a tradeoff between social benefits and private costs. In the recent decade, the environment-competitiveness debate has been shifted to a new dynamic international competitiveness paradigm. Michael Porter suggested that the traditional trade-off between environmental regulation and competitiveness may have overestimated environmental compliance costs, neglected innovation offsets, and disregarded the affected industry's initial competitiveness. In this thesis, we aim to examine firm-level evidence to assess the Porter hypothesis as well as the basic correlation between environmental goals and industrial competitiveness. Our approach mainly concentrates on the possibility of Porter hypothesis. Porter hypothesis suggests that more severe environmental regulation may have a positive effect on firm¡¦s performance by stimulating innovation. To capture the dynamic impacts and the incurred adjustments for enterprises in complying with the environmental standard requires a model with dynamic adjustment features. Our investigation shows that the impact of environmental regulation on TFP growth rate could become less detrimental and even positive, confirming the Porter hypothesis. This dynamic pattern is seen clearly in our results in many samples.

Keynes (1936) first brought up the relationship between consumption and national income, but Kuznets¡¦observation about the U.S. data was not supported by the Keynes consumption function form. So there are many macroeconomic theories trying to explain the phenomenon observed by Kuznets. This paper uses the way developed by Campbell (1987) to test the permanent income hypothesis suggested by Friedman with Taiwan data. In addition, this paper uses the stochastic cointegration developed by Harris, McCabe, and Leybourne (2002) to re-examine the relationship between consum-ption and national income because the traditional non-stochastic cointegration assumes that the error term is linear and homogeneous, which may be too strong to fit the real world. Besides, this paper compares the nonstochastic cointegration with the stochastic cointegration, and the evidence founded is that the permanent income hypothesis is not supported by Taiwan data with these two methods.

This thesis analyzes the direction of time problem in the framework of philosophy of science. The radiation arrow, Newtonian arrow, thermodynamic arrow and quantum mechanical arrow have been studied in detail. The importance of the structure of space-time concerning direction of time is emphasized.

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