published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Fluvial sediments, as a product of erosion, are associated with a wide range of environmental issues. In particular, sediment quality and its origin represent one of the focuses of contemporary water management. This study examines the characteristics and provenance of fine bed sediments in a humid sub-tropical macro scale catchment – the East River basin in South China. Sampling was carried out in the dry seasons of 2007 – 2008, following the protocol of USGS OFR 94-458. Sample density was one per 200 km2. The particle size, grain roundness, geochemistry, mineral magnetic parameters, clay mineralogy, along with C and N, were determined for the <2-mm and <63-μm size fractions. A geochemical baseline, along with its spatial distribution, was developed for the East River by using a statistical approach. The geochemistry was generally consistent with upper crustal abundance of China and with world average suspended matter concentrations. Some analytes, such as arsenic and sulphur, were elevated and were found to associate with anthropogenic activities, whilst rare earth elements (REEs) were affiliated with the igneous geology in the study basin. These associations were also detected from exploratory factor analysis, as well as the longitudinal profiles developed for the main stem of the river. Sediment source apportionment was carried out by utilizing the fingerprinting procedure on three geologic groups. Results indicate that provenance of sediments in the East River was more or less uniform among the different geologies, but the accuracy of the apportionment has been compromised by the relatively high within-group variance of the source categories. Results suggested that source apportionment was only viable by utilizing the <63-μm fraction, and grain size correction factor shall not be employed on samples with a high granulometric variance. REE represents a robust signature to indicate provenance from igneous lithology, in particular, granites. / published_or_final_version / Geography / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

　　　Since China’s economic reform and opening up to the outside world, foreign investment has become the major dynamo of regional development in China. Under the polarized development strategy in the 1980s and 1990s, foreign investment has been highly concentrated in the coastal regions and the uneven distribution of foreign investment may be partly responsible for the significant regional disparity at the inter-provincial or even intra-provincial level within the country. Since the early 2000s, with China’s integration into the global economy and the dynamic economic restructuring in the coastal regions, foreign investment has been undergoing redistribution with the country. 　　　Based on a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research methods, this study examines the spatio-temporal pattern and dynamics of foreign investment from different sources within a full coverage of time periods from China’s opening up to recent years (1980-2006) at the intra-provincial level in Guangdong. This study demonstrates that the spatio-temporal pattern of foreign investment in Guangdong has transformed from having Shenzhen as its single growth pole in the early stage to having Shenzhen and Guangzhou as bi-growth poles in the later stages and foreign investment has widely diffused via the transportation lines from the growth poles to the peripheral regions within or out of the province. The emergence of Shenzhen instead of Guangzhou as the initial growth pole enriches traditional theories and empirical experiences of having the historic economic and industrial centre as the growth pole in the early stage of take-off of a region. Moreover, this study examines the theoretical base and effectiveness of the growth pole strategy and argues that it can be a means of transferring economic growth to new regions instead of reinforcing the cumulative effects of polarized development. Most failure of the growth pole strategy is due to the procedure of the implementation instead of the theoretical base of the strategy. 　　　To explain the initial and ongoing diffusion of foreign investment in Guangdong, this study proposes a multi-level analytical framework, which includes the push and pull factors of home and host regions at the local level, the role of government at the regional level, the structure of global production network at the global level, and the characteristics of foreign investment form different sources at the firm level. Specifically, four distinctive diffusion models of foreign investment are identified, i.e. the “cost-and-government-driven” model of Hong Kong firms, the “supply-chain-driven” model of Taiwan firms, the “market-and-group-driven” model of Japan firms, and the “market-and-institution-driven” model of US firms. This study suggests that the local push and pull factors are far from enough in interpreting such dynamic and various patterns of the diffusion of foreign investment, which should be put into a multi-level context including the local, regional, global and firm level factors and considerations. In-depth knowledge of the spatio-temporal pattern and dynamics of foreign investment from different sources is considered as the prerequisite to improve the efficiency of government development policies. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis is the first comprehensive reference grammar of Kilen, a lesser known and little studied language of the Tungusic Family. At present, Kilen is a moribund language with less than 10 bilingual speakers in the eastern part of Heilongjiang Province of P.R.China. Since the language does not have a writing system, the examples are provided in IPA transcription with morpheme tagging. This thesis is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1 states the background information of Kilen language in terms of Ethnology, Migration and Language Contact. Beginning from Chapter 2, the language is described in the aspects of Phonology, Morphology and Syntax. This thesis is mainly concerned with morphosyntactic aspects of Kilen. Chapters 6-8 provide a portrait of Kilen syntactic organization. The sources for this description include the work of You Zhixian (1989), which documents oral literature originally recorded by You himself, a fluent Kilen native speaker; example sentences drawn from previous linguistic descriptions, mainly those of An (1985) and You & Fu (1987); author’s field records and personal consultation data recorded and transcribed by the author and Wu Mingxiang, one of the last fluent native speakers. The aim is to provide a portrait of a Chinese Tungusic language on the brink of extinction. This thesis does not adopt any particular syntactic theoretical framework. The terminology in this thesis is tended to be theory-free and descriptive. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Landscape Architecture

Bereavement, an unavoidable event in everyone’s life, brings endless missing, grief, and suffering to people. Among all kinds of bereavement, losing a child is considered the most sorrowful and traumatizing. It is extremely difficult for parents who lose a child to recover from their deepest pain. On May 12, 2008, an earthquake, measuring 8.0 Ms, occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan province, China. The earthquake killed more than 70,000 people and left about 20,000 missing. During the earthquake, some school buildings collapsed and as a result, hundreds of students died. Their parents experienced overwhelming bereavement. To understand what bereaved mothers experience and how they cope with bereavement after the loss of children, the author conducted this longitudinal study based on the dual process model of coping with bereavement (DPM), and applied qualitative inquiry using interpretative phenomenological analysis. In this study, the author has reported on her 4 waves of interviews with these parents, regarding how they coped with grief over 2 years. The author conducted 4 waves of in-depth, face-to-face interviews with mothers who lost their children during the Wenchuan earthquake (N= 43). The findings reveal that three levels of stresses exist in these bereaved mothers’ (BMs) grief experiences, including individual, family, and society levels. On the individual level, they experienced not only emotional distress, such as overwhelming grief, despair, and anger, but they also experienced cognitive distresses, such as regret, guilt, meaninglessness and hopelessness. On the family level, BMs experienced various stresses, such as family incompleteness, despair of their family life, and tensions with their spouses. On the society level, these BMs experienced pressure from social expectations and public opinion. They felt segregated and detached from their social networks. Life became meaningless to these BMs, resulting in suicidal thoughts. These BMs practiced a variety of coping strategies to deal with their endless grief and stresses in their daily lives. These BMs actively worked through their grief and negative emotions. They adjusted their cognition to deal with their children’s deaths, and made efforts to reconstruct their lives; through things like having another child, rebuilding their life purpose, and rebuilding relationships with others. Avoidance strategies included proactive avoidance and reactive avoidance coping. Respite was manifested in the BMs temporarily devoting themselves to other things in order to distract themselves from tremendous bereavement. This study verifies and enriches the DPM in the Chinese socio-cultural context, while indicating suggestions for social work practice and social policy. / published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The Dai and Bulang people are ethnic minorities in China. Most of them live in Yunnan province, which is located in the southwestern part of China. This study aimed to describe the oral health status, oral health-related behaviors of the 5-and12-year-old children of the Dai and Bulang ethnic groups, the oral health-related knowledge of the 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children living in Yunnan Province, and the factors that influence their oral health status. An oral health survey was conducted on a sample of 5-and 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children in Yunnan, China. The children were selected using a multi-stage and purposeful sampling method for examination by a trained dentist. Dental caries experience was measured using the “dmft/DMFT” index,o ral hygiene status with VPI index and periodontal status with CPI index. A questionnaire was used to collect information on the children’s background, oral health-related knowledge and behaviors. A total of 833 Dai and 723 Bulang 5-year-old children were examined. The prevalence of dental caries among the Dai and Bulang children was 89% and 85%, respectively. There were 49%of the Dai and 38%of the Bulang children had carious tooth with pulp involvement. Their mean (±SD) dmft score was 7.0±5.3 and 5.8±4.9, respectively. Their mean (±SD) dt score was 6.8±5.2 and 5.6±4.8, respectively. Higher dmft scores were found among Dai children who were girls, were currently bottle-fed, took sweet snacks daily, had higher VPI scores, had visited a dentist within last year, and whose father had up to secondary school education. The Bulang children, who took sweet snacks daily, had visited a dentist within the last year and had higher VPI scores had higher dmft scores. A total of 823 Dai and 873 12-year-old Bulang children were surveyed and their prevalence of dental caries was 40% and 35%, respectively. Around 90% of the carious teeth were left untreated. Their mean DMFT (±SD) score was 0.9±1.5 and 0.6±1.1, respectively. Most of them (Dai, 93%; Bulang 71%) had gingivitis and around half of them (Dai, 46%; Bulang, 58%) had dental calculus. The Dai and Bulang children who were girls and those who had visited a dentist during the previous year had higher caries risk. The mean dental knowledge score of the 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children was 7.2 ± 3.7 and 7.8 ± 3.6, respectively. In conclusion, the prevalence of dental caries of the 5-year-old Dai and Bulang children in Yunnan, China was high and most of them were left untreated. The caries experience of the 5-year-old Dai children was associated with gender, father’s education, bottle feeding habits, snacking habits, dental visit behavior, and oral hygiene status. The caries experience of the 5-year-old Bulang children was associated with their snacking habits, dental visit habitsand oral hygiene status. Dental caries was common among the 12-year-old Dai and Bulang children and associated with gender and dental attendance. Most of the decay were left untreated. Their oral health-related knowledge was moderate. Their periodontal condition was poor. / published_or_final_version / Dentistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

During the past decade, China has shown unusual enthusiasm for gaining World Heritage status in anticipation of a substantial rise in tourism profits.However, World Heritage recognition is not always beneficial to heritage sites. Such recognition not only attracts tourist flows and creates potential development opportunities; it also poses threats for heritage conservation and increases the social contradictions and cleavages in such sites. This research examines the relationship between heritage conservation and tourism via the case study approach. The target case for analysis is the vernacular Hakka heritage tulou sites in the Chinese province of Fujian. Combined research methods comprising in-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys among representatives of key stakeholder groups were adopted to examine local tourism development from a variety of perspectives. On-site participant observations and secondary archival research collection were employed as supplementary methods. The stakeholder analysis framework was adopted and modified to examine stakeholder engagement in tulou heritage tourism. Three key stakeholder groups were the focus of investigation: the local government, local residents and domestic tourists. Exploration of their roles in tourism development revealed an imbalance in the partnership between the three groups, which may have consequences for sustainable such development. The investigation was then extended to such secondary stakeholder groups as the central government, tourism entrepreneurs, UNESCO, tourism planners and scholars, the mass media and inbound tourists. The involvement of each group is herein analysed to generate a stakeholder map of tulou tourism. The findings show that heritage tourism development is usually accompanied by tensions and conflicts among economic, cultural and political goals. The partnership between three key stakeholder groups is imbalanced, and consequently reforce the dominance of government over tulou residents and tourists in heritage tourism contexts. Only when this triangular partnership achieves balance can tulou heritage tourism achieve sustainable and healthy development. It is suggested that stakeholder collaboration is great need in order to achieve sustainable tourism development. In sum, this thesis applies stakeholder analysis into heritage tourism. The research findings herein contribute useful insights for future tourism development and have important policy implications for tourism management. Besides policy implications, this research has some theoretical contributions to heritage tourism literature as it modifies stakeholder framework for future tourism studies. / published_or_final_version / Geography / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education