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The Kerala conundrum: exploring the relationship between social change and high suicide rates in the Indian state of Kerala
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 82-103.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Suicide in India -- Chapter 3. Research methodology -- Chapter 4. Social causes of suicide: quantitative analysis -- Chapter 5. Social causes of suicide: qualitative analysis -- Chapter 6. Conclusion.The state of Kerala has a unique history of high social development, rapid social change and high suicide rates. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the effects of rapid social change on suicide rates of Kerala within a broader Indian context—that is, to show how the suicide problem of Kerala reflects the overall suicide problem in India. The association between rapid social change and suicide rates is explored by sensitising Durkheim’s suicide theory in the Indian context. The study utilises a mixed method approach consisting of bivariate analyses and linear regression modelling (quantitative analysis) and in-depth interviews (qualitative analysis). The results highlight that high suicide rates of Kerala and India more generally, are a result of a state of conflict or anomie developed through an ongoing clash between the traditional and the modern ways of living. The states with high Hindu populations are found to be susceptible to suicide as historical sanctions towards suicide in Hindu culture continue to have their impact on modern Hindu suicides. Also, more affluent states and states with higher literacy rates tend to have higher suicide rates. For example, south Indian states have higher suicide rates while north Indian states have lower suicide rates. Furthermore, high unemployment rates seem to have a weak impact on suicide rates across India. All these results indicate that the more ‘modernised’ parts of India suffer from higher suicide rates.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (122 pages) illustration
School governance, school leadership and school effectiveness
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 233-244.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Literature review -- Chapter 3. A theoretical framework of school governance -- Chapter 4. Research focus -- Chapter 5. Phase 2 of the research : Interviews with school principals and chairs of school councils -- Chapter 6. Phase 3 : quantitative research -- Chapter 7. Summary of research findings and recommendations -- Chapter 8. Discussion of findings and areas of further research -- Chapter 9. Summary -- Chapter 10. Conclusion -- Appendices -- References.Good school governance by way of school boards and school councils has long been recognised in the Australian Independent school sector and elsewhere as being a key factor in contributing to the development of high performing schools. This practice has now moved into government schools where current policies in Victoria and Western Australia devolve school management in some instances to locally created school boards and councils. This devolution of management responsibility away from centralised control in education has also occurred internationally. The use of school councils in government schools in England for instance, is well established and the growth of charter schools in the United States of America, over the past twenty years, has witnessed the increased need for locally created school boards and councils. The expansion of school councils emerged from the neo-liberal ideas of school choice and the belief that local school governance leads to greater autonomy, effectiveness and financially efficient schools which meet the needs of their local community albeit most often within regulatory frameworks for curriculum, assessment and teacher standards.Whilst research in the area of governance in general is quite significant, little research has been undertaken internationally, and in Australia, on the processes that lead to good school governance. In particular little research exists which relates to the relationships that exist between the chair of school council, school principal, members of school council and the school executive. This reflexive study used a mixed methods approach to analyse the processes of good school governance within 18 schools of the Anglican Schools Corporation in NSW Australia, which together represent a wide cross-section of school types and contexts. Its intention was to investigate and, if possible, create a good practice school governance framework. The study commenced with the development of a conceptual framework derived from the available corporate, organisational and educational literature. The next phase of research was qualitative in nature and involved one-to-one interviews with six chairs of council and nine school principals, further developing the framework. The final phase used quantitative research methodology to survey chairs of school council, school principals, members of school council and school executive teams about their opinions of the emerging framework. The good school governance framework generated by the study contributes to further research and theory development in the field of educational leadership, education policy, and school practice.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xiii, 244 pages) diagrams, table
The impact of energy resources on climate policy: Case studies of Hawaii and Victoria
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 101-120Introduction -- Chapter 1: Climate Policy Drivers and the ACF -- Chapter 2: Hawaii -- Chapter 3: Victoria -- Chapter 4: Comparative Conclusions – It’s all about the StateThis research considers the key drivers and inhibitors to climate policy development with a particular focus on the role of a jurisdiction’s underlying energy resource. The states of Hawaii in the United States and Victoria in Australia are chosen as case studies given their differing energy resources: Hawaii has no native fossil fuels resources but abundant renewable energy options while Victoria has an economy traditionally reliant on cheap, plentiful brown coal. The Advocacy Coalition Framework is applied as the analytical tool to understand why the two states, despite the different incentives provided by their energy resources, developed similar climate policies in the earlier period of policy response to global warming. Analysis finds that the stable parameter of natural resources is counter-balanced by other fundamentals and policy drivers including enhanced path dependency and public opinion. The state-level analysis indicates subnational governments may offer a different context for climate policy development and supports the other limited academic work that promotes the role of states within federal political structures taking a lead on responding to climate change.1 online resource (120 pages) illustration
Probing the Unruh and Hawking effects using Unruh-DeWitt detectors
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 75-86Acknowledgements -- List of Publications -- Statement of Contributions -- Abstract -- List of Figures --1 Introduction -- 2 Quantum Field Theory -- 3 Unruh-DeWitt particle detectors -- 4 Cavities in Curved Spacetimes: The Response of Particle Detectors -- 5 Measuring motion through relativistic quantum effects -- 6 Strong transient modulation of horizon radiation -- 7 Classicality of a Quantum Oscillator -- 8 Conclusions and Future Directions -- References – Appendices.Quantum field theory is so far the best description of the fundamental laws of Nature, yet it does not fully incorporate gravitation. The first attempt toward unifying the quantum field theory and gravity is a semi-classical theory of gravity, that in its basic form treats the gravitational background as fixed and focuses on the dynamics of matter fields instead. Well-known phenomena such as the Unruh effect and Hawking radiation provide elegant partial unification of these theories but still present a number of unresolved issues. One can attempt to address some of these challenging issues by relying on the semi-classical theory of gravity but not all of them are resolvable in the absence of a complete theory of quantum gravity, without fully incorporating both principles of general relativity and quantum theory. In recent years, however, the core ideas of quantum field theory combined with basic concepts of quantum information theory such as quantum entanglement have provided powerful approaches to address such questions. Perhaps quantum information theoretic methods could be a step towards uncovering the fundamental principles of quantum gravity. In this context, the new sub-discipline of relativistic quantum information underlies the present thesis. Here, the fundamental features of radiation-matter interaction are explored in various physical settings of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes using Unruh-DeWitt particle detectors. In the first part of this thesis, a new model for computing the response of a particle detector in localized regions of general curved spacetimes is introduced to circumvent the mathematical complexity of standard methods for calculating the response function. Also, signatures of transition probabilities of atoms that are relativistically moving through optical cavities are shown to be very sensitive to their spatial trajectories. This allows to use internal atomic degrees of freedom to measure small time-dependent perturbations in the proper acceleration of an atomic probe, or in the relative alignment of a beam of atoms and a cavity. Further, the extent to which the Unruh spectrum of non-uniformly accelerated trajectories can be modulated and carry information is determined. Invoking the equivalence principle, one can argue that these results indicate that Hawking radiation could also be correspondingly strongly modulated and could, therefore, be carrying away significant amounts of information. Furthermore, showing how and to what extent the Unruh effect can be amplified is of interest in developing its experimental probes. The last topic that is considered in this work concerns foundational issues associated with relativistic quantum information. Motivated by recent suggestions that gravity might remain classical, and by claims that Gaussian quantum mechanics is effectively a classical theory, the dynamics of a hybrid classical-quantum system is investigated. While many explicit quantum effects can be represented classically, we demonstrate that quantum aspects of the system cannot be fully masked. These results could have implications for the no-cloning theorem, quantum teleportation, and the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen (EPR) thought experiment. Also they could be of importance in the ongoing discussion as to whether or not gravity should be quantized.1 online resource ( xvi, 89 pages) illustration
From first witches to funny witches: early modern reinterpretations of Circe and Medea myths and the witches of Terry Pratchett's discworld
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 293-310.1. Spenser's The Faerie Queene: myths, fairy tales and 'English' witches -- 2. Classical witches in early modern plays and masques -- 3. Shakespeare and witch stereotypes -- 4. Performing witchcraft in Stuart drama -- 5. Pratchett's witches -- Conclusion.The story of the witch has always been about dangers presented by her nonconformity and resistance to gender expectations. This thesis initially traces the development of the two major strands of witch stereotypes, the dangerous seductress and the ugly old hag, from the first examples we have of them, in the myths of Circe and Medea, to reinterpretations of these myths in select early modern texts. The main focus of this part of the thesis is on ways in which early modern reinterpretations of Circe and Medea intersect with traditionally English witches of the hag variety, and how in turn this relates to marked reductions in the power witches were said to possess, often in conjunction with more humorous representations of these figures in early modern texts. The thesis thereupon argues that by the end of the seventeenth century, the witch stereotypes that would be such an influence on the fantasy fiction genre of modern times had clearly developed. As the thesis subsequently argues, Terry Pratchett’s witches interact with, manipulate, and frequently resist the story of the witch as an evil woman so prevalent in early modern texts and consequently in fantasy fiction up until the late nineteen eighties. The performative nature of witchcraft and gender is evident in the story of the witch at many points in history and literature, and Pratchett’s good witches, like contemporary feminists, resist and re-write the conventional story of what it is to be a witch or a woman.1 online resource (ix, 311 pages
Generalizing link prediction for information extraction
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 57-67.1. Introduction -- 2. Literature review -- 3. Modeling n-ary relationships -- 4. Experimental evaluation -- 5. Conclusions and future work -- Appendix -- References.Information Extraction (IE) is the task of extracting from a text the entities and the relationships that hold between them, in a form that can be stored in a database called a Knowledge Base (KB) or Knowledge Graph (KG). Link prediction, also called as Knowledge Base Completion, is the task of predicting missing links in order to make KG more complete. While most of IE and link prediction models have focused on binary relationships, in the real world relationships are often n-ary (n > 2). Recently, IE algorithms have been proposed that can extract relationships of arbitrary arity, but as far as we know there is no corresponding work on link prediction involving relationships of arbitrary arity. In this thesis, we introduce the task of n-ary link prediction by proposing two different models to model n-ary relationships and two different training methods to train the proposed models. We also provide new dataset (based on Wikidata) for training and evaluating our proposed approaches. We also propose a modification in the standard evaluation criteria in order to overcome the bottleneck of huge computational complexity when working on large-scale KBs. Evaluation in terms of Mean Rank, Hits@10 and classification accuracy on tuple dataset show that our proposed approaches have the ability to generalize link prediction over tuples having arbitrary arity.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xv, 67 pages) diagrams, graphs, table
A cross-entropy method optimal stopping problems
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 57-631. Introduction -- 2. Literature review -- 3. Theory and methodology -- 4. Simulation study -- 5. Discussion and future research.There are frequent situations when observations are recorded consecutively over a period of time, for an example, daily values of currency exchange rates. Sequential observations appear one by one, so data are analysed as they are collected without fixing the sample size in advance. Further sampling may be terminated according to a pre-defined stopping rule. There are situations where we need to make decisions considering the observations which are already having while future observations are not known yet. Sequential data analysis has a variety of applications in a wide range of fields including industrial quality control, econometrics, analysis of financial systems among many others. In this thesis, we develop several versions of a Cross-Entropy method to find an approximate optimal stopping rule. Here we have considered cases of both independent and dependent observations. We have carried out a simulation study., which has shown the accuracy of the proposed algorithm.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xvi, 63 pages) graphs, table
Singing teachers and the development of young voices
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 62-74.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Literature review -- Chapter 3. Research method and design -- Chapter 4. Findings -- Chapter 5. Discussion and recommendations -- Chapter 6. Conclusion and future research -- References.The method of teaching singing has long been based on the master-apprentice model and oral tradition. Historically, teachers applied methods sourced from their own learning experience, and the focus was primarily on producing beautiful sound. More recently, with the introduction of scientific advancements and an acknowledgment of the stages in adolescent vocal development, the role of the singing teacher is becoming increasing more multifaceted and holistic. The aim of this explorative study was to investigate the singing teacher’s role in the development of young voices. To guide this inquiry, a structured interview of nine singing teachers was conducted, in which the participants responded to questions pertaining to their teaching methods, feedback methods, pedagogical orientation and teacher-student relationships. The results highlighted three key influences of the singing teacher on the development of young voices. These included the need for adaptation in response to the individual, creating an individual learner through the use of student-led and technological feedback, and establishing a safe learning environment. The outcomes achieved from this research have teaching implications not only for the private singing teacher in regard to enhanced teaching methods, but may also extend to the primary and secondary school sector in the delivery of vocal programs within the classroom setting. Additional benefits include improved professional development courses for teachers, pre-service education students, as well as pedagogical content in tertiary courses. Future research stemming from this study could include a more in-depth analysis of the term vocal development, or an investigation into the teaching methods utilised by online singing teachers.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (ix, 96 pages) diagrams, table
Design and performance improvement of radial line slot array antennas
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 67-71.1. Introduction -- 2. Background -- 3. Radial line slot array antenna design methodology -- 4. RLSA antennas with uniform and tapered amplitude distributions -- 5. Radiation bandwidth improvement of RLSA antennas -- 6. Beam steering of RLSA antenna using metasurface -- 7. Conclusion -- Appendices -- References.Rapid increase in satellite-based wireless services has created a demand for directive beam-steering antennas with wide radiation bandwidths. Commercially available parabolic reflectors provide satisfactory performance but their bulky physical appearance and nonplanar configuration make them less attractive in several applications. Microstrip array antennas exhibit poor radiation efficience at higher gain. Radial line slot array (RLSA) antennas are known for their directive radiation charateristics and planar profile but suffer from limited radiation bandwidth and lack the beam-steering feature. This thesis presents RLSA antennas with improved radiation performance, wide radiation bandwidth and beam-steering feature. Several RLSA antennas have been designed. One of these RLSA antennas has a gain of 36.9 dBic with radiation efficiency greater than 90%. By optimising near-field amplitude distortion, sidelobe level of an RLSA antenna has been reduced to -26.1 dB, which comes close to Class-2 and Class-3 ETSI antenna standards. RLSA radiation bandwidth has been enhanced by introducing permittivity variation of the dielectric materials in the cavity. Such an antenna has demonstrated a 3-dB directivity bandwidth of 19.4% and an axial ratio bandwith of 27.3%. Furthermore, this thesis also presents a methodology to steer the beam of RLSA antennas by using a pair of near-field phase-transforming metasurfaces.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xx, 71 pages) graphs, table
The use of humour in multicultural classrooms: a case study of teachers' and students' perceptions and practices from a university ELICOS centre
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 126-133.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Literature review -- Chapter 3. Methodology -- Chapter 4. Findings -- Chapter 5. Discussion -- Chapter 6. Conclusions -- References -- Appendices.This thesis reports on an investigation into the employment of humour in multicultural classrooms, focusing teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices. A mixed method approach was used. Participants included 7 teachers and 104 students from a university ELICOS centre in an Australian city. Data were collected through class observations, teacher interviews and student questionnaires. First, teachers’ practices of using humour, including the frequency of humour attempts and choices of different humour types, were obtained through class observations in which the researcher played the role of a non-participant observer. These teachers’ perceptions of the role of humour in teaching and their preferences for certain humour forms were investigated through the subsequent interviews. In general, all the teachers were of the view that engaging some humour in language teaching would probably bring about more benefits rather than disadvantages, however, they warned against the use of too much humour, which might distract students from their studying. They also claimed that certain types of humour should be avoided in the classrooms so as not to cause misunderstanding or make students feel offended. The questionnaires for students aimed to investigate the students’ perceptions of the humour-learning relationship as well as responses to their teachers’ humour usage in class, and to look for patterns in demographic data: gender and nationality.The findings show that the incorporation of humour in EFL teaching and learning was viewed positively by the teachers and students in this study. A classification of humour types including 4 main categories (related, unrelated, self-directed and other-directed humour) and 25 subcategories was inductively developed using the content analysis of the successful humour attempts by the teacher participants. Student gender and nationality were found to correlate with some aspects of their perceptions of humour as well as responses to their teachers’ humour usage: on average, females expressed more positive attitudes toward humour than males did, and non-Chinese students showed stronger agreement with the positive effects of humour on learning as well as preferring more frequent use of humour in teaching.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (192 pages) illustrations (some colour