http://hdl.handle.net/2440/14760 Fri, 24 May 2013 18:42:21 GMT 2013-05-24T18:42:21Z http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77948 Title: A culinary history of the Portuguese Eurasians: the origins of Luso-Asian cuisine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Author: Boileau, Janet Patricia Abstract: The Portuguese Eurasians are a cultural group who trace their ancestry to the fifteenth and sixteenth century Portuguese voyages of exploration that inaugurated the era of European colonization in Asia. The Portuguese established a maritime route to the Far East and built an empire based on spice trade with Europe and inter-Asia trade in a variety of commodities. Portuguese merchants and adventurers travelled throughout the region, married indigenous women and gave rise to Luso-Asian communities in most of the region’s trading centres, while peripatetic Portuguese missionaries established Christian communities and introduced Iberian social values to many areas in the Far East. The Luso-Asian creole societies that developed as a result of these encounters were ethnically diverse but ideologically unified by a tenacious allegiance to Catholicism and a common Portuguese cultural heritage. This study explores the culinary heritage of the Portuguese Eurasians and the historical development of their distinctive, hybridized cuisine, which blends the culinary traditions of Southern Europe with those of indigenous Asia. It establishes the origins of Luso-Asian cuisine in the gastronomy of Early Modern Portugal and examines how Portuguese colonial policy and social formation influenced the development of a creolized cuisine. Key ingredients and foodways that signify Iberian cultural influence are identified and documentary evidence for their transition to Asia is examined. The evolution of Luso-Asian cuisine is traced, from the challenges of food security in the early Portuguese settlements to the emergence of elite colonial societies with an elaborate dining culture. The study argues that the adaptability of the Portuguese and their openness to inter-cultural exchange distinguished them from other European colonists and encouraged the adoption of indigenous culinary elements. At the same time, the desire to retain a Portuguese identity and commitment to the Catholic faith promoted the survival of Iberian cultural traits. This study is the first academic enquiry into the gastronomy of the Portuguese empire and makes an original contribution to the fields of Portuguese history, food history, and colonial studies. More significantly, it begins the work of documenting the foodways of a marginal community whose cultural heritage is rapidly dissipating. Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:30:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77948 2009-12-31T13:30:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77941 Title: Panic disorder : an integrative assessment of brain, body and cognitive function. Author: Wise, Vikki Abstract: Panic disorder is a highly generalised anxiety disorder in the sense that, even in the absence of panic, it is associated with wide–ranging abnormalities across multiple levels of function (e.g., central and peripheral physiology, behaviour, cognition, affect) (Friedman, 2007). Although the extant research literature has typically examined responses to explicitly threat–related stimuli in PD, it is increasingly recognised that panic disordered individuals differ from unaffected controls in their response to normatively non–threatening events, including ‘resting state’ paradigms (Grillon, 2008). In comparison to less integrative research designs, multivariate, multi–level research may more comprehensively characterise function during the disorder’s tonic, between–panic manifestation. The present research therefore examined PD in the between–panic state with an integrative psychophysiological and neuropsychological assessment comprising a range of normatively non–threatening paradigms. Clinical participants with current PD (n = 53) and demographically–matched healthy control participants (n = 106) completed an extensive laboratory–based assessment of brain, body and cognitive function, the results of which are reported as three studies. In Study 1, quantitative electroencephalography and autonomic (cardiovascular and electrodermal) measures were concomitantly recorded during two resting state conditions. The findings of this study demonstrate multiple abnormalities of brain and body function at rest in PD. Findings of note include diminished synchronised electrocortical activity within the alpha–1 frequency range, increased heart rate and decreased beat–to–beat heart rate modulation (i.e. heart rate variability) in PD compared to controls. In Study 2, event–related potential (ERP), autonomic and behavioural measures were obtained during performance of an auditory oddball task, to examine sensory information processing and the allocation of attention to goal–relevant, non–threatening stimuli in PD. Patients and controls differed on numerous ERP and behavioural indices. ERP findings of note include reduced P3 amplitude to infrequent auditory tones in PD compared to controls, and increased N1 amplitude to frequent, irrelevant tones. Study 3 examined cognitive function in PD with an extensive neuropsychological test battery comprising tests selected to assess the core cognitive domains of attention, memory, executive functions, language and sensory–motor function. The results support a selective deficit in the cognitive domain of sustained attention, but normative function in the other assessed cognitive domains. Considered together, many of the research findings indicate either impaired attentional processing or diminished capacity for attentional processing in PD. The findings also fit a theoretical model of diminished physiological flexibility, which proposes that in generalised anxiety disorders such as PD there is less physiological differentiation of baseline activity and stress–related reactivity to minor everyday and laboratory stressors (Thayer & Lane, 2000; Friedman, 2007; Hoehn–Saric, 2007). The integrative assessment identified numerous differences between patients and controls (i.e. disorder markers) spanning multiple levels of function. As different types of disorder markers (e.g., risk factors versus maintenance factors) may differentially benefit clinical practice and research (Zvolensky et al. 2006c), future research is needed to classify the identified markers so that their potential utility may be realised. Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:30:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77941 2011-12-31T13:30:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77940 Title: The role of friends in adolescent overweight and weight-related behaviors: a social network perspective. Author: de la Haye, Kayla Abstract: This thesis examined processes that may be driving the clustering and proposed “spread” of obesity amongst adolescent friends and within their wider friendship networks (Fowler & Christakis, 2008; Halliday & Kwak, 2009). Specifically, the aims were to determine 1) if similarities in weight status amongst friends were explained, at least to some extent, by their body mass indexes (BMIs) assimilating over time, and 2) whether this was underpinned by friends’ influence on obesity-related behaviors. Findings from two cross-sectional studies and one longitudinal study are presented in four papers, of which one has been published and the remaining three submitted for publication. Paper 1 examined associations between adolescents’ BMI and their school-based friendships longitudinally (N = 156), using stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOM) for social networks (Snijders, Steglich, & Schweinberger, 2007). Weight status was found to play a significant role in adolescents’ friendship choices, with overweight youth often marginalized by, and segregated from, their nonoverweight peers. Although there was a trend for friends’ BMIs to assimilate over the 16-month study, this effect was not statistically significant. Similarities in BMI amongst friends were therefore explained by friendship choices rather than “contagion” effects. The conditions under which overweight youth are marginalized by their peers were further explored in Paper 2. This study looked at the role of school classroom norms favoring healthiness, and specifically the norms endorsed by high-status students, in weightrelated marginalization amongst pre-adolescents. In this cross-sectional study (N = 503), exponential random graph models (ERGM) (Robins, Pattison, Kalish, & Lusher, 2007) were used to test for associations between weight status and friendships in school classes with weak versus strong health norms. Overweight students, and particularly overweight girls, were found to be marginalized by their peers in classes with strong health norms; however overweight youth were well integrated in classrooms lacking clear norms on healthiness. The results suggest that local norms may impact the relevance of attributes like weight status to adolescent friendships and thus the prevalence of weight-based stigma in peer groups, providing some useful insights for future interventions. Whether weight-related health behaviors clustered and spread amongst adolescent friends was investigated in the final two papers. The first, cross-sectional, study (Paper 3) looked at several obesity-related behaviors within three adolescent friendship networks (N = 385) and tested for similarities amongst friends using ERGMs. The strongest evidence of behavioral similarity was found for organized physical activity (PA); therefore the final paper (Paper 4) longitudinally examined the social processes driving this association using SAOMs (N = 378). Similarities in PA amongst friends over their first year of high school were found to be explained by friendship selection and influence: adolescents were likely to befriend peers whose attitudes towards PA, and engagement in PA, were similar to their own; and adolescents subsequently emulated their friends’ behaviors so that friends’ participation in PA became increasingly alike. Friends’ influence on PA was not found to be mediated via adolescents’ beliefs about PA, including their perceptions of peer norms, suggesting that this influence process was less internalized than some health behavior theories would suggest (e.g., Ajzen, 1991). As a whole, the studies presented in this thesis suggest that the clustering of overweight in adolescent friendship networks is initially driven by processes of weight-based friendship selection and the marginalization of overweight adolescents by their peers. Excess weight was not found to be contagious in the short term, and longer studies applying similar methods are needed. Nonetheless, some obesity-related behaviors were found to cluster in friendship networks, and for PA this was partially explained by adolescents adopting their friends’ behaviors. Friends’ influence on adolescent PA, and potentially other obesity-related behaviors, is a plausible mechanism that could result in the contagion of obesity in the longer-term. Intervening in, and potentially harnessing these social processes, provides a means to foster peer contexts that encourage healthy behaviors and help to reduce young people’s obesity risk in future. Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:30:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77940 2010-12-31T13:30:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77855 Title: Performance evaluation of measurement algorithms used in IEDs. Author: Ibrahim, Mohammad Nizam Abstract: Many Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) are available for the protection of power systems. These IEDs use a series of mathematical algorithms for fault detection and execute various protection functions. The first and essential mathematical algorithm of any IED is the measurement algorithm. The aim of the measurement algorithm is to estimate the fundamental frequency component (phasor) of input current and voltage signals. Most protection algorithms use the estimated phasor for their executions. The most important factors for the successful use of the protection algorithms in IEDs are accuracy and speed of the phasor estimation by the measurement algorithms. A fault in a power system produces step changes in the current and voltage phasors recorded by IEDs as well as a variety of nuisance signals. The nuisance signals introduce significant input distortions to measurement algorithms. Measurement algorithms that estimate the fundamental frequency phasor component from the distorted input signals produce some errors. Different measurement algorithms produce different amounts of error. This is because their design is based on different approaches with different assumptions that result in different performance in the presence of nuisance signals. It is important to evaluate the performance of measurement algorithms in the presence of nuisance signals. The evaluation is to ensure that measurement algorithms estimate the fundamental frequency component at the required design accuracy and speed. The result of the performance evaluation can be used to select appropriate measurement algorithms for specific protection applications. However, the parameters of nuisance signals are uncertain due to their dependence on unpredictable factors such as fault location and fault impedance. Thus, a methodology for the evaluation of measurement algorithm performance should take into account the uncertainty of the parameters of nuisance signals. The traditional method of evaluating the performance of measurement algorithms is based on the local sensitivity method using a linear function approximation at a nominal point. The local sensitivity method varies only a single nuisance parameter (factor) while other factors are fixed at their nominal values. The studied factor is varied to observe errors in the output of the measurement algorithm. Such an approach, however, does not provide the overall performance of measurement algorithms. Besides, varying the single factor does not represent realistic scenarios. This thesis proposes a new methodology to evaluate the performance of measurement algorithms implemented in IEDs. The proposed methodology uses the global uncertainty and sensitivity analysis method. In this method, all factors representing nuisance components are varied simultaneously. Uncertainty analysis measures the uncertainty in output of the measurement algorithm due to the uncertainty of input factors. Sensitivity analysis measures the contribution of all factors and their interactions to output uncertainty. In general, the global uncertainty and sensitivity method that is based on the Monte Carlo approach requires extensive evaluations. Its implementation can be prohibitive, particularly in practical testing, because the number of factors is large. Thus, a two-stage methodology with a significantly smaller number of evaluations is used. The first-stage is the use of the Morris method as a preliminary (screening of factors) sensitivity analysis and the second-stage is the implementation of the Extended Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (EFAST) technique for comprehensive global uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. A single evaluation involves one run of the IED injection test which can take a few minutes. Thus, it is justifiable to search for the methodology that is uses the smaller number of evaluations. The proposed methodology contributes to an automated testing method integrating ATP/EMTP, MATLAB and SIMLAB programs as well as the injection test facility. The ATP/EMTP program is used to generate fault test scenarios. The MATLAB program is used to model elements of the IED to calculate performance indices on the output of measurement algorithms and automatically control the process of extensive evaluations (simulations). The main role of the SIMLAB is to analyze the uncertainty and sensitivity of the measurement algorithms outputs. The proposed methodology has been demonstrated by evaluating the performance of a known measurement algorithm in simulation and an unknown measurement algorithm of a commercial IED (SEL-421). The methodology has been successfully performed in the simulation as well as in practical testing. The results of the analysis indicate that the performance is typically most sensitive to a few parameters out of many possible factors. These important parameters should then be the focus of research for the optimization of measurement algorithms. Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:30:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2440/77855 2011-12-31T13:30:00Z