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This thesis considers political exclusion of temporary migrant workers (TMWs) a challenge to the legitimacy of the liberal democratic constitutional state, asking whether, and on what basis, the right to political participation is necessary for protecting TMWs and for legitimising the state’s coercive power over TMWs. It compares TMW programmes in Taiwan and Canada to demonstrate the common legal techniques of temporariness and alienage, which generate a particularly precarious and exploitable labour force. The temporariness and alienage of TMWs also mean TMWs are deemed irrelevant to the democratic legitimacy of the host state. To challenge this conventional view, this thesis critically engages with the neo-republican conception of freedom as non-domination to argue that the work relations of TMWs constitute private domination, which is conceptually connected with their exclusion from public participation. Moreover, the democratic boundary of the state should be drawn to include all who are present in the state’s territory and who are subject to the entire legal system, regardless of their legal citizenship. These arguments anticipate a conception of democratic citizenship applicable to TMWs. This thesis thus distinguishes itself from the two major camps for TMW protection: rights and citizenship approaches. It also suggests that TMW programmes, as they are now, weaken the democratic legitimacy of the liberal, democratic, constitutional order.

This is an enterpretivist cultural study on how the lively idea of assessment is enacted by the art teachers, students and administrators in Denton school art education, North Texas, the United States. This ethnographic research aims to extend understanding on assessment as vivid cultural and social dynamics that both reflects and enlivens varied and interconnected values promoted and shared among the people involved. Through a perspective of the culture of assessment, this study is expected to facilitate insights on art education as lived, purposeful experience bearing suggestions on a certain social environment and historical implications. Such insights as sought further illuminate specific understandings on art education in different cultural societies, such as China. From a Chinese native viewpoint, the researcher broadens her horizons on connection and independence important for informative performance of art education in the discourses of modern nation and schooling, as well as globalization. It is hoped that this study will interest other art educators, teachers, and researchers to make multiple and continuous efforts in further exploring the culture of assessment with cultural and historical consciousness and knowledge.

Euphorbia subg. Chamaesyce Raf. contains about 600 species and includes the largest New World radiation within the Old World-centered Euphorbia (Euphorbiaceae). It is one of the few plant lineages to include members with C3, C4 and CAM photosynthesis, showing multiple adaptations to warm and dry habitats. The subgenus includes North American-centered groups that were previously treated at various taxonomic ranks under the names of “Agaloma”, “Poinsettia,” and “Chamaesyce”. Here we provide a well-resolved phylogeny of Euphorbia subg. Chamaesyce using nuclear ribosomal ITS and chloroplast ndhF sequences, with substantially increased taxon sampling compared to previous studies. Based on the molecular phylogeny, we discuss the Old World origin of the subgenus, the evolution of cyathial morphology and growth forms, and then we provide a formal subgeneric classification, with descriptions and species lists for each section or subsection we recognize. Among the fifteen sections we recognized within subg. Chamaesyce, sect. Anisophyllum is the largest lineage of C4 plants among the eudicots, with 350 species including both narrow endemics and cosmopolitan weeds. We sampled this group worldwide with 138 ingroup species, using two nuclear (ITS and exon 9 of EMB2765) and three chloroplast markers (matK, rpl16, and trnL-F). Three major clades were recovered within the section [1(2,3)]: (1) the Acuta clade, containing three North American species with C3 photosynthesis and C3-C4 intermediates; (2) the Peplis clade, mostly North American and entirely C4; and (3) the Hypericifolia clade, all C4, with both New World and Old World groups. Incongruence between chloroplast and ITS phylogenies and divergent cloned copies of EMB2765 exon 9 suggest extensive hybridization. Woody members of sect. Anisophyllum originated once from herbaceous members in the New World, probably through allopolyploidy, and diversified into 16 species that occupy all habitat types on the major Hawaiian islands. We further increased taxon sampling within the Hawaiian radiation to 104 ingroup accessions including 15 of the 16 species. Chloroplast data including more than 8 kb of non-coding regions support old to young island dispersal along the Hawaiian island chain. Nuclear ITS, LEAFY and G3pdhC markers further support the hybrid origin of Hawaiian Anisophyllum with recent interspecific hybridizations.

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological malignancy among women in the United States. One in sixty-eight women will develop ovarian cancer in their lifetime. The current first-line treatment for ovarian cancer is cisplatin. However, the tumors relap and are typically unresponsive to cisplatin treatment. Therefore, the resistance to cisplatin therapy has been a critical hurdle in the management of recurrent ovarian cancer. The mechanisms responsible for cisplatin resistance are multifactorial that there is no single factor that can account for the resistance in every cell. In the search for new therapies to overcome/bypass cisplatin resistance, histone deacetylases (HDACs) and the PI3K/PDK-1/Akt pathway have been considered some of the most promising targets. These targets have been implicated in the tumorigenesis of many cancer types including ovarian cancers. In the first part of this study, we assessed the anticancer effects of (S)-HDAC42, a novel HDAC inhibitor developed in our laboratory, in both cisplatin-sensitive and -resistant ovarian cancer cells in vitro, as well as in an ovarian cancer xenograft mouse model in vivo. In the second part, OSU03012, a PDK-1 inhibitor also developed in our laboratory, was evaluated in ovarian cancer cells in vitro. Our results show that (S)-HDAC42 (i) induced apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells at low doses regardless of cisplatin sensitivity; (ii) induced cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase with concurrent down-regulation of Cdc2 and cyclin B1 protein; (iii) stimulated cell differentiation; (iv) effectively inhibited tumor growth in CP70 tumor xenograft-bearing nude mice; and (v) enhanced the suppression of CP70 tumor growth by cisplatin in combination treatment. The results of the second part of this project show that OSU03012 (i) effectively suppressed ovarian cancer cell growth as determined by MTT assay, irrespective of cisplatin sensitivity; (ii) caused downregulation of PDK-1/Akt signaling as indicated by the dephosphorylation of Akt and its downstream effector, p27; (iii) induced ovarian cancer cell apoptosis; (iv) stimulated cell cycle arrest at G1 or S phase; and (v) additively augmented cisplatin-mediated cytotoxicity in ovarian cancer cells. In conclusion, these findings indicate that HDACs and PDK-1/Akt pathway play important roles in ovarian cancer survival, as the inhibition of either target greatly hinders the survival of ovarian cancers. Moreover, the novel HDAC inhibitor, (S)-HDAC42, and PDK-1 inhibitor, OSU03012, are promising anticancer agents for the treatment of ovarian cancer, either administered alone or in combination with cisplatin.

This study examines whether nonfinancial patent information is useful to investors in assessing and valuing biotech firm’s long-term financial performance. The biotech industry requires large R&D investments with uncertain payoffs. Current accounting practice expenses (rather than capitalizes) R&D expenditures. As a result, financial variables are often negative or excessively depressed. Because accounting assets do not reflect biotech firms’ valuable intangible assets, this study examines whether nonfinancial patent information supplement the information content of financial information in market valuation. Using six patent variables measuring both quantity and quality aspects of patents, I found evidence consistent with the idea that nonfinancial patent information captures the biotech firms’ value not currently formally valued by traditional financial indicators. In addition, patent information is associated with and can be useful in predicting a biotech firm’s long-term financial performance with a two-year lag.