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This thesis examines and classifies the diverse techniques and aspects of music and sound effects in popular Japanese comedy anime TV series, American comedy animated TV series and films of the last twenty years with a focus on humour. The analysis is based different humour theories (principally incongruity theory), which provide theoretical support to understand and examine the mechanisms of humour in this repertoire. This thesis fills a significant gap in the literature and aims to contribute to our comprehensive understanding of humorous techniques in the use of sounds and music and their relationships with plot, images and dialogue in animated films and TV. It combines film analysis, musical analysis and theories of humour. Many of the theories, classifications and models in this thesis are also appliable to audiovisual humour in other types of films and TV or other videos, which will be of interest to students and scholars of film, music, but also of psychology, philosophy and other subjects interested in the study of humour and its manifestations beyond the verbal sphere. The first chapter reviews the relevant literature and introduces the reasons for the choice of this topic and brief background information about Japanese anime and US animation, which provides a foundation of knowledge for the following chapters. The second chapter focuses on humour theories, their application to films and TV and the classification of types of humorous events. The next two chapters contains the main body of the analysis and example-based research, exploring the various relationship between music (chapter three) and sounds (chapter four) and the visuals and their role in the underlining or creation of humour.

This scale-up study investigated the impact of a teacher technology tool (Curriculum Customization Service, CCS), curriculum, and online resources on earth science teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and practices and on students' achievement and engagement with science learning. Participants included 73 teachers and over 2,000 ninth-grade students within five public school districts in the western U.S. To assess the impact on teachers, changes between pre- and postsurveys were examined. Results suggest that the CCS tool appeared to significantly increase both teachers' awareness of other earth science teachers' practices and teachers' frequency of using interactive resources in their lesson planning and classroom teaching. A standard multiple regression model was developed. In addition to "District," "Training condition" (whether or not teachers received CCS training) appeared to predict teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and practices. Teachers who received CCS training tended to have lower postsurvey scores than their peers who had no CCS training. Overall, usage of the CCS tool tended to be low, and there were differences among school districts. To assess the impact on students, changes were examined between pre- and postsurveys of (1) knowledge assessment and (2) students' engagement with science learning. Students showed pre- to postsurvey improvements in knowledge assessment, with small to medium effect sizes. A nesting effect (students clustered within teachers) in the Earth's Dynamic Geosphere (EDG) knowledge assessment was identified and addressed by fitting a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM). In addition, significant school district differences existed for student post-knowledge assessment scores. On the student engagement questionnaire, students tended to be neutral or to slightly disagree that science learning was important in terms of using science in daily life, stimulating their thinking, discovering science concepts, and satisfying their own curiosity. Students did not appear to change their self-reported engagement level after the intervention. Additionally, three multiple regression models were developed. Factors from the district, teacher, and student levels were identified to predict student post-knowledge assessments and their engagement with science learning. The results provide information to both the research community and practitioners. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation addresses questions relating to the real economic impact of international financial flows and integration on emerging market economies. Chapter 1 studies emerging markets' corporate liquidity policies in response to financial constraints and uncertainty in global capital markets. I develop a simple model that shows the importance of these two factors in motivating emerging market firms to accumulate internal funds in the form of cash. Using firm and issuance-level data, I find evidence consistent with this hypothesis. I consider the context of these economies' widespread capital flow booms and busts surrounding the global financial crisis of 2008-09. More constrained firms held more cash on average, but they had weaker ability to accumulate cash during the post-crisis period. Furthermore, I show that cash improved foreign-financing-constrained firms' resilience, as those that held more cash prior to the crisis maintained higher levels of investment after the crisis started. Lastly, firms in countries with higher capital flows volatility during the postcrisis period accumulated more cash. This paper highlights a previously-ignored dimension in international economic policy: corporate internal funds impact the vulnerability of firms to capital-flows-generated supply shocks. Chapter 2 investigates the effects of capital account liberalization on wage inequality in emerging markets. I first develop a two-country general equilibrium model, which predicts that wages would rise across all sectors after an emerging market liberalizes its capital account. However, due to sector-level differences in marginal labor productivity, wages increase more in the sector with higher skill intensity. I then use industry-level panel data across sixty-eight emerging markets to evaluate this model. Consistent with the predictions of the model, financial liberalization boosts real wages across all sectors but this increase is disproportionately higher for more skill-intensive sectors, suggesting a rise in wage inequality. Chapter 3 examines the effects of surges and stops in gross capital inflows on emerging market corporate investment at the firm level. While surges and stops do transmit to the real economy in the form of higher and lower physical investment, respectively, this effect is not symmetric. The increase in investment during surge periods is larger in magnitude than the decrease in investment posed by stop episodes. The investment decline during stop episodes is concentrated among financially constrained firms. No such concentrated effect was observed during surge periods. Financial openness affects the magnitude of investment declines during stop episodes but plays no additional role in affecting financially constrained firms, suggesting that the source of emerging market firm financial constraints arises from micro-structural factors. ii

For longitudinal data analyses, existing statistical methods can be used when the independent and dependent variables are measured at the same frequency. In Part 1 of this dissertation, we propose a three-step estimation procedure using local polynomial smoothing for longitudinal data where the variables to be handled are repeatedly measured with different frequencies within the same time period. We first inserted pseudo data for the less frequently measured variable. Then, standard linear regressions were fitted at each time point to obtain raw estimates. Lastly, local polynomial smoothing with analytical weights was applied to smooth the raw estimates. The results showed using analytic weights instead of a kernel function during smoothing is critical when the raw estimates have extreme values, or the association between the dependent and independent variables is nonlinear. In Part 2 of this dissertation, we propose another semiparametric estimation procedure to solve the same problem. After imputing pseudo data for the less frequently measured variable, local polynomial smoothing with analytical weights was applied to smooth the pseudo data for one subject at a time. Then, a suitable parametric mixed-effects model was applied. The results showed that using different types of analytic weights during smoothing produced similar results. Both proposed methods work better when the variances of the repeated measures are small and the within-subjects correlations are high. Statement of Public Health Relevance: The proposed methods are good tools for exploring inconsistently measured longitudinal data. They provide estimation without losing information that has been collected. It is important to biomedical studies especially when many researchers are using diary-based methods to improve the data collection process. For example, paper diaries, personal digital assistants (PDA) and smart phones have been used in the weight loss clinical trials to collect intensive longitudinal data that reflect subjects’ real life experiences and behaviors. The proposed methods can be used when the inconsistent measure problem is present in a longitudinal study.

Despite a long-standing tradition to view gender as a unitary theoretical construct, there is an increasing approbation afforded to gender identity as a multifarious construct. Over and above physiological characteristics, gender identity is a psychological and a social construct. More than simply a biological classification, both gender and gender identity have been explored as portentous moderators of consumers' cognitive and emotive states, brand attributions and shopping behaviors. How might gender differences be manifested in building and sustaining brand relationships? This is the seminal question addressed in the present research. The overarching objective of this research is to address how the broadened conceptualization of gender impacts customer-based brand equity across U.S. and Chinese consumers. The focal populations of interest are related to markedly different levels of brand penetration in each a post-developed and transitional market setting. Furthermore, it provides a platform for investigating how gender identities may differ across two of the largest consumer buying groups in the global marketplace. Toward this goal, this research explores the multidimensionality of gender as a construct, and then empirically investigates how an extended view of gender may or may not impact consumer-based brand equity. Based on an integration of extant theories in gender identity and self-congruity, this study proposes a research framework to investigate the relationship among gender identity, brand connections, and consumer-based brand equity. An online survey was conducted to collect consumer panel data in the U.S. and China respectively. Results from regression analysis and path analysis suggest that physiological gender alone cannot adequately explain consumers' brand perceptions. The empirical analysis offers further support for including three unique gender related constructs (physiological gender, psychological gender traits, and gender role attitudes) to understand gender-related consumer behavior. The results also indicate that brand connections serve as important intermediate steps to understand the relationship between gender identity and consumer-based brand equity.