Asia-Pacific zoos in the 21st century : stakeholder perceptions of the roles and functions of zoos : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Management at Massey University, New Zealand

The advent of the anthropocene accentuates the transformation of ecosystems on a global scale. This study responds to these concerns by assessing the role and function of 21st century zoos in general and the Asia-Pacific zoos in particular. The lack of information on key zoo stakeholders (visitors, staff members, corporate sponsors and zoo associates) is significant in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in Asia, where there are complexities that may stem from cultural and societal differences. Furthermore, current literature is predominantly based upon Western research and case studies, which rarely take into account the complexities and differences of Asia. This research considers the diversity of the Asia-Pacific region by examining the perceptions and attitudes of the four groups of key stakeholders. Zoos in six countries across the Asia-Pacific were visited over a period of six months to March 2013 in order to assess the diversity of the study region. A literature survey and meta-analysis of 138 zoo-based publications was employed to create a matrix table of themes, stakeholders, and research outcomes. These results were used to design survey instruments directed at stakeholder groups as well as provide a framework against which the results of this study can be compared and contrasted. Quantitative analysis such as Principal Component Analysis, Spearman’s Rho and Kruskal-Wallis H test were used to analyse the results. The face-to-face and computer-based instruments were augmented with the use of a reflective diary and personal work experience to triangulate and validate the research results. The results show that individual zoos across the world are facing similar challenges. Differences in educational backgrounds and socio-cultural norms within the Asia- Pacific region are reflected in stakeholders’ experiences, perceptions, and evaluations of zoos. The results show that there are many differences amongst Asia-Pacific zoo practices, visitor satisfaction, and stakeholder participation and these differences would make it extremely difficult to coordinate activities at a regional level to give them a single voice with a single agenda

Differential Chow Form for Projective Differential Variety

In this paper, a generic intersection theorem in projective differential algebraic geometry is presented. Precisely, the intersection of an irreducible projective differential variety of dimension d>0 and order h with a generic projective differential hyperplane is shown to be an irreducible projective differential variety of dimension d-1 and order h. Based on the generic intersection theorem, the Chow form for an irreducible projective differential variety is defined and most of the properties of the differential Chow form in affine differential case are established for its projective differential counterpart. Finally, we apply the differential Chow form to a result of linear dependence over projective varieties given by Kolchin.Comment: 17 page

McKean-Vlasov SDEs and SPDEs with Locally Monotone Coefficients

In this paper we mainly investigate the strong and weak well-posedness of a class of McKean-Vlasov stochastic (partial) differential equations. The main existence and uniqueness results state that we only need to impose some local assumptions on the coefficients, i.e. locally monotone condition both in state variable and distribution variable, which cause some essential difficulty since the coefficients of McKean-Vlasov stochastic equations typically are nonlocal. Furthermore, the large deviation principle is also derived for the McKean-Vlasov stochastic equations under those weak assumptions. The wide applications of main results are illustrated by various concrete examples such as the Granular media equations, Kinetic equations, distribution dependent porous media equations and Navier-Stokes equations, moreover, we could remove or relax some typical assumptions previously imposed on those models.Comment: 53 page

The profitability of technical analysis in the Taiwan-U.S. forward foreign exchange market

Based on technical analysis and White's and Hansen's data-snooping-robust tests, we examine the efficiency of the Taiwan-U.S. forward foreign exchange market and find that, unlike the spot market, the forward market is inefficient even under a very high transaction cost, suggesting that the failure of forward rate unbiasedness documented in the literature may be due to forward market inefficiency.data snooping, forward exchange rate unbiasedness, market efficiency, profitability, reality check, technical analysis