The Rhetorics Of Constructing HIV/AIDS In The United States And China: A Comparative Analysis Of Two Online Discussion Forums

This thesis focuses on the cross-cultural comparison of the public rhetorics that construct HIV/AIDS in two online discussion forums from the United States and China. Social constructions of HIV/AIDS have previously been explored in specific countries and cultures; however, comparative studies have rarely been conducted, especially by applying rhetorical cultural analysis focusing on online discourses. Responding to these gaps in research, this study combines two underexplored dimensions -- comparative rhetorical analysis and online discourse -- to show how online communications, metaphors, and topoi identified in discussion forum posts reveal and construct the idea of HIV/AIDS in the public sphere for people living in the two countries with different political, social, and cultural backgrounds. First, a rhetorical analysis on the discussion forum\u27s structure and content provides a rich understanding of how the underlying ideology influences communication processes and rhetorical patterns. From there, a metaphorical analysis reveals how metaphors are applied and further construct people\u27s interpretation of the disease and illness experience in their daily discourses. Finally, a topical analysis demonstrates how specific reasoning traditions shape the national and cultural mindset for constructing HIV/AIDS in certain ways. The findings suggest that the U.S. forum AIDSmeds reveals a more individualist-expressive rhetoric, which encourages sharing of personal illness experiences and emotions. While the Chinese forum ZhiAiJiaYuan reveals a more communitarian-persuasive rhetoric, which directly persuades the participants to construct their illness experiences from a social moral standpoint

Образи войовниць у кінотворчості Мішель Йео як показник переосмислення ролі жінки в суспільстві

The article studiesthe work of film actress Michelle Yeoh, in particular, the evolution of the images of female warriors created by her. It is shown that the various stages of the actress' creativity reflect the global processes of reinterpretation of female characters in adventure, fantasy, spy movies, wuxia and kungfu movies. It has been proven that the dramatic talent of Michelle Yeoh is fully revealed in adulthood and complements the images of female warriors with Taoist-Buddhist values.The subject of the article is the images of female warriors in the works of film actress Michelle Yeoh.The research methodology is based on search, system-historical, analytical and comparative methods, which allowed to carry out a comprehensive artistic analysis of Michelle Yeoh's creativity at various stages of her film career.It was concluded that several types of warriors can be distinguished in Michelle Yeoh's work: "a girl with a gun"; master of martial arts; protector - sorceress - mentor; superheroine from science fiction films; a multifaceted dramatic character focused on universal existential questions. It is emphasized that the creative path of M. Yeoh is consistent with the general process of feminization of world cinema, the transfer of emphasis from the patriarchal understanding of the role of women in society to the issue of gender equality and the study of the deep nature of femininity.Key words: Chinese cinema, Michelle Yeoh, wuxia action films, kung fu films, feature film.Стаття присвячена творчості актриси кіно Мішель Йео, зокрема еволюції створених нею образів жінок-воїнів. Показано, що різні етапи творчості актриси відображають загальносвітові процеси переосмислення жіночих персонажів у пригодницьких, фентезійних, шпигунських кінокартинах, фільмах уся та кунг-фу. Доведено, що драматичний талант Мішель Йео повною мірою розкривається у зрілому віці та доповнює образи войовниць даосько-буддистськими ціннісними установками.Предметом статті є образи войовниць у творчості кіноактриси Мішель Йео.Методологія дослідження ґрунтується на пошуковому, системно-історичному, аналітичному та порівняльному методах, що дозволило здійснити комплексний художній аналіз творчості Мішель Йо на різних етапах її кінокар’єри.Зроблено висновок, що в творчості Мішель Йео можна виокремити кілька типів войовниць: «дівчина з пістолетом»; майстриня бойових мистецтв; берегиня – чародійка – наставниця; супергероїня з науково-фантастичних фільмів; багатогранний драматичний персонаж, зосереджений на універсальних екзистенційних питаннях. Наголошено, що творчий шлях М. Йео узгоджується із загальним процесом фемінізації світового кінематографу, перенесенням акцентів із патріархального осмислення ролі жінки в суспільстві на питання гендерної рівності та дослідження глибинної природи жіночності

Advanced Methods for Discovering Genetic Markers Associated with High Dimensional Imaging Data

Imaging genetic studies have been widely applied to discover genetic factors of inherited neuropsychiatric diseases. Despite the notable contribution of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in neuroimaging research, it has always been difficult to efficiently perform association analysis on imaging phenotypes. There are several challenges arising from this topic, such as the large dimensionality of imaging data and genetic data, the potential spatial dependency of imaging phenotypes and the computational burden of the GWAS problem. All the aforementioned issues motivate us to investigate new statistical methods in neuroimaging genetic analysis. In the first project, we develop a hierarchical functional principal regression model (HFPRM) to simultaneously study diffusion tensor bundle statistics on multiple fiber tracts. Theoretically, the asymptotic distribution of the global test statistic on the common factors has been studied. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the finite sample performance of HFPRM. Finally, we apply our method to a GWAS of a neonate population to explore important genetic architecture in early human brain development. In the second project, we consider an association test between functional data acquired on a single curve and scalar variables in a varying coefficient model. We propose a functional projection regression model and an associated global test statistic to aggregate weak signals across the domain of functional data. Theoretically, we examine the asymptotic distribution of the global test statistic and provide a strategy to adaptively select the tuning parameter. Simulation experiments show that the proposed test outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in functional statistical inference. We also apply the proposed method to a GWAS in the UK Biobank dataset. In the third project, we introduce an adaptive projection regression model (APRM) to perform statistical inference on high dimensional imaging responses in the presence of high correlations. Dimension reduction of the phenotypes is achieved through a linear projection regression model. We also implement an adaptive inference procedure to detect signals at multiple levels. Numerical simulations demonstrate that APRM outperforms many state-of-the-art methods in high dimensional inference. Finally, we apply APRM to a GWAS of volumetric data on 93 regions of interest in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset.Doctor of Philosoph