Open Access Theses

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Open Access
A survey of translations of the Lord's Prayer into Chinese / Carmen K. M. Kong.
(2014-05) Kong, Carmen K. M
Growing up in a Catholic family, it is easy to take for granted everything one knows and practices in the faith. Since first hearing of Matteo Ricci, the early Jesuit missionary to China, I became a bit obsessed with early missionaries. I
Open Access
Expanding the participatory dimension of democracy: Sunflower activism's influence on politics in Taiwan / Lewe Paul.
(2015-10) Paul, Lewe
Theorists of democracy have offered a range of reasons why citizen participation beyond elections is beneficial to representative democratic models. This thesis draws on these teories to examine the influence of the Sunflower Movement and subsequent Sunflower activism on democratic politics in Taiwan between March 2014 and September 2015. The thesis argues that Sunflower activists are both (1) generating informal spaces enabling citizens to participate in public oversight, civic education, and informing and legitimating policy-making and (2) promoting the improvement of formally institutionalised participation. This claim is supported through a focused qualitative analysis of activists' social media platforms and websites since 2008. These expose a pattern of dissatisfaction and participatory democratic aspirations shared by the Sunflower Movement and its antecedents. Interviews with members of four Sunflower activist groups and analysis of the groups’ publications demonstrate how these projects attempt to increase citizen participation. In addition to operating a range of informal participatory spaces, the groups champion the revision of legislation to expand citizens’ institutionalised participation. A brief survey of official responses indicates that the Sunflower activists' advocacy gained concessions from politicians, by influencing their campaign rhetoric and promises to voters. More importantly, it began to inform legislative debates. The findings suggest that within the short time frame covered in this thesis, the Sunflower activism expanded the arenas for citizens’ political participation in Taiwan.
Open Access
The immortal loyalist: survival and history in the works of Zhang Dai (1597-1680?)
(2015-05) He, Ge
Zhang Dai 3H{§ (1597-1680?)' was a scholar born in the late Ming. After the Ming's collapse, he survived and completed several works, including a private history, essays and poems.
Open Access
Self-expression in the poetry of Xi Peilan (1762-1831?): negotiating relationships between men and women writers in the mid-Qing China
(2013-05) Choi, Wonjung
In general, it is true that women writers during the Ming and the Qing dynasty were signifieantly more prolific and successful, as compared to the literary activities of women in previous dynasties in Chinese literary history. Xi Peilan was one such prominent female writer who also produced her own anthology, Changzhen ge ji, in the mid-Qing China. Therefore, in this thesis, Xi Peilan and her literary works have been examined in order to have a better insight into the literary works of women writers at that time. Two key areas, personal and societal circumstances, have been focused in order to explore the meaning of Xi Peilan’s literary activities in the context of socio-cultural milieu of the mid-Qing dynasty. In particular, the interpersonal relationships were critical to understand Xi Peilan’s literary works, as she actively established various relationships with other writers during her life.
Open Access
A perfect wave? : reimagining tourism in Papua New Guinea / Mark Laurie.
(2015-10) Laurie, Mark
International tourism fundamentally "involves the human capacity to imagine or to enter into the imaginings of others."2 Correspondingly, places are essentialised as tourist destinations through the projection of particular images.
Open Access
Vision Language Model Guided Zero-shot Classification
(2026) Yao, Haodong
Among various core tasks in Computer Vision, 2D image and 3D object classification are fundamental tasks which serve as the foundation for numerous applications including scene understanding, robotics and autonomous navigation. Vision Language Model (VLMs) are deep learning architectures designed to process and understand both visual and textual information simultaneously. This thesis takes a close look at Vision-Language Models in classification tasks, with a particular emphasis on zero-shot settings in both 2D and 3D scenarios. We provide a comprehensive overview of Vision-Language Models, focusing on their pretraining datasets, architectural components, learning strategies, and representative models. By comparing with supervised 2D approaches including shell learning along with conventional 3D classification methods, in-depth experiments and analysis have been conducted from various perspectives, including classification performance, semantic clustering and computational efficiency.
Open Access
Mystical experiences in the inner chapters of Zhuangzi
(2012-10) McConochie, Thomas John
"Mysticism" is a phenomenon which many sinologists have attributed to Zhuongzi. The problem is that they make this attribution in passing and without much reference to literature on the subject of mysticism itself. By analysing three specific examples of mystical experience in Zhuongzi and explicating them in terms of literature on mysticism, I provide a more explicit hermeneutic for the understanding of mysticism in Zhuongzi. The three sections of Zhuongzi I analyse in this thesis are the "riding the wind" section as well as the "Ziqi" and "sitting and forgetting" dialogues. I engage with the ways these sections of text have previously been labelled "mystical" and explain their mystical dimensions in explicit terms. I develop and test a hermeneutic of mysticism which holds that "mystical experiences" transcend ego and sensory perception through esoteric practices which involve ecstasy and ultimately lead the practitioner to experience what she/he considers to be the true nature of reality. I argue that the ecstatic experience of the egoless state in and of itself is more important to mystical experience than another more commonly presupposed element — unity with some kind of "divine other" — which does not exist in the "riding the wind" section and the "Ziqi dialogue."
Open Access
Splendour of the world: representations of the urban environment in Sanskrit literature
(2012) Donnelly, Andrew
The city figures as a recurring motif in the Sanskrit literature of pre-modern South Asia.
Open Access
Melodic Drumming: Beyond the Rhythmic Analogue
(2026) Jordan, Michael
This thesis investigates the art of melodic drumming in pre-composed and improvisatory musical settings. It considers ways melodic concepts can expand the musical role of the drumset. It considers the artistic and practical implications of including melody in drumset playing, allowing a reciprocal relationship between melody, rhythm and, by implication, harmony. This research is an extension of my own creative practice. The findings described here have enabled me to redefine my role as a drumset practitioner. It explores the historical roots of melodic drumming that pertain specifically to my project. I describe the development of the time-feel concept that led toward more implicit time playing, enabling an autonomous melodic expression for drumset players, focussing on the bebop period of the 1940's onwards, and drummers who looked to expand their musical vocabulary by exploring melodic and harmonic compositional techniques. This thesis outlines an original tuning and performance practice that redefines the musical role of the drumset. Two tuned drumset's were designed for this study. Both were tuned to an original modal system from low to high in a B flat major scale. The drums in both sets were tuned to maximise their timbral application in performance, and to sound at a definite pitch. The custom drumset's support a variety of manipulated drum sounds, strike placement, dynamic variation, note length, of both determinate and indeterminate pitched sounds. Outcomes from this research include scored compositions, studio recordings, collective improvisations and live performance that embody the interpretation of melodic drumming described in this thesis, culminating in the album Aim.
Open Access
Informal life politics in the female workers' union movement in South Korea, 1970-1979 / Yon Jae Paik.
(2013) Paik, Yon Jae
The status of the 1970s’ generation of female factory workers in South Korea's labour history is somewhat perplexing.
Open Access
Chinese cultural conservatism after May Fourth Movement : a study on the Critical Review (Xueheng School) / |c by Juncheng Guo.
(2014) Guo, Juncheng,
This paper is a study on the Critical Review or Xueheng and its role in the Chinese intellectual debate in and around the May Fourth period. This study continues to examine Chinese Cultural Conservatism in modern China and its effort to seek an alternative Chinese modernity. It will take Xueheng School as an example of Chinese Cultural Conservatism after the May Fourth period to examine how and why Chinese intellectuals defined Chinese modernity from a conservative perspective. This paper will explore how Xueheng School pursued the alternative Chinese modernity, and what cultural foundations underpinning Chinese Cultural Conservatism. This paper will explore three intellectual currents that compose the cultural bases of Xueheng's Chinese Cultural Conservatism: national essence from he native, New Humanism from the West, and the anti-modernity trend globally. National essence performs the outlook of Xueheng's Cultural Conservatism. Humanism consists of the theoretical support of Xueheng's arguments. Antimodernity forms the core of Xueheng’s thoughts. This thesis argues that, the idea of national essence and interpreted New' Humanism compose the cultural foundations of Xueheng's Cultural Conservatism. Both of them comprise the anti-modernity nature of Xueheng School, which contributes to Chinese modernity as another major force seeking an alternative modernity.
Open Access
Advanced MHD Simulations of White Dwarf Mergers and Thermonuclear Transients
(2026) Burmester, Uri
White Dwarfs (WDs) -- particularly those in binary systems -- represent a vital research topic in modern astronomy. WD binaries are believed to play a key role in numerous areas, including supernova explosions, galactic chemical evolution, the formation of highly magnetic compact stars, and the gravitational wave background. Advanced magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) codes, coupled with increasing computational resources, now allow astronomers to numerically model WD interactions with improved resolution, extended timescales, and more sophisticated physical processes. Higher dimensionality, more realistic chemical compositions, and larger nuclear reaction networks all contribute to reconciling models with observations. In this thesis, I simulate a variety of WD interactions using new physics-rich simulation frameworks. I employ the moving mesh MHD code AREPO to conduct hydrodynamical simulations and adopt realistic chemical profiles for the WD structures. The first part of the thesis develops a pipeline for generating chemically and thermally self-consistent WD structures using the WDEC code. These structures are used to simulate the merger of a carbon-oxygen WD with a low-mass helium WD, resulting in an edge-lit detonation that produces asymmetric ejecta dominated by Ni56, Si28, and S32. Variation in inspiral rates strongly affects the outcome: slower inspirals produce surviving high-velocity helium WD companions consistent with observed hypervelocity WDs, while faster inspirals lead to a disruption of the companion via extreme tidal forces. These results highlight the importance of physically accurate pre-merger structures and angular-momentum evolution in merger modelling. Subsequent simulations focus on mergers between an oxygen-neon (ONe) and a helium WD using detailed ONe profiles generated with LPCODE. A thermonuclear runaway is triggered at the base of the helium layer, producing about 0.103 solar masses, of ejecta with compositions characteristic of faint, rapidly evolving transients similar to a supernova of type ".Ia". Comparison with simplified constant-composition models shows that neglecting realistic abundance profiles can yield unphysical double-detonation pathways. The outcomes of these models strengthen the link between helium accreting ONe WD systems and observed sub-luminous thermonuclear transients. The final part of the thesis examines how chemical distillation of Ne22 during WD crystallisation alters explosion nucleosynthesis and observables. Artificial detonations of Ne22-enriched core and shell models produce enhanced yields of neutron-rich isotopes such as Ni58, Ni59, and Co55. Spectral differences are only modest at early times but become potentially distinctive in the nebular-phase, where forbidden lines of iron-group elements emerge. Distillation also increases the B-band decline rate without greatly reducing peak luminosity, offering a possible explanation for bright, rapidly declining SNe Ia. These results demonstrate that the evolution of internal composition can leave detectable imprints on explosion products and light curves. Collectively, this work provides new insights into the conditions leading to WD detonations and the diversity of the resulting transients. It underscores the importance of using physically consistent initial models, realistic chemical stratification, and coupled hydrodynamic-nucleosynthetic approaches in simulating thermonuclear events.
Open Access
Data-centric Designs for Reliable Model Training and Deployment
(2025) Liu, Yuchi
AI models are integral to real-world applications such as security, healthcare, and autonomous driving, making their reliability and robustness crucial. Like two sides of a coin, model and data jointly shape system performance. The model-centric paradigm focuses on architectures and training algorithms, while the data-centric paradigm improves training data quality and designs methods that leverage data attributes for deployment. Existing work largely favors the former, overlooking data-side issues: training data scarcity, domain gaps, and noisy labels; and deployment challenges like zero-shot adaptation, performance estimation without ground truth, and confidence calibration. This thesis develops a series of data-centric methods to enhance model reliability, generalization, and trustworthiness by improving data quality and exploiting nuanced attributes. At the training stage, three approaches address data scarcity, domain mismatch, and label noise. Chapter 2 introduces MiE-X, a synthetic dataset specifically designed for the micro-expression recognition task where the training data scarcity is serious. MiE-X synthesizes subtle facial expressions by recombining facial muscle movements and the faces in the wild with generative networks, effectively reducing dependency on costly human labeling and significantly improving generalization performance of the trained models. Chapter 3 presents MOTX, an engine developed to synthesize multi-object tracking data, created through a 3D simulation environment Unity, addressing the biases and limited motion scenarios in real-world tracking datasets. MOTX enables precise, systematic evaluation under various motion scenarios and robust training of identity association algorithms without real-world annotation costs and domain adaptation. Chapter 4 focuses on the widespread issue of label noise in face recognition tasks, proposing a robust semi-supervised framework composed of two complementary mechanisms: GroupNet, an ensemble-based label filtering method, and NRoLL, a confidence-driven pseudo-label refinement strategy. Together, these methods effectively stabilize training performance even under severe annotation noise. In deployment, we target efficient adaptation of large pretrained models, performance estimation without labels, and confidence calibration. To adapt large language models (LLMs) to novel scenarios without explicit fine-tuning, Chapter 5 introduces HMAW, a hierarchical multi-agent workflow for prompting. Recognizing the impracticality of extensive fine-tuning and manual prompt engineering, HMAW employs cooperative exploration by multiple language-model agents to systematically generate and refine effective zero-shot prompts. This structured, data-driven prompting significantly enhances LLMs' ability to generalize effectively across diverse unseen tasks. Chapter 6 introduces Vicinal Risk Proxy (VRP), a plug-in that aggregates risk from neighboring samples in a tailored vicinal distribution to adjust existing risk estimators, delivering reliable performance estimates without labels. Chapter 7 further refines model deployment by proposing a correctness-aware confidence calibration approach. This strategy explicitly aligns model confidence with empirical correctness by leveraging transformed or augmented inputs, significantly enhancing the reliability of confidence signals presented to end-users. Overall, this thesis advances data-centric strategies across training and deployment. For training, we improve data quality through transfer, controllable synthesis, and multi-expert pseudo-labeling. For deployment, we develop multi-agent prompt engineering for zero-shot adaptation, vicinal-consistency-based performance estimation, and its application to confidence calibration. These findings highlight the often-overlooked yet critical role of data in shaping reliable AI, calling for increased attention to data-centric strategies in both research and practice.
Open Access
Applied epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases and nationally notifiable invasive bacterial infections in Australia
(2026) Croker, Zoe
In this thesis I present collected works under the theme of applied epidemiology and surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases and nationally notifiable invasive bacterial infections in Australia, which I conducted while placed at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) from February 2021 to October 2024. The thesis presents the four core competencies required in the Master of Philosophy (Applied Epidemiology) (MAE). In my data analysis project I compared the short-term safety of pneumococcal vaccines in adults following a change to the National Immunisation Program schedule using data from AusVaxSafety collected between November 2016 to March 2022. AusVaxSafety is Australia's active surveillance system for self-reported adverse events following immunisation. I analysed counts, proportions and odds of reporting any event, solicited events and any medical attention (proxy for serious event). Using mixed-effect logistic regression, I demonstrate that half as many people reported adverse events after receiving the newer 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine compared to the vaccine that was on the schedule prior. Furthermore, I found Indigeneity did not predict the likelihood of reporting an event. Population susceptibility is a key indicator of risk for measles outbreaks of, the avoidance of which is a crucial part of maintaining elimination status. In my epidemiological study I triangulated existing Australian data sources to identify age-specific measles susceptibility to inform immunisation policy and program measures to support maintenance of elimination. I estimated measles susceptibility by single year birth cohort for Australians born 1920-2019 using previously collected national vaccine coverage data from the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) and national seroprevalence surveys. I found that nearly 1.7 million Australians (6.6%) were susceptible to measles in 2019. Australia's population level susceptibility was on the lower edge of the WHO recommended herd immunity threshold of 93-95% protection. Case definition and review are essential components of maintaining surveillance for a nationally notifiable communicable disease. My surveillance project comprised developing a surveillance case definition for a newly nationally notifiable disease invasive Group A Streptococcus. Following thorough review of existing jurisdictional, national and international surveillance mechanisms for the surveillance of invasive bacterial infections I was able to directly apply the knowledge to contribute a crucial element of the national surveillance process. I investigated an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Delta sub-lineage in a childcare centre in the Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD), NSW between 22 July and 24 August 2021. The study described patterns of transmission and tracked staff and student transmission based on room location. The evidence from this outbreak investigation confirmed the high rate of transmission (attack rate: 16%) within the childcare centre was strongly influenced by multiple adult cases continuing to work while infectious and symptomatic.
Open Access
Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution - Coherent State Protocols for a Free Space Optical Experiment
(2026) Quinlivan, Ciaron
We test a continuous variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) protocol using coherent states modulated on a 21.1 MHz sideband of a 1550nm fibre laser (Koheras C15) and demonstrate positive secret keyrates over a lossy channel in a tabletop experiment. Based on analysis for a GG02 protocol, we estimate a maximum keyrate with introduced loss of 1.03 +/- 0.17 bits/pulse at 4.5 dB loss on the X quadrature with a modulation variance of 5.2 SNU and a modulation bandwidth of 500-800 kHz. We observed positive keyrates at 0dB loss for all modulation bandwidths, with distinct peaks at lower modulation variances of approximately 0-5 SNU and 30 SNU for most modulation bandwidths. With introduced loss, the experiment produced positive keyrates on both quadratures for 500kHz modulation bandwidth at 1.4 dB loss, and on the X quadrature for 800kHz modulation bandwidth at 4.5 dB loss. Negative but near zero keyrates were also observed for 600kHz and 1 MHz modulation bandwidths, which may warrant further investigation using different filtering regimes. Digital filtering yielded significant improvements, producing both higher overall keyrates and a much greater number of positive keyrates for filtered versus unfiltered key data. Additional noise or filtering is needed to consistently produce positive keyrates. We identified significant noise on the P quadrature, which limits the viability of using this experiment for a switching protocol. We determined the P quadrature of the laser was not shot noise limited below 15 MHz, with intermittent noise above this from an unknown source. Without further reducing the noise on the P quadrature, it will remain a significant barrier to testing improvements from adaptive optics on this experiment.
Open Access
Population and high-risk based approaches to reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease in low- and middle-income countries
(2026) Alemu, Yihun
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a major global health problem, with rising prevalence due to aging populations and improved survival rates. Preventive measures like lifestyle changes and medications are key. Two strategies to reduce CVD risk are population-based approaches for entire populations and high-risk approaches for individuals. However, the high-risk approach is challenging in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to limited resources. Non-laboratory-based CVD risk prediction tools could help, though their effectiveness is not well understood. A combined approach considering local sociodemographic and environmental contexts may most effectively reduce CVD in LMICs. The thesis aims to compare the performance of non-laboratory-based and laboratory-based equations across different settings and populations. Additionally, it aims to quantify the disparities in CVD risk among disadvantaged groups by identifying variations and social determinants across different settings. The thesis consists of two systematic reviews to compare non-laboratory-based and laboratory-based CVD equations, and four empirical studies to identify the most susceptible groups for CVD risk. Systematic reviews included studies published until March 12, 2024, with 25 studies on the correlation and agreement between laboratory- and non-laboratory-based equations and nine studies on their prediction performance. The results show strong correlations and moderate agreement between laboratory- and non-laboratory-based equations, with substantial hazard ratios for additional predictors significantly altering predicted risk, particularly for individuals with higher or lower levels of these predictors compared to the average. For empirical studies, data from the WHO STEPS national survey in Ethiopia, Brunei Darussalam, Iraq, Nepal, Afghanistan, Jordan, Mongolia, and Sao Tome and Principe include sociodemographic factors, behavioural factors (tobacco and alcohol use, physical inactivity), and biological risk factors (blood pressure, blood glucose, and cholesterol). These data are linked to 30 years (1970-2000) of district-level climate history, with multivariable multilevel regression models and geospatial analysis used to identify individual- and community-level factors associated with ten-year CVD risk. Ten-year CVD risk is significantly higher among study participants who are widowed, divorced, or separated, reside in urban areas, have lower educational status, are retired or unable to work, engage in low physical activity, and live in communities with higher water vapor pressure climates. Conversely, lower ten-year CVD risks were associated with communities in inherently hotter climates. Hotspot areas for mean ten-year CVD risk were observed across various regions of Ethiopia, rather than being limited to a specific area. In addition to these hotspots, regions with higher annual water vapor pressure (humidity) were linked to higher ten-year CVD risk, offering insights for targeted CVD prevention strategies in more humid regions. The findings of this thesis indicate the validity of affordable and feasible CVD risk equations made for resource-limited settings, alongside the possible integration of non-laboratory-based methods within their healthcare systems. Moreover, the thesis identifies vulnerable groups susceptible to CVD risk disparities, including sociodemographic, behavioural, geographical, and environmental factors, and informs targeted prevention strategies
Open Access
Structural Elucidation of the Interaction of Apicoplast Resident Ferredoxin and its Interacting Proteins
(2025) Akuh, Ojo-Ajogu
The apicoplast is an essential plastid-like organelle which was derived from red algae by secondary endosymbiosis and found in members of the Apicomplexa phylum (except Cryptosporidium and most gregarines). This organelle harbours several essential metabolic pathways absent from the parasite’s host making it and the pathways therein prime targets for the design of drugs against diseases such as malaria (caused by Plasmodium spp.) and toxoplasmosis (caused by Toxoplasma gondii). Inside the apicoplast, an electron transfer system is essential for various enzymatic processes. This system is facilitated by the ferredoxin redox system, which comprises the plant- type ferredoxin-NADP⁺ reductase (ptFNR) and its redox partner, plant-type ferredoxin (ptFd). Whereas protein-protein interaction is known to mediate the electron transfer from ptFd to partner enzymes, the exact amino acid residues at the interaction interface remains unknown. In this study, the exact amino acid residues at the interaction interface between ptFd and one of its partner enzymes in the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway of isoprenoid biosynthesis called (E)-4-hydroxy-3-methyl-but-2-enyl diphosphate reductase (Particularly PfIspH) was determined using the combination of an E. coli model and an advance computational biology technique that helped navigate the challenge of performing protein-protein interaction with labile Fe-S containing proteins and structural determination of protein complexes respectively. The results reaffirmed the role of electrostatic interaction in the protein-protein interaction and provides vital information for the design of inhibitors against such protein complexes. The result of the E. coli model screen was recapitulated in the apicoplast of T. gondii making a case for the model as a very useful first screening platform for functional mutations or drug effects before more laborious and time-consuming assays in the parasite are performed. Further application of the model in flavodoxin complementation study provides evidence for the evolutionary relationship between Cyanobacteria (Nostoc), Chromera velia and Apicomplexa and how the parasitic lifestyle of apicomplexan parasites may likely influence the flexibility of their redox system. Furthermore, report on the inability of flavodoxins to complement TgFd provide indirect evidence for the involvement of ptFd in the SUF (sulfur utilization factor) pathway of Fe- S biogenesis in the apicoplast. Hence, the findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the interaction interface between PfFd and PfIspH, the evolutionary relationship between flavodoxins and ptFd as well as the metabolic role of ptFd as an essential, central electron distributing hub in T. gondii and P. falciparum, supporting its importance for the parasite’s metabolism and underlining its potential as a drug target in apicomplexan parasites.
Open Access
Strengthening regional arrangements for the protection and promotion of human rights in the Pacific
(2026) Nayacalevu, Romulo
States as duty bearers have an obligation under international law to protect and promote human rights. All Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Member States embed these obligations within various normative and institutional frameworks. These regulatory systems are designed to enhance the protection of human rights. However, there are significant protection gaps at the national or State level and at the (Pacific) regional level. This dissertation responds to the question of how Pacific States can address these human rights protection gaps and strengthen State obligations to protect and promote human rights. Using a qualitative study, this research adopts a Pacific talanoa method of sharing information and ideas on issues and in this context, human rights in the Pacific. The dissertation examines the conceptualisation of human rights at the national and regional level and the role of Pacific States in safeguarding human rights. I found that while human rights understanding is evolving in the Pacific and is widely accepted across the region, human rights tensions remain. The challenges and tensions are in its enforcement and conceptualisation. To address these tensions, my dissertation argues that institutionalising human rights will significantly contribute to its understanding and practical implementation. The thesis advances scholarly understanding of the roles of both national and regional human rights institutions in addressing protection gaps by (1) conceptualising human rights in a local and regional context, (2) vernacularising human rights, and (3) supporting the implementation of human rights commitment and obligations. I demonstrate this by drawing on two case studies showing how Fiji and Samoa's national human rights institutions (NHRI) are advancing human rights protection and understanding in their nations. Samoa's NHRI annual human rights reports (the first and only such mechanism in the Pacific) serve as a monitoring mechanism for the State in gauging its human rights obligations on various thematic issues and implementation. This unique form of monitoring and accountability by the NHRI enhances the credibility of promoting human rights understanding in the community, especially in linking the important cultural concept of fa'aSamoa to human rights. Moreover, the thesis finds that Fiji's NHRI amicus curae role significantly contributes to creating accountability of the State's legal obligation to protect human rights by enforcing the obligations in Fiji's normative legal instruments and those derived under human rights treaties. Furthermore, both Samoa and Fiji NHRI advance human rights education, awareness, and build human rights capacity through training across all levels of society. The dissertation also examines human rights protection at the regional level. It argues that significant human rights protection gaps exist because of the lack of institutional mechanisms. Using a comparative lens by drawing from the human rights' architectural experiences of the African, inter-American and European regions, the thesis argues for the establishment of a Pacific human rights architecture to address the region's protection gaps, especially in the context of climate change. This dissertation builds on the initial work on the conceptualisation of a (Pacific) regional human rights mechanism by the Law Associations for Asia and the Pacific (LAWASIA) in 1985. However, the dissertation makes an original contribution on how human rights institutions, both at the national and regional level, can contribute to vernacularising human rights by synergising human rights principles with Pacific values. The dissertation argues for the establishment of human rights institutions at the national and regional level to address the human rights protection gaps in the Pacific.
Open Access
High-Dimensional Inference under Dynamics and Complexity: Applications in Biology and Finance
(2026) Lu, Yonghe
This thesis focuses on advancing statistical inference methods and theoretical understanding for modeling and optimization problems in high-dimensional settings, specifically targeting scenarios where the number of variables substantially exceeds available observations. The central contributions include the development of a robust method for detecting change points in graphical models and an in-depth theoretical analysis of the "double descent" phenomenon in mean-variance portfolio optimization. In Chapter 2, we propose the Factor-Augmented Graphical Model (FAGM), a novel methodology for detecting structural changes in piecewise-constant graphical models. Unlike traditional approaches that assume independent observations and static network structures, FAGM explicitly incorporates unobserved, temporally correlated common factors. This allows the method to isolate true shifts in conditional dependencies by analyzing error components, which are assumed to be independently and piecewise-identically distributed. We rigorously establish the theoretical consistency of a regularized estimator and demonstrate its effectiveness through extensive simulation studies and a real-world application involving gene expression data. Chapter 3 investigates the empirically observed but theoretically ambiguous "double descent" phenomenon within the framework of mean-variance portfolio optimization. By explicitly modeling complexity through the number of assets, we uncover a distinctive "double ascent" pattern in the out-of-sample Sharpe ratio. Initially, increased portfolio complexity enhances performance, followed by deterioration due to estimation errors, and eventually a renewed improvement when complexity surpasses the number of observations. Our theoretical results provide transparency into the causal mechanisms behind this phenomenon, quantifying how economic benefits (theoretical Sharpe ratio) and statistical accuracy (estimation precision) jointly drive this counterintuitive behavior. This analysis reveals that over-parameterization can significantly outperform simpler models in high-dimensional portfolio selection contexts. Collectively, this thesis provides rigorous theoretical foundations, complemented by extensive simulation and empirical studies, clearly demonstrating the practical utility and robustness of the proposed statistical methodologies and theoretical insights.
Open Access
Dancing With Bach: A Tactile Deconstruction of the Sixth Unaccompanied Cello Suite
(2023) Bladon, Eleanor
The Bach Cello Suites are a foundational part the modern cellist’s repertoire, and are therefore a recurring subject within academic discourse. The Sixth Suite in D Major (Suite VI) presents unique issues in both performance and academia, as it was not written for the standard modern four-string cello, but for an instrument with an additional upper E string. This project is born from a similar intent to researchers who have come before me: seeking to better understand the enigmatic suites, and Bach’s authorial intent. This informs my first research ques- tion: how can I reimagine Bach’s Original Thoughts from a tactile perspective? During the course of this pursuit, I discovered that I could not gain a holistic understanding of Suite VI as a performer and composer until I understood the performance experience as an intricate choreography. This project is concerned with the physicality of Suite VI, but also with the consequent understand- ing of music as being tactile as well as aural. In likening the tactility of playing the cello to a ‘dance’ for the left hand, I describe my own experience of performing the Suite - a highly complex ‘dance' on the four-string cello - as a series of physical gestures strung together into a micro-chore- ography. A process of data collection and analysis to do with my own left hand’s performance was aided by the comparative use of a five-string cello. This is documented throughout this project in the form of both practice video diaries, and a new notation system that depicts physical gesture. The research presented in this exegesis manifests in a new composition that explores the notions of both touch and sound as equal partners within the music, using the physicality of Suite VI itself as a palette of physical gestures from which I draw. The process of writing this work addresses my sec- ond research question: how can I apply an understanding of music performance as physical gesture to a compositional methodology? The resulting composition, presented through live performance, aims to achieve a choreographed solo cello performance that has been designed with physical intentionality. It is aurally distinct from Suite VI, but is tactually reminiscent of it.

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