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Research Commons is the University of Waikato's open access research repository, housing research publications and theses produced by the University's staff and students.
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Publication Essays on Fintech development(Thesis, The University of Waikato, 2025-08-01)Fintech is a contraction of the term "financial technology", which has become increasingly popular in the financial sector in recent years. Even the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019 has not changed the fact that the Fintech industry is growing. The rapid development of Fintech has significantly impacted the traditional financial landscape, redefining the delivery of financial services, broadening their coverage, and significantly improving efficiency and convenience, injecting new vitality into the global financial industry. The aim of this thesis is to explore the impact of Fintech on the incumbent financial system and the real economy in the Chinese context. First, to gauge the development of the Fintech area in China, this paper uses various Fintech development indicators. Notably, this thesis builds the Fintech development index by combining the multidimensional information that involves advanced technologies and Fintech-related fields. The study also uses the Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China (PKU-DFIIC) and hand-collected and constructed datasets of Fintech patents. Second, this thesis comprehensively analyses the implications of Fintech developments on corporate operational strategies in several key areas including risk-taking, liquidity creation, diversification, fraud, tax avoidance, financing, and investment policies. By exploring how Fintech shapes corporate development strategies and influences value growth in these areas, the thesis reveals the role of Fintech in optimizing resource allocation, improving corporate efficiency, and reducing operational risk. Moreover, the study analyses the potential risks and challenges that the Fintech development may pose. The main contribution of this thesis is to provide new empirical evidence for the impact of Fintech on the development of traditional financial institutions and the real economy and to fill the gaps in existing research. Through an in-depth exploration of the economic consequences of the Fintech field, this paper not only reveals the role of Fintech in promoting the transformation of the real economy but also provides new perspectives on the benign development of the Fintech industry. Meanwhile, the findings provide valuable insights into the transformation of China's existing economic system, especially in terms of how to optimize the financial service system, improve the efficiency of resource allocation, and achieve sustainable growth in the context of the digital economy, which has important political implications.Publication Improving finite sample estimates of principal components(Thesis, The University of Waikato, 2025)Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a method of compressing high-dimensional data into a lower-dimensional format that captures the essence of the original structure. PCA is a matrix decomposition technique based on eigen decomposition. It quantifies relationships between variables using covariance matrices, captures the shape of the data distribution, and evaluates the importance of directions using eigenvalues. Therefore, the accuracy of the variance-covariance estimation is crucial for reliable PCA. In high-dimensional settings where the number of observations (n) is much smaller than the number of variables (p) (i.e., n << p), the conventional Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) of covariance becomes poorly conditioned and yields unreliable principal components. To address these limitations, we propose a novel estimation framework called Pairwise Differences Covariance (PDC), along with four regularized extensions: Standardized PDC (SPDC), Local Scaled PDC (LSPDC), Maximum Absolute Scaled PDC (MAXPDC), and Range Scaled PDC (RPDC). These estimators increase the effective sample size by utilizing all pairwise differences within the data, thereby enhancing estimation stability without requiring additional data collection. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real datasets demonstrate that the proposed estimators, particularly SPDC, significantly reduce the over-dispersion of the first principal component and improve directional accuracy. On average, SPDC reduced cosine similarity error by approximately 10–30% and narrowed eigenvalue spread by 10–20% compared to MLE and Ledoit-Wolf estimators in n << p HDLSS scenarios. Real-world applications confirm the practical utility and robustness of these methods for analyzing high-dimensional data.Publication Exiting the closet daily: Examining the repetitive nature of minority gender and sexual identity self-disclosures.(Thesis, The University of Waikato, 2024)The process of minority gender and sexual identity self-disclosure is inherently complex. The act of ‘coming out’ is often perceived as a significant, singular event; however, those with lived experiences recognise that it is an ongoing, repetitive experience influenced by varying social contexts—a concept referred to within this research as identity maintenance. Understanding this phenomenon is paramount in addressing the psychosocial realities of LGBTQIA+ people—both individually and collectively—as they navigate the decision to disclose their minority identity in a range of environments, contexts, and interactions. Specifically, this thesis seeks to illuminate the processes of identity maintenance within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, providing a foundational understanding of the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals. To do so, five research questions were constructed, these include: 1. How do participants interpret their experiences of identity self-disclosure or non-disclosure? 2. What social factors influence the decision to self-disclose minority gender and/or sexual identity? 3. How does the repetitive nature of identity self-disclosure affect participants? 4. How does identity self-disclosure vary in different social environments? and 5. How does language shape identity self-disclosure? This research utilises Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to analyse qualitative data gathered from a cohort of 10 self-identifying LGBTQIA+ participants. By focusing on lived experiences, the research captures the psychosocial factors involved in self-disclosure practices. Participants were selected through a purposive sampling method, ensuring a range of backgrounds and identities were represented, including age, ethnicity, neurological and physical ability, and religious status. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with each of the 10 participants, and five participants elected to complete a diary entry task following their interview. Participants described navigating their LGBTQIA+ identities across different contexts, drawing on a range of psychosocial tools in their day-to-day practice of identity maintenance. Four themes arose from the findings. Firstly, The Temporality of Identity highlighted how the LGBTQIA+ identity is experienced over time, from early identity development to the long-term, ongoing practice of identity maintenance. Secondly, The Tax of Identity theme identified how participants experienced mental, emotional, and educational taxes as a result of their LGBTQIA+ identity. Thirdly, The Ecology of Identity theme identified the ways in which participants experienced effects from distal and proximal environments on the development and embodiment of their LGBTQIA+ identities. Finally, The Language of Identity theme highlighted how participants engaged with both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication to disclose their LGBTQIA+ identity as well as the social monitoring tools they utilised in disclosure decision-making. The findings of this thesis contribute to existing discourse on LGBTQIA+ identities and form the first known literature on the identity maintenance experiences of Aotearoa’s LGBTQIA+ community. Ultimately, this research highlights the ways in which identity maintenance serves as a beneficial tool for restoring the agency of LGBTQIA+ people in choosing when, where, how, why, and to whom identity self-disclosures will be made.Item Blurring the lines: the vague boundary between mainstream and deviant internet pornography tags for at-risk viewers(Journal Article, Routledge, 2024)Illegal material is increasingly appearing on popular mainstream websites. Many commentators worry about the impact of such material on adolescents' psycho-sexual development and the potential for some legal pornography to act as a gateway to child sexual exploitation material for users of any age. In this study, we collected publicly available data from a popular legal pornography website to assess the risk of adolescent exposure to content that may hinder healthy psycho-sexual development. We analysed over 27 million customer searches involving 149 video tags from this site. Five international experts on the effects of pornography rated the tags, categorising them into five overlapping genres: mainstream, incestuous, underage, aggressive and non-consensual. They also assessed the potential risk each genre posed. Our analysis found a significant positive correlation between the harm ratings and the frequency of tags used as search terms. Additionally, eleven of the twelve tags with the highest mean risk scores involved potential underage and/or incestuous content. This study highlights a concerning relationship between the harm ratings of various pornographic genres and their popularity as search terms. While exploratory, these results emphasise the need for regulatory measures to address the presence of harmful material on mainstream websites. PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT: The study has practical implications for the regulation of potentially harmful pornography by legal pornography sites. The sites should (a) control the use of tags and how new tags are developed in order to prevent content creators from advertising potentially illegal material, (b) vet all content before it is uploaded for public consumption, and (c) implement screening systems to retrospectively find and eradicate all illegal or harmful content already in their collection.Item Rock art and frontier conflict in Southeast Asia: Insights from direct radiocarbon ages for the large human figures of Gua Sireh, Sarawak(Journal Article, Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2023)Gua Sireh, located in western Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo), is known for its rock art. The cave houses hundreds of charcoal drawings depicting people, often with headdresses, knives and other accoutrements. Here, we present direct radiocarbon dates and pigment characterizations from charcoal drawings of two large (>75 cm), unique Gua Sireh human figures (anthropomorphs). To our knowledge, these are the first chronometric ages generated for Malaysian rock art, providing insights into the social contexts of art production, as well as the opportunities and challenges of dating rock art associated with the Malay/Austronesian diasporas in Southeast Asia more generally. Previous archaeological excavations revealed that people occupied Gua Sireh from around 20,000 years ago to as recently as AD 1900. The site is within Bidayuh territory, and these local Indigenous peoples recall the cave's use as a refuge during territorial violence in the early 1800s. The age of the drawings, dated between 280 and 120 cal BP (AD 1670 to 1830), corresponds with a period of increasing conflict when the Malay elites controlling the region exacted heavy tolls on the local hill tribes. We discuss rock art production at Gua Sireh in this context of frontier conflict and Bidayuh resistance.
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