http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19979 2026-08-02T20:06:30Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/195847 Title: Three Essays in Finance Authors: Liu, Zechu Abstract: This dissertation comprises three essays that examine the consequences of financial frictions within the domains of macro-finance, asset pricing, and financial regulation. The first and second essays provide empirical analyses of the Bank of Japan’s equity ETF purchase program, focusing on its operating mechanisms, impact on market volatility, and the extent to which it achieves its policy objectives. The third essay investigates how the incidence of consumer fraud is influenced by local cultural norms, and explores the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship. The first essay examines the Bank of Japan’s unprecedented program of equity exchange-traded fund (ETF) purchases – one of the largest equity market interventions by any central bank. This unconventional policy was intended to calm the stock market and bolster investor confidence. The BOJ’s sustained presence as a top shareholder in its domestic equity market offers a unique opportunity to evaluate the long-run consequences of such direct market support. A causal evaluation reveals that while these large-scale interventions provide short-term support, they inadvertently amplify market volatility over time. This paradox illustrates how a well-intentioned policy tool designed to reduce risk can unexpectedly increase market fragility, challenging traditional notions of central bank neutrality and market efficiency. Expanding on the theme of policy-driven influences, the second essay investigates the predictability and market impact of the BOJ’s interventions. It shows that the central bank’s equity purchases follow a transparent, data-driven pattern – often triggered by morning market losses – which makes these operations highly anticipated by investors. By developing a long-short trading strategy that exploits this predictability, the study demonstrates that traders can earn abnormal returns around intervention days, thereby influencing price dynamics. Further analysis reveals that the impact of these interventions is not uniform across firms: the effects are stronger for firms with larger market capitalization and lower liquidity, suggesting that the BOJ's policy provides disproportionate support to large and high-risk firms. Shifting from institutional actions to societal factors, the third essay explores the role of social trust in shaping community-level vulnerability to consumer financial fraud across U.S. regions. Contrary to the notion that trust increases exposure to opportunistic behavior, the study finds that communities with higher levels of social trust experience lower incidences of fraud. This relationship appears to be mediated by the quality of local communication networks: high-trust communities tend to foster more effective information sharing and collective awareness, which enhances their resilience to fraudulent schemes. Description: University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/195846 Title: Australian Oncology Nurses in the Genomic Era: Exploring Barriers and Enablers to Uptake of Genomic Innovations Authors: Elan, Elle Abstract: 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 The integration of genomics into oncology has transformed cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Nurses are central to this transformation, yet their preparedness to adopt genomics into practice remains uncertain. International research consistently shows that while nurses recognise genomics as relevant, their knowledge, confidence, and engagement are limited. In Australia, evidence in this area is particularly scarce, especially within oncology nursing, where genomics holds essential clinical relevance. This study sought to advance understanding of how Australian oncology nurses engage with genomics, and the barriers and enablers influencing its adoption into practice. 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝘀 A mixed-methods design was employed, incorporating a national online survey and interviews, complemented by a scoping review of the evidence on knowledge and attitudes to genetics/genomics. A survey assessed Australian oncology nurses’ knowledge, engagement, and adoption of genomics in practice, and identified individual characteristics associated with the uptake of genomics in nursing practice (n = 106). Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore perceived barriers and enablers to integrating genomics into oncology nursing practice. 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 The scoping review showed a fragmented, methodologically heterogeneous evidence base, lacking qualitative and oncology-specific research tools, and identified evidence gaps in the literature on oncology nurses’ genomic knowledge and attitudes. Survey findings revealed a workforce receptive to genomics but constrained by limited knowledge, confidence, and exposure. While most nurses held positive attitudes and recognised genomics as relevant to their practice, few reported confidence in applying it clinically. Likely adopters were characterised by greater clinical experience, advanced practice and higher education, openness to experience, and opinion-leadership traits. Interviews identified a range of barriers and enablers grouped across five interrelated domains: attributes of the genomics innovation, education-related factors, professional factors, organisational factors, and individual factors. 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 This study provides the first national evidence of how multilevel barriers and enablers shape Australian oncology nurses’ engagement with genomics. Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory (2003) was used as an interpretive lens to guide interpretation and discussion. By identifying adopter characteristics and the contextual factors influencing uptake, it establishes an evidence base to guide education, leadership, and policy reform. In doing so, it offers empirically grounded direction for embedding genomics within nursing education, clinical governance, and organisational systems. The findings lay a foundation for national strategies that align with Australia’s genomic medicine agenda and provide evidence of how to best support a confident, capable oncology nursing workforce that is prepared for the genomic era. Description: University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Health. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/195841 Title: The evaluation of forensic intelligence to better understand the criminal environment for Australian document fraud Authors: Devlin, Ciara Jean Abstract: Identity crime and document fraud are pervasive and prolific problems that impact individuals, communities, and governments. They are also known to enable and facilitate transnational, serious, and organised crime, such as the trafficking of illicit goods, human trafficking, and terrorism. Despite the harms caused by these criminal environments and their fast growth, very little is known about Australian identity crime and document fraud, largely due to the reliance on reactive reporting and policing methods. To address this gap and gain greater insight into the identity crime and document fraud criminal environments, the market for fraudulent documents and personal information has been examined through the analysis of both the physical and digital traces of the market. This has been done in two parts, focusing on the visual profiling and comparison of 183 fraudulent identity documents collected from Australian law enforcement, and then the analysis of the ID-related market on two cryptomarkets (a.k.a. anonymous online marketplaces). From the profiling portion of the work, it was identified that 94% of the documents were linked to at least one other document, and 17 series emerged, the largest containing 54 documents. Therefore suggesting that the physical side of the market for fraudulent documents within Australia is likely organised with prolific offenders contributing a disproportionately large number of products to the market. This level of organisation was also identified within the digital side of the market, with a small number of vendors (13) contributing 63% of the sales to the ID-related market. Through the analysis of the products available, their supply, demand and trafficking patterns, it was possible to identify that Australian documents were the second most listed and sold products. These analyses provide valuable information, illuminating an often-shrouded illicit marketplace and providing extra insight to assist intelligence-led policing. Currently within Australia there are many siloes between the different organisations and research bodies that deal with the ID-related criminal environment. This research illustrates that not only is a combined analysis of both the physical and online portions of the market required to understand the criminal environment for document fraud and identity crime, but that more information sharing and collaboration is required between the organisations that work in this space. Only through the active sharing of identity crime reports, document seizures and research combined with the monitoring of both the physical and digital market will it be possible to better understand and more proactively police ID-related crime. Description: University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Science. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/195838 Title: Data analytic approaches to detect stress from physiological data Authors: Tran, Vu Hieu Abstract: Stress has become one of the most critical dangers to human health. Recently, with the development of wearable devices that can measure physiological features more accurately and collect more data, stress detection using the data collected from wearable devices has become an emerging research topic. There are currently many studies on detecting and predicting stress. However, these studies are not comprehensive enough because (i) they provide limited comparison with other methods, (ii) they simply use statistics to show correlation between physiological features, (iii) they use mainly classical methods or advanced methods with raw physiological data, or (iv) they do not compare to other methods using benchmark datasets. New data analytic approaches, such as topological data analysis (TDA), which is robust to noise and can analyse high-dimensional data, can also create more opportunities for research about stress. Using complex networks representations of the physiological data and associated algorithms to detect stress is a promising solution since complex networks have the potential to capture phenomena of real-world systems. This thesis presents novel approaches to present the relationship between stress and physiological time series features using topological data analysis and complex networks. Benchmark datasets are used to deploy experiments of this thesis. Description: University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z