This dissertation analyzes the role of the American Legion in the mobilization of World War II, focusing on its civilian defense and salvage programs. These programs demonstrate the contest between voluntary associations and the federal government to shape and control the development of federal programs as state responsibility expanded into new areas of American life. Though ultimately unsuccessful in its efforts to control the programs the American Legion exerted tremendous influence on them. Its size and presence in nearly every community ensured the American Legion positions and influence at every level of the federal civilian defense and salvage programs. Expertise gained through early civilian defense exercises and the exploratory Mission to England in 1941 positioned Legionnaires well to become leaders within civilian defense. The Legion's strong local and national structure made it one of the most successful organizers of salvage drives. Veterans experienced the Second World War in unique ways that were directly linked to their military experiences in previous wars. They had wartime memories of what life was like on the front lines and tried to use those experiences to better the lives of the new generation of soldiers and to improve home front support of military personnel. Animosities created during World War I toward war profiteers, "shirkers," and subversive forces, greatly influenced the Legion in World War II. Veteran studies, which have viewed veterans as post-war actors, would benefit from considering the activities of veterans in future wars. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 22, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references. / Jonathan Grant, Professor Directing Dissertation; Mark Souva, University Representative; James P. Jones, Committee Member; Michael Creswell, Committee Member.

My study explores the role of geography in the construction of cultural identity for place-based communities of practice. I combine recent advances in cultural geography, which focus on the role of cultural traces to culturally order and geographically border a place with recent research on communities of practice, which are communities characterized by a domain focus, an interpretive tradition, and a day-to-day practice. I demonstrate this by exploring the newly constructed town of Ave Maria in the US state of Florida, a community whose domain focus is the day-to-day practice of conservative Catholicism. The study uses a qualitative research methodology to determine the features of the town's landscape that promote the community's domain focus. It uses a quantitative research methodology to investigate the contributions that the spatial configuration of those features makes to the community's cultural identity. An ontology and knowledge base provide a systematic formalization of my qualitative data for subsequent use in quantitative analysis. My results indicate that the cultural ordering and geographical bordering of the community promote a high degree of homogeneity among residents along the community's domain axis. I also conclude with the finding that the community has developed a cultural district whose spatial configuration and location play important roles in the day-to-day lives of its residents. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Geography in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / July 10, 2012. / communities of practice, cultural geography, cultural identity, cultural traces, landscape analysis, spatial configuration / Includes bibliographical references. / Jon Anthony Stallins, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Victor Mesev, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Karen L. Laughlin, University Representative; Mark W. Horner, Committee Member; James B. Elsner, Committee Member.

The following study examines the spatiotemporal response of the local scale and large scale environment to tropical cyclone (TC) passage. The research presented here is broken up into three chapters that can be separated into two parts. Given that the analysis of the environmental response to TC passage heavily relies upon the use of atmospheric reanalysis datasets, the first half of this dissertation (Chapter 2) will examine the fidelity of TC intensity, position, and intensity life cycle within five reanalyses to determine what reanalyses can be used for when studying TCs. The results of this analysis show an underestimation of reanalysis TC intensity beyond what can be attributed to the coarse grid resolution of reanalyses. Moreover, the mean life cycle of normalized TC intensity within reanalyses exhibits an underestimation of pre-peak intensification rates as well as a delay in the timing of peak TC intensity relative to the Best Track. Significant discrepancies between reanalysis and Best-Track TC position are noted to exist particularly in regions that are observation deficient. Of the five reanalyses examined, the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) and JMA 25-yr Japanese Reanalysis (JRA-25) have the most robust representation of TCs particularly within the North Atlantic (NATL) and Western North Pacific (WPAC). The second half of this study examines the local scale (Chapter 3) and large scale (Chapter 4) impacts of WPAC TCs upon their environment using storm-relative composites. On local scales, TCs are found to cool sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for at least a month following TC passage. The feedbacks from the SST cold wake combined with an initial net flux divergence of energy from the column yields a significant cooling and drying of the atmosphere that is strongest in the lower troposphere. Restoration of the environment is eventually achieved through a return of SSTs to climatology and a net flux convergence of potential energy aloft. The large scale response of the environment is primarily associated with an anomalous drying of the lower and middle tropospheric atmospheric environment to the west and southwest of the TC. The drying appears to be caused by upper level convergence resulting from the interaction of the TC outflow with its environment. On the western side of the TC, both the upper level flow from the anticyclone of the Asian monsoon and the increasing inertial stability with latitude due to the meridional gradient of planetary vorticity limit the ventilation to the west of the TC yielding upper level convergence and subsidence. The area of anomalous drying to the southwest is associated with the convergent upper level flow from the right exit region of the anticyclonically curved equatorward outflow jet of the TC. Lastly, the meridional transport of total energy by TCs results in a substantial cross hemispheric export of dry static energy nearly 4000 km southwards as result of the upper level outflow jet of the TC. The meridional dry static energy transports by TCs appear to comprise a substantial portion of the total atmospheric dry static energy transports at the equator during late summer and early fall. In their totality, these results suggest that TCs may significantly impact their environment both on long temporal scales and large spatial scales with potentially significant aggregate climate impacts in the WPAC given the high frequency of TC occurrence. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / September 27, 2012. / climate, large scale environment, local scale environment, meridional energy transports, reanalysis tropical cyclone representation, tropical cyclones / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert E. Hart, Professor Directing Thesis; William Dewar, University Representative; Robert G. Ellingson, Committee Member; Ming Cai, Committee Member; Allan J. Clarke, Committee Member.

The focus of this dissertation is on innovation through the lens of knowledge transfer and knowledge creation, and as such, begins to integrate the literature between these two relatively disparate streams of research. Because innovations can result in revolutionary changes in technology, products, or processes, they represent clear departures from existing firm knowledge and practice. However, the creation of new knowledge within the firm develops from the transfer of existing knowledge within the firm. While innovation is often considered to be a spontaneous, emergent process within the firm, the transfer of knowledge within the firm is often dependent upon organizational controls and processes. Organizational controls are designed to manage resource and knowledge flows within an organization efficiently and effectively. Ironically, these controls are necessary to encourage resource sharing and knowledge transfer within an organization, yet they may also predetermine established patterns of communication and sharing and limit where and when transfer occurs. So, organizational controls are necessary for knowledge transfer, yet they may limit the very transfer necessary for new knowledge creation and innovation to occur. This dissertation examines this conundrum by exploring how firms manage the creation of new knowledge through the control of the transfer of existing knowledge. Specifically, the research question addressed in this study is, "How do organizational controls affect internal knowledge transfer and knowledge creation within the firm?" This dissertation employed a quantitative, non-experimental, survey-based research design. Primary data were collected from middle- to upper-level managers. The hypotheses were tested using both structural equation modeling (SEM) and partial least squares (PLS) regression. Additional post-hoc analyses were also conducted to extend the insight of the findings. Results provided support for several hypotheses, such that knowledge transfer is an antecedent of innovation within the firm. Also, input, structural, and output controls were found to have significant effects on knowledge transfer and innovation. A discussion of the results includes an evaluation of research limitations, suggestions for future research, contributions to the literature, and practical implications. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / July 27, 2012. / Innovation, Knowledge Transfer, Organizational Controls / Includes bibliographical references. / Bruce T. Lamont, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Annette L. Ranft, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Michael D. Hartline, University Representative; Tim R. Holcomb, Committee Member; David Paradice, Committee Member.

Robot manipulators can be used to navigate and perform tasks in unstructured and hazardous environments where human safety is a primary concern. For example, they are used for nuclear waste disposal, space exploration, nuclear power industry, military surveillance, etc. A number of such robot manipulators are being used but the concern is that these robots should be able to complete their critical tasks in the event of failures that they encounter working in such environments. One of the most common failures of field robots is an actuator failure. This type of failure affects the joints of the robots inducing failures like locked-joint failures and free-swinging joint failures. To design a fault tolerant system the robot has to rely on the incorporation of redundancy into its system. This redundancy takes several forms: sensor redundancy, analytical redundancy, and kinematic redundancy. This work focuses on using kinematic redundancy to deal with the issue of multiple locked-joint failures in the robotic systems. The goal of this work was to analyze and design fault-tolerant manipulators. The robots designed are able to finish their required task in spite of a failure in one or more of its joints. In order to design optimally fault tolerant manipulators, it is necessary to quantify fault tolerance. The approach taken here was to define fault tolerance in terms of a suitable objective function based on the robot's manipulator Jacobian. In the case of the relative manipulability index, local fault tolerance is characterized by the null space of the manipulator Jacobian. Since the null space can be used to identify locally fault tolerant manipulator configurations, one goal of this work was to develop procedures for designing fault tolerant manipulators based on obtaining a suitable null space for the manipulator Jacobian. In this work, optimally fault tolerant serial manipulators are designed that are fault tolerant to two locked-joint failures simultaneously. Furthermore, the symmetry of the manipulators is studied using positional and orientational Jacobians; and examples are presented for condition number and dynamic manipulability index to study the behavior of different fault tolerance measures. Lastly, a methodology for designing an optimally fault tolerant 4-DOF spherical wrist type mechanism was presented. It was shown that the orientational Jacobian must have a certain form for the manipulator to have the best possible relative manipulability index value. An optimal configuration along with the corresponding DH parameters was presented. Furthermore, it was pointed out that isotropic configurations of a 4-DOF spherical wrist type mechanism are fault tolerant and optimal in the sense that they have the largest possible manipulability index prior to a failure. An example of an orientational Jacobian was presented for a 6-DOF spherical wrist that is equally fault tolerant for any two joint failures. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 10, 2012. / Condition number, Fault tolerance, Kinematic redundancy, Local measures, Manipulability, Spherical wrist / Includes bibliographical references. / Rodney G. Roberts, Professor Directing Thesis; Carl A. Moore, University Representative; Simon Y. Foo, Committee Member; Leonard J. Tung, Committee Member.

Clusters of Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) nodes with multi-core Chip Multiprocessors (CMP), also known as SMP-CMP clusters, are ubiquitous today. Message Passing Interface (MPI) is the de facto standard for developing message passing applications for such clusters. Most modern SMP-CMP clusters support Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), which allows for flexible and efficient communication schemes but introduces a new model that can be challenging to exploit. This dissertation research explores leveraging the flexibility provided by RDMA to optimize MPI point-to-point communications for both small and medium to large messages on SMP-CMP clusters. For small messages, a scheme is devised that improves the buffer memory management in the existing RDMA-based small message channel design; and a novel shared small message channel design is developed that reduces both individual channel resource requirements as well as the number of channels needed by an MPI application, greatly improving small message channel resource utilization and scalability without adding significant overheads or sacrificing the performance benefits of RDMA. MPI medium and large messages are realized by various rendezvous protocols whose performance is very sensitive to the timing of the critical events in the communication (protocol invocation scenarios). As such, existing MPI implementations that use a fixed protocol across all communications suffer from various performance problems such as unnecessary synchronization and communication progress issues. In my research, I explore the idea of protocol customization that allows different protocols to be used for different situations. First, a repository of protocols that can collectively provide near-optimal performance for all protocol invocation scenarios is developed. This repository provides the foundation for profile-driven and compiler-assisted protocol customization for performance improvement. Furthermore, a communication system with dynamic protocol selection is developed that integrates four protocols into a single system and is able to choose an optimized protocol to suit the run-time characteristics of a particular communication while fully supporting MPI semantics. These techniques reduce unnecessary synchronizations, decrease the number of control messages that are in the critical path of communications, and improve the communication progress, which results in a significantly better communication-computation overlap capability. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Computer Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / November 5, 2012. / eager protocol, MPI, mpi large message, mpi small message, RDMA, rendezvous protocol / Includes bibliographical references. / Xin Yuan, Professor Directing Thesis; Valerie Shute, University Representative; Robert Van Engelen, Committee Member; Ashok Srinivasan, Committee Member.

Relatively little attention has been paid to J. S. Bach's motets in the scholarly analytical literature. Those who have surveyed the motets adhere mainly to surface-level stylistic conventions and not to structural characteristics; Bach's motets have not yet been fully explored with respect to structural and motivic analysis. The primary aim of this project is to provide a richer understanding of Bach's motets through case studies of "Der Geist hilft" BWV 226 and "Jesu, meine Freude" BWV 227. In my analyses, I seek to rectify the dearth of Schenkerian treatment of the motets by providing a detailed structural and motivic examination of specific movements, and also by demonstrating how these aspects contribute to a larger narrative structure guiding the work. A secondary goal is to add to the body of knowledge concerning Baroque textual expression by enlarging the repertoire used for conceptual integration networks, by expanding the literature pertaining to motivic parallelisms in Bach's music, and by demonstrating links between foreground rhetorical devices and an overarching narrative structure. In Chapter One, I provide background on Bach's motets and situate my work within the scholarly literature concerning Baroque textual expression, Baroque Lutheran theology, structural analysis and motivic parallelisms in Baroque music, and the analysis of modal chorales. A Schenkerian approach to motivic parallelisms, following Burkhart, Stein, Stern, and others, drives my exploration of how primary motives from the chorale are composed-out in other movements of each motet. Additionally, Lawrence Zbikowski's extension of the conceptual integration network to the musical domain offers a visually appealing, succinct way to summarize the relations between text and music and to discuss large-scale events more concretely in Bach's complex, multi-movement vocal works. Using CINs enables me to illustrate how Bach's compositional choices, from his selection of significant key areas and his treatment of primary motives to his use of rhetorical figures and phrase expansions, communicate the affect of the text and enhance the Lutheran theological narrative set out by the progression of the text. Chapters Two through Four offer detailed investigations into the motets. Chapter Two explores the concepts of mediation and the increasing of energy in "Der Geist hilft" by focusing on the special emphasis on the mediant as the third-divider between tonic and dominant, ascending or "opening" gestures, and the immediate reversal of the main motives through motivic inversion. These musical aspects help to portray the Holy Spirit as the intermediary between God and the believer. Chapters Three and Four delve more deeply into "Jesu, meine Freude," which describes the Christian's journey toward spiritual transcendence: a necessarily unachievable earthly union with Jesus. Throughout the work, the Kopfton scale-degree 5 establishes an important melodic boundary—a barrier that the melodic motives strive to cross in their aspiration toward their heavenly goal. In the final chapter, I suggest avenues for further research and address several analytical questions raised in these analyses. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 19, 2012. / conceptual integration network, Lutheran theology, motivic parallelisms, rhetorical figures, Schenkerian analysis, text/music relations / Includes bibliographical references. / Joseph Kraus, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles E. Brewer, University Representative; Michael Buchler, Committee Member; Matthew Shaftel, Committee Member.

Raised and educated in China during the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, and Bright Sheng immigrated to the United States in the 1980s to pursue additional study. Now American citizens, each composer continues to reside in the US, composing in a unique voice that speaks to both Eastern and Western aesthetics and influences. Guided by personal correspondence with these three living composers, this treatise will highlight the operation of select Chinese aesthetics, as well as folk music traditions, within each composer's concerto for flute and Western orchestra. Western and East Asian music have long acted as sources of mutual inspiration and influence. This investigation addresses the presence of Western music in China through the late twentieth century, as well as the influence of Chinese music within the United States. Recognition of the relationship existing between the United States and China offers greater appreciation of these works within the context of past and present composition. Following a brief survey of salient philosophical influences, this treatise explores relevant aesthetic concepts, including connection to nature, silence and simplicity, balance, change, and the symbiotic relationship existing between art and language. The majority of this project strives to elucidate the presence of Eastern and Western aesthetics and influence within Chen Yi's The Golden Flute, Zhou Long's Five Elements, and Bright Sheng's Flute Moon. / A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 30, 2012. / Aesthetics, Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, Chinese American, Flute, Zhou Long / Includes bibliographical references. / Eva Amsler, Professor Directing Treatise; Michael Bakan, University Representative; Frank Kowalsky, Committee Member; Patrick Meighan, Committee Member.

As energy resources are needed in abundance to sustain the ever evolving global economy, the world's energy dependency for good reason, is beginning to shift. Various studies have shown that although fossil fuels are still the primary source of energy for the world, the utilization of more sustainable energy resources is on the rise. However due to current competitive bidding strategies and underlying practices that typically consider sustainable features such as renewable energy sources as costly additions rather than effective options to program requirements, building construction procurement strategies have been slow to embrace this change. In this thesis, a methodology is derived for assessing the overall benefits of utilizing a renewable energy source as a program option from the original building construction procurement effort. This methodology was developed by utilizing project procurement methods and techniques, in addition to certain life cycle costing concepts. Data from the original procurement of The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia was used to apply this methodology. The results of this application and supplemental research show that the incorporation of a renewable energy source into the original building construction procurement effort as opposed to additions that are incorporated later in the project procurement effort produced cost and schedule benefits. Furthermore, a contractor could apply this methodology to similar projects that incorporate sustainable features into its original design and cost estimates, and utilize the findings of the application in the technical components of future projects. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 29, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references. / Clayton J. Clark, II, Professor Directing Thesis; Yassir AbdelRazig, Committee Member; John Sobanjo, Committee Member.

Reading is a critical skill that is influenced by socioeconomic factors. It is well-established that reading is influenced by genetic and environmental factors, and recent studies have suggested that genetic effects on reading may be moderated by socioeconomic factors. However, findings of such gene-environment interactions are inconsistent for reading and cognitive ability, and no known study has investigated moderating effects across the full range of reading ability in elementary-aged readers when foundational reading skills are established. The current study filled this gap in the literature by testing for moderating effects of six socioeconomic status (SES) variables on genetic and environmental influences on reading in a diverse sample of 1,709 twin pairs in third-fifth grades. Structural equation moderation models that allowed for a moderating effect of SES on the mean of reading as well as genetic and environmental variance components were fit separately for six SES variables. No significant genetic moderation was found, however, there was a pattern of moderation on shared environmental variance for four of the six SES variables. Overall, there was a trend of slightly more variance in reading in children of lower SES families and this increased variance was due to more variability in their shared environmental experiences. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / August 7, 2012. / gene-environment interaction, reading, socioeconomic status, twin study / Includes bibliographical references. / Christopher Schatschneider, Professor Directing Dissertation; Barbara Foorman, University Representative; Jeanette Taylor, Committee Member; Richard K. Wagner, Committee Member; Carol McDonald Connor, Committee Member.