This report examines the legacy of “mirrors for princes” literature, or advice literature for kings, in Iranian political thought, particularly in the modern period. While most scholars have studied ‘mirrors’ literature as a predominantly medieval phenomenon, this report argues that the genre and the ideals of kingship it articulates continued to flourish well into the modern period in Iran. Through an analysis of themes found both in the medieval Persian texts and the ‘mirrors’ composed in the Safavid and Qajar periods, this report demonstrates a remarkable continuity in the genre and in the ideology of kingship throughout centuries of dynastic and structural changes in Iran. Moreover, although the genre of ‘mirrors’ appears to have faded with the Qajar dynasty, this report shows how its ideology of kingship continued to influence the rhetoric of political legitimacy in the Pahlavi period. Muhammad Reza Shah in particular relied on the office of the king and his duties of executing justice and protecting Islam to justify both the necessity of the monarchy and his right to the throne. / text

“Surviving ‘Maleficium’: the Perils of Writing Fantasy Horror” examines the creation and development of Lydia M. Harter’s feature length script and the personal impact of the process on the writer. / text

We present experimentally determined photodisruption enhancement of 50 nm gold spheres irradiated with 780 nm 180 fs pulses using a pump-probe scattering system. Our results indicate a 300 nm cavitation bubble threshold reduction of 31 times when compared to an ultra-pure water base control solution. We utilize a method of matching time between bubble initiation in a continually circulated nanoparticle solution with theoretical focal volume size dependent time between particle-focal volume collision events based on simple particle kinetics. We propose the observed photodisruption is due to electrostatic particle ablation kinetics due to electron photoemission. We apply the Fowler-Dubridge theory for photoemission to nanospheres experiencing strong near-field enhancement to describe particle electric fields induced by non-zero particle charge densities resulting from emitted electrons. An apparent ultra-energy efficient photodisruption mechanism results from multiphoton emission processes in the sub 100 femtosecond pulse regime exceeding typical methods utilizing explosive boiling. In the process of explaining experimental results, we develop a near complete picture of nanoparticle mediated photodisruption as a function of identified relevant system non-dimensional groups and particle enhancement. These results may be used to guide the selection of laser and particle parameters for imaging and different photodisruption regimes. / text

General control of atoms and molecules has long been a goal for atomic physicists and physical chemists. Techniques such as laser cooling have been a huge breakthrough in studying ultra cold atoms and BECs. Although laser cooling has been a remarkable tool, it is limited to small group of atoms on the periodic table. A general technique to control and manipulate the entire periodic table has been out of reach until now. In this thesis I describe two methods of general control of atoms in the contexts of stopping supersonic beams and of isotope separation. Both these methods take advantage of high flux supersonic beams and the fact that every atom has a magnetic moment in the ground state or a long-lived excited state which can be manipulated using magnetic field gradients. The first method uses a series of pulsed electomagnetic coils to slow and stop a supersonic beam of paramagnetic atoms and molecules. We have demonstrated the slowing of metastable neon and molecular oxygen using 64 coils from 446.5 m/s to 55.8 m/s for metastable neon, and from 389 m/s to 83 m/s for molecular oxygen respectively. The second method is a novel and efficient approach to isotope separation which utilizes the concept of Maxwell's Demon. We call this technique Single-Photon Atomic Sorting as it is closely related to Single-Photon Cooling, a cooling technique developed in our laboratory. Our method uses a laser beam to change the magnetic moment to mass ratio in such a way that the desired isotopes are guided through a multi-pole magnetic field and collected. We show simulation results for various test cases which highlight the general applicability of this method. / text

Three sheet materials, including high purity aluminum, commercial purity aluminum, and an aluminum-magnesium alloy with 3 wt% magnesium, were produced into single-crystals in the solid-state. The method, developed in 1939 by T. Fujiwara at Hiroshima University, involves straining a fully recrystallized material then passing it into a furnace with a high temperature gradient at a specific rate. This method preserves composition and particulate distributions that melt-solidification methods do not. Large single crystals were measured for their orientation preferences and growth rates. The single-crystals were found to preferably orient their growth direction to the <120> to <110> directions, and <100> to <111> directions normal to the specimen surface. The grain boundary mobility of each material was found to be a function of impurity content. The mobility constants observed were similar to those reported in the literature, indicating that this method of crystal growth provides an estimate of grain boundary mobility. This is the first study the effect of impurities and alloying to this single-crystal production process, and to show this method’s applicability in determining grain boundary mobility information. / text

Software Research and Development Organizations (or SRDs) have unique goals that differ from the goals of Production Software Organizations. SRDs focus on exploring the unknown, while Production Software Organizations focus on implementing solutions to known problems. These unique goals call for reevaluating the role of Software Engineering Process for SRDs. This paper presents six common Software Engineering Processes then analyzes their strengths and weaknesses for SRDs. The processes presented include: Waterfall, Rational Unified Process (RUP), Evolutionary Delivery Cycle (EDLC), Team Software Process (TSP), Agile Development and Extreme Programming (XP). The results indicate that an ideal software process for SRDs is iterative, emphasizes visual models, uses a simple organization structure, produces working software (with limited functionality) early in the lifecycle, exploits individual capabilities, minimizes artifacts, adapts to new discoveries and requirements, and utilizes collective code ownership among developers. The results also indicate that an ideal software process for SRDs does NOT define rigid personnel roles or rigid artifacts, is NOT metric-driven and does NOT implement pair programming. This paper justifies why SRDs require a unique software process, outlines the ideal SRD software process, and shows how to tailor existing software processes to meet the unique needs of SRDs. / text

Wind energy has dramatically changed the energy portfolio of Texas and more specifically, a region covering 75% of the state designated as ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas). Hardly existent at all ten years ago, the amount of capacity the wind farms provide is over 9000MW and accounts for 10% of the total generation. Due to the intermittent nature of wind and limitations of transmission lines, short and long term storage of this energy would benefit wind farms and the grid as a whole. This paper studies the relationship between wind, storage and real time electricity prices by analyzing prices and simulating a wind farm with different wind storage strategies over the course of a year. Based on these simulations, it is found that an ideal storage medium with no losses could be in the money for $17.50/kW for long term storage and $1,998/kW for short term storage for prices similar to 2009-2010. / text

Transducers utilizing single crystal piezoelectrics as the active elements have been shown to exhibit broader operating bands, higher response levels, and higher power efficiency than transducers using piezoceramics while also reducing the size and mass of the transducer (Moffett et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 2007). The key to these high performance characteristics is the piezocrystal's inherent high electromechanical coupling coefficient. One potential application is to replace multiple narrowband piezoceramic transducers with a single broadband piezocrystal transducer which reduces the system's weight and size. This is very important for the new generation of smaller and power efficient unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). A third application is for use in very broadband communication networks. The work presented here focuses specifically on the design, modeling, and construction of Tonpilz transducers using piezoelectrics as the active material. The modeling includes lumped element and finite element analysis to approximate the performance of these transducers. These models serve as the main structure of an overall iterative design process. The objective of this research is to compare the performance characteristics of a piezocrystal and a piezoceramic Tonpilz transducer and to validate the models by comparing the model predictions with experimental results. / text

Domestic violence is considered a serious health and social problem in the United States and around the world. Annually, domestic violence costs in the U.S. are estimated at 8.3 billion dollars. Domestic violence issues first came to modern attention with the women’s movement of the 1970’s. Much of the literature focuses on domestic violence within heterosexual relationships. There has not been much attention directed towards domestic violence in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This report reviews information about domestic violence, its causes, theories, and how domestic violence affects individuals in the LGBT community. / text

This report examines the construction of whiteness in Appalachia through a close study of two New Year’s Eve celebrations in a small community in Brasstown, North Carolina. By examining these two celebrations, I draw out questions of race and racialization that have been largely overlooked in the study of Appalachia and illustrate the connections between the construction of a whitewashed Appalachian identity and the construction of an equally pale national identity. This report challenges the idea that Appalachia as a region is “racially innocent” and therefore does not play a role in discussions of race in America. On the contrary, I show that Appalachia’s position as a site of production of a national culture and identity means that in the context of Appalachia, race and racialization demand scrutiny as a means for understanding what “whiteness” is. / text