University, Diss., 2001--Freiburg (Breisgau).

Universiẗat, Diss., 1995--Kaiserslautern. / Erscheinungsjahr an der Haupttitelstelle: 1995.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2005--Münster (Westfalen).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "December, 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-59). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Xiaoming Li, Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Includes bibliographical references.

This research aims to analyse the role and consequence of state patronage and promotion of Thai classical dance after the revolution of 1932, when the patronage of court dance changed from royal to state support. This research examines connections between the authority of the state, nationalism, Thai identity, and the invention of tradition, by focussing on the reconstruction of Thai classical dance, the promotion of spirituality in the Wai Khru ceremony, and dance pedagogy. This study uses historical research and ethnography through participant-observation, and interviews with senior dance teachers, national artists, masters of the Wai Khru ceremony, and dance artists in the Fine Arts Department, and also draws on the researcher’s personal experience in dance training as a dancer and dance teacher for several years. The thesis offers a detailed analysis of the socio-political context and cultural policy in relation to the establishment of the Fine Arts Department and the Dramatic Arts College; the national institutions whose main roles were to preserve, perform and offer training in traditional dance. After the revolution of 1932, the Fine Arts department played an important role to authorise, preserve, and standardise Thai classical dance. The function and meaning-making processes surrounding dance changed in accordance with the development of Thai identity and cultural policy. During the period 1932-1945, state policy emphasised the homogeneity of ‘Thai-ness’ and civilization, and traditional dance was adapted and combined with classical, folk and western elements. However, after the mid-1940s, the socio-political and cultural policies changed; the state operated the project of cultural revivalism. The court dance style and its rituals were revived with the establishment of a code of ‘classicalism’ which became the central aesthetic identification of Thai identity. The newly-coined classicalism has become the standard, and has been passed on to succeeding generations in the new educational system. These new invented traditions were preserved as if they were sacred, a practice which continues to the present.

The history of life has involved several major evolutionary transitions that have each led to the emergence of a new individual. Examples of major transitions in individuality include the evolution of the eukaryotic cell, multicellular organisms and eusocial societies. In each of these events, previously independently replicating units (cells, individuals etc.) cooperate to form a new individual, which can then only replicate as a whole. For this to occur, conflict between individuals needs to be minimised, to allow maximising their inclusive fitness to be roughly equivalent to maximising group fitness. It has been predicted that the way in which social groups form should be key for eliminating conflict between individuals and promoting cooperation. In this thesis, I have focused on two major evolutionary transitions; the evolution of multicellularity and the evolution of symbiosis, and show that the mode of group formation (whether groups are parentoffspring associations or not) is crucial for understanding when and why major transitions occur. Firstly, I show that the major transition to obligate multicellularity has only occurred with clonal group formation (where cells remain together after division). Secondly, I use an experimental system to show that predation pressure may be key in promoting the formation of multicellular groups in algae. Finally, I show that the mode of group formation is also important in between-species transitions. I use the evolution of symbiosis to show that transmission route of symbionts and environmental factors, determine how cooperative symbionts will be towards their hosts.

Refusing to participate in war does not only mean refusing to serve in the military. For many conscientious objectors, it means refusing to pay taxes that directly support the military industrial complex. Conscientious tax objectors risk many punishments by withholding tax money that supports war. Politico-social conflicts exist between a citizen's legal obligation to pay taxes and the personal obligation to her/his moral beliefs. My research suggests that the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act (RFPTFA) may be one transformative agent for this conflict. Through examination of relevant case law, statutes, conflict transformation literature, and interviews with conscientious tax objectors, my investigation concludes that members of the conscientious tax objector movement disagree on the merits of RFPTFA. My research suggests that until these various intermovement factions enter into consensus-building dialogue, conscientious tax objection will remain a mere symbolic method of pacifism rather than a powerful tool in the art of peacebuilding.

In the analysis of spatio-temporal data, statistical inference based on the Gaussian assumption is ubiquitous due to its many attractive properties. However, data collected from different fields of science rarely meet the assumption of Gaussianity. One option is to apply a monotonic transformation to the data such that the transformed data have a distribution that is close to Gaussian. In this thesis, we focus on a flexible two-parameter family of transformations, the Tukey g-and-h (TGH) transformation. This family has the desirable properties that the two parameters g ∈ R and h ≥ 0 involved control skewness and tail-heaviness of the distribution, respectively. Applying the TGH transformation to a standard normal distribution results in the univariate TGH distribution. Extensions to the multivariate case and to a spatial process were developed recently. In this thesis, motivated by the need to exploit wind as renewable energy, we tackle the challenges of modeling big spatio-temporal data that are non-Gaussian by applying the TGH transformation to different types of Gaussian processes: spatial (random field), temporal (time series), spatio-temporal, and their multivariate extensions. We explore various aspects of spatio-temporal data modeling techniques using transformed Gaussian processes with the TGH transformation. First, we use the TGH transformation to generate non-Gaussian spatial data with the Matérn covariance function, and study the effect of non-Gaussianity on Gaussian likelihood inference for the parameters in the Matérn covariance via a sophisticatedly designed simulation study. Second, we build two autoregressive time series models using the TGH transformation. One model is applied to a dataset of observational wind speeds and shows advantaged in accurate forecasting; the other model is used to fit wind speed data from a climate model on gridded locations covering Saudi Arabia and to Gaussianize the data for each location. Third, we develop a parsimonious spatio-temporal model for time series data on a spatial grid and utilize the aforementioned Gaussianized climate model wind speed data to fit the latent Gaussian spatio-temporal process. Finally, we discuss issues under a unified framework of modeling multivariate trans-Gaussian processes and adopt one of the TGH autoregressive models to build a stochastic generator for global wind speed.

abstract: This study examines changing language loyalties of the sociopolitically most dominant ethnic group in Indonesia, the Javanese. Although Javanese language has the largest number of speakers, within the last five decades the language is gradually losing its speakers who prioritize the national language, Indonesian. This phenomenon led me to inquire into the extent to which their native language matters for their Javanese identity and how the language planning and policy (LPP) mechanism works to foster Javanese language. To collect data, I conducted a six-month ethnographic research project in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The findings show that Javanese language shift occurs because of strong supports from the government toward Indonesian by emphasizing its role as a symbol to unify all ethnic groups in Indonesia into one nation. Consequently, interference in intergenerational language transmission, a limited scope of Javanese use, decrease language competence, and negative attitude toward Javanese are evident. Although Javanese language is still perceived as the most profound marker of Javanese identity, it is now challenging to maintain it because of its limited role in most domains. The study also indicates that the Javanese people are now strongly inclined to Islam reflected by their piety to Islamic rules such as positive attitude to learn liturgic Arabic, to leave behind Javanese tradition not in line with Islam, and to view religion as a panacea to heal social problems. This high regard for Islam is also evident in schools. Furthermore, the Javanese people value highly English although nobody uses it as a medium of daily communication. However, the fact that English is tested in the secondary education national exams and the university entrance exam makes it necessary for people to learn it. In addition, English is regarded as a modern, intellectual, and elite language. In short, the Javanese people perceive English as an avenue to achieve academic and professional success as well as higher social status. Altogether, this study shows that shifting language loyalty among the Javanese people is an indication of societal transformation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2015