Scholars investigating the middle-class front yard revealed that landscape taste is a major influence of this domestic space’s character. Taste is a process by which people judge the aesthetic values of design. Membership and social status are important middle-class ideals bestowed by taste. However, the formation of middle-class taste has changed and front yards resulted in arrangements of edges, objects, and boundaries. This thesis investigates how edges, objects, and boundaries, e.g., edge of sidewalk and lawn, a flagpole, or a fence, observed in the middle-class front yard reflect a particular landscape taste that influences the space’s character. Its purpose is to gain knowledge about what qualities are important to homeowners, how they change through time, and what affects the construction of taste in the residential landscape. Recent research in the fields of cultural geography and landscape architecture found differences between how middle-class homeowners and professional designers define the front yard. These differences contribute to a general theory establishing a foundation for this study; the middle-class front yard has acquired a common place role in the American suburb. It was hypothesized that edges, objects, and boundaries indicate changes in landscape taste and reflect the front yards’ character. Forty middle-class front yards in Glen Cove, New York were randomly selected as study sites. Data collection consisted of the multiple layer drawings of the edges, objects, and boundaries revealed to the researcher through on-site observation and photographs. Drawing is regarded as a process of seeing; a process of communicating ideas and intention to reveal underlying changes in landscape taste. Three levels of results--neighborhood characterizations, individual changes of landscape taste, and group changes in landscape taste were revealed. Two themes, spatial definition reflects a reduction from detailed mature spaces to simple younger organizations and the location and function of edges, objects, and boundaries associated with the automobile exhibit noticeable change in younger front yards compared to older front yards were revealed. / Master of Landscape Architecture

The Germans of Geilenkirchen-Hengesburg region of Germany were convinced by relative and friend, Father Peter Leonard Thevis, of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, to emigrate to the United States for a number of reasons: political, religious, and economic. After establishing themselves on land previously used for grazing cattle, the Germans soon discovered rice could easily be cultivated in large amounts. Along with their success as rice farmers in Roberts Cove, Louisiana, these Germans soon involved themselves in politics and engaged one another and the surrounding community in numerous court cases. These court cases, overlooked by previous historians, demonstrate that the Germans of Roberts Cove had begun to assimilate, prior to World War I and the passage of anti-German legislation.

Fire, logging, livestock grazing, and insect outbreaks are disturbances that have significantly influenced both the historic and present fire regimes. The composition and structure of vegetation communities within Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) have likely changed in response to these disturbances. Two study sites (CRX, the near site, and CRT, the far site) were chosen along the Cooper Road Trail based on topographic separation, presence of mixed oak-pine communities, presence of fire-scarred yellow pine trees, and GSMNP land acquisition records. To quantify and evaluate fire regimes, individual fire histories were developed for each site from fire-scarred yellow pine trees, and two 1000 m2 (0.1 ha) study plots were established for vegetation surveys. Fire history analysis yielded mean fire intervals of 6.2 years at the near site, 3.4 years at the far site, and 3.2 years when combined. Spatial analysis showed significant differences in fire activity between study sites. Temporal analysis showed significant differences in mean fire intervals between the pre-settlement (1720–1818) and post-settlement periods (1819–1934). Superposed epoch analysis showed the over-riding influence of climate at these sites. At the near site, trees displayed greater species diversity, larger diameter, and older age. Eastern white pine, pitch pine, red maple, and black gum were the dominant species. At the far site, tree species diversity was lower and trees were generally younger. Mixed oak-pine communities are succeeding to a canopy dominated by shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive species such as eastern white pine and red maple. Without fire disturbance, yellow pine communities will cease to regenerate, as will oak species that prefer a fire-maintained habitat.

Fire, logging, livestock grazing, and insect outbreaks are disturbances that have significantly influenced both the historic and present fire regimes. The composition and structure of vegetation communities within Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) have likely changed in response to these disturbances. Two study sites (CRX, the near site, and CRT, the far site) were chosen along the Cooper Road Trail based on topographic separation, presence of mixed oak-pine communities, presence of fire-scarred yellow pine trees, and GSMNP land acquisition records. To quantify and evaluate fire regimes, individual fire histories were developed for each site from fire-scarred yellow pine trees, and two 1000 m2 (0.1 ha) study plots were established for vegetation surveys. Fire history analysis yielded mean fire intervals of 6.2 years at the near site, 3.4 years at the far site, and 3.2 years when combined. Spatial analysis showed significant differences in fire activity between study sites. Temporal analysis showed significant differences in mean fire intervals between the pre-settlement (1720–1818) and post-settlement periods (1819–1934). Superposed epoch analysis showed the over-riding influence of climate at these sites. At the near site, trees displayed greater species diversity, larger diameter, and older age. Eastern white pine, pitch pine, red maple, and black gum were the dominant species. At the far site, tree species diversity was lower and trees were generally younger. Mixed oak-pine communities are succeeding to a canopy dominated by shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive species such as eastern white pine and red maple. Without fire disturbance, yellow pine communities will cease to regenerate, as will oak species that prefer a fire-maintained habitat.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1974. / Offset from typescript.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1981.

Meditation means awareness. It is a process inducing a series of steps, that leads to a state of consciousness which brings serenity and clarity. While the space we choose for meditating needs to reflect the state of clear mind, if possible, it should be isolated from the noisy city and in a natural pure land. This thesis investigates meditation theory and the natural context of Peggy’s Cove, as well as material and tectonic experiments, to design a New Meditation Centre in Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia. The design of the New Meditation Center proposes building as a new form of architecture, the form, material and construction of which engages the viewer to admire and respect our nature.

Three outstanding problems related to the tectonic evolution of the Western Blue Ridge in the eastern Great Smoky Mtns. (GSM) include: (1) the nature of the Greenbrier Fault, previously interpreted as a younger over older pre-Taconic thrust fault with ~24 km of displacement between the Snowbird and Great Smoky Groups; (2) the relationship of regional metamorphism, expressed by the growth of porphyroblastic index minerals, to folding and foliation development in pelitic metasediments; (3) the relation of deformation to regional Taconian metamorphism. These problems were addressed in previous studies that did not have detailed mapping and petrography as a context. By using 1:24000 bedrock mapping in the eastern GSM in the area of the Greenbrier Fault and where regional metamorphic isograds are telescoped as a context, it can be concluded that: (1) the Greenbrier Fault exhibits an unconstrainable amount of post-metamorphic slip along the contact of the Great Smoky and Snowbird Groups and is not a major tectonic feature within the western Blue Ridge; (2) there is no direct spatial/coeval relationship between porphyroblast growth and foliation formation/matrix deformation that is consistent throughout the study area; (3) further work and mapping outside of the study area (S and SE) is needed when considering the relation of deformation to regional Taconian metamorphism, because of the non-pelitic nature of the Great Smoky and Snowbird Groups.

Project report (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1996. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-199).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 129-132).