Of A Covered Harvest is a twenty minute music composition for alto solo, mixed double choir (SSAATTBB) and percussion. It uses the following texts: Sacrifice by Alicia Munoz; Non Linear by Phyllis Webb and ancient Mayan words. The piece explores the themes of power, choice and the crowd versus the individual using the musical depiction of a ritual human sacrifice as a forum for commentary. The three part structure of the piece is delineated by the narration of the ritual by the choir: preparation, sacrifice and resolution, and by the emotional reaction to the sacrifice by the alto solo (victim): denial, isolation and anger; depression and bargaining; and acceptance. Of A Covered Harvest uses contemporary vocal techniques such as vocalizations, paralanguage and the phonetic manipulation of text. The piece follows in the tradition of twentieth century performance practice in its use of graphic notation and aleatoric passages.

In the mid 1990s, Swedish composer Fredrik Andersson composed not everything which happens is in the newspaper (1993), the lonelyness of Santa Claus (1994), and imagine there was nothing (1996). All three pieces share a number of compositional and stylistic elements while emphasizing the capabilities of their respective instrumentations to create mysterious sonic worlds that are unique in the percussion idiom. By examining specific concerns of each piece in detail, an understanding of Andersson’s presentation of musical challenges will result. Acceptable solutions to such challenges will be examined and compared, based primarily on the author’s analysis and experience encompassing multiple performances of each of the three works, along with supplementary information provided by various other sources. The results of this document will be significant within the larger percussion community in that they will serve to increase the visibility of the composer and increase exposure of works for percussion that are not only musically distinctive within the repertoire, but also contain a variety of exciting pedagogical, technical, and interpretive challenges that will contribute to the growth of any percussionist willing to engage them. It is hoped that such engagement will “de-mystify” Andersson’s music and inspire increased performance of his works.

The Four Horsemen is an original composition in three movements that sets the texts of the Greetings and Doxology, the story of the four horsemen, and the River of Life from the Book of Revelation as found in the New International Version of the Bible. The text, which is presented in English, is set for a large SATB choir and narrator with a mixed ensemble, which consists of flute, clarinet, horn, trumpet, piano, organ, and cello. This fifteen-minute composition makes extensive use of pitch and numerical symbolism by way of a twelve-tone row. Although the piece uses a row, it contains elements of tonality and is globally organized around a tonal center. The piece uses several extended vocal and instrumental techniques to heighten the dramatic character of the apocalypse story. The accompanying document provides historical context for the piece and a discussion of the musical elements and compositional processes used in the work. The symbolic nature of the text, as well as a detailed account of the story of the four horsemen, is also included in this document. The review of repertoire considers a selection of recent works that set portions of the text, as well as compositions inspired by Revelation. The methodology chapter explains the construction, use, and symbolic elements of the row as well as the inclusion and setting of well-known motives like the Dies Irae and the chromatic-fourth lament bass. An analysis of each movement includes discussion of the use of pitch and rhythmic material, texture, setting of the text, and other musical elements that contribute to and/or enhance the symbology of the work. The first movement establishes C as the tonal center, introduces the row and other important motives, and sets the mood for the piece. The second movement, which includes two ostinato figures (a figure based on the reordered version of the row and the lament bass), makes extensive use of syncopation and hemiola throughout the multi-metric environment. The final movement sees the return of motives from the first movement; it employs the row’s retrograde and concludes with a plagal cadence. / School of Music

Modeling species of conservation concern, such as those that are rare, declining, or have a conservation designation (e.g. endangered or threatened), remains an activity filled with uncertainty. Species that are of conservation concern often are found infrequently, in small sample sizes and spatially fragmented distributions, thereby making accurate enumeration difficult and traditional statistical approaches often invalid. For example, there are numerous debates in the ecological literature regarding methodological choices in conservation-based models, such as how to measure functional traits to account for ecosystem function, the impact of including rare species in biological assessments and whether species-specific dispersal can be measured using distance based functions. This thesis attempts to address issues in methodological choices in conservation-based models in two ways. In the first section of the thesis, the impacts of methodological choices on conservation-based models are examined across a broad selection of available approaches, from: measuring functional diversity; to conducting bio-assessments in community ecology; to assessing dispersal in metapopulation analyses. It is the goal of this section to establish the potential for methodological choices to impact conservation-based models, regardless of the scale, study-system or species involved. In the second section of this thesis, the use of consensus methods is developed as a potential tool for reducing uncertainty with methodological choices in conservation-based models. Two separate applications of consensus methods are highlighted, including how consensus methods can reduce uncertainty from choosing a modeling type or to identify when methodological choices may be a problem.

Uncertainties associated with the microphysical and radiative properties of ice clouds remain an active research area because of the importance these clouds have in atmospheric radiative transfer problems and the energy balance of the Earth. In this study, an adding/doubling model is used to simulate the top of atmosphere (TOA) radiance and full Stokes vector from an ice cloud at the wavelength lambda = 865 nm with many different combinations of assumed ice habits (shapes) and different degrees of ice surface roughness, and the polarized radiance at a wide range of scattering angles is derived. Simulated results are compared with polarized radiance data from the POLDER (POLarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances) instrument on board the PARASOL (Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar) satellite. Bulk ice scattering properties are obtained by using five different size distributions collected during field campaigns ranging in effective diameter from 10 micrometers to 90 micrometers. Bulk scattering properties for the MODIS Collection 5 ice cloud product are used in this study, along with properties for two mid-latitude ice cloud models, a polar/mid-latitude ice model, and a model built for ice clouds over deep convection. Solid columns and hollow columns are used as well. The polarized radiance simulation results for the moderate surface roughness level best fit the satellite measurements for all ice models, though severely roughened ice crystals do fare well in a few cases. Hollow columns are the best fit to the satellite polarization measurements, but of the ensemble ice models, the polar/mid-latitude model at an effective diameter of 90 micrometers best fits the polarized radiance measurements for the one day of PARASOL data considered. This model should be the best to simulate ice cloud properties on a global scale.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Music, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.M.)--Conservatory of Music. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2005. / Song cycle for tenor voice, French horn, and piano, based on the love story of Dante Alighieri and Beatrice. "A thesis in music composition." Advisor: Chen Yi. Text taken primarily from Dante's La vita nuova. Typescript. Includes text of poems in Italian with English translation. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed Nov. 12, 2007. Online version of the print edition.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Music, 2008. / Songs for tenor voice, clarinet, violin, violoncello, and piano. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / Amplified quartet consists of flute, guitar, violoncello, and percussion; chamber choir for a minumum of 16 performers, SSSSAAAATTTTBBBB. Text fragments taken from Black magic by Amiri Baraka. Includes performance instructions preceding score. Vita.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / For string quartet and lyric soprano. Vita. Acc. tape includes recording of work.