<p>Color, Hygiene, and Body Politics: French Neo-Impressionist Theories of Vision and Volition, 1870-1905, explores the little studied "pragmatic" dimension of Neo-Impressionist theory and practice to reveal the full social and political import of Divisionist technique. Specifically, it examines how Neo-Impressionist painters such as Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Paul Signac (1863-1935), and Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), as well as their anarchist allies, applied artistic and political tenets to their daily practices, including hygienic habits and medical treatments. Neo-Impressionist Divisionism was based on a physiological awareness that the balanced use of three optical nerves generated a sense of harmony. By examining the ethical aspects of neuro-psychological color theories in nineteenth-century Europe, this research demonstrates that this awareness was not merely a matter of optics, but a part of the prevalent socio-ethical discourse of energy efficiency. </p><p>The first chapter, "Color Perception and Mental Labor: Divisionism and the Ethic of Nineteenth-Century Neuro-psychology," examines the history of nineteenth-century neuro-psychology to address how, in the fields of art and science, color perception was identified as an action. The chapter focuses on widespread neuro-psychological notions of "reflex theory," "nervous fatigue," and "homeostasis," all of which regulated the Neo-Impressionist concept of color harmony. Illuminating the Neo-Impressionist neural ethic, this chapter focuses on the behavioral phase of the Neo-Impressionist aesthetics neglected by previous studies. </p><p>The second chapter, "Neuro-psychological Space in Color and Dynamism," explores how this behavioral discourse was visualized in Neo-Impressionist painterly space. Contrary to Kantian a priori space, prominent theorists, such as Taine, Spencer, and Ribot who influenced the Neo-Impressionists, upheld the idea of dynamic space. As the raison d'être for this new space resided in the dynamic interaction between the self and the world, action became fundamental to its formation. Color in such new spaces was the perceptual bedrock, since optical nerves defined external objects chiefly as color. This chapter underscores the connection between dynamism and color in painterly space, through which the viewer could voluntarily engage with the world. </p><p>The third chapter, "Therapeutic Color and the Neo-Impressionists' Daily Practices," delves into the Neo-Impressionists' health-related pursuits including their commitment to hydrotherapy, color therapy, and homeopathy, all associated with an ecological concern for the equilibrium between the self and the environment. This comprehensive examination reveals an overlooked behavioral aspect of Neo-Impressionist theory, which was a critical dimension of their world-view that sought to merge art and life. The first section examines the artists' commitment to bathing and hydrotherapy through an analysis of the art and writings of Camille Pissarro and his anarchist allies. The second part examines the theory of color therapy developed by Dr. Paul Ferdinand Gachet, and his impact on the Neo-Impressionists. In the final section, I consider the broader implications of the Neo-Impressionist embrace of homeopathic practices with reference to a theory of ecological equilibrium.</p> / Dissertation

<p>People live and work in local markets spatially distinct from one another, yet space is absent from most economic models of the national labor market. Workers choose the markets in which they will participate, but there are costs to mobility. Furthermore, cities are heterogeneous in a number of dimensions, including their local labor market productivity, their housing supply, and their offering of amenities.</p><p>I examine the impact of these spatial considerations on the dynamics of local labor markets and the national market to which they aggregate. First I study the patterns of location choice through a gravity model of migration applied to rich panel data from the U.S. I find that location choices respond to temporal shocks to the labor market, but only after controlling for local heterogeneity. Next, with this result as motivation, I turn to development of a dynamic spatial equilibrium of the national labor market. I make a technical contribution to work in dynamic equilibrium modeling by empirically implementing an island economy model of worker mobility. I quantify the importance of worker mobility costs versus local housing prices for explaining spatial variation in the unemployment rate. I find that the link between the local housing market and the local labor market is important for explaining the spatial dispersion in unemployment, but mobility costs are not. Finally, I further exploit the dynamic equilibrium framework to examine the effect of local housing policy on labor market growth. I find that housing supply regulation is a constraint to growth, but is only binding on cities that are particularly desirable because of their labor market opportunities or amenities. I find that some lightly regulated markets have a contingent of population that has been pushed out of more regulated markets by high housing prices.</p> / Dissertation

Reverse production systems are often comprised of several tiers with independent members competing at each tier. This research develops and designs a decision-making process for decentralized reverse production systems where each participant in the network determines its decisions in a self-interested way. This dissertation includes three major parts. The first part develops a prototype model for a decentralized reverse production system with two tiers, collectors and processors, focusing on the coordination of transactions of recycled items between these two tiers. The collectors determine the individual material flow allocation mechanisms, based on predictions of the range of prices from the processors, that relate the flow amount to the overall vector of acquisition prices that will be offered by the processors to all the collectors. The processors compete for the flow from the collectors and reach an equilibrium state where no entity is willing to change its decisions. In the second part, we extend the prototype model for a general multi-tiered recycling network comprised of the upstream boundary tier, several intermediate tiers, and the downstream boundary tier where each of the tiers has multiple independent entities. Recycled items flow from the top tier to the downstream tier, but acquisition prices are set from the downstream tier back to the upstream tier. Finally the third part provides a comparison of centralized and decentralized models for reverse production systems and addresses several numerical insights of different system subsidy schemes.

Simultaneous differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), small-angle (SAXS) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) measurements were adopted for more precise determination of the equilibrium melting temperatures (Tm*) of a and b phases in bulk-crystallized syndiotactic polystyrene. On the basis of Kratky-Porod approximation, a new method for determining crystalline lamellar thickness from SAXS profiles obtained at high temperatures where there are only limited number of discrete crystalline lamellae dispersed in the melt matrix was developed. This method is shown to be reliable as it gave comparable results obtained from the conventional 1D correlation function method for SAXS profiles obtained at lower temperatures where lamellae are closely stacked. Results of the subsequent Gibbs-Thomson analysis indicated that the trigonal a phase is the entropically favored high temperature phase with Tm* = 355 oC whereas the b phase is enthalpically favored at lower temperatures, with Tm* = 314 oC. Compared to previous held contention in the temperature-dependent phase stability of these two phases, the current phase stability assignment is more consistent with both the density and the symmetry of the corresponding crystal structures. It also explains various observations reported previously on the competition between the two polymorphs during crystallization and during melting.

Textiles and apparel trade has been governed by the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) for three decades. Trade restrictions have generated substantial welfare losses and price wedges in exporting and importing countries through trade distortions. Beginning in 1995, textiles and apparel trade underwent fundamental changes in trade flows and patterns. The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) aimed to remove all MFA quotas by January 2005. This study established an equilibrium displacement model to investigate the impact on textile and cotton sectors of different countries and country-groups of removing the MFA quota. The model specifies the basic linkages of textile and cotton markets in the United States, China and four other country-groups. With different assumptions about U.S. textile supply elasticity, foreign cotton exporters’ reaction and changes in the U.S. farm program payments, alternative scenarios are simulated to predict changes in domestic and import demand for textiles and apparel, import demand for U.S. cotton, domestic and import price of textiles and apparel, U.S. cotton price and adjusted world cotton price. Uniform distribution was imposed for selected parameters involved in the model to overcome the deficiency of equilibrium displacement models of assuming certainty of known related parameters. Results indicate increased import demand for U.S. cotton by China, higher U.S. cotton supply, more textile and apparel supply from China, decreased domestic demand for U.S. cotton, and lower U.S. domestic demand for textiles and apparel. However, prices of both textile and cotton markets experience both positive and negative changes under different scenarios. Holding other assumptions unchanged, when farm program payments increase, U.S. cotton price and adjusted world cotton price declined. When farm program payments are held constant, prices rise. The changes expected in U.S. cotton price are, in absolute value, greater than those of the adjusted world price.

The purpose of this research is to formulate a multi-commodity network flow model for vehicular traffic in a geographic area and develop a procedure for estimating traffic counts based on available partial traffic data for a selected subset of highway links. Due to the restriction of time and cost, traffic counts are not always observed for every highway link. Typically, about 50% of the links have traffic counts in urban highway networks. Also, it should be noted that the observed traffic counts are not free from random errors during the data collection process. As a result, an incoming flow into a highway node and an outgoing flow from the node do not usually match. They need to be adjusted to satisfy a flow conservation condition, which is one of the fundamental concepts in network flow analysis. In this dissertation, the multi-commodity link flows are estimated in a two-stage process. First, traffic flows of "empty" links, which have no observation data, are filled with deterministic user equilibrium traffic assignments. This user equilibrium assignment scheme assumes that travelers select their routes by their own interests without considering total cost of the system. The assignment also considers congestion effects by taking a link travel cost as a function of traffic volume on the link. As a result, the assignment problem has a nonlinear objective function and linear network constraints. The modified Frank-Wolfe algorithm, which is a type of conditional gradient method, is used to solve the assignment problem. The next step is to consider both of the observed traffic counts on selected links and the deterministic user equilibrium assignments on the group of remaining links to produce the final traffic count estimates by the generalized least squares optimization procedure. The generalized least squares optimization is conducted under a set of relevant constraints, including the flow conservation condition for all highway intersections.

With increasing demands on environmental protection in recent years, the Government agency concerned has recently proposed the strategies for shore protection and management, which aim for prevention and mitigation of coastal disaster and reduction in coastal erosion, as well as the creation of an environment with focus on landscape, ecology and community recreation. Soft and quasi-natural approach will be implemented to restore the glory of a stable coast. Based on the consideration of disaster prevention, this study investigates the beach profile changes, which include beach berm erosion and bar formation resulting from storm waves with different return periods. The SBEACH model is used to estimate the beach changes subject to variable conditions of beach berm width, medium sand grain diameter, beach slope and design water level etc. Regression analysis is then applied to establish a relationship between the storm beach buffer width and relevant physical parameters. Prior to this, the results of large wave tank tests on beach profile changes conducted by Coastal Engineering Research Center in the United States are used to calibrate the two main parameters K and £` used in SBEACH model. Beach profile changes can now be estimated systematically using a set of modified K and £` values. After having performed a series numerical studies, we may conclude that: (1) With storms of different return periods but identical non-dimensional fall velocity (H0/£sT), berm erosion increases and the location of the bar becomes further offshore as storm return period increases ; (2) With different sand grain sizes subject to identical storm wave conditions, beach berm erosion increases as grain size increased, but shoreline retreat decreases; and location of bar is further offshore for a beach consisting smaller sand grains; (3) Under the same storm return period and sand grain diameter (i.e., similar non-dimensional fall velocity), berm erosion increases as storm intensity and design water level increase, but shoreline retreat decreases and bar is located nearer; and vice versa; (4) from a series of calculations based on different sand grains and storm beach buffer width, it is found that larger buffer is required for beach with smaller grain size, in order to absorb the storm wave energy.

Thesis--Erlangen. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Lund.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-170). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.